“Holy fucking shit on a stick, Baylor. That gorgeous hunk of a man is your baby daddy?” Callie asks, after I explain in the airport car why I was yelling at her from the shower by the pool a mere thirty minutes ago.
Our driver silently laughs and shakes his head.
“You kiss my kid with that mouth of yours?” I raise my eyebrows at her.
She rolls her eyes at me, pointing to the headphones in Maddox’s ears. She knows I love her as much as my own family. She stares at me with her gorgeous deep-blue eyes, tanned skin and long, flowing blonde hair, every bit the California girl that I hired three years ago as a favor to her parents that are friends with mine. Callie Spencer is more than a nanny. She’s my best friend, my touchstone, my person. She lives with Maddox and me in the house I bought from my parents in Maple Creek—a situation that was supposed to be temporary until she could save up enough money to get her own place. But when that time came, she wasn’t in a hurry to leave, having become attached to both of us, and I couldn’t imagine being without her friendship and support twenty-four-seven. It works for us. She keeps Maddox busy when I’m writing, and having a live-in nanny is added peace of mind when I go away on book tours. Sometimes, I take them with me, like now. I want Maddox to have every opportunity I didn’t have as a child when my parents were struggling with their restaurant.
Callie frowns. “You know I never would have called Max by his full name if I’d known who was standing right there.” She gasps. “He was talking to him, Baylor. I mean, holy crap!” She shakes her head. “God, I ruined everything, didn’t I?”
I put a reassuring hand on her leg. “Cal, you had no idea he was there. You were sleeping by the time I got home last night. This wasn’t your fault.”
I still can’t shake the bad feeling I had when I woke up to an empty suite. I kicked myself for not leaving a note for Callie. I should have known better. Maddox likes to swim and Callie always takes him to the pool every morning whenever we’re at a hotel. I prayed as I threw on some yoga pants and an old t-shirt that was still rumpled on the floor from yesterday. I prayed they wouldn’t run into him somehow. Yet, the bad feeling I had in my gut turned to sheer terror when I rounded the corner of the pool showers and saw my son at the other end of the pool talking to Gavin. And neither of them knew who the other was. I almost threw up on the spot. I called out to Callie that there was an emergency and she needed to get Maddox and bring him back to the suite immediately. By the time she got him up there, only a few minutes after me, I had thrown all our stuff into our suitcases and had the hotel arrange to have a car waiting downstairs.
“So, what are you going to do now?” she asks.
“Call my lawyer, for one,” I tell her. “I’m not even sure Gavin realized who Maddox was though, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t care.”
“Oh, I’d say he knew, all right,” Callie says. “When I said Max’s name, the guy practically fainted right there in the pool. He was all gorgeous and ripped and sun-tanned, and I swear to God, Baylor, all the blood drained from his face when I called Max over to me. I thought the guy was having a heart attack or something. If you hadn’t been so adamant about us coming back to the room, I’d probably have offered mouth-to-mouth,” she jokes.
I close my eyes and lean back against the soft leather seat, trying to stave off the headache that threatens me. Of all the hotels in all the cities, why did Gavin McBride have to show up in mine?
“That man is seriously hot,” she says. “No wonder Max is so adorable. He’s gonna grow up to be a heartbreaker, that one.”
She realizes what she said a few seconds after she said it. Her hand comes up to cover her mouth. “Oh, Baylor, I’m so sorry. That was such a shitty thing for me to say.” She scoots over to pull me into a hug as I feel tears prickle the backs of my eyes.
I will not cry.
I won’t let him have any more of my tears. I must have cried a damn ocean that first year after he left me. Then seeing him last night, it’s like everything came rushing back and the spigot I thought had been turned off for good, suddenly broke open. But today I resolve to have a stiff upper lip. I have no more tears to give him.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” my beautiful boy asks, pulling an earbud from one ear.
“Nothing, sweetie,” I reply. “I’m just happy to be going home.”
“You miss Grammy and Papa?”
I nod my head. “Yes, I do. And Aunt Skylar, too. We missed Sunday brunch this week and that made me sad. So, what do you say we take a trip to the city tomorrow and surprise them at the restaurant?”
His ice-blue eyes light up and he emphatically nods his head at me. “Yes, yes!” he squeals. “Will you take me to the big park, too? Please, Mommy?”
How can I deny him? My sweet boy, who is blissfully unaware that there was another blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy that I could once never deny either. As I stare at Maddox, who prefers to be called Max by his friends, or even Mad Max—a nickname given to him by Callie—I recall the very day I first laid eyes on him. The second he was born I knew he was the spitting image of Gavin. I’d even wondered briefly if I would be able to love a baby that looked just like the man who broke me. But in all of the twenty seconds it took the nurse to clean him up and place him on my chest, I knew Maddox would be the love of my life.
My family and close friends wondered how I could name him after the bastard who abandoned me when I was eighteen and pregnant. But there was part of me—a very small part, hidden away down deep, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a steel padlock—that knew one day my son might search for his father. That small piece of me wanted my son to feel like he was a part of something, that maybe he meant more to his dad than an easy lay followed by a ‘Dear Jane’ letter containing five hundred bucks to terminate his existence.
What would I tell Maddox now? He’s asked about his dad before and I’ve always managed to placate him with small details about us knowing each other in college. I told him some men just aren’t supposed to be daddies. I never talked trash about him. Not even once. I refuse to hurt Maddox that way. And anyway, for the most part, he has never gone without a father figure in his entire seven years.
My dad has been there for him since day one, and between him and Chris, they make sure Maddox always has a man around when he needs one. My dad takes him on a yearly camping trip to Maine. He also dotes on him during our weekly Sunday brunch in the city.
Chris takes Maddox to every father-son event at school and has taught him everything he needs to know about sports, despite the fact that he now has two sons of his own. Chris even lets Maddox help out at the restaurant some days, filling salt shakers and rolling utensils in napkins.
Chris has been wonderful. He was my rock for years, standing by my side during my pregnancy, even all the way from UNC. He eventually offered to marry me and raise Maddox as his own. It was an incredible gesture, but I couldn’t do that to him, trap him in a loveless marriage. He deserved more than that and he found it, shortly after he graduated and moved back to Maple Creek to run Mitchell’s, after my parents opened a second location in New York City.
I look over at Callie who has pulled out her phone and is tapping around on it with a devious look in her eyes.
“What are you up to?” I ask.
“I’m Googling him,” she says.
I glance over at Maddox and see that he’s put his earbuds back in and is playing a game on his handheld.
I raise my brows at Callie.
“What?” she says. “Like you’ve never done it before.”
“I haven’t,” I say.
“Oh, right, Baylor,” she says accusingly. “You so have.”
“No, it’s true. I haven’t,” I say. “I really have no desire to know anything about that snake.” In the almost eight years since I’ve seen him, I’ve avoided anything that might mean crossing paths with him. I don’t do book tours in Texas, which really pisses off my agent. I don’t use any social media, and I avoid watching soccer in case he decided to go pro. The only thing I know about him is that his dad died a few years back. He was a senator so it was all over the news.
Callie continues tapping on her phone. “Huh,” she says. “Look, he’s got a Wikipedia page.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve got a Wikipedia page, Cal. Seems most people do these days.”
“I don’t,” she pouts, shoving the phone at me. “You should read it,” she says. “Considering what happened this weekend, don’t you think it’s time you find out about him?”
I reluctantly take the phone from her and I’m immediately struck speechless by the photo on the website. I know I saw him last night, but I didn’t really get a chance to look at him closely, what with all the yelling and running away from him. He is everything I remember and more. His face has filled out a little and his firm jaw is dotted with a sexy bit of stubble that almost touches his cheekbones. Those incredible blue eyes, the same ones I see every day when I look at Maddox, are strong and confident and have the hint of some laugh lines around the edges. And his hair, oh, that tousled wheat-colored hair that I loved to run my fingers through since the first day I ever touched it when giving him a haircut. It’s not quite as long and unruly as it was back then, but the top is just long and wavy enough to fall haphazardly over his forehead. He shamelessly exudes power, authority and raw sexuality. In this picture, he’s looking right at the camera and I feel as if he’s staring right into me. As if he knows I’m delving into his business, violating my eight-year-long hiatus from him. I take a deep breath and scroll down to read about him.
An unexpected smile curves my lips when I read that he co-owns a film production business. Then I gasp when I read the name.
“What is it?” Callie asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I show her the phone and what’s on it. She reads it to me. “This says he’s part owner and founder of Bay Watch Productions. Why does that have you all in a tizzy?”
“Oh, my God,” I say. “Why would he name his business after me?”
“Uh, you think the ‘Bay’ in Bay Watch refers to you?” Callie flashes me an incredulous smirk. “Why would you think that? I mean, come on, after what he did to you, why would he name his business after you? It’s probably a coincidence.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s no coincidence.” I tell her the significance of Bay Watch and how there isn’t a chance in hell he mistakenly gave his company that name.
“That makes no sense what-so-ever,” she says, crinkling her brow at me.
“Agreed,” I say. “But it’s true.”
“So let me get this straight. You named your kid after him. He named his company after you. But you hate each other?”
A nervous laugh escapes me. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“That’s gotta mean something,” she insists. She keeps talking, saying something about lost soul mates, but I ignore her as I continue to scroll down the page.
I almost drop Callie’s phone when I get to the next paragraph. Bile rises up in my throat. It’s the same feeling I had this morning when I came around the corner and saw Gavin talking to Maddox.
“You look like you just ate a bug,” Callie says. “What is it now?”
“He married her.” I barely get the words out in a whisper.
“He married who?”
“Karen,” I say, her name physically hurting my tongue as I say it. Probably because I’m biting down on it. “She was a friend of his back in college. She wanted him, and her sorority sisters never failed to let me know that she should have been his girlfriend.”
“Oh, God, really?” she asks. “That’s gotta hurt like a bitch. I’m so sorry.” She takes the phone from me and drops it in her purse. “That’s enough history for now.” She leans over and pulls the earbuds from Maddox’s ears. “Let’s play ‘I Spy’,” she says. “You go first, Mad Max.”
My son smiles, then looks ahead out of the front window and says, “I spy something yellow . . .”
As they start to play the game, I think back to college. I think about all the times that Gavin said I had nothing to worry about with Karen. How them going to Brazil together was purely platonic. I think about our horrible fight after he took her to the concert I cancelled on.
Apparently, I had every right to be jealous. I guess even if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, their time together in Brazil would have torn us apart.
He married her?
I guess I simply don’t get it. She stood for everything he despised. I sigh and try to wipe all thoughts of Gavin and Karen McBride from my brain.
“A submarine!” I shout out.
“Come on, Mom,” Maddox says, rolling his eyes. “You gotta guess good guesses, not stupid ones.”
“Are you calling me stupid?” I ask him with a laugh. “I could have seen a submarine on a billboard, you know.”
“No, Mommy, you’re not stupid,” he says, with the slightest hint of a lisp. “You are the smartest Mommy I know.” He leans over to give me a hug. I squeeze him a little harder and little longer than normal, because I’ve never been more unsure of what the future may hold.