Another Solution (Crowley County Series Book 4) Read online

  After patting her eyes dry, Karen finally looked up at Jason and said, “Jason, your grandmother is the most open, friendly, and accepting person I’ve ever met.” She wiped her eyes again. “And she’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever met too.”

  Jason almost fell over. Of all the possible reactions he’d had going around in his head, that one sure didn’t even make the top ten. He just stood there staring at Karen until she giggled and reached up to close his mouth for him.

  * * *

  Karen knew she was still blushing when she parked her car at Thelma’s ten minutes later. Wow! Jason’s grandmother was not like anyone she’d ever known anywhere. Sure, she worked with a lot of elderly women in PT but never one quite like this one. Karen was a little cautious about going out to eat with the rest now that Jason’s grandmother would be there. Maybe she would leave Karen alone now that she’d said her piece so to speak.

  It was with all those thoughts going around in her mind that she entered the restaurant and noticed immediately where the rest were already sitting. Jason was waving at her and so was Daisy’s little girl, Lucy. Jason! How did she really feel about Jason especially after Friday night?

  She liked him. She liked him a lot. But did she like him enough to continue to see him, to date him? As he pulled out her chair for her, she knew from the smile on his face. More than that, she knew from the smile on her face that yes, she did want to continue to see him.

  Once she was seated, she realized his grandmother was sitting on her other side. So much for hoping the older woman would leave her alone now.

  “Well Karen, what do you think of my grandson?”

  Direct! Yes, Karen could give her that. She was certainly direct. “Mrs. Walker . . . .”

  “Oh no you don’t Dearie, you’ll call me Miss Hattie just like everyone else around here. Everyone ‘cept Jason that is.”

  That was when Karen took the time actually to look into Hattie’s eyes. What she saw there surprised her. Sure, she expected to see merriment and it was there but she also saw something else. Was it concern? Yes, it was and there was no way Karen could give her the evasive answer she’d been about to say.

  Instead, she glanced at Jason then back at Hattie and said, “I like him.” She smiled at the grinning older lady. “I don’t think that was the answer you wanted but if you’ll give me some time, then I think I can give you a better answer a little later on.”

  With that, Hattie cackled and turned to Mike who was sitting on her other side. “It sure is good to see you walking around the way you are now.”

  Mike grinned at her and said, “Yes ma’am, it sure feels good to me too and I owe a lot of it to Karen.”

  Karen turned back to Jason to avoid that embarrassing comment. She knew he had been following her conversation with his grandmother carefully.

  She tried to grin at him and said, “Now that I think I have your grandmother convinced to back off a little, don’t you think you can too?”

  He gave her a puzzled look and then she did giggle. “You know what I mean Jason Walker.” She thought about it for a second and said, “What is your middle name?”

  “Earl.”

  That came from Hattie who Karen thought was in a conversation with Daisy and Mike.

  When Karen turned to look at her, Hattie said, “He probably wouldn’t have told you.”

  With that, Hattie resumed her conversation with Mike.

  Karen turned back to Jason who was frowning now. She reached out and touched his arm near her on the table, leaned toward him, and whispered. “It’s okay Jason. I really like your grandmother.”

  He laughed loudly and said, “You wouldn’t believe how many times in high school I asked a girl to go out with me and she wouldn’t because of Granny. Or a girl wouldn’t go out with me a second time after she met Granny.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?”

  He grew serious and said, “Probably because they never took the time to get to know her the way you are. They were afraid of her so they stayed away from her . . . and me too.”

  “Oh that’s so sad. They simply didn’t know what they were missing.”

  She giggled again at the shock on Jason’s face. Then she stopped immediately when he said, “You’re special Karen Bierstadt. You know that don’t you?”

  She blushed and looked down at her hands in her lap. He must have known he went a little too far with that comment so he tried to lighten it up a little.

  “How did you ever get such a last name? It’s German isn’t it?” When she nodded, he continued, “Well it must mean beer town then, right?”

  She nodded and laughed along with him. Then she felt mischievous and said, “But look at your name. Are you a walker?”

  They were still laughing when their meals came. Then they settled down to eat with little talking for a while.

  Just as Karen placed her fork down and patted her lips with her napkin before placing it on the table, Miss Hattie turned to her and said, “Now that you’ve finally started dating my grandson, are you going to be one of those girls who takes forever to make up her mind on the rest of it too?”

  Jason spoke up before Karen could organize her thoughts after that startling question.

  “Now Granny don’t go embarrassing Karen again by trying to get her to answer a fool question like that.”

  “Wasn’t a fool question. I for one want to know if this girl is going to string you along for another year before she makes any kind of commitment.”

  Before Jason could continue his argument, Karen spoke up quickly. “It’s okay Jason. I think I can answer this question easy enough.”

  When Jason closed his mouth rather dramatically, everyone at the table laughed but then they grew quiet except for Lucy who was coloring and talking to herself. Everyone else was looking at Karen to see how she was going to answer Hattie.

  Karen looked into Hattie’s eyes and said, “I would say to you that I am not going to string Jason along anymore. If it doesn’t work out between us, we’ll both know soon enough.”

  She could see that Hattie was about to interrupt her so she rushed on to finish. “But if it does work out, then I for one will be quick to admit it.”

  She leaned back in her chair almost exhausted from that exchange.

  Hattie looked at Jason and said, “How about you Son?”

  Jason grinned at his grandmother and then turned to Karen before he said, “I already know it’s going to work out so you won’t have a problem with me.”

  Karen wanted to get angry at Jason’s confidence but somehow she couldn’t. She liked knowing exactly where she stood with him. That had never happened to her before, especially with Larry.

  * * *

  As Jason was driving Granny home, he was surprised at how quiet she was. They were almost there and she’d barely said a word to him since they left the restaurant. Of course, she had said plenty while they were there, especially to and about Karen.

  He was hoping that Karen wasn’t upset with him about the things Granny had said. She sure could be embarrassing at times.

  “You’re going to marry that girl.”

  Jason almost stomped on the brake. But before he could react in any other way, she continued, “Soon you’ll have a family of your own and you won’t be having time to come out here to help me keep this old place up.”

  Now, he really didn’t know what to say. Was she thinking about selling the farm? Where would she go? What would she do? He dearly loved his granny, but he was positive that the two of them would never be able to live in anything close to harmony in his small townhouse.

  “Now Granny, you know that I’ll always have time for you no matter what else is going on in my life. And if as you say and also as I wish, I marry Karen and have a family with her, you know she’d never keep me away from you or anything you’d ever need from me.”

  He pulled up in front of the house and they each turned toward the other on the seat.

  She reached out
, patted him on the cheek, and said, “You’re a good boy Jason.”

  With that, she opened her door, slid to the ground, and walked up the steps to the porch. She didn’t even look back when she went through the front door.

  Jason knew not to follow her. She wanted to be alone now and when he thought about it, so did he.

  All the way back to town, he kept thinking about first, his most recent conversation with Granny, then the scene she’d made at Thelma’s earlier. He was now convinced that Granny was up to something . . . but what. What could she be planning now? He knew without a doubt that whatever it was would probably affect him drastically. But would it be good or not?

  Just as Jason was approaching the center of town to turn left to go home, he decided to turn right instead and head out to Mike’s house. Over the past year, he’d done a lot of talking to Mike. At first, it had all been for the purpose of keeping Mike’s spirits up before he was able to walk. But since then, it had mostly been Mike trying to keep Jason’s spirits up as he waited for Karen. Well that was part of what he needed right now wasn’t it?

  As soon as Mike let him in the front door, he took one look at Jason and said over his shoulder. “Daisy, it’s Jason and we’ll be in the family room.”

  As Mike led Jason through the kitchen into the family room, he looked around for Lucy. Daisy’s five-year-old daughter would normally be in there watching TV.

  Mike noticed and said, “Lucy is taking a nap right now so we have the room to ourselves for another half hour at least.

  As soon as they sat down, and before Jason could even open his mouth to say anything, Daisy appeared and handed each of them a glass of iced tea. She was gone again before Jason barely had time to thank her.

  Mike laughed at Jason’s look of surprise. “Married life sure can be good.”

  Jason laughed with him then Mike sobered first and said, “So, which do you want to talk about first, Karen or Miss Hattie or both?”

  Jason really laughed then. “You sure are getting to know me pretty well aren’t you?”

  Mike held up both hands. “Hey. What are friends for man?”

  Jason blew out a huge sigh. “Okay. Karen. You saw how she acted Friday night and at lunch today. What do you think? Do you think she likes me?”

  Mike chuckled. “You know her well enough by now to know that if she didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be anywhere near her, right.”

  Jason nodded already thinking of his next question. “All right then, what do you think the chances are of us getting really serious?”

  Mike grew thoughtful with that question. “I think your chances are mighty good. In fact, Daisy said Karen shared with her once months ago what qualities a man would have to have before she would consider marrying him.”

  Jason thought he was going to have to prompt Mike but he realized that the guy was having fun at his expense as he drew it out as long as possible.

  “Well, Daisy and I think you fit that list to a ‘T’.”

  Jason took a moment to digest what Mike had just said then he let out a whoop, jumped up, walked around the room once, and sat back down.

  “Okay, what do I do next?”

  Mike laughed at that. “You’re asking me, the guy who didn’t want to be around anyone much less a woman until Daisy and Lucy just walked into my life determined to stay?”

  Jason rubbed his neck and grinned back at Mike. “Well, since you put it that way.” Then he raised his voice when he called out, “Daisy!”

  Daisy rushed into the room and looked from one to the other then said, “Jason Walker. What was that all about?”

  Mike motioned to the couch and jumped over there ahead of her. When she sat next to him, he placed his arm around her shoulders and said, “It appears that Jason needs a little relationship advice and I told him I wasn’t the one he needed to be talking to.”

  She pulled away from Mike’s arm, looked into his eyes, and said, “Michael Ray Bates, just what have you been telling Jason?”

  Mike held up both hands as if in surrender. “I only told him that you knew so much more about things like that than an old cop like me ever would.

  Still not convinced, she finally turned to Jason and said, “Okay, Jason, what do you want to know. Maybe I can help you.” She glared at Mike. “And maybe I can’t.”

  Jason stopped laughing long enough to say, “All I want to know is what do I do next?”

  Daisy slapped her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. Jason wasn’t sure she was going to answer him but then through her giggles, she said, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” both men shouted at once.

  She was grinning at them now. “That’s right. Don’t do anything except be yourself when you’re around Karen and everything else will take care of itself.”

  Jason left there glad he’d stopped by. What Daisy had said made sense, a lot of sense.

  * * *

  When Karen left Thelma’s, she felt restless and didn’t really feel like going home just yet. So she decided to go grocery shopping. After all, her cupboards and refrigerator were both getting rather empty. If she wanted to eat at home this week, then she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  When she was leaving the store pushing her cart of groceries, she almost ran into a man who stepped right in front of her cart. She looked up to see a new therapist from work. She thought quickly and all she could come up with was Ben.

  “Hello, Karen. It’s nice to see you out away from the clinic.”

  “Hi Ben, yes, I had to go shopping if I wanted to eat this week.”

  An awkward silence developed and Karen was trying to think of a way to get past him without being rude when he smiled and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you if you would like to go out with me sometime.”

  She wasn’t surprised. She’d noticed how he’d been watching her around the clinic. She was about to give her old standard answer that she wasn’t dating right then when it dawned on her that she was.

  With a smile on her face, that she quickly suppressed for fear that Ben might get the wrong idea, she quickly said, “I’m sorry Ben, but I’m dating someone else right now.”

  As she was putting the groceries into her car, she realized how strange it was to be able to say she was dating someone. But it felt good. It felt very good.

  She was still smiling as she began putting her groceries away at home when the phone rang. Once she saw that it was her mother, she quickly stuck the rest of the refrigerated items in the refrigerator before answering.

  Her mother barely made it past the greetings before she started in on Karen as if they were in the midst of a conversation.

  “Karen, you know Dear that you’re getting too old to be single anymore. Why you’re thirty years old now. Don’t you think it’s about time you found a good young man and settled down?”

  Karen could have predicted almost word for word what her mom had just said. She didn’t really want to have this conversation right now, if she ever did, so she decided to stop the attack before her mom got going good.

  She was about to tell her mom about Jason when she said, “I just happened to run into Larry Palmer recently at the Walmart. He was in his uniform and my does he ever look good in that thing.”

  Karen took a deep breath and plunged in. “Mom, I’m over Larry. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  “Oh Karen, you don’t really mean that. He asked about you and he said he really missed you and wished you hadn’t moved away like you did and he’d like to see you.”

  Karen caught herself before she ground her teeth. “Mom, it’s over. It was over the day he decided not to show up at the church. And I will never go back to him.”

  “But Karen . . . .”

  “No Mom, listen, I’m seeing someone else right now, and I really like him.”

  “Who is he? What does he do? Oh Karen, you need to tell me all about him.”

  Too late, Karen realized her mistake. So she resigned herself to telling her mom about
Jason. Otherwise, she might never get her off the phone, or even worse, her mom might just get in her car and drive the thirty miles from Springfield to grill her in person.

  “Okay Mom. Jason is a county deputy and I met him almost a year ago when he brought a friend of his into the clinic. I still wasn’t ready then so I put him off when he asked me out. But lately, I’ve decided that I’m ready and we’ve been seeing each other.”

  She hoped that wasn’t really a lie. True, they’d only been out once but they had seen each other more than that hadn’t they?

  After her mother tried to get more out of her and gave up after ten more minutes, they hung up. Karen looked at the dry goods still on the counter she hadn’t put away yet and shook her head. She reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed for the living room.

  She sat in her favorite armchair and leaned her head back, letting her long hair fall behind the chair. She just sat that way for at least thirty minutes taking an occasional sip of water.

  When she finally felt as if she was over the grueling phone conversation with her mother, she was about to get up when the phone rang again. Oh no! One look told her what she didn’t want to know bur really already knew. It was her sister this time.

  Bonnie was so much like their mother that it usually made Karen feel like an outsider. She was nothing like either one of them. To make matters worse, most of the time there was little difference in the conversations Karen had with the two. And this time was no exception.

  Bonnie picked right up where their mother had left off. But there was one glaring difference that caused Karen to sit up and take notice, literally.

  Karen knew that Bonnie was smiling slyly when she said, “I talked to Larry just the other day, and he said that he would really like to get back together with you.”

  Karen was speechless. Why was her sister, who lived in Oklahoma City, talking to Larry who lived in Springfield? It didn’t take Bonnie long to answer that unspoken question.

  “It seems that after he met Mom at the Walmart, he thought he’d give me a call and see if I could help him out.”

  “Wait!” Karen was angry now. She did not like to be angry but if there was one person in the world who could make her angry without even trying, it was her sister.