The Life of Esther Jameson

Chapter Sixteen

"Kade's here!" Jenny yelled from the living room. I sighed in defeat and leaned in close to Cora's ear.

"We're going to finish this conversation." I whispered before I walked away. What was happening to everyone? Except for the kids, it was as if everything was starting to go wrong every since Jackson came back. It's like he brought some sort of twisted curse with him. I would have to deal with those problems later. I had a fiancee to feed.

"Hey, beautiful." Kade smiled and leaned down to give me a short kiss. "Sorry I'm late."

"Really late." I mumbled against his lips before we pulled away. "Were you on vacation?"

"Nuh uh." He replied. "I had an emergency."

"Emergency?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "For what?"

"Work." He shrugged. "But that's in the past now. I would like to spend time with you and your family. Is that okay?"

Liar. Or I'm still crazy.

"That is absolutely perfect!" Miriam chimed as she practically strided towards him. "You're just in time for dessert."

"Hi, Miriam." Kade chuckled and placed a kiss on her cheek.

"Hey, man." Jackson muttered and I almost thought that I was seeing double. If I knew any better, I thought that Jackson would break Kade's hand, not shake it. Something was definitely wrong with me.

"The more the merrier." Joseph applauded and gave Kade a very firm shake.

"It's good to see you again, sir." Kade nodded politely. It took a while for Joseph to accept that Kade would eventually become part of the family, and sometimes I believe that there's still beef between them that would probably never get resolved, which was completely unbeknownst to me as to why.

Nothing really made sense anymore.

---

"I have some news." Kade spoke up among the sound of clinking metal utensils.

"News? What news?" Jenny piped up as if something had just mentioned cotton candy.

"This has nothing to do with the wedding does it?" Miriam said warily.

"No." Kade cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with cloth. "It's work related."

Work. His work. Kade's job. Everything had to do with his job.

Jackson didn't care in the least about what we were talking about. His chocolate cake hadn't known the horrors of his fork ever since Miriam gave it to him ten minutes ago. If we were kids he would have devoured that in 20 seconds flat. I guess times do change.

"I'm going on a trip." He said it like it was a good thing. Which it was perfectly fine, except for that fact that I had no idea what he was talking about.

"You're going on vacation?" Jenny's eyes lit up like the fourth of July. "Lucky!"
"It's not a vacation, Squirt." Kade laughed heartily at my sister. "I have to go there to work."

"When do you leave?" Miriam asked him.

"In a couple of weeks." He replied, and then he turned to me which caught me off guard. "I need to talk to you about that."

"Uh..." My mouth hung open unattractively. "Okay."

We excused ourselves from the table and walked out to the front porch.

"So," I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. "When were you planning on telling me this?"

"I just did." Kade chuckled. "I wanted to make sure that you were okay with me leaving."