Best For Me | jensoo

Chapter 1

Jennie bit her lip and frowned as she tried to manoeuvre her car into a space that was just large enough to take it. Some idiot had parked two large SUVs over the line, and Jennie's rather smaller car just fit in between them, with not a lot of room on either side. Blowing the blonde tendrils of hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face, she put the car in park and turned around. Smiling at the little girl strapped into a car seat in the back, she signed with her hands, saying the words as she formed them.

"We're here."

She was rewarded with a gorgeous smile, the same smile that had melted Jennie's heart for the last four years, and an excited look in the eyes. Shaking her head slightly in disbelief over how lucky she still felt, she squeezed her way out of the car and got the back seat open. Fumbling with the catches, she managed to get her daughter out in one piece – thankful that she was so small – and set her on the ground next to the car. Warning her with a look and a quick sign to stay back between the cars, she found her various bags, and locked up. Taking the small hand in hers, and looking both ways for cars, she made her way to the lift, her heart beat stepping just a beat faster as they passed the same sign they passed month in and month out: St. John's Children's Hospital.

They emerged on the eighth floor, and Jennie felt Elly tug on her hand, pulling her along the corridor. For her daughter, this was a fun place, full of toys and kind people. For Jennie, this was a place of mixed emotions: a place where they were told how sick their daughter was; a place where they were told there was a chance to make her better; and a place where she'd held her infant daughter in her arms and cried, pouring her heart out with thanks that she was going to be all right. All of that had been two years ago, but Jennie could feel every emotion tucked away neatly inside her. Taking a deep breath, she let Elly pull her along.

They got to the ward in plenty of time, Elly jumping out of her skin with excitement. The playroom in the children's ward was enormous, and the kids almost universally friendly. Not that Elly didn't have enough toys at home, but, being an only child, she got lonely. When they got to the half-doors separating the play room from the corridor, the young girl stopped in her tracks, and Jennie peered in to see what had made her so suddenly uncertain. Instead of being filled with laughing, screaming, crying, paint-covered, playing children, the inhabitants of the ward were all seated neatly and, amazingly, sedately on the ground, surrounding a young woman on chair.

She was about Jennie's height, or so she estimated. Brown locks hung on her head, loosely pulled back, but with enough loose to create gorgeous tendrils down the sides. She was strumming a guitar lightly and singing along, the children's voices gently joining in. From the angle Jennie was standing at, she couldn't see her face, but her voice was sending shivers down the blonde woman's spine.

She felt Elly take a step back into the shelter of her legs, gripping Jennie's hand tighter and looking unsure. Jennie reached out and put a hand gently on her shoulder, and looked down into her daughter's face, encouraging her to step forward. She heard a voice, as beautiful in speech as it was in song, murmur at them from across the room.

"It's okay, come on in." The sentence was said in the most inviting tone possible, and without the speaker missing a strum on the guitar. Changing keys, she went on with the song, smiling at Jennie and Elly as they came in and sat down. Jennie looked at the musician's face and tried to put her thoughts back into some coherent order.

God, she's beautiful, she thought.

Elly, still scared, held a tight hold on her mother's hand. They sat down, and Jennie crossed her legs, pulling her daughter into the shelter of them on her lap. Hugging her arms around the little girl, she swayed slightly, torn between watching her daughter and watching the girl on the guitar. Elly had a look of wonder on her face. She couldn't take her eyes off the lady at the front of the room, her head moving slightly to the up and down motion of the strumming hand. Jennie was taken aback by her daughter's fascination, but had to secretly admit her own. There was something very beguiling about this woman.