His Surprise Son (13 page)

Izzy glanced at the board with flavors scrawled over it. “How do you know what I’m going to order? I don’t even know.” Coconut, mango, chocolate, leche, Thai tea, banana, Northwest Marionberry—the list of flavor options went on and on.

“I know you won’t be able to make up your mind. So you’ll order what they’re having.” He nodded to a group of teenagers leaving the tent with their mountainous treats painted a rainbow of flavors. The colors bled together, one skinny stripe huddled so closely next to its neighbor that not a single flavor would be discernible.

Ha! He didn’t know her as well as he thought. Years ago, she might have hungrily tried everything, like the teens, but these days, she knew that insisting on having all she wanted could end in a terrible gut ache.

“Actually, I think I’d rather have just one or two flavors.” She pointed as a cup mounded with a creamy-looking, two-colored treat topped with toasted coconut passed by. “Like that one—”
Oh.

Oh, no.

No, no, no. It couldn’t be.

Squinting after the T-shirted young man who was walking away from her, Izzy sent up a quick prayer that her eyes were, in fact, deceiving her. That kid looked just like Gabe Pentzel, one of Eli’s classmates, which wouldn’t be so horrible, except that Gabe was a junior counselor this summer at the same inner-city camp as Eli.

Izzy’s eyes darted throughout the tent. Up ahead in line, she spotted a group of younger kids dressed similarly to the boy she’d thought was Gabe, in shorts and red tees with white lettering. She squinted but couldn’t make out the words on their shirts.

“Thanks for inviting me tonight,” Nate said, squeezing her hand briefly. “This was a good idea. The venue’s a lot more elaborate than I remember.”

“Yeah, it is.” Distracted, she watched another couple of red T-shirters leave the tent with their shave ices. They were younger than Eli; Izzy didn’t recognize them. She strained to read their shirts.
Camp...

She couldn’t see clearly, but unless the circle of white lettering said Crimp Innards Critter, it was a darn good bet she was looking at the Camp Inner City kids. And that meant...

Her heart skittered like a pack of marbles rolling down stairs.

“You know,” she turned to Nate, “I think this was
not
such a good idea, after all. It’s so crowded.”

Concern filled Nate’s expression.

“Why don’t we walk around the park like you suggested?” She would take him to the International Rose Test Garden. That was where she’d told him about Eli the first time. There was a kind of poetic full circle-ness to the idea of going back to the same bench to tell him again that he was a father. She should have thought of that before.

“Let’s go.” This time, she pulled Nate as she wove them through the crowds. Each time she saw a cluster of red shirts, she switched direction. “Excuse me...pardon us...” The flow of traffic was against them, the crowds growing ever thicker as showtime neared.

Her forehead perspired as they reached the edge of the concert lawn. The Africafe, a large concrete hut that served sandwiches and fries, was ahead of them, and there were fewer people congregated there. They could follow the concrete walkway that circled the building and then head to the parking lot.

Izzy wondered if Nate felt the slickness of her palm. Yuck. Her mind lurched ahead to what would happen when they got to the Rose Garden. She had pictures of Eli on her phone, of course. She would show them to Nate. Text him a few, if he wanted. Would he want that? And she would have to explain about the hearing impairment and decide how to tell Eli his father was here in town and that she’d never actually told him she was keeping their child...

There was a tug on her hand. Nate had stopped moving. She turned to see him looking at her in deep concern. Letting go of her sweaty hand, he stepped forward until he was standing over her, a half foot taller than she, holding her shoulders.

“Breathe, sweetheart. You’re okay, crowd or no crowd.” He inhaled deeply, urging her to do the same. “Just breathe.”

Filled with compassion, his eyes reminded her of Henry’s words:
Finding your
bashert
doesn’t necessarily make life easier, it makes it better.

Except that regarding her and Nate, the situation between them was the cause of her current distress, and she was about to complicate his life exponentially.

“Nate. I have something I want to say. There’s something you should—”

“Hey, Mrs. L!”

Beside her, a young boy almost as tall as Nate appeared. His smile revealed braces that could not detract from his good looks. He wore the red Camp Inner City T-shirt and baggy basketball shorts with Thunder Ridge High colors.

Trey.

Their son’s best friend was standing before them.

Chapter Thirteen

S
uddenly, Izzy’s tongue felt too large for her mouth. She’d known Trey Richards since he’d been a scrawny seven-year-old with a perpetual grin and infectious laugh.

“Are you here for the concert?” Trey asked. “Did Eli know you were coming? He didn’t say anything. He’s inside, getting a burger with the some of the team—that’s what we call the kids in our group. The rest of the team’s over there.” He gestured with his chin to a group of young people sitting in the bleachers, reaching into bags of fries. “They’re with the captain—that’s what we call the senior counselors.” Genuine and unaffected, Trey had always talked a blue streak. After the cochlear implant that allowed him to hear, Eli had joked that it had been easier to be friends with Trey when he was deaf, but the boys had been inseparable since second grade. “Yeah, so you want me to go inside and tell Eli you’re out here? We’re not supposed to call parents unless there’s an emergency, but this is probably an exception, right?”

The prospect of her son meeting Nate like this, with no warning at all, helped Izzy find her voice. “No, Trey, don’t bother. I had no idea you’d all be here tonight.” Abruptly, she realized Nate’s hands had dropped away from her shoulders. “We’re just leaving, in fact.”

“Oh.”

Izzy saw him give Nate a good look for the first time. Eli’s friends never saw her with a man other than Derek, or Henry and Sam.

“Hi.” Shifting his bag of food, Trey stuck his right hand out to Nate. “I’m Trey.”

Izzy held her breath as the two hands clasped, and her “date” responded, “Nate. Good to meet you.”

“Sorry,” she murmured, for failing to introduce them. Was it her imagination or did Nate’s voice sound tight? “Enjoy the concert,” she told Trey, beginning to walk away from the venue. “See you soon.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Trey was still standing there watching her and Nate quizzically when she turned away and headed for the exit as fast as her legs and the crowd would allow. As Nate fell into step beside her, she dared a glance from beneath her lashes. His jaw looked like granite. Gazing straight ahead, he appeared to be deep in thought. They made it all the way to the car without speaking.

He opened her door, she slid in, and he walked around to the driver’s side, still stone-faced and silent as she tried to figure out how to open the conversation once they reached the International Rose Test Garden. But he didn’t start the car.

“You have a child,” he said, part statement and part question.

“Yes.”

“A son?”

She nodded, looking at him, though he was staring out the windshield. “Eli.”

Nate’s Adam’s apple dipped. “And he’s a teenager. Like Trey.”

Thud...thud...thud.
Her heart knocked against her chest. Apparently, they were going to have this conversation here. And even though she’d had days to think about what she was going to say, she had no idea how to make this news less...shocking.

“Eli is—” she swallowed hard “—fourteen.”

There was stone-cold quiet until Nate slammed his palm on the steering wheel so hard the car shook. “Damn it! Don’t make me ask all the questions. Just tell me.”

With the windows rolled up and the temperature reaching eighty in the shade, the car was stifling. A deep breath was impossible, but Izzy managed a shallow one and plunged ahead.

“I didn’t have a miscarriage. The last time I saw your parents, I told them I didn’t want to give up my baby. I thought we...you and I...might be able to make it work. They were scared. I can see that now, especially with Eli not so far away from the age I was when I got pregnant.” She wiped the perspiration from her face. “Can we roll down a window?”

He obliged. “Go on.”

“Your parents reminded me of all the reasons I shouldn’t be thinking about keeping the baby, and, of course, they were right. But I wasn’t going to change my mind.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

He pushed the words through gritted teeth, reminding her of a volcano preparing to erupt.

“No. I saw a photo of you at a party. It looked like a wedding or something formal, and you were grinning at the camera with your arm around a beautiful blonde girl. The previous few weeks, you hadn’t had time to talk to me. It looked like...it
felt
like...you’d moved on with your life. I didn’t belong in your new world, and you didn’t belong back in Thunder Ridge.” She tried not to allow the past hurt to infiltrate her tone, but she wasn’t sure she was successful. That memory had always been painful.

Nate shook his head, his expression equal parts bafflement and ferocity. “I don’t know what photo you’re talking about. Or what party, but the situation wasn’t about just you and me and who belonged in what world. It stopped being about you and me the instant you decided to raise a baby that was mine.”

“Right. It became about
the baby
. I wasn’t going to involve a birth father who didn’t want him and grandparents who thought he was ruining their son’s future.”

“You never gave me a choice!”

There was no doubt about it; she had become the enemy. Pain welled up. She tried to stay calm. “You had a choice. For months you had a choice. I may not have done everything perfectly, but don’t rewrite history, Nate. You didn’t want a baby.”

“And at the time, you said you agreed we weren’t ready.”

“We weren’t! No one’s ready for a baby at that age. But we were having one anyway.” Pressing her fingers to her temples, she shook her head. “I told you, I never wanted to make an adoption plan. I went along with it hoping everyone would change their minds.”

“When it looked like that wasn’t going to happen, was that when you said you’d had a miscarriage?”

Heavy censure stained his voice. Once, she might have reveled in correcting him, happily placing the blame for the lie about the miscarriage squarely at the feet of his mother.

Now, though, she, too, was the mother of a teenager with a future more promising than her own, and she understood the desire to protect her son.
I hope I’d go about it differently.

“Communication between your mother and me wasn’t the best,” she said carefully. “I think she misunderstood what I was telling her.”

“Which was?”

“That I was going to keep the baby and raise him myself.” She met his eyes to deliver the final truth. “And that I didn’t want anything more to do with you or your family.”

Nate’s fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel. “And you came to that decision because I didn’t have time to talk as you would have liked?” Resentment dripped from his tone. Put that way, she seemed immature and petty.

“It was partly that, yes.” Only scrupulous honesty would suffice at this point. “When I saw the photo, I was sure you didn’t want to be with me, with us.”

“Where did you see this mystery photo?”

“Your mother showed it to me.”

“A picture of me at a party.” He lifted a hand. “I don’t even remember going to any—” Abruptly, he snapped his mouth shut. Thumb and forefinger came up to press against his eyelids. “I went to a wedding in Michigan,” he pushed through gritted teeth. “For a cousin. That’s the picture you saw. I have no idea who the girl was. Probably a distant relative.”

He faced front again.

The next time Izzy tried to swallow, she felt as if she were swallowing glass. What had his mother said when brandishing that photo?
“Does he look like a boy who’s thinking about becoming a father with the girl he dated one summer after high school?”
She didn’t clearly state that he had a new girlfriend, but that had been the implication. Hadn’t it? Izzy closed her eyes and shook her head. It was all so long ago now.

She reopened her eyes when the ignition roared to life again. Glancing at Nate, she saw his profile, looking as if it had been carved on the side of a ridge, rock hard and unyielding.

The only sound on the hour-long ride home was the rumble of the BMW’s motor and the roar of the tension between its passengers.

* * *

I have a son. A teenager.

Fists buried in the pockets of a lightweight hoodie he didn’t really need, Nate strode through the streets of Thunder Ridge at two in the morning, his head covered and his eyes downcast, as if he were a teen himself.

He couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t even tried, actually.
I have a son I’ve never seen. Never even knew about.

Eli.

The entire ride home, he had wondered whether Izzy would have told him about Eli at all if they hadn’t run into the other boy. Nate couldn’t remember the kid’s name now, probably wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing right before him. Once he’d realized Izzy had a son,
his
son, everything else had gone blurry.

Just before he’d dropped her at her house, Izzy had asked him whether he wanted her to tell him about Eli. He’d said, “Not now.” He wouldn’t have heard anything—there were too many thoughts, too many questions and accusations running through his brain. Now he felt guilty. Being a father—wasn’t that about being present all the time, even when you didn’t think you could be?

Being a father.

What did he know about that? Nothing.

Fury and resentment swelled inside him again. He couldn’t deny Izzy’s claim that he hadn’t wanted to be a father at eighteen. But he’d actually thought about coming home, being responsible, until he’d heard about the miscarriage.

His fists balled tighter.

He couldn’t even wrap his brain around being misinformed that Izzy had had a miscarriage. He’d wanted to phone his mother immediately last night, but in that moment he was too angry, his thoughts too accusatory to be of any service. There would be time enough to ask her why she’d shown the photo of the wedding to Izzy. He remembered now that he’d mailed it to his parents, since they hadn’t been able to be there.

His shoes ate up the pavement, pace increasing with the rise of his anger. He walked until he reached town, and when the moonlight filtering through the trees turned to the light of streetlamps and twinkle lights that were never doused, the reality of his situation hit harder than ever before.

There’s The General Store. Eli and Izzy have gone there for ice cream.
When Jax’s dad owned the place, he gave a free birthday scoop.
I don’t know what flavor my son would choose.
Taking his hands from his pockets, he smacked a fist into the opposite palm.

Nate passed the bank. When he was a kid, they had “squirrel” accounts for elementary school students. Had Izzy walked Eli into the bank hand in hand to open his first account? Had Eli felt grown-up and important?

Lightning Hardware. First tool belt. Did Eli know the proper way to hammer a nail?

I’ve missed everything.
Damn her. Damn them all.

Nate felt powerless in a way he’d never felt before in his life. The desire to smash the hardware store window and watch his reflection shatter into tiny, murderous shards was almost overpowering.

And then he saw another reflection, a patrol car pulling slowly along the curb. When Izzy’s sheriff friend emerged from the car and sauntered over like Wild Bill Hickok on a posse hunt, Nate pivoted, spoiling for a fight.

“I’ve known Izz twelve years.”

That was what the sonovabitch had boasted. Twelve years with Izzy and with
Nate’s son
.

“It’s a little late to go window-shopping,” the sheriff drawled as he stepped onto the curb.

“I don’t recall Thunder Ridge having a curfew.” Nate heard the belligerence in his own tone.
Did you help my kid build his first birdhouse? Did you dress up like Santa Claus when he was five?

“Well, you’ve been gone a long time. There’s probably a lot of things you don’t remember. Like the fact that we don’t keep big-city hours.”

“How do you know how long I’ve been gone?”
Did you toss him his first football?
“Is business so slow that you have time to check up on everyone who rolls into town?”

There was a sneer embedded in the question. The sheriff bristled.

“I forgot your name,” Nate said, “and Izzy hasn’t mentioned it in all the times we’ve been together. What is it?”
Yeah, take that, you rat bastard.

“Sheriff Neel,” came the deliberate reply.

“Sheriff Neel. So, what’s that? Your first name? Like ‘Hey, kids, Sheriff Neel is here to teach us about bike safety.’ Or ‘Look, folks, Sheriff Neel brought his ferret to show everyone how friendly the law is in Thunder Ridge.’”

At that moment, the law looked anything but friendly. “I’d like you to walk a straight line for me. Step over here.” He pointed toward the edge of the curb.

Nate took a step, but forward, toward the sheriff, not toward where he pointed. “Haven’t had a drop of alcohol in days.”

“I didn’t ask you that.” Snapping his words into precise pieces, the sheriff ordered again, “Step over there.”

Again Nate stepped forward. “No.”

That did it. The sheriff began to take this more personally, as Nate intended. His anger roared to life, like turning on a gas fireplace. “Listen real careful, golden boy. You may have been used to getting whatever you wanted last time you were in Thunder Ridge, but it isn’t going to work that way this go around. You screw with me or upset Izzy in any way, and I’ll throw your self-important ass in a jail cell and forget where I put the key.”

Sheriff Neel made every point by stabbing his finger in the direction of Nate’s chest.

“Or,” Nate said, baring his teeth, “you get it through your head that I’m not going anywhere. And when it comes to Izzy and
my son
—” Nate shoved a finger at the sheriff, making contact with the man’s shoulder “—mind your own damn business.”

Jaw clenched, Neel growled through his teeth, “Step back and keep your hands to yourself.”

Like an eight-year-old goading a sibling on a car ride that had lasted too long, Nate stayed right where he was, keeping his finger aimed at the other man. “Maybe that’s what you should have done. Kept your hands to yourself. Get your own family instead of pretending with somebody else’s.”