“And you missed her.”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “We used to spend a lot of time together because we were friends and neighbors and coworkers.”
“And lovers.”
“For one night,” he said again. “Don’t try to make it into something more than that.”
She pointed her fork at him. “You spent one night with a woman you like and respect and with whom you now have a child. Don’t try to make it into less.”
* * *
Despite the hurtful words that Bonnie had spoken to her daughter the day after the funeral, Erin had been in regular contact with her mom since her return to Haven. Though she’d long ago accepted that they would never be close like Bonnie and Anna were close, Erin had an obvious and deep affection for her mom, and she worried about her.
As Mother’s Day approached, she worried even more because Brian had always made a big fuss over his wife—the mother of his children—and there wouldn’t be a big fuss this year. Yet one more reminder to Bonnie that her life had irrevocably changed seven weeks earlier.
But Erin sent flowers, and made the requisite phone call. They didn’t talk long, because Ian and Marissa and the girls were there to visit, which was good news to Erin, who was a lot less worried when she ended the call.
She was so focused on it being her mom’s first Mother’s Day without her husband that Erin might have forgotten it was her own first Mother’s Day, if not for the beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered by Blossom’s Flower Shop, with a card signed “Love, Joel.”
Of course, she knew that Kyle had actually sent the flowers, and she chose to interpret the gesture as a sign that he was no longer mad at her—or at least not holding a grudge. Over the past few weeks, they’d both been trying to focus on the present rather than the past, and she would say they’d made definite progress in their efforts to co-parent, giving her hope that they might learn to be friends again, too.
She was thrilled with the flowers, but Kyle didn’t stop there. After Mother’s Day Brunch—one of the busiest days of the year at The Home Station—he showed up at Erin’s apartment with a box of food and equipment to cook for her before he had to go back to the restaurant again for the dinner shift.
Not only did he cook, he made her favorite: Belgian waffles with strawberry topping and whipped cream. The waffles were served with a side of perfectly browned sausage links and a crystal flute filled with freshly squeezed orange juice and just a splash of champagne.
And then, when she’d cleaned her plate, he took it away and gave her a small box wrapped in gold paper. Inside the box was a heart-shaped locket, and inside the locket was a tiny picture of Joel, and she was helpless to hold back the tears that spilled onto her cheeks as he fastened the chain around her throat.
“If you want to exchange it for something else, I can take it back,” he said, deliberately misinterpreting the reason for her tears.
She clutched the locket. “Don’t you dare.”
He chuckled at that.
“Thank you. Sincerely,” she said. “You’ve made my first Mother’s Day truly special.”
“Thank you for being an amazing mom to our son.”
The sincerity in his tone made her eyes fill again.
There were no tissues around, so Kyle handed her a clean napkin, and she managed to smile through her tears.
“Are those waterworks going to turn off anytime soon?”
“If you think this is bad, you should have seen me when I was pregnant.”
But, of course, she hadn’t given him that option—though he refrained from pointing that out to her.
“Will you tell me about it now?” he asked instead.
She nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t we start with when you realized you were pregnant,” he suggested.
“Okay.” She dabbed at her eyes, then crumpled the napkin into her fist. “It took me longer to figure out than it probably should have,” she admitted. “That day in the cabin—you said that I had nine months to figure out how to tell you, but that isn’t really true. I didn’t know—or even suspect—until I was in my fifth month.”
“How is that possible?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve heard about women who give birth and claim they didn’t know they were pregnant, but I’ve always been skeptical of those stories.”
“I don’t think I could have gone another four months—or even four weeks—without figuring things out, especially once my belly started to grow,” Erin told him, lifting the fussy baby from his chair to settle him at her breast. “But for the first several months, I was so preoccupied with my dad and his treatments and helping out at the resort that I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening with my own body.
“I think I realized, fairly early on, that I’d skipped a period or two, but stress has always affected my cycle. And I didn’t have any nausea or other telltale symptoms, and the possibility of a pregnancy never crossed my mind because we’d taken precautions.”
“What finally clued you in?”
“Anna,” she confided, easing the baby from her breast to burp him. “We usually did the weekly grocery shopping together, and one day, as we were making our way up and down the aisles, we saw that the Halloween candy was out—despite the fact that it was early September. And I suddenly had an intense craving for peanut butter cups, so I threw a big bag in the cart, and the next week, I bought another bag—having polished off the first one entirely by myself—and she jokingly remarked that maybe I was pregnant.
“Of course, I dismissed the possibility. How could I be pregnant when I hadn’t had sex in five months? But then I remembered the missed periods and I started to panic, wondering if I could possibly be five months pregnant.
“The next day, Anna picked up a test from the pharmacy, and when I finally got up the nerve to take it, the result was an unmistakable plus sign in the little window.” She looked at Kyle then, hoping to make him understand the emotional turmoil she’d felt in that moment. “I wanted to tell you. I desperately wanted to tell you. But as I sat there, staring at the stick and marveling over the fact that I was going to have a baby—your baby—I couldn’t forget that you’d told me, more than once, that you never wanted to be a father.”
“You know why I said that. And that what I really meant was that I never wanted to be like my father.”
“I do,” she agreed. “And I was pretty sure that, despite the feelings you’d professed, you’d be a wonderful father to our child.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her again.
“Because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Because there was a tiny part of me that was afraid you wouldn’t want our baby.”
And she didn’t want to subject Joel to that kind of rejection. The same kind of parental rejection that had scarred each of his parents.
And maybe she was afraid that, despite their long-standing friendship, he’d reject her, too.
“I hate knowing that you had even a smidgen of doubt,” he said.
“I don’t anymore,” she told him, rising to her feet with the baby.
“Good.” He nodded and followed her to the nursery. “Because I’m going to be here—for Joel and for you. Whatever you need.”
“And you went above and beyond today,” she said, as they tiptoed out of the baby’s room. “Thank you.”
“Happy first Mother’s Day,” he said, and touched his lips to hers.
It obviously wasn’t the first time he’d kissed her, but it was the first time in a very long time, and though she suspected he hadn’t intended it to be more than a casual brush of his lips over hers, the moment their mouths touched, everything changed.
She’d started to think that the chemistry between them was a thing of the past. That whatever connection they’d once shared had been obliterated by her secrets and lies. Apparently
she’d been wrong.
He cupped her head, tipping it back so that he could deepen the kiss. His scent—that familiar and surprisingly seductive combination of basil and lime—teased her senses. His hands—those strong and oh-so-talented hands—tempted her body.
They’d been down this road before, she reminded herself, summoning the memory as a warning. Instead it had the opposite effect, heightening her awareness and intensifying her desire.
She lifted her arms to link them around his neck and pressed her body closer to his, so that they were connected mouth to mouth, thigh to thigh, and generating all kinds of heat in between. It was so much more than a kiss—it was a total sensual assault. And when his tongue slid between her lips, she met it with her own.
Since the night they’d spent together, she’d almost managed to convince herself that the experience couldn’t possibly have been as amazing as she remembered. That her overactive imagination combined with an overload of baby hormones running rampant through her system had made it into something more.
Kissing him now, Erin realized she’d been wrong.
Kissing him now, she was forced to acknowledge that her memory had failed her, that her recollection of kissing Kyle paled in comparison to the reality.
Only when they were both out of breath did he ease his mouth from hers. After she’d managed to pull air into her lungs and clear some of the lust that clouded her brain, she pulled out of his arms to put some much-needed space between them.
“That was...um...”
“Um-mazing?” he suggested.
She pressed her lips together, as if that might stop them from tingling. But it wasn’t just her lips that were tingling. She could feel the effects of his kiss all the way to her toes.
And yes, “amazing” was definitely one word for it.
But she had another one.
“It was a mistake,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “And I don’t believe you do, either.”
“What I think is that our relationship is already complicated enough without adding...chemistry...to the mix.”
“If the chemistry wasn’t already there, we wouldn’t have Joel,” he pointed out.
A valid point, she acknowledged, if only to herself.
* * *
Maybe Erin was right to resist the attraction between them, Kyle considered when he was back in his own apartment later that night.
The first few days that she’d been home had been a little awkward as they’d tried to figure out this co-parenting thing that she was so keen on—and he tried to remember that he was furious with her for keeping her pregnancy and then the birth of their child a secret. Then he’d look at that child—their son—and be filled with such a powerful rush of love, it pushed aside all other emotions, making it impossible for him to stay mad.
But maybe it would be a mistake to risk the tentative truce they’d established in recent weeks for the possibility that they might build something more.
Or maybe his sister had a point. Maybe things would be much simpler all around if he and Erin were married. Certainly they wouldn’t need to debate the pros and cons of giving in to the physical attraction between them if they were husband and wife. He could go to sleep beside her every night, wake up next to her every morning and make love with her whenever they wanted—an idea that held definite appeal. Not a reason to get married, but a definite perk.
The abysmal failure of his parents’ marriage had led him to conclude that he wasn’t a candidate for wedded bliss. Despite the societal pressure that made most people believe marriage was a normal rite of passage, Kyle had never aspired to fall in love, get married and eventually have a couple of kids. And a string of failed relationships had only strengthened his determination to remain single.
But now he was a dad—and that changed everything. It was no longer about what he wanted for his life but what was best for his son—and that was the stability and security of a family.
Now Kyle just had to convince Erin of that fact.
Chapter Thirteen
Erin was both excited and a little apprehensive as she waited for Kyle to show up Monday morning for The Big Event.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t a capital-letter-worthy big event, but it was a significant milestone for their son—his first day having solid food.
“I don’t know whose definition of solid this is,” Erin remarked, stirring the rice cereal she’d prepared in accordance with the directions on the box. “But Dr. Tahir says this is what we start with.”
Joel’s gaze was locked on the spoon, as if he somehow knew that the cereal was for him. Or maybe he just liked the red spoon and matching bowl.
At precisely 8:00 a.m., there was a knock on the door.
“It’s open.”
Kyle walked in, nodding as he wished her a “good morning” before greeting his son with a bright smile. “Hey, there, big guy.”
Joel smiled back as his dad settled into the chair beside him.
Erin handed Kyle the bowl.
“You want me to do this?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Don’t you want to do it?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he warned.
“Then it’ll be the first time for both of you.”
Kyle picked up the spoon and dipped it into the cereal. “This is solid food?”
She laughed as she opened the camera app on her phone, determined to capture the milestone moment for posterity. “According to the doctor.”
“Okay, here we go,” he said, lifting the spoon out of the bowl and moving it toward the baby’s mouth.
Joel instinctively opened up, allowing his dad to feed him.
“Look at that,” Kyle remarked proudly.
Erin was looking—and recording everything.
Including when Joel decided to push his tongue out of his mouth, dribbling most of the cereal down his chin.
“Don’t look at that,” Kyle said now, making Erin laugh again.
He lifted the bottom of the baby’s bib to wipe his chin. Then he spooned up some more cereal to try again, and again Joel spit it out.
“Maybe he doesn’t like it.”
“If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t keep opening his mouth,” Erin pointed out.
“But he keeps spitting it out.”
“Probably just a reflex,” she said. “He’ll figure it out.”
“I guess we’ve both got a lot to learn,” Kyle said, speaking to his son now.
Joel responded by opening his mouth, a wordless plea for more.
“That was an experience,” Kyle said, when the cereal bowl was finally empty—more of it likely on the baby’s bib than in his tummy.
“And tomorrow morning you get to do it again—if you want,” Erin hastened to clarify.
He nodded. “I’ll be here.”
She wiped Joel’s face and hands, then lifted him out of his highchair. Kyle rose to his feet, too, and she was suddenly aware that she was as close to him now as she’d been when he kissed her the day before. And for a brief moment, when his gaze dropped to her mouth, she thought he might also be remembering that kiss.
But then, totally out of the blue, he said, “I think we should get married.”
She paused, waiting for the punch line, certain that he was joking.
“You’re serious,” she realized, when no follow-up came.
“Of course, I’m serious,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and getting married makes sense.”
“Well, what woman wouldn’t get all fluttery over such a romantic proposal?” she said, irritated with herself because there wasn’t anything at all romantic about his proposal, and yet she was feeling fluttery inside.
“Do you want romance?” he asked. “Flowers? Candlelight?”
“I want you to tell
me where this is coming from.”
“I don’t want to have to knock on the door in the morning to see my son, or go home after tucking him into bed at night. I want to be there for everything—to help not just with cereal in the morning but feedings in the middle of the night and everything in between.”
“I know you’re thinking about what is best for Joel, but in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never before heard you express any interest in getting married.”
“Maybe I wasn’t ready for anything more when I dated those other women.”
“And now you’re ready?” She couldn’t help but sound skeptical.
“I think I might be.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t get all tongue-tied over ‘maybes’ and ‘might bes.’”
“What do you want me to say? What are the magic words you need to hear to give us a chance? Because making this relationship work matters to me. Because you and Joel matter to me.
“I know I don’t have any experience with successful relationships—or any particularly good role models, either—but I promise, if you give me a chance, I will do everything in my power to make our relationship work, to be the best husband that I can be to you and the best father that I can be to Joel.”
She knew he was speaking from the heart. His tone was both earnest and raw as he laid his soul bare. But he didn’t love her, and she’d spent too many years feeling unlovable and unloved to settle for a loveless marriage.
“You’re already a great dad,” she said, and meant it.
“I still struggle with diaper changes,” he acknowledged ruefully.
“It wasn’t so long ago that you didn’t know which part of a diaper was front and which was back,” she reminded him. “But you showed an interest, you asked questions and you made the effort.”
“I also made some mistakes—and no doubt, I’m going to make a lot more,” he said. “But hopefully none that will do any lasting damage.”
“I make mistakes, too,” she told him. “You should have seen me the first few weeks as I struggled to nurse him.”
The Chef's Surprise Baby Page 13