She held him with one hand on his back while the other closed the cup of her nursing bra and then adjusted her shirt to cover it, before rising to her feet and handing the baby off to him.
“He doesn’t fuss around strangers, does he?” he asked, eyeing the baby with some trepidation, certain he would balk at the stiffness of his dad’s hold and start to scream in protest.
“You’re not a stranger—you’re his dad,” Erin said easily.
“But he doesn’t know that,” Kyle felt compelled to point out.
“Sure he does,” she disagreed, as she laid a cloth over his shoulder.
A burp cloth, he knew, having experienced the result of holding a recently fed baby without the protection of one when he was in Silver Hook for her dad’s funeral.
“I talk to Joel about you all the time,” she told him now.
“You do?”
She nodded. “Even before he was born, I talked to him about how I hoped he—or she, because I didn’t know his sex—would have your green-gray eyes, your patience and kindness and sense of humor. And after he was born, I promised that I’d bring him to Haven as soon as I could, so that he could meet you. I told him that he’d recognize you, because you have strong hands but a gentle touch and you always smell like lime and basil.”
He was flattered by the description, and a little bemused. “I don’t smell like lime and basil.”
“You do,” she insisted. “It’s the hand soap you use at the restaurant. I ordered the same soap for my bathroom at Sunfish Bay.”
“You did?”
“I like the scent and...it reminded me of you.”
“I’ve been trying to stay mad at you,” he confessed, as he gently patted the baby’s back. “But the more we talk, the more I’m starting to believe that you did what you thought was best under very difficult circumstances.”
“I never wanted to deprive you of knowing your son. I just didn’t know if you’d want to know.”
“You used to say that you could talk to me about anything,” he reminded her.
“And when I talked to you about Anna and Nick, you warned that my brother-in-law might end up resenting his wife and their baby because the pregnancy forced them to move up their wedding date.”
“Well, I said you should have talked to me, not that you should have listened to me.”
She managed a smile then. “I’m going to go have my pasta now. Joel’s asleep, by the way, if you want to put him in his crib.”
Kyle shook his head. “I have a lot of lost time to make up for, so I’m going to hold him for a while, if that’s okay.”
“Of course, it’s okay,” she said. “And I’d be happy to call you when he wakes up at three a.m., if you want to make up for lost time then.”
“You wouldn’t have to call me if you moved into my apartment,” he pointed out.
“Didn’t we have this conversation already?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I was hoping you’d change your mind.”
“I appreciate that you want to be involved. Sincerely. And I promise, you can spend as much time as you want with Joel. But I don’t see any benefits—and a whole bunch of potential pitfalls—of us living together.”
He started to argue the point, but they’d already argued too much. At least she was back in Haven, which was a helluva lot better than sixteen hundred miles away in Silver Hook.
So why did it still feel as if she was still far away when he could see her standing on the other side of the room?
Maybe he was expecting too much. Yes, they’d previously been close friends who’d shared an easy camaraderie and genuine affection, and now there was distance and suspicion. But she’d been gone for almost a year, and she’d been through a lot in that time, culminating in the loss of her father after an extended illness but also including a pregnancy and childbirth.
Of course, that was her choice. If she’d told him about the baby, he would have been there. Yeah, he probably would have freaked out at first—as he did freak out inside when he realized that she’d had a child—but once he got over the shock and worked through the instinctive denial, he would have been there.
He wasn’t ever going to walk out on his child like his father had walked out on his. And he was going to be there for Erin, too—whether she wanted him to be or not.
“You’re practically falling asleep on your feet,” he noted, as she pushed the remnants of her pasta around on her plate.
“It’s been a really long two days,” she acknowledged.
For him, too, waiting for her to make the sixteen-hundred-mile journey and finally bring his son home. But he knew better than to compare his anticipation with her actual physical exhaustion.
“I’ll put Joel in his crib then head out so you can get some sleep, too.”
After the baby was settled, Erin followed Kyle to the door. “Thank you again. For everything.”
“Welcome home,” he said and, giving in to his own need, drew her into his arms.
Chapter Eleven
Having a baby changed everything, Erin mused, as she settled her son at her breast. Before Joel was born, she fantasized about sandy beaches and blue waters and fruity drinks. Now her fantasies were all about sleep. Twelve hours of uninterrupted slumber was the ultimate dream; she would have settled for six. Unfortunately, Joel was a growing boy who was still waking several times in the night, which meant that she was lucky if she managed to get three before she was awakened by his demands to be fed again.
And yet, she felt pretty good when she woke up at 6:00 a.m. the morning following her late return to Haven. She was happy to be back in her own place, and maybe relieved, too. She felt as if she and Kyle had made some good progress the night before, and though they still had a lot to talk about, she was optimistic that they would be able to work together for the benefit of their son.
After she fed the baby—yet again—she spent a few extra minutes pumping to add to the store of milk in the freezer, cognizant of Kyle’s interest in being able to give their baby a bottle. Some of the books she’d read had warned about the possibility of nipple confusion for babies who were switched between breast and bottle, but thankfully Joel didn’t seem to be bothered. As long as his tummy was being filled, he was a happy baby.
When he went down for his morning nap, Erin decided to tackle the unpacking. She’d just tucked her suitcases away in the closet when her phone chimed to indicate receipt of a text message. She swiped the screen. It was from Anna—We miss you!—along with a video of Nicky blowing kisses—with his mom’s help, of course.
She’d grown closer to her sister during the eleven months that she’d been in Silver Hook—and it had been a happy surprise to both of them to discover that they’d become friends. Roger was still Erin’s absolute favorite of her siblings and their partners, but Anna had moved into a solid second place.
Roger and Anna were also the only members of her family who hadn’t badgered Erin about the identity of the baby’s father as soon as her pregnancy was revealed. Roger because she’d told him about the night she’d spent with Kyle, so he’d figured it out pretty quickly; Anna because she’d figured it out, too, despite having less information.
“Why haven’t you asked me about the baby’s father?” Erin asked when she was shopping with Anna one day in preparation for the arrival of her sister’s baby.
“I don’t have to ask,” Anna had said confidently. “Because I know.”
“You think so?” Erin challenged, certain that she didn’t.
“I might not always be the most perceptive person, but not even I could miss the sparks zinging between you and your chef friend the night that Nick and I had dinner at your apartment.”
She swallowed. “You think Kyle’s the father?”
Her sister folded her arms over her chest. “Are you really going to tell me that he isn’
t?”
“No,” Erin finally admitted.
“So...does he know?”
She shook her head.
“Are you going to tell him?”
“Eventually.”
“Why not now?”
“Because right now, my life is here and his is in Haven, and I don’t want him to feel guilty about the fact that he can’t be here with me.”
Assuming that he’d want to be there, which was admittedly a very big assumption on her part.
And maybe that was one of the reasons that she hadn’t been eager to tell him about the baby—because she’d been afraid to find out that he didn’t want to be there. That he wouldn’t be excited to learn that they were going to have a baby after only one night together. That he’d reject their child as her mother had rejected her.
She’d forgotten that Kyle had some experience with rejection, too. That his dad had chosen another woman over his mom, and the children he had with his second wife over Kyle and Lucy. Which was, she realized now, likely a very big part of the reason that Kyle was determined to be there for his child, to prove that he wasn’t like his father.
And if she’d considered that possibility when she was pregnant—or even when Joel was born—she might have been brave enough to share her joy and excitement and even her fears with the father of her child.
She sighed softly as she settled into the rocking chair with the baby. “Oh, Joel. What have I done?”
Of course, there was no response to her question, though he did tip his head back to look at her with a wide-eyed curiosity that assured her he was interested in her thoughts, even if he couldn’t hold up his end of the conversation.
She took his hands in hers and showed him how to stretch his arms out in front, then spread them wide and lift them over his head. He smiled, loving the attention.
“I thought I was doing the right thing, keeping the news of the pregnancy to myself, but my thoughts were so tangled up with emotions, I wasn’t sure where one ended and another began.”
She clapped his hands together, finding joy in the simple act of playing with her son despite the ache in her heart. “And I guess, in the end, whatever reasons and rationale I used to justify not telling your dad are irrelevant now. Because of the choices I made, he missed out on the first eight-and-a-half weeks of your life.”
But even if she’d told him as soon as she’d discovered that she was pregnant, she couldn’t imagine that anything would have been different. The sixteen hundred mile distance between Silver Hook and Haven wasn’t something that was open to discussion or negotiation—it just was. And while Erin had to be in Arkansas because her dad was sick, everything that mattered to Kyle was in Nevada.
“I could have talked to him, though,” she acknowledged now, continuing to clap Joel’s hands together as she spoke aloud, as the experts recommended, in order to encourage his efforts at communication. “And even if he couldn’t have been there, I could have sent him a copy of your first ultrasound photo or even the audio file of your heartbeat. I could have found a way to let him be a part of it.”
And she’d wanted to, but so many times when she’d been tempted enough to reach for her phone to call, she’d heard the echo of his words in the back of her mind.
“...he’s going to resent both her and the baby.”
Yes, he’d been talking about Anna and Nick, but their situation was the same, and she didn’t ever want Kyle to think that she would use a child to try to hold on to him.
In all the years that she’d known him, he’d been involved in more than a few romantic relationships that had fallen apart because cooking was his passion and his priority and would always take precedence over any woman he dated. And because she’d been witness to those sorrows, she hadn’t been looking for a relationship when she invited him to her bed—and she’d be a fool to look for one now. Because nothing had changed in the past twelve months.
Nothing except that they had a child now, which pretty much guaranteed that they were going to be in one another’s lives for at least the next eighteen years as they raised their son together while living separate and apart. Co-parenting was more than just a current buzzword, it was practically the new norm with respect to child-rearing, with the emphasis on meeting the needs of the child and nurturing his relationship with each parent.
Erin didn’t think that should be too difficult for her and Kyle to manage. After all, they’d been friends for a long time and lovers for only one night.
One incredible, bliss-filled night the memory of which, more than eleven months later, still haunted her dreams.
* * *
“I don’t know about this,” Erin said, as she followed Kyle toward the front doors of Jo’s Pizza. “Showing up here with the baby kind of feel likes an ambush.”
“I invited her to come to my place this morning,” he reminded her. “But she claimed that she had to be at the restaurant early to have a new oven installed.”
“You don’t think it’s true?”
“I think she’s always busy doing something,” he hedged.
“We could wait until she’s less busy,” she suggested.
“I don’t want to have to keep our baby hidden from the local gossips until she can fit us into her schedule.”
A fair point, she acknowledged, but as Kyle slid his key in the lock, she still felt uneasy about what they were doing.
The bell over the door jingled when he pushed it open and ushered Erin inside.
“We’re not open for lunch yet,” Jo called out from the back. “Come back at eleven thirty.”
Then her voice dropped to a lower volume as she demanded to know which of her employees had forgotten to relock the door after they arrived—all of whom denied culpability.
Kyle set Joel’s car seat on top of the closest table. The baby looked up, always intrigued by new places—and totally fascinated by the wide blades of the ceiling fan that spun slowly overhead.
“We’re not here for lunch,” Kyle called back.
But the rich scents of tomato, garlic and oregano teased Erin’s nostrils and her stomach rumbled.
“I could go for a slice of pizza,” she said.
“Didn’t you have breakfast?” Kyle asked, sounding both baffled and amused.
“Three hours ago,” she said.
“Kyle?” Jo came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a red-and-white checked tea towel. “What are you doing here?” Then her gaze shifted to the woman standing beside her son, and when she spoke again, her tone had softened. “Erin. I was so sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Thank you,” she said, her response muffled by the other woman’s warm embrace. “The flowers you sent were really lovely.”
“I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you.” Jo stepped back again then—and finally spotted the baby. “Oh my goodness...where did he come from?” She looked around, as if for errant parents who might have abandoned their infant in her restaurant.
“He came with us,” Kyle told her.
“With you?” Jo stepped closer to peek at the baby, and Joel offered her a gummy smile. She glanced over her shoulder at Erin. “He’s yours?”
She nodded, a tremulous smile curving her lips.
“And mine,” Kyle said. “Which makes him your grandson.”
“Oh. Oh my goodness,” Jo said again, sinking into the nearest chair. “I’m going to need a minute.”
She spent that minute looking at the baby through eyes blurred with tears. “Hey, there,” she crooned, gently rubbing his cheek with the back of a finger. “I’m your Grandma Jo.”
Joel kicked his legs, another smile curving his lips.
“I have so many questions,” Jo said. “But the most pressing one right now is—can I hold him?”
“Of course,” Erin said.
Jo didn’t wait f
or assistance but immediately reached to unbuckle the harness and lift the baby out of the carrier to cuddle him close.
“See?” Kyle whispered to Erin. “Magic.”
But she wasn’t convinced—or the least bit surprised when Jo said, “I’m going to need an explanation.”
“The short version is that I was so caught up in everything going on with my dad that I didn’t think about the repercussions of keeping the news of my pregnancy to myself,” Erin said, fully prepared to take all blame for the situation, because it was her fault.
“No one can deny that it must have been a difficult time for you,” Jo said. “But we might have been able to make it a little easier, if we’d known everything that was happening.”
“I’m sorry,” Erin said sincerely, lowering herself into the chair across from her son’s grandmother.
“I don’t need an apology,” Jo said. “How can I be mad when I’ve finally got a grandbaby to hold?”
“Not just a grandbaby,” Kyle told her. “But a namesake of sorts. Grandma Jo, meet Joel Brian Landry.”
“Oh, I like that,” Jo said, her eyes shimmering again. “I like that a lot.” Then she chuckled. “Your sister’s going to be annoyed, though. Thrilled to meet her nephew, of course, but annoyed that her baby won’t be the first grandbaby.” She smiled as she shook her head. “Everything always was a competition between the two of you.”
“And I win this round, right?” Kyle said.
Before his mom could respond—or maybe she chose not to indulge his childish behavior with a response—Kyle’s phone chimed.
He pulled it out of his pocket, frowning as read the message on the screen. “I have to run over to The Home Station,” he said. “Rizwan thinks the supplier sent cremini mushrooms instead of the shiitake that I ordered.”
“He doesn’t know for sure?”
“Apparently not,” Kyle said. “And that would be why he still gets all the grunt jobs in the kitchen.”
“I guess that’s our cue to say goodbye,” Erin said, pushing her chair away from the table.
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