Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

“By the time he supposedly cheated on her, he’d already asked her for a divorce and had made moves to see that through. She fed it to the media he had another woman, when they were living in the same house while she was supposed to be sorting herself to move, but they were separated. She was lashing out. And I suppose in the end that was a good thing for Dad. It was the final straw.”

Chloe was staring up at him in horror.

Judge moved to allay that.

“It’s gonna sound cold, but I honestly don’t care about any of this anymore,” he told her. “I can’t say it’s comfortable when she’s around. I find her trying or irritating or embarrassing. But she doesn’t come around often, and I don’t go to her. She’s no fun, obviously, but she’s also locationally close to Granddad, and he’s to be avoided too. Problem with him is that he has a sixth sense of when I’m close. And then he’s there and she’s enough. The both of them…” He shook his head.

“I find it difficult to believe you’re this cavalier about all of this,” she remarked hesitantly.

“Sadly, one day, you’ll find out. They both are family. And although we’re not close, family is family.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Family is family.”

He gave her another squeeze.

“I’ll warm the tortillas,” she whispered.

He let her go.

She didn’t go far, only standing on his other side to turn on the griddle he’d put out and then she opened the bag of tortillas.

“Do you want the cheese melted on yours?” she asked.

“Sounds great.”

She got to work.

He prompted, “I know you wanna ask.”

She tipped her head back to look at him. “Ask what?”

He didn’t tell her what.

He just gave her the answer.

“Dad and I aren’t tight. He wants it. He always has. She blocked him at every turn. He also thinks what I do is a lark. He was okay with it at first. Now I’m old enough, according to him, he thinks I need to get serious about my future. By serious, he means getting out of this hick town and making a shit-ton more cash. He even offered me the seed money to start my own thing, whatever that might be. Called it an early inheritance. He has more of Granddad in him than he’d ever admit. But it’s seriously there.”

“Hmm,” she hummed.

She was right.

Hmm.

“So, he reaches out,” Judge continued, “and has been doing that often from the time I went to college to establish some kind of relationship we never really got to have when I was growing up. And it wasn’t like I never got to see him, or never spoke to him when I was younger. He had visitation rights he fully took advantage of. It’s just that Mom went out of her way to limit that as much as she could. And she didn’t succeed in much in her life, but she succeeded in that.”

After he gave her that, Chloe just stared at him.

So he kept going.

“Dad and I started building something. It was good. But it stalled because I dig what I do. Even though I’ll likely move on, and when I do, it’ll be to something where I’ll move up, make more money, take on more responsibility, learn new things, it’ll be in the not-for-profit sector. Something for kids, or the environment, or social responsibility.”

He was far from relaxed after laying all that last out.

And her response was exactly why.

“I don’t understand that.”

“Why I’ll stay in charity?”

She shook her head even as she sprinkled cheese on a tortilla she’d just flipped.

“No, not that. You’re exceptionally skilled at what you do. Obviously, I don’t want you leaving Bowie anytime soon, but as we were working, I saw you as an executive director of an independent organization. Something large. Maybe national.” She looked up at him again. “Frankly, and I won’t tell Bowie this, but you’re wasted on Kids and Trails. It’s not big enough for you. It’s clearly been good to cut your teeth on, but with your talent, you’ve outgrown it. As far as I can tell, reading the website, your annual report, working with you, you did that a long time ago. Plates?”

Mutely, because he was stunned silent by her words, not to mention distracted by the warm feeling building deep in his chest, he jerked his head to a cabinet.

Chloe reached.

And kept talking.

“Unless you branch out. Say, Kids and Trails has another arm, Kids and Conservation. Or Kids and Cleanup, where you take them out and show them what littering or non-recycling does to the landscape, and they help clean it up. Or Kids and Heritage, taking them to Native American reservations to learn stories of the people who were here before us. How they used the land, venerated it, took care of it, how they do that still.”