Page 7 of Taking What Was His

She didn’t know if she was even ready for another man. Yes, it had been five years, but time didn’t matter when your heart was broken.

She laid her hand on Marla’s. “I’m going to head out if you don’t need me.”

Marla hugged her. “I’ll always need you, but I’ve got a ton of family here.”

“You’re lucky, hun.”

“I know I am. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Beth nodded. “You better. Now, I’m going to try to find my son.”

“I saw him head to the kitchen a minute ago.”

Beth kissed her one more time on the cheek. She tried her best not to look in the direction of the man who caught her attention, but she felt the heat of his gaze follow her. She glanced at him and gave a sigh of relief when his eyes were pulled from her when someone came up to him and asked him a question.

She found Jayden and Charlie wolfing down some pie.

“Let’s go, honey.”

“Already?”

Beth smiled. “Yes. We’ve been here for two hours, and there’s nothing else I can do to help, so I think we should get out of their hair and let them settle.”

“I’ll see you at school on Monday.”

Charlie punched his arm. “You bet. It looks like my dad’s ready to go, too.”

Beth was relieved when they got out a side door and made their way to her car.

“Did you have a good time with Charlie?”

“Yeah. How’s Mrs. Parker doing?”

Beth smoothed her son’s hair down when they got to the car. “She’ll be fine, honey. She has a large family support unit.”

“We didn’t have that.”

Beth smiled sadly. “No, but we had each other and some excellent friends. We made it just fine.”

She felt tears burn the back of her eyes when he impulsively hugged her. It didn’t happen a lot these days because he was getting too cool. But when it did, she appreciated them even more.

She pressed her mouth to the side of his head and hugged him tightly against her chest.

“Are you doing okay, honey?”

Jayden looked up at her. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“If you need to talk...”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know, your door is always open.”

Beth smiled. “You bet. Now, let’s get home.”

They got buckled into the seats, and she pulled away from the curb.

“Hey, Mom,” Jayden asked.

“What?”