Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Nik lifted the half-empty bowl of mashed potatoes and followed his mother into the kitchen. Everyone around the table had offered to help clean up, but Helen wouldn’t hear of it. They were guests, she’d insisted. “Sit and enjoy your coffee.”
As soon as he set the bowl on the counter, though, Nik began to suspect why his mother wanted him to be the only one to come back to the kitchen with her.
“It’s wonderful that Jane could come,” she said, getting right to the point.
Nik squinted at his mother across the butcherblock counter. She knew how much it had hurt him when Jane took off a decade ago, and he suspected she was trying to feel out how Jane’s sudden presence in Linden Falls was affecting him after all this time. Still, she wasn’t usually one to meddle in his personal life.
“Sure.” He raked a hand through his hair. His emotions had been on a spin cycle since he’d realized Jane had a kid… And she’d left Scarlett’s father… And this magnetic pull between them had never gone away.
And hell, it probably never would .
“And Scarlett,” his mom continued, filling a pot in the sink with water. “What a lovely little girl.”
Nik gave a curt nod. “She’s a good kid.”
“You two seem like fast friends.”
He hadn’t missed his mom poking her head in the guest room when he’d gone to deliver some more Legos from his childhood bedroom to the girls and got roped into helping them build a car for Barbie and Ken. “I was her doctor. We met the other day.”
His mother turned away from the sink and picked up a dish towel. “It’s more than that. You have a lot of patients, but you and Scarlett seem to have a… special bond.”
Nik watched his mom twist the cloth in her hands. After everything he and Jane had been through, was his mom playing matchmaker, trying to get them together again? And using Scarlett to make it happen? “What is it you’re trying to do here?”
“Nik.” She sighed, tossing the dishcloth on the counter in frustration. “Has it really not occurred to you?”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Scarlett.”
“What about…” But he knew. It had occurred to him.
“She’s nine , Nik.” His mom crossed her arms. “Jane left here ten years ago and has a nine-year-old daughter. Now, I know I’m making assumptions about what you two were up to back then. But I’d be surprised if I was wrong.”
Nik sighed. If he didn’t want to talk about his personal life with his mother, he really didn’t want to talk about his sex life. But she’d obviously gotten herself worked up about this. And he couldn’t completely blame her. “You’re not wrong. Jane and I did…” He waved a hand. “Anyway, you get the point.”
“So, Scarlett could be yours, Nik.”
“She’s not.”
“If there’s any chance she is, you’ve got to find out. You have to stop Jane from going back to LA.”
Nik sighed. “Scarlett’s father is a nightclub manager named Matteo.”
His mom blinked. “Did Jane tell you that?”
Nik pictured Matteo’s smiling face on his phone. Peeking in Scarlett’s medical records and googling the guy probably wasn’t the most ethical thing he’d ever done. But it wasn’t like he could have asked Jane. “I saw her medical forms. I was her doctor, remember?” Telling his mom Scarlett’s personal information probably wasn’t the most ethical thing he’d ever done, either. But she wasn’t going to let this go if he didn’t. “Matteo was listed as her father. And Scarlett’s birthdate was on the forms. She turned nine this past summer.”
Helen cocked her head, trying to work out the math.
“Jane left Linden Falls in the summer. Scarlett was born in August, over a year after Jane took off. I’m not an obstetrician but I’m pretty sure that if I were Scarlett’s father, Jane would have had the longest pregnancy in the history of pregnancies.”
“Oh.” His mom’s shoulders slumped. “Oh,” she repeated. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
He studied her across the counter. “Are you disappointed?”
“Are you?” Her face softened. “If you went looking, you must have had some… feelings about it.”
Hell, he didn’t know. If he was Scarlett’s father, and Jane had kept that from him, the betrayal would be unbearable. But… he remembered their eyes meeting across the couch cushions. The brush of his hand on her cheek. The hitch in her breath as she leaned closer. If Scarlett were his, it would be a reason for Jane to stay.
From the dining room next door, he could hear Ali’s voice telling another story from high school, followed by a burst of Jane’s laughter. She was happy here, surrounded by family and old friends. Her shoulders had finally relaxed, as if she’d stopped scanning the exits for a place to run. He’d never forget that haunted look in her eyes when he first spotted her in Ford’s General Store. The edge to her voice when she’d said she’d left Matteo. Nik’s chest filled with rage when he thought about that bruise on her cheek.
Jane didn’t belong in LA, in the same vicinity as that asshole. She would have never gone there in the first place if she hadn’t been protecting him. And she hadn’t given him one good reason why she should go back.
Jane appeared in the doorway holding a stack of plates. “Hi.” She blinked from Nik to his mom and then back. “Am I interrupting something?”
He smoothed a hand over his face and let his lips curve into a smile. At the sight of her, it wasn’t hard.
“Not at all.” His mom waved her inside.
Jane set the plates on the counter. “I felt bad leaving all the cleaning up to you. You two did all the cooking. Please let me help.”
His mom gave Jane a wide smile. “Well, if you insist, you can help Nik finish up in here while I take dessert out to the dining room.” And before he knew what had happened, his mom had picked up a pie and tray of Christmas cookies and was heading for the dining room. “There’s no rush, we’ll save you some.” And with that, she disappeared out the kitchen door.
Nik watched her go with a shake of his head. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Jane asked, moving to his side of the counter to set the plates in the sink.
He could smell her shampoo as she brushed past, something light and fruity. Green apples, maybe. He grabbed a bowl from the counter to keep from pulling her against him and burying his face in the side of her neck. Nik cleared his throat. “She’s matchmaking.”
“Who?” Jane’s head jerked up. “Your mom? And us ?”
“Yep.” He leaned his hip against the counter.
“Oh.” She left the plates in the sink and turned to face him. “And, um… how do you feel about that? ”
“How do you feel about it?” he countered, feeling like he was twelve and passing her a note. Do you want to be my girlfriend? Check yes or no.
“Well, she’s just trying to help.” Jane pressed her lips together, but a hint of a smile broke through. “She always liked me. And you always had terrible taste in women.”
His mouth dropped open as a laugh escaped. “What do you know about my taste in women?”
“Well…” Jane pressed a finger to her lip like she was remembering back. “There was that Kelsie in third grade. You had a huge crush on her, and she was such a bully.”
“I like assertive women.” Nik leaned closer. “Besides, what about you ? That guy who took you to the ninth-grade dance? What was his name—Jeremy? He had more muscles than brains and spoke three words the whole night.”
“He was the strong, silent type.”
Nik huffed. “I think he was just silent.”
“It was my dad who liked him, not me.” She rolled her eyes. “If I recall, Jeremy left the dance with Shana Smith, and you and I ended up in an Uno battle at the Grassroots Café.”
“Just like we always did.”
She nodded slowly, smile fading. “Just like we always did.”
He looked down into her eyes, so close now that he could almost feel her sharp intake of breath. How many times had the two of them stood in this same spot in this same kitchen? How many times had he been tempted to lean in and kiss her? Back then, he’d held off, taken it slow, convinced that they had all the time in the world. But now he knew better.
“I didn’t really have bad taste in women,” Nik murmured. “I was just biding my time with Kelsie until you finally noticed me.” He reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. “I’m still just biding my time until you notice me.”
“Nik,” she whispered. “I always noticed you. And I think I’m realizing that I always will. ”
From the dining room, the voices rose, and laughter erupted, but there was no place else besides this narrow space between them, no one besides Jane. He reached out to pull her against him just as she took a step forward and came crashing into his chest. Their mouths collided, desperate, almost bruising. He parted her lips, sliding his tongue against hers, tasting her, familiar after all this time. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, but it wasn’t close enough. It could never be close enough. He shifted his weight, lifting her off her feet and onto the counter so he could settle between her thighs, tangle his hands in her hair, run a trail of hot kisses down her neck.
“Nik,” she gasped, tugging on his hair to tilt his face back up to hers.
He was sliding a hand under her shirt just as another peal of laughter from the dining room finally yanked him back to his senses.
“ Damn it .”
They were in his mother’s kitchen with their friends and family in the next room. And all he wanted was to be alone with her.
Jane took a shaky breath and climbed off the counter, back onto her feet. “I guess this isn’t the best time for this.”
He slumped against the cabinets, raking a hand through his hair. “Probably not.”
Jane’s gaze slid down to the zipper of his jeans, where he was sure it had never been more obvious that he was turned on. “I’ll go grab some more dishes and let you finish cleaning up in here.” She gave him a sideways smile, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed.
This wasn’t the right time, but soon, they were going to find a time that was right. There was no denying that this was happening between them, and nothing was standing in their way. Jane had left Matteo and she’d said there was nobody else. Maybe she had a life in LA, a job, Scarlett’s school to get back to, but they could talk about it. They could work it out. He only had a year left in his residency program. If he couldn’t convince Jane to move back to Linden Falls, he could get a job out there. He was willing to do anything to put the past behind them and convince her that wherever they were, their future was together.
Nik was never going to lose her again.