“She seemed pretty quiet at the wedding, but okay. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“I just need to run upstairs and get my wallet. I left it on the table next to the bed.”
While Owen went to get his wallet, Cass rinsed her coffee cup and set it in the dish drainer. The house had no dishwasher, but she didn’t care, since it was just the two of them. They’d never spoken about a division of duties, but she figured if he cooked, she should clean up afterward, and there was something relaxing, almost enjoyable, about washing their few dishes in a sink full of soapy water while Owen drank a second cup of coffee and they continued whatever conversation they’d had over dinner.
The kitchen was definitely old-fashioned, with red Formica counters that had faded over the years and one light fixture in the center of the ceiling. The floor was an old black-and-white checkerboard pattern that was scuffed and worn, and the cabinets were painted the same dull shade of green as the walls. If she owned the place, she’d have done a job on this house beginning with the kitchen. But Alec had been content living with it the way it was, and it didn’t seem to bother Owen. Cass couldn’t help but think about at least painting the walls and the cabinets, and maybe even springing for new counters just because it would make her happy. She’d done what she could to brighten the room by taking down the curtain on the only window to let in more light—she was thinking about replacing it with a pull shade—and placing little pots of blue asters on the sill. A pretty painted vase she’d found in one of the cupboards held the dahlias she’d bought at Petals and Posies, the flower shop in St. Dennis, but she could do little else to make the kitchen seem more homey.
Still, it felt more like home than her condo in Baltimore ever had. She heard Owen’s footfalls on the stairs, and she smiled. His presence in her life made this house feel like home. She was grateful every day she’d given him a chance to prove that he was so much more than the man she’d initially thought him to be.
“Ready, babe? Want to walk into town?” He appeared in the kitchen doorway and looked so adorable, so irresistible, that she had to kiss him.
“You look so sexy in plaid flannel.” She kissed him again.
“So you go for that rugged he-man look, right?” He wrapped his arms around her.
Cass nodded. “Flannel shirts and cords. You could pass as a lumberjack.”
“I actually worked for a lumber company in Oregon for a few months.”
“Do tell.” Cass grabbed her bag off the back of the kitchen chair and took his hand, tugging him to the front door.
“Good to know I still look the part.”
“It’s that almost-beard look you’re sporting these days.”
He locked the door behind them, and they went down the porch steps hand in hand. Cass had picked up some pumpkins at the Madison farm the day before and lined the steps, saving the largest to place next to the planter Lis had left next to the front door. The house needed a paint job and could use a few chairs on the porch, but the little bit of décor gave it life.
It seemed pumpkins, mums, tall cornstalks, and bales of hay in one configuration or another were on the front porch of just about every house they passed on their way to Charles Street. Trees had begun dropping their leaves, so the sidewalk was dotted here and there with yellow, orange, and green. None had yet dried, so there was no crunch beneath their feet, but Cass knew that in a few more weeks, there would be. She looked forward to it. Autumn always energized her.
Their walk took them down Hudson Street, past Cassidy House, with its wide front porch and pillars. On the front lawn was a FOR SALE sign that Cass hadn’t noticed before. “Looks like the owners are moving. Any interest?”
“Are you crazy? That’s the last house in the world I’d want to buy. When I was a kid, I had a friend who lived in that house, and I got to play there a few times after school until my father had to come pick me up one day because my mother was at work. When he realized where my friend lived, he went off like . . . man, it was ugly. It was the only time in my life that I honestly thought he was going to kill me.” It seemed to Cass that Owen walked just a little faster as he spoke. “No, thank you. Any place but there.”
They walked in silence to the center of town, where all the shops were dressed for fall and had special sales. A clown was painting kids’ faces in front of Cupcake, the local bakery, and another was making balloon animals on the corner of Cherry and Charles Streets near the light. Later there’d be a band down by the marina and a pumpkin roll in the municipal parking lot near the police station, where Gabriel Beck, the chief of police, handed out toy police badges and bottles of water to kids who stopped by to meet the dogs rescued by Grant Wyler, the local vet. Grant ran a shelter and brought with him a selection of pups available for adoption. Grant’s wife, Dallas MacGregor, had a film crew there to capture the moments when each prospective puppy parent found his or her new companion. The crowds were just gathering when Cass and Owen stopped to look at the dogs, who were on leashes held by the shelter’s volunteers.
“Do we need a dog?” Owen asked when Cass knelt down to pet a sweet little dachshund wearing a pink rhinestone collar.
“Maybe. I wonder if Alec would mind if we brought one home.” Cass heard we where once she’d heard you or I and knew in her heart she was exactly where she was meant to be.
“Mommy! Puppy!” A little boy broke free from the hand that had held his and raced to the pen of mixed-breed puppies where several volunteers stood by to show off the litter that had been born six weeks earlier at the shelter. “Puppy.” The boy pointed a chubby finger at the pen.
“Yes, J.J. Those are puppies.”
From the corner of her eye, Cass saw Cyndi pick up the child, who squirmed in her arms, fighting to get down.
His face had been painted in orange and white to look like a jack-o’-lantern, and some orange paint was stuck in his dark curls. He’d smeared something on the front of his tan corduroy overalls, and in his hands he held what remained of a Popsicle. He held the stick out toward the puppy pen as if wanting to share.
Cass held her breath.
“Oh. Owen.” Cyndi turned absolutely white when she saw him. “Hi.”
“Hey, Cyndi. I heard you were in the area. Nice time of the year to visit.” Owen sounded perfectly cordial, perfectly okay that he’d unexpectedly run into his ex-wife in the midst of puppy mania. “How’ve you been? Who’s this little guy? One of Sandie’s boys?”
“Oh, man, this is awkward,” someone said from behind them.
Owen turned to see Cyndi’s sister, Sandie, with a child in a stroller. “What’s awkward?”
Cyndi and her sister exchanged a long look. Finally, Sandie walked away. “I’m not sticking around for this, Cyndi. You’re on your own. I’m outta here.”
Owen turned back to his ex. “What’s her problem?”
“Not her problem, Owen. Mine.” Cyndi turned the boy around so that Owen could see his face.
Green eyes looked into green eyes, and it was Owen’s turn to pale.
“What the hell . . . ?” he whispered.
Cyndi sighed. “We need to talk.”
Owen stood stock-still as if suddenly paralyzed. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. The depth of confusion on his face broke Cass’s heart. They both knew who they were looking at, but Owen had been completely blindsided.
“Is that . . . ?” He swallowed hard. “Is he . . . ?”
Owen couldn’t say the words, so Cyndi spoke them for him. “Yes. He is.” She hadn’t needed to say more than that.
Cass watched Owen’s expression build from confusion to quiet rage. “You owe me an explanation.” He grabbed his ex by the upper arm. “And you’re going to give it to me now. Right. Now.”
“Owen, this isn’t the place . . .” Cass heard Cyndi whisper.
“You don’t get to choose now. We could have had this conversation—should have had this conversation—a few years ago by the looks of things, but you chose no
t to, God only knows why. So now you don’t get to choose.”
“Lower your voice. You’re going to scare him.” Cyndi put a hand protectively over her son’s head.
“We will discuss this calmly, but we’re going to discuss it now.”
“This isn’t the place.” Tears were in Cyndi’s eyes and her voice was shaking.
“You’re right.” Owen appeared to think for a moment. “We’re going to the island. To Ruby’s.”
“No. Not there. She hates me,” Cyndi whispered.
“Tough. Come on. Let’s go.” He took her arm.
“Let me at least hand him over to my sister. . . .”
“No. He comes with us.” Owen’s face was stony and his voice harder than Cass could ever recall having heard it. “Did you drive?”
Cyndi nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Owen started to steer his ex toward the parking lot. He’d taken ten steps away before he stopped and turned around to look at Cass in pure devastation, as if he’d just remembered she was there. He seemed to be trying to think of something to say.
She shook her head. “Go.”
Cass stood where the unthinkable had begun to unfold and watched the man and the woman and the child snake between the cars in the crowded parking lot. When the dark SUV passed by, Cyndi behind the wheel, Owen in the front passenger seat, he didn’t even glance over to where he’d left Cass.
It was as if she didn’t exist.
She stood in the hot October sun, anxiety causing her heart to pound unmercifully, until she realized he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
With tears in her eyes, Cass turned and walked back to the house on Lincoln Road alone.
Chapter Thirteen
It was almost dinnertime when Owen came through the front door of the house he and Cass shared. He went into the kitchen, still looking as shell-shocked as he had when he first looked into the eyes of the child who was so clearly his.
Cass was leaning against the counter when he came into the room and waited for him to say something. He merely looked at her and shook his head as he dropped into a chair. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he’d clearly been crying. She wanted to ask, but knew she had to wait until he could say whatever he was going to say.
She had never been so frightened in her life.
Finally he said, “I have a son, Cassie.”
“I figured that out.”
“I’m sorry I just left you. . . .” His voice was slow, hesitant, as if he’d used so much of it that afternoon there was little left.
“It’s okay. I understand.” I understand, but I hate this and what it’s doing to you.
And what, she couldn’t bring herself to ask, was this going to mean for them?
“I swear I didn’t know, Cass. She didn’t tell me. I swear. I wouldn’t have lied to you.”
“I know. It never occurred to me that you had.” She pulled the other chair next to his and sat and took his hands. They were cold as ice despite the warmth of the room.
He sat and stared at her with empty eyes. “She wasn’t going to tell me, can you imagine that? She never wanted to tell me.”
“So why did she? I mean, obviously she should have, but why now?”
“Because she’s engaged, and her fiancé won’t marry her until she comes clean to me. He said it wasn’t right that I didn’t know.” The only emotion in Owen’s voice was disgust. “Can you get your head around that? If this guy hadn’t had a stronger moral sense than she has, I still wouldn’t know that I have a son.”
“Why didn’t she tell you back then? I don’t understand. Why did she keep it from you all this time?”
Owen blew out a long breath. “Remember I told you we’d separated? And then I was back for a week or two and we tried again, but it was clear it wasn’t going to work out?”
“I remember.”
“Well, during that time—over those two weeks—we had sex more than once. She’d gone off the pill because we hadn’t been together.” He smacked his hands together. “Boom.”
“So why didn’t she tell you? I still don’t understand.”
“Frankly, neither do I.” His hands were beginning to warm between hers, and his thumb rubbed her wrist as if to comfort both of them. “She said at first she was really pissed off at me.”
“Because she was pregnant? Two to tango, right?”
“Right. But I’d left and gone back to Alaska. Then she said she didn’t know where I was, though her lawyer didn’t have a problem finding me to have me served with the divorce papers. She knew where to find Ruby. She could have found me if she’d wanted to.”
“I heard her say Ruby hated her.”
“With good reason. Ruby never wanted me to marry her, tried to talk me out of it.”
“She could have written to you, she could have—”
“The bottom line? She didn’t really want me to know. She wanted to hurt me.”
“She wanted to hurt you, so she didn’t tell you about the baby?”
He nodded slowly. “Is that the most messed-up, ass-backward, stupid thing you ever heard? ‘I want to hurt you, so I’m never going to let you know you have a son’?” Owen shook his head. “What kind of a person does that?”
“So she wasn’t ever going to tell you . . . ?”
“She says as time went on she realized how wrong she was, but at that point she didn’t know how to make it right. The more time that passed, the older J.J. got—James Joseph, she named him. James Joseph Parker.” Owen paused and swallowed hard. “Anyway, she said she kept thinking about it and knew she should tell me, but she didn’t have the nerve, had less and less nerve the older he got. Everyone in her family had urged her to come clean, but she’d made them swear not to tell me. Said she kept saying she was going to do it. Well, finally, this guy she’s in love with forced her hand.” Another pause. “He must be a good guy because he wouldn’t put a ring on her finger until she told me. Said he wouldn’t feel right about raising someone else’s son the way things were.”
“Sounds like a nice guy who isn’t above a bit of emotional blackmail.” It was Cass’s turn to pause. “You think he’s just that good a guy, or do you think he wants to make sure you’re in it for the child support?”
“Maybe a little of both, but the way she told it, I think he really was appalled that she’d kept this little secret to herself for the past eighteen months.” Owen looked up at Cass, his lips twitching slightly. “That’s how old he is. He’s eighteen months old and I never even knew about him. He doesn’t know me, Cass. It’s like he hasn’t had a father all this time. Well, except for her boyfriend, that is.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, children that age don’t know better. He doesn’t know that he didn’t have a—”
“But I know that I wasn’t there for him, whether or not he realizes it yet. I know. And no, it’s no consolation at all. I don’t know how I kept from doing her bodily harm. I’m so angry I’m seeing stars. Keeping that in check for J.J.’s sake is killing me.”
Owen got up and poured a glass of water, drank it, and left the glass on the counter. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m meeting Cyndi to talk about where we go from here.”
Didn’t you discuss that at all? she wanted to ask. You were with her all afternoon. Surely you would have talked about custody?
Or was he talking about something else. Where we go from here could mean a lot of things.
CASS STAYED UP past two, waiting for Owen, but when it became clear he wouldn’t be back anytime soon, she curled up on the sofa under a throw and fell asleep. The dreams she had were torture, and when she awoke and found Monday to be dark and rainy at 6:00 a.m., she dragged herself upstairs and got into bed. It was another hour before she fell back to sleep, the fear growing inside her.
Maybe they’ve found each other again. Maybe they’ve discovered they still care, maybe they’re talking about giving it another try. They have a son together. Maybe they’re t
hinking they should try to be a family.
She woke up with tears still in her eyes, aware that Owen was tiptoeing around the room.
“When did you get back?” she asked quietly.
“A few minutes ago.” He’d opened the dresser drawer where he’d been keeping some of his things and took out some clothes, though she couldn’t tell what.
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t turn around. “I should have called you.”
Where did you stay last night? she wanted to ask. What’s going on?
As if he’d heard her or read her mind, he sat on the edge of the bed. “I stayed at Ruby’s last night, in my old room. I was so exhausted from all this craziness, I was too tired to walk back here.”
“Cyndi had her car, right? She could have dropped you off.”
“I didn’t think to ask her.”
Or maybe he didn’t want his ex to know he’s practically living with you, that vicious little inner voice poked at her.
“Did you get to spend any time with . . . with your son?”
“A little. Cyndi called one of her brothers to come pick him up and take him back to their parents.”
“Did you resolve anything?”
“Not really. I’m having a hard time with this, Cass.”
“Of course you are. Anyone would.” She sat up and put her arms around him, and he leaned against her. Cass stroked the side of his face, and he seemed to morph back into the man she knew.
“Why don’t you get into bed? How much sleep did you get last night?”
“None.”
She moved over to make room for him, but he shook his head.
“I’m going to meet Cyndi and J.J. for breakfast. She thought it would be a good thing if he started to see me more. You know, so he could get used to me.”
“Oh. Sure. I guess he’s going to have to get to know you.”
Owen leaned over and kissed the side of her face. “I’ll see you later.”
He went into the bathroom across the hall, and she heard the shower turn on. Cass got up and went downstairs, still in the clothes she’d worn the day before, and made coffee. It was going to be a very long day.
The Chesapeake Bride Page 25