Free Small-Town Mom by Jean C. Gordon

discussion when he obviously knew her feelings about her son participating in anything military-related, and appreciation of his ready acquiescence to her opposition.
    “Sorry I was so short. I know you weren’t talking just to Myles.” She eyed his empty glass. “Do you want more milk?”
    “No, thanks. I should be going.” Eli followed Myles’s lead and cleared his plate and glass from the table. “Got to be up early for church tomorrow. Speaking of which, I meant to tell you that I’m glad you’re letting Myles come to youth group.”
    Was that a dig? She scanned his face. No, it was just Eli. She was so sensitive to everything lately. There were certainly a lot worse things Myles could be doing than going to youth group with Tanner. Her chest tightened. As long as Myles remembered what she’d told him when they’d stopped going to church, to not slip into the complacency of trusting in a higher power that wasn’t there. Myles had to learn that he was responsible for himself.
    “Thanks, again, for the pizza.” He grabbed his coat from the coat pegs by the door and let himself out.
    “So, Mom.” Myles bounded into the kitchen. He had to have been lurking around the corner in the living room. “Did he tell you?”
    “Yes.”
    “About the rifle class? He’s going to be teaching a rifle class.” Myles’s voice rose in excitement while her heart plummeted. “Did he give you the information and registration form? He had it in his coat pocket.”
    “We didn’t get that far. I told him I didn’t need to know more.”
    “Mo-om! I thought he could talk you into it. I guess it didn’t work.”
    “Mr. Payton knew better than that.”
    “You’re always against me. Now you have Mr. Payton against me. You’re at me all of the time to do something constructive. He wants me to get involved in group activities. I come up with something I want to do and you shoot it down.”
    “I can’t let you.”
    “Dad would have let me,” he spat back.
    “Your dad…” Her voice cracked. “Is why I can’t.”
    “Doesn’t matter. You know I’m going to blow this town and enlist as soon as I’m old enough.” He stormed from the room.
    She let him go, but not without wishing Eli hadn’t gotten Myles going on the course, no matter how good his intentions might have been. Her life had become as up and down as a roller coaster ride since Eli had entered it. Things might have been better if she could have held on to her initial dislike of him. But the more she saw Eli, the more she liked Eli. To maintain any semblance of tranquility, her best plan might be to avoid him. Her heart tripped. Tranquility might not be all that it was cracked up to be.

Chapter Six
    “T GIF,” the birthing center office assistant said as she and Jamie left the center. “Autumn joining the midwife practice has taken some of the pressure off Kelly, but it’s upped my workload—at least this week.”
    “You’ve got that right.” After a hectic week with an unusually high number of deliveries at the birthing center, Jamie was more than ready for one of her rare weekends when she wasn’t on call.
    “Got plans?” the other woman asked.
    “Bowling league tonight and nothing else for the rest of the weekend, except shopping with the girls Sunday afternoon. They’ve both outgrown the shoes they got for school back in August.”
    The woman laughed as she opened her car door. “Good luck with that. I’m not a shopper and am so glad my daughter is old enough to shop on her own.”
    Jamie waved goodbye. She was surprised at how much she was looking forward to bowling again. Soon after she’d first moved to Paradox Lake, Karen Hill had asked her at church one Sunday if she bowled. When Jamie admitted to being on her high school bowling team, Karen had talked her into joining the Friday Fun league she and her husband belonged to.
    It had sounded like a good way to get a break from her single-parent role one night a week. She’d hired