And after the attraction she’d felt the other day, Mallory didn’t think this close was in either of their best interests. Well, at least not hers; she couldn’t afford to complicate things further by developing a crush on the father of Renee’s child.
“And they’ll be moving in next week?”
“Yes, which means you’ll see a moving truck there sometime later this week to empty the house. I’ll message you the day and time once the current owners give me the details.”
“Okay.”
“Please, don’t worry. Mr. Conners is more than happy to continue to lease the apartment to you.”
“It might be best if I looked—”
“Nonsense. It’s a big property and you said yourself when I first showed you the place, you weren’t interested in spending time in the yard. You probably won’t even see each other. The buildings aren’t connected and you’ve got the separate side entry that doesn’t take you past the front or back doors of the main house.”
“True. That won’t change if he’s planning to continue to lease the apartment…” It wasn’t the thought of having a man and his son living in the house though. It waswhothat man and son were that was giving her concern. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Of course it will, but if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe being a single woman living alone near a strange man, I’m sure Mr. Conners won’t mind you breaking your lease and I’d be happy to find you alternative accommodation.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe.” The last thing she wanted to do was give Mrs. Russell the impression she was frightened of Jacob Conners. If that was even who this Mr. Conners was. She could be jumping to the wrong conclusion and worrying about nothing. Borrowing trouble as her father used to say. It might very well be some other father and child moving in twenty feet away from her front door.
“Of course you are, but you let me know if you have any concerns. I’ll get back to you about when to expect the moving truck and don’t forget to drop in to sign that amended lease. Sorry to cut this short, Mallory, but I’ve got another call coming in. Talk to you later.”
Like she herself had done to her stepmother, Mrs. Russell ended the call before Mallory could even get out goodbye. Blowing out a breath that puffed out her cheeks, she thought about everything the agent had said.
As much as she wanted to be jumping to the wrong conclusions, she didn’t think she was. There couldn’t be more than one single Mr. Conners with a son living in Sunnyville. Which meant Jacob Conners had bought a house and definitely planned to set down roots here. She hadn’t been sure. Especially seeing how he hadn’t sold the house he owned in Monterey.
The PI had done a thorough job of investigating each player in Renee’s life and she knew Jacob had inherited the house he’d previously lived in from his grandparents as well as a sizable bank account. His grandfather had died about five years ago, but his grandmother had passed around the time Rylan Conners had been hurt in the army.
Mallory didn’t know the details but it was at that point the two friends had parted ways. And a few months later Renee had left Rylan who had filed for divorce. She didn’t think Jacob had known about the divorce until social services had turned up with six-month-old Maddox.
Court documents awarding Jacob sole custody had mentioned him being unaware of his son’s existence until then.
It hadn’t surprised Mallory, but at first Donna had been of the belief that Jacob must have known because Renee would have told the father about their child. A few more pages into the PI’s report put that notion to rest. Not only had she not told Jacob but originally Renee had told Rylan he was the baby’s father.
Just another in a long line of lies spilling from her stepsister’s mouth. Mallory doubted anyone would be able to untangle the web of deceit her stepsister spun and lived in.
From what the PI had discovered, in spite of him being listed as the father on Maddox’s birth certificate, Jacob had insisted on a paternity test so there would be no doubt the boy was his.
Mallory believed Jacob would have made sure Rylan knew about it if those results had not confirmed him as Maddox’s father and implicated Rylan instead.
That thought was confirmed for her by the fact Jacob had moved to Sunnyville to be near Rylan.
She wasn’t sure how much of their friendship Renee had destroyed and considering she’d still been married to Rylan at the time of Maddox’s conception Mallory had to assume the two friends hadn’t been on the best of terms when Rylan returned to the country after being injured while on deployment overseas.
Her phone rang once more and she cringed when she read the name on the screen. This time she sent the call to voicemail. Donna would leave a message. She always did. Mallory would just have to decide if she wanted to listen to it now or later.
Noticing the battery was low, she plugged her phone into the charger on the kitchen counter and glanced across the room at her laptop. She’d do a few hours of work then make up her mind about whether or not to listen to Donna’s message. She might even leave it until after dinner.
In fact, she might just go out for dinner and leave the device at home to be certain she wasn’t tempted to check. It wasn’t like anyone other than her stepmother would call her anyway. And if anyone did, she doubted it would be an emergency. She didn’t have those types of contacts. Most of her correspondence with acquaintances happened through email.
One of the side effects of enjoying her own company over others was her lack of close friends. And if she wanted to not turn into a hermit she needed to get out even though she didn’t have anyone in particular to meet. Besides, she’d never meet anyoneto meetstaying in her apartment.
With a decisive nod, she grabbed her laptop bag and began loading her work into it. She’d head to Sunnyville’s main street and find somewhere to eat.
Somewhere she could spread out and stay a while. There was a cafe…Betty’s…Bert’s…no, Bertha’s.
Bertha’s Cafe.
She’d check it out first. The place had been full, not a free table to be found, the other day when she’d been looking for somewhere to have breakfast so it was obviously popular which to Mallory’s mind meant it would have good food.
