Not want to talk to my mom? Those men are driving me crazy!
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie. Dad and I were talking after you called the other day, and we thought we’d come for a visit. We’d like to see where you live and where you work and meet some of your friends. What day next week is good for you, Jenny?”
Jenny pulled her cell phone away from her ear and looked at it. She felt the way her face had screwed itself into a horrified why-now expression. The one thing she was grateful for at the moment was no one was looking at her. She was thrilled her parents wanted to come to Lusty. She just wished they’d done so a couple of weeks ago. If mom gets the idea I’m attracted to someone, who knows what she’ll do? She might start planning a wedding! Jenny shook her head again and would not even let herself consider what her parents would have to say about the fact she was attracted to two men.
She put the phone back to her ear. “Thursday is my regular day off,” she said. “I might be able to get next Friday off, too.” Then, because the question that was in her head wouldn’t shut up, she asked it. “I’ve been here nearly ten months. Is there a special reason you want to come and visit now?”
“Not really, sweetheart. Well, except we realized that you have been there nearly ten months and it’s only a three-hour drive for us. We really should have come to visit before now and have no excuses. We are both retired, so it’s not like we’re too busy. Dad said he was checking and there’s a motel out by the Interstate that’s not too far from where you are. We’ll stay overnight, and that way we can visit for a couple of days and really get to know your town.”
Jenny didn’t have to debate. She loved her parents. She didn’t like surprises, and maybe there was a bit of nervousness that they’d appear now when she was considering trying on a couple of studly cowboys.
But that was her situation to deal with. “There’s also a bed and breakfast right in town here, not even five minutes from my apartment. It’s called the Parkview Inn, and it’s on Park Street.”
“Oh! Well now, that is handy! I’ll look the number up online and give them a call. Do you think this is too short a notice to book a room?”
Jenny had met Maggie Benedict, and she was as much in the loop about things as anyone in Lusty. So she knew the B&B was never booked solid. And being a waitress at one of the two major eateries in the vicinity, she had knowledge, as well. No, not knowledge, resources.
“I don’t think so. I actually have the number in my phone.” She accessed her contact list and then read the number to her mother.
“This is definitely proof our visit was meant to be. We’ll see you next Thursday, sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom. See you then.”
Despite the fact that her mom had assured her that there was no special reason her parents were coming to Lusty to see her, Jenny felt unsettled. She’d gone to her folks’ at least once a month since she moved first to Waco and then to Lusty.
She’d worked two jobs—here at the roadhouse and also at the chain restaurant beside the Green Gables motel out on the highway since relocating to Waco. When Angela had put her on full time, she’d quit her other job, happy to settle here and begin to sink down roots.
Her mother was a great believer in fate and in things happening as they should and for a reason, a belief she’d passed on to her daughter. Jenny recalled the time, when she was about fourteen and her hormones were messing with her emotions, that she’d asked her mom if she’d ever regretted having to “settle” for an adopted daughter instead of birthing one of her own. She’d never forget her mother’s response.
“Settle? We most certainly did not settle. The moment I laid eyes on you, I understood why your father and I hadn’t been blessed with a baby of our own blood. We were meant to have you, the baby of our hearts. You were then, and continue to be, our best, our greatest blessing in this life.”
That had been the moment she’d set aside those niggling thoughts of “what if.” She’d had a friend in grade school who’d also been adopted. Petra had always believed her adoptive parents had stolen her from some great, unknown, bedazzled future. Petra’s adoptive parents had told her that she’d been abandoned, but for some reason, her young friend had clung to her fantasy instead of accepting the truth. Jenny knew that likely listening to Petra when she was younger had contributed to that vague sense she’d felt until the day of her mother’s heartwarming reassurance.
Jenny knew how lucky she was to even be alive, and after she understood how deeply her parents loved her, she was able to move on, emotionally. She didn’t know why her birth mother had died. She didn’t know much about the young woman except her name had been Mandy and she’d been young and alone in the world. She was grateful to Mandy for allowing her to have been born in the first place, and she was grateful to have been adopted by her parents.
“You’re looking thoughtful,” Laci said. Jenny looked up and smiled at her boss. “I am, a little. Just finished speaking with my mom.”
“Anything wrong?”
“I don’t think so. She says not. But she also says they’re coming for a visit next Thursday. I gave them the number of the B&B, as they wanted to stay overnight and spend Friday with me, too.”
“I can give you Friday off as one of
