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“I’m supposed to love every second I spend in her company and count the seconds until we’re together again, right?”
She wasn’t a parent, so she wouldn’t normally offer her two cents here, but he’d asked. “Parenting is hard. I don’t know how you do it on your own.”
He glanced over at her again. They were stuck in a line of traffic, waiting to turn onto the main road from the square. The glow from the nearby streetlights shined directly down on them, and as usual, she was blown away by how handsome he looked.
“It’s not so much that parenthood is hard.” His eyes narrowed as he stared through the windshield. “It’s that I’m constantly worrying about her. Did you know I kept my eyes on her the whole time we were on the square?”
“You weren’t watching that performance?” Funny, but she hadn’t even noticed he was distracted. “How did you even see her?”
“How could I miss the pink sparkly Santa hat?”
“You could see that through the crowd?”
“I’m taller than you, remember?”
That made sense. He was at least six-foot-two or three. She, on the other hand, was five-foot-five. Just because she couldn’t see over the tops of heads didn’t mean he couldn’t.
“I have to keep my eyes on her,” he said. “I know this is about as safe a town as it comes, but it’s a dad thing. Whether we’re living in New York City or Misty Mountain, I feel this constant need to protect her.”
“And now you know she’s safe,” she said.
She immediately second-guessed those words. What if they put thoughts in his head? Thoughts that maybe he shouldn’t trust so much that J.J. was safe just because she wasn’t with him.
“I know someone else is looking out for her,” he said. “No, it’s not that, actually. Can I be honest?”
He looked over at her then, and his expression, combined with the question he’d just asked, made her heart feel like it had been wrapped in an embrace. She tried to shove the feeling aside, but it persisted.
“Of course,” she said. “Anything you say stays between us.”
He could trust her. That was important—especially since they were keeping a secret from the entire town, including her family.
“I have no idea what I’m doing with this parenting thing.” He took his foot off the brake and pressed the gas, following the line of cars onto the main road, only to get stuck in another line of traffic. “You get married and you plan a family, and one day your wife tells you she’s pregnant. You get all caught up in the excitement of that and you know your entire life is going to change, but it doesn’t really sink in until that baby is here.”
“I always assumed I’d know what to do when the time came,” she said. “And there’s usually a lot of people around willing to help out.”
“Sure,” he said. “If you have parents and siblings.”
She didn’t want to ask for specifics on that. Something in his voice told her that he was speaking from experience, though. He didn’t have parents? Siblings?
“And a spouse,” she said instead.
“I never expected to become a single father,” he said. “Even divorce wasn’t in the plans. My grandmother raised me alone, though. My mom couldn’t raise me, and my dad wanted nothing to do with me or my mom, so my grandmother took over. She died before J.J. was born. Her name was Julianne. That’s what we named J.J. Jules for short. Her mom always called her J.J., though, and when she passed away, I shifted to calling her that too.”
He was all that little girl had now. And she was all he had. Faith sat with that information for a minute or so, struggling to find words that would make it better. There weren’t any.
“My grandmother had money,” he said. “In that sense, I had it easy. She sent me to the best schools, and when she died, I got a sizable inheritance and put a lot of it aside for J.J., but I invested some of it, and from there I just got lucky.”
“I’d say it’s more than luck,” she commented. “You seem like you know your stuff when it comes to business.”
“Yes, but somehow, I was steered to the right people. I partnered with a guy starting a tech business in the automotive space. It became a huge success, and we were bought out. I used part of that money to invest in some property and start my own helicopter tour business right here in Misty Mountain.”
He pulled into the Misty Lakes subdivision and started up the road to his house. It sat on top of a hill with a view of the mountains from the back.
“And now you live in Penny Pincher’s house,” she said as she admired the Christmas decorations in his front yard, visible almost from the subdivision’s entrance.
“Penny Pincher,” he said. “Did you know her name is actually Janet Metzger?”
Faith gasped, but she was grateful to have moved on to lighter topics. “Penny Pincher has a name?”
