Her Valentine Family Read Online Free

about it for a few days, a little hesitant about moving in the middle of the school year, but finally deciding that she wanted to do that, too, raise him in her hometown and near his grandparents. She wanted him to have some sense of a real family. But then they’d also wanted her to go back to school, and they’d wanted her to go to the community college in Stockville rather than the one in Claremont. They even paid her first semester’s tuition as a Christmas present.
    â€œHow long have you known?” she asked softly.
    A slight flush whispered up her mother’s throat. “Known what?”
    â€œThat Chad was divorced and moved back here and that he was teaching at Stockville.”
    Her mother cleared her throat. “Oh, well, you know how small towns are.” She waved her hands slightly as she spoke. “Everybody talks when someone comes back to town. Your father and I thought you might want an opportunity to see him again, maybe talk to him and tell him about Nathan.”
    She’d always planned to tell Chad about their son. That’s why she’d returned three years ago, but then she’dlearned he was about to get married and she’d returned to her grandmother’s farm in Tennessee. But she’d always intended to tell him, and she assumed God would let her know when the time was right.
    Evidently, He thought the time was right now, and He let her parents help set things in motion.
    â€œSo, you saw Chad tonight?” her mother asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe were planning to help you go back to school one day anyway,” she explained. “But when we heard he was teaching at Stockville we thought that was a sign we should send you there. God works in mysterious ways,” her mother added, smiling. “You forgive us for not telling you the whole story?”
    â€œI do,” Jessica said. How could she be upset with them for wanting their grandson to know his father? But she wondered if Chad would ever forgive her for not telling him about his son. Soon, she suspected, she’d know, whenever she gained enough courage to tell him the truth. For now, though, she’d go see the other guy with green-gold eyes who held a large piece of her heart.
    She hugged her mom, told her that she was sure everything would work out the way it was supposed to and then headed upstairs.
    The door to the guest room, Nathan’s room for now, was cracked open. She approached quietly and peered inside, eager to see the interaction between Nathan and his granddaddy. Nathan hadn’t had a father figure in his world so far, and he hadn’t spent nearly as much time with her father as she would’ve liked, so this scene was very special.
    Her son sat against the headboard, his sandy curls leaning against her father’s side as Nathan pointed toa page of the book his granddaddy held. He tilted his head up and raised his brows, the same face he always gave Jessica when he expected her to answer one of his intricate questions.
    Nathan never accepted anything at face value. Even at two, he was determined to learn exactly how his toy train whistled and took the thing completely apart, to the point that Jessica couldn’t even attempt to put it back together. He wanted to know how things worked, why things happened, what caused what in the entire scheme of things. He was inquisitive, intelligent and witty. Never afraid to ask what he wanted to know. In other words, he was his father’s son, and Jessica couldn’t have been more pleased.
    She recalled Chad’s blunt query from earlier to night.
    â€œHave you married?” And then “Why not?”
    Tough questions, for sure, but she was used to tough questions. She got them often enough from Nathan. And he wasn’t cutting her father any slack now.
    She stepped into the room in time to hear him ask, “But how did the stone knock his head off?”
    Her father’s smile, and his