The Scent of Rain by Jones Julianne

Author:Jones, Julianne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Castle Publishing
Published: 2015-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Jaena and Mitchell

Chapter Eight

“So this Marcus is your uncle?” Mitchell and Jaena were sitting in the café drinking coffee. Most of the other students had left and the waitress had started placing the chairs on tables. Mitch had asked for more of her family history and Jaena had told him Marcus’s story.

“My father’s cousin actually. I guess that makes him my second cousin.”

“And he was like a father to you?”

“He’s the only father I’ve ever known. He took me to father-daughter nights at school and Girl Guides. He built me a gym set in the backyard when I went through my I-want-to-be-an-Olympic-gymnast stage. He helped me with my homework – especially physics which was never Mum’s strong point – taught me to drive, and was always there.”

“And he was around from the time you were a baby?”

“Not quite that early. But for as long as I can remember. He took me to see my father’s parents, too. And his family. So that I would know my roots.”

“And it never struck you as unusual that he was always around? That he never married?”

“Oh, I can explain that. He was in-love with my mother but she always considered herself married to my father even after the divorce was final. It’s just the way she was. Even after my father was killed she had a hard time thinking of herself as single again. I guess she held marriage in high esteem – despite what your family said about her.”

He ignored the jibe – or appeared to, but his next words made Jaena wonder later if he was getting back at her for what she’d said.

“A single man and a single woman all those years. I’d say there was something suspicious about that, wouldn’t you?”

Jaena pushed back her chair so violently that it fell to the floor and caused the waitress to look at them in surprise.

“Mitchell Gallagher, you have a dirty mind filled with sordid thoughts of the worst kind,” she hissed at him and stormed out.

*********

“How’s it going with your young man?”

Jaena stopped where she was sorting through jars of buttons and looked at her mother. “My young man?”

“Mitchell Gallagher. You should invite him home one day.”

“First, he is not my young man. Second, I am not going to invite him home. Ever. Third, we’re not even talking. And fourth, I never want to see him again.”

Madi walked over to the French doors and swung them open. Winter had been, for the most part, mild this year and Madi was making the most of the sunshine. It wouldn’t last – in fact snow was predicted for higher altitudes the following week – but for the moment they were enjoying the respite from what would soon be unrelenting cold and dampness. “What happened?”

“He had the audacity to suggest that you and Uncle Marcus had been having a relationship all those years when I was growing up. Can you believe it? How rude and obnoxious is that?”

“He wouldn’t be the first to think so.”

Jaena stared at her mother.

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