Chapter 18
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Gabe stood outside the cabin. He was still a few minutes early but he was going out of his mind waiting in his car.
Adriana opened the door as he lifted his hand to knock. “He’s still at the stables.”
“Where are the girls?” Gabe asked as he stepped into the cabin. They normally greeted him by screaming and running at him full blast.
“I asked my mom to take them to get ice cream.” Adriana was biting the inside of her mouth. “She’s waiting for my text to come back.”
“Did you tell her?” Gabe’s palms were sweaty. He had more adrenaline rushing through him than when he’d walked to the cage to face Nunez. More nerves racing through him than when he waited to hear if they’d gotten rid of all the cancerous cells.
“Um…yeah.” Adriana nodded. “I did, but she already knew. Sort of.”
“She did?” Gabe wondered.
“Yea. She snooped in the bag and found the DNA tests.”
“And that’s not all.” Adriana wrung her hands in front of her. “It turns out that Naomi was the source.”
Last night, after they calmed down from the big news, Gabe had filled Adriana in on his call with Maxi. They’d both decided that they needed to tell Jonah before any tabloids ran with it. For the life of them, they couldn’t come up with how the story had been leaked, but it seemed the mystery was now solved.
“Why? Did they pay her?” He knew that sometimes papers offered money for stories. He’d love to think that no one’s family would sell them out, but he knew better than to assume anything like that.
“No.” Adriana shook her head. “She met a guy outside the cabin one day and he struck up a conversation with her. She said he was easy to talk to and was very interested in us. He even told her he was a photographer, but she figured he meant nature photographer.”
“He was a stalkerazzi.” Gabe knew that they needed to get this under control and quick.
“Yep. That’s what I’m thinking. He mentioned that Jonah had your smile and for some reason she decided to tell him that you were his father. When I asked her why she would tell him that before any of us even knew for sure, she said that you both share the same life energy so she didn’t need a DNA test to tell her what she already knew.”
Their conversation was cut short when the cabin door opened.
“Hey, bud!” Adriana greeted him in a voice so high Gabe was surprised the windows didn’t shatter.
“Hi.” Jonah looked around. “Where are the girls?”
Gabe smiled that Jonah, his son, had asked the same question he had. They must greet him the same way that they did Gabe.
“Nana took them out.” Nerves were radiating off Adriana.
“Oh.” Jonah looked between Gabe and Adriana with uncertainty in his eyes.
Gabe had promised Adriana that he’d let her take the lead, so he just smiled.
“Um…Gabe and I wanted to talk to you about something.” She motioned to the couch.
“Okay.” Jonah agreed as they all took a seat.
“So, this is…I’m not sure…I’ve tried to think of the best way…” Adriana started and stopped several times. Gabe could see that her hands were visibly shaking. Then she took a deep breath.
“Are you sick?” Jonah’s voice cracked as he looked at Adriana.
“No!” Adriana and Gabe exclaimed in unison.
“I’m not sick. I promise.” Adriana shifted forward so that she was closer to Jonah. “Listen, bud. We have some big news to tell you and I don’t know the right way to say it.”
“What? What is it?”
“Do you remember when we were watching the fight, Gabe’s fight, and I ran out of the room?”
He nodded slowly.
“Well, it was because I recognized Gabe. From this.” She pulled out the photo strip that she’d taken back from Gabe last night to show to Jonah.
“That’s mom,” Jonah stared down at it and looked up at Gabe. “You knew my mom?”
“He met your mom about ten years ago. In Las Vegas. And a few weeks after she got home, she found out that she was pregnant with you.”
Jonah nodded as he looked down at the picture.
Gabe looked over at Adriana to see if that was what she thought was the big reveal, because he wasn’t sure that Jonah had connected the dots. Sure enough, Adriana was looking at the kid expectantly. When he caught her eye, he gave her a prodding look so that she would continue.
She nodded and licked her lips. “When she found out she was pregnant she didn’t know how to contact your father, so she had you on her own. She loved you so much. Being your mom made her happier than anything else in the world. Then when she got sick, she told me that she regretted never finding your dad for you. She gave me that picture and asked me to find the man in it because…it was the only picture she had of your father.”
Gabe held his breath as Jonah’s big brown eyes looked up into his. “You’re in the picture.”
Gabe nodded, but remained quiet, giving his son time to let the information sink in.
“You’re my dad?” Jonah asked.
“Yes.” A knot of emotion formed in Gabe’s throat. “I am.”
Jonah’s eyes shot to Adriana. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.” She smiled. “We even have more than one test, just to make sure. You are Gabe’s son.”
“When did you find out?” Jonah asked, suddenly sounding extremely defensive and borderline angry.
“Last night,” Adriana spoke with gentle authority and Gabe knew she was now in mom-mode. He’d observed over the past week that when a situation started to get out of control she went to a place of calm assertion. “We found out last night. It was late. You were already in bed.”
“Is that why we’re here? Is that why you brought us here? Is that why he’s been around?” With each question Jonah asked, the volume increased until he was practically shouting.
“I didn’t plan it this way, bud. I promise. I wanted to come here and meet Gabe. Naomi surprised me by bringing you guys here. And then we thought it might be easier, if it turned out that he was your dad, if you knew him.”
“It’s not!” Jonah stood up and both Adriana and Gabe shot to their feet. “I want to go. I want to go home! I don’t want to be here!”
With that, he ran up the stairs and there was a loud slam of his door.
Gabe had tried to prepare himself for this possibility, but it still felt like a kick to the balls. But, he didn’t give a shit about what he was feeling. All he cared about was what Jonah was feeling. The news had upset Jonah and all he wanted to do was talk to him. Make sure that he was okay.
He headed toward the stairs, but Adriana grabbed his arm.
“Just let me talk to him.” She was using the same soothing, pacifying voice she did when the girls were upset.
It pissed him off that she was speaking to him that way. He was an adult, not a child.
Gabe tried not to let his frustration show as he explained, “I think I should go see if he’s okay.”
“I don’t.” Now her voice was firm and she stepped in front of his path to the stairs.
*
“I just want to make sure he’s okay.” Gabe said, and she could hear the desperation there.
She was doing everything she could to hold it together. She’d completely failed Jonah, she’d failed Emily, and she’d failed Gabe. The speech she’d rehearsed escaped her and she’d tried to wing it. She’d tried to wing one of the most life-altering conversations of Jonah’s life.
“I think it’s better if I do it,” Adriana said calmly, hoping that Gabe would hear what she was about to say. “I know how you feel about him. I do. But he’s a kid. Who has been through a lot. You’ve had time to adjust to this. We just sprung this on him.
“Everything in his life has changed so fast. From his mom,” Adriana’s voice shook with emotion, “to moving in with me and the girls. He comes here and meets his hero, then finds out that we were keeping a secret from him. He’s mad. If you go up there now, when he’s not ready to talk to you, it won’t help.
“I’ll go talk to him. Apologize and tell him why we did what we did. He needs time, Gabe. He’ll come around. I know it. He just needs time.”
She watched as Gabe’s shoulders deflated. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you after I talk to him.”
“You want me to leave?!”
“Yes. But I’ll call you.”
Adriana could see that Gabe wanted to argue with her. He wanted to stay. Still, after a few seconds, he turned and walked out without saying another word.
As she made her way up the stairs, she tried to come up with what to say. She was going to apologize, of course, for the way that she’d told him about Gabe. Her instinct had been to tell him by herself. However, Gabe had insisted on being there. So she’d agreed, against her better judgment.
Because he was his father.
She was so used to doing things on her own that she thought that maybe she was just reverting to what she was comfortable with. Now she knew to trust her gut feeling. Her intuition. Which is why she’d sent Gabe home.
When she got to the bedroom door, she took a deep breath and set her intention. What did she want to get out of this interaction? She wanted Jonah to know that he was loved, safe, and that whatever he was feeling was normal.
With that goal set in her mind, she knocked on the door. “Hey, bud. It’s just me. Can I come in?”
He didn’t answer, so she pressed her ear to the door. “Jonah, I know you’re upset. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. Can I please come in?”
She heard movement and then the door opened. Jonah didn’t look at her. He retreated and sat on the window seat, facing away from her to stare out at the pine trees that lined the mountain.
She lowered down on the edge of the bed. “I want to say that I’m sorry about how that went down. I’m sorry that I told you like that.”
“It’s fine,” he said flatly.
“I know that it must’ve been a really big shock and it’s totally normal for you to feel mad. Upset. Whatever you’re feeling is okay.”
“I’m fine.” His voice held no emotion.
She’d read in some of the literature dealing with grief that it wasn’t good to ask if someone was okay when they’d had a traumatic event. It was better simply to let them know that they could talk, if they felt like it, and that they were loved and supported.
“I want you to know that I’m here, if you want to talk. And that I love you so much, bud. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, but I’m here for you. No matter what.”
His back was still facing Adriana as he asked, “Are you going to make me live with him?”
“No!” It hadn’t even occurred to her that he might think that. Adriana wasn’t Jonah’s legal guardian, she’d adopted him. Emma had hired a good lawyer and made sure Adriana had the same rights as if she’d given birth to him herself. She stood and walked over to where he sat. She kneeled beside him and tears threatened her eyes. “You are mine. You’re my boy. You’re my family.” The unshed tears dropped as she continued, “Your home is with me and the girls. That is not going to change. Ever. I don’t know what I’d do without you bud.”
He turned and threw his arms around her. She held him tightly and promised herself and Em that she would do better by him.
After a few moments, she heard him mumbling something against her shoulder.
“What?” she asked as she sniffed.
He shifted so that she could hear him clearly, but he still clung to her. “Can we go home? I want to go home.”
“Yes.” She kissed the top of his head. “We can, bud. We can go home.”
Her heart was breaking. For him. For Gabe. And for her.
This wasn’t over. She knew that. Gabe was his father and she would make sure that he was in Jonah’s life, when Jonah was ready. But her dream of all living together, one happy family, was just that…a dream.
Like all dreams, eventually you wake up and face reality.