Alton's Secret Baby

by Iris Parker

  After staying here a while, however, I’d gotten used to it. Nanette’s maternal instincts always seemed to be in high gear, and she adored taking care of people. Living here was also her dream job. In her own words, she wasn’t about to stand there and watch you realize how easy it is.

  Truth be told, after the first few years I’d even started to enjoy it. Not just having someone around to help, but what I really liked was the feeling of belonging I got whenever I came here. It was like this place was its own little bubble of peace and acceptance. Cliché though it may be, I really looked forward to coming here every summer and being greeted with a big smile and a freshly baked pie waiting for me.

  Jessie would feel that way, too, with enough time.

  I couldn’t wait.

  “It gets easier,” I promised, after Nanette had set up the table and left us alone.

  “I don’t know what to say. To her or to you. ‘Thank you’ seems so inadequate for everything you’ve done,” Jessie said. “I’m a bit overwhelmed.”

  “There’s nothing else to say. I’m happy we get to do this,” I explained as my eyes trailed across Jessie’s face. She was beautiful, but even after a full day of sleep I could still plainly see just how much she needed quality time to rest. Her eyes were still shadowed by the hint of dark circles, her cheeks were sunken, and she looked downright haunted.

  Jessie had pushed herself well beyond the point of exhaustion, that much was clear. It made me want to reach out and hold her, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. I caught myself before I did, though.

  “Besides,” I added. “I needed some time to recover, too. Not nearly as badly as you, but still. And there’s absolutely no way I was going to abandon you back in Boston while I came here alone.”

  “I thought it was so Ezra could recover?”

  “Him too, of course. The way I see it, all of us needed this very badly. Ezra, you, me, even the baby. I’m just glad that I had a place where we could all go together.”

  Jessie nodded, her hands tightly placed together on the table. They looked small and fragile. Without thinking I reached out, wrapping my own hands gently around hers.

  The smile she gave me warmed my heart.

  Nanette came back with our food, two plates of the best lasagna I’d ever tasted. Jessie withdrew her hands, traces of confusion and fear returning to her face. The two women made small talk for a few minutes about the greenhouse Ed and I had surprised Nanette with, along with the arugula they were growing year round.

  Through the whole conversation, all I could do was watch Jessie. She had me wound up so tightly, all without trying or even realizing the effect she had on me. In Atlantic City she’d made me feel, for lack of a better term, relationship-curious. But being with her here in the farmhouse, and taking care of her while she slept, had added to that considerably. I was filled with protective instincts, a host of feelings that I hadn’t even realized I was capable of.

  “So,” Jessie asked after Nanette left and we’d started eating. “I’ve been wondering since you first told me about this place. How on earth did you end up owning a farmhouse in New York?”

  “Well, my first trip up to the Catskills was fantastic. I didn’t have a whole lot of outdoor experience at the time, of course. But from the first time I went fishing, I was hooked,” I explained. “It was obvious I’d want to keep coming back. When the real estate agent told me this place was for sale, I knew right away what I had to do. The lake, the seclusion, everything here is just perfect.”

  “Even how quiet it is? You don’t really seem like the kind of guy who enjoys the quiet life,” Jessie said carefully.

  “Well, I wouldn’t really call it quiet here,” I laughed. “Nanette doesn’t like people helping her, but her husband doesn’t have that problem. If I’m not building or repairing something for Ed, he has me out chopping and stacking firewood. Leaves my arms sore for days after, but I swear I leave here in better shape than I arrive.”

  I saw Jessie’s eyes dart to my arms, and trail their way up to my shoulders before she caught herself. When she realized I was watching, she blushed and quickly looked down.

  “It’s okay,” I said, my voice coming out a lot more hoarse than I intended. My own gaze followed hers to the table, and I realized she’d barely touched her food. “Also, you need to eat.”

  “What’s okay?” Jessie asked, still just sliding the lasagna around on her plate with a fork.

  “This,” I said, motioning between the two of us. “Us. Now, are you going to eat something?”

  “What about us, exactly?” Jessie asked, ignoring my question.

  “What, you want me to say it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessie said, putting the fork down to cross her arms over her chest.

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “But I’ll say it out loud if you promise to stop ignoring your food. You’re here to take care of yourself, too, you know.”

  Jessie nodded.

  “What I mean is, you’re not that good of an actor. Nobody is,” I answered.

  Jessie just looked at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to continue.

  “Atlantic City,” I said, finally addressing the elephant in the room directly.

  Jessie blanched. With a trembling hand, she pushed the plate back and began to stand.

  “Sit back down,” I said sternly, and Jessie immediately sat. Taking matters into my own hands, I reached over and began to cut a small portion of lasagna for her. “Like I said, it’s okay. I understand why you were there, and what you intended. But there’s no need to pretend like that’s all it was. The chemistry between us was real. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Alton…,” Jessie began, trailing off.

  “Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll drop it and never mention it again.”

  “You’re not wrong,” she said quietly. “There was chemistry. Is. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever future we might’ve had, I destroyed it back in Atlantic City.”

  “You were trying to save Ezra.”

  “And it didn’t work. You saved him, not me. All I did was ruin your life.”

  “My life is great,” I pointed out. “I have no complaints.”

  “For now,” Jessie whispered. “But what happens when the baby comes? I never had any intention of forcing you to raise her. That’s why I cut contact with you. But I don’t think we can have it both ways. If I stay in your life, then we can’t just pretend like she isn’t your daughter.”

  “Who says I want to do that?” I asked. “I’m hardly the first guy to be surprised by a pregnancy. Accidents happen all the time.”

  “Don’t you see? You’re just proving my point. She wasn’t an accident!” Jessie said, her pain so palpable that it broke my heart to hear. “From start to end, everything about this pregnancy was planned. In meticulous detail. You have no idea how many sleepless nights I spent trying to figure out exactly how I could rob you of your choice. Sooner or later that’s going to sink in. And when it does, you are going to hate me.”

  “I could never hate you,” I said softly, moving to brush the hair from her eyes.

  “I think you’re wrong,” she whispered. “I’m here in your house, eating your food, riding your helicopter, and why? Because I lied to you. Everything is built on lies, Alton. It can’t last.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re here because you wanted to save Ezra, and so do I. This is the best place for him, and being with his mom is the best treatment for him. All of that is true. The lies are all in the past, and they can’t hurt us anymore.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Jessie said. “And I can’t thank you enough for everything that you’ve done for Ezra. But even if I’m wrong about you hating me, I clearly have some baggage. I don’t know if there’s room in my head for anything else right now. I don’t know if there ever will be.”

  “I understand,” I said, knowing that feeling all too well. I’d spent my
entire life avoiding relationships at all costs, convinced they held nothing but pain and misery for me. It wasn’t until Jessie ghosted me that I realized how wrong that was, that the beauty of being with someone you cared for really could outweigh the pain of their absence.

  It was ironic that the very thing which had convinced me I could handle a relationship was also the thing that convinced Jessie she never could. The realization came to me suddenly, making me laugh in surprise.

  “What’s funny?” Jessie asked, clearly thrown off by my sudden shift in mood.

  “I couldn’t explain even if I tried,” I said with a shrug. “But it does occur to me that there is one lie that isn’t quite in the past, you know.”

  “There is? What’s that?” Jessie asked, her voice unsteady.

  “Well,” I said with a smirk, looking straight at her plate as I grabbed her fork and speared a square of lasagna. “Someone promised that she’d eat if I told her what I meant. Time to pay up.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Jessie said as held the fork in front of her mouth.

  “Open your mouth,” I instructed, and Jessie complied just long enough for me to feed her a bite. As she chewed, I handed her the fork.

  “That…was amazing,” Jessie said after swallowing, her eyes wide. Without hesitation she took another bite, then another.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I chuckled. “See? You just need to relax and listen to me when I tell you that things are going to be okay.”

  “You made your point,” Jessie said, her voice uncertain. “But I’m still a mess.”

  “We all are, just in different ways. That’s why we’re here.”

  Jessie’s clear blue eyes shot to mine, intensely holding my gaze for a few seconds. She looked like she was on the verge of crying, devastated and vulnerable. But beneath that was something else, a fierce determination that I hadn’t seen since we first met. She was again the woman I had spent a weekend with in Atlantic City, the one I’d started to fall for even while I swore to myself I’d never let it happen.

  Her eyes only held a spark, but sometimes a spark was all you needed to start a fire.

  “I’ll wait for you,” I said simply. “However long you need.”

  “I can’t make any promises, Alton,” Jessie answered. “You might be waiting for nothing. Maybe we’re too broken. Maybe I’m too broken.”

  “I know that,” I answered, smiling even as I said it. “You pays your money and you takes your chances. That’s all life ever is. It never comes with a guarantee.”

  “Thank you,” Jessie whispered, barely audible, before returning to her dinner.

  But the truth was that she didn’t need to thank me. If anything, I should be the one thanking her.

  Being around Jessie had transformed me into a different man. One who didn’t flee in terror from his own emotions, one who didn’t allow fear to control his entire life. Sometimes love hurt—sometimes it hurt badly—but I knew now that I could handle the pain.

  Jessie believed I would grow to hate her, but she was wrong. There was no danger of that, even with the obligations of fatherhood looming over my head. And that in itself was another transformation, separate but no less important.

  Before meeting Jessie, I laughed in the face of anyone who extolled the virtue of having kids. Children turned men into monsters, or so I believed. It had happened to my dad, and I was certain that the same could happen to me. All it had taken to dispel that was one look at my son, fragile and tired, lying in a hospital bed.

  In that moment I knew the truth.

  Kids didn’t turn men into monsters, the monsters made that choice themselves.

  And Jessie was the light of my life.

  The woman I loved.

  Jessie

  The sound of Ezra’s laughter pealed out, the water carrying his voice so it seemed he was only a few feet away. The distance between us closed as the rowboat lazily approached shore, and before long I could almost make out the joy on my son’s face. The sun kissed my skin with warmth, and I sighed happily as the lake’s cool breeze felt refreshing on my exposed legs.

  Everything seemed perfect. So perfect, in fact, that part of me wondered if I should pinch myself awake. I already knew how that would go, though. It had taken the better part of a month, but I was finally getting over the feeling that this entire trip was a dream. I’d been so stressed for so long that it had become a part of who I was, but that was slowly starting to change.

  Ezra, it seemed, wasn’t the only one who needed this place to heal.

  Alton had been right about that much, at least.

  He’d been right about the lounge chair, too, for that matter. I’d had my doubts when he set the old thing up on a blanket beneath a big beach umbrella, but the relief had been immediate. Despite the heavy weight of my belly, I’d been able to read for over an hour without even the smallest cramp. It was so relaxing, in fact, that my only real challenge had been staying awake.

  A challenge that I’d eventually lost, it seemed, based on the way that I was no longer ensconced beneath the umbrella’s considerable shadow. With a long yawn I stretched out, wondering what had happened to my book when I fell asleep.

  “Mom’s awake!” Ezra’s voice called, again echoing across the surface of the water as the boy waved in excitement.

  That got Alton’s attention. In a flash he’d turned back to look at me, his chin poking out over his strong shoulders as he twisted around to say hello.

  “I told you to stay out of the sun!” his voice echoed.

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t to say hello. I laughed, feeling a bit like I’d just been caught with my hand in a cookie jar. Before leaving earlier, he’d been very insistent that I stay beneath the umbrella’s shadow as much as possible while he was gone.

  Somehow, he’d convinced himself that just using sunscreen was woefully inadequate. It didn’t even matter that it was the fancy Japanese stuff that he’d researched and bought, he still was worried about me.

  It was kind of adorable, in a way. Or maybe that was just the gorgeous, charismatic smile he’d been flashing while he explained.

  “Heidi Mackie says that the sun is terrible for pregnant women,” he’d warned.

  It had taken me a few moments to process that.

  “How do you know what Heidi Mackie says?” I asked eventually, flabbergasted that Alton had somehow found—let alone read—the latest attempt at fear-mongering by an author whose only claim to fortune was an uncanny ability to terrify first-time mothers.

  “I like to keep informed. Books, internet—I’ve been doing a lot of reading this summer,” he explained. “And she’s very clear that pregnant women should avoid the sun at all costs.”

  “Yes, well, in her first book she practically advocated that pregnant women be kept encased in giant cotton balls for nine months,” I pointed out. “At least until her second book, where she warned everyone about the dangers of Cotton Toxicity and the ensuing cover-ups by Big Textile.”

  “Wait, really?” Alton asked. “You’re making that up.”

  “Of course I’m making that up,” I laughed. “But the fact that you had to ask just proves my point. She has no credibility at all.”

  “Be that as it may,” Alton said, the matter-of-fact tone given away by the sparkle of amusement in his eyes. “No sun for you, young lady!”

  “Or what?” I teased, playfully sticking my hand from beneath the umbrella’s shade. “You’ll spank me?”

  “Try it and find out,” Alton replied, quiet and throaty. The sound of his voice sent shivers down my spine. The desire was written as clearly on his face as it felt in my chest, and I had to force myself to look away for a moment.

  Before I said something stupid.

  Before I did something stupid.

  I still wasn’t ready for that; I wasn’t sure that I would ever be ready for it.

  “Sorry,” I’d said finally. “I’ll stay in the shade. It just feels like overkill, since I
’m already being very careful with reapplying the sunscreen.”

  “It probably is overkill,” Alton agreed. “But better safe than sorry.”

  Those had been the last words he said to me before getting on the boat with Ezra and Erik.

  Better safe than sorry.

  When had Alton become so responsible? I recalled the cocky athlete that I’d interviewed on the red carpet so very long ago, the one who thought nothing about driving a motorcycle to Atlantic City in the dead of night. I tried to imagine that Alton saying those words, or carefully urging me to be extra careful about sun exposure.

  It was impossible.

  Of course, even back then he’d had a caring and tender side. He’d hidden it well, but it was still there. That was what had made me so damn conflicted about lying to him in the first place, the thought that there was a good man buried beneath all the bluster and arrogance. But somewhere along the way, all that bluster had vanished—leaving only Alton, the real Alton.

  It was a transformation that made it even harder to ignore how I felt about him. But we remained here in our bubble, far away from all the vices that used to tempt him. Who would he be once summer was over, once he had gone back to his old life? And did it even matter? Falling for him was still messy, still dangerous for everyone involved.

  Love would only bring tragedy, I was sure.

  Now, if only I could remember that when I was standing within twenty feet of the man. He was too damn sweet, too damn sexy for his own good. If anything happened between us it would only lead to heartbreak—mine, his, and maybe even Ezra’s—but yet those thoughts flew out the window so easily when he was near.

  I only needed to hold out just a little bit longer, at least. Soon the baby would come, and soon summer would be over. Alton would go back to Boston and remember how much he loved his old life, and I’d be so exhausted from taking care of a newborn by myself that I’d forget the word romance even existed.