by Zoe York
“Wow, that’s not just a little bit of regret.”
“Bah. I know. But…shaking it off, see?”
“Good.” Mer looked like she wanted to say something else, but decided better of it. Instead, she made tea, and they drank it in the living room while they watched a reality singing show and booed the judges together.
Sleep was a long time coming when Natasha crawled into bed.
The next morning she kept Emily busy with finger-painting and creative laundry folding, but by the time lunch rolled around, she was all out of distractions.
And it didn’t help that Matt had sent a text mid-morning.
Matt: Are you and Emily free for lunch?
Nope. Not free. Not available. She closed the messaging app without replying, doing her best to ignore how good the question felt low in her gut.
Emily bounced in front of her. “Can we go back to the park today, Mommy?”
Natasha gave her a knowing smile and ignored the pang of regret that reverberated through her insides. “Are you hoping to see Matt again?”
Her three-year-old did a surprisingly good job at looking innocent. “I like the park.”
“Mm-hmm.” She dropped to her knees and pulled Emily in tight. “He’s not going to be there. Remember? He said he’s working today. He was just there for one day. He won’t be back.”
How many times would she have to repeat that?
As many as it took to convince them both. “We won’t see him again, but that was a really nice day yesterday, wasn’t it?”
Emily’s head bobbed against Natasha’s neck. “I like him,” she whispered, and pain lanced through Natasha’s chest.
“I know, baby. I liked him too.”
Emily sighed, then pulled away. “Can we watch a TV show instead?”
That was how to get over the disappointment of a hot man being unavailable, one hundred percent. “Sure thing. A Mommy show?”
That made Emily giggle. “No! A Millie show.”
Natasha mock-groaned. “Come on! Let’s watch a Mommy show about cooking. Long and boring.”
More giggles, then a tickle attack that ended up with Natasha sprawled out on the couch and Emily perched like a princess on top of her while they watched My Little Pony.
After two episodes, they went to the grocery store before collecting Logan and Noelle at the school. The kids helped her make cupcakes for dessert, so she could practice her piping skills learned the day before, and then they went out to the backyard while Natasha started dinner. When her sister and brother-in-law got home from work, they all sat down to eat as one big happy family.
She was lucky. Maybe she wasn’t getting laid, and maybe she was a bit lonely in the quiet minutes before she fell asleep each night, but their life could be a lot harder than it was. They were blessed.
“Icing doesn’t melt,” Emily announced as she wiggled her cupcake at Noelle. “Right, Mommy?”
“Pardon, baby?” Natasha heard the words filter into her head a little too late and only realized where Emily was going after she’d missed her opportunity to change the subject.
“Matt said icing doesn’t really melt. It softens. Right?” Emily looked at her expectantly.
So did Meredith.
“Right,” Natasha said, her cheeks heating up. “We learned that yesterday at cooking class.”
“I like Matt,” her daughter continued.
Meredith cleared her throat and took a long sip of her coffee. Dan looked back and forth between the sisters, and Natasha willed him not to ask what was going on. She failed.
“Who’s Matt?” her brother-in-law asked.
“Nobody,” Natasha said at the same time as Emily beamed. “He’s my new friend. He played with Mommy at the park.”
Oh, sweet baby Jesus. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “He’s someone we met at the cooking class. Nice guy. Doesn’t live around here, though. Not a big deal.”
There was a pause, then Dan made an appreciative statement about the cupcakes and the girls started talking about icing colours.
When Naasha dropped her gaze back down from the heavens, her sister was grinning. Nice guy, she mouthed. Named Matt.
Yep. But he’d been a single day’s fantasy, and now she really needed to move past him. Permanently.
After dinner, Noelle dragged Emily off to play with dolls, and Meredith shooed Natasha downstairs. “I won’t ask anything about Matt, but at some point, I want to know more. Now go take a few minutes for yourself before you head to work.”
At some point like four years down the road. That seemed about how long it took Natasha to get over awkward feelings.
She took a long, hot shower, then dried her hair, blowing it out smooth before carefully putting it up in a ponytail. She got dressed in her work outfit of dark jeans and a black t-shirt, then made up her face. Back upstairs, she found Emily dancing toy ponies over the headboard in Noelle’s room.
“Mommy’s going to work, baby. Gimme a kiss?”
Emily launched herself into the air and Natasha caught her.
“Love you so much,” she murmured into her daughter’s hair. “See you in the morning.”
Chapter Four
three-and-a-half years earlier
Valentine’s Day
Bartending while pregnant was a special kind of hell, but the customers at Bailey’s tipped well, and Tasha could use all the extra income she could get right now. For car repairs and savings, too, because she was a complete dummy.
A complete dummy who was going to be a mother in four months, give or take a week. She’d only known she was pregnant for a few weeks—and just how pregnant she was? That was even newer information.
Another reason she’d volunteered to help Malcolm, the owner, tonight was because she could use the ego boost, and she was a damn good bartender. She’d seen on Facebook that he needed an extra pair of hands behind the bar, and she’d leapt on it. Malcolm hadn’t asked why she was so easy to cover the Valentine’s Day shift, but he did poke a bit at her when she came in early.
“Don’t you want to visit with your sister while you’re in town?”
Nope, she thought. Because she might find out that I’m pregnant and have no clue what I’m going to do, and I can’t handle that. Not this week.
At some point, she’d have to deal with the inevitable fact she was going to have a baby.
Alone.
“They’re doing a thing with the kids tonight at the community centre, so I’m all yours,” she’d said brightly.
Now, seven hours later, midnight was around the corner.
Her last Valentine’s Day that she would spend alone for the next eighteen years. She pressed a hand to her belly—still not really showing, just a thickness to her middle, thanks to being long-waisted. Just you and me, kiddo.
It was a Friday night, and Malcolm had gone all out to make Valentine’s at Bailey’s a fun night for everyone, single or coupled or complicated. So the last hour before they closed, technically into the next day, was jammed with people wanting one or two more before they stumbled into the cold night.
Tasha remembered what that was like. That had been her life just a year ago. Party girl, nomad. Always up for hitting the club when she went to see David in the city.
David.
After she cashed out the bar, she checked her phone. No messages. If she’d had any doubt about his resolve to not have anything to do with the baby, his silence tonight spoke volumes.
There would be no Valentine’s love note. No happy-ever-after ending for her and her child’s father.
She shoved her phone into her bag and looped it over her arm before taking the cash drawer back to Malcolm’s office.
He shook her hand. “Thanks for coming in tonight.”
“You know I’ve always enjoyed Bailey’s when visiting.”
“If you ever decide to stick around here longer than a weekend or two at a time, I’d be happy to have you come work for me full-time. You’re the quickest read of
any customer I’ve seen in a bartender, and that kind of thing keeps people coming back.”
Not men, she thought. To them, she was just a pretty face.
Except for Jake. He’d always been nice to her. And then she’d gone and fucked that up by sleeping with him, which was so not what he wanted from her.
He’d offered friendship, though.
“Who knows,” she heard herself saying. “Maybe I’ll move down here.”
It had already occurred to her that she might need to ask her parents or her sister for help. The thought grated, but she had to be realistic. It would be hard to do it all on her own.
“If you do, you get in touch, okay?”
“Will do.”
She grabbed her coat and boots, dressed for the winter, and headed outside to her Jeep. Her expensive Jeep, which she’d driven into a ditch in a snow storm last month. Right after finding out she was pregnant.
Once again her thoughts spiralled to David. To Jake. Comparing them.
Jake wasn’t the right guy for her. She knew that. But he was maybe her only friend in the entire world right now.
She was going to head home in the morning. Drive up the peninsula. Maybe he’d be up for having breakfast or something.
Before she could think twice about whether or not this was a good idea, she pressed the call button.
Each ring ramped up her heart rate. Hang up the phone, she tried to tell herself.
She didn’t listen.
“Hello?” It was short, curt, and not welcoming in the least.
“Jake?” This was a mistake, but she couldn’t hang up now. He’d already have seen that she called and would think the worst of her if she hung up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’m in Port Elgin at my sister’s, and I’m driving home tomorrow. Thought maybe we could have breakfast.” The words spilled out of her so fast she wasn’t sure they were comprehensible.
He heard them—and rejected them soundly. “I’ve got plans.”
Crap. Hang. Up. The. Phone. Instead, she opened her mouth again and poor-me-itis spilled out. “I talked to David. He’s not thrilled. About the baby.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He sighed, and his voice softened. “I can’t be a stop on your way north and south anymore, Tash.”
She’d fucked this up. Lost her chance to have something decent for once. “You were so good, in the hospital—”
He cut her off. “You shouldn’t have called me tonight. Or in general. I mean, if you were in a real bind or something…no. There have to be other people in your life that you can turn to, people you haven’t slept with.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“Well, I thought so too, but this conversation has me thinking otherwise.”
“Oh.”
He sighed. “I wish you well, I really do. But you can’t call me in the middle of the night, okay?”
“Shit.“ She started to cry, which she really didn’t want to do.
“Can you talk to your sister?”
She would have to, sooner than later. But she wasn’t ready for that yet. She sniffed and cleared her throat. “Yeah. I just…I don’t want anyone else to know how much I’ve fucked up, ya know?”
“Jesus, Natasha. You haven’t fucked up.”
“It doesn’t feel like that from here. I didn’t even know I was like five months pregnant. What the hell kind of mother am I going to make?”
He laughed gently. “Probably an average one. No, a great one. Listen, go wake up your sister and tell her all of this. She’s going to be a better support to you than I can be.”
He wasn’t wrong. She should have told Meredith what was going on as soon as she arrived instead of trying to cling to denial like a life raft.
She hated that, and she started to cry harder, but it was silent, and somehow, deep inside, she found the strength to swallow that and wipe her eyes. “God, how much do I suck that I needed to have someone else tell me that?”
He didn’t reply to that, which was good, because she needed to get off the phone and never speak to him again. Jake was a good guy, but he wasn’t her guy, and she needed to go. She mumbled an apology before ending the call.
Well, it was official. She hated Valentine’s Day.
She turned her car on and, as the engine warmed up, she stared out the window at the darkened Bailey’s sign on the side of the building.
Maybe she should take Malcolm up on his offer. For a few months, at least. Move to Port Elgin and have her baby close to her sister. She wouldn’t stay long. A year at most.
And then she’d get her life back on track.
Chapter Five
Present Day again
Matt watched the clock tick painfully slowly toward five o’clock. Before he’d arrived, he’d have argued there was no way this course needed to be three days long. The integration between emergency services and the hospital network seemed pretty straightforward to anyone who could intuitively use a computer, but it turned out that was only a small subset of people involved in healthcare delivery.
And he had another sixteen hours of listening to the instructors patiently explain—over and over again—how to do a basic records search.
At ten to five, one of the instructors said, “Okay, so that wraps up today’s material.” Matt was halfway out of his seat before she continued. “And now we have a ten-minute peer debrief session.”
Fuck. Fine. He took a deep breath and dutifully buddied up with the two people closest to him.
One of them was obviously a goody-two-shoes. She’d sat, ram-rod straight, and taken detailed notes on the entire day. Four pages of notes.
He was quite certain she already knew how to use the system, but one of their jobs was to take this knowledge back to their home EMS stations and act as a subject matter expert. He supposed notes might be helpful in that regard. Probably better than his preferred plan to sigh loudly when people didn’t just fucking get it. That’s the spirit.
He scowled at himself and quickly scrawled the key takeaway points for the day on his blank notebook. Then he turned to the other guy in their debrief triad who still looked confused.
Matt took a deep breath. “So, got any questions?”
It turned out the other guy had made the classic error of overthinking it, and between Matt and Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes, they got him up to speed, but it was five-thirty before they broke up.
“What are you two planning for dinner?” the guy asked.
Anything but more of this. “Uh…” Matt cracked his neck. “I need to call home. I’ll probably go grab something in town after that.” He held his breath until the other two agreed to grab food together in the restaurant on site. “All right. See you guys tomorrow, then.”
And he was on his own for fifteen hours. Not something he’d have been thrilled about a day ago. Not something he was thrilled about now, either, although…
He looked at his phone. Still no text message from Natasha.
Go out. Forget her. But it wasn’t that easy. Yesterday had been something interesting. Something new and different.
She was magnetic on a brand-new level. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
He shoved his phone into his pocket instead of messaging her again. If she wasn’t sure, that needed to be okay. He’d give her time and space.
He’d go out tonight, grab some fries and a beer. See what else the universe had on offer.
But he wouldn’t forget her.
It turned out, that was never a risk. When he stepped through the door of Bailey’s, the pub recommended by the hotel clerk, Natasha was behind the bar, pouring a drink for the customer in front of her.
Thank you, universe.
He strode toward an empty barstool, a grin growing on his face. But as soon as she looked up and saw him, her expression froze.
Ah. Shit.
His steps faltered, but he d
rove himself forward.
Him walking into her bar was a sign. Or something. Whatever, he was taking it.
“Hey,” he said softly. Easy.
“What can I get you?” She asked it carefully, plastering a polite smile on her face. I’m a bartender, you’re my customer. Got it?
He got it, even as wildly inappropriate hope fired inside him. He leaned against the bar and nodded toward the bank of taps. “What do you have that’s local?”
She listed a couple of craft breweries. “I like the Neustadt lager, myself.”
“I’ll take a pint of that.” He scanned the room. Most of the tables were big, and it was pretty busy. He’d be an asshole to take one for himself, but he wasn’t in the mood to make friends, either. At least not any new friends beyond the one behind the bar. The same one who was surprised to see him, and maybe not in the best way. Damn it, his usual skills were suspect. Better to do an honest check-in. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
She shot him a quick glance from where she was pouring his beer. “Sure. It might get busy, though.”
“I won’t stay long.” Lie. He’d stay as long as he could without making her uncomfortable.
She set a tall glass in front of him on a coaster, and he slid a ten-dollar bill across the gleaming wood.
“Do you want a dinner menu?”
“I hear you’ve got good wings.”
“Where you’d hear that?”
“Clerk at the hotel.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Yeah, they’re good. You just want those or do you want to see a menu anyway?”
“I’ll take a menu.”
She moved back to the other end of the bar and, after grabbing his menu from the rack, took a quick drink order there before dashing it back to him.
He could watch her work for hours, he’d guess. And he just might, because once she took his order, she made a point of being elsewhere. Of being busy.