“Second Chance Romance”

2012 Copyright All Rights Reserved

Chapter 25

“Austin, look over there… ponies.”  Libby tilted her head and shaded her eyes with her small hand so that she could look up at his face.  Her eyes grew wide and her rosy red, cherub cheeks flushed with barely contained excitement that struck him in the center of his chest.

“I see them.” He glanced towards the arena that held several miniature sized ponies.  He could feel Jade’s presence behind him and couldn’t help but to share in Libby’s enjoyment.  It had been a long time since he had been to the county fair.   And not that he was here, with the woman he loved and the daughter he cherished, he could barely contain himself.  “Do you want to ride?”

Libby clapped her hands together and eagerly nodded.  “Please, can I?”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

Austin looked over his shoulder back at Jade. “It’s safe,” he assured her and smiled.  He didn’t miss the way that Jade worried her bottom lip with her teeth.  It was a familiar gesture, one that he remembered from when they were younger and it took everything he had in him to not step forward and kiss that tortured lip into submission.  To stop himself, he took a step back. 

“See,” he pointed back at the arena, “each pony is being led around by an adult.   Those ponies are small and from what I have seen they are used to impatient children.  Plus, I’ll be right there by the fence watching every move that she makes. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Jade glanced towards the arena and still looked unsure.  “I don’t know…”

“It’ll be fine,” he promised her.  “I would never let anything happen to her and you know that, don’t you?”

She glanced down at Libby who was literally bouncing back from one foot to the other and staring longingly at the ponies.  Despite her own reservations she hated to tell the little girl no.  Considering everything that she has been through over the last week, she deserved to have some fun today.  The problem was she couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that something might go wrong.  Call it mother’s intuition or whatever, there was a knot in her stomach and no matter how many times she told herself that it would be okay, she couldn’t get it to loosen up.   

“Hey,” Austin lightly touched her arm, “why don’t I take her to the pony ride and you go over to the snack bar and get us some cokes and a funnel cake.  You used to love funnel cakes. Every fall that we came here as kids you always had to get a funnel cake.  It was a must have for you.”

“Really?”  And the second that she asked him, her mouth began to water.  She wasn’t sure if it was from her memory or just because he pointed out that she used to like funnel cakes, either way, she wanted one now.

“Really,” he confirmed and dug his hand into his back pocket.  Pulling out his wallet, Austin handed her a twenty dollar bill.  “Go on,” he turned her towards the snack bar and gave her a little push, “we’ll be right here.  After the ride, we’ll meet you over at the picnic tables over there.”  He waved his hand over to a shaded area that had been quartered off for eating.

Jade held the twenty dollar bill in her hand and her gaze flitted from Libby to Austin.  “Are you sure?” she asked him, wishing that her gut wouldn’t feel so twisted and tight.

He grabbed Libby’s hand.  “I’m sure,” he told her.  “I will watch her.  Trust me.”

Trust me…  Two words.  Two words that she wasn’t sure what to do with.  Could she trust him?    Based on the lone memory she retained and what he had told her about their past the day before, she wasn’t really sure that she could.  It sounded like she had given him that trust once before and he had broken it fairly easily without much thought. 

She stared down at the joined hands of the man she made love to less than twenty hours before and the little girl that she was getting to know as her daughter now.  Her mind was telling her one thing, but her heart was telling her something else altogether. 

Regardless of the past, she was getting to know the man that Austin was today.  The patient, sweet, honest, caring man that has stood by her side through the tears, through the frustration and the pain over the last week.  He’d been there when she needed him the most.  He was there now. 

And that’s when the blinding truth came from out of nowhere.  Despite not knowing her past, she was slowly beginning to build a present, a new present that included both Austin and Libby.  She had fallen in love with Libby instantly.  How could any mother not love their own child?

But the man, he was different.  She fought him at first because she was scared of him.  She was scared of how she would react to him.  Now she realized why she was so scared of him- she was afraid that somewhere in her subconscious that she might fall for him.  And the truth of the matter was, she was falling for him.  Maybe her mind knew that the first day that he walked into the hospital- she was falling in love with Austin Giles.

“Jade?”  Austin and Libby were staring at her expectantly.  She smiled through the startling revelation.  How could she possible fall in love in just a little over a week?  Maybe she could understand it if she could remember her past, but she didn’t. 

“Eh, yeah,” she said and nodded her head.  “You two go ahead and I’ll get us some drinks.  I’ll meet you over there.”  Her eyes drifted towards the picnic tables.

“Mama, are you okay?”

She laughed to try and cover up her nervousness and bent down on her knees so that she was on Libby’s level.  “Of course I am, chicken.  What would make you ask a question like that?”

“You have this funny look in your eyes.”

“Oh, I do," she mused.  "Hm, and what exactly classifies it as a funny look?”

Libby raised her head and pursed her lips.  “I don’t know, like… your thinking about something really, really important.  And sometimes when you think about important things, you get sad.  You have been so happy today with me and Austin; I don’t want to see you sad anymore.”

“Oh Libby,” she pulled the small girl into her arms and squeezed her close to her chest.  Her hair smelled familiar like warm sunshine and strawberries.  “Today is a good day,” she told her and placed a kiss to her a head.  “A really good day.  I’m happy just because I’m here with you.”    

Libby pulled back so she could look at her mother.  “And I’m happy because I’m here with you too.”

Jade smiled and stood back up.  Austin was watching them with a peculiar expression on his face.  She would almost swear that it was admiration but she shook of that thought.  There was nothing to admire about her, a woman who could remember what she was doing a month ago, much less the lase twenty some odd years of her life.  “You two better get in line if you’re going to get that pony ride.  It looks like the line is growing by the second.  I’ll meet you guys over there when you’re done.”

“O-tay!”  Libby rand to Austin’s side and grabbed his hand.  “Come on Austin, let’s go!”

“Alright, alright,” he laughed and shook his head.  He shot Jade a heated look that she felt igniting renewed passions deep into her core.  She gasped and took a step back. This wasn’t the time or the place for that kind of thing. They were at a county fair with people surrounding them.  “We’re going,” he told Libby and turned around, limping slowly towards the arena.

Jade let out a slow breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and watched the two of them get in line.  She pivoted herself around and started for the snack bar, wondering if tonight would be a repeat of the night before.

*******

Tina sauntered closer to Oliver.  “I’m surprised to see you here, Sheriff.  I didn’t think the county fair was your scene.”

Oliver grunted and felt his head start to spin.  “I don’t have a scene, Tina.  I can go anywhere I damn well please.”

She raised a brow in his direction.  “Well, yeah, I suppose you can.”  She was standing beside of him now and confirmed what she had already thought when she watched him stagger across the parking lot.  He was drunk.  Actually, he smelled like he showered in a keg of beer.  “I just didn’t expect to see you here,” she said again, placing emphasis on the ‘here’.

Oliver hiccupped and covered his mouth with his hand, struggling to keep himself upright.  “What does here have to do with anything?”

“Here,” she said with a hint of disdain, “as in the same place that the happy new family is.” 

She pointed over to a group of people.  Oliver followed her hand and it took him a minute to narrow his vision and see exactly who she was pointing at.  Jade.  And not just Jade, it was Jade, Austin and Libby.

He sneered and turned away.  That was the last thing he needed to see right now.  Hell, what did he have to do to get away from them?  He’d already left the city.  Did he have to leave the state? 

“They make quite the picture, don’t they Oliver?”

He stared off into the distance, refusing to look at Tina.  He heard Libby’s sweet laugh and closed his eyes.  He just needed to go home.  “Why are you telling me this Tina?”

“You know why?”

He spun around and glared at her.  “I’ve already told you that there is nothing I can do.  He’s the father of her child.  I’m not going to hurt that little girl like that.  She deserves to know her father, even if he is a jackass.”

“And you think Austin is the one that should be her father?”  Tina chuckled.  “You of all people should know that it takes more than a sperm donation to be a father.  Stop and think about it for just one minute.  This is the same man that didn’t hesitate the second that I showed up on his doorstep and offered myself to him.  He didn’t care about Jade enough back then to tell me no, what makes you think that he won’t take me up on my offer again?”  She shrugged and added, “because unlike you Oliver, I’m not going to give up.  I’m going to keep trying and keep trying until I have Austin where he belongs- in my bed.  If you have any brains left in that head of yours, when Jade realizes that then you’ll be the one to step in this time and pick up the pieces.”

Oliver looked at the woman like she had just lost her mind.  “And what makes you think that he’ll fall for you and your little sex games this time, Tina?  You’ve been trying to seduce that man since he came back home from college and you haven’t been successful yet.”

She waved her hand at him.  “It hasn’t been the right time.  But now though, now it is.  Jade is confused.  You almost had her eating out of the palms of your hands.  You just have to tell her the truth about the past.  If you tell her the truth, then she’ll see what kind of man Austin really is.  He’s not a family man, not the man for her.  You’re the type of man that Jade needs, a real man that will want her and that little brat of hers.”

“And you think it’s all going to be just that easy?” he asked her incredulously, ignoring her snide comment about Libby. Could it really be that easy?

“Well, yeah- because it is that easy.”

Oliver still wasn’t sure.  He glanced back over his shoulder and watched Jade walk towards the snack bar alone.  Austin and Libby were heading towards the pony ride. 

“And if that isn’t a sign from God, I don’t know what is,” Tina whispered at his ear. 

Oliver rubbed his hand over the two day old scruff on his chin.  He was almost too scared to believe it but what if Tina was right?  What if he all he did was tell her the truth about Austin? About the betrayal that he dealt her in the past.  Could they really have a chance?  A real shot at being a real family?

“What are you waiting for, Romeo?  Time’s ticking.” 

Tina’s words echoed in his head.  Time’s ticking.  He wasn’t getting any younger and neither was Jade.  He wavered for a second, glanced over at Austin and Libby standing in line and then back at Jade who was also standing in line.  He could be a good husband to her, a good father to Libby- he knew he could.  He just needed to be given the chance.

“All right,” he mumbled.

“All right, what?” Tina asked and you could hear the smile of satisfaction in her voice.  She already knew what his answer was going to be.

“I’m going to talk to her.  I’m going to tell her the truth.”

She patted his shoulder.  “Yeah, you go do that.  I bet it’ll be the one move you’ll never regret.”

“I hope so,” he mumbled again and before he could talk himself out of it, he staggered towards the snack bar in Jade’s direction.

Tina watched him for a minute to make sure he was doing just as she wanted him to do before turning her undivided attention into another direction.  A direction  that was far more meaningful to her- Austin’s direction.