Chapter Eleven
There was nothing like the smell of coffee in the morning when you hadn’t slept the night before. Add in the aroma of fresh-baked sugary things, and Julie could believe she was capable of caring for her nephew again.
Who needed sleep?
It was barely seven in the morning. There’d been no sign of Nate at El Rosal as she’d pushed the stroller past. She was glad. He’d take one look at her face, and he’d know something bad had happened last night.
Julie wrestled open the door to Martin’s Bakery and wheeled the stroller inside, breathing deeply. Coffee and sweets. Heaven.
Not only did it smell like heaven, but Martin’s Bakery also looked charming. There were several old wooden tables and chairs in the bakery, most of them mismatched. Framed, yellowed photos on the wall displayed who Julie presumed were previous generations of Martins.
“Hey. Don’t scare the customers.” A woman wearing an apron and a cheerful smile behind the register snapped her fingers. But she wasn’t snapping at Julie.
Julie hadn’t realized all eyes had turned her way, or that all conversation had stopped. She recognized the three town councilwomen at a table near the counter. A woman with purplish-gray hair sat on the bench seat in the window, pinning together quilt squares. The toddler at her feet was one of the boys Julie and Duke had met at the playground. At a table against the wall, a scarecrow of a man played checkers with an elderly Asian man with a walker. In the back corner, Nate, Rutgar and Terrance watched her, coffee cups midair.
Nate’s gaze catalogued. He frowned.
Busted.
Nate knew she’d had a bad night. Truthfully, Julie knew she looked like she’d been hung on a flagpole during a weeklong hurricane.
And speaking of knowing, those in the bakery knew whose son Duke was. They looked back and forth from Duke to Nate. And then to Julie, questions in their eyes, smiles on their faces.
She gave them her cop expression in return. Polite. Unflappable. Mirthless. Combined with the scary way she looked, they should all give her a wide berth. And space was what she needed given her visit to Harmony Valley so far could be labeled as one big fail after another.
“Peeps. Return to your regularly scheduled lives.” When customers began to converse again, the barista waved Julie toward the display cases. “Sugar fix? Coffee fix?”
“Let’s start with the necessities. Coffee. Large and black.” Julie eyed the sugary options and wished they weren’t so large, and each didn’t hold so many calories.
“Want dat.” Duke pointed to a large muffin closest to him and imbibed his words with the threat of a toddler tantrum. “Dat. Dat. Dat.”
Julie read the flavor card. “Horseradish spice muffin?” It didn’t sound kid friendly, which meant it wouldn’t rid her nephew of the morning grumps.
“It’s kind of like—” the blonde flashed an infectious smile “—carrot cake. Without the carrots.”
That didn’t sound bad. “We’ll take one of those and a bear claw.”
“Milk for the little guy?”
“Yes.” Julie set Duke’s sippy cup on the counter.
“Yoo-hoo!” The elderly woman in the window seat, the one with short purplish-gray hair, waved to them. Her hot-pink tracksuit was more eye-opening than the mug of hot coffee the barista was pouring. Her window seat was flanked on either side with smaller tables. The toddler Julie had recognized sat near her neon green sneakers, playing with blocks. “Join us over here. The boys can play while you drink your coffee.”
“Fend.” Duke strained at his stroller seat belt at the sight of the other boy.
“I accept.” Julie unbuckled him, relieved she had an excuse not to sit with Nate. “That’s sweet.”
“Hi, fend.” Duke ran to the toys and got to his knees, scooting himself closer to the action with his hands.
“First time here. The coffee is on me.” The blonde loaded their order on a tray. “I’m Tracy. Folks have questions…about you.” She gestured to the room at large.
“Great.” Did they know she’d almost killed Leona in the middle of the night? Julie paid for the pastries and joined the elderly woman at the window seat. She sat down and sipped her coffee. Caffeine took precedence over sugar.
“We have free Wi-Fi,” Tracy called to her. “You can read our blog.”
“Horseradish Is the New Superfood.” Eunice set her reading glasses on top of her red and yellow quilt squares in the window seat. And then she fluffed her purplish-gray bangs. “That’s the title of the blog today. It’s about horseradish. It grows on Parish Hill.”
“On my property,” Rutgar said in a too-loud, too-grumbly voice.
Nate almost grinned with both sides of his face. How odd it must be to live like that—anchoring half his smile as if he didn’t deserve a full measure of happiness.
“Horseradish makes the bakery unique.” Tracy might work the counter, but she ruled the room with a knowing glance, a friendly smile and—in Rutgar’s case—a horseradish spice muffin. “No matter where we find it. Or who brings it to us.”
“Yes...well... Horseradish grows wild along the road, too.” Eunice blushed and blinked at Julie the way people do when they’ve been caught with their hand in the horseradish patch. She gestured to the toddlers at their feet. “Local vegetation aside, Gregory is a handful. I hardly have a minute of peace until naptime.”
Duke and Gregory stacked blocks between them. So good-natured. So peaceful. Julie didn’t trust it to last.
Julie angled her body to Eunice’s, putting the colorful old woman—and only the colorful old woman—in her line of sight. “Is he your grandchild?”
“Godchild. He’s Jessica’s. She owns the bakery.” Eunice opened her violet-brown eyes wide and then blinked in big swoops of mascara-dredged eyelashes. “I thought it was such an honor until the poopy pants got...well...poopier.”
“We all get out of diapers someday,” Julie said, mesmerized by the wide-eyed blinking.
Eunice smiled and fingered the cotton fabric of her quilt squares. “I shouldn’t complain. I never had a chance to be a mother. But no matter what I do, his parents are always his favorite.”
There was truth in Eunice’s statement. Julie would always be Juju to Duke. She could never take away the mommy title from April.
Her gaze drifted to Nate once more. To the shoulders that could bear many burdens and the steady gaze that never seemed to judge. How would he react to know she’d clutched his worry stone all night long? Inexplicably, having Nate near her now eased the need to hold the worry stone in her hand.
But that was a false sense of security. Nate wasn’t the type to stick by anyone through thick and thin. And she needed more than a rock or a half smile to beat the nightmares. And she had to beat them. Or she had to give Duke up. To Nate.
Her stomach roiled again.
Duke stopped playing with blocks and stood, peering at the plates on the table. He reached for the bear claw.
“Hey, little man.” Julie rearranged the plates so his muffin was within reach. “This is yours.”
“Not dat.” Duke made a face, apparently not as sold on horseradish as he’d been earlier. He pointed at Julie’s bear claw. “Want dat.”
Eunice gasped dramatically. “You don’t want your horseradish spice muffin? That’s based on my mother’s recipe. It’s very good. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” She reached for the plate with a delicate hand, an age-old ploy designed to get Duke to defend his treat.
Julie respected the effort even as Duke let the elderly woman take possession of the muffin.
“That didn’t work out the way I’d planned.” Eunice returned the muffin to the plate.
Nate appeared next to Duke in his blue jeans and blue checked shirt, which seemed to be his sheriff uniform. “Instead of calling it the terrible twos, they should have called it the fickle twos.” He sat on the floor, folding his long legs and eliciting sighs of appreciation from the bakery audience. “I have cupcake pops.” He handed each boy a stick with a small round cupcake on it covered in dark chocolate frosting. “Later, we’ll stop by El Rosal for some bacon.”
“Boo. Bacon,” Tracy said from behind the counter.
“Ba-con,” Duke crooned and leaned his head briefly against Nate’s arm, the picture of a strong father-son bond Julie had been certain couldn’t possibly exist.
“Real men eat meat and protein for breakfast,” Nate said to Julie with a straight face.
Eunice fluffed her hair and fluttered her eyelashes. “I’ve always appreciated a man with an appetite.”
“I suppose real men also eat green vegetables,” Julie said, finding it easier to point out Nate’s weaknesses than admit her own. “Although I didn’t see you cooking any last night.”
“We had a vegetable.” Nate looked offended, but the effect was ruined by the twitch of a smile on his cheek.
Julie had to fight a smile of her own. “Potatoes are starch. And starch goes directly to a woman’s thighs.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Nate said primly, giving Duke a playful poke in the belly. “Not being a woman.”
Laughter filled the bakery, but it couldn’t fill the shadowy places in Julie’s heart.
“Hey. Fend.” Duke leaned into Gregory’s space. “Pay? Park?” And then he turned big soulful eyes to Nate. “Nay? Pay? Park?”
He’d asked Nate, not Julie. She slumped and hid her face in her coffee cup.
“You want to go play at the park?” Nate grinned, nothing half about it. The two sides of his face matched in upturned delight.
Julie almost fell over. That full grin. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen it before. It upped him from handsome to gorgeous. He should smile like that all the time.
Strike that. If he smiled like that all the time, he’d be irresistible. To women. To...to...to her.
Deep inside Julie’s chest something shifted, something…fit. And it fit as easily as her thumb on Nate’s worry stone. She slurped her coffee and looked away, refusing to name or acknowledge or think about what that something was.
But that grin. It made her wonder. What made Nate so reserved? April couldn’t have known, or she wouldn’t have created the Daddy Test, which was designed to make Nate reveal his past. So far, all Julie had learned was that Nate and his father didn’t get along.
“The park,” Eunice said wistfully. “I love how tired Gregory gets after going to the park.”
Gregory stood on sturdy jeans-clad legs. “I go park.” He was a little older than Duke and had the three-word sentences down.
Julie felt a twinge of Mom Jealousy. She wished Duke would leap to his feet and repeat Gregory’s sentence.
Duke picked his nose.
Leaning over to wipe the evidence away with a napkin, Julie wished she wasn’t so competitive.
“I’ll take the boys to the town square.” Nate’s grin became almost angelic as Duke hugged him. “Terrance will come, too. That way you and Eunice can finish your coffee.”
Julie stared into her half-empty coffee mug, feeling the cold nip of loneliness. Nate was blossoming with Duke, while she was withering away inside.
“How sweet of the sheriff.” Eunice leaned toward Julie but didn’t lower her voice. “That’s the sign of a keeper.”
“I’m not fishing,” Julie said quickly, unable to so much as glance at Nate for fear he’d still look full-on handsome.
“Then you aren’t living,” Eunice said.
Another wave of laughter filled the room. Julie was beginning to see the appeal of El Rosal. Conversations weren’t as public there.
“Somebody didn’t sleep well last night,” Nate said while Eunice went to get Gregory’s stroller and sweatshirt from the back, and the boys jumped around enthusiastically. “And I don’t mean Duke.”
“I don’t sleep well in strange beds,” Julie lied and immediately felt bad for doing so. “We have to go home today.” Panic managed to creep into her voice.
Nate’s smile vanished as he picked up on her angst. He angled closer, lowering his voice. “Why?”
“Maybe she’s homesick?” someone hypothesized.
“Maybe Leona raised her prices again?” someone else suggested.
“She got kicked out of Leona’s,” Agnes said, unabashedly eavesdropping from a few tables away.
Nate’s browse rose. Skepticism didn’t make him any less attractive.
“No, I...I have an evaluation today. They moved it up. I can’t miss it.” Julie tried to lie, but the universe was apparently done with her fibbing. She flinched when her phone chirped with a message, one that took away her alibi, as it turned out. She tucked the cell into her pocket. “My eval was just postponed until next week.”
“Therefore, you need a place to stay.” Nate’s face was so near her own that Julie felt his warm breath on her cheek. “My offer still stands. Rutgar’s going home today. I’ll have an extra bed. I’ll even let you choose—jail cell or my apartment.”
Duke would love sleeping in jail. Julie’s imagination went a little wild as she pictured Duke growing up here and living with Nate. Her nephew’s sleepovers would be the most popular in town. What little boy wouldn’t want to play cops and robbers with a real jail cell? Julie couldn’t compete with that.
Eunice bumped Gregory’s stroller against the table leg. “I love a man who isn’t afraid to proposition a woman in front of others.”
“I should go home.” Julie could get her mother to sleep over until the nightmares faded. If they persisted, she’d...she’d...
“You made a promise.” Nate brushed a lock of hair from her forehead.
“You’ve made promises you didn’t keep,” Julie countered, breathless from his touch, wishing she felt as righteous as she had when she’d arrived in town.
Doris burst into the bakery, her gaze falling on Julie. She wore a red tunic with black Chihuahua heads dotted across it. “Thank heavens I caught you. I heard you were homeless. I insist you stay with me. Free of charge.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Jules.” Nate pulled back, staring Doris down. “Even if I locked you in my jail cell, you’d be happier.”
“Sheriff, that’s just one reason why you are completely unfit to serve.” Doris didn’t waddle so much as chop her steps. She parked herself next to Julie and put her hands on her Chihuahua-covered hips.
Until she’d met Doris, Julie had never realized how big Chihuahua fashion really was.
“The air in this place suddenly turned stale.” Rutgar worked his way to Nate’s side on his crutches, looking clear-eyed and steady. He spared Doris a disdainful glance. “Nate, give these women a break and take those boys for a walk.”
Nate’s gaze pinned Julie, trying to trap her to the promise she’d made to stay in town. Her only hope was that he’d fail the Daddy Test today. If only she knew exactly what was pass or fail.
“I’ll stay one more night,” Julie allowed. “With Doris.” She’d put Duke in a bedroom and sleep on the couch.
“Ha!” Doris smirked at everyone in the bakery, but mostly at Nate.
Too quickly, both toddlers were being taken away. Julie sat in the window seat and watched Duke leave her. Her arms felt empty, the warm coffee mug cradled in her hands a poor replacement for a warm, loving boy.
“I know how you feel.” Eunice picked up her glasses and quilt squares. “Arms empty. Alone.” She patted Julie’s thigh, surprising her with her perceptiveness. And then she added, “I know how you feel because I’m an old maid, too.”
“I’m not a baby whisperer,” Terrance said as he and Nate pushed strollers toward the town square. He’d shaved today and his gray polo shirt looked to have been ironed. “Nor do I want to be the town’s backup babysitter, much as I like these young gentlemen.”
“Everybody’s good at something.” Nate’s reply was half-hearted. Concern for Julie gnawed at his insides. He’d hated to leave her at the bakery.
She looked like death. She wanted to leave Harmony Valley? She’d be asleep at the wheel long before she reached Santa Rosa. If he hadn’t had an audience, he’d have taken her off to jail and locked her up so she could sleep.
“What’s Julie good at?” Terrance asked.
“Righting wrongs.” Although she couldn’t seem to right herself.
“Ba-con,” Duke crooned as they passed El Rosal’s dining patio, eliciting an echoing sentiment from Gregory.
“Once we play tag in the park,” Nate reassured him, pausing only to order two coffees and an order of bacon for their return trip. “You didn’t go on walkabout last night, did you, Terrance?” After seeing Julie to the bed amp; breakfast, Nate had stayed at the jail, watching over Rutgar instead of making his rounds.
“I was tucked in my bed like a good boy.” Terrance sounded as annoyed as Doris often was.
They crossed the street onto the grass in the town square. The lone oak tree stood tall in the middle. In a few weeks, the Spring Festival would be held here. Nate wondered if he’d still be sheriff. His chest constricted. He’d become more attached to the town than he’d realized.
“Admit that you walked the streets of Harmony Valley last night.” Nate turned his attention back to Terrance. “You knew I wouldn’t be making late-night rounds with Rutgar sleeping over.”
“I also knew you wouldn’t make your early-morning run this morning,” Terrance said with mock sadness, mischief in his eyes. “How did you get to know me so well?”
“How did I…? No one else has seen you strolling around.” Nate allowed a half grin. “Are you stalking me on my rounds?”
“That would truly be a cry for help if I was.” Terrance shrugged. “You should be anxious about the meeting tonight. Doris will do anything to make you unemployed.”
Nate gazed down at Duke’s dark unruly hair, at the ears so like his own. He was worried, yes. But there were other more pressing things to be worried about.
“You’re agonizing over Julie’s health.” Terrance sat on the wrought iron bench beneath the oak tree. “You should be. She looks as if your son kept her up all night.”
Nate knew that wasn’t true. Duke looked rested and ready for action. It was the shooting that kept Julie awake. He’d looked the event up on the internet last night. Details had been slim. A domestic violence case, which wouldn’t be unusual, except the abuser had been a woman and she’d locked herself in her house with two children for hours, threatening to kill them.
Terrance looked at Nate as if he was a public defender who hadn’t made a solid case against a thief caught red-handed. “That woman needs your help.”
“She doesn’t want it.”
“She would if you charmed her a little.” The old man’s expression turned more sympathetic. “You have no moves. Did your father never teach you how to woo a woman?”
“No.” He’d taught Nate other life lessons. “No wooing.”
“Woo-woo!” Duke turned the word into a train whistle. “Woo-woo!”
“Woo-woo!” Gregory echoed. The two boys shared the same thick dark hair, but Gregory had the sturdy frame of a future football player.
The two boys giggled and did the train whistle until Nate released them from their strollers and showed them how to fly like an airplane, arms outstretched, mouths making airplane sounds.
The boys circled the tree gleefully, negating the need to play tag.
Nate sat next to Terrance on the wrought iron bench. “Why did you want to be a father?”
“Because I loved Robin so much, I wanted the best of both of us.” Terrance was only on the topic for a moment, before returning the conversation back to Julie. “If your father didn’t tell you how to get a girl, I will. You have to treat a woman right. Flowers. Food. Fun.” He gestured toward the boys. “The fun is the important part.”
Nate shook his head. Growing up, there hadn’t been much fun in his house. Or romance between his parents.
“You have to make Julie laugh,” Terrance went on. “She looks like she could use some laughter.” He gave Nate a quick once-over. “Now, I know you’re not big on words or jokes, but that smile you gave her back at the bakery was a good start.”
That smile. It had burst out of Nate like a firecracker. That’s what Duke did to him. He reached inside Nate with his innocence and his trusting nature, and he found things Nate had buried deep.
Logically, Nate knew there was no harm in smiles. Not now. Not like there’d been when he was a child and showing any kind of happiness around his father had been a risk. But the way he displayed emotion was as deeply entrenched inside him as his early memories of what a father was.
Oblivious to Nate’s train of thought, Terrance continued reciting his mantra of how to be a man. “You have to enjoy silences together and plan for a future.”
“And have kids.” Might just as well get that out in the open. It seemed like Terrance was leading up to that.
“Don’t roll your eyes.” Terrance gave Nate’s shoulder a gentle backhanded swipe with his hand. “You could have this.” He pointed at Duke. “Every day. Doesn’t looking at your son fill your heart with joy?”
Nate was slow to admit it.
Terrance lowered his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “And I thought my youngest son was stubborn.” He crossed his arms and increased the stern tone of his lecture. “Start with dinner. Maybe a little romantic music. Some impromptu dancing.”
Nate could’ve argued away his attraction to Julie, but what was the point? Terrance had already called him on it yesterday. “I made dinner for Julie last night.”
“And? What did you do wrong? When she came in this morning, she looked at you as if you’d tried to steal second base.”
“She would’ve broken my nose if I’d tried to steal any base.” Of that, he was certain. “And we had chaperones. Duke was there. And Rutgar.” Snoring. “Julie would be shocked to realize I was interested in any bases.”
“Do you think love appears out of thin air without any work?” Terrance shook his head. “Why, if Robin were alive, she and I… We’d be laughing about this.”
Nate bit back a retort, because it was the first time he’d heard Terrance speak of his wife in such positive terms since she’d died.
The old man’s gaze shifted to the tree-lined horizon. “We were friends first, you see. And I very foolishly waited for her to realize we could be more than that. Wasted time, that’s what it was.” His voice drifted away like a wisp of cloud on a windy day.
The boys slowed down, airplane motors stalling.
If Nate didn’t do something, things in the park would drift toward unhappiness. “How do you know if it’s...”
Terrance pulled himself out of his reverie. “How do you know if it’s love?”
Nate nodded.
“There are signals. You smile more. She smiles more. There are tender touches and long gazes. And then...somebody steals a base.” Terrance was on a roll.
Nate had held Julie’s hand last night after dinner. She’d only allowed him to do so because he’d broached the subject of the torment she’d been feeling from the shooting. “Well, whatever is between us… It can’t be that.” That being the L-word.
“Love grows. It isn’t just not there one day and there the next.”
“Love isn’t going to grow. Julie’s grieving over her sister and dealing with the fallout from a situation at work.” Nate stood, drawing the attention of the toddlers. He raised his hands to the claw position at his shoulders and growled at the boys. “I’m gonna get you!” That was little Camille’s favorite game, being chased by her uncle.
The boys squealed and circled the tree as Nate followed with slow, stilted steps. They climbed onto the bench and into Terrance’s lap, wrapping their arms around him like love nooses.
“There’s no perfect time to fall in love.” Terrance reveled in being caught. He gathered them close and blew raspberries on each boys’ cheek, increasing their giggles tenfold. “I don’t care if your father never taught you anything about women.” The older man had to raise his voice to be heard over the glee. “This is worth all the awkward moments of getting to know a woman.”
There was no harm in sweeping one boy in each arm. No harm in laughing along with their chortled shouts of joy. There was no harm in living in the moment.
As long as Nate remembered that moments like this didn’t last.
It felt odd not to have Duke in her arms, not pushing him in his stroller.
Could this be my life soon?
Julie didn’t want to think about it.
“Juju!” Duke shouted from Nate’s arms as they crossed the street toward her.
Nate pushed the stroller and carried her nephew. She envied his stamina.
And then Duke looked at Nate with complete adoration. “Ba-con!”
Nate smiled back. No half measure there, although it wasn’t the showstopper from the bakery.
With the same dark hair color and broad grins, no one could mistake them for anything but father and son. No one could look at the pair and think they didn’t belong together. No one could feel the warmth of their smiles and not want to be in their happy circle. Even Julie felt its magnetic pull.
Nate glanced up. Their gazes connected. For a moment, it was as if she’d never seen his tight half smile. For a moment, she never wanted to see it again. This was the real Nate. Openly happy and sharing that happiness with her.
Her breath caught. She smiled back. She smiled as if she and Nate exchanged cheerful salutations every morning over coffee.
And then the power of Nate’s grin caught onto that shifting feeling inside of Julie. Her pulse quickened.
Unsteady, she had to hold on to the railing around El Rosal’s dining patio.
He was... She felt... This couldn’t be...
That smile. Nate was handsome. Obviously, she knew that. She knew he was intelligent and had a good sense of humor, too. She admired his approach to law enforcement and his shooting skill. If she was seeing him for the first time... If they’d just met... She might have considered dating him.
Her butt sagged against the railing. She stared at the toes of her sneakers.
Date Nate?
She couldn’t... He wasn’t... He’d left April in a lurch. She couldn’t look at him and see...
A man she might consider a future with. A man she could lean on and lean into.
She snuck a glance at Nate again from mere feet away. Broad shoulders. Joyful demeanor. A steady presence.
Her heart gave a pounding vote of confidence.
Julie demanded a recount, forcing her knees to lock and her legs to hold. She would not make the same mistake April had.
She stood tall and smiled at Duke, ignoring Nate completely. “Hey, little man. Are you ready to go?”
“No.” Grumpy morning Duke was back after having been spoiled by his father. “Want ba-con.”
“No.” She had to go. There would soon be toddler tears because Julie couldn’t sit across from Nate feeling an attraction for him. She needed breathing room or someone to shake some sense into her.
“Juju.” Her nephew’s tone was a reprimand.
Arturo set a plate of bacon on a table nearby along with two mugs of coffee. He received a glare from Julie for his efforts. Didn’t faze him. He smiled.
I’m out of my element.
“I’ll take Gregory back to the bakery and Eunice.” Terrance strolled past.
Julie hadn’t noticed him beside Nate. She’d only seen Nate. She was a cop. She was supposed to see everything. Julie traced the edge of her shoulder’s bandage.
“That’ll leave you three some time together,” Terrance said in falsely innocent matchmaking tones that did nothing to settle Julie’s nerves.
Time together? As if they were family? As if Nate hadn’t broken April’s heart? As if he couldn’t break hers?
Julie dragged in a breath and snuck a glance at Nate.
The tight half grin was back. It filled her with relief.
“You can ask me another question on the Daddy Test.” Nate didn’t move inside the dining patio. He waited on the sidewalk for her to make a decision.
Stay or go?
There were too many decisions for Julie’s tired brain to deal with. And that was it, wasn’t it? She was tired. That’s why she was looking at Nate as if seeing him as an attractive, available man for the first time. Her exhaustion was coloring her world. Maybe she’d feel this way about any male she looked at too long.
Julie glanced at the corner patio table where the mayor sat. He had a wiry frame beneath a red tie-dyed sweatshirt. He smiled at her, creating a network of wrinkles across every inch of his face. He was datable...in a take-a-grandfather-to-coffee-as-a-nice-gesture kind of way.
Julie huffed and pulled her gaze away. There had to be someone else at El Rosal she found attractive. Where was Arturo?
“Come on.” Nate left the stroller on the sidewalk and took her left hand.
And Julie let herself be led. She let herself take a seat across from him. She let herself look at him. At Nate. She let herself feel a longing she hadn’t known existed. It confounded her, this longing. It muted her, this longing. It made her feel feminine and fragile and nothing like the loud brash cop she knew herself to be.
Two days ago, life had seemed so simple. Get Nate’s signature and get out of town. He’d know he was in a backup position to care for Duke if anything happened to Julie, but he wouldn’t want custody. She hadn’t planned on him showing an interest in Duke. She hadn’t planned on this feeling of attraction. Her awareness of Nate as a man energized her. It made her heart thud in her chest. It made her feel like she was dancing on the ledge between happiness and heartbreak, so certain she wouldn’t break anything.
“Jules,” Nate said softly.
“What?” She blinked at him the way Eunice had blinked at her earlier.
“The test?”
Oh, right, the test.
She’d been staring at Nate like a lovesick teenager.
Blushing, Julie found the small notebook in her backpack, opened it to the appropriate page and stared at April’s words, which blurred, but then came into sharp focus. “A good dad is willing to make sacrifices for those he loves. Give an example of how your father sacrificed for you. Then give an example of a time you sacrificed for someone else.”
Nate stared into his coffee cup for so long Duke had time to eat one whole piece of bacon.
Finally, he lifted his gaze to Julie’s. There was pain in his eyes and uncertainty in the way his fingers roamed his mug.
Last night he’d said he didn’t talk to his father anymore. She’d been so lost in the revelation that April had cancelled the wedding that she hadn’t registered its significance. “Every question in the test is about your father.”
Nate’s jaw shifted to the side, and he gave a curt nod.
She wouldn’t feel sorry for him. She locked her fingers around her mug.
Nate ran a hand through his hair, over his face, under his chin. “My dad worked long hours so my mom could stay at home.” Was that his voice? It sounded so rough, so dark, so pained.
“It was nice that he helped your mom stay at home.”
Nate’s lips pressed together. He glanced at Duke, who was busy eating bacon. The shape of his eyes changed, softening to sadness. But it wasn’t the pity-me kind of sad. It was the outside-looking-in sad. The resigned-to-loneliness sad. The never-have-that sad.
Julie’s heart panged and she wished April had never come up with the Daddy Test.
When Nate looked at Julie, the sadness was gone. “I’m assuming you want an honest answer.”
Despite being curious, she wanted to say no. She’d heard enough heartrending tales while on patrol that she was sure she’d regret hearing Nate’s. She nodded her head anyway.
“There was nothing nice about my dad. He was manipulative and abusive.” Nate’s dark gaze flared with anger. His voice sparked with injustice. “Letting Mom out of the house would have meant she had a chance at a life of her own, that she’d realize what a rotten home life she had, that she’d find happiness.”
Nate had no visible scars. But his voice. It told of deeper scars. It told of raw and open wounds. It made Julie’s nightmares seem trivial by comparison.
Nate cleared his throat and continued, no less angry. “I suppose the one thing my father did that was a sacrifice was when the police arrested him, he pled guilty.” Nate’s hard gaze banked sharply across the street. “Or maybe he thought by pleading guilty he’d save himself time in county lockup and get out that much quicker.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to have kids? Because children of abuse are more likely to abuse their own spouses and children?” Julie resisted the urge to drag Duke’s highchair closer to her.
“I could never do the kind of things he did to us.” Nate cloaked his anger, locking it behind that tight half smile. The veneer was back in place. “You and April had happy holidays. You played soccer and joined clubs. You had freedom and fun.” His gaze drifted back to Duke. “When you think of your childhood, what do you remember?”
That was easy. April. She remembered April. And then came other memories. “Family traditions, like baking cookies at the holidays, road trips to my grandparents’ house or playing poker with my dad when we went camping.” There was more—holding April as a baby and rocking her to sleep, decorating Christmas trees, staying in her pajamas all day on New Year’s. But Julie didn’t want to rub her normal upbringing into his scars.
“When I think of my childhood, my stomach turns. The memories...are hard.” Nate glanced across the street once more. “That’s why I refused to imagine myself as a dad.”
“But now you have no choice.” The words fell from Julie’s lips before she realized what she was saying—that Nate had a right to parent, a right to a say in how Duke was raised, first dibs on custody.
“But now there’s the Daddy Test.” Nate stood. “I’ll be right back.” He walked across the street, cautious but confident.
“Nay!” Duke yelled in a demanding tone, but Nate kept going.
A sedan backed up and drove away, revealing a large cardboard box on the sidewalk. Nate circled the box. And then he bent to open it.
“No.” Julie hadn’t realized she’d stood and shielded Duke with her body.
“Juju.” Duke pushed at her injured shoulder.
She flinched backward. How did the boy always find her tender spot?
Nate carried the box back to them. “It’s kittens.”
Julie sat with a bone-jarring thud. “I thought it was something bad.”
“You’ve been working in the big city too long.” Nate set the box at his feet. “It wasn’t ticking. It was mewing.” He took out his cell phone and called someone named Felix, telling him about the kittens.
He’d watched the street. He’d seen something wasn’t right. She hadn’t seen anything.
Exhaustion. She blamed exhaustion.
The kittens were crying, a muted sound.
“What dat?” Duke leaned over to peer at the box.
Nate plucked Duke from his seat, set him in his lap and then gently picked up a small fluff of fur. It was orange and white, its eyes still closed. “This is a kitten. A baby cat. Do you know how you have to be with babies? You have to be gentle.” Nate cradled the kitten to Duke’s chest. “Pet it gently so it doesn’t break.”
Duke made lovey noises, touching the kitten with his hands and snuggling it with his face.
Julie was struck again by the rightness of the pair, by the vast emptiness in her chest. Because they were father and son. She was just Juju.
“You wanted to know about a time when I sacrificed for someone else?” The breeze ruffled Nate’s black hair, but he was otherwise composed. “After the wedding, I left the force because I thought it’d be easier on you if I was gone.”
And just like that, Julie was angry with Nate all over again. Blood rushed in her ears and filled all her empty places. He considered running away after behaving poorly a sacrifice? “You left because you were embarrassed.”
Nate shook his head. “Our friends would’ve had to pick sides. You would’ve had to be civil to me or look like a fool in front of the department.”
He was wrong. Annoyingly wrong. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “You think I couldn’t be civil?”
“Juju, shhh.” Duke put his finger to his lips. “No mad words.”
Nate arched a brow. He had no need to say a word.
Julie gnashed her teeth. She’d proved his point.