by Helen Lacey
A white Christmas. The idea made him smile. It had been years since he’d experienced a holiday with snow. And he knew that T.J. would get a buzz out of the kid’s-size snow boots he’d ordered from a store in town. Christmas was a little over a week away, and he was looking forward to the event more than he had in years. Maybe ever.
He pulled the Jeep into the driveway, quickly dropped the groceries off upstairs and then headed around the back toward Abby’s place. The sun was just setting, and he was about the tap on the back door when he heard the familiar sound of his son’s voice...although it was many decibels louder than usual.
Jake tapped on the door again, and when no one answered, opened the door and walked into the kitchen, catching the tail end of a conversation between Abby and T.J., that was echoing down from the hallway.
“But I want to, Mommy!”
Jake heard Abby’s impatient response. “Not tonight,” she said firmly.
“You never let me do anything,” he wailed, and Jake heard the loud bang of a door. “I hate you, Mommy! I hate you forever!”
When he reached the hallway, Jake spotted Abby standing outside T.J.’s bedroom. He said her name and she looked up. “Oh...hi.”
“I did knock. Everything okay?” he asked, clearly knowing it wasn’t.
She shrugged, and he didn’t miss how her eyes were glistening with tears. “Just a disagreement about bedtime.”
Jake checked his watch. “It’s still early.”
“I know,” she replied and walked toward him, “but he said he wanted to stay up and watch something on television later tonight. I said no, and he had a tantrum.”
Jake followed her steps back down the hall and into the kitchen. “Does this happen often?”
She shook her head and then nodded, dropping her hands to her sides. “More often than I like,” she admitted.
“What kind of things does he say to you?” he asked quietly.
“Oh, you mean other than he hates me and I’m the worst mother in the world?”
Jake winced. “Well, we both know that’s not true, Abby.”
“Do we?” she remarked, and then sighed, but he heard the sound of tears in her voice. “I’m not so sure. I let him believe Tom was his father. I kept him from you for six years, as you’ve pointed out so often. So what kind of mother does that make me?”
“The protective kind,” Jake assured her. “The kind who always puts him first.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said and shrugged. “But I think my past actions disprove that theory.”
Sweet? Jake wasn’t sure he’d ever been called that before. And he suddenly had an urgent need to make her feel better. Stupid, he knew. The less he felt around Abby, the better. He remembered what his brother had said about her hiding their son in plain sight and realized it was true.
“If you’d truly wanted to keep T.J. a secret, Abby, you would have moved to Canada or something. And frankly, any one of my brothers could have figured out that T.J. was my kid if they’d looked close enough. He kind of looks like me.”
She nodded, her expression softening. “And he has your birthmark. I couldn’t believe it when he was first born and I saw that on his shoulder. He was so tiny but had so much fight inside him, so much courage and strength. Like you.”
Jake’s insides twitched. “I wish I’d been there with you.”
“I wanted you there,” she admitted shakily. “I just didn’t know how to make it happen.”
You could have called me...let me know I was a daddy with a baby fighting for his life...
Jake wanted to say it, but the words only hovered. Because as much as he was as mad as hell with Abby, he didn’t like hurting her. And he didn’t want their son hurting her, either.
“If it’s okay with you, I’ll go and talk with T.J. He needs to know it’s not okay to say he hates you.”
She stared at him. “He only—”
“Says it when he doesn’t get his own way,” Jake supplied, cutting her off. “Maybe, but it’s still not acceptable. Not to me, and it shouldn’t be to you, either.”
Jake left the room, his throat unusually tight, his heart unsteady behind his ribs, his thoughts more jumbled than they’d ever been in his life.
* * *
Abby was still in the kitchen when T.J. came to see her half an hour later. Her son moved around the kitchen counter and hugged her around the waist, pressing his face into her belly. She rubbed the top of his head affectionately, and a great surge of love washed over her. And for Jake, too, because although she didn’t know what had transpired between them, she suspected it had something to do with honor and respect and truth—things she knew were important to Jake.
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“I know.”
He hiccuped and sighed. “Daddy said I should never say mean things to the person who loves me more than anyone else in the whole world,” he said and hugged her tighter.
Abby looked up and saw Jake standing in the doorway. He looked so handsome, her heart flipped over. She loved him so deeply but wasn’t foolish enough to imagine those feelings were reciprocated. He was proving to be a wonderful father, and she loved him all the more for the way he’d embraced their son and fatherhood—but their relationship was well and truly over.
And I’m fine with that...
All that mattered was T.J. being successfully coparented by two people who loved him. And she could clearly see how quickly Jake had formed a bond with their son. T.J. thought Jake hung the moon. Her son, she knew, had been yearning for a father, and seeing them together made it very clear how wrong she’d been in denying Jake the knowledge of his son.
She mouthed a thank-you to him, and he nodded, smiling a little. “Your daddy’s right, but sometimes people do things without realizing they are hurting someone they love.”
“Have you ever done that, Mommy?” T.J. asked and looked up.
Abby brushed his forehead and glanced toward Jake. “I’m sure I have.”
“But you didn’t mean it either, did you?” He asked the question with such innocence that Abby’s whole body ached.
“No, honey, I didn’t mean it,” she said, not daring to look at Jake, because the raw emotion surging through her blood would make it obvious she was talking about him. About them.
“I love you, Mommy,” her son said and hugged her.
“I love you, too,” she said and smiled. “Now, how about you wash up for dinner?”
He nodded. “Is Daddy having dinner with us?”
She glanced toward Jake. “If he’d like to, of course he can.”
T.J. turned toward his father. “Will you, Daddy?”
“Sure, buddy.”
Abby’s insides clenched. Of course, she knew spending time with Jake was part of their unofficial coparenting arrangement, and as much as part of her enjoyed his company, the other part ached inside thinking about how far removed from one another they really were. The tension was palpable. Unspoken words hung between them. And her dreams were plagued with images of him. Which meant most days she woke up restless and lethargic and spent her time as a hazy facsimile of the person she normally was. For years she’d lived her life in a kind of red alert, waiting for the day her secret would be exposed and Jake would discover the truth. And now that he had, nothing was as she’d expected. Oh, their relationship was just as she’d imagined it would be—a civil demonstration of two people trying to find a way to be parents to a child who clearly needed them both. But nothing else had really changed except for T.J. being happier than she’d ever seen him. When she’d made arrangements with the school to give Jake authority to be on the contact list and the school administrator had asked her directly what the relationship between Jake and T.J. was, she admitted the truth publicly for the first time. And her world didn’t end. The sky didn’t fall in. Yes, there had been
questions and a natural curiousity. And she knew there would be talk. Cedar River was a small town and gossip was inevitable. But as long as she could protect her son from it, she would weather whatever happened. And she was sure Jake felt the same. When she had a meeting at work with Liam and Connie and told them, neither had seemed surprised. When she’d told a couple of friends, no one had had an overly surprised response. In fact, one of them had asked if she and Jake were back together, and when she’d made it clear they weren’t, her friend had asked if she’d mind if she gave Jake a call. Which, of course, she did! But she felt she didn’t have the right to say so. Jake was a single guy—he could do what he liked. And date who he wanted. Even if the idea hurt her down to her bones.
And through her week of sleeplessness, through her concerns that her beloved child would be tarred somehow as the illegitimate son of her husband’s best friend, T.J. was flourishing. Her son loved his father. And clearly Jake loved his son. When she’d broached the idea of changing his last name to Culhane to T.J., her son had jumped at the idea without any reservations. Which amplified Abby’s guilt tenfold. One, because T.J. was so desperate to have a flesh-and-blood father to call his own. And two, because Tom Perkins, his angel daddy and the man who’d taken place of pride on the mantel for so long, had now become secondary and T.J. had announced he wanted a picture of his real dad above the fireplace as well.
“Everything okay, Abby?”
She looked up and met Jake’s glittering gaze. “What did you say to him?”
“Guy stuff,” he replied and then half smiled. “Just that it’s not okay to say you hate someone.”
Abby grabbed plates from the cupboard. “Thank you, I appreciate it more than you could know. But,” she added, “he’ll hate me even more when he finds out I didn’t tell you about him.”
“He’ll only know what we tell him, and for the moment that’s enough,” he said, and came around the counter. “I don’t think we need to burden him with too much information.”
“Who’d have thought that you’d end up being the voice of reason in this situation?” she said and offered brittle laughter that defied the anguish in her heart, and then she flapped a hand dismissively. “Ignore me, I’m just having an emotional breakdown.”
“Ignore you?” he echoed, and took the plates from her hands. “Impossible. That would be like forgetting to breathe. And I don’t think you’re having a breakdown, Abby. You’re too strong-willed and stubborn for that. But you do look exhausted. So why don’t you sit down and let me cook dinner.”
She gave him a look. “You’re going to cook?”
He laughed, and the sound etched deep down into her soul. “I’m not completely inept in the kitchen, you know.”
“I thought that’s why you joined the military,” she said, and passed him an apron. “So you’d get three square meals a day.”
He took the apron and look down into her face. “You know why I joined,” he said soberly and then smiled a little. “The meals were a bonus.”
“I didn’t mean to sound trite. After what you said the other day, I’m beginning to understand,” she admitted. She’d spent days going over the words. Days trying to fathom the fallout from what she had done and the decisions she had made.
“We said a lot of things the other day.”
Memory of their heated conversation bombarded her thoughts. They had said a lot of things. And they’d kissed. And argued. It seemed to be the tempo of their relationship.
“I feel guilty,” she said and sighed. “Which you know, of course. And not just because I didn’t tell you about T.J., but about Tom.”
“Why?”
“Because I could never truly regret what happened between us. That would mean I regretted T.J.’s existence—and I don’t. I mean, how could I? He’s the most precious gift in the world. But there have been times when the guilt was almost all-consuming, if that makes sense. I started referring to Tom as his angel daddy to make the inevitable transition easier.”
“What inevitable transition?”
“You,” she replied. “Coming back to Cedar River. Learning the truth about you being his father. All of it.”
His gaze narrowed. “You mean you did intend to tell me?”
She nodded. “Yes. But then, things got complicated and we started...you know...to reconnect. It’s no excuse, but that’s the truth. I wanted to tell you that night I asked you to meet me at the Loose Moose. I chickened out because I’m a coward.”
“You’re not a coward, Abby,” he said gently. “You’re a protective mom. And a good one.”
“Perhaps,” she said and sighed. “But I’m not sure I was such a great wife. To T.J., Tom’s always been a picture above a fireplace, a father-figure he could call his own, and now Tom’s fading from T.J.’s thoughts. It makes me feel such sadness, and shame, because he got a raw deal when he married me.”
“Tom loved you,” Jake said quietly. “He knew what he was doing.”
“Did he? I hope so. I hope he didn’t marry me simply because I was the first girl who’d said yes. The truth is, he loved us both. But once you left town, he asked me out pretty much right away. I said no, of course, that it was too soon, that I still wasn’t...over you. I used to wonder if he pursued me because he wanted to compete with you. It’s illogical, I guess, and doesn’t make a bit of difference now...but he had to have a reason for wanting me.”
Jake grabbed her hand. “Other than the fact that you’re beautiful and smart and funny and great to be around?”
Abby looked at where their hands were linked. He was so close. And he smelled so good.
“Maybe I was those things once,” she said quietly. “I’m pretty sure you don’t think I’m so great to be around these days.”
He dropped her hand. “At times. Goes with the territory, I guess.”
“The one that sits between anger and betrayal, you mean?”
His gaze was unwavering. “Exactly. Abby, Tom’s gone,” he reminded her, his voice even, “but I don’t see the harm in keeping his memory alive for T.J.”
“But I thought you might be—”
“What?” he asked, cutting her off. “Jealous? Insecure?” He shook his head. “I’m not. And while I’m still trying to rationalize your reasons for keeping the truth from me, I’m not unhappy that my son has had the memory of a good man to look up to.”
Abby stilled, her heart beating so fast she could barely breathe. “Thank you. I appreciate that you’re being so understanding.”
“Like Patience said, we have to get along for our son’s sake.”
She nodded and pulled the tray of fried chicken from the refrigerator. “These need reheating, and there’s a potato bake in the microwave.”
“Great,” he said and laughed. “Because my cooking is terrible.”
But his kisses were out of this world...
Abby shook her thoughts off and moved around him. “There’s a car in my grandmother’s driveway,” she said as she looked out of the window.
“My car,” he supplied. “I had it sent from Sacramento.”
She nodded. “Looks like you’re here to stay.”
Jake gaze narrowed. “I told you I was staying, Abby. All I need to do now is buy a house.”
She raised a brow. “Is Gran’s small apartment cramping your style?”
He stared at her. “What does that mean?”
Abby shrugged. “One of my friends asked me if you were seeing anyone at the moment. I said I had no idea. I can get her number if you’d like.”
He stopped what he was doing. “I’m not interested.”
Abby ignored a tiny surge of triumph and shrugged again, moving to the other side of the counter. “You’ll need a booster seat for the back.”
“Already have one,” he replied. “I thought I’d take him Christmas shopping tomorrow, if that’s okay
with you?”
“Perfectly,” she replied. “Just don’t spoil him, okay,” she said and then waved her hand. “Okay, you can spoil him if you like. But honestly, he’s happy to simply hang out with you.”
He nodded. “I like that, too. And thank you for sorting out the arrangement with the school. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Also, he’s over the moon at the idea of being T.J. Culhane. I thought that when the next school term starts we could make the transition. It will obviously mean some intrusive questions from certain people—but I think he can handle it.”
“What about you?”
Abby gave a startled gasp. “What?”
“You plan on changing your name back to Reed?”
Her pounding heart subsided. “Ah...not immediately. I’ll change it if I get married again.”
She watched as he wrapped the apron around his waist, looking totally masculine and so sexy it defied words. She didn’t want to talk about marriage with Jake. And the idea he might marry someone one day made her ache all over.
“I suppose you’d like more kids?” he asked as he worked on preparing their food.
Heat crawled up her neck. “One day. Before the clock starts ticking too loudly.”
He tilted his head a fraction. “You’re still young.”
Abby shrugged. “I’m nearly thirty-two. It’s moot anyhow, since I’m not seeing anyone at the moment...well, you know, except...”
You...
The word stuck, and she moved away, grabbing the plates and setting the table just as T.J. came back into the room.
“Daddy,” he announced, saying it as though he’d been saying it all his life, “can we play a video game after dinner?”
Jake looked at her, and she nodded. “Sure, but remember you have school tomorrow, so we can’t stay up too late.”
“I remember. Are you coming to my Christmas concert?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
T.J.’s beaming face filled Abby with so much love. He was so happy it made every ounce of her own misery worth suffering. The concert was on Thursday afternoon, and she’d made arrangements to finish work early so she could help with the costumes. She knew Mitch and Tess were coming also, and Joss, since his girls were both performing at the event. It would be her first public outing since Jake had discovered the truth about their son, and although she knew the Culhanes had embraced the knowledge that T.J. was one of them, she had no idea how they would react to her. Civilly, of course. But she suspected there might be resentment also. And they would close ranks around Jake because he was family. And T.J. was family, too.