08

The house needed new carpet, the paint on the walls was chipped, the linoleum in the kitchen was peeling. She would be crazy to think that the house would sell in its current condition. She was going to have to give it a major overhaul before even considering putting it on the market, which meant that she was going to be here much longer than she had originally planned.

Much, much longer.

Bending down to Libby’s level, Jade tried to offer a smile for her daughter. It was hard to lift the corners of her lips into something that was sincere and honest when all she wanted to do was frown and rant. Nothing in life for Jade had ever been easy and this was obviously not going to be no different.

Now, she not only had to worry about a funeral but she also had to deal with getting a shack back into shape, situating her father’s financial affairs and more importantly, avoiding the home towns bad boy now self-proclaimed heroic high school football coach.

It should have been easy though, right ?

Jade snorted at the absurdity of that statement, not likely.

Resigned to what she had to do, Jade told her daughter, “Sweetie, why don’t you go into the living room and see if you can find something on the TV while mommy tries to sort out this kitchen a bit.”

Libby’s green eyes saw way too much for a little girl. “Mommy, you look sad,” she told her, reaching up with her small hand and touching her Jade’s cheek. “Why are you sad ? Is it because of grandpa ?”

Jade wanted to cry. She barely slept any the night before after receiving the first damning phone call telling her of her father’s death. She drove straight here as soon as Libby had awakened and ever since her arrival it has been like a whirl wind from the first time that she saw Oliver, to identifying her father’s dead body, then running in to Austin at the Cafe and now coming home to a dilapidated house.

Her life sucked, big time.

“I’m fine baby,” Jade reassured her daughter, “Just a little tired is all.” Reaching up with her hand, Jade pushed back a few stray hairs that had escaped Libby’s braid and brushed them back off her face.

“Go on now and play for a bit little one. Mommy will clean up this kitchen and get rid of some of the stinky smell. Afterwards, you can take a bubble bath and I’ll read you your favorite story, the one about the Princess, Sleeping Beauty.”

Libby’s eyes lit up, “Promise,” she said excitedly.

This time Jade had no problems gifting her daughter with a sincere smile. How could she not smile with those emerald eyes twinkling back at her ? “Promise baby.”

Jade stood and watched on as Libby turned on her heel and skipped off to the other room. Jade was well aware of the many mistakes that she had made her in life but that little girl was not one of them. No, Libby was the one thing in life that Jade had finally gotten right.

When she disappeared from sight, Jade grudgingly turned back around and faced the mess of a kitchen in front of her. This was going to be an awfully long night, she mused. Long and tiring.

Not wanting to waste any more time than necessary, Jade went over to the sink and looked up under it hoping that the trash bags were still in the same place that they were when she was a little girl.

Sure enough, they were right where she expected them to be. “Oh daddy,” she murmured, reaching in the cabinet and pulling out a plastic bag to dispose of the old leftover pizza that was the main culprit of the stinky smell that Libby had eluded too.

She went over to the table got straight to work. As she worked in the comfortable silence of the old house and cleared the table more memories assailed her. Good memories. So many different memories of a little girl who looked strikingly similar to her own daughter, growing up in this old house.

This time, knowing that she was alone, Jade let the tears freely fall.

Tears for her forgotten father, tears for a lost soul and tears of a love forever lost

Austin Giles was the past. The past was now and forever gone. She had a future now and that future was her precious daughter, Libby. She was all that mattered to her now and she wouldn’t let herself forget that.

Austin flipped off the light and closed up the locker room after another hard practice. The team was looking good he admitted to himself but they still had a long road ahead. The upcoming playoff game was going to be their first real test. Their performance during that game would tell everything.

He knew that everyone was counting on him to win the State Championship this year but at what cost. He believed that hard work and using carefully thought out strategy was all that was needed in order to get what the entire town wanted. A championship. But the opposing team probably though the very same thing. It would come down to who was hungrier.

He hoped it was his boys, they had both and they were starving. They trained hard and they paid attention, now it was all in the hands of the fates.

“Austin ?”

Internally groaning, Austin turned around and pasted a fake smile on his face. He was utterly exhausted after a mainly sleepless night. His every thought was seemingly filled with visions of both the younger Jade that he had long ago fell in love with and a much more mature Jade, rounded in womanly curves that drove him mad damn near half of the night.

He had made a firm resolve that he would find a way to win her back. Somehow he would prove to Jade that he was not the same bastard that treated her so wrong all those years ago. He would gladly get on his knees and beg every morning, noon and night if she would give him a second chance.

But he knew his Jade. It would take much more than an apology and some old fashioned begging. She needed to be handled carefully, seduced, and loved thoroughly. He needed to right his wrongs in order to rectify the past before he could win her affection.

She was a stubborn one but that was one of her more endearing traits. He had always loved that about her, especially when she set that chin up high in the air and had the gleam in her eyes that dared you to prove her wrong. Yeah, that was his Jade, the very one that he was determined to win back, come hell or high water.

Coming back to the present, Austin replied stiffly, “Ms. Mells, it’s unusually late for you to still be at the school isn’t it ?”

Tina waved her hand flippantly in the air. “Come now Austin,” she all but purred,

« No need to be so formal with me. We’ve known each other forever in more in more ways than one.”

Austin glanced back at the exit and gauged how far it would be for him to just run away. Concluding that running was not the answer to his long standing problem, he turned around and faced her head on. It was time to nip this up in the bud.

“That is not very professional Ms. Mells,” he crossed his hands over his chest and replied sternly.

Tina stalked towards him looking every bit of the she-devil that he knew her to be. She had that look about her, that predatory look warning him she was most definitely on the prowl.

She stopped in front of him and placed her hand on his chest, lowering her lashes in a poor attempt of looking seductive.

Austin flinched back from her touch as if she had burned him and grabbed her wrist, removing it from his chest.