Page 129 of The High Tide Club
Brooke made a move to stand, but she was trapped in the booth with Henry, sound asleep with his head in her lap.
“Don’t wake him up,” Pete said. He leaned over and touched the top of Henry’s messy curls. “Cute kid.” Then he straightened. “This was probably a bad idea, huh?”
“Not at all,” Brooke said. “It was great to see you. I just wish we’d had more time to talk. My mom was going to take Henry, but this morning she woke up with some kind of bug.” Her mouth was dry, and she didn’t know what to say.
He hesitated. “I’m flying out of here next week. This time, the ball’s in your court, Brooke. If you call me, we’ll meet. If not, I’ll know it wasn’t meant to be.” He brushed his lips against her cheek, turned, and hurried out of the lounge, with Hope following.
***
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Marie’s tone was more resigned than accusatory. They sat at the kitchen table. It was a dark Irish Georgian oak with carved balland claw feet, and the chairs were of the same wood, but in a Chinese Chippendale style.
Her mother squeezed lemon into a glass of iced tea and handed the glass to Brooke.
“How are you feeling? You look a little better than you did this morning. Have you taken your temperature?” Brooke asked.
“I’m okay. Now, did you or did you not tell Pete that he has a son?”
“I wanted to,” Brooke said, sipping her drink. “But when he didn’t even notice how much Henry looks like him, I don’t know. Something inside me just shut down.”
“Your backbone?”
“How could he not recognize his own child?” Brooke cried. “Even that alleged colleague who was with him, the enchantingly lovely Hope, I know she saw the resemblance the minute she laid eyes on Henry.”
Marie sipped her own tea. “Oh, Brooke, you know how clueless men are about stuff like that. When you were born, your father stood outside the nursery window at Candler Hospital proudly telling everybody within listening distance that a total stranger’s newborn was his beautiful new daughter. And get this—the child was a boy, and he weighed twelve pounds, eight ounces, which was exactly twice what you weighed.”
“I’ve never heard that story before,” Brooke said. “Are you sure you didn’t just make it up?”
Her mother slid her phone across the table. “Call and ask him if you don’t believe me.” She glanced fondly at her grandson, who at that moment was happily coloring at a child-sized table Marie had brought down from the attic for him. “Did Pete even get a really good look at him?”
Brooke shrugged. “You know how shy Henry gets around strangers. He sort of buried his head against my shirt when Pete was talking to him. But he did tell Pete he was three, which, if the man had any brains in his head, should have told him that Henry was the fruit of his loom. He even had the nerve to ask me if I’d been seeing Henry’s father while we were together!”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him the father hadn’t been in our lives in a long time, which was the truth.”
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t simply tell him the truth: that you got pregnant the last night you were together and then couldn’t quite get up the nerve to tell him about his child.”
Brooke jiggled the ice cubes in her glass. “I wanted to. Truly, I did. But the food took so long to get there, and it was so weird and awkward between us, and then after the food did arrive and we finally got around to talking about us, that damn girl showed up to say that their ride was there and they needed to leave. I swear, she did it on purpose.”
“Didn’t he tell you they were just colleagues? Nothing romantic?”
“I guess. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Pete did tell me he’s coming back through town to fly back to Alaska after the conference ends next week. He said I should call him if I want to see him—and that this time the ball’s in my court.”
“Fair enough,” Marie declared. “Next week, you call him. You get a sitter for Henry, and you arrange to meet Pete somewhere other than the airport, at a nice restaurant, and without his little friend Hope. And you sit down and put all your cards on the table.”
“He’ll hate me,” Brooke said. “Or worse. What if he decides he doesn’t want to be with me but he wants me to share custody of Henry? What if he tries to take him away from me?”
Marie rolled her eyes. “He has a right to be angry, but he’s not going to try to take your son. You’re being ridiculous, and you know it. Stop being so paranoid. I know you, Brooke. If you cared enough about this man to sleep with him, you know his character. Right?”
“Maybe. But it’s been three years. Maybe he’s changed. He grew a big, awful Grizzly Adams beard that hides his beautiful face. And he’s been pumping iron too. He’s, like, beefcake now. Who knows what else is going on with him?”
“You’re giving me a headache,” Marie said wearily. “I can’t talk any sense into you. Are you going to see Pete again or not?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know. My life is complicated enough right now. And part of that’s your fault.”
“Mine? What did I do?”
“You’re the one who told me it was okay to date Gabe Wynant. So I’m doing it. He’s taking me to the dinner dance at the Cloister tomorrow night, and he wants me to spend the night at his place after.”
