56. Garrett
Chapter Fifty-Six
GARRETT
H e held his breath as his daughter blew out the candles on her birthday cake, almost bursting into simultaneous laughter and tears when she couldn’t quite manage to do all five at once.
Five years.
He’d missed five fucking years of her life. And not just him. Emma had missed a lot of those years too, through no fault of her own.
According to Mariana, the home they lived in did belong to Theodore ‘Teddy’ Bronson.
Teddy was Phil’s second husband. A decade her junior, he was the son of a good country club family who latched on to his aunt Phil on a cruise. They were married a few months later. He’d moved to Verdant Falls to be with her. But his real goal had been to become a real estate mogul. Using some of his aunt’s capital, he’d opened a small office in Verdant Falls.
That was how Mariana had met him. She’d been the supervisor of a small crew of house cleaners. They got the contract to clean Teddy’s rental properties.
Of course, Mariana hadn’t told Garrett how they’d gotten involved. But he knew Teddy Bronson by reputation. He’d also seen him in action before and after the divorce .
While he didn’t believe Mariana to be entirely blameless in the matter, Teddy was a piece of shit.
Bronson wouldn’t have hesitated to use his position of authority to pressure a woman into an affair.
As bad as he felt for his aunt, the affair was the last thing he cared about. What mattered was Teddy’s involvement in his daughter’s life.
“He knows Stella isn’t mine,” Mariana had explained before the girls came back downstairs. “I took Emma to a hospital at the other end of the state—they had the facilities she needed for long-term care. Teddy was the only person who came to see us. For a while. But when I decided to claim Emma’s baby as my own, he got mad and stopped coming around so much. It caused some problems for him, you see.”
It was official. Fate was a bitch with a well-developed sense of irony. “Because everyone thought he was the father.”
Mariana shrugged helplessly. “He told me I was being paranoid, but I couldn’t help it. I thought Emma had gotten involved with someone bad and they had hurt her. Letting everyone believe Stella was mine was safer.”
God, how did he even begin to unpack all of that? “I’m sorry it caused problems in your relationship.”
“I’m not.” Mariana straightened to her full height. “But I don’t want to talk about that.”
And yet Teddy was still in her life today.
“When did he come back?” He needed to know.
She looked down at her hands. “A couple years later. Emma was in and out of the hospital and I couldn’t work as much. I had to cut back my hours with the cleaners.”
She didn’t come right out and say it, but the affair must have made her less desirable as a cleaning woman too.
It was one thing to have an attractive woman come and clean your home. It was another to hire one known for getting involved with other people’s husbands.
Garrett didn’t think his aunt would have badmouthed her. That would have been an acknowledgment of the affair. But Verdant Falls was a small town. People would have known, and Mariana’s life would have been that much more difficult. Especially financially.
Or at least it would have been until Teddy came back, riding to the rescue.
“Can I ask what the state of your relationship is now?”
Mariana worried on her lip, chewing on it too hard. “He still owns some properties. I sometimes see him there, while I clean, if they’re still vacant. I don’t like him coming here. Neither of us wants Stella to think he’s her dad.”
He couldn’t express how relieved he was to hear that.
“Good. That’s good,” he said before giving her a long, hard look. “Are you happy?”
Mariana frowned, at a loss for how to answer. “Is anybody?”
He leaned forward. “How do you feel about moving?”
The girls came down before she could answer. They were ready to celebrate, and Garrett hadn’t been about to let them down.
He’d had vague plans of sitting them down after cake and telling them the truth, but Emma started to feel bad during dinner. She’d gone to bed that night with a full-blown headache and woke with one as well.
The delay was killing him.
Garrett was close to bursting. He was both excited and terrified to tell Emma the truth. But when she didn’t improve by lunch, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had to break this news as gently as possible to soften the blow.
When she didn’t improve after lunch, he did the next best thing. He fetched Emma’s medication and put some food on her bedside table. Then he took everyone else out so she could rest.
A group of kids from Stella’s kindergarten class met at the park regularly on Saturdays. She played with them for all of ten minutes before demanding he push her on the swings. He happily did that for a solid half hour before asking Mariana to give them a little space at snack time. She was reluctant but did as he asked.
Garrett had a new plan. Tell Stella first, then they could tell Emma together once she was feeling better.
His aunt Phil would have to be last. She wouldn’t like that, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Where is Mommy going?” she asked as Mariana retreated to the edge of the park, pacing near the parking lot.
Garrett took a deep breath, examining the five-year-old. She was wearing a pink corduroy jumpsuit with a long-sleeved white shirt. Over these was a thick fleece jacket that had seen better days. A gray beanie with a white pompom on top completed the ensemble.
She was adorable and perfect. And he was about to upend her entire world.
“I asked Mariana to give us a little time alone. I wanted to talk with you.”
Stella was a brilliant little girl. “About Emma?”
He put his hands on the table. “Yeah. Kind of.”
Her little face grew unspeakably sad. “Is Auntie Em sick again?”
Goddamn, she was killing him with that little pout. “She isn’t sick exactly, but she gets bad headaches because of her accident. You know about that, right?”
Stella gave him a solemn nod. “Em hurt her head.”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, she did. She has problems because of it. One of the big ones is with her memory. Emma doesn’t remember anything from before her accident.”
“She has ’nesia.”
“Yes!” Garrett wanted to pick her up and squeeze her, but Stella wasn’t ready for that yet.
That’s okay, he told himself sternly. They had time now.
“Yes,” he repeated more calmly, surprised to find that he was sweating. “Emma has amnesia. Which means she doesn’t remember things that were important, including one big secret. It was the most special secret in the entire world and the accident made her forget it.”
Stella’s eyes grew huge. “Really?”
Her little lip turned down. “But no one will ever know it 'cause she hurt her head.”
Garrett forced himself to breathe in and out. He leaned in. “Well, the good news is I was able to figure out the special secret. ”
Stella leaned forward too, mimicking him. “What is it?”
“Well, it’s about you, baby girl.”
Stella’s sudden disdain was worthy of a teenager. “I’m not a baby .”
“Oh, of course not. Silly me,” he apologized, lightheadedness making him giddy.
“It’s just that I don’t know any other kids, so you seem small to me. But I stand corrected. You’re a big girl. Five whole years…” He trailed off, his throat aching. “I’m sorry I missed them.”
Stella watched him with huge brown eyes. Such a familiar shape. And the curve of her mouth. Damn . He looked just like that when he was confused.
He cleared his throat. “I have to tell you the special secret now. And it’s going to be hard to understand. Stella… the woman you call mama isn’t your mama. Mariana is your grandmother.”
Yeah, that scowl was real familiar too. He saw it in the mirror all the time.
“Emma is your real mama,” he continued, trying not to rush through the words. “You are Emma’s daughter. That’s the super special secret—the one the accident made her forget.”
Stella twisted behind her to look at Mariana.
“Your grandma Mariana will tell you all of this is true in just a minute. Because the secret is so big, I’m not done with it yet.”
The sweat was trickling down his back now. But there was no help for it. “You see, I am not just Emma’s new husband. We were boyfriend and girlfriend before her accident.”
He paused, searching for the right words and not finding them. In the end, he just blurted it out.
“Stella, I’m your dad.”
“ What ?” The earsplitting screech made him flinch.
He chuckled, the noise scratchy to his ear. “I am your father. And Emma is your real mom. But because of her accident, no one knew. Emma didn’t get a chance to tell me she was going to have a baby before she got hurt. Which is why I didn’t know about you. If I had, we would have met a lot sooner.”
The little girl stared at him. She didn’ t even blink.
“Stella, do you understand everything I just told you?” he asked, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I know it’s a big and very weird surprise.”
Stella’s mouth opened so wide Garrett was sure he could see her tonsils. He braced himself for another shriek.
“Emma is my mom and you’re my dad ?” This last was delivered in that same eardrum-destroying frequency as her last scream.
“Wow, that’s a serious talent kid,” he said, massaging his throbbing ear with a smile on his face. “Remind me to see if you can make crystal shatter.”
Actually, that would be cool. They might have to try that.
He was about to launch into the speech he’d begun working on in the car, about how he wanted to be a part of her life and how he’d like to see a lot more of her.
He wasn’t sure he should broach the subject of moving yet, not until he’d broken the news to Emma. But Stella was already on her feet, and she had a plan of her own.
Before he realized what she intended, Stella was running toward the group of school kids she’d played with when they first arrived.
“Hey, Tyler!”
She busted into the circle of tiny people clustered near the slide, pointing her little finger at a stout blond boy, channeling his aunt Phil to a T when she yelled, “I told you I had a dad! He’s right here and he’s way better than your dad!”
Garrett blinked , his mouth dropping open. He looked over at Mariana, who winced but didn’t move. Seeing no help there, Garrett got to his feet, hurrying when Tyler began to push her away.
“Everyone knows you don’t have a dad! My dad says your mom doesn’t even know who he is!”
Tyler reached down to grab a handful of sand, throwing it at Stella and the other kids, who began to yell and shout.
That little shit!
Garrett ran as other adults began to converge on the group. But his anger lost some of its self-righteous steam when Stella brushed her face off and charged the blond-haired turd, shoving him to the ground and leaping on top of him.
“Ah, hell.”
Garrett sprinted, reaching Stella just after she started pounding on the kid. He snatched her up just as Tyler’s parents hit the edge of the sandbox.
“Uh, sorry about that,” he apologized, panting, a squealing and squirmy Stella slung over his shoulders.
Tyler’s dad, a short pudgy guy with a receding hairline, puffed up, opening his mouth to tell him off. But he shut his mouth when Garrett stepped closer, unintentionally looming over the smaller man.
Despite the man’s incipient paunch, Garrett had more than thirty pounds on him. But his was muscle, not fat.
The thin blond woman with him, presumably his wife, took one look at his face and began to smack her husband on the arm repeatedly with the back of her hand as if to say, “ Look! Look! ”
“I told you my dad was better 'cause he’s bigger and he has more hair!” Stella yelled, struggling to get down to continue pounding Tyler.
Garrett pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Taking a better hold of his errant daughter, he cradled her against his chest with one arm and cleared his throat.
“Again, I’m so sorry. She’s just… excited.”
“It’s not a problem,” the mom said breathlessly.
He tilted his head, snapping the fingers of his free hand as he finally recognized the woman. The voice had jogged his memory. “Oh! Hey. It’s Sharon, right?”
Sharon Moore had been a year behind him at Verdant Falls High. The man with her was a little familiar too, but the receding hairline was throwing him.
“Yes,” Sharon said.
She looked from him to Stella and then back to him, her eyes widening so big she looked like an owl with a pituitary problem.
“Uh, wow. I never expected to see you here. Like this.” She broke off to smack her husband one more time. “Look, honey, it’s Garrett Chapman!”
They waited, but honey just stood there slack-jawed, so Garrett refocused on Sharon. “How’ve you been?”
“Good, good. We moved here after high school. It’s a better school district. Isn’t that right, Dennis, darling?”
She nudged her husband with a high-pitched chuckle.
Dennis finally closed his mouth. But it was a brief reprieve because he promptly opened it again to put his foot inside.
“Stella is your daughter?” he asked incredulously.
His plan to play this close to the vest while he broke the news to Emma and his aunt crumbled around him. But he went with it.
“She is,” he said, standing taller. Because this remarkable little girl—who was already so much like him and like Emma—was something to be proud of.
Stella shifted in his arms, leaning her head on his shoulder as she gripped his collar with her little fingers.
“I told him,” she whispered in his ear.
Garrett put his hand on her back, rubbing it soothingly. “Yes, you did, baby girl.”
She didn’t complain about the nickname this time.
Dennis darling wasn’t done showing off his IQ. “You and Mariana Mendez ?”
“No, idiot,” Sharon muttered, a mortified blush flooding her face. “Him and Emma .”
Dennis stared at her blankly, then sucked in a deep breath. “Oh. Oooh .”
He shook himself like a dog. “Oh, wow. That’s, uh, that’s news. Really big news. You and Emma Mendez.”
Tyler the turd, who had finally realized no one was paying attention to him, picked himself up and ran off.
“Yeah,” Garrett said, wishing she was here.
“So, you and Emma are together together?” Sharon asked, a bright I can’t wait to tell everyone I know smile pasted on her face.
Garrett nodded, with not a little regret. He could picture the gossip emanating out from these two like a tsunami, but the big secret was already exposed .
Sharon might be a terrible gossip, but she had been friendly to Emma as far as he knew. Her curiosity was understandable.
He decided to go with it, to try and control the narrative. “Yeah, we just got married.”
This was too much for the inquisitive Sharon. She stared at him for a full ten or twenty seconds, processing, before rushing to congratulate him.
“Oh my God! How exciting,” she said, wishing him luck with genuine enthusiasm.
Dennis echoed her, gesturing to his head. “And how is Emma now?”
“Mama-Emma has ’nesia,” Stella said before he could reply. “And her head hurts.”
Garrett gave them a weak smile. “What she said. Emma is home with a headache. But she’s come a long way since the accident and continues to improve all the time. She has excellent doctors now.”
He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’d appreciate it if you kept all of this to yourself for a day or two. I’m moving some big chess pieces here and I’d strongly prefer that certain parties don’t learn about this yet.”
“ Oh .” Sharon, always quick on the uptake, nodded. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” he said, this smile stronger and far more genuine.
Hoisting Stella a little higher, he began to walk away, waving goodbye as they went.
Sharon took a step to follow him. “I’m so glad Emma is doing better! Please tell her the Browns said hello.”
“Will do.”
He walked down the hill to his car, gesturing for Mariana to join them. Sighing, he dropped the smile after he fastened Stella in her booster seat.
Park time was over. His careful timetable had just been blown to pieces. Some damage control was in order, but he couldn’t help feeling a tad smug.
Stella thought he was a better dad than darling Dennis.
Given Tyler’s sand-throwing proclivities, that was a low bar, but Garrett had been a father for less than a day now. He’d take whatever victories he could get.