Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
He reached over and covered his mother’s hand with his own. “I hope she can, but I need you to know that I am proud of you for being open to this.”
“That was good, Mom.” Paul sniffled a bit. “Now I kind of do want a family.”
“Not yet.” His brother still had some growing up to do, but it looked like he was on the right path this time. “I appreciate all of this, Mom, but she has more problems with Papillon than just being worried about fitting in here. If I had time, we could make her comfortable. But I don’t think I can make her comfortable with her mother. They don’t understand each other. They never have. I think deep down in the back of her mind she’s still got this kid inside her who thinks she’s failed if she’s here.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. She can have a perfectly nice life right here,” his mother replied, her chin coming up. “She can see the world and then come home where her family is. Quaid, I’m beginning to think the problem is you. Have you not told her you like to travel? That you’re not going to keep her cooped up here day after day?” His mother’s voice went low. “Are you properly taking care of her?”
“I’m sorry, what?” She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. Not his mother. His mother would never speak of such things. Ever.
Paul snorted, his amusement plain. “I think she’s asking if you know what women like.”
“Now, you hush, you scamp,” his mother admonished. “I’m asking if he knows what Jayna likes. Not all of womankind. I leave that up to you. And you better stay away from married women, Paul. I can still put you over my knee.”
“You never put me over your knee.”
“And that is where I failed,” she announced. “Cavorting around town with married women. I hear gossip, too. That is how I know that Quaid has been sowing some oats, but those are forever oats, son. It’s all right to sow them if you love those oats. But you have to know how to properly tend to your oats.”
He was never telling Jayna his mother referred to her as forever oats. “Jayna and I are fine on that front. It’s really about timing. I didn’t get enough time with her.”
“Dallas isn’t so far away,” Paul pointed out.
“No, but combine the distance with the fact that she’ll be working all the time for the next couple of years and there’s not much of a shot for us. I’ve thought about moving to be closer to her.” He’d put the idea out there. He could get a place in Dallas and split his time.
“I would hate that, but I would also understand.” His mother sat back.
“I’m not sure it would work. We needed more time.” His heart ached at the thought of her taking that job. She might come back to Papillon to see her sister from time to time. Someday she would come home with a husband and kids of her own, and he was afraid he would still be alone because his heart was hers and he couldn’t give it to anyone else. He would look out the window of his office and she would be walking by looking prettier than ever, the happy successful woman she’d always wanted to be.
He wished he could get her to see that successful had a million definitions, that the idea of it could change over time. What she viewed as success when she was eighteen didn’t have to define her happiness now. She could find happiness in other places, satisfaction in a career that wasn’t high-powered, peace in a place that had none for her before.
“I don’t think it would work. Like I said, if she takes this job she’ll be trying to make partner in three years,” he explained. “She won’t have time for anything but the job. She’ll work weekends and late nights. She’ll need to focus, and not on a relationship. The stakes feel higher in a firm like that. The judges in Dallas don’t take Fridays off for fishing.”
Everything moved so much faster when he left Papillon. They would be living in two different worlds, and he wasn’t sure she would even look back. If she did, he would likely be a fond reminiscence, a memory of those months when she’d worked on weird cases and fell into bed with a small-time lawyer who’d loved her truly.
“I don’t like this.” Paul’s brows had come together, a look of genuine consternation on his face.
“Well, I don’t like it, either,” Quaid replied.
“No, not the whole Jayna-leaving thing, though I don’t like that, either. I don’t like this new you. You aren’t a man who lies down and takes what life gives him,” Paul stated, putting his napkin on the table.