Second Chance (A Secret Baby Romance Novel)

by Carter, Charity

  As a juvenile officer, he seemed to know a little about every kid in town, especially if they were the type to get into trouble.

  “I met them by the bike rack,” he continued. “They think my bike is cool and wanted to know where I got it. Yesterday, they were telling me all about Officer Sparks and his brothers. By the way, why didn’t you tell me I had a famous uncle?”

  “Because you don’t.”

  CJ frowned, not quite understanding what I was saying.

  “Listen, son, until you can accept the fact that Chance is your daddy, you’re not going to be able to claim any of his brother’s as your uncles.”

  “That’s not fair, though!”

  “Why isn’t it fair? Aren’t you the one who’s making the decision not to tell Chance that you’re his son? How can you claim Jeremy or any of the other brothers as your uncles if you won’t claim Chance as your daddy? I know you might not want to hear it, but until you’re ready for Chance to be your dad, you’re just another kid to the Sparks family.” I looked down at my watch. “Look at the time. I need to jump in the shower. You have a good day at school, and we’ll finish this conversation later.”

  I left the room knowing I’d given him something to think about.

  * * *

  CJ

  “Hey man, we heard something about you. Is it true?” Dakota asked as he ran out of the diner the moment I rode into the parking lot.

  I looked at him with a confused look on my face, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “Is what true?” I replied, getting off my bike and sitting down on the curb.

  This time, Spencer spoke up, his eyes wide with anticipation. “We heard that you went out to dinner with Officer Sparks and his family last night. Is that true?”

  “Yeah,” I told them, wondering how they could have possibly known about who I had dinner with. “What’s the big deal?”

  “What’s the big deal?” Spencer replied. “Are you serious? It’s awesome that you got to have dinner with the Sparks family. That family is the bomb.”

  “If you say so. How’d you know I had dinner with them anyway?”

  “A friend of my parents was at the restaurant last night and saw everyone having dinner. How the heck did you end up having dinner with them?”

  “My mom had to go into work last night, and since I didn’t have any dinner, Officer Sparks took me to dinner with him and his family.”

  “Wow! Don’t you think that’s cool CJ?”

  “I guess so. I really don’t think it’s a big deal.”

  “You’re crazy. It is a big deal. I can’t think of any other kid that’s got to have dinner with the Sparks family before. Hey, do you still gotta go down to juvenile after school?”

  “Yeah, the rest of the week.”

  “Do you think Officer Sparks will care if we come along with you?”

  “I doubt it, but he’ll probably put you to work.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Dakota piped in. “I just wanna hang out with him and maybe he can tell me some stories about him and his brother.”

  I nodded. There was no way I was going to admit it to anyone, but I kind of wanted to hear some stories that he may have to tell. It might not be so bad to learn a little bit about my old man.

  * * *

  Chance

  “Tell me about the time you helped the police department catch the guy who robbed the bank.”

  I shook my head knowing I was going to be in for a long afternoon. When CJ came to the station when school let out, he had brought Spencer and Dakota along with him.

  It wasn’t the ideal situation, but I hadn’t exactly made any rules against it either. I also knew that Spencer and Dakota were good boys, exactly the type of kids I wanted CJ to be associating with.

  As soon as the boys walked in the door, I made it clear that if they were going to be hanging out at the station while CJ worked, they were going to be working right along with him. As a matter of fact, I had a project that was just right for three young men.

  I took the boys down to the basement where all of the equipment for the station is stored.

  Over the past year, there had been a huge number of donations from the community, and we hadn’t really had the time to go through it all. There was everything from bedding to sporting goods that nobody had ever had time to go through.

  Since there was so much stuff to go through and organize, I decided to stick around and supervise the three boys. I expected some small talk, but I wasn’t at all prepared for the onslaught of questions that Spencer and Dakota were asking me. CJ wasn’t asking any questions, but I did notice that he was listening intently to the answers I was giving.

  “Here’s the thing, I may work for the juvenile department, but I’m still in law enforcement for the state of Missouri. We work on the same radio frequencies as the police department and the highway patrol. We hear everything they’re doing, and they hear everything we’re doing.”

  “That’s neat,” Dakota said.

  “Anyway, I was off duty and had changed into civilian clothes because I was about to go help my brother work on one of his bikes. I’d heard on the radio that one of the US Banks down on Atlantic had been robbed, and the dispatcher gave a description of the suspect. About ten minutes later, I stopped to fill up my car and, sure enough, a guy matching the robber’s description pulled in next to me, looking nervous as could be. It was obvious that he had been up to no good.”

  “What did you do?” Dakota asked, his eyes looking like they were going to bulge out of his head.

  “I knew I had to be sneaky so I slid into my car, grabbed my cell phone and called dispatch so I could get a description of the vehicle the suspect was driving. I couldn’t risk him seeing me get on a radio. I confirmed with dispatch that the suspect was filling up his gas tank right next to me, and they were going to send officers right away. After that, I just waited for my opening and made my move.”

  “Were you scared that he might hurt you?” CJ asked.

  I was surprised that he was the one who asked the question and wondered whether or not he was even aware of how engrossed he had become in my story. He might have even been more interested in the story than his two new friends were.

  “No, I wasn’t worried at all. I’ve trained in martial arts for years and used what I’ve been taught to immobilize him until help arrived.”

  “You know martial arts?” CJ asked.

  “Sure do. I know multiple forms. I can teach you some sometime if you’d like.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  I looked down at my watch and realized that the boys had been there for over an hour already. “Your time is up here for the day guys. Do any of you need me to call your folks to let them know you’ve been with me and that you’re on your way home?”

  All three boys shook their heads no.

  “Officer Sparks?” Spencer asked. “Was that martial arts offer only for CJ or was that for us too? I’d kind of like to learn some of those martial arts moves.”

  “Yeah,” Dakota added. “There’s some bad people out there these days. It wouldn’t hurt to know how to protect ourselves if someone tried to grab us or something.”

  I looked over at CJ and saw him nodding his head right along with the boys.

  ‘That was an offer for all of you as long as you promise me you won’t use anything I teach you on anyone at school. Martial arts are for self-defense only. If I find out I teach you something, and you use it for the wrong reasons, you will be sorry.”

  “Oh no, we wouldn’t do that,” Dakota promised.

  “That’s what I like to hear. I’ll tell you what, I’ve got some free time this weekend. We can get together on Saturday morning. If you can all get permission from your parents, we can get together here at the station, and we can work on some stuff.” I glanced down at my watch and worried that the kids’ parents might be getting worried about them as late as it was. “Okay, we gotta get out of here. You three did a great job. I appreciate yo
ur help.”

  * * *

  Latrice

  “Mom, how come you never told me that Officer Sparks knew martial arts?” CJ asked after he came home from his afternoon of chores at the juvenile office.

  I looked up from my book, looking into his excited eyes. “I didn’t know about it. I mean, I knew he kind of dabbled in it a little bit back in the day, but I didn’t think it actually went anywhere.”

  “Oh, it went somewhere all right. He got really, really good at it. He even used it one time to help the cops catch a bank robber.”

  “Wow, that’s really impressive.”

  “It is. He’s going to teach us martial arts this Saturday morning down at the station, so we’ll know what to do if any bad guys ever try to grab us or something.”

  “Who is going to teach you that?”

  “Officer Sparks.”

  “You mean your dad?”

  My eyes locked onto his. I had been readying for this knockdown, drag-out battle from the moment I told him about Chance. I was bracing myself, waiting to hear what would be coming out of his mouth next. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Yeah, my dad.”

  He then turned around and walked down the hall to his room as though nothing had happened.

  I have no idea how he had done it so easily and with no emotion whatsoever. I felt like I’d just had the air knocked out of me. CJ had just admitted to me, and more importantly himself, that Chance was his father.

  He may not have said it to Chance personally, but this was a huge step. The walls that he had built up around his heart were beginning to be torn down, and I was glad that he was beginning to see his father differently.

  Chapter Nine

  Chance

  The night that the boys helped straighten out the basement of the station, one of the juvenile detainees escaped from the facility and was on the run for nearly two days.

  Since I was the officer in charge at the time, I worked directly with law enforcement to recapture him, which meant spending night and day on that particular case.

  Once the juvenile was recaptured, I went home and crashed for about twelve hours. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but my body left me no choice.

  I regretted the fact that I hadn’t been at the station for the last two days that CJ reported in. I checked in with Officer McKade, who informed me that not only had he come in on time, but he also completed the tasks that I’d left for him with no problems, and even asked why I hadn’t been there.

  I was thankful that I’d set up the Saturday morning martial arts lesson and hoped that CJ would show up. In the meantime, I decided that I was going to send Latrice a little gift to let her know she was on my mind.

  I was never really good when it came to things like that, but I figured you could never go wrong with flowers. It had been years since I sent her flowers and thought it would be cool if I sent them from the same place she received them from last time.

  There was a small locally owned florist at the corner of 18th and Cherry that was run by Jeanette Heartline, an old friend of the family.

  “Chance Sparks, what in the world are you doing in here?” she asked, surprised to see me in her store.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hartlein, I’d like the buy a dozen of your prettiest red roses, please.”

  “I can do that. Would you like to include a vase?”

  “I don’t know. Do I need one?”

  “You’d be the only one who could answer that. I always tell everyone that the flowers send one message while the vase can amplify what you want that message to say. If you’re sending these to someone special, you might want to consider a vase that the person will want to hold onto long after the flowers are gone.”

  “I hadn’t considered that. Do you have any you recommend? Maybe some I could take a look at?”

  “You know it,” she said with a smile. “I’ve got a ton of them, but they’re all for different occasions. If you’d like, most of my selection can be found over there,” she pointed. “Let me know when you find something you like.”

  I nodded and went off to take a look at the vases. I could feel her watching me, sure that she was wondering who I was buying the flowers for.

  I always figured a vase was just something to hold flowers, and it didn’t matter what it looked like, but I decided to spend some time looking at them to make it more personable.

  What would Latrice like?

  When it came to colors, I knew she liked ones that were soft and warm. With that in mind, my eyes traveled almost straight to a cream colored vase with a purple design painted across the top of it.

  I was drawn to it and could picture the roses inside of it. I grabbed it and carried it back up to the front of the store.

  “I think the flowers will look great in this one.”

  Mrs. Hartlein smiled and nodded her head. “I agree. That’s a gorgeous vase. I’m sure whoever these are going to will love it. Are you going to be taking the roses with you or would you like us to deliver them?”

  “I’d like them delivered please.”

  “Okay, and the name?”

  “Latrice Walker.”

  As soon as she finished writing down the name, she looked up at me, her eyes peeking out over the top of her glasses. “Latrice? Are you talking about the Latrice that I think you’re talking about?”

  I didn’t confirm or deny her question. I just smiled.

  “You know; I heard that girl was back in town. I even told my husband that you’d be knocking down her door when you found out. I always thought you two were such a cute couple. I was so mad at you when you got sent away and messed that up.”

  “Yeah, you and the whole town. Nobody lets me forget about it either,” I quipped as I leaned against the counter.

  “It’s not every day you find a girl like her. She was so sweet and polite. Definitely the marrying kind. I heard the poor thing couldn’t handle things anymore and had to leave town. Bless her heart. I’m surprised someone else out there didn’t swoop her up.”

  “I guess it just wasn’t in the cards.”

  Mrs. Hartlein took the address information and rang up my order. As I handed her my credit card, she leaned in close, like she was about to fill me in on some secret. “Did you hear that she has a son?”

  “Yeah, she has a kid,” I replied as I started playing with my keyring, pretending that I wasn’t interested in that particular topic of conversation.

  “Somebody told me that they think the boy is about eight years old or so.”

  I knew for a fact that nobody had told her any such thing. For one thing, if anyone were to actually see the boy and try to guess his age, they would guess him as being older.

  Mrs. Hartlein was simply fishing for information and was guessing based on how long Latrice had been gone. I figured I might as well tell the truth.

  “He’s ten years old.

  “Ten years old?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hartlein. Don’t act like you didn’t already know that.”

  “If he’s ten, he was definitely born after Latrice left town, right?”

  “Obviously. She didn’t have him in Kansas City if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Do you know anything about the boy’s dad?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nada,” I said, trying hard not to laugh.

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Why would I want to know anything like that? She left. What she did with her life after I got put away was her decision and, quite frankly, none of my business. The only thing I’m concerned about is what happens starting right now. Anyway, when are these going to be delivered?”

  “I can have them delivered this afternoon if you’d like.”

  “That’s perfect. Thank you so much, Mrs. Hartlein. Tell your husband I said hello.”

  I turned around to leave and just as I was about to push the front door open, Mrs. Hartlein spoke up.

  “Chance, can I offer you
a little friendly advice?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I just want you to make sure you don’t overlook the obvious.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That’s not for me to see. Just make sure you keep your eyes open.”

  “I can do that. Have a great day.”

  * * *

  Latrice

  “There’s no way those are for me. Are you sure you aren’t bringing those to the wrong address,” I asked, looking at the beautiful bouquet of roses that Mr. Hartlein was carrying in his arms.

  “I’m positive Miss Walker. These are definitely for you. My wife asked me to bring them to you personally so they didn’t get messed up.” He handed them to me.

  “Wow. Thank you so much. Let me put these down in the kitchen and grab my purse so I can give you a tip.”

  “Oh no, I can’t accept a tip on this order. It was already included when the arrangement was paid for. You have a nice day, and I hope you like your flowers.”

  “I’m sure I will. They’re beautiful. You have yourself a good day.”

  I watched as he walked down the stairs, got into his truck and drove off before closing the door and taking the flowers into the kitchen, sitting them down onto the kitchen table.

  It had been a long time since anyone had sent me any flowers. As soon as I sat them down, their sweet fragrance filled the air. These were twelve of the prettiest red roses that I’d ever laid eyes on, and the vase was just as pretty as they were.

  None of it had come cheap, that was for sure.

  The first thing I did was carefully dig through the flowers, looking for a card. I found one nestled down inside the arrangement.

  Thinking of you. Hoping we can finish what we started ten years ago. Chance.

  I wasn’t prepared for what reading those words did to me. They caused my heart to skip a beat, and I found myself gushing like I did so many years ago.

  Over the last ten years, Chance had changed so much, yet there were so many traits that were still so familiar. He had grown up and changed for the better, but he was still rough around the edges.