Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Rowan
A t work on Monday, I ended a marathon call with a health insurance person and resisted the urge to wilt onto my desk. Having Chance catch me midsnooze on Friday evening had been embarrassing enough. I’d only been resting for five minutes when he’d found me, but it didn’t look good.
Chloe was turning out to be a goddess of a boss. When she’d found out this morning I hadn’t been able to secure health insurance during weekend hours, she’d ordered me to take the time to call a broker today, so I had. But I didn’t want to take advantage of her boundless empathy and understanding.
As I eyed the monthly premium amount I’d jotted on a sticky note, I tapped my pen on the desk in a rapid, nervous rhythm.
Health insurance was a whopper of an expense on a budget like mine, but it wasn’t one I could delay. I’d signed up for a plan on the spot. If that financial commitment meant sleeping in my car, then I’d be sleeping in my car.
I’d spent yesterday searching for a place to live, as my one-month stay at the inn, which Ava had given me yet another break on, was up in a few days. I could spring for another week there, or a month if I had to, but it’d mean dipping into the rapidly dwindling fund from Gram’s belongings. It had me considering every possible option.
I’d made an appointment tomorrow to see a garage apartment over lunch. It was a studio, not ideal once the baby came, but what made me even more reluctant was that the place looked run-down in the photos, with a water stain on the ceiling and windows that appeared ancient and leaky. I’d give it a chance though. My choices were limited.
Maybe the Dakota person who lived above Earthly Charm would consider letting me room with her until my baby was born. Probably not, and I didn’t even know what the rent was to live with her. With that premium location? It was probably out of my reach, even with a roommate.
This evening’s project would be fine-tuning my budget…if I could summon the energy. Between the pregnancy itself sapping my energy, the stress that came with finding out about it, and lying awake for hours each night trying to process my new reality, I was beyond exhausted. It took me back to the hardest times with Gram, when she had her worst, most agitated days that took every ounce of fortitude I had to get through them.
This isn’t the same , I reminded myself. This isn’t caring for a confused, dying woman. This is setting up the future for a new life.
That truth brought a smile to my face, but it didn’t make me any less drained.
Maybe tonight I would sleep.
The body had to win out over the brain and fall into near-unconsciousness to reboot eventually, didn’t it?
“Hey, marketing assistant.” Chance appeared in my doorway, looking delectable in a navy blazer, a white button-down shirt, no tie, and jeans that fit his muscled thighs just right.
“Hi. Is that my official title now?”
His lips eased into a slow, dimpled smile that made my mouth go dry. “Nah. Not official. But selfishly speaking, I like the sound of it. What are you doing for lunch?”
“Lunch?” I asked stupidly. I glanced at my phone screen and saw it was eleven thirty. “I didn’t realize it was this late. I brought a sandwich.”
“PB and J?”
Our gazes met for a moment as if he was in on one of my secrets. My sandwich of choice was the least sensitive of my secrets that he was in on actually.
“PB and J,” I confirmed. “With a side of veggies and guac.”
“Leave that for tomorrow. I’m treating you today. Marketing lunch.”
I studied him, trying to ascertain if he was speaking as my boss—was he my boss now?—or as the father of my baby or as a friend. His brows rose in question as he waited for me to respond. I decided it didn’t matter, as we had a lot of ground to cover, both professionally and personally.
“Marketing lunch,” I repeated. “Sure. Right now?”
“Can you get away now?”
“I can. Is anyone else going?”
He shook his head, glanced both directions in the hall, leaned in, and said, “You and I have a lot to talk about.” His private tone told me it wouldn’t be all marketing.
“We do.” I stood, picked up my purse and coat, and joined him in the hall.
“I told Holden and Chloe I’m going to get you up to speed on the venue project,” he said as we descended the stairs to the first floor.
I took his cue and made small talk about the brewery’s potential for events like weddings and parties until we were closed in his SUV against the biting January day. Once it was just us, I let out a quiet, uncertain breath.
“It’s nerve-racking, isn’t it?” he asked. “Hiding a whopper of a secret from everyone at work?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised to hear him voice my thoughts. “I thought maybe it was partly because I’m the new girl.”
Chance chuckled. “Not because you’re the new girl.” He started the engine, adjusted the heat setting, then took out his phone. “First things first, can I get your number? We need a way to communicate outside of work. I didn’t figure me showing up at the inn whenever I had a question would work.”
“Probably not.” His surprise visit on my first day of work had conjured vivid memories of New Year’s Eve. Scene of the crime, so to speak.
I took his phone from him, entered my number, and handed it back.
He sent me a message so I’d have his number as well, then put the SUV into gear and drove us out of the parking lot.
“Where are we going?” I asked when he drove through the square and didn’t turn in at the diner or the street to Humble’s.
Chance glanced across the front seat at me. “I wanted to talk privately, so if you don’t mind, I can whip up something for us at my house.”
“You’re going to cook?”
“Chicken and pasta with a garlic cream sauce. Does that sound okay?”
My day had taken a turn I hadn’t expected at all, but then so had my life. We did need privacy. “It sounds okay,” I confirmed, curious about his cooking skills even as my stomach gurgled with a hint of nausea at the mention of heavy food.
“Just food and discussion. I know it’s sketchy to take you to my home, but this town has big ears, and so does my daughter.”
“She’s at school?”
“She better be.”
That was an interesting response. My curiosity about her grew. I could get along well with most teenagers in my classroom. It remained to be seen how I’d do with the daughter of my baby’s father. We wouldn’t be starting off with a blank slate… if I even got to meet her.
Chance pulled into the driveway of a two-story home in a family neighborhood. He parked in the attached garage and led me into the house. I followed him through a laundry room into the kitchen, which was big by my standards and reasonably clean. There was a short dining bar between it and a dining nook.
“Welcome to my humble home,” he said as he took off his coat and laid it over the back of one of the barstools.
When he held out a hand for my coat, I slid it off and gave it to him.
“Your home is nice,” I said.
“I can show you around after we eat if we have time.”
“You moved here after your wife died?” I asked, my curiosity overriding my hesitancy to bring up a sad subject.
“Several years after.”
I watched his face as I sat on one of the stools, trying to read him, wondering whether this was a taboo subject. He gave away nothing. “Was she sick?” I asked.
He turned his back to me and opened the refrigerator, took out chicken and a few ingredients, and set them on the counter. Without making eye contact, he answered, “She was addicted to opioids.”
“Oh, Chance.” My chest tightened with sympathy and shock. “I can’t imagine what you went through.”
He nodded once, still without looking at me. “Do you want a salad with your pasta?”
Message received. Off-limits topic.
“Please. Can I help with something?”
“You sit. I got this.”
I tried to remember the last time someone had cooked for me, cared for me. Gram, sure, but it’d been years since she’d been able. Guys? No one came to mind. I’d had lots of short-term relationships. Christian was the only one I’d thought was more serious at the time. None of them had cooked for me.
Not that this was a relationship. Just a kind gesture. Or maybe just what he’d said—a way for us to talk in private.
“So you wanted to talk,” I prompted, thinking a lunch hour was hardly enough time to cover the complexity of our situation.
“Yeah.” He began slicing chicken into bite-sized pieces on a cutting board. “I stand by what I said Friday, Rowan.” He paused and looked at me. “I’m in this. We share responsibility for what happened, and that responsibility is a lifelong thing. Not just financially. I don’t know how we’ll make it work, but this child will have me in his or her life.”
“That’s important,” I said cautiously.
“You sound like you don’t believe me.”
I sorted through my thoughts and searched for the right words. Careful but sure words. “Your involvement is welcome, as long as you don’t have any ideas about taking this child away from me or trying to get full-time custody.”
He set down his knife and faced me again. “Have I given you the impression I’d do that to you?” He looked genuinely confused and maybe even…hurt?
“No. You seem like a good man determined to fulfill your responsibilities as a father. I just needed to be sure we understand each other. I’m the baby’s mother. I’m in a vulnerable position, trying to get back on my feet, but I will be back on my feet. This baby is everything to me.”
Chance turned back to the food, dumping the chicken into a hot pan. “A child needs her mother,” he said with conviction. “I know this firsthand. I’m hoping we’ll be able to work as a team somehow. Being the only parent…” He shook his head. “Zero stars. Two thumbs down. I don’t recommend it. What that’ll look like for us? I have no idea, but all I meant to say was that I’ll be part of it. An active parent.”
I relaxed a little. “Okay.”
“Are you planning to stay in Dragonfly Lake long-term?”
“My career will dictate that to some extent. If I could get a position at the high school…” This fall was likely out, but next year I’d be ready to get back in the classroom. “I’m starting to love the town. I’d like to make it work.”
“This place is like that. It left an impression on me when I was a kid. I came back.” He busied himself prepping a salad while the chicken cooked. “That’s a long-term concern. More pressing is how we’ll handle work and town gossip. We’ll need to level with Holden and Chloe.”
“Of course.”
“Which means it’ll become common knowledge. Which means we’ll have our day on the gossip train. Can you handle that?”
I shrugged. “It is what it is. We had a fling. I won’t apologize for it.”
With a smile, he looked at me and said, “I like your guts.”
“We should tell our bosses sooner rather than later.”
“I agree, but first…”
“Your daughter,” I guessed.
“Yeah,” he said on an exhale. “That’s not going to be fun.”
“It’s a firsthand lesson on the odds of getting pregnant,” I said sympathetically.
“It is that. I haven’t had any relationships since her mother died. So she’ll have to face that her dad had sex, as well as the prospect of becoming a half sister.”
“That’s a lot to swallow at fourteen.”
“I don’t want her to hear it from someone else.”
“That would be bad.”
“I need some time to figure out how to break it to her.”
“I won’t be showing for several weeks.”
“You’ll sign up for health insurance right away?” He put precooked pasta in the microwave.
“Already done.”
Again he met my gaze. “Thank you.”
“It’s a relief,” I told him. “I never intended to not have insurance, but when my Gram was no longer able to be by herself, my life kind of blew up.”
My stomach gurgled with uneasiness as Chance set a large salad in front of me then followed it with a plate of steaming chicken and pasta. I wasn’t sure if it was the food or the emotions that aroused the hint of nausea.
“She was lucky to have you,” he said as he took the stool next to me and pulled his own plate close.
I felt that oh-so-familiar swelling in my throat. “I was lucky to have her first.” I shoved a bite of salad in my mouth to give myself a few seconds. As I chewed, I battled down the fresh wave of emotions. By the time I swallowed, I could say more without my voice wavering. “She took me in when my parents died.”
“You said they were in an accident?”
“They’d saved up for the honeymoon of their dreams. It’d been seven years since they got married. They finally got to go to Hawaii. They went on one of those helicopter tours of the islands, and their helicopter crashed.”
“Jesus. That’s awful.” He took another bite and chewed. Eventually he said, “Losing a parent is damn hard no matter how old you are. Both at once?” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”
“Did you lose yours?”
“No. They live in Missouri. We’re not close. But Sam… I’ve seen what losing her mom did to her. I sometimes wonder if she’d be less…lost if her mom was still alive.”
“That’s hard to say. Impossible to prove,” I said. “Teenagers are dealing with so much even if they have a solid family life.”
“I know that. I just wonder how I can do better, be more for her. Kissing her boo-boos when she was little was one thing. Filling in for her mother now?” He shook his head. “I’m fucking drowning.”
As we ate, he told me about Sam’s friend struggles and how he’d found her at the beach with boys and alcohol.
“Those ‘friends’ dumped her,” he said between bites of chicken.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re torn between being pissed at the kids for hurting your daughter and relieved she’s no longer friends with them.”
“That sums it up. She stayed home all weekend. She seems sad. The only good thing is that she let me comfort her Thursday night. That hasn’t happened for months.”
“Those kids weren’t the right ones for her.”
“I know that, and you know that,” he said.
“She probably knows it too.”
He nodded and shoved his empty plate and bowl away. I did the same, though I’d only eaten half of it.
“You’re not hungry?” he asked. “Or you didn’t like it?”
“I liked it,” I said in a rush. “It was really good, but my stomach is wobbly lately.”
“Morning sickness?”
“Morning sickness, yes. Smell-of-food sickness, yes. It comes and goes throughout the day. The heavier the food, the more likely it is to bring on nausea.”
“My wife had the round-the-clock nausea,” he said sympathetically. “The upside is that it’s a sign of a healthy pregnancy.”
I’d read that too. “I appreciate you cooking for me. It really was tasty…until that flip of the stomach.”
Chance stood, went around the counter to the sink, and rinsed off both plates. He placed them in the dishwasher as I drank the rest of my water.
“Come with me,” he said. I must’ve given him a puzzled look, because he added, “I’ll show you around.”
The main floor had two steps down to a family room, plus a half bath, a formal living room, and a dining room he’d turned into an office.
Following him up the stairs to the second level, I felt weird. Like, why did I need to see the private parts of his house? But I couldn’t deny—to myself only—I was curious to lay eyes on his bedroom.
He showed me his room first, just opened the door to the master and allowed me a peek in, as if that was not his objective, but I couldn’t figure out what was.
My too-short glance in showed me dark gray walls, lots of wood, and creams and grays for the bedding. It was masculine but cozy. I wouldn’t mind getting wrapped up in those sheets.
Stop it, Rowan.
I darted my gaze away as if I hadn’t given any extra thought to the place he slept. Did he sleep naked?
No, no, no.
The temperature seemed to climb, and my face felt flushed.
“Sam used to have this room,” he said, leading me past a bathroom to the other side of the stairway, where there were two doors. Sam’s was the one directly across from his room, but it was mostly empty. “The basement is her kingdom now, which might be a mistake. I don’t know. Who the hell ever knows? Parenting is a mind fuck.”
“Sign me right up for that, please,” I said dryly.
He grinned. “Fasten your seat belt.”
He ran his hand down my back in a brief but intimate touch. I pretended not to notice, but oh, did I notice.
“This is the infrequently used guest room.” He opened the door to the last bedroom.
Inside was a comfortable-looking room with a queen bed, a nightstand, a window seat, and a dresser along one wall. The bed was covered by a thick navy-blue comforter and multiple pillows.
“Your infrequent guests are lucky,” I said, thinking there was nothing about his house that screamed bachelor pad. It was homey with more of a family feel.
“I’m glad you think so. I know you’re looking for a place to live. We’ve got plenty of space here, so…would you like to move in?”