Feelings Charity didn’t normally allow surged up inside her. She’d learned that it was better not to think about some things too much. Better to always be in control. Now, as she felt that control starting to slip, she knew she had to get away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I need to go. I’ll…We’ll talk later.”
She grabbed her handbag and hurried from the room. After racing down the stairs and out of the building, she glanced both directions, not sure where she should go. In the distance, to the left, she saw one of the three parks in town and headed there.
She wouldn’t think about it, she told herself. And there was no way she was going to cry. She never cried. It accomplished nothing and left her feeling weak.
She walked briskly along the sidewalk, remembering to smile at people she passed. She reached the lush green park in a couple of minutes and ducked down one of the tree-lined paths until she found an empty bench. Once there, she collapsed and tried to sort out everything spinning in her head.
Her reaction to her mother keeping the information about Marsha to herself was obviously an emotional misdirect. Better to be pissed at Sandra than think about all she’d lost. All she’d missed out on.
She had family. A grandmother. And if wasn’t for her own mother’s stubborn ways, she could have spent the past twenty-eight years knowing her.
Marsha Tilson. Which meant Charity’s last name was probably Tilson and not Jones. Jeez, had Sandra even bothered to change her name legally before slapping “Jones” on Charity’s birth certificate?
She heard footsteps and angled away from the path. At least there weren’t any tears to wipe away. She braced herself to have to make polite chitchat, then nearly fell off her seat when she saw Josh moving toward her.
He looked concerned and uneasy, not to mention his usual stunningly handsome self.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
He paused in front of her. “I’m here to make sure you’re all right.”
How could he possibly know what was going on? There hadn’t been enough time for him to hear the story from Marsha. Unless he already knew.
“When did she tell you she was my grandmother?” she asked, not sure if she was pissed or not.
“The day before the first interview.”
The interview. The job. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Marsha hired me because I’m her granddaughter.”
He sat next to her and put his arm around her. “She hired you because you were the best one for the job. She didn’t make the decision by herself and you weren’t the only candidate. It was a group decision. Don’t you have enough on your plate without going there?”
“Maybe,” she admitted, relaxing against him. She didn’t want to. She wanted to be strong all on her own. But it felt so good to lean into his strength. As if he could hold all of her problems at bay.
“Who else knows?” she asked.
“Just me. She needed someone to talk to. Then after you got here, she wanted me to keep an eye on you.”
Charity sat straight up. “What? Is that why you’ve been so nice to me? Did you sleep with me because my grandmother told you to?”
He grinned. “Want to run that last sentence by your common sense? What grandmother asks a guy to sleep with her only granddaughter?”
“Oh. You’re probably right.”
“Probably?”
Some of her outrage faded. She sagged back against him. “My head hurts.”
“It’ll get better. You need a little time to take everything in. But if you’re going to have some surprise family, she’s the one to have. Marsha’s one of the good guys.”
“I know, but it’s so strange to think about. She’s known about me all my life. She wanted to be a part of things. She wanted us to be together.” Her eyes began to burn. She blinked away the sensation.
“My mother was the most stubborn person in the world,” Charity whispered. “She was totally unconventional. She didn’t care if I ate cake for breakfast, or what time I went to bed. She said she’d grown up with too many rules, that she didn’t believe in them.”
She glanced at him. “It sounds great in theory, but the truth was, I would have liked a few rules. I had to take responsibility for everything myself. I knew she wouldn’t. I was making sure there was food in the house by the time I was nine and handling the bills by the time I was twelve. I wanted to be a kid, but I was too scared of what would happen if no one was in charge.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, stroking her hair. “You should have had better.”
“I had better than a lot of people. I never went hungry. I had clothes and a roof over my head.”
A pretty low bar, Josh thought, seriously pissed, but determined not to show it. The last thing Charity needed was to deal with his feelings. This was about her.