“That’s some good advice, Joseph. I’ll remember that for next time,” Jackson said as he looked out at the busy New York street.
“Are you heading back home?” Joseph asked.
“Yes. I’ve never liked being in the city for long. I enjoy the fresh air, where I can work for days without seeing another soul. Of course, if I’m in hiding too long, my brothers will hunt me down,” Jackson said with a laugh.
“Ha! As well as they should. Family is everything, boy. Don’t you be such a hermit that you forget the value of a fine family. I know that there are times I drive my brood crazy, but let me tell you, I would die for any one of them, as they would for me. My Katherine had to stay home this trip and I’m anxious to get back to her,” Joseph said in his typical lecturing voice.
“You’ve been lucky in your marriage, Joseph. Not everyone can say the same,” Jackson said almost bitterly.
“Oh, Jackson, don’t let one bad experience dictate the rest of your life. You’ll find the woman you are meant to be with for eternity, and when you do, you will never let her go.”
“I think I’ll leave matrimonial bliss to you, Joseph.”
“That’s what my boys thought, too,” Joseph told him with a wink.
The look in Joseph’s eyes made Jackson squirm. He didn’t want to be on this man’s radar. “I had best get going. I’ve already called my pilot,” Jackson lied, feeling a need to flee.
“Hitting a bit too close to home, boy?” Joseph said.
“Of course not,” Jackson said, and he stuck out his hand to shake Joseph’s. “I look forward to seeing you the next time you visit.”
“It won’t be long. I’ve promised your father I’ll be there soon.” Joseph’s words almost sounded like a threat, and Jackson wasn’t so sure they weren’t.
With a final good-bye, Jackson walked to the sidewalk and hailed a cab. Leaning back, he tried to push thoughts of Alyssa from his mind. By the time he reached the airport, he still hadn’t succeeded.
This was utter nonsense. He would forget about the woman, one way or another.
MAY
“It’s been a long time, my old friend.”
“I apologize for that,” Joseph Anderson replied. “I should have been here sooner.” Joseph sat back and enjoyed the view from Martin Whitman’s front porch. With spring just beginning to reshape the meadows, the scenery in Sterling was spectacular.
“Yes, you should definitely get out here more often. We can’t let so many years escape us again.”
“I don’t know how the time passes so quickly. It seems like just yesterday that I was proposing to my Katherine, and now my kids are grown and have families of their own. It keeps me very busy,” Joseph said with a laugh that erased years from his aging face.
“That’s why I asked you to come all this way,” Martin said. “I’ve noticed how your family is flourishing, while my own sons have given me a lot of grief. I thought our family was going to expand when Jackson married and his wife got pregnant. But after Jackson lost Katy and Olivia, he hasn’t been the same. I still grieve the loss of my granddaughter, but I want him to be happy again. I want all my boys to have as full a life as I’ve been blessed with.”
“I agree with you. It’s time for your boy to live again. His daughter would want that for him. When I saw him a couple of months ago, he seemed very unhappy. We need to change that.”
“He still holds on to the past. I haven’t seen a whole lot of happiness in him in a long time. We need to focus on the future,” Martin said, a sparkle lighting his eyes. “I need your help in putting the pieces of our quilt back together again.”
Joseph perked up instantly. “What can I do?”
Before Martin could speak, a female voice broke in. “My, my, my, if it isn’t the infamous Joseph Anderson. Are you slumming it with peasant folk like us, coming all the way out to the backwoods of Montana?” Martin’s ten-thousand-square-foot ranch house and his prosperous oil fields wouldn’t be considered slumming it in any circles, but he was used to Bethel’s dry wit.
Joseph turned toward her with a delighted smile. “You know I’ve been sporting a broken heart for you all these years, Bethel. That’s why I’ve stayed away.”
Bethel Banks chortled as she stepped onto the porch along with her best friends, Eileen Gagnon and Maggie Winchester. The meddling women were lifelong friends of Martin Whitman and Joseph Anderson. “If I thought there was a lick of truth in that statement, I might have to fight Katherine for you, Joseph, but since I know you’re over-the-moon in love with your wife, I’ll just take the compliment and replay it in my head a few thousand times.”
“It’s good to see you, Bethel,” Joseph said, getting up and giving her a hug. “And it’s been years, Eileen and Maggie. You are both still shining beauties.” He embraced the women.
“What did we interrupt?” Bethel always got right to the point.
“We were discussing how ornery my boys are,” Martin told her. This was a topic he and Bethel had been discussing often.
“Your boys aren’t nearly as much of a pain as my granddaughter,” Bethel said with a disgusted sigh.
“Now, Bethel, little Sage can’t be no trouble at all,” Joseph said, remembering a mischievous little redheaded girl in pigtails, with mud on her cheeks and a continually scraped knee.
“That girl isn’t so little anymore. She’s nearing twenty-five and happy as can be down in California. She’s got one year of medical school left, and then I’m hoping to persuade her to take her residency here. It’s a mighty fine hospital. I’m enormously proud of her, but it’s time for her to come home. I want to live long enough to see my great-grandkids,” Bethel grumbled.
“Ha, woman. That tone may work on your granddaughter, but we know you a lot better than that,” Joseph said. “I do agree, however, that it’s nice to have little ones filling the halls of an otherwise empty home. Each of my boys has married a fine woman, and I have a large gathering during the holidays now and at any other time I can get them all to the house at once.”
Martin leaned forward in his chair. “Then you really must share your secrets, Joseph.”
“Well, my old friends, we just have to bring the kids together, and then love does the rest,” Joseph said with a twinkle in his eyes. Joseph was growing a little too confident in his matchmaking skills, since he’d yet to have a miss.