by Serena Bell
This, however, was not.
This was a seven-year-old staring at him as if he could see straight into Jake’s head, which for all Jake knew, he could. Maybe sharing genes with someone gave him a more than usual ability to read your thoughts. It wouldn’t surprise him. Sometimes he felt like he and Sam shared more than eye color, an affection for pinecone baseball and lipstick bowling, and a love of running.
Lie? Tell the truth?
Before he could decide, Mira stepped in. “Why would you think that, Sam?”
Excellent dodge, Mom.
It was a good idea, but she was messing with the wrong seven-year-old. Sam had apparently done a lot of thinking on this subject.
“My dad is a soldier, and you’re a soldier.”
“Was a soldier,” Jake said.
“Are a soldier,” Mira said. “You are a soldier.”
She meant it as an expression of faith in him: You’re afraid you can’t do it, but you can. But it felt like a warning: Be careful what you promise him, because there will come a time when you have to go.
“You took care of me yesterday like a dad,” Sam said. “I just thought …”
There was defeat in Sam’s voice. Mira’s ploy was working. Sam had backed down, realized that he’d made a colossal leap, and was preparing to retrench.
His words fully penetrated Jake’s brain.
You took care of me yesterday like a dad.
He remembered how hard his heart had beat in the cab on the way over. The way it did when he was infiltrating a theoretically empty building at night, men ahead of him waving him on, men behind him covering his ass. Because some loser had showed up to harass his son’s babysitter, and he was going to cut off that loser’s balls and shove them down his throat.
He remembered the feel of Sam, curled in his lap, crying. Not because he was weak but because he was a seven-year-old boy and the world was still unpredictable and incomprehensible and he depended on adults to make sense out of it. To fight for him and tell him the truth and take care of him.
He remembered the way he’d set his nose against Sam’s tearstained cheek, the snuffles and sighs and hiccups Sam emitted as he’d realized he was safe and begun to relax in Jake’s arms.
He remembered how easily the words had come.
Being brave means being afraid and still doing what you want to do or have to do.
A father’s words.
“Can I help make pancakes?”
Sam had given up. Decided, under his own steam, that he’d been an idiot to draw the conclusions he had. He’d probably never ask the question again, or not for years.
Jake could be “the babysitter” for as long as he wanted.
He thought of the paternity test Mira had offered him, weeks ago. The time when it might have mattered seemed so long ago. When loving Sam might have been a matter of a technicality and not an inevitability.
He turned to Mira, and she must have somehow seen the question in his eyes, because her face softened, as sweet and vulnerable as it had been that night by the lake, before life had toughened her up. But he mouthed it anyway, because he wanted to be sure, because he didn’t want to take anything from her, because she deserved this decision after she’d made so many on her own, feeling her way in the dark, alone. Can I tell him the truth?
She nodded. Just that, a barely-there gesture that had the power to change three lives.
“Yeah,” he said, and he reached out and touched Sam’s cheek, still warm from sleep. “I’m your real dad.”
Chapter 22
They made and ate an obscene number of pancakes and way too much bacon, and they answered Sam’s questions and absorbed his small-person recriminations. Sam was very, very angry with both of them. He accused Mira of telling lies.
She had, of course, lied to him. There was no getting around that. But she calmly—as calmly as she could with her heart thudding in her chest, with her mind racing to try to figure out what the hell this meant—explained to him that she’d tried to find Jake but that she hadn’t known his full name or that he’d been a Ranger, and rather than telling Sam that his dad was out there in the world but couldn’t be found, which might make him upset, she had told him the sperm donor story.
“I am upset,” Sam said, with unusual acuity for a seven-year-old.
“I’m really sorry, buddy,” Jake had said, and served him three more pancakes polka-dotted with chocolate chips, which calmed him down a bit.
There would probably be years and years of therapy to sort that one out, but for now, things were peaceful.
Mira did the dishes while Sam and Jake played chess.
“How would you feel—?”
Jake had startled her, coming up behind her while she was doing the dishes and whispering in her ear. Not sweet nothings, though. A real question. “How would you feel if I took Sam to Oregon to meet his grandmother and aunt and uncle and cousins?”
“Now? Today?”
“You can come, too, if you want.”
“It feels—too soon.”
“Too soon for what?” he asked.
Too soon for another family to get involved in her son’s life, and maybe have opinions about how he should be raised. Her own family was bad enough, and she had years of experience dealing with them.
“They don’t know, right? About Sam? About me?”
“No. I didn’t want to tell them before Sam knew, in case …”
He didn’t have to finish. They both knew all the reasons for caution.
“What if they don’t react well?”
“They probably won’t,” he said. “Because of the weird musty smell that follows you everywhere.”
She couldn’t help it; she giggled.
“They’re going to love Sam, and they’re going to be thrilled to have new family. Take my word for it.”
He made it seem so simple.
She packed her things, and Sam’s. The plan was to pick Jake’s stuff up on the way. “I can pack in five minutes,” he said.
“I’m envious.”
“It didn’t take you so long.”
“Longer than five minutes.”
“Did you pack—?”
She reached down and pulled out the box of condoms, and he grinned.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
“My dad,” she said. “I usually call him early Saturday mornings, so he’s probably just calling to make sure I’m still alive. He worries.” She swiped to answer it. “Hey.”
“Hi, sweetheart. Just calling to check in on my two favorite people.”
“Can Sam and I maybe give you a call tomorrow? We’re about to head out.”
“Out where?”
That was not a question she could answer.
“Mom!” said Sam, bounding into the bedroom. “Who’s that—is that Grampy?”
She nodded.
“Can I just talk to him for a second?” her father asked. “I want to tell him what I did yesterday.”
She handed the phone to Sam.
“Grampy! We’re going to Oregon.”
It was one of those slow-unfolding-disaster moments. She reached for the phone and put her finger to her lips to shush Sam, but there was no averting this one.
“With Jake! To meet my aunt and uncle and other grandmother!”
She could hear her father’s voice, but not what he was saying, and then Sam said, “He’s here. He slept—”
She snatched the phone back, Sam protesting.
“Dad—”
“Was he about to tell me Jake slept over?”
She sucked her breath in sharply. Jake was watching the whole thing, creases deepening between his brows. She grimaced. I know.
“Mommy? Can I have the phone back? Why’d you grab it?”
“Don’t lie to me, Mira.”
“Dad, calm down.”
“I will not calm down. We had a conversation about this. I told you what a bad idea I thought this was. I told you all the ways I thought this could en
d badly for you and Sam. Are you sleeping with him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Mommy?”
“Mira, what are you thinking? I was there last time. I watched it all play out. You got your heart broken. You got left holding the bag in the most serious of ways. You can’t trust him not to hurt you again like that.”
“Dad, stop. I’m a grown woman. I can run my own life.”
“Mira, this isn’t just your life. This is Sam’s life, too, and I can’t just stand by and let you—”
“Hey, Dad? We have to hit the road. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she told her father, and hit “End.”
“Mommy, I wanted to talk to Grampy!”
“We’ll call him back tomorrow.” She racked her brain for a distraction. “Sam, did you want to bring some of your cars with you? There are Legos at the beach house. You can get a big Ziploc out of the kitchen drawer and fill it up.”
When Sam had raced downstairs, Jake said, “That didn’t look like fun.”
“Not fun.”
“He’s not my biggest fan.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No.”
“You okay?”
“I just wish—I wish he’d give me some credit for knowing my own mind and being able to take care of myself.”
He reached out and put his arms around her. She leaned against him and let the heat and comfort of his body soak into hers. He bent his head and touched his lips to her hair, his breath warm against her scalp. She loved that he didn’t try to argue with her or say that her dad probably gave her more credit than she knew. He just let her have the moment. Once, a long time ago, he had been the easiest person in the world to talk to, and all the things that had bothered her had come unknotted. He could still do it, could still work her emotions loose.
“Hey,” he asked. “Can I ask you a favor? Can I drive down to the beach?”
“Why?”
“I feel more comfortable when I’m driving.”
All the ease that had just flowed into her leached out again. What was it with men who thought they could handle things better than she could? “I’m a really good driver.”
“I know you are,” he said. “It’s just—I hate being driven by anyone else. Because of—”
“Oh,” she said.
He sighed deeply, and the tension dissipated from his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said.
“Oh, Jake,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“No. You’re fine. You would have no way of knowing.”
“Why don’t you have a car?”
He sighed. “It’s part of my not getting my life together yet. I felt like there was no point if I was going to go back to active duty.”
“Buses aren’t a problem?”
“No, for whatever reason. If there are enough people, it’s distracting. But cabs are.”
“Oh, God, and you took a cab to come help Sam yesterday.”
He waved it off. “It’s crazy. I should get over it. Probably if I were still in therapy, the therapist would tell me that I have to do exposure therapy until it doesn’t freak me out to be driven by other people anymore.”
She tilted her head. “You want me to drive? You can expose yourself.” She gave him a dirty wink.
He laughed, and then the laugh twisted off.
“You okay?” she asked.
“You make me laugh. And you make things okay that I didn’t think would ever be okay again. You know?”
She nodded. Yeah, she knew.
He came close and kissed her, his mouth hard on hers, tongue instantly possessive. “If Sam weren’t down the hall …”
“Yeah?”
“I’d bend you over the bed,” he said.
An arrow of pleasure diffused in her pelvis like bright light. “Wow,” she said. “Um, hold that thought?”
“Held. Make you a deal,” he said.
“Uh-huh?”
“I’ll let you drive part of the time, but I drive in bed tonight.”
Oh, God, that turned her on, too. What was wrong with her? She liked the whole big male dominant gorilla act way too much. “I can live with that.” She could better than live with it; she’d be fantasizing about it all the way to the Oregon coast.
“Where are we staying at your mom’s house?”
“Sadly, probably with Sam,” he said. “But I will find a way. Trust me?”
“Completely,” she said. And meant it.
Oh, God, what am I doing?
“Okay if I drive first?”
She touched his hair, put her lips to his clean-shaven cheek, and breathed the soap scent of him in. “Yeah.”
Chapter 23
Jake drove the whole way. Instead of taking I-5 south, he took the route that brought them closer to the Pacific, so he could wind down through the bays and inlets of Raymond and the other oystering towns of the southern Washington coast. The sun was out, and the broad, flat expanses of water sparkled and shone. Sam fell asleep first, his breathing buzzy from the backseat. Ten minutes later, Jake looked over to see Mira’s head lolling back against her seat. It was peaceful, driving the two of them as they slept, the car like a bubble, warm and quiet.
He had called his mother early this morning to tell her he was bringing “someone who was very important to him.” He’d been scheduled to spend this weekend with her anyway, and his sister, brother, niece, and nephew were all supposed to head out to join them. He didn’t tell her who Sam was. Too weird to do that over the phone. Better to show up and shock the hell out of her.
Over pancakes, Sam had issued an endless series of questions.
“Can I tell the kids at school? That I got a dad?”
“Huh,” Mira said. “Let me give that some thought, okay, Sam?”
“What do I call you?”
Jake had given Mira a stricken look. Because he suddenly couldn’t find his voice. It was choked back beneath layers of grief, and he was afraid that if he spoke, he’d break down, and he didn’t want to scare the hell out of Sam.
“What do you want to call him?”
“Can I call him Dad?”
Mira looked to him for approval. For a moment he was too staggered to move. He hadn’t thought it would matter to him what Sam called him, but it mattered. God, it mattered. He nodded.
Sam mulled it over carefully. “I might forget sometimes and still call him Jake.”
“That’s okay, too,” Mira said.
Jake had looked at Mira over the top of Sam’s head, and she’d smiled at him, and he’d thought, This.
And then, I’m in so deep.
Mira woke up when they pulled onto the bumpy access road to his mom’s beach house. “Are we here?”
“Uh-huh.”
He parked in the driveway, and Sam whimpered in the backseat and woke up.
“Is this my other grandma’s house?”
“Yup.”
And there, in the doorway, was Sam’s other grandma. She looked good, a little heavier than Jake remembered, which wasn’t a bad thing, because she tended not to eat when she was stressed out. She’d been barely more than a frame to hang clothes off by the time he’d left Walter Reed. Her hair was all puffed out like she’d been walking on the beach, a mass of silver that was sometimes tight curls but right now was a cloud. She came down the steps to the car and hugged Jake. “Look at you!” she said. “Look at you driving and walking and—you look great! You look—happy. Healthy. Oh, so good to see you looking so good. Oh, Jake.” She reached up and patted his face.
“Mom. I have some people I need you to meet.”
Mira got out of the car. She was pale; he could see it from here.
“Mom, this is Mira.”
“Hello, Mira.” His mother extended her hand, polite. Her face was quizzical, but she was willing to be patient, he could see, to find out what all this meant. Who Mira was to him.
I’d explain it if I understood it, Mom.
“And this guy—” Jake put his ar
m around Sam’s shoulders. “This is Sam. Mom. You might want to sit down.”
He tried to warn her with his voice. To give her a moment, a little space to process what was sure to be a large shock.
His mom took a step back. Then another. Then she took his advice and sat down on the steps leading up to the house. Her eyes were huge and fixed on Sam’s face.
“He’s mine,” Jake said.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God. Jake. I would have known. Just look at him. Why—why didn’t you—” Her hands came up, open, pleading.
“I didn’t know. Until I came home.”
His mother’s eyes flicked to Mira’s face, but he shook his head. “It’s not her fault. She tried to get in touch with me. She tried for a long time. She thought my name was Jake and that I was a grunt, and it didn’t occur to her to look for a Ranger named Jackson. And then I was so off the grid for so long—she would never have been able to track me down, even if she’d had the right name.”
“I should have called you Jack,” his mother said, irrelevantly, staring at Sam without taking her eyes off him. “My God. Sam, you said? Sam, how old are you?”
“Seven. Almost eight.”
“God. Jake.”
There were tears in Jake’s mother’s eyes. He’d given her so goddamned much to cry about this year. He hated that more than anything. If he never put tears in her eyes again, it would be too soon.
I’m sorry, Mom. So sorry for everything. For scaring you half to death. For coming home broken.
When he’d been a boy, she’d sometimes said—like when she had to pour isopropyl alcohol on an open cut—“This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
This hurts me more than it hurts you, Mom.
“I’ve made you cry. Again.”
She looked up at him. Saw the look on his face, the apology, the pain. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, over Sam’s head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Are you crying, New Grandma?” Sam asked.