"Good, I'm glad I finally managed to get through to you," she said, smiling.
I waited a moment, not wanting to move, but unsure whether I could get away with kissing her. Leah made the decision for me as she dropped her hands and started up the front steps. I followed, knowing that keeping all of this under wraps was going to require the best acting job of my life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Leah
Once I'd gotten Jack settled down enough to be sure that he wouldn't screw things up by letting loose on his brother, I went inside to find his mother. I knew that running away from the table had probably confused her because Jack hadn't told her about his surprise, and I wanted to apologize.
"Mrs. Yates?" I said when I found her sitting on a chaise in the back living room.
"Oh, please call me Betty, honey," she said as she patted the seat next to her. "Come sit with me and let’s talk."
"Betty, I'm sorry I ran away from the dinner table," I began. "I didn't …"
"You didn't know that Jack had already decided you'd stay here, did you?" she asked in a light tone that told me she was used to this kind of behavior. "My boys are good boys, but they are a lot like their father in the sense that when they see something needs to be done, they just do it. Everything and everyone else be damned."
"I didn't know he'd made plans for us," I said.
"Of course you didn't, dear," she smiled. "He wanted to surprise you with a solution to your problem."
"Well, he did, indeed," I said, shaking my head. "I just …"
"You just don't like the way he swooped in and took over," she finished. "I didn't like the way Bernard did that, either, but over the years I realized that his intentions weren't bad. It was just that his plan of action needed fine tuning."
"But Jack's my boss," I said. "He's not my husband."
"Oh darling," Betty laughed as she patted my arm. "I think you are missing the obvious."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Jack may not know it yet, but he's fallen for you, my dear," she smiled. "He's head over heels, but my guess is that he's either not entirely aware of it or he's decided not to admit it to anyone, not even himself."
"I'm not seeing it," I lied as the memory of our first kiss flashed in my mind. "He's my boss, and he's been nothing but professional with me."
"All right, well, you two can keep playing this game for a little longer, but eventually it's going to catch up with you," Betty said as she looked out the window wistfully. "Bernard and I had a similar kind of courtship. He maintained an appropriate distance, and so did I, but in the end, we knew it was bigger than both of us. And it was."
"How long were you married?" I asked.
"Bernard and I celebrated our fortieth anniversary last year," she smiled at the memory. "He booked a cruise, and we spent ten lovely days together remembering why we'd gotten married in the first place."
"Did you need the reminder?" I asked.
"Oh goodness, yes, dear!" she exclaimed. "I was on the verge of leaving him!"
"You were?"
"Bernard was a difficult man," she said, carefully choosing her words. "There were many times during our marriage that I thought about picking up and leaving. But we had the boys, and it wasn't easy. Besides, as Bernard built the business, he was gone a lot of the time, so I lived in peace for many years."
"But you stayed," I said. "Why would you stay if you were so unhappy when he was around?"
"You young girls are so funny," she said as she turned and looked at me. "You think the whole world has always existed the way you experience it. What you don't understand is that your experience rests on the backs of the women who came before you."
"But if things were bad …" I said.
"If things were bad, you stayed because you didn't have options," Betty explained. There was a hint of irritation in her voice as she spoke. "I didn't earn a college degree until the boys were grown. And early in my marriage, I wasn't allowed to apply for a credit card without Bernard co-signing on it. Where was I going to go with two little boys? How would I support them?"
"I have no idea," I said, suddenly thinking about my own mother.