Riding and Regrets

Jody Bates just wanted to fit in and forget his past, but you can’t escape everything.

Jody Bates had a hard life as a kid, but he’s moved past that and is making a home for himself at the Mossy Glenn. Sometimes he smarts off, but he’s young, and he’s learning.

What he hasn’t learned yet is that you can never completely escape your past.

Jody has a few blank spots, things he can’t quite remember. Like a lot of kids, he did some stupid things and figures he’s lucky to have come out relatively unscathed. Sure there’s a scar here and there, but on the whole, he’s doing just fine.

But something that happens brings about an enormous change in his life. Jody finds himself with a kid he didn’t know he’d fathered and memories trying to surface about the drug-filled night the child had to have been conceived. Jody, at twenty, is overwhelmed and more scared than he’s ever been in his life.

Noel Cuthbert needed a change. He was tired of the bar scene, tired of getting dumped. He seemed to have a six-month expiration date per relationship. The last guy almost broke him in more ways than one, and moving across the country had sounded like a brilliant idea when he’d first thought of it.

Now he’s in Ashville, Montana, and his Aunt Gertie is doing everything she can to talk him into staying. She needs his help, and Noel needs to be needed.

And he’s never seen anyone who needs him more than the young man who walks into Gertie’s daycare with a screaming toddler on his hip.