by Sybil Bartel
Just then the door burst open and my gas station angel practically fell through with a squirming toddler in her arms. A large bag over her shoulder, her eyes red rimmed, she looked at me and her shoulders dropped.
“Well, I’ll be….” The waitress trailed off. “If that’s your kid, then strike everything I just said. You step up and make damn sure—”
“He is not mine.” I stood, reaching for the bag on Angel’s shoulder as the waitress moved out of her way.
“Truck!” The toddler thrust a yellow toy truck in my face.
“Ethan,” Angel scolded. “We say hi when we meet people.”
I tossed the bag into the booth.
She sank to the seat just as the toddler arched his back and violently twisted in her arms. “Ethan.”
It was instinct. I reached across the table and plucked the toddler up, saving her from a dislocated shoulder or worse.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, Ethan. What did I tell you about getting down? You have to ask.”
Two big brown eyes looked at me, and a toothy smile spread across the boy’s face. “Pee!”
“Shit,” Angel muttered, getting up. “We’ll be right back.” She reached for the boy.
The boy leaned close to me, put two grimy little hands on my face and stage whispered, “Shit.”
“Oh my God.” Angel shook her head.
The waitress laughed behind us. “They pick up everything at that age. Coffee?”
“Yes, please. But can I have it in a to-go cup?” Angel took the boy from me. “Let’s go, Ethan.” She glanced at me apologetically. “Potty training.” Then she slung the boy to her hip like she was his mother and walked off.
The waitress left and came back, setting menus and a Styrofoam cup on the table. She winked at me. “Don’t worry, sugar, it’s easier when they’re yours.” She smiled as my angel came right back out of the restroom carrying the squirming child. “Or not.” The waitress walked off.
Angel set the boy down in front of the booth. “False alarm.”
The boy scrambled up on the seat and ran his truck over the table, making engine noises.
Angel sat down next to him and smiled shyly. “Sorry we were late.”
I took in the red around her eyes. “What happened?”
“Better late than never,” she said breezily, ignoring my question and absently running her hand through the boy’s curls. “You hungry, Ethan?”
He looked up at her and smiled wide. “Pancakes!”
Her lips tipped up, but her eyes remained sad. “Pancakes it is.”
“What happened?” I asked again, this time with more force in my tone.
She picked the menu up and casually held it in front her. “Auntie Emily needs a new J-O-B.” She smiled at the boy. “Somebody’s boss is M-O-V-I-N-G. Took a job in another S-T-A-T-E.”
The waitress showed back up. “What can I get y’all?”
“Pancakes and a side of bacon. And oh, an apple juice in a cup with a straw please.” Emily rattled off the order, looking like she was going to cry.
The waitress glanced at me. “The usual, handsome?”
I nodded.
My gas station angel, forgetting her sorrow for a moment, scowled at the waitress as she walked away.
“This makes you sad, the job.” I filed away the look she gave the waitress.
She looked at me like I was insane. “Of course it does.”
“You will get another job.” It seemed the appropriate thing to say, but having her tend to another man’s offspring did not sit well.
She put her hands over the boy’s ears. “I won’t get another Ethan.”
I watched the boy run his truck over the table, seemingly oblivious to her. “Have your own children.” All the women on the compound had children by a certain age. She was older than that age.
She kept her hands on the boy’s ears. “Okay, I know you grew up… different, but I don’t just decide to have a kid because I’m going to miss this little rug rat, and presto, I become a single mom and everything’s just peachy. It doesn’t work like that.”
“It could.” I would enjoy making her swell with a child.
“Oh,” she snorted. “Let me guess, you’re offering to help…?” Her hand waved over her stomach.
I didn’t answer. I stared.
Bright red hit her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze. “Jesus,” she muttered, picking up her coffee.
“Jesus!” the boy mimicked.
The waitress brought the boy his juice and stole a glance at Emily. “Cute boy you have there.”
“Oh, he’s not mine.” Angel unwrapped the straw for the boy’s drink. “Nanny.”
The boy looked up at Angel. “Em-em my auntie!” His truck forgotten, he grabbed his juice with both hands and took a sip through the straw. “Mm, apple.” He drank more.
The waitress looked at me, winked, then walked off.
Angel followed her departure. “You come here often?”
“Once.”
Her gaze cut back to me. “You’ve been here only once before?”
I nodded, wondering how she would look with her stomach swollen, suddenly acutely aware that I had been the only man on the compound who had never given his seed away. I had never wanted to. Until now.
“And the waitress knows your order?”
I was not naïve, nor ignorant. By accident of birth, I was tall, strong and blond. I was memorable to women. Of all ages. “Yes.” Both on the compound and off, people placed the most value on looks, and ignorantly, strength came in as a distant second.
“Right, okay.” She took a sip of her coffee, and her cell rang. Fishing it out of her pocket, she frowned as she answered. “I don’t have time for this right now, Phoebs… I said no.” She sighed. “I’m having breakfast at the old diner, okay? Anything else you want to grill me about?” She snorted. “Not happening. Goodbye.” She hung up and shoved her phone back in her pocket.
I studied her, waiting to see if she would say anything about the phone call, but she did not. I picked the toy truck up and rolled it toward the boy. “I have a new starter for your car. I will install it today.”
She looked at me and blinked. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I am.”
The boy took the truck from me and smiled. “Vroom.”
“Ted can do that,” she protested. “I can take my car to his shop.”
“Except you have not, and he has not taken care of it.” He should have fixed it. He had heard the same start of the vehicle as I had.
“Are you going back there?” she blurted. “To see him? Your dad, I mean.”
No. “Why?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “He’s your family.”
I’d thought the brothers and sisters on the compound growing up had been my family. I had thought River Stephens had been my father. I had thought Decima was mine. None of it had been true. Theodore had made his choices. I was making mine. “Your mother is his family.”
“Okay, wait.” She held a hand up in a gesture that was becoming familiar. “First you say we’re not family, but then you say Ted is my family?”
“I did not say that.”
“You might as well have. I’m my mother’s daughter. She’s married to him.”
“And I am his biological son.” But none of that meant family. Not in my mind.
“All right, I’m sure this all makes sense to you, but to me, family is family.” She shrugged as if her statement was not meant as an argument.
“Family is a term thrown away on sentiment and misplaced loyalty.”
She glanced at the boy and sadness crept back into her expression. “I’m sure you’re probably right.”
I glanced at the child. “You see him as family?”
“No, no, I don’t. I just….” She rubbed his hair again. “He just worked his way into my heart.” She kissed the top of his head. “Didn’t you, little guy?”
The boy leaned into her. “Lubbo
o, Auntie Em.”
“I love you too, little man.”
The waitress appeared with plates of food balanced on her arms. “Here we go.” She set the pancakes in front of the child and the rest of the food in front of me.
Angel’s eyes widened as the waitress retreated. “You’re going to eat all that?”
I could eat double the amount placed in front of me. “No.” I pushed the plate with four eggs and potatoes and sausage toward her. “We are. Eat.” I picked up my fork.
The child picked up an entire pancake with his hands.
“Ethan, wait,” Angel scolded. “I’ll cut it up and you can use your fork.”
“He is fine. Let him eat.” I handed her a piece of toast.
The boy smiled at me with a mouthful of food. “Pancake!”
I nodded at his bacon. “And protein. Eat.”
He picked up the bacon while still holding on to the pancake and shoved a bite in.
Angel shook her head. “He’ll choke.”
“He will not.” I had seen children in the compound manage much more food in one bite. I pushed her fork toward her. “Eat.”
Eyeing me, she took the toast and ate a bite. “I think you’re fibbing.”
I forked a whole egg and ate it before answering. “I do not lie.”
She smiled. “You were going to eat this whole plate of food yourself. You’re just being nice by sharing.”
I was not nice. I did not reply. I forked a fried potato and held it out to her.
Pink tinted her cheeks, but she leaned forward and took the bite.
“Me, me, me!” The boy dropped his pancake and waved his arms, his mouth open like a baby bird.
I forked another potato and held it out for him.
He took the bite and chewed. “Mm-mm.”
I wanted to smile.
Angel did smile. “Good, right?” she asked the child.
The boy nodded. “Ketchup!”
“Agree. Ketchup and salt.” Emily reached for the red plastic bottle on the table, but then stopped and looked at me. “Do you mind?”
I had never had ketchup. “No.”
Emily eyed me. “You hesitated. You don’t like ketchup?”
“We did not have condiments on the compound,” I admitted.
“Really? Like at all?”
“No.” Food was food, and you ate what was served by the women in the kitchen.
“What do you put on your French fries?” She squirted a red pile next to the potatoes.
“I did not eat that growing up.” There was no fried food on the compound.
She dunked a potato in the ketchup. “What did you eat?”
“Eggs, game, fish. Vegetables from the gardens. Citrus. Bread.” The same foods were served almost daily, with seasonal rotations on the vegetables.
“Wow.” She smiled. “So no burgers or hotdogs or pizza?”
“No.”
“Pizza!” the boy exclaimed.
The curious look on her face returned. “Is that why you didn’t eat Mom’s dinner last night? You weren’t used to that kind of food?”
I did not eat because I was not breaking bread with a man who had abandoned his parental rights. “No.” I forked a bite of egg and sausage and held the utensil out, enjoying feeding her. “Eat.”
She held my gaze. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“Are you going to answer mine?”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do.” I held her stare. “Eat, Angel.”
She took the bite, and her throat moved with a swallow.
Wanting to put my hands and mouth on her, I ate another egg.
She glanced at the boy, who was back to eating his pancake. “I think you have the wrong idea of why I’m here.”
“I know why you are here.” Color in her cheeks, nerves in her gestures—she was not here because she thought of me as her family.
“Do you? Really? Because I’m not sure you understand.”
Humans were not much different than animals. Behavior broadcasted intentions, fear motivated reactions, curiosity caused mistakes. “I am not your family, Angel. You owe me nothing.”
She shoved food around with her fork. “I’m not saying I owe you….” She trailed off.
I put my hand over hers. “We both know why you are here.”
Her eyes cut to my hand on hers. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
It was the third time she had asked that. “You heard me last night.” I was not hiding my intent.
She stared at my hand. “Callan—”
“I do not eat with a woman I have no intentions for,” I clarified.
She lifted her head up, her chest rose with a sharp inhale, and her expression turned to one I did not understand. “So you’re going to what? Take me? I don’t even know what that means. Have me, keep me, take me back to your compound, play with me like I’m a shiny new forbidden toy until you get tired of me?” She tried to pull her hand away.
Frowning, I held on to her. “There is no more compound. I have living quarters.”
“And you’re going to what?” she asked, incredulous. “Take me there?”
“Yes,” I answered calmly. Where else would I take her?
“And then what?” she demanded, anger filtering into her tone.
Not understanding her agitation, I studied her a moment. “Do women not want to be taken care of by a man?”
She jerked her hand back and dropped her fork. “I have to go.” She grabbed a napkin and wiped the child’s mouth, taking the food from his hand. “Come on, Ethan. We’re done. We’re leaving.” She stood.
“No.” The boy started to cry. “Pancake,” he wailed.
“Emily,” I warned, purposely using her given name.
“No,” she whisper-hissed, picking the boy up. “You do not get to say something like that to me.”
“Like what?” I demanded. “That I would like to take care of you?”
“No, no, no.” She snatched her bag.
I stood. Towering over her, taking in her curves, seeing the curls in her hair bounce as she threw her bag over her shoulder to leave, something close to anger made my chest tighten. “You are not leaving.”
“Oh, yes I am,” she spat. Holding the crying child to her chest, she pivoted.
“Stop,” I ordered, taking money from my wallet.
“Screw you, Callan Anders.” She stormed out the door.
I threw bills on the table, but she was already gone. Striding after her, I was forced to halt as the waitress moved in front of me.
“That woman has a child in her arms,” the waitress warned, planting her feet.
“I know.” Moving around her, I shoved out the door.
Her back to me, Emily buckled the boy in the child carrier. “Don’t you dare come up on me,” she warned, throwing the words over her shoulder without looking at me.
I stopped three feet away.
She slammed the boy’s door closed and got in the driver seat. Her hand shaking, she jammed the key in and cranked the engine.
The old car sputtered but did not catch.
Swearing, she tried again.
Nothing.
I walked to my truck, grabbed the starter and a few tools. She was trying for the fourth time to get her car to turn over when I returned.
I opened her door. “Move.”
Tears in her eyes, anger and frustration in her movements, she got out of the vehicle.
I set the emergency brake, popped the hood and then glanced back at the sniffling child. “Everything is all right. Can you sit for a few minutes?”
Solemn, he nodded at me.
“Good.” I got out of the vehicle and lifted the hood. Disconnecting the battery, I jacked the car up, then dropped to my back and inched underneath.
“What are you doing?” She snapped the question at me.
“Fixing your vehicle.” I disconnected the starter and install
ed the new one. When I got back up, I caught her staring at my thighs.
She quickly averted her gaze. “I could have called Ted.” She threw the sentiment out, but her tone had come down significantly from the inside the diner.
“You could have not run from the meal.” I lowered the jack.
She crossed her arms. “You were way out of line.”
“How?” I reconnected her battery and closed the hood.
Still not looking at me, she studied the pavement. “You know exactly how.”
I did not know how. My hands dirty, I used a knuckle to lift her chin, but she still would not meet my eyes. “Look at me,” I demanded.
Her brown eyes met my gaze.
Six months of solitude reeled through my mind, and for the first time, the thought of going back to my land alone did not appeal. “Tell me you are not interested in me, and I will walk away.” I did not know why she was offended at my statement about caring for her, but she was.
“I don’t—” Her voice broke, and she swallowed. “I don’t get to be interested in my stepbrother.”
She did not pull back. She did not tell me no. She did not deny being attracted me.
Only a fraction, only to make my point, I leaned in. “This is the last time I am going to say this to you.” I held her gaze. “I am not your relation.”
IT HURT TO LOOK at him.
He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And the most infuriating. And he’d fixed my car like it was nothing, even after I’d yelled at him.
I’d worked my ass off since high school to not end up like Phoebe or my mother. I never wanted to need a man. Men left. Maybe Ted was different. He’d stuck around for a few years now, but he clearly didn’t stick around for his own kids. I swore I would never end up like my mother, a single mom desperately trying to make ends meet. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to be like Phoebe, clinging to any man who had money.
Adding to the string of stupid questions I seemed unable to stop asking him, I threw out another. “What do you want from me?”
His blue eyes holding me captive in his stare, he answered simply. “Time.”
He wanted more. His comment in the diner said as much. The cruel irony was not lost on me. The only man who’d ever looked at me like other men look at my sister was the one man I couldn’t have. I didn’t care what he’d said. He was technically right. We were of no relation. But he was still my stepbrother, and I’d seen the looks on Mom’s and Ted’s faces when Phoebe had called him my boyfriend. How would I ever explain to Mom or Ted that we were attracted to each other? Or to anyone else? Phoebe would have a field day with this, but everyone else would judge us.