The Family He Didn't Expect
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Shirley Jump
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Chapter One
Dylan Millwright sat in his Jeep, parked on a slight hill. Stone Gap, North Carolina, lay before him, lazy, content and still in the late October sunshine. When he was eight, he’d climbed the side of this hill with his older brother and felt like he’d conquered Mt. Everest. When he was sixteen, he’d brought Mary Alice Hathaway to this very hill and mistaken lust for love. At seventeen, he’d quit high school and crested the hill once again, but this time vowing to leave the small town where he’d grown up in his rearview mirror forever.
Forever had lasted a little over ten years. Then Uncle Ty had called, said I need you, kid, and Dylan had dropped everything. There were very few people in the world that Dylan would do that for. Uncle Ty was at the top of the list. Dylan had no idea how long he was going to be here, or what Uncle Ty needed, but that was okay. Dylan was used to living by the seat of his pants, with no more formal commitment than a handshake.
He looked out over the town one last time, then drew in a deep breath. Then he climbed back into his Jeep and headed down the hill and into downtown Stone Gap. Not much had changed, as if the whole town was caught in a time warp. Sadie’s Clip ‘n’ Curl still marked the beginning of Main Street, followed by the ice cream parlor, a couple diners, Gator’s Garage, Betty’s Bakery, Joe’s Barbershop...
Small-town America, on a first-name basis with everyone.
Hopefully he wouldn’t be caught in this Norman Rockwell painting for very long. Dylan paused at the intersection with Juniper Street, took a left, then pulled into the parking lot of a long, low-slung building. The white paint was fading, peeling, and the roof had a few broken shingles. The morning rain had left the grass richly green and knocked a few light branches to the ground. The sign out front looked brighter than Dylan remembered, but still said the same thing, like a promise he could depend upon:
Millwright Family Children’s Community Center
Uncle Ty and Aunt Virginia, who’d never had children of their own, had opened the center two decades ago. Kids from all over came here, filling the game rooms and the basketball courts out back, mostly after school and always on Saturdays. Dylan himself had spent many an afternoon here, often after a fight with his parents or yet another grounding for breaking a rule (or ten). Uncle Ty and Aunt Virginia had always welcomed him with open arms, providing a refuge for kids who really needed one.
A month ago, Aunt Virginia had died. Dylan had been hiking in Colorado and didn’t get the message until after the funeral. Then Uncle Ty had called, his voice breaking with grief, and asked Dylan to come help.
He headed inside, his eyes adjusting to the dim interior, and his ears to the din. A couple of teenage boys were playing ping-pong at the scarred table with the Swiss cheese net in the rec room. Two others were immersed in an older generation PlayStation or Xbox. Another few were sprawled across the battered leather sofas, watching a football game. The teenagers, a motley, kind of scruffy crew, barely noticed him enter. At a set of small chrome and laminate tables on the left, a quartet of little kids were making some kind of craft with Mavis Beacham that involved a whole lot of glue and a tub of colorful beads.
As soon as she saw Dylan, Mavis got to her feet and opened her arms. “Dylan Millwright, as I live and breathe! What are you doing here?”
Before he could answer, she was drawing him into a tight hug. Mavis was an ample woman, the kind that embodied welcome. She’d been his neighbor when he was growing up, and had always made time for both the Millwright boys, keeping a jar of their favorite peppermints by her door for whenever they passed by.
“Tell me you’re staying at the inn while you’re here,” Mavis said. “Della Barlow and I turned Gareth Richardson’s house into something amazing. You’ll love it there.”
Leave it to Mavis to not even ask Dylan about staying with his brother. She knew him well, and had seen the squabbles between the boys. He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t dream of staying anywhere else, Mavis.”
She cupped his face between both her palms. “I’m glad you’re home, Dylan. Real glad. Your uncle needs you.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too, Mavis,” Dylan said. He didn’t correct her on calling Stone Gap home. She loved this town far more than he ever had, so he let that go and instead gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Uncle Ty was sitting in his office, behind a wide plate-glass window. He looked up, saw Dylan and started waving as he got out of his seat and came around the door. “Dylan! You made it!”
Dylan crossed the room and gave Uncle Ty a big hug. His uncle was five foot nine, a few inches shorter than Dylan, and used to be nearly as wide as he was tall. But since the last time Dylan had seen him, his uncle had lost at least twenty pounds. He had a friendly, open face, and though his graying hair was thinning a little and receding a lot, he still looked younger than his sixty years. As long as Dylan had known him, Uncle Ty had been a kid at heart. “Good to see you, Uncle Ty.”
“You too, son. You too.” He patted Dylan’s back. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” Dylan drew back. “I’m really sorry about Aunt Virginia.”
Ty’s eyes filled. “She was one of a kind. Lord, I loved that woman.”
“Everyone who met her did, too,” Dylan said. Aunt Virginia had had one of those larger-than-life personalities. The kind of woman who welcomed perfect strangers into her home and fed them pork and beans on a Saturday night. The kind of woman who knitted blankets for the homeless and baked pies for the poor. She’d been the lifeblood of the community center. Even though the rooms were still teeming with activity, it felt as if some of the air had gone out of the space, but Dylan didn’t want to say that. “Looks like the place is as busy as ever. And exactly the same as when I was here.”
Uncle Ty chuckled. “You know me. Change is a four-letter word. I don’t like to mess with a winning formula.” Then his uncle sobered and draped an arm over Dylan’s shoulder, lowering his voice as the two of them walked toward the office. “Thank God you came when I called. I can’t manage this place on my own. You know Virginia—she was my right and my left hand here. I’m just...lost without her.”
Dylan could see that in his uncle’s eyes, hear it in his voice. He’d never known anyone who loved another person as much as Virginia and Ty had loved each other. They’d had movie love, the kind you only saw in some Nicholas Sparks flick. And now, Virginia was gone, and Uncle Ty looked like he was marooned on a deserted island.
“Whatever you need,” Dylan said. “I’ve got a couple weeks where I don’t have to be anywhere. I can start on some of the maintenance or—”
Ty drew in a deep breath. “Actually, I want you to work with the kids. At least for today. I’m just having a...well, a rough afternoon and I can’t do it.”
The statement hung in the stale air of Ty’s office. For a second, Dylan thought he hadn’t heard his uncle right. “Work...with the kids? Me?”
Uncle Ty ran a hand through his thinning hair. His face was lined, his eyes tired. His usual smile had disappeared, as if he’d lost it and couldn’t remember where it was. “I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t still love all these kids and love my job, but it’s too much right now. How am I supposed to tell these kids how to get their lives on track when mine is so far off the rails? I’m doing all I can to manage the books and clean the bathrooms once in a while.”
“Uncle Ty, I don’t have a degree in child psychology like Aunt Virginia, or a background in social work like you do.”
“No, but you have life experience. And sometimes, that’s what gets through to the tough cases better than any therapy you throw at them.”
Yeah, he had life experience, but it wasn’t the kind he figured these kids should have. Like running away from home at seventeen. Hitchhiking from here to California, funding his way with odd jobs. He’d been picked up by the cops a few times—mainly for loitering and underage drinking—and wound his way around the country ever since, never staying in any one place long. He’d worked fishing charters in Florida, potato farms in Idaho, building projects in Minnesota. He’d feel like a hypocrite if he told the kids that settling down and working hard would make them happy in the end. What did he know about settling down—or finding happiness? “I don’t think I can do this, Uncle Ty. I’m not cut out for it at all.”
“I know you think that,” Ty said, “but you’re more suited than anyone I know. You grew up here—”
“And didn’t exactly turn out to be a Nobel Prize winner.”
“No, but you did turn into a hell of a good man.”
Dylan shook that off. If there was one adjective he’d use for himself, it sure wasn’t good. “Can’t you hire someone? Someone with a degree or something?”
“You know this place has always operated on a shoestring budget, Dylan. Anyone I hired would have to be working for almost nothing.” Ty put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Just give it a try for a little while. For me, please?”
Dylan took another look at his uncle. Ty’s shoulders sagged low, and there was a blankness in his features that Dylan had never seen before, as if Uncle Ty was a fading photo. He’d lost the love of his life, and it had drained every bit of the color out of his world.
“All right. You can count on me, but only for a temporary gig, okay?” Dylan said, with a lot more conviction than he felt. Dylan never had been the kind of guy anyone—especially anyone in this town—had counted on for anything more than a ride to the liquor store on Friday night.
Relief flooded Ty’s face. “Thank you, Dylan. It’s just for a few days. I need to...find myself again, you know? Without Virginia, I’m...half of who I used to be.”
Ty and Virginia had loved each other in that way most people aspired to and never found. Dylan had no such aspirations. He didn’t want to be tied down, to any one place or any one person. He was here now, but he wasn’t planning on staying one second longer than necessary.
Dylan slung his backpack into the corner beside a teetering stack of boxes and the world’s largest supply of colored construction paper. He still wasn’t sure he was cut out for this, but maybe if he gave Ty a day or two off, things would get back to normal. “Just tell me what to do.”
“The little kids are doing okay. Mavis has them making some kind of rainbow thing with beads.” Ty gestured toward the round table, headed by the generously sized, warm and affectionate African American woman. The kids gravitated to her like ants to honey, and from the smile on her face, Mavis loved every minute with them.
“She was awesome when I was a kid,” Dylan said. “I’m glad she’s still volunteering here.”
“Me, too. Though she has fewer hours to spare, since she’s running the inn with Della Barlow.” Ty nodded, then he waved toward the sofas. “Take the teen circle, will you? The rest of them will be here any minute. All you have to do is prompt them to talk, and believe me, they’ll talk your ear off. Remind them to keep it positive.”
“Uncle Ty—”
Ty put a hand on Dylan’s arm, cutting off his protest. “You’ve walked the walk and talked the talk and broken the same rules these kids have. But then you turned yourself around, got a great job with that company up in Maine... I can’t think of a better person than you to connect with them.”
His uncle had a point. If there was one thing Dylan had succeeded at in life, it was being a rebellious teenager. He’d broken pretty much every rule his parents had set forth, and quite a few put in place by the state of North Carolina. If there was a way to get away with doing the wrong thing, Dylan knew it. These kids, sprawled across the sofas like human afghans, weren’t going to be able to get anything past him. And whether they knew it or not, they shared some common ground with him.
The door to the center opened and a leggy brunette woman carrying a briefcase strode in, followed by a singing four-year-old and a sullen teenage boy who looked like he’d rather disappear inside his gray hoodie than be here. The smaller kid peeled off and beelined for Mavis’s table, while the teenager propped himself against the wall closest to the door. But Dylan’s gaze remained on the brunette.
Stunning. That was the only word that came to mind.
She had long brown hair that tumbled around her shoulders. Her eyes were masked by sunglasses, but they couldn’t hide a face that had that kind of delicate bone structure that made him think of Aunt Virginia’s porcelain teacups. The woman was wearing a dark navy skirt, a white button-down blouse with the cuffs turned back and a bright red beaded necklace swinging down to her waist. Then there were the heels—tall, spiky, dark blue shoes that offset incredible legs and made something deep inside Dylan go hot.
“Ty, sorry I’m late.” She strode forward, passing Dylan as if he didn’t even exist. “I got out of work late and then had to track down Cody, who, as usual, wasn’t where he was supposed to be.” She blew a lock of hair off her face. “I swear, that kid is going to be the death of me.”
Uncle Ty put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine, Abby, really. Cody will settle in soon and Jacob is already up to his elbows in glue.”
She glanced over at the table, where Jacob—the youngest one, Dylan assumed—had already taken a seat and was sprinkling beads across bright blue construction paper. Mavis sent up a little wave, signaling I’ve got this, honey.
“Okay.” Abby let out a long sigh. “If you don’t mind, I have a proposal I need to work on. Can I...” She waved toward the office and gave Ty a smile.
For some weird reason, that smile—directed toward his uncle—sent a little flicker of jealousy through Dylan.
“Of course. Use my office. But first, I want you to meet my nephew, Dylan.” Ty turned to Dylan and gestured between the two of them. “Dylan Millwright, meet Abigail Cooper, but everyone calls her Abby. Abby, my nephew. He’s going to be helping out with the teen program.”
For the first time in his life, Dylan wished he was the kind of guy who wore a suit and tie. His battered jeans, faded concert T-shirt and black leather boots didn’t exactly match the polished, pressed woman beside him. “Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand.
She gave him a surprisingly firm handshake, considering how delicate she seemed at first blush. She was all business, not a spark of interest in her eyes. “You, too.”
He was about to say something witty back, but before he could come up with a handful of words more charming than uh, you’re beautiful, she was picking up the briefcase and heading for Ty’s office. A second later, the glass door closed and Abby settled herself behind Ty’s desk. She pulled a laptop out of her bag, set it up and started typing.
“I can see you watching her,” Uncle Ty said, putting a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “And I can read interest in your eyes. I’m tellin’ you right now, Abby isn’t...”
“Isn’t the kind of woman who would date a guy like me?”
Ty turned to his nephew and the lines around his eyes softened. “I wasn’t going to say that. You’re a good man, Dylan—”
Dylan scoffed.
“A good man,” Ty repeated with emphasis, “or I wouldn’t have you here. As for Abby, she’s...complicated. One of those women juggling a whole lot of balls and not interested in having a man help catch a single one of them. Her ex was a real jerk, who let her and her boys down in a big way.”
“I’m not here to date anyone,” Dylan said and turned away from the office to prove his point. “Don’t you worry about that.”
But as he walked away and crossed toward the teenagers waiting on the sofas, Dylan wondered if he’d still be singing that tune if Abby Cooper had looked at him with even an ounce of interest. Either way, the last thing he needed was a small-town single mom with workaholic tendencies. If anything screamed complete opposite from you, that fit the bill.
He dropped into the lone armchair sitting in front of the sofas and propped his elbows on his knees. “Hey, guys, I’m Dylan. How about we talk about breaking the rules?”
Abby stared at the report in front of her. She’d spent the better part of the day putting it together, but it still didn’t feel right. Had she missed some data points? Forgotten to add the case study? She scrolled through the document, checked it against her list, then read the pages over again.
Ever since she’d taken the promotion to director of brand development at Davis Marketing, she’d worried that she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Worried that they were going to see her as a fraud, as a woman who was only pretending to be up to the job.
Because she was.
Hell, her whole life seemed to be about pretending she could handle everything, whether she actually could or not. Get up in the morning, drag Cody out of bed, feed Jake, shoo Cody out the door and pray he made it to high school this time instead of heading for the park or the mall or somewhere with his friends. Then drop Jake off at preschool, making sure he’d taken his snack and a change of clothes for just in case at daycare later and that he didn’t have anything after school that she was supposed to go to. After all that, finally head off to work. Eight or more hours later, head home and repeat the process in reverse. Sometime in that window, she was supposed to cook healthy dinners, make the house spotless, draw baths and read bedtime stories. Oh and have “me” time, with rose-petal filled bubble baths and meaty novels.
Because that was what the magazines said “women who had it all” managed to do. She’d yet to find a way to even come close to that, but it didn’t stop her from trying.
Tears sprang to her eyes and a burst of panic made her heart race. Abby drew in a deep breath, counted to ten, then whisked the tears away. There was no time to get distracted or lose her focus.
She read the pages once again, hit Send on the report, then closed the laptop. There was more on her To Do list, but it could wait until after Jake went to bed. That would mean another late night again, but her Mommy Guilt was kicking into overdrive, especially after Jake had asked in the car if she was going to work “again,” with that pouty sound in his voice and disappointment swimming in his big brown eyes.
She emerged from Ty’s office and crossed to the little kids’ table. Two more kids had arrived and now seven of them sat in pint-size chairs on either side of Mavis. She loved those kids and welcomed them like they were all her own little ducklings.
“How are you, Mavis?” Abby said. She placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. Mavis covered it with her own and gave Abby’s hand a friendly pat.
“Just fine, just fine.” She turned to the kids and grinned at them. “I have the best table of kittens—”
“We’re not kittens, Miss Mavis,” Jake said with a laugh in his voice. He was the happy one of her two boys, always ready with a smile or a laugh. Abby loved that about him and reached over to ruffle his hair.
“Well, I don’t know about that, Jakester,” Abby teased. “You drink milk, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you like to sleep a lot.”
Jacob laughed and cocked his head to the side, causing one lock of hair to do a little flip-flop. “That’s cuz I’m tired.”
“And you have a big old mop of fur—” She nuzzled his dark hair.
“Mommy, that’s hair! I’m a boy!”
She leaned back and pretended to study him, tapping a finger against her lip. “Well, now, I think you might be right about that. Now that I look a little closer, I see you are indeed a boy. A cute one at that.” She gave Mavis a smile, then placed a kiss on her son’s forehead. “Keep on working on your picture, Jake. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She crossed the room, pausing by the watercooler, filling a paper cup and pretending to get a drink, but really trying to see how Cody was doing. Of the two boys, Cody had taken their father’s sudden departure the hardest. It had been easier when Keith had left the first time, because Cody was only two, but ten years later, when Keith had returned to try again, Cody had started to put trust in his father. The problem was Keith had never fully committed to his family and had never really intended to stay forever.
The second time, Cody had turned twelve the day before and gone to sleep believing the world was perfect because he had a new bike and another game for his Xbox. When he got up the next morning, there’d been an empty spot at the kitchen table and a dark oil stain on the driveway where Keith’s Malibu used to be.
Keith had walked out the door, leaving her with a newborn baby, forty dollars in the bank, a sheaf of bills as high as her elbow and the Herculean task of explaining why to two boys who didn’t understand.
There were days when she wanted to throttle her ex-husband for what he had done to their family, for how he had hurt his children. She had known he’d wanted out for a long time, but had never thought he’d up and move, to live with the twenty-year-old college student who was the “love of his life.”
Keith Cooper had been irresponsible and selfish, two traits that Abby had been blind to for far too long. She’d kept thinking he would change, that he would settle down, find a career, not just a job, and become the family man she’d foolishly hoped he’d be.
She’d been wrong.
Abby leaned against the wall beside the watercooler, a paper cone of cool water in her hand, and watched Cody. He was hunched into the corner of one of the sofas, looking angry and sullen. Par for the course with a sixteen-year-old who thought his life sucked.
To his left sat Dylan Millwright, Ty’s nephew. He was a good-looking guy—tall and lean, with dark hair and green-brown eyes. She hadn’t really noticed him before, but she did now.
He had a roguish look to him, with the scuffed black boots, the battered jeans, the faded T-shirt. Like one of those guys in a modern-day fairy tale who roared up on a motorcycle and whisked the bored debutante away for a life of adventure.
Except Abby knew full well those kinds of guys didn’t make good boyfriend or husband material. They were as temporal as spring weather, gone with the next gust of wind.
“Hey, Cody, want to join us?” Dylan asked.
Cody shrugged and hunkered down more, as if his hoodie could hide him from the world.
“We’re just talking,” Dylan said.
One of the other kids, a fair-haired tattooed kid wearing a T-shirt with Kurt Cobain’s picture, leaned forward. “Yeah, like about girls and crap.”
Another boy, with long dark hair and a dirty white T-shirt, leaned back against the couch. “My girl’s all mad at me today. I spent the day in solitary and she’s acting like I did it on purpose.”
In solitary was slang for in-school suspension, something Abby knew all too well from Cody’s frequent trips down that hall. She leaned back against the wall, waiting to see where the conversation would lead.
“Well, did you?” Dylan said.
Long Dark Hair snorted. “No. Who gets suspended on purpose?”
Dylan chuckled. “Some of us have done that. So I can sympathize.”
“What do you know about our lives, man?” Cobain Fan scoffed. “What’d you do, skip a class? Blow off an essay?”
“I was a lot like you guys. One of those angry kids who thought he knew better than any adult. Now I—”
“Let me guess,” Cody said. He had pushed the hoodie off his head. He had the same mop of dark brown hair as his little brother and his father, except he wore his long on the top and shaved on the sides. “You grew up, got a good job, bought a sweet house in the suburbs where you mow the lawn on Saturdays and crap like that. Matt’s right. You don’t know anything about how tough our lives are.”
“I’m not claiming to be an expert, even if you all think I’m too old to understand,” Dylan said. “Just someone who has made my fair share of mistakes.”
“Doesn’t mean you know anything about us,” Matt—previously known as Cobain Fan—said.
“True. But it doesn’t hurt to talk about your lives, does it? Maybe I can learn a thing or two from you guys, too.” Dylan shrugged. “So let’s talk.”
Cody cursed. “Talking doesn’t change jack. Waste of time.”
“Hey, I get it that you all don’t really want to sit here and go on and on about your lives. I’m not exactly Mr. Conversation myself. But I don’t think sitting around here—” Dylan waved at the motley set of battered sofas “—pissed at the world is going to change anything. And I’m betting every one of you has something he wants to change about his life. So let’s talk.”
Abby couldn’t have been more surprised if Dylan had stood up and started singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She never would have imagined—given his appearance—that he would be so smart and intuitive with how he handled these kids. There was color in Cody’s cheeks, interest in his eyes—
Two things Abby hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Abby clutched the paper cup so hard it crumpled, praying her son would open up, stop shutting himself off from the world.
“Whatever, dude,” Cody said finally, then got to his feet, flipping the hoodie back over his head as he rose. “I’m not here to have a Dr. Phil moment with some guy I don’t even know. I’m just trying to survive.”
Then he headed out the door, snagging a basketball from the bin as he went. The door shut behind him with a solid thunk.
Abby looked at Dylan. She could see the same disappointment in his face that she felt herself. For one brief second, Abby had felt like she had an ally.
And that was a dangerous thing to depend on, Abby reminded herself. She knew full well how a man could let her—and more, her sons—down. So she went back into the office and went back to work, doing the only thing she knew how to do, to—
Survive.
