First Impressions (Edenton 1)

“He should have been prosecuted,” Brad said, his lawyer face on. “If he did it once, he’d do it again.”

Eden looked at him, unsmiling. “You grew up in a different world than I did. If you were hurt you could go to your parents and they’d help you. I was what they call now a ‘baby momma’ and I had no one.”

“Mrs. Farrington—” Brad began.

“Had her own problems,” Eden shot at him.

Brad picked up his water glass and drank.

“There were places you could have asked for help and it would have been given,” Jared said quietly, and smiled at Eden.

She knew he meant his agency. Or maybe he meant him. Smiling, she looked down at her plate. Sometimes he could be very nice.

Minnie was frowning, and when she spoke, her voice came out higher and faster than normal. “So how did we get onto this subject?” she asked as she raised her glass. “Let’s make another toast. What is your deepest, most sincere wish in the world? As for me, I want my own: my own house, my own man.” She looked up at Jared suggestively.

“To wipe the words focal point from the American vocabulary,” Eden said.

“To kiss Angelina Jolie,” Jared said, not looking at Minnie.

They all looked at Brad.

“To find the Love of my Life,” he said with a look at Eden, then they all clinked glasses, laughing, and drank.

Yes, Eden thought. Except for Minnie sometimes flashing her looks of anger, it had been a very good evening, something she hadn’t had in a long time.

“A penny,” Jared said from beside her.

“I was thinking that even though my daughter is now grown, this is the first time that I’ve not been someone’s mother since I was…” She hesitated.

“Since you were a kid yourself,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“You like this new freedom?”

“I don’t know yet. So far, I still miss making sure that she’s okay. I miss talking to her twenty times a day. I still worry that she’s going to do something that I won’t be there to see, and that she’ll need me but I won’t be there. Once a mother, et cetera.” She turned to him. “Do you have children?”

“Nope. Not that I know of.”

Eden groaned. “I guess that’s supposed to be a titillating statement, but I’ve never liked irresponsibility.”

“I never make any points with you, do I? Listen, I want to talk to you about something. That man who raped you, I could do something about him.”

“Such as? Have him killed? Or just get him put in jail? No, Mr. McBride, I’m not into revenge. Besides, he gave me a beautiful daughter.”

Glancing at her, Jared shook his head. “Okay, so no revenge. But I could do something.”

“No,” she said. “Nothing. It was a long time ago. There’s nothing that needs to be done. I assume the man has grandchildren now and lives a normal life.” When Jared started to speak, she raised her hand. “No, and I mean it. It was a long time ago and it’s over. Maybe he had something bad happen to him that day and he took his anger out on me. Maybe—”

“I can’t listen to this,” Jared said fiercely. “I don’t want to hear it. You should have—”

“Done what?” Eden said loudly. “I was seventeen years old, pregnant, and totally alone. I didn’t even know how to earn money to feed myself, much less a child. But Mrs. Farrington took me in and took care of me and my daughter. You know what? I think that man did me a favor.”

“What?”

“If I’d stayed with my parents I know they would have married me off to someone dreadful. You can’t imagine what they were like. I’ve had years to think about this, and I’m glad that there was a reason for them to throw me out. It could have gone wrong, and I could have ended up on the street, but I didn’t. I was taken in by a wonderful woman and given all the love and care I’d never had in my life.”

“Then why did you fight me?”