Chapter 3 #2
“I found out I was pregnant a month after you left. I was scared, alone, working two dead-end jobs just to pay rent on a studio apartment with roaches.” Her voice broke.
“I was throwing up every morning and couldn’t afford prenatal care.
Then I met David at an event. He was successful, established, we clicked immediately, and when he assumed Leo was his…
God, Sam, you should have seen his face.
Pure joy. No one had ever been that happy about anything I’d brought to their life.
” She wiped her eyes. “I let him believe it because for the first time in my life, someone wanted to take care of me instead of the other way around. I thought I was giving my baby a real chance.”
“By lying to everyone?”
“By giving my son a stable home with a father who wanted him!” Her voice rose, then she caught herself, glancing at Leo. “I thought I was protecting him. Protecting all of us.”
“A father who wanted him?” The words came out sharper than I’d intended. “You never gave me the chance to want him, Jenna. You made that decision for me.”
She scoffed, wiping her eyes. “Like you wanted to be a dad. You were barely ready for a relationship, let alone a child.”
“We may have just been a fling, but if you’d told me you were pregnant…” I struggled to find the right words. “I would have supported you. Both of you. I would have figured it out.”
“A bartender?” She shook her head. “I grew up with a father who was always going to get his act together ‘next month.’ I wasn’t going to let Leo live that life.”
“I own the bar, Jenna.”
She blinked, processing that. “I… I didn’t know that.
When I googled you last month — when David kicked us out, and I was desperate — I found Sam Mitchell in Willowbrook, Oregon.
Bartender at The Copper Fox. I saw your picture on social media, recognized you, and…
” She trailed off. “I thought you were still just bartending.”
“I own the bar, Jenna. I own my house outright. I could have provided for him.” I watched her face pale slightly as the reality of what she’d given up hit her.
“Maybe not the fancy lifestyle David offered, but Leo would have had a father who actually was his father. A father who chose him, not one who was tricked into it.”
She was quiet for a moment, absorbing this.
When she spoke again, her voice was smaller, more defensive.
“I was terrified, living paycheck to paycheck in a city where I had no family, no support system. I made the choice that seemed like it would give Leo the most stable life.” Her voice turned bitter.
“Turns out stability built on lies doesn’t last long. ”
“You made the choice that was easiest for you,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice for Leo’s sake. “You saw an opportunity, and you took it, regardless of what it cost me or what it might cost Leo down the line.”
“I was protecting him–”
“You were protecting yourself.” The words hung between us, brutal but true.
“I was doing the right thing.”
The right thing. How many times had I told myself I was doing the right thing last night, lying awake next to Chloe while I tried to figure out what the hell to do? At least my deception was less than twenty-four hours old. Jenna had been lying since the day David found out she was pregnant.
“But David’s gone now,” I said.
“David’s gone, and Leo’s been asking questions.
About why daddy doesn’t visit, when can he see him?
” Jenna wiped her eyes, trying to pull herself together.
“I can’t answer those questions anymore, Sam.
And I can’t keep pretending I can raise him alone when I can’t even afford a decent place for us to sleep. ”
Leo had gone quiet, his attention focused entirely on his truck, but I could see the way his shoulders tensed when his mother’s voice got emotional.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“Help. Financial support, at least until I can get back on my feet. Maybe a chance for Leo to know his real father.” She looked directly at me, her eyes desperate and exhausted.
“I’m not asking you to blow up your life, Sam.
I know you have someone - she’s beautiful, and from what I can see online, she adores you.
I’m just… I’m asking for enough stability so my son doesn’t have to worry about where we’re sleeping next week.
So he can have what every child deserves - a safe place to call home and parents who aren’t constantly stressed about survival. ”
Of course, she said she’d looked me up. No doubt she’d seen the photos of Chloe and me.
“I need time to think about this,” I said finally.
“Of course. But Sam, I can’t keep living in motels.
Leo’s starting to have nightmares.” Her voice broke, and I could see the genuine pain there.
“I know how this looks, showing up after five years asking for help. But I’m out of options.
Leo deserves to know who his father is, and honestly?
He deserves better than what I can give him alone.
If you can’t help us… I don’t know what happens next. ”
I looked at the little boy who was quietly coloring while his mother and a stranger discussed his future. He was innocent in all this, caught between adults who’d made complicated choices that had led to this moment.
“Can I…” I hesitated, not sure how to ask. “Can I just… talk with him?”
Jenna nodded, then turned to Leo. “Sweetheart, want to show Sam the rest of your pictures?”
Leo looked up at me with those familiar brown eyes, cautious but curious. He held up his placemat. “I colored inside all the lines.”
“You did an amazing job,” I said, meaning it. “That’s a really great fire truck.”
“I like trucks,” Leo said quietly, still watching me carefully. “And dinosaurs. And mac and cheese.”
The simple declaration made something in my chest tighten. “Those are all excellent things to like,” I said. “What’s your favorite dinosaur?”
“T-Rex.” He held his hands up like claws. “They go rawr and eat everything.”
“Pretty scary,” I agreed.
Leo studied me for another moment, his little face serious. Then, with the blunt directness only a four-year-old could manage, he asked, “Are you my daddy?”
The question knocked the air from my lungs. I glanced at Jenna, who looked stricken, clearly not having expected him to ask so directly. She opened her mouth, but I could see she didn’t know what to say either.
“That’s, uh…” I fumbled for words, my heart hammering. “That’s a pretty big question, buddy. What makes you ask that?”
“Mommy cries a lot,” Leo said matter-of-factly, going back to his coloring like he hadn’t just asked the most loaded question of my life. “She says we’re gonna find my real daddy. Are you him?”
Jesus. This kid had been listening to everything, processing everything, while the adults around him thought he was just coloring.
“I…” I looked helplessly at Jenna, who had tears in her eyes. “We’re still figuring some things out, okay? But your truck is really cool. Did you know T. rex probably couldn’t actually roar? Scientists think they made sounds more like really big birds.”
It was a desperate deflection, but Leo’s eyes lit up. “Like chickens?”
“Kind of. But way, way bigger.”
“That’s silly,” Leo said with a small giggle, apparently willing to let the daddy question go for now. He picked up a blue crayon and started working on the sky above his fire truck, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration – another gesture I recognized from my own childhood photos.
“He’s usually pretty shy with new people,” Jenna said softly, her voice shaking slightly. “It takes him a while to warm up. I’m sorry, he’s been… he’s been asking questions lately. About his dad. I didn’t think he’d just—”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly, though nothing about this was okay.
After a few minutes, Leo held up his finished picture. “Look! I made the sky blue, and the grass green, and the truck is red.”
“That’s perfect, buddy,” I said, and he gave me a small, shy smile.
“He likes you,” Jenna said quietly.
My mind was racing. Yesterday, my biggest concern had been whether to propose inside the Rosewood Inn or outside with the fairy lights. Today I was looking at my son, and trying to work out what to do.
“I’ll help,” I heard myself say. “Financial support. And… and I want to get to know him.”
Jenna’s relief was palpable. “Thank you. Sam, I know this is–”
“But I need time,” I interrupted. “To figure out how to handle this. I have a life in Willowbrook, a relationship that means everything to me. I can’t just blow everything up without thinking it through.”
Even as I said it, I knew how stupid that sounded.
I was already blowing it up. Every minute I kept this from Chloe was another lie, another betrayal.
But I’d already come this far. Already driven here, already met Leo.
Telling her now would mean admitting I’d lied this morning, lied last night, kept this from her when I should have included her from the start.
I was in too deep to back out now. And that terrified me more than anything.
“Of course. I understand.”
“How long are you staying in the area?”
“As long as I need to. I’ll find something temporary.”
I pulled out my wallet and handed her three hundred dollars - money I’d withdrawn from the ATM that morning, money that would show up on the bank statements Chloe and I shared.
God, I needed to tell her about this. Soon.
Before she happened to check the account and saw the withdrawal.
Sure, our arrangement had always been that I handled the household admin because her filing system was, generously speaking, creative chaos.
She’d happily handed over that responsibility, grateful to have one less thing to worry about.
But that didn’t mean she never looked. If she stumbled across a random $300 ATM withdrawal before I had a chance to explain…
“This should help for now. I’ll figure out something more permanent soon.”
Jenna took the money with tears in her eyes. “Thank you. Really. I know this isn’t what you planned.”
Everything I’d thought I knew about the future I had planned had changed in the space of three photographs and one telephone call. “I should go,” I said, standing up. “I’ll call you in a few days when I’ve had time to think.”
“Sam?” Leo looked up from his coloring, crayon still in his hand. “Will I see you again? Can we play sometime?”
The hope in his voice nearly broke me. “Yeah, buddy. You’ll see me again.”
Driving back to Willowbrook, I tried to figure out how to tell the woman I loved that my past had just arrived in the form of a little boy who looked exactly like me.
The engagement ring would have to wait.
But this time, it wasn’t about timing. It was about figuring out how to ask Chloe to marry not just me, but the complications that came with me. Because if Leo really was my son, which I believed he was, then he was part of the package.
And I had no idea if Chloe would be willing to take on a ready-made family she’d never asked for. Not until I laid out the facts for her and asked.
Chloe wasn’t like anyone I’d ever dated before.
The women I’d dated before her had been fun but surface-level – we’d have a good time, but there was never depth, never that sense of building something real.
Jenna had been intense but temporary, both of us knowing from the start that it had an expiration date. A holiday fling.
But Chloe was real. She was the kind of woman who’d get a call about a sick horse at 2 AM and be out the door in five minutes, half-asleep but fully present. Who’d cry over a dog she couldn’t save but would be back at work the next morning because the animals that could be saved needed her.
I loved that about her – the way she never flinched from hard things.
The way she looked at problems and immediately started figuring out solutions instead of spiraling.
The way she’d listen to someone’s concern about their pet with complete focus, making them feel heard and understood, even when it was the fifth panicked phone call that day.
I loved how she’d get excited about the smallest things – a bird’s nest in the tree outside the clinic, the first snow of winter, a patient making a full recovery.
How she’d text me photos of the puppies in the boarding kennels with captions like “LOOK AT THIS FACE!” in all caps. How she sang off-key in the shower.
I loved her laugh. The way she’d snort if she laughed too hard, then get embarrassed about it, which only made me love her more.
And I was risking losing all of it because I’d panicked and made the worst possible choice. I’d been so sure I needed to handle it alone first. So sure that showing up with answers would be better than presenting her with a problem.
I stopped at the grocery store, going through the motions, grabbing stuff for dinner. I found myself in the flower section staring at pale pink peonies – her favorites, the ones she always stopped to admire but never bought for herself because she said they were too expensive.
I bought two bunches. I’d just given her peonies yesterday for her birthday, but maybe… maybe they’d buy me a few more hours to figure out how to tell her. To figure out how to fix the mess I’d made by not telling her last night when I should have.
When I pulled into the driveway, I sat in my truck for a moment, holding the flowers and hating myself.
I had to tell her everything. Soon. Before this got any worse.
I grabbed the flowers and the groceries and headed inside, already knowing that no amount of peonies would make up for what I’d done.