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He helped Nora lift her bag out of the trunk and start her suitcase rolling on the sand. Once she had it on the porch, it would roll easier, and he was tempted to help her, but he was curious too.
Dark eyes, and two little girls who were as adorable as they could be, flittered through his head. For some reason, he’d been thinking that when Nora came, she would enjoy playing with Jubilee’s girls. He had been thinking that the summer would be spent at his mom’s house, and Jubilee’s girls would play with Nora while he... He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do, but it would involve Jubilee. She had been on his mind since he picked her up yesterday and brought her to his mom’s house.
“I need to talk to you, Matt,” Eva said as soon as Nora disappeared inside his cottage.
“All right. I kinda figured you did since you sent Nora away.”
“I left George. I need a place to stay. I was hoping I could crash in your extra bedroom.”
No. He was absolutely not letting his...whatever Eva was...stay at his house. Sure, they shared a child together, but there was no way he was even going to give the appearance of any kind of relationship between them to anyone.
“You don’t have anywhere else?” he asked carefully, fighting back the absolute refusal that wanted to pop out of his mouth.
“I’ll have money once we get the divorce settled, but I don’t know how long that’ll take. I’ve never filed for divorce before.”
After she had Nora, she’d lived with a guy for a couple of years after she moved to Chicago. Then, when she moved to Indiana, she and George set up house together. They married after living together for a year or so.
“I don’t really know either.” A couple of his siblings had gotten divorced, but he’d never gotten sucked up in the details, just knew that divorce was hard on everyone involved. But when a spouse was unfaithful, when they didn’t seem to be sorry and refused to apologize or to make changes to make sure that the unfaithfulness didn’t happen again, to be sure trust was restored in the relationship, there didn’t seem to be much choice. Unfortunately.
“George cheated on you?” he said, pulling the last suitcase out of the back of the car and closing the trunk.
“No. George is George. Totally dependable. But he’s just boring. I wanted something...different. I guess I got nostalgic for Strawberry Sands and the way we used to walk on the beach. Don’t you remember that?”
He hoped she wasn’t saying she was nostalgic for him. “Yeah. I remember that. We ended up with a child that neither one of us were ready for. So, I limit my walking on the beach to horses, unless I’m interested in being a lot more with someone than a casual friend.”
“Oh, Matt. You were always such a prude. I thought for sure you’d gotten over that by now.” Eva rolled her eyes as she put her hands on her hips and looked out toward the lake. “Surely we’re old enough to be adults about everything. And you do know there is such a thing as birth control. Both of us should have been using it back then. Neither one of us were smart enough.”
The tone of her voice was irritated and disgusted. Like she was blaming their lack of birth control for everything that happened, where he blamed their lack of boundaries to begin with. And the idea that there was a moral code given by their Creator that they violated.
“Anyway, that’s all in the past. Although... I think we probably would have been really good together. Why didn’t we get married again?” She tilted her head and smiled a little as though she were flirting with him.
“Because we really didn’t like each other,” he said flatly. And that was true. She considered him a prude and didn’t really like anything about him other than his apparently handsome face.
Maybe the way he looked in his board shorts.
“Oh, stop. You were a little bit too conservative for me, but you’ve loosened up over the years. Nora says you even walk in your bare feet on the beach. That’s an improvement.”
“I walked in my bare feet back then.” It didn’t make any sense to him, nothing Eva said ever did. She just seemed a little bit...vapid. Not that he was a deep intellectual or anything, he just liked to have a little bit more substance to his conversations. At least, now that he was older, he did. Apparently when he was twenty, he was less interested in talking and more interested in doing other things.
“My mom has an extra room that’s not booked right now. And I don’t think anyone’s booking her mother-in-law suite that’s down in the basement. You might be able to get either one of those two, and I’m sure she’ll give you a discount.” His mom would probably be thrilled that Eva was there for the summer. Just because it would be nice for Nora to have both of her parents together. It seemed like a kid always enjoyed having the two people who loved them best in the world together with them. There was something hardwired in a kid that wanted a family that way.
For what felt like the millionth time, Matt kicked himself for being such an idiot. Because of his idiotic mistakes, Nora hadn’t had what every kid wanted—a family.
“Are you serious?” Eva said, and now she didn’t have any problems spearing him with her sharp green gaze. Her eyes were narrow, and her lips flat. “Are you really not going to let the mother of your child stay in your cottage for just a few weeks?”
“You said you wanted to stay for the summer.”
“That’s just a few weeks. By the time we turn around, it’s going to be September and time for school to start again.”
“That’s three months. And no. I probably would let you stay overnight, if it were necessary, but yeah, check with my mom. In fact, if you need me to pay for your room, I can do that.”
“Gee. Thanks. You’re so generous.” Sarcasm was heavy in her voice.
“Eva. Let’s not fight about this. You know as well as I do that you can’t stay in my house. It would look like we’re living together. And it’s important to me that I keep a reputation of being honest and upright, mostly because of Nora. I haven’t done the best for her, and that’s one thing I can do—give her a good name.” The Bible talked about how having a good name was important. For Matt, he didn’t really care what people thought, unless it went against the Bible. Since God cared, Matt did, too.
“A good name in your circles. But the rest of the world doesn’t give a crap.” Eva was obviously still upset.
“I guess you’re right. But I don’t live my life based on what the rest of the world thinks. I want to live it based on what God thinks.” Eva had never understood that. And he supposed he was wasting his breath talking to her now. But he did feel a little bit bad since she had obviously been planning on staying with him.
