Inspiration struck as she drove down the 15 freeway. She activated her hands free cell phone and made a call.
“Hello?”
The low, male voice made her smile. “Hi, Josh. What are you doing Saturday afternoon?”
“Not much. Aren’t you seeing Brandon?”
“Uh-huh. We’re off to one of those big arcade places. Laser tag, go-karts, video games and pizza. Sound like fun?”
“Are you asking for me or for him?”
“Both. I was thinking having you along would make things easier.”
“You were, were you?”
“Uh-huh. I happen to know you find me unbelievably sexy. There would be a reward in it later. A really good one.”
“That’s tempting.”
She heard the amusement in his voice. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Okay. You win. What time?”
* * *
CRISSY FELT AS if an entire butterfly marching band was practicing in her stomach. She wanted to blame the symptoms on something easy like morning sickness, but she’d yet to feel the slightest bit different on the pregnancy front. Instead she was forced to deal with the ugly truth—she was terrified.
Not scared, not nervous, but down-to-the-bone terrified that she would do something to make Brandon hate her. Or worse, think she was stupid.
She tried telling herself that everything would be fine. She and Brandon got along great. As long as they were having fun, he would be too busy to think she was stupid. If only she could believe herself.
While their time together was nothing more than an afternoon of hanging out together, to her it felt like so much more. She felt as if her entire relationship with her son was on the line. That was enough to make anyone feel a little queasy.
She pulled up in front of Abbey and Pete’s house. Before she could get all the way up the walk to the small porch, the front door opened and Brandon stepped out.
He looked as nervous as she felt. As she moved closer, she saw a little excitement in his eyes, but a lot of uncertainty. At least they had that in common.
“Hey,” she said. “Ready for a fun-packed afternoon?”
“Sure.”
They stared at each other in a moment of awkwardness. She sensed some kind of physical greeting was called for. The last time she’d stepped into this house, she’d just been a friend of the family. Now she was his birth mother. That had to rate some kind of contact. But hugging felt like pushing things and ignoring the issue seemed cold. Not knowing what else to do, Crissy offered her hand.
Brandon’s relief was instant. He took it and they shook. Weird, she thought, but a start.
The front door opened and Josh stepped out.
“Hi,” she said as their eyes met.
“Hi, yourself.”
She had no trouble imagining all sorts of fabulous physical greetings with this man. A lot of them involved being naked—perhaps not the best idea under the circumstances, but something she would want to explore later.
His smile told her he had the same sort of thing on his mind.
She loved this man, she thought in that instant. The feelings had been growing so slowly and she’d been distracted by Brandon, among other things, so she hadn’t had a chance to notice. But she loved him. He was who she’d always been waiting for.
But what would happen when he found out about the baby? Would everything work out or was there a long, ugly road of pain ahead?
“Uncle Josh is coming with us,” Brandon said. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” she told him, refusing to think about what might happen. Instead she would focus on today and spending time with her son. “With three of us, we can be our own laser tag team.”
His eyes widened. “We’re gonna play laser tag?”
“You bet. I’m thinking that we’re going to kick some serious butt. What do you think?”
Brandon grinned. “They’re going down.”
* * *
“FANTASTIC FUN” WAS a multiacre complex with every possible way to spend money on a kid. Crissy had gone online and purchased a day pass, allowing them access to all the activities—except video games. While she had ideas about what she wanted to do, she wanted to give Brandon the chance to make some choices, too.
“Cool car,” Brandon said as Crissy locked the vehicle.
She smiled at her BMW 330i. “It was a gift from me to me. Sort of a self-congratulations for a job well done with my business.”
“Sweet ride,” he said, sounding closer to sixteen than twelve.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Josh said, grabbing the boy around the neck and rubbing his knuckles across his head. “You’re a long way from driving.”
“But when I get there, maybe I can borrow her car.”
“Or maybe not,” Crissy said, wincing at the thought of a new driver taking the BMW out for a joyride. “We’ll have to wait and see how things go.”
“I’m very responsible,” Brandon said with a grin. “Just ask my mom.” His humor faded. “My, ah, other mom.”
Great. They weren’t even across the parking lot and already they were in awkward land.
Crissy put her hand on his arm. “Brandon, Abbey is your mom. She’ll always be your mom. I’m Crissy. Unless you have another name you want to call me.” She paused for effect. “One that I would have to approve.”
That earned her a sweet smile. “Okay. Crissy’s good. For now.”
“If you call her Queen Crissy, you might have a better chance with the car,” Josh offered.
Crissy eyed him. “You’re supposed to be neutral, big guy. Like Switzerland.”
“All right, Uncle Josh,” Brandon said. “Great idea. Queen Crissy. I like it.”
They were still laughing when they walked inside.
After an intense discussion about where to start their fun, they decided on laser tag. Vests, goggles and laser guns were provided, along with a map of the course.
The three of them huddled together to scope out the competition.
“Them,” Brandon said, pointing to a group of giggling teenage girls. “They aren’t going to be into the game. They’ll be slow and shoot bad. We can totally annihilate them.”
“So speaks the compassionate member of our team,” Crissy murmured, wanting to defend her gender, but knowing Brandon was right.
“We’re here to win,” he told her. “That family should be next.” He pointed to a father, mother and two little boys about five and six. “They’re too young to be good.”
“Culling the weakest members of the herd,” Josh whispered into her ear. “Your gene pool at work.”
She grinned. “If we were still hunting the woolly mammoth, I’d want Brandon on my team.”
“So would I.”
They fleshed out the rest of their strategy, which included staying together to protect each other’s backs, along with scouting expeditions to scope out any ringers in hiding.
Once inside the dusky corridors of the laser tag course, Crissy found herself getting seriously into the game. She no longer cared about defending her gender or giving the teenage girls a break. Instead she wanted the highest possible score.
They moved purposefully, staying together. The corridor opened into three possible routes.
“On your right,” Crissy yelled, seeing movement in that direction.
Both Josh and Brandon turned and fired. Crissy instinctively turned the other way in time to fire on the father of the family.
Twenty minutes later they pored over their score sheet. Their total hits as a team was more than double anyone else’s in the maze with them.
“Not that we had a lot of competition,” Crissy said. “Brandon, you did great. Look at your number of shots
and your number of hits. Your accuracy is just over eighty percent. Josh, you’re barely at sixty percent. You’re going to have to be on probation.”
“I have other skills,” he muttered, then took the sheet from her. “What about you, missy? You think you’re so hot and... Oh.”
Brandon grinned. “Look, Uncle Josh. She kicked our butt. Jeez, Crissy, your accuracy is higher than mine and you got off more shots.”
“I’m competitive,” she said primly. “Don’t mess with me during a game.”
“I guess not,” Josh said. “I think it’s time to even things up. Now we’re going to play a game that I can win at, what with being a doctor and all.”
Crissy groaned. “No way. It’s boring.”
“It’s a game of skill and patience. I have both.”
“What’s he talking about?” Brandon asked.
“Golf,” she said with a sigh. “Or in this case, miniature golf.”
Twenty minutes later, Josh was kicking both their butts.
“It’s all his putting practice,” Crissy told Brandon. “We can’t compete against that. Those doctors and their golf games.”
Although in Josh’s case, his victory had to be about something other than his skill at golf. She happened to know that he rarely took time off and that he didn’t play much golf. His patients got nearly all his attention.
They stood on the fifth hole and faced the slow-moving windmill.
“The trick with this one is timing,” Josh said confidently. “Watch how the blades move. You’ll need to shoot between them.”
“Are they really called blades?” Crissy asked. “Aren’t they something else?”
“I have no idea.”
“We could go back to my place and look it up on the computer.”
Josh patted her shoulder. “Sorry, no. We’re staying through the whole game. A game, I would like to point out, you’re losing.”
“I hate this game. It’s stupid.”
Brandon grinned at her. “Come on, Crissy. You have to learn how to lose gracefully.”
“Never. I pout when I lose.”
They made it through the turning blades and down onto the second level of the hole. Crissy had been nervous about spending time with Brandon, but everything was going smoothly. He was easy to be with, she thought. A fun, funny, smart kid. Her kid.
She felt a tightness inside. A longing and a powerful sense of regret. If only...
She shook her head. If only what? If only she’d kept Brandon? If she had, he wouldn’t be this charming boy. He would be someone else. Who he was now was a result of Pete and Abbey’s influence. They had done so much for him. She would always be grateful. Yes, she had regrets, but they were selfishly about her. Knowing all she knew now, she wouldn’t wish for anything better for her son.
He caught her looking at him and smiled. She smiled back.
“I talked to Mom about what you said,” he told her. “About giving me up for adoption. I know you were trying to tell me that it wasn’t about me.”
Her good mood evaporated. Oh God. Was he emotionally scarred? Angry? Depressed?
“It wasn’t,” she said. “Do you understand that?”
“Yeah. She explained it real well. She said it was like the difference between me, Emma and Hope. They’re a lot younger than me and can’t do stuff I can do. When they get older, they’ll be better at it, you know. You were young when you got pregnant. You didn’t know how to be a mom or raise a kid. It would have been hard for you and not very good for me. So you found someone who was ready to have a baby.”
He shrugged. “It worked out for the best. I love my mom and dad. Now that you’re older, you can cope with me and we can be friends.”
He sounded so rational and together, she thought, amazed and more grateful to Abbey than she could say.
“So we’re okay?” she asked.
He grinned. “Uh-huh. But Uncle Josh is going to brag about beating us for the rest of the day.”
“We can’t let that happen. We’ll try harder.”
“There’s no point,” Josh said smugly. “I’m in my element.”
The rest of the time flew by. Crissy couldn’t believe it when she glanced at her watch and saw they were already ten minutes late returning Brandon. She called Abbey who was delighted the outing had gone so well, then herded both guys to her car and drove back.
When they reached the house, Brandon jumped out. “That was fun,” he said. “Can we do it again?”
“Absolutely. I was thinking one weekend we could go to an Angels game.”
His eyes lit up. “That would be great. I love baseball.”
“Me, too.”
He ran around the car and threw his arms around her. Slowly, carefully, she hugged him back.
He was tall and skinny, all bones and muscle. Not a little boy anymore but still her child. Emotions flooded her—mostly good ones, with a hint of sadness for what could never be recovered, even if she didn’t want it to be. Then he was running up to the house and going inside.
“You okay?” Josh asked.
Crissy nodded as she blinked. “I’m not going to cry. I’m not sad at all. I’m happy. It was just a lot to take in.”
“He likes you.”
“I like him.”
“You’re going to be good for him. You’ll be someone he can go to for advice. When he grows up, he’ll talk about you to his kids and they’ll hear the love in his voice when he does.”
She swallowed. “Trying not to cry here. You could help by not saying stuff like that.”
“Sorry.”
But he didn’t sound sorry. He sounded pleased.
“Thanks for coming along,” she told him. “I was so scared.”
“I know, but it worked out.”
“Because you were there. It would have been awkward otherwise.”
He moved close and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re doing great. Trust your instincts.”
“I will.”
He glanced at his watch. “I need to swing by the hospital. I want to check on a couple of kids. What are you going to do?”
“Go thank Abbey for everything, then head home.”
“I’ll call you later.”
“I’d like that.”
When he’d driven off, Crissy walked up to the house and knocked on the front door. Abbey let her in.
“Brandon can’t stop talking about what a great time he had with you. You’ve made a fan.”
Crissy impulsively hugged her. “Because of you, Abbey. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been great.”
Abbey hugged her back, then waved her toward the kitchen. “I’ll take the praise because I like it, but you’re making too big a deal out of this. I just did what anyone else would do.”
“I don’t think so. You’ve been amazingly generous. Brandon told me what you said to him, about why I gave him up for adoption. He understood perfectly. You always know exactly what to say.”
“I wish.” She walked over to the sink and washed her hands, then dried them, rubbed them with flour and began kneading dough.
Crissy had heard about the process of baking bread, but she’d never seen it before. “You do that a lot, don’t you?”
“A couple of times a week. It’s how I relax.”
“I go for a jog or eat ice cream.”
“I can get behind the ice cream suggestion. As for the whole jogging thing...” Abbey paused, frowned, then shook her head. “Nope. Never jogged in my life. I have no real plans to change that, either.”
“You have other qualities.” Crissy sat on the stool by the island. “You didn’t have to be so nice.”
“Neither did you. We’re all delighted this is working out. Brandon needs you and I think you n
eed him.”
Crissy could agree with the latter, even as she questioned the former. But she liked the sound of being needed by her son, so she would go with it.
“I have a question,” she said, wondering if she was about to be incredibly personal and/or rude. “But if you don’t want to answer it, you don’t have to.”
“That sounds intriguing,” Abbey teased. “Unfortunately my life isn’t that interesting, so I’m going to guess your question isn’t about me.”
“It’s about Josh.”
“And?”
Crissy looked at her. “He’s wonderful with his patients. I’ve seen him interact with them. He’s great with your kids. But when he and I were talking, he said he didn’t want children of his own. What do you know about that?”
Abbey sighed. “He said that?”
Crissy nodded.
“I was hoping it was just a phase he would get over, but apparently not.”
“A phase?”
“I’m being a horrible person,” Abbey said. “I know that, so just go with it. The no-children thing is because of Stacey. She couldn’t have children. Something I can relate to. When Josh told me, I thought it might be something we could bond over. You know, a shared experience to bring us closer.”
“You weren’t close?”
Abbey hesitated. “Not really. I didn’t... Let’s just say Stacey wasn’t my favorite person.”
“You’re kidding. I thought she was a saint or something. Josh met her while she was visiting sick kids in the hospital.”
“Drama queen is more like it,” Abbey muttered. “Okay, forget I said that. Stacey had to deal with a lot of tragedy in her life. She was sick and knew that when the cancer came back it would kill her. That’s enough to make anyone wonky. But she carried it to the extreme. I had problems when I was younger, but you don’t hear me talking about them. I’m healthy and I want to live my life. But not her. Talking to Stacey was like living in a gothic novel. Everything was doom and gloom. When I mentioned adoption, she refused to discuss it. It was too wrong for her to take in a child when she could be dead by morning on any given day.”
Abbey dropped her chin to her chest. “I sound awful. I know I do. Stacey went through so much more than anyone should. She suffered greatly and in the end, the cancer came back and killed her. It’s just...it’s almost as if...” She looked at Crissy. “I swear I’m going to hell, but it’s almost as if she was happy when it did. Like it proved everything she’d said.”
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