His Surprise Son (18 page)

The fact that she hadn’t told him
I love you
in actual words had been a source of pride and comfort when she was seventeen.

Tears that were decades old got stuck in her throat, feeling like a lump of tar. She was afraid to cry, afraid she would be unable to stop, but it ceased to be her choice. Doubled over, as if protecting the little girl who’d refused to cry all those years ago, she sobbed, the sound echoing through the shell of a house that had heard much noise but little genuine emotion.

Responding to her mommy’s crying, Latke braved the rusty steps and entered the trailer. Whining, she shoved her broad nose against Izzy’s leg. Kneeling next to Latke, Izzy gathered her dog in a fierce hug as she wept in pain. She cried in recognition, too, because the truth was that she wasn’t alone anymore. Henry, Sam, Eli and Derek and Holliday—they never missed her birthday, even when she told them not to bother.

She had learned to give her love to people who were capable of loving her back, and she’d come to trust that they weren’t going to leave. Could she really choose to doubt all that now just because two wonderful men in their seventies had decided it was time to retire?

And what about Nate? She loved the way he looked at Eli when Eli wasn’t looking. She loved the way he looked at her. When Nate grinned, she felt as light as down, and when he kissed her, the very last cracks in her heart knit together until she felt seamless, whole.

She’d thought refusing to be broken made her a winner. Maybe the willingness to be broken, knowing she would be put back together again, even stronger—maybe that was the real victory.

Trust beyond Izzy’s understanding settled around her like a comforter, filling her with resolve. As the tears dried, she raised her head. Through the dark, she peered at the lifeless trailer, and the truth settled on her.
Izzy Lambert doesn’t live here anymore.

Pulling out her phone, she sent a text, then pocketed the cell again without waiting for a reply. Wiping her face, she rose and walked to the door, her loyal dog by her side. Heading out, they made their way down the steps and across the weeds to the spot where Izzy left her bike. Only then did she turn for one look at the trailer. The last look. She wouldn’t need to come here again.

* * *

By the time she reached her house, Nate was there, pacing the porch. He bounded down the steps to meet her.

“Where’s Eli?” she asked.

“Still at the party.” He grabbed her arms. “I’m sorry. I wanted to surprise you. It was stupid. I should have realized that with all the secrets in our history—”

Izzy put her fingers on Nate’s lips. “I don’t want to talk about the past. Thank you for meeting me.” She gazed into his worried features, so perfect, so intense. Taking his hand, she led him to the porch, but neither of them wanted to sit.

“I’ve already been here once,” he said, “and to the grocery because of that cock-and-bull story you told Eli about needing breakfast foods, and to your favorite spot on the river. If you hadn’t texted me—”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She wasted no time with explanations about why she’d left the party. She didn’t want to waste any more time at all. “I love you.” Sounding breathless, she tried again. “I love you, and I loved you fifteen years ago, and maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d told you then, but I should have, just because it was the truth.” The words emerged like a pent-up sigh, ready to be released at last. “We have a son, and I think we should finish raising him together— No. No, that’s not right. It’s not that I think we
should
, it’s that I
want
to. I want to finish raising him as a team. I want us to be together.” Her heart beat a mile a minute. Honesty felt dangerous and terrifying and absolutely right. “If you want us to be together, too, then great. And if you don’t...” She was about to assure him they would work out the details of parenting from a distance, then shook her head. “You have to want us to be together, because this is right. This is whole. This is that thing you were talking about. It’s what Henry means when he says
bashert
. You’re my meant-to-be, Nate Thayer, and, darn it, I know it, and you should know it, too, and if you don’t, well, then—”

Nate’s kiss absorbed everything else she was going to say. A delightful dizziness replaced thoughts.

When they stopped kissing, she lowered her forehead to his shirt and breathed him in. “I can move to Chicago so you can be closer to Eli,” she murmured. “I don’t want you two to be apart again.”

Nate held her face with one hand and kissed her forehead. “You can’t come to Chicago.” His response mirrored the look in his eyes—sweet and amused and loving. “You have obligations here.”

“Only for a little while longer, apparently.” She frowned. “Or would you rather that I not come to Chicago?”

He kissed her again, swift and hard this time, then said, “Hey, that bossy confidence thing is really sexy. Don’t louse it up now.”

Izzy pushed away from him. “All right, then tell me what you mean.”

“That’s better.” He grinned. “I mean, you left the party too soon. And we were clumsy about the way we made the announcement. You, Isabelle Lambert—someday hopefully—Thayer, are the new co-owner of The Pickle Jar. Fifty-one percent interest with Henry and Sam as your mostly silent partners. The deli will have to close temporarily during the remodel, which you will work on with me, so that I understand your vision for the restaurant. Then The Pickle Jar will reopen as part of a green remodel of the downtown blocks. Jax inherited a couple buildings and bought quite a few others, but he isn’t going to rent-gouge or squeeze people out. He’s looking at a few-years-long project intended to make Thunder Ridge a more relevant tourist destination during ski season and in the summer. Too many people stay outside of town and come to the Ridge just to ski. Jax wants to keep them and their wallets right here. I’ve been looking for a project exactly like this. There’ll be plenty more in Oregon, too.”

Nate looked immensely pleased with himself. “And,” he said, “your employees can temporarily go on unemployment or accept a stipend while the deli is closed. Jax found an anonymous donor to help out. Same for the other businesses that will be affected.” He laughed. “You look stunned.”

Izzy nodded. “Did you say Isabelle Lambert—someday hopefully—Thayer?”

It took Nate a second or two. “With everything I just told you, that’s what you want to know?”

She nodded.

A slow smile spread across his face. “Good.” He leaned close so close that no one, not even the crickets chirping all around them, could have heard him. “I want to stay in Thunder Ridge, with you and Eli. I feel better standing still right here than I ever felt chasing success anyplace else.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a dark blue velvet box, opened the lid and dropped to one knee before her. “Izzy Lambert, will you marry me? So that the rest of our lives can begin right now?”

Izzy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Or seeing. Nestled inside the jewelry box, a platinum ring with three diamonds sparkled beneath the porch lights. A family of multifaceted gems nestled together.

This was the life she hadn’t dared dream about. “You’re moving awfully quickly,” she demurred, not meaning a word of it. “We’ve hardly dated, and you want to get married. What kind of example is that to set for our son?” Happy tears slipped down her cheeks.

Nate rose and gently thumbed the tears away. “I asked Eli for his blessing first. He gave it. We’ve waited fifteen years, Isabel. The way I felt with you—it was always there in the back of my mind, no matter what I was doing or whom I was with. I’ve been trying to recapture that feeling for half my life.”

“What feeling would that be?”

Nate kissed her again, long and slow and thoroughly. “That one,” he murmured when they parted. “The one that tells me there’s nothing I need or want that I don’t already have. The feeling that heaven is right here in my arms. That’s the feeling I want every day for the rest of my life. Do you want it, too?”

“I do,” Izzy agreed, feeling as if her heart might explode with joy when he took her hand and placed his ring on her finger. The ring was exquisite, but nothing could match the beauty of Nate’s expression when she looked into his eyes and vowed, “For better, for worse, for always. I definitely, definitely do.”

Epilogue

E
li stood next to his dad,
beneath the gazebo in Doc Howard Park.
You look
nervous
, he signed to Nate.
You should breathe
or something.

Not nervous
, Nate signed back.
Excited.
He tugged his tie as if it was way too
tight, shrugged and signed again,
A little nervous,
maybe.

Eli grinned. Smiling came easily around his dad.
His dad.
Okay, it was still totally surreal to think
those words, much less say them.

In the four months since Nate had come back to town, there had
been a lot of changes in Thunder Ridge. Several of the stores, including The
Pickle Jar, were closed for renovations. With the deli dark, his mom had had a
lot of time on her hands, which had turned out to be a giant pain. She fed
everyone like every five minutes and registered Uncle Derek on an internet
dating site until he told her to back off. Finally, Nate had suggested she stop
butting into everyone’s business and start doing something useful, like plan
their wedding.

His mom’s face had gone through probably a thousand different
expressions before she’d burst into tears. It had taken his dad a couple of
minutes to figure out that all the blubbering meant “yes.”

So, they were going to be a family—officially—in
three...two...one...

Right now.

As LeeAnne Alves, the music teacher at the elementary school,
played the wedding march on her flute, his mom walked toward the gazebo. Henry
held one of her arms, and Sam held the other.

My grandpas.
The thought came
unbidden, surprising Eli and making him feel kinda weird. Sort of...sentimental
about his whole life.

His grandmother—his dad’s mom—was here, too. Eli didn’t know
her too well yet, and she seemed really awkward sometimes, but when he took a
peek at her now, she was watching them and smiling as if she was really
happy.

Everyone he and his mom knew was sitting in the folding chairs
set up on the grass. Uncle Derek was in the front row. He made eye contact with
Eli and signed,
Your mom and Nate look like they need
oxygen.

Eli nodded.
Scared of crowds.

Wimps. Your mom looks pretty.

Eli looked at his mother. Wow. Yeah, she did.

Her dress was long with skinny straps on the shoulders, and the
color was almost exactly the shade of pink in the sunset. Her gaze remained
glued to his father, who walked down the gazebo steps to meet her. For just a
second as they grasped each other’s hands, a glow surrounded them, and they
seemed to forget that anyone else was there, even Eli.

Suddenly, he felt nearly grown up and really, really young
again, all at once. His heart pinched in a not totally good way. But then his
parents started toward the steps, and when his mother reached them, he saw tears
sparkling in her eyes.

Letting go of Nate’s hand, she passed her bouquet to Holliday
and signed to Eli,
I love you so much. Ready, First
Mate?

Was he ready?

As Eli glanced at his dad, he remembered something. A couple of
weeks ago, they’d been in this park, tossing a baseball around, and Eli had
missed a catch. When he’d run to the bench where the ball had rolled, he had
seen a guy with a real little baby in a stroller. That guy had been watching his
baby just the way Nate was watching him and his mom now. Like he was sort of
amazed by them and also determined to watch over them every day, forever.

Man, being on the receiving end of that kind of attention was
going to get annoying.

This time Eli’s smile began from deep inside, replacing the
pinched feeling around his heart.

Meeting his mom’s eyes, he signed back,
Ready, Skipper. Totally ready.

He took her right arm and Nate took her left as they faced the
minister—and their future—together.

* * * * *

Will Sheriff Neel find his perfect match?

Look for his story, the next installment in Wendy Warren’s new
miniseries
THE MEN OF THUNDER RIDGE
Coming soon to
Harlequin Special Edition!

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Officer Wyn Bailey has found herself wanting more from her boss—and older brother’s best friend—for a while now. Will sexy police chief Cade Emmett let his guard down long enough to embrace the love he secretly craves?

Read on for a sneak peek at the newest book in
New York Times
bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne’s
HAVEN POINT
series, RIVERBEND ROAD, available soon from HQN Books.

Riverbend Road

by RaeAnne Thayne

CHAPTER ONE

“T
HIS
WAS
YOUR
dire emergency? Seriously?”

Officer Wynona Bailey leaned against her Haven Point Police Department squad car, not sure whether to laugh or pull out her hair. “That frantic phone call made it sound like you were at death’s door!” she exclaimed to her great-aunt Jenny. “You mean to tell me I drove here with full lights and sirens, afraid I would stumble over you bleeding on the ground, only to find you in a standoff with a baby moose?”

The gangly-looking creature had planted himself in the middle of the driveway while he browsed from the shrubbery that bordered it. He paused in his chewing to watch the two of them out of long-lashed dark eyes.

He was actually really cute, with big ears and a curious face. She thought about pulling out her phone to take a picture that her sister could hang on the local wildlife bulletin board in her classroom but decided Jenny probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

“It’s not the calf I’m worried about,” her great-aunt said. “It’s his mama over there.”

She followed her aunt’s gaze and saw a female moose on the other side of the willow shrubs, watching them with much more caution than her baby was showing.

While the creature might look docile on the outside, Wyn knew from experience a thousand-pound cow could move at thirty-five miles an hour and wouldn’t hesitate to take on anything she perceived as a threat to her offspring.

“I need to get into my garage, that’s all,” Jenny practically wailed. “If Baby Bullwinkle there would just move two feet onto the lawn, I could squeeze around him, but he won’t budge for anything.”

She had to ask the logical question. “Did you try honking your horn?”

Aunt Jenny glared at her, looking as fierce and stern as she used to when Wynona was late turning in an assignment in her aunt’s high school history class.

“Of course I tried honking my horn! And hollering at the stupid thing and even driving right up to him, as close as I could get, which only made the mama come over to investigate. I had to back up again.”

Wyn’s blood ran cold, imagining the scene. That big cow could easily charge the sporty little convertible her diminutive great-aunt had bought herself on her seventy-fifth birthday.

What would make them move along? Wynona sighed, not quite sure what trick might disperse a couple of stubborn moose. Sure, she was trained in Krav Maga martial arts, but somehow none of those lessons seemed to apply in this situation.

The pair hadn’t budged when she pulled up with her lights and sirens blaring in answer to her aunt’s desperate phone call. Even if she could get them to move, scaring them out of Aunt Jenny’s driveway would probably only migrate the problem to the neighbor’s yard.

She was going to have to call in backup from the state wildlife division.

“Oh, no!” her aunt suddenly wailed. “He’s starting on the honeysuckle! He’s going to ruin it. Stop! Move it. Go on now.” Jenny started to climb out of her car again, raising and lowering her arms like a football referee calling a touchdown.

“Aunt Jenny, get back inside your vehicle!” Wyn exclaimed.

“But the honeysuckle! Your dad planted that for me the summer before he...well, you know.”

Wyn’s heart gave a sharp little spasm. Yes. She
did
know. She pictured the sturdy, robust man who had once watched over his aunt, along with everybody else in town. He wouldn’t have hesitated for a second here, would have known exactly how to handle the situation.

Wynnie, anytime you’re up against something bigger than you, just stare `em down. More often than not, that will do the trick.

Some days, she almost felt like he was riding shotgun next to her.

“Stay in your car, Jenny,” she said again. “Just wait there while I call Idaho Fish and Game to handle things. They probably need to move them to higher ground.”

“I don’t have time to wait for some yahoo to load up his tranq gun and hitch up his horse trailer, then drive over from Shelter Springs! Besides that honeysuckle, which is priceless to me, I have seventy-eight dollars’ worth of groceries in the trunk of my car that will be ruined if I can’t get into the house. That includes four pints of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia that’s going to be melted red goo if I don’t get it in the freezer fast—and that stuff is not exactly cheap, you know.”

Her great-aunt looked at her with every expectation that she would fix the problem and Wyn sighed again. Small-town police work was mostly about problem solving—and when she happened to have been born and raised in that small town, too many people treated her like their own private security force.

“I get it. But I’m calling Fish and Game.”

“You’ve got a piece. Can’t you just fire it into the air or something?”

Yeah, unfortunately, her great-aunt—like everybody else in town—watched far too many cop dramas on TV and thought that was how things were done.

“Give me two minutes to call Fish and Game, then I’ll see if I can get him to move aside enough that you can pull into your driveway. Wait in your car,” she ordered for the fourth time as she kept an eye on Mama Moose. “Do not, I repeat, do
not
get out again. Promise?”

Aunt Jenny slumped back into her seat, clearly disappointed that she wasn’t going to have front row seats to some kind of moose-cop shoot-out. “I suppose.”

To Wyn’s relief, local game warden Moose Porter—who, as far as she knew, was no relation to the current troublemakers—picked up on the first ring. She explained the situation to him and gave him the address.

“You’re in luck. We just got back from relocating a female brown bear and her cub away from that campground on Dry Creek Road. I’ve still got the trailer hitched up.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

“How about that dinner we’ve been talking about?” he asked.

She
had not been talking about dinner. Moose had been pretty relentless in asking her out for months and she always managed to deflect. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the guy. He was nice and funny and good-looking in a burly, outdoorsy, flannel-shirt-and-gun-rack sort of way, but she didn’t feel so much as an ember around him. Not like, well, someone else she preferred not to think about.

Maybe she would stop thinking about that
someone else
if she ever bothered to go on a date. “Sure,” she said on impulse. “I’m pretty busy until after Lake Haven Days, but let’s plan something in a couple of weeks. Meantime, how soon can you be here?”

“Great! I’ll definitely call you. And I’ve got an ETA of about seven minutes now.”

The obvious delight left her squirming and wishing she had deflected his invitation again.

Fish or cut line, her father would have said.

“Make it five, if you can. My great-aunt’s favorite honeysuckle bush is in peril here.”

“On it.”

She ended the phone call just as Jenny groaned, “Oh. Not the butterfly bush, too! Shoo. Go on, move!”

While she was on the phone, the cow had moved around the shrubs nearer her calf and was nibbling on the large showy blossoms on the other side of the driveway.

Wyn thought about waiting for the game warden to handle the situation, but Jenny was counting on her. She couldn’t let a couple of moose get the better of her. Wondering idly if a Kevlar vest would protect her in the event she was charged, she climbed out of her patrol vehicle and edged around to the front bumper. “Come on. Move along. That’s it.”

She opted to move toward the calf, figuring the cow would follow her baby. Mindful to keep the vehicle between her and the bigger animal, she waved her arms like she was directing traffic in a big-city intersection. “Go. Get out of here.”

Something in her firm tone or maybe her rapid-fire movements finally must have convinced the calf she wasn’t messing around this time. He paused for just a second, then lurched through a break in the shrubs to the other side, leaving just enough room for Great-Aunt Jenny to squeeze past and head for her garage to unload her groceries.

“Thank you, Wynnie. You’re the best,” her aunt called. “Come by one of these Sundays for dinner. I’ll make my fried chicken and biscuits and my Better-Than-Sex cake.”

Her mouth watered and her stomach rumbled, reminding her quite forcefully that she hadn’t eaten anything since her shift started that morning.

Her great-aunt’s Sunday dinners were pure decadence. Wyn could almost feel her arteries clog in anticipation.

“I’ll check my schedule.”

“Thanks again.”

Jenny drove her flashy little convertible into the garage and quickly closed the door behind her.

Of all things, the sudden action of the door seemed to startle the big cow moose where all other efforts—including a honking horn and Wyn’s yelling and arm-peddling—had failed. The moose shied away from the activity, heading in Wyn’s direction.

Crap.

Heart pounding, she managed to jump into her vehicle and yank the door closed behind her seconds before the moose charged past her toward the calf.

The two big animals picked their way across the lawn and settled in to nibble Jenny’s pretty red-twig dogwoods.

Crisis managed—or at least her part in it—she turned around and drove back to the street just as a pickup pulling a trailer with the Idaho Fish and Game logo came into view over the hill.

She pushed the button to roll down her window and Moose did the same. Beside him sat a game warden she didn’t know. Moose beamed at her and she squirmed, wishing she had shut him down again instead of giving him unrealistic expectations.

“It’s a cow and her calf,” she said, forcing her tone into a brisk, businesslike one and addressing both men in the vehicle. “They’re now on the south side of the house.”

“Thanks for running recon for us,” Moose said.

“Yeah. Pretty sure we managed to save the Ben & Jerry’s, so I guess my work here is done.”

The warden grinned at her and she waved and pulled onto the road, leaving her window down for the sweet-smelling June breezes to float in.

She couldn’t really blame a couple of moose for wandering into town for a bit of lunch. This was a beautiful time around Lake Haven, when the wildflowers were starting to bloom and the grasses were long and lush.

She loved Haven Point with all her heart, but she found it pretty sad that the near-moose encounter was the most exciting thing that had happened to her on the job in days.

Her cell phone rang just as she turned from Clover Hill Road to Lakeside Drive. She knew by the ringtone just who was on the other end and her breathing hitched a little, like always. Those stone-cold embers she had been wondering about when it came to Moose Porter suddenly flared to thick, crackling life.

Yeah. She knew at least one reason why she didn’t go out much.

She pushed the phone button on her vehicle’s hands-free unit. “Hey, Chief.”

“Hear you had a little excitement this afternoon and almost tangled with a couple of moose.”

She heard the amusement in the voice of her boss—and friend—and tried not to picture Cade Emmett stretched out behind his desk, big and rangy and gorgeous, with that surprisingly sweet smile that broke hearts all over Lake Haven County.

“News travels.”

“Your great-aunt Jenny just called to inform me you risked your life to save her Cherry Garcia and to tell me all about how you deserve a special commendation.”

“If she really thought that, why didn’t she at least give me a pint for my trouble?” she grumbled.

The police chief laughed, that rich, full laugh that made her fingers and toes tingle like she’d just run full tilt down Clover Hill Road with her arms outspread.

Curse the man.

“You’ll have to take that up with her next time you see her. Meantime, we just got a call about possible trespassers at that old wreck of a barn on Darwin Twitchell’s horse property on Conifer Drive, just before the turnoff for Riverbend. Would you mind checking it out before you head back for the shift change?”

“Who called it in?”

“Darwin. Apparently, somebody tripped an alarm he set up after he got hit by our friendly local graffiti artist a few weeks back.”

Leave it to the ornery old buzzard to set a trap for unsuspecting trespassers. Knowing Darwin and his contrariness, he probably installed infrared sweepers and body heat sensors, even though the ramshackle barn held absolutely nothing of value.

“The way my luck is going today, it’s probably a relative to the two moose I just made friends with.”

“It could be a skunk, for all I know. But Darwin made me swear I’d send an officer to check it out. Since the graffiti case is yours, I figured you’d want first dibs, just in case you have the chance to catch them red-handed. Literally.”

“Gosh, thanks.”

He chuckled again and the warmth of it seemed to ease through the car even through the hollow, tinny Bluetooth speakers.

“Keep me posted.”

“Ten-four.”

She turned her vehicle around and headed in the general direction of her own little stone house on Riverbend Road that used to belong to her grandparents.

The Redemption mountain range towered across the lake, huge and imposing. The snow that would linger in the moraines and ridges above the timberline for at least another month gleamed in the afternoon sunlight and the lake was that pure, vivid turquoise usually seen only in shallow Caribbean waters.

Her job as one of six full-time officers in the Haven Point Police Department might not always be overflowing with excitement, but she couldn’t deny that her workplace surroundings were pretty gorgeous.

She spotted the first tendrils of black smoke above the treetops as she turned onto the rutted lane that wound its way through pale aspen trunks and thick pines and spruce.

Probably just a nearby farmer burning some weeds along a ditch line, she told herself, or trying to get rid of the bushy-topped invasive phragmites reeds that could encroach into any marshy areas and choke out all the native species. But something about the black curl of smoke hinted at a situation beyond a controlled burn.