The Perfect Match (Blue Heron #2)(9)

“Fourteen.” His unofficial stepson had been ten when Tom met him. Hard to reconcile that talkative, happy little boy with the sullen teenager who barely spoke these days.

A fleeting pain lanced through his chest. Charlie wouldn’t miss him, that seemed certain. One of those situations where Tom wasn’t sure if he was doing any good whatsoever, or if, in fact, his presence made things worse. Melissa, Charlie’s mother, was dead, and her brief engagement to Tom qualified him as nothing in the boy’s life today, even though Charlie had been just a few months away from becoming Tom’s stepson.

Whatever the case, Tom didn’t have much choice about whether or not he was staying in the States. He’d emailed his old department head in England, who wrote right back saying they’d take Tom back in a heartbeat. There weren’t any other colleges in western New York looking for someone with his credentials. And teaching was what he loved (when the students were actually interested in the subject matter, that was).

And so, Tom had decided to drive to Pennsylvania, visit the only relative he had in this country and start the goodbye process. He’d been in the States for four years now, and Aunt Candace had been good to him. Not to mention delirious with joy when he called after his last class to see if she was free for dinner. He even took her to the mall so she could buy a coat, proving a fact Tom firmly believed—he was a bloody saint.

“Here. Have more pie, darling.” She pushed the dish across the table toward him, and Tom helped himself.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Lovely town, Manningsport,” she said. “I lived near there as a child, did you know that?”

“So you told me,” Tom said. His lovely old aunt could bake, that was certain.

“Finish that pie, you might as well. I’m prediabetic or some such nonsense. Then again, I’m also eighty-two years old. Life without dessert is too horrible to contemplate. I’ll just overdose on caramel corn and die with a smile on my face. What was I saying again?”

“You used to live near Manningsport.”

“Yes, that’s right! Just for a few years. My mother was a widow, you see. My father died of pneumonia, and so she packed my brother and me up and came to America. Elsbeth, your grandmother, was already married, so she stayed in Manchester with her husband, of course. Your grandfather. But I remember the crossing, seeing the Statue of Liberty. I was seven years old. Oh, it was thrilling!” She smiled and took a sip of tea.

“So that’s how you became a Yank?” Tom asked.

She nodded. “We lived in Corning, and she met my stepfather, and he adopted Peter and me.”

“I never knew that,” Tom said.

“He was a lovely man. A farmer. Sometimes I’d go with him to deliver milk.” Candace smiled. “Anyway, we moved after my brother died in the war. I was fifteen then. But I still have a friend there. More of a pen pal, do you know what that is?”

Tom smiled. “I do.”

“A pity you have to leave. It’s beautiful there.” Candy’s gaze suddenly sharpened. “Tom, dear...if you really want to stay in the States, you can always marry an American.”

“That’s illegal, Auntie.”

“Oh, pooh.”

He laughed. “I can’t see myself going that far,” he said. “It might be different if—well. It’s not an option.”

It might be if Charlie actually wanted him to stay. Needed him. If Tom were anything but a thorn in Charlie’s side, he might give it a whirl.

He had two thin job prospects with manufacturing firms, both requiring experience he didn’t have. If those didn’t work out (and he was almost positive they wouldn’t), he’d be heading back to jolly old England, which wouldn’t be awful. He’d be near his dad. Probably meet some nice girl someday. Charlie would barely remember him.

The pie suddenly tasted like ash. He pushed back his plate. “I’d better be off,” he said. “Thanks for the visit.”

She stood up and hugged him, her cheek soft against his. “Thank you for coming to see an old lady,” she said. “I’m going to brag about this for days. My grandnephew adores me.”

“You’re right. Ta, Auntie. I’ll call you and let you know what’s happening.”

“If I happen to know someone who might be interested, can I give her your number, dear?”

“Interested in what, Auntie?”

“In marrying you.”

Tom laughed. The old lady’s face was so hopeful, though. “Sure,” he said, giving her another kiss on the cheek. Let the old bird feel useful, and that way, maybe she wouldn’t feel so bad when he went back to England.

There was that pain in his chest again.

It took four hours to drive back to Manningsport. Four hours of wretched, icy rain and windshield wipers that smeared, rather than cleared. The weather thickened as he approached the Finger Lakes. Perhaps he wouldn’t get in too late to grab a bite (and a whiskey) at the pub he was becoming too fond of. Chat up the pretty bartender and try not to think about the future.





CHAPTER TWO

SIX WEEKS AFTER her failed marriage proposal, Honor was starting to panic.

Online dating sites had offered her all of four matches: her brother Jack (pass); Carl, her brother-in-law (he and Pru had registered to see if eCommitment would say that they were compatible, then planned to meet and pretend to be strangers as part of their ongoing quest to keep things fresh; he was also a pass, obviously); Bobby McIntosh, who lived in his grandmother’s basement and had strange, reptilian eyes; and a guy she didn’t know who listed “reincarnation” under his hobbies.