Chapter 3
Jasper
From the hospital, I headed straight home to deal with the fallout of the last twenty-four hours. Still in my uniform and bone tired, I wanted nothing more than to fall into bed. A quick nap before facing my siblings would be incredible.
When I pulled up to the house and found my oldest sister’s Volvo in the driveway, I considered climbing onto the roof of the wraparound porch and jimmying my bedroom window open.
I let the idea go quickly, though. Jenn would know.
Her instincts were spot on. She was twelve years older than me, so she’d been a second mom to me my entire life.
She could sniff me out a mile away. She owned the coffee shop, Bean There, Sipped That, with her wife, served on several town committees, and coached the high school ski team.
Resigned to face her, I toed my shoes off in the mudroom and headed toward the kitchen.
Josh had renovated a few years ago, and the homey house I’d grown up in had been transformed into an architectural digest spread.
He’d left my childhood bedroom alone, per my request, and I had my own bathroom, so while the kitchen was all rustic oak floors, exposed beams, and copper pots hanging from the ceiling, I had my own untouched space upstairs.
Maybe it was weird that I still lived at home, but my brother was a damn good roommate. He didn’t charge me rent, which meant I had healthy savings and had set up a good retirement plan by thirty, and the fridge was always stocked.
It was convenient too. I spent as many hours working on the farm as I did on shift most weeks.
The trees, the animals, and the limited crops we grew kept us busy.
We were working off an endless to-do list. I’d known at an early age that I had no interest in being a full-time farmer, but I’d been tapping trees and feeding chickens since I was three years old.
Josh was the smart one. He’d headed straight to the Ivy League after high school and then to Wall Street. He made a bunch of money, but then something happened—what, he won’t say—and he moved back here and took over the farm.
My sister Jess was in the process of converting one of the small barns into a summer home for her family. The designs were nice. I figured I’d so something similar someday.
But now I had Vincent. I gave myself a moment to remember the warmth and weight of him in my arms. I guess someday was now. I had a lot to sort out.
From the sound of things, my siblings were in the kitchen. Again, I considered avoiding them. But when the smell of coffee hit me, I decided to take my chances.
“Finally,” Jenn said when I walked in. Her arms were crossed, her expression stern. “Did your phone die? I’ve texted you about five hundred times.”
Josh dipped his chin and reached for a mug.
Silently, he got to work in front of his fancy espresso machine.
I had a couple of heavy machinery licenses, and even I couldn’t operate that thing, so I left him to it.
Josh wasn’t a big talker, but I did enough for the both of us, and we’d figured out our flow long ago.
Jenn had three legal pads fanned out like playing cards on the butcher block island, each with scribbles and highlights bleeding through the pages. She hovered over them and pressed a button.
A second later, Jess’s voice filled the kitchen. “What is going on?” she chided. “I’ve got my candles lit. Josh, have you saged the sap barn yet?”
I smiled. Jess was the best. She was a social worker slash yoga instructor who lived in New York and was, blessedly, a fellow glass-half-full person. Together we balanced out Jenn and Josh.
“It’s gonna require a hell of a lot more than sage,” Jenn quipped as Josh slid a mug toward me.
I picked it up right away, scorching my tongue, desperate to get caffeine into my blood stream.
“Gabe is on his way.” Jenn turned toward me, a hand on her hip. “Now start talking, because the rumors are flying and your cryptic texts have taken years off my life.”
Josh propped his elbows on the table and gave me “the look.” It was the one my father had invented and perfected, and by some genetic lottery, Josh had inherited it.
“I have a son.”
Silence. Even the espresso machine seemed to stop its strangled hissing.
Josh’s eyes widened and Jenn gasped. I swore a gray hair even sprouted from her head.
“Oh my God,” Jess squealed, the sound ear-piercing. “What’s his name? Tell me everything.”
Jenn clicked her pen twice. “So the rumors are true.” Her tone was one of pure disappointment. “Why didn’t you tell us you were having a baby?”
My stomach lurched. “He’s not a package I ordered from ,” I snapped.
Jess giggled, her voice tinny through the phone.
“I mean—” Blowing out a breath, I roughed a hand down my face. “It was a surprise. For everyone. Me. Her. It’s messy.”
With every word, I deflated, running out of steam, but I didn’t stop, afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t find the words again.
“His name is Vincent,” I said, taking in the shocked expressions on my siblings’ faces. “And he’s perfect.”
“Of course he is,” Jess said. “I’m going shopping today. This is so exciting. Is he wearing newborn sizes? Or should I size up?”
Josh leaned on the table, his knuckles braced. “The mother?”
“Evie Marino,” I said, as if two words could convey the entire messy story. One night and too much heat followed by nine months of silence and avoidance and an emergency call to the pizzeria where her water had broken.
While a corpse in a vat of sap had upended the town, Vincent had arrived.
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” Jess said.
Jenn continued to stare at me, the disappointment radiating from her.
I refused to feel bad. While my track record when it came to adulting was not perfect, Vincent was.
So I shook my head and sipped my coffee. Normally I spewed every thought that came to me. My brain moved faster than my lips, and I overshared and overexplained.
But I didn’t have a clue how to describe this situation. “It’s… complicated. But I’m all in.”
Josh gave me a solemn nod.
“I was just at the hospital,” I said, throwing a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m gonna shower and go back before my shift tonight.” With a sigh, I turned toward the stairs, but I turned back again quickly, digging my phone out of my pocket. “Wanna see pictures?”
“Yes,” Jess screamed, her voice echoing off the exposed beams above us. “Text them to me right now.”
Jenn scrolled through the photos silently, but her expression softened a fraction.
The back door banged open, startling all of us, and Gabe strode in. He had on his usual dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and carried a battered leather bag.
“Crisis meetings,” he said, nodding at Josh.
My brother turned back to the espresso machine and silently made our cousin his own cup.
Gabe squeezed Jenn’s shoulder and ran a hand through his hair. “All right, family. Facts only. We’ve got to get ahead of this.”
Gabe Harding was our first cousin as well as the mayor of Maplewood. He’d grown up on the farm next to ours, and we’d all been raised together. Already a successful lawyer, he’d run for mayor a few years ago and had been overseeing the town since.
Josh had bought his parents’ farm a while back, and shortly after, Uncle Ed and Aunt Suzie moved to Florida to enjoy retirement.
“Jas has a son.” Jenn pushed the phone toward Gabe.
He studied the photo, then gave me a genuine smile. “Congrats,” he said. “But did I miss something?”
My hackles rose, but before I could set him straight, Josh jumped in.
“It’s complicated.”
“The mother is Evie Marino,” Jenn added.
“And baby Vincent is the cutest,” Jess added from the phone.
“Are you in a relationship with the mother?” Gabe picked up his coffee and carefully brought it to his lips.
“Um,” I hedged. “No. It was a surprise. For both of us, actually.”
He set his mug down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I mean it, congrats. Babies are great.”
My stomach sank. I could feel the “but” coming.
“But now I have to be the guy everybody loves to hate. We need to protect you, the farm, and the baby. Step one.” He held up a finger.
“Paternity testing. Step two.” He added a second finger.
“Establish custody paperwork and a parenting plan. Step three.” Yup.
Third finger. “No statements about the baby to anyone.”
My spine went rigid. “No.”
He blinked at me. “To which step?”
“All of them.” Heat rose up under my collar, anger surging inside me.
I understood his instincts, but there was no way Vincent didn’t belong to me.
“I’m not swabbing my kid like he’s evidence,” I gritted out. “I’m not starting fatherhood with a lab slip.”
Jenn closed her eyes and sighed. “Jasper, be reasonable. This is about legal clarity. If you want to be on the birth certificate—”
“I am,” I snapped. “I signed it this morning.”
Today had been one of the most intense and joyful days of my life, yet all the questioning was making me angry.
“That’s great,” Gabe said carefully, “But depending on circumstances of conception and notice, there can still be challenges. A test protects you and the child. It protects Evie too.”
“You think she’s playing him?” Josh growled.
My vision went red. What the fuck?
Gabe took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. My point is that this family and this farm are already in the middle of a public scandal. I just want to protect everyone.”
The room suddenly felt too small. I would not let them weaponize my son, no matter how well-intentioned my cousin was.
“What scandal?” I glared at Gabe. “A murder in Maplewood is a big deal, sure. But can we stop with the catastrophizing?”
They looked at one another, Jenn and Josh wearing matching stoic expressions, Gabe straightening, slipping back into lawyer mode.
“He doesn’t know?” Jess’s muffled voice was loud in the silent room.
I frowned at my siblings. What were they talking about?