His Surprise Son

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“And always will. That doesn’t mean he’s stopped wondering, dear heart.”

“Of course not. That’s not what I mean. I’ve never underestimated how much Eli would want a father. You know that,” she insisted. “But he’s finally focusing on what he does have, not on what he doesn’t.” She looked at Henry hopefully, seeking his consensus.

Sun-weathered brow puckering, Henry removed his bifocals and began to clean them with his shirttail. Izzy opened a desk drawer, withdrew a tiny spray bottle and cloth she kept just for Henry and Sam, then wiped the lenses until they were clear before returning them to him. “As far as Nate and his parents know,” she said quietly, “I went through with the adoption plan. Nate’s never gotten in touch to ask for information before. In all likelihood, he’s come back to town for a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with us. If he does find out about Eli, and still has no interest in contact or in being a father...” She shuddered, the possibility too awful to contemplate.

Growing up unwanted left scars you could hide but not heal. Izzy knew that from experience and would do anything to protect her son from the miserable feeling that he wasn’t good enough to be loved. It was far, far better to accept reality than to hope for a love that would never come.

“I still remember the day you told me you wanted to leave Thunder Ridge so you could have the baby somewhere else,” Henry said. “I didn’t want you to go. The thought of you being alone in a strange city...” He shook his head. “You were so young.”

“Well, I wasn’t alone. Joanne was wonderful.”

Henry and his late wife had had a friend named Joanne, who’d been recently widowed, and Henry had offered to contact the woman about Izzy. Joanne had been happy to have the company of a quiet, studious seventeen-year-old...even a quiet, studious, four-months-pregnant seventeen-year-old. Izzy had been able to leave Thunder Ridge with most people, including her own mother, unaware that she was even pregnant.

Joanne and Izzy had gotten along so well that Joanne had invited her to stay on in Portland after the baby was born. She’d watched Eli while Izzy had attended community college and worked. She’d taught a teenager how to care for a baby.

A little more than three years later, Izzy had returned with an associate degree, a baby and no one any the wiser that Nate was the father. People had seemed to accept her story that the baby’s father was someone she’d met in Portland.

“I’m still grateful that you introduced me to Joanne. She’s wonderful,” Izzy told Henry. She and the older woman were still in touch, and Izzy visited with Eli when she could.

“She’s grateful, too.” Henry nodded, but his brow furrowed, making Izzy wonder what was coming next. “Nate did call after you left for Portland,” he reminded her. “He sounded worried. He wanted very much to talk to you. In the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d told him you changed your mind and were keeping the baby.”

“Nothing!” Izzy answered swiftly, her pulse speeding. “Nothing good would have happened. He’d already made his decision. If you had told him I was keeping the baby, he’d have sicced his parents on me again, so they could make me change my mind, and I was stressed enough without that.”

Insisting that adoption was the only sensible solution to the “problem” of Izzy’s pregnancy, Nate’s parents had argued their point of view convincingly. The Thayers were blue-collar folks who had worked day and night, literally, to ensure that their son’s life would be easier than their own. Wasn’t Izzy also eager for a better life? Didn’t she, too, want to attend college? And if she truly cared about Nate, how would she feel watching the plans for his future slip away? Those were some of the arguments they had used to convince her everyone’s life would be ruined unless she put the baby up for adoption.

At first Izzy had allowed them to persuade her, and Nate had gone to college believing Izzy agreed with the adoption plans and assured by his parents that they would “watch over” Izzy during her pregnancy. And they had.

Mrs. Thayer had accompanied her to an ob-gyn in Bend, far enough away that no one in Thunder Ridge would know what was going on. Then his mother had made an appointment with an adoption lawyer, too, and had sat beside Izzy, holding her hand, throughout the first visit. No “mother” had held her hand before.

And so Izzy had done what she had sworn to herself she absolutely would not do again: she had hoped. She had begun to believe the Thayers liked her, that the baby was becoming real to them, as it was to her. Surely this caring—this is what family did for one another.

And Nate’s weekly check-in calls...

At first, she had excused the fact their duration was brief and the content superficial. After all, the first weeks of college were busy and stressful. He would tell her a bit about his life when she asked him specific questions and he would ask her how she was feeling—whether she was eating right, if she was able to keep up with senior year homework. That, along with his parents’ interest, had been enough for her to begin dreaming again...

Maybe Nate would miss her and ask her to come to Chicago...

His parents would realize they couldn’t give up their first grandbaby...

She would prove that she could become a mother and support Nate’s studies and eventually his career, and someday the Thayers—and Nate—would look back and thank God that Izzy and her child were part of the family.

Welcome to fantasyland, Izzy thought now, where we pay no attention to pesky details like reality.

She had Mrs. Thayer to thank for setting her straight. With crystal clarity, she’d shown Izzy that Nate did not want her or her baby.

So in her fourth month of pregnancy, Izzy had left town, telling the Thayers she preferred to handle the adoption on her own, without their help, and that they could pass that information along to Nate, since she had no desire to see him again.

“I gave Nate’s parents exactly the out they were hoping for,” she said to Henry. “It was better for everyone’s sake to let them think they were getting what they wanted. The truth wouldn’t have changed the outcome anyway. It just would have created more tension and fighting.”

For a moment, Henry looked as if he wanted to argue, but how could he? They both remembered exactly how Nate’s family had felt about her. She had reminded them of everything they had worked so hard to rise above.

“Eli will be at camp for two weeks,” she reminded Henry. “I’m not sure how long Nate plans to be in town, but he is not entitled to any information that could hurt Eli in the long run.” As she spoke, she began to feel stronger. “Our policy has got to be don’t ask, don’t tell. Eli has me. He has you and Sam and Derek and everyone else at the deli. He knows you all love him and accept him exactly as he is. If he wants to look for his father when he’s eighteen, that’s his prerogative. Until then, it’s my job to protect him.” That had been her purpose all these years. “The Thayers wanted perfection—a son with a degree, six figures a year and a perfect family. Eli and I will never fit that mold.”

Henry shook his head. “You talk about what his parents wanted, but what did Nate want, dear heart?”

She smiled at the endearment. Dear heart. God had been good to her: despite her false starts, she’d been given a family. She answered Henry’s question honestly. “Nate wanted the life he planned before he met me.” She shrugged, way past the grief that had once consumed her. “We really were too young. If nothing else, the Thayers were right about that. Nate was a college-bound jock looking for a lighthearted summer romance, and I was a desperate, love-hungry teen.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

Izzy shrugged, unconcerned. “Maybe.”

Taking her seat, she fired up the computer. She had fought for the life she now lived, and it was a good one, built on hard work and a stern levelheadedness. She didn’t try to fool herself anymore.

Did she ever want more than she already had? Yes, sure. Sometimes. It was only natural that deep in the night, she would occasionally wish for a hand she could curl her fingers around, a bare foot to bump into, someone to hold her and make her feel warm again when life’s relentless everyday worries left her cold. But in those hungry, vulnerable moments, she would picture Eli as an adult—tall and strong, confident and self-accepting, pursuing a career he was passionate about and maybe starting a family of his own—and that would keep her on her path.

Right now, she needed to get back to business. Business was always a safe harbor.

She knew Henry would be pleased with some of the ideas she’d had while he was on vacation. Tapping on her keyboard, she said, “I’ve got some interesting advertising options to show you.”

In minutes they were talking about social media and mail outs and not mentioning Nate Thayer at all. Deep, deep in her gut, though, she wondered how long she could keep it that way.

Chapter Four (#u956479e5-3906-5364-8993-202a47e0b0ca)

Nate hadn’t experienced small-town life for a long time, and while some things had definitely changed, others remained memorably the same. The Thunder Ridge Public Library was a perfect example.

Still a two-story structure with a basement and ground-level square footage, the seventy-year-old building had the same heavy wooden tables and chairs and ancient shelving Nate remembered. Still smelled the same, too—a little bit like old books and a little bit like the dogs that had always been allowed to accompany their owners indoors. The major difference as far as he could tell was the current librarian, Holliday Bailey.

Ms. Bailey looked and smelled nothing like old Mrs. Rhiner, who, as Nate recalled, had resembled George Patton and smelled faintly of cooked broccoli.

“I can place a hold on some of the books you’re looking for and have them sent here through our interlibrary loan system. The problem is you’re not a local, Mr. Thayer. How am I going to get you a library card?”

Holliday tapped shiny cherry fingernails on her mouse, her matching red lips pursed as she looked from the computer screen to Nate. “And you said you’re staying at the inn? All by your lonesome?”

“That’s right.”

“Have you any friends in town, Mr. Thayer? Of the very close variety?”

“None with library cards they want to loan me, if that’s what you’re getting at, Ms. Bailey.”

“That’s exactly what I was getting at.” When she shook her head, silky dark brown hair that looked like a shampoo ad brushed her shoulders. “We need to connect you with someone in a position of power...so you can get the books you need.”

Nate grinned. Holliday Bailey was one of the most physically stunning women he had ever met. Long neck, perfect bone structure and slender as a willow with spitting-intelligent eyes, she would require a man who could keep up with her. While Nate was pretty sure he could, he knew instantly that the woman was harmless, far more interested in playing with his mind than with any other part of his anatomy.

“Thanks for your help.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

Shaking his head in admiration, Nate walked away, heading for the nonfiction section and trying to remember if he’d ever dated anyone like her. His tastes had always run to women whose beauty was subtler, their attractiveness unfolding the more he got to know them.

That thought led inevitably to the woman who was trying so hard to ignore him.

When he’d first met Isabelle Lambert, he hadn’t intended to be anything other than polite. She’d been a high school student, one year behind him in school, and a waitress, and he’d respected that. In his senior year of high school, Nate had taken to spending part of every day at The Pickle Jar, where he could order a drink and, when he had the extra cash, a sandwich and study for a couple of hours without being interrupted, since his friends rarely if ever showed up at the deli. Izzy had waited on him a number of times.

She seemed to be there, working or studying at the counter, anytime he came in. Hazel-green eyes and sandy-brown hair she scraped back in a nondescript ponytail wouldn’t have drawn his notice necessarily, but her manner did. Calm, serious and almost deferentially polite, she was so different from the other teenage girls Nate knew that she became a puzzle to him, and he loved a good puzzle.

“You’re very welcome to stay and study as long as you like,” she’d told him when he’d asked if they needed the table during one lunch hour. Her eyes, free of makeup, had held his gaze steadily and all of a sudden he’d realized they were large and changed color—sometimes the color of an aspen tree’s leaves, other times the color of its bark.

“I see you studying at the counter,” he’d said in his first real attempt at conversation with her. “Whose classes are you in?”

He’d noticed her mouth then—pink, unglossed and bowed at the top as it formed a surprised O, as if she hadn’t expected him to ask her anything not related to his lunch.

“I have Billings for history and Lankford for Literature. I’m working on an essay about The Grapes of Wrath and how a current depression would manifest differently from the Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s. Especially on a local level.”

He’d whistled. “Who assigned that as a topic?”

She’d hesitated a second. “No one. The Grapes of Wrath was assigned reading, but I chose the topic. It’s interesting.”

Her intelligent eyes had lowered as if she’d thought she’d said something she shouldn’t have, and he’d noticed a pulse beating rapidly at the base of her slender neck. In that moment she’d reminded him of a cross between a falcon and a hummingbird. And he’d had a surprising revelation as an eighteen-year-old, realizing that around most girls, his smiles started on the outside and sometimes worked their way in; with Isabelle Lambert, his smiles started deep inside.

He never did get around to flirting with Izzy. One day he’d found an eagle’s nest while on a hike and asked if she’d like to see it. She’d said yes, and...that had been their first date, which was weird, because he hadn’t planned to date anyone at all. He’d dated plenty in high school, and he hadn’t wanted the distraction or the drama so close to graduation.

Because he’d known he was leaving for Chicago at the end of summer, he and Izzy had agreed to keep things light. They had broken that agreement in a dozen different ways.

“Yum! It so pays to have friends in the right places.” Holliday’s naturally sultry voice carried clearly through the library. “Mmm, lunch. And at exactly the right time. I’m wasting away.”

On the heels of her exclamation came the aroma of food and a voice that responded, “I wanted to check on the availability of the Black Butte room for a class on ASL in the Workplace next week. I forgot to reserve the room, so I thought I’d bring a little lunch to butter you up.”

Nate heard the crinkling of a paper bag. “Pastrami, Swiss and coleslaw on rye?” Holliday sounded reverential. “I will give you anything your heart desires.”

“You’re so easy.”

“Is that rumor still circulating?”

Peering around the row of books, Nate let his eyes confirm what his ears and nose already told him: Holliday’s visitor was Izzy, bearing food from The Pickle Jar.

Shaking her head, Izzy admonished around a smile, “Holly, lower your voice. Don’t give the gossips anything else to complain about. Last week, Evelyn Cipes was in the deli grousing that we’re the only town between here and Portland with a librarian who wears stilettos to work.”

“Goody! I loathe stereotypes. Want to join me in my office while I do justice to this delicious meal? I’ll get Maggie to cover the front.”

“Sure.”

Nate sprang into action before he had time to think. “Talk about ironic.” He addressed himself to the librarian as his stride carried him toward her desk. “Isabelle keeps telling me she doesn’t have time to talk to me, and yet everywhere I go, there she is.” He leaned forward to speak confidentially. “I think she’s following me.” He raised a brow, hoping the unique Ms. Bailey would play along. “Do you think she’s following me?”

The brunette looked delighted. “I don’t know,” she whispered loudly. “Let’s find out.” She looked at her friend. “Izzy, have you been stalking this big, good-looking man?”

Izzy looked horrified. Nate would have laughed if not for the fact that he didn’t feel like letting her off the hook so easily. Why the devil was she treating him like a stranger—and a very unwelcome one?

“Of course I’m not stalking. I don’t stalk.” Trying hard not to glance at him, she told Holliday, “I better get back to work.”

“I thought you were going to have lunch with me,” her friend protested.

“I know. I forgot that I need to get back. There’s a big party coming in for...brisket.”

“Yeah, I heard brisket is trending today.” Nate leaned casually against the desk, still addressing himself to Holliday. “I don’t believe her. Do you?”

The brunette’s forehead creased. In lieu of answering, she asked, “How do you know Izzy?”

One glance at Izzy’s face told him she did not want him to answer.

“We knew each other in high school,” he said, watching her closely.

“No kidding.” Holliday looked at Izzy, whose expression gave her the appearance of someone standing in line to get a root canal. “Were you...good friends?”

Fifteen years after he’d first noticed her, Izzy still had skin like a porcelain doll. He could see the red flush beneath the creamy fairness and wondered why seeing him again was so hard for her. He hadn’t returned to Thunder Ridge expecting to see her but considered their reunion a bonus. They may have been kids when they were together, but they’d shared adult experiences he still hadn’t shared with anyone else. And there were questions, unanswered for fifteen years now.

“I thought we were good friends,” he answered Holliday’s question. “Certainly enough to merit a few minutes’ worth of catching up. That’s what old friends do when they meet again. Right?”

“I know I would.” Holliday’s red lips curled with humor, her heavily lashed eyes darting with rabid curiosity between Nate and Izzy, who frowned mightily at her friend.

Suddenly, the sheriff from yesterday flashed in Nate’s mind. Was he the stumbling block to their spending a little time together? Nate may not have expected to see Izzy on this trip, but now that they were together, he’d like some closure. Not that he was channeling Dr. Phil, but he had questions that were fifteen years old. Didn’t she? If nothing else, he’d like to know why she’d refused to be in touch with him after she’d miscarried their baby.

“Five minutes,” he said to Holliday. “That’s reasonable, don’t you think?”

“Take ten,” she suggested, ignoring Izzy’s expression.

“You’re right. Ten. Can we use the meeting room?” When Holliday nodded, he turned to Izzy. “One-sixth of an hour, Isabelle. My watch has a timer. I’ll even let you hold it, so you’ll know I’m not cheating.”

Maybe he didn’t know Izzy well anymore—maybe he never had—but he could see the wheels spinning in her head. She was trying to think of a way to reject his overture, again. And then—

“Ten minutes,” she said decisively. “And then I have to go.”

If Nate could feel the waves of curiosity rolling off Holliday, he was sure Izzy felt them, too, but she strode ahead of them toward the Black Butte room without a backward glance.

At the door to the meeting room, Izzy stopped, allowing Holliday to pass ahead of her. The librarian reached into her bra, of all places, to extract a set of small keys, one of which she used to unlock the heavy oak door. She flipped the light switch and stepped back, only slightly less provocative when she asked, “Do you need a chaperone?”