Chapter 15 #2
He owed her now. Big time. He’d tried everything not to come here. And if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have run into Ana.
Dennis knew how to fix this. He pulled out his phone and started texting.
An instant reply pleased him.
“What kind of coffee do you like?”
“Decaf.”
“Decaf what?”
“You want my order?”
“I do.”
“This is from Love You Coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’d like a decaf latte with turmeric and cinnamon.”
His fingers froze. “You drink that?”
“I do now.”
“Okay, then. There.” Sliding the phone in his back pocket, he patted his left chest pocket, momentary panic racing through him until he remembered Magic was safe at home in his little habitat.
A rarity, and a well-timed coincidence that made this all so much easier.
“Reef will have a pound of mixed chocolate hearts and our coffees ready for us at the back door,” he explained, their pace slower as they walked to the main drag.
“You know everyone, don’t you? You’re a Luview. I cannot believe I never asked you for your last name when we met.”
Each step felt surreal, her body so close to his, a reality he’d imagined and craved for so long.
What a bizarre way to meet again.
And he had so many questions.
“Who did this to you? And did he do it without your consent?”
“Consent. I don’t hear that word from many people.”
“You’re hearing it from me now.” Fighting to keep the anger out of his voice, he paused, peering down at her. “You keep dodging the question.”
“I can see how it seems that way. I’d prefer to get our order first. It isn’t the kind of conversation that works well with interruptions.”
“Got it.”
In silence, they walked the rest of the way to the alley behind Love You Coffee, where Dennis texted Reef. Within a minute, the pierced and tatted-up dude appeared with a small white paper bag and a tray with two coffees.
Reef was a hardass, a quality Dennis admired.
So the grin he wore on his face took Dennis by surprise.
“Sucker punched by a ninety-year-old woman, eh? Nobody had that on a betting grid at Greta’s.”
“Shut up.”
“I heard you used that line on your mom, too. You’re getting in trouble from Dean for sassing off to Deanna.”
“Reef,” he growled.
“Is that any way to treat a friend?” Reef transferred the goods to Dennis, then looked at Ana. “Hey, there. How’s it going, Ana?”
“You seriously know each other?”
Reef gave Dennis a withering look.
“Lucinda’s my great-aunt, too. Remember? Brie and I are third cousins or something. Ana’s been here tons of times with Brie. If you’d bothered living here for the last twenty or so years, you’d know that.”
With a slam, the door closed, and Reef returned to the store.
Dennis offered the bag to Ana, who immediately opened a cellophane pouch of red, silver, and pink foil hearts. She pulled out a red one and hurriedly unwrapped it, shoving the chocolate into her mouth, chewing while opening a second one quickly.
“You act like you’ve been shipwrecked and this is the first fish you could catch with your handmade spear, so you’re taking a bite of it raw and alive,” he said as he watched her dig in.
“That is a perfect description of a pregnancy craving.”
The little moan she made as she ate the chocolate reminded him of their night in bed, making love. Never before had he competed with candy.
Right now, he was losing.
Holding the tray with the coffees, he pulled each cup from its cradle and tossed the tray in the recycling bin. The scene Lucinda caused back on the common was going to follow him throughout town, so he wanted to get them away from prying eyes.
And he sensed he was somehow losing Ana. Time was of the essence.
“You know,” she said, in a voice he dreaded, “I–maybe I should just apologize again and take my leave. Lucinda and Brie are very kind to let me talk to you, but–”
“No!” He caught himself, realizing that came out too sharply. “No. Please. It’s really good to see you.”
To be this close to your amazing self, he almost added.
She looked at him full on.
“It’s good to see you again, too.”
“I know a place we can go.” He nodded across the street. “A little cove by the hot springs. It’s too high above the water for people to swim there. Can we walk over and talk?”
“Sure.”
A light wind picked up as they strolled to the crosswalk, her dress billowing, showing off the shape of her belly. Pregnant. Ana was pregnant. Never in all his imagined scenarios had he thought of this.
That she was refusing to reply to his text because she was pregnant with another man’s baby.
No ring on her left hand, though.
“I take it you’re not with the father?”
Ana snorted as they waited for the light to change, then opened another foil heart and ate it, rolling the wrapper into a tiny, tight ball.
“No. My ex is the one who… did this.”
“The asshole you talked about in the bar?”
“One and the same.”
“Harris.”
She jerked in surprise.
“You remember his name?”
“Wanted by the DEA. Fled the country on drug smuggling charges. He–he’s the baby’s father?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re certain?”
Just then, the light changed, Ana jumping at the chance to run away from him.
Or so it seemed.
“Damn it. Sorry,” he said, catching up. “Of course you know.”
“I slept with Harris a month or so before we met. Last time was the day before he dumped me, okay?” she said through gritted teeth, in a low voice he strained to hear. Her pace was clipped and fast, the gait of a city dweller.
“Which direction?” she asked as they reached the edge of the woods around the hot springs.
“Here,” he said, pointing to the back lot of Love You Chocolate. “It’s around back of Lucinda’s store.”
“How do you know about it?” Smacking her forehead playfully, she added, “Because you’re a Luview. Duh.”
“Actually, it’s because when I worked at Lucinda’s store as a teen, I hung out there during my breaks.”
“You worked there? I’m jealous.”
“Jealous?”
The pivot to the right took them around the overstuffed parking lot. Love You Chocolate had its best month in February, but any busy weekend in town, especially three-day holiday weekends, brought out loads of candy fans.
“Brie got to work for a few weeks one summer. Auntie always said I could come, too, but my mom had me enrolled in language camp by then.”
“What language?”
“Português, claro!”
“Português. Meu erro. Você é fluente?”
The skid of her Chuck Taylor soles on the pavement made a sound like a tiny shriek.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“Whew. We’re back to English. Because you were pushing the bounds of my fluency.”
“You really have no accent, Dennis.”
“Your father, right? Taught you his native language?”
“Yes.” They resumed walking, Dennis pointing by holding one coffee aloft. Beyond a small clearing, there would be a cluster of fallen trees by the water, perfectly level for sitting on. “After he died, Mom sent me to language camp every summer until college so I’d retain it.”
“She’s not fluent?”
“She was good enough. No kid who is fluent likes hearing a non-fluent parent.” Ana shuddered. “Her accent is abysmal.”
“After your dad died, did she still speak it?”
“No. Then Rick moved in, and…”
“Will you speak Portuguese with the baby?”
“He will absolutely learn it.”
“He?”
“Yes.” When she smiled, a smear of chocolate showed on her lip. He wanted to kiss it off. “Baby Bean, the boy.”
“And will you name him Paolo? After your father?”
Another abrupt halt from her, this time on dirt, as they had just reached the path.
“How do you know my father’s name?”
“Let’s sit down and have our coffee and chocolate. I’ll explain.”
By the time they sat down, Ana was on her fifth chocolate heart, which deeply amused Dennis. She was tucking the little red foil balls from the wrappers into her dress pocket.
Wide and worn of bark, the enormous tree trunk that acted as a bench was far too low for his long legs, but suited Ana perfectly. Knees nearly in his ears at first, he eventually stretched back, legs crossed at the ankles.
She gratefully took the coffee.
“Thank you. I owe you.”
“For what?”
“The coffee. The chocolates.” Instead of taking a sip of her drink, she ate another chocolate. The cove was so quiet, with barely any birdsong audible.
“Now tell me why you know about my father.”
“When we met in Boston, you said he died in the Bannister crash. I looked it up. Figured you likely had the same last name. Looked you up.”
“You know where I live?”
“Sure. Newburyport.”
Her squint was half skepticism, half worry.
“You hired a private investigator?”
It felt good to laugh so hard.
“Ana. I have skills that far exceed a PI. It didn’t take long to learn a great deal about you.”
“Oh. And you never used that information?”
“To do what?”
“Try to find me?”
“Why would I do that? You didn’t answer my text. I respect that. I’m a man who knows a boundary when I see it, and I don’t cross them.” Anger rose inside him. “Unlike your ex.”
“Wow. And I had no idea who you were. Afterwards, I wished I’d gotten your last name. Can you imagine how different our bar conversation would have been?”
“Yep. Which is why I never mentioned it.” A sour taste filled his mouth. “People get weird when they hear the Luview name.”
Steadily, she made her way through more chocolate, alternating between candy and coffee.
“It must get tiring.”
“It does.”
“So you stay quiet.”
“I do.”
“I didn’t reply to you, and you didn’t chase me. Until we just ran into each other, I assumed we both were done.”
He reached for her hand, taking the chance.
“I am anything but done.”
“Really?” Hand going to her chest, her laugh was high and nervous. “Dennis, I’m about to be a single mother. Raising a child I conceived a month before we met. You’re… not done?”
“Are you? Done with me?”
“I’ve had maybe twenty minutes to even begin to get over the shock of running into you on the common and watching Auntie slap you. I’m a fast emotional processor, but this pace is beyond my abilities.”
“Got it. Sorry for the hard press.”
Laughter, loud and boisterous, rose like steam from the other side of the springs. Splashing and shouts made them both smile.
“This is awkward as hell,” she observed.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“I’m a trained, licensed therapist. It’s my job to navigate emotional terrain with as much equanimity and grace as possible. And after our extraordinary night together, I was so joyful. So hopeful. Then I got sick.”
“Sick?”
“Turned out that what I thought was a bad cold was… Baby Bean.” She winced, then smiled. “He heard me talking about him and decided to stretch.”
“He’s moving around?”
“Yes.”
Eyes on her round midsection, he took in the print of her dress, how the cloth folded underneath breasts far bigger than the last time he’d seen her. Then he studied her face. She glowed, but it wasn’t just the maternal air of pregnancy. Ana had a goodness about her.
Which made what that prick had done doubly bad.
“Tell me more about what he did to you.”
Watching her smile fade hurt him, but he had to know.
“He… Look, the sex was consensual. Fully.”
“Okay.”
“But when I called to tell him about the baby, he expressed surprise that ‘it had worked.’”
“What had worked?”
She unwrapped two hearts and put both pieces in her mouth at the same time, chewing, a finger held up to buy time. After she swallowed, she looked down at the ground as if embarrassed.
“He told me he’d poked holes in the condom because he thought having a baby on the way would get him sympathy from a judge or jury.”
“That fucking animal.” Fists curling, Dennis imagied breaking the guy’s face.
“I–I am so sorry, Dennis. I really, really shouldn’t be telling you so much personal stuff.”
“Never apologize.”
“Something about you makes me let my guard down. Not that I have a big one. I’ve done plenty of work with therapists around my own issues. Including this one. Harris breached my trust.”
“Harris did more than that.” He wanted to drill down, interrogate her, learn more. So many questions.
“Yes.”
“I want to help you.”
“Help?”
“I know guys who know guys. I might be able to find him and force him to face justice.”
“That sounds very illegal.”
“The line between moral and legal is sometimes open to interpretation.”
“That’s not where I want to focus my attention and energy.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“Dennis.” She finished her coffee and set the to-go cup on the bench, fishing around in the nearly empty bag of chocolates, taking one of the three remaining.
“I can focus on what Harris did to me and how he turned me into a victim for his agenda. Or I can focus on the joy of passing twenty-six weeks of pregnancy with a child I wasn’t supposed to be able to conceive and carry to viability. ” She sighed. “There I go again.”
“What?”
“Telling you all my secrets.”
He touched her hand again.
“I’m here to listen to every single one of them.”
“Why are you being so nice to someone who blew you off like I did?”
“Why are you sitting here with me on a fallen log on a beautiful spring day, eating chocolates and pouring your heart out?”