Chapter 7
Seven
Sloane
“This is new.”
I take in what used to be an old, ramshackle house in downtown Libby, which now has been converted into a quaint restaurant.
Wild Bites is the name on a sign hanging in the front yard.
“Hope you still like game?”
I grin at Dan who offered to carry Aspen in her car seat. When he asked if I would have dinner with him, I told him that would be contingent on whether or not I could bring my daughter. It’s still Sunday, and unless there is a work-related emergency, I don’t want to leave her with a babysitter on the weekend.
To be honest, I was a little ambivalent about sharing a meal with him—especially now I see what a nice restaurant he’s taking me to—but I didn’t have the heart to say no right after he told me about Jackson. He seemed to have been hit hard with that news and, frankly, I was flattered he felt comfortable talking to me. It almost felt like it used to be between us before I tried to turn us into something else.
And ruined it all.
When I told Pippa why I wouldn’t be around for dinner, her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline but, to her credit, she didn’t pry.
We ended up taking my Jeep because of Aspen’s car seat, but Dan insisted on driving. It’s funny, that would’ve been something I’d have been offended by eight years ago—interpreting it as overbearing and even misogynistic—but it didn’t bother me today.
Mind you, I wouldn’t have taken it well had I been on the job, but it seemed to be just old-fashioned chivalry. Kind of sweet, actually.
As is him carrying Aspen and holding open the door to the restaurant for me with his free hand.
“Reservation for Blakely,” his mellow voice sounds behind me as he addresses the restaurant hostess.
“Of course. Right this way.”
I follow her into what, at some point, must have been the living and dining rooms, but is now a large open space with a beautiful stone fireplace centered on the front wall and large windows on either end. I feel the heat of Dan’s hand in the small of my back as I navigate through the tables to one by the window the woman leads us to.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Dan abruptly drops his hand from my back at the comment. When I turn around to see who the voice belongs to, he’s already facing off with two women sitting a couple of tables away from us.
One of them has a curious expression on her face but the other one looks like she could spit nails. Yikes . I’m going to take a wild guess the grumpy one is the Vandermeers’ daughter, Shelby. She looks like she’s pretty serious to me, despite what Pippa told me.
I don’t want my child to be in the middle should liquid, china, or utensils start flying, so I reach around Dan to grab the car seat.
“I’ve got her,” I mumble, and rush to join the woman waiting with the menus at our table.
Behind me I can hear a shrill, “Does she know?”
I try not to listen to Dan’s voice, his reply just too low for me to hear, and focus on the hostess. She tells me our waitress’s name is Natalie, who will be with us shortly. Then I set Aspen’s seat on one of the chairs so she’s facing the table. I take the seat next to her, making sure my back is toward what sounds like it may be turning into a bit of a scene.
Perhaps the better move is to cut my losses, grab my daughter, and bail, but I don’t want to create more of a scene. Despite the slightly sick feeling in my stomach, this may actually be for the best. It certainly is a good reminder, anything more than friendship between Dan and me is a bad idea.
“Sorry about that.”
I note he pulls out the chair on the other side of me, instead of the one across the table. I guess, like me, he’d prefer to look out the window over facing the other diners.
“No worries,” I assure him.
“I should probably?—”
“Hi, I’m Natalie.” The server cuts Dan off as she pours ice water in the glasses on the table. “I’ll be looking after you tonight. Can I start you off with a drink?”
Then she catches sight of Aspen, whose eyes barely poke out over the table.
“Oh, my goodness, is she ever cute! Is there anything I can get for her?”
“Thank you, that’s nice of you, but she should be fine. I actually have a bottle with me.”
“Well, just let me know if you need me to warm it up,” she offers before repeating, “Would you like something to drink?”
I order a Big Sky IPA when I see the local Montana beer listed on the drink menu.
“We’ll probably need a few more minutes with the menu,” Dan tells her after ordering a beer as well.
“Take your time. I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
The moment she walks away, Dan leans over.
“I want to explain what happened earlier.”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “Really, there’s no need.”
He grabs my hand, places it on the table, and covers it with his.
“But I want to. That was Shelby Vandermeer, from the feedstore? She moved back to town in the spring, newly divorced, and we hooked up from time to time. Keeping it casual was something we agreed on or else it would never have happened.”
“Let me guess, somewhere along the way she changed her mind? I’ve been told it’s a woman’s prerogative,” I point out. “Did you ghost her?”
He lets go of my hand and uses both of his to rub his face.
“I can’t believe you’d think that of me. No, I did not. I met up with her, told her I was sorry but was not in the market for anything more serious, and I ended things.”
“A Big Sky for you, and one for you,” Natalie leans in, placing the beers in front of us. “Do you need a little more time?”
“Yes, please.”
The server makes a face at Aspen, who rewards her with a big, toothless grin.
“Oh my, you look just like your daddy, don’t you?” Before I can correct her, she straightens up and announces, “I’ll give you a few more minutes.”
I glance at Dan, and notice him staring at my daughter.
“She doesn’t really look like me, does she?”
“You carried her in, you both have dark hair, and I’m blond. People make assumptions.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Shelby jumped to the same conclusion.”
I think that much was obvious and I can’t help feel a little sorry for her. We’re not that different. Glancing over my shoulder, I notice the table she was sitting at is empty. When I turn back, I find Dan staring at me.
“We should probably figure out what we want to eat,” I suggest self-consciously, and start scanning the menu.
“Yeah,” he agrees.
But I can still feel his eyes on me, until he finally opens his menu.
Dan
I feel one side of my mouth pull up as I watch those pretty blue eyes drift shut.
The food was great, as usual, and the conversation pretty easygoing. She shared a bit about her job in Billings, and I filled her in on life at the ranch and told her about my fairly newfound father and half sister. All relatively safe topics, providing me with zero answers for the list of questions churning in my gut.
And now I’m watching as she slips the bottle from the baby’s lips and eases her back in her car seat.
“Here you are.”
The waitress slides a discreet leather folder on the table, and I use the fact Sloane has her hands full with Aspen to claim the bill. Ignoring her glare, I pull a few bills from my wallet and get to my feet.
“Ready?”
She nods and swings the diaper bag over her shoulder, as I reach for the baby seat.
Weaving through the restaurant to the exit, I notice there’s a family sitting at the table Shelby and her friend vacated. I didn’t see them leave, but I knew she was gone when I no longer felt her eyes burning holes in my back.
What a clusterfuck. She’d been primed to make a scene, and if not for her friend unexpectedly jumping to my aid, I don’t think I could’ve done anything to stop it. It was a good reminder why I don’t do relationships, especially in a small town like Libby. It gets messy.
“What do I owe you?” Sloane asks when we get to her Jeep.
I don’t bother responding and shoot her a look instead. Her lips press together in a thin line intended to show me her displeasure. Like water off a duck’s back to me. I may not have had my father around to teach me to be a gentleman, but my mother made sure certain values were instilled in me.
Aspen remains sleeping as I place her in the car.
“Are you gonna have to wake her up to get her ready for bed?” I ask when I get behind the wheel.
“No, that’s why I put on her pajamas when I changed her diaper earlier. I can slip her right in her crib.”
“Will she wake up during the night?”
“Once or twice. If I’m lucky.”
I glance over and for the first time notice the lines of fatigue in her face.
“Which means you’re not getting a whole lot of rest,” I observe out loud.
She simply shrugs.
“Goes with the job.”
“Speaking of which,” I latch on right away. “I know you mentioned the sperm donor bailing, but why did you leave Billings? I got the impression from Sully you loved your job.”
“You asked Sully about me?”
Just like that, the tables are turned and I find myself on the spot.
“Not sure how we got on the subject, but he must’ve mentioned it at some point.”
It’s a blatant lie. I hounded him for information, especially the first months after she left. After that I grabbed any opportunity I could get to find out how she was doing.
“But you’re avoiding my question,” I point out.
“Fine,” she concedes after a lengthy pause, during which I’m sure she hoped I’d back off.
Fat chance .
“Jeff was an aspiring musician working as a bartender at a bar not far from the precinct. It was nothing serious.” She turns and throws me a pointed look. “Much like your arrangement with Shelby. No strings, occasional. Anyway…” She waves her hand. “Long story short, I was already in my fourth month when I found out I was pregnant with Aspen. I’d been too busy to pay much attention to what should’ve been signs. I informed Jeff, he seemed excited at the prospect, and we actually tried to make something of the relationship. Reality was not so fun, I guess, and as I mentioned, he bailed a month after I went back to work. I tried for a couple of weeks with the help of babysitters while I worked, but my focus wasn’t where it should’ve been. After having a bit of a public meltdown that almost blew a case my partner and I had been working on for nearly a year, I realized I couldn’t do it on my own.”
“So you came here? Isn’t your mom somewhere in Utah?” I probe.
“Actually, Mom and Steve moved to Panama last year, and until last week she didn’t know.”
I glance over at her and catch a sheepish look on her face. “Didn’t know what?”
Then she blows me away with the answer.
“About Aspen. Nobody here knew either.”
“What?” I react a little sharply. “Why would you not share that with your family?”
She faces away from me and stares out the side window, and for a few moments I think perhaps this conversation is done.
“Too many reasons and, in hindsight, all of them stupid,” she finally admits. “Just another mistake to compound all the mistakes that got me there in the first place. I guess I wanted to prove—to them, or maybe to myself—I wasn’t that reckless, impulsive, problem-child anymore. That I didn’t need rescuing and could handle my own problems like any normal functioning adult.”
I don’t bother pointing out that a normal functioning adult wouldn’t have kept a child a secret, since I get the sense she’s already come to that conclusion on her own.
It explains why Sully never mentioned anything about Sloane becoming a parent. He didn’t know. I imagine talking to her uncle and her mother cannot have been easy conversations. There’s no need for me to add to that. If anything, she could probably do with a bit of support.
“You know, I think it took a whole lot of strength to recognize you needed help, and even more guts to return home to find it.”
From the corner of my eye, I catch her nodding as she swallows hard.
“You do realize I wasn’t born here, and lived here less time than I have anywhere else, right?”
I grin. Sloane was never good at taking compliments.
“Doesn’t matter,” I counter. “You and I both know Libby is home.”
She doesn’t say anything to that, but a faint smile touches her lips when she closes her eyes and leans her head back against the seat.
It’s a twenty-five minute drive from the restaurant home, and by the time we drive through White Haven, just south of Libby, Sloane is asleep in the passenger seat. Already sleep-deprived, I’m sure the full stomach and the two beers she had at dinner helped knock her out.
She needs the sleep, so I take the next exit off the highway. Using the backroads past the regional airport will force me to go slow and add some much-needed time to our drive home. It also gives me a chance to process what she told me.
Her choices wouldn’t have been mine, but I can see how she came to make them. Sometimes when you try so hard to do the right thing, you end up making the wrong decisions. I might know a thing or two about that.
Hell, life might look a whole lot different now, had I done things differently all those years ago. At the time I was overwhelmed trying to take care of my mother, it sucked up every bit of free time I had. Not that I’m complaining, I feel lucky I was able to do that much for her. However, medical bills were piling up and I was losing the battle to keep my head above water. I had less than nothing to offer someone else.
I always thought, once Mom died, I’d be in a better place to start something. But I never got the chance, because by the time I buried my mother and started getting my life together, Sloane was already gone.
I glance in the rearview mirror to check on Aspen. Her seat faces backward, but a mirror installed against the backrest allows me a view of her sleeping face. Then I look at her mother beside me, her soft mouth slightly open, and my chest gets tight.
For just a moment, I allow myself to imagine they belong to me.