Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Leif
B rooke wanted to meet me at the restaurant, rather than having me pick her up. Honestly, I was shocked she had even agreed to the date in the first place, so I wasn’t going to be picky about it. She had a kid to worry about, and though I had been in her house, and knew where she lived, there were boundaries. And I understood them.
But I still wanted to know why.
Why she’d given up on us before we had even had a chance all those years ago.
Had she found someone else? Well, clearly, she had because she was a mom, after all. But had she found someone else right after Paris? While we were still in Paris?
Had she realized that she wanted someone different and I wasn’t it?
Our time in Paris had meant something to me.
Clearly, it had meant something different to her, and maybe tonight we would actually figure out what that was.
Or we could move on from who we had been, something I was trying to do now that I wasn’t a teenager or twentysomething anymore. Maybe ignoring our pasts and moving on was the best bet. She had said yes to this date, after all—that counted for something.
And I was going to make sure it did because I needed it to.
I wanted her, and I wanted to see what could happen if we finally did take that chance.
I pulled into the casual American cuisine restaurant and got out of the car, not at all surprised to see that Brooke was already there. She stood by the entrance in a pretty dress, high heels, and frowned down at her phone. That little V between her brows deepened and I wondered if she was worried about something, or if she was already regretting this.
I cleared my throat. “I should have remembered that you like to be earlier than anybody else. I’m sorry I’m late.”
Brooke looked up, her eyes wide, and she slid her phone into her purse and smiled at me.
My heart sped up with that smile. I got lost in those eyes, and it was hard for me to even think.
She had always done that to me, and here she was, doing it again.
“I’m just perpetually early. My sitter and Luke were having such a grand old time, that they didn’t need me to stay and interrupt their evening any longer than I was.” She rolled her eyes, grinning. She wasn’t worried about the sitter spending so much time with her kid that it changed her dynamic. She was self-assured when she came to being a mother; I liked that about her.
“Luke’s a great kid, I could see why he gets along with everybody that he meets.”
Brooke beamed as if I had told her that she just won a million dollars. “He really is the best. And he loves his nanny already. I was a little worried about starting off a whole new relationship when we moved out here, but they clicked right away, and I’m forever grateful for her.”
“I’m glad that you’re able to get childcare worked out.”
I gestured towards the restaurant, placed my hand at the small of her back, and tried to ignore the warmth emanating off of her as she stiffened ever so slightly, before relaxing into my touch.
I counted that as a win because she hadn’t pulled away. I might’ve surprised her, but she wasn’t pulling away.
“I’m glad that I was able to work everything out as well. The school has some childcare, but not exactly what I wanted. I never want Luke to feel like a burden.”
I nodded and gave my name to the hostess as she looked for our reservation. We followed the woman quickly to the table. I sat across from Brooke, trying not to get lost in her eyes, and to remember what we were talking about.
“My family decided around the time that they were all having kids to create a childcare facility for all the Montgomerys. It started off as a room in the back of the tattoo shop and turned into something a bit bigger. With so many cousins, it made sense. Now there are Montgomery family childcare services in four cities.”
Brooke leaned forward, grinning. “Is it just for Montgomerys? Or do you guys have an actual business for people with Montgomery connections?”
“We’re a business, in that we have all the paperwork and it is legal, but really only family and friends of the Montgomerys, and those who work for Montgomery-owned businesses can keep their kids there. We’re talking about more than a dozen or so kids at a time, especially back when all my siblings were younger. I don’t think they could handle much more.”
Brooke’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “All I have is Luke, so it’s kind of unimaginable that you have so many family members. Though I felt that way when we first met. You had this huge family, and I had only had my parents.”
Something crossed her features, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to dive too deep into all that pain and loss. And from the way that she closed up, neither was she. I had to keep this casual at first, go slow.
As in, don’t scare her with promises of forever because I wasn’t sure that’s what I had to offer. I had to make sure that’s what either of us would want in the first place.
“I still can’t believe I said yes,” Brooke blurted, and I threw my head back and laughed.
I noticed a few stares our way, but I shrugged them off. I was used to people staring. I was a big guy, had tattoos and piercings, and grew up with people who had even more than I did.
Staring was the usual.
“Honestly, I’m surprised you said yes.” I grinned as I said it, and she smiled right back before looking contemplative.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
I didn’t have a chance to answer because our waiter was there, taking our order. By the time they were gone, Brooke was staring at me, her gaze nervous.
“I wanted to take you out to dinner, Brooke. There’s something here. You can feel it, can’t you?”
I wasn’t good about being open like this, honest. But it felt like I had known Brooke forever, not just I had known her forever ago.
“I don’t know, Leif. I’m just trying to get my life in order. Start a new career, be a good mom. I don’t know if I have time for dating.”
I looked around. “We have time right now. Have a delicious dinner. You tell me about your work, I’ll tell you about mine. If we start talking about my family, that will take hours, and there you go, a whole date.”
Brooke’s brows rose. “You think a date is going to take hours?”
I smiled; I couldn’t help it. “If you do it right.”
“You’re ridiculous, Montgomery.”
“I try. No seriously, tell me about work. Luke. Anything.” I paused. “Wait. What if you don’t want to talk about Luke? Is he off-limits? I understand if he is. I’ve never actually dated a single mom before.”
She gave me a small smile, playing with the edge of her water glass. “I haven’t dated much as a single mom.”
“Can you talk about his father?” I hadn’t meant to ask that because I figured it was a touchy subject. I had just said we could talk about anything else and to keep things from getting complicated. Yet here I was, making things complicated.
“Luke’s father passed away.” She let out a breath as I reached forward and gripped her hand.
“I’m sorry. Let’s talk about anything else. Let’s talk about cheese.” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and since I was Montgomery, of course it was cheese.
Brooke’s eyes widened before she burst out laughing. “I had forgotten your love of cheese. Okay, we’re not surrounded by French cheeses, so I know you must be sad, but let’s talk about cheese.”
I shook my head. “If that’s what you want.” My lips twitched, as did hers.
She met my gaze, then shrugged. “I never married Henry, Luke’s father. He was an English professor, and quite a bit older than me. We had a glorious affair, that was never meant to last, and then I got pregnant.” She shrugged, but I knew there’s a lot more to that. “I was in my twenties, he was nearly forty.”
My brows rose. “Are you serious?”
She gave me a defiant look, even though I saw the hurt in them. “I was an adult, making my own choices, but he was having a midlife crisis, and I was letting myself have fun for the first time in a long while. Either way, I got Luke out of the deal. When I was heading into my third trimester, Henry was killed in a botched robbery attempt. They found the guy. He’s in jail now and will be for a long, long time. But Henry never got to meet his son, and Luke never got to meet his father.” She let out a slow breath. “I was never going to marry Henry. But we would’ve been good friends raising him. And that is my tragic story. I’m a single mom with no parents, with no one. But I moved back to Colorado because I wanted a new chance to live life to its fullest, in a place that I used to love. In a place that I want my son to love. California worked for us before, but the job that I have now at the university is going to bring more opportunities for me and my son. And that’s all that matters.”
I reached out once more, gripped her hand, and squeezed. “I’m sorry. That you went through all of that, and that you have to explain all of that to random dudes you go on dates with. I’m sorry that Luke lost him. I’m sorry that you did, too.”
She met my gaze again, smiling softly. “I know you lost your mom at a young age and didn’t find your father until you were older, so I know you sort of have an idea what Luke is dealing with. But he is strong, and I remind him of his father as much as I can, even though they never met. I’m trying to give him everything that I possibly can. That way he never feels like he’s lacking anything.”
“I know you, Brooke. Or, at least, I knew you before. I’m starting to know the woman in front of me. You would never make him feel like he’s missing out on anything. You’re doing everything you can for him.”
“You can tell that from just looking at me?” she asked, studying my face.
“Maybe. Or maybe I can just tell. Who knows.” I let out a breath. “My mom was an okay mom. I know it’s probably not the greatest thing to say about someone who’s no longer here. But as I remember the years that I had with her, I know that she wasn’t the best mom.”
Perhaps this wasn’t the best conversation for a first date, but Brooke knew some of it, and we had a past. A history. We weren’t starting at square one here.
“Mom drank a lot, did some pot, did a few things that weren’t pot. She liked what she liked, and liked who she liked, and sometimes that wasn’t me.”
“Leif.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t mind talking about it. I spoke about it with my family and with therapists numerous times.” I let out a breath, even as I gave her a self-deprecating smile.
“My mom hid my existence from my dad because she felt like it. Because she wanted the power, and she didn’t want to share me. She might have made up reasons later for him, but they were lies. It didn’t matter that she had been dating my dad, and even though my dad had always said that they were casual, he never would’ve just left me alone with her. As soon as he realized I existed, he dropped everything for me.”
Brooke pressed her lips together, as if she wanted to say something, but held back.
“He went through all the legal hassles and paperwork in order to keep me, even though I had run away from CPS that day, hitching rides in order to get downtown to see him. It made no sense, and I was an idiot ten-year-old, but he took me in.” I smiled at her. “So did my mom, Sierra.”
“Your dad’s wife?”
I shook my head. “Not at the time. They were only dating. Or, I don’t even know if they were really dating then. Maybe just like one date or something. But she was there when I showed up, and she hasn’t gone away since.” I cringed. “I call her Mom, and most of the time I think she’s a better mom to me than my mom had ever been. I know for damn sure she’s a good mom to my three siblings. And I feel bad about saying that because my birth mom is gone.”
My birth mom had done things that even my dad didn’t know, he never needed to know. My dad had enough guilt about all that time he lost as it was. He didn’t need anything else on his massive shoulders.
Brooke was quiet for a moment, as if she were trying to formulate a response. “You do have an abundance of family; I’m glad that you have them.”
“I am, too. And Luke will always be happy he has you.” I smiled then, thinking of my family and all they did for me. I tried to be the best son for them, to give back. I wasn’t always, but I figured my track record was better than it could have been.
“You never going to answer what we’re doing, are you?” she asked, after the waiter set down our food.
I looked at my plate, and then up at her, meeting her gaze. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I know that you need to find your roots, to be a good mom, but you can do that while having dinner with me, Brooke. Because I want to kiss you again. I want to see you again. But if I’m going to scare you by saying things like that, you have to let me know now.”
I wasn’t sure why I was saying any of this. Not when I had shit to do that could crumble everything, but I had told myself I was going to try. Try to go out and have a future that wasn’t just me working for hours upon hours. I tried that with my blind date, and yet here was Brooke, my past coming back with a vengeance. I didn’t ask her about why she hadn’t come before, after Paris. Why she was here now.
This wasn’t the time for that.
It would be, soon.
“You confound me, Leif Montgomery. You make me want to say things and do things that I know I do not have time for.”
I smirked. “It’s what I’m best at, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe.” Her eyes filled with laughter as she said it, though, so I grinned.
“Whatever you say, babe.”
* * *
For the rest of our dinner, we stayed on safe topics: work, friends, and Lake.
When I walked her to her car, I slid her hair behind her ear, trying not to press her against her door and ravish her mouth. I had some standards.
Not many, but some.
“Let me take you out again.”
She shook her head, and disappointment filled me. “I’m busy, Leif.” She held up her hand as I started to argue. “I’m not saying no. I’m just saying I have lesson plans, new classes, and research. I have people to hire and countless other work things. I have a son, a new house, and boxes I still haven’t unpacked. I’m doing so much, but I want to see you again, Leif. I don’t know what that says about me, but I want to. I just don’t know when.”
Relief slammed into me so hard, that I knew I would have to worry about that later. Instead, I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers. “I think we can find some time to work with a few of those things. It doesn’t have to be dinner and a movie, Brooke. It could be me helping you put up a shelf.”
“Are you saying I can’t put up a shelf by myself?” she asked, teasing.
“See, that’s one of those tripwire questions that women put out that I’m not going to even try to answer.”
She rolled her eyes and I kissed her again.
“Go home to your kid, get some work done if that’s what you’re going to do, and I’ll see you soon. Because there’s something here, Brooke. You know there is.”
I kissed her one more time and walked away before she could say no.
It was probably wrong of me, but I’d do what I had to so I could see her again.
I was just about to start my car when my phone rang and I frowned at the readout, not recognizing the number.
“Hello?”
“Leif Montgomery?” a tired voice asked, and I froze, a sense of foreboding sliding over my body.
“This is him.”
“Sorry for the late call, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but we’ve lost some of your paperwork.”
“Who is this?”
“As you’re listed here as a primary contact, we’re to inform you that Roger Erickson has been released on parole.”
Ice slithered into my veins and I swallowed hard. “Excuse me?
“Yes, sorry it took so long to get to you. It was three weeks ago but he is out on parole.”
“How can a murderer get out on parole?” I barked.
“It was all on his paperwork and sentencing. Accidental manslaughter carries a lower sentence. We can email you more information, but as you were a primary contact, we were legally required to inform you.”
The man said a few other things, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I tried to calm my breathing, tried to focus.
As that letter that had come to the tattoo shop crossed my mind again, and bile filled my throat.
My stepdad was out of prison.
And it seemed the past was once again slamming full force into my life.