Page 88 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Trixie gently set her fork down and gave him her full attention. Theo wasn’t far behind.

“You took care of them,” Trixie said, her decisiveness matched by a nod that made him feel as though he was facing his own private Judgment Day. Whatever else happened to this girl in her lifetime, she was going to cut quite a path through law school. “The same way Chloe takes care of us.”

“Yes,” he said, though he wasn’t in entire agreement. Chloe didn’t just provide financially for her siblings—she was also the one who washed their socks and made their meals, sang to them when they were sick, and oversaw their homework. That took a kind of strength he’d never possessed. “Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of jobs close to home—not ones that paid enough, anyway. I moved here, sent what I could back to my family, and eked out a living on the rest.”

“Is that why you didn’t marry that lady?” Theo asked. He resumed eating again. “The one from the books? The one who stopped by the house today?”

Jasper started. “You know about that?”

“Of course.” Trixie came perilously close to rolling her eyes at him.“We might be kids, but we’re notchildren.”

Oddly enough, her words made sense. By age and comparison, the Sampsons would always seem like kids to Jasper, but they’d stopped being children the day their mother walked out on them.

“I didn’t marry her for a lot of reasons, yes, but that was the main one,” he said. His own plate of French toast had long since grown cold, so he pushed it away. “In those days, women didn’t have very many options once they got married and started having kids. There was no way I could’ve supported her and a family of our own and kept taking care of my brothers and sisters. I had to choose one or the other.”

“And you chose your brothers and sisters?” Theo asked—anxiously, Jasper suspected, as though he needed to hear a confirmation that the choice was one he’d make again, if given a chance. That however hard Chloe’s life might be, it was the one she wanted to be living. “Even though you didn’t get to grow up with them or hang out or anything?”

“No, I didn’t choose them,” he admitted. At sight of the expression on Theo’s face, an old, familiar wave of guilt moved through him. He was quick to clarify. “Not because I didn’twantto, Theo, but because I didn’thaveto. Catherine made the decision for me.”

Once he said the words aloud, the truth of them struck home—and they struck hard. Jasper’s early life had been defined by a series of sacrifices he’d been forced into by circumstance. The early death of his father, the precarious financial situation the family had found themselves in, his mother’s dependence on a support network that had been placed entirely on his young shoulders—he’d never been given a voice in any of it.

If given another opportunity, however, he would do the same thing over again. Because the truth was, life wasn’t always about making good choices. In many ways, it was abouthavinggood choices. For over six decades, Jasper had operated under the belief that he’d never been given any but bad choices. Would he rather lose the love of his life, or watch his family starve? Would he rather carry the burden of loneliness and hardwork for the rest of his life, or soul-crushing guilt?

He realized now that the weight ofthosedecisions had never been his to bear. More than sixty years ago, a tiny slip of girl facing social ruin and ostracism had volunteered to bear it for him. She’d given up her home and her family, the comfort of everything she’d ever known, and taken Jasper’s choices—both good and bad—with her.

It was the exact sort of thing a young Catherine Martin might have been expected to do. Jasper hated her for it. And, his heart said with a stutter, he loved her for it.

Again. Still. Forever.

“Is it true that you’re related to Zach?” Theo asked suddenly. “Noodle said he’s your grandson.”

Jasper nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“So if he marries Chloe, will that make you our grandpa?” Trixie asked, her brow knit as she tried to work out the potential branches of the family tree. “Or close enough to count, anyway?”

Theo’s eyes opened wide. “We’ve never had a grandpa before.”

“You could take us fishing!” Trixie cried before wrinkling her nose in sudden distaste. “Actually, I don’t like fishing, and neither does Noodle, but that’s what all my friends’ grandpas do. Either that or fall asleep in front of the TV.”

“Maybe he could just play Frisbee with us instead,” Theo offered.

Jasper held up his hands, warring off a surge of euphoria. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. It could have been the sudden realization that instead of hating Catherine, he wanted to see her again. It might have been the fact that these children were planning their sister’s wedding to Zach after an acquaintance of exactly one month.

Then again, it could have also been that the prospect of taking these kids under his wing and throwing a Frisbee with them sounded like something he would very much like to do.

“Wait. Why do you look so sad again?” Trixie demanded. Shedropped her fork and ran over to him. Flinging an arm over his shoulder, she squeezed in what could only be termed a hug. Not one to be outdone, Theo was on his feet and crushing Jasper from the other side.

“We don’t have to play Frisbee,” Theo said. “It was only a joke. We can do all the things you like instead.”

Jasper couldn’t resist the impulse to ask. “And just what the devil do you think I like?”

He didn’t know how or why, but the kids seemed to sense right away that something had shifted…and that thesomethingwas him.

“Reading stuffy old books,” Theo announced proudly.

“Pulling weeds for like eight hours every day,” Trixie added.

“Yelling at kids!”