Chapter Five
Phoebe waited until the weekend, not wanting Jamie to be distracted by school when she told him the news. She cooked his favorite meal, lasagna, and let him have Coke with dinner, softening him up and wanting him to be happy before she altered his world forever.
The fact was, this would be good for Jamie, once he digested the information. No more Father’s Day sadness. No more father-son breakfasts at school that he begged to miss. This was a good thing, something she’d once prayed could happen.
She just needed to sit him down and tell him the news.
She finished cleaning the kitchen and called him from his room, where he was busy with his X-Box.
“Mom, let me finish this game,” he yelled back.
“Come on, bud. I need to talk to you,” she returned.
She heard him putting down the console and stomping down the hall. With his size sevens, she always heard him coming. More like a herd of cattle than one little man.
He entered the den, where she sat on the couch. “Come sit,” she said, patting the sofa.
He skidded to a halt beside her and dropped onto the cushion. “What’s up?” he asked, looking at her with curious blue eyes.
With his father’s eyes.
“Listen… do you remember that I once told you I tried to find your dad?”
His shocked gaze came to hers. He hadn’t expected this topic of conversation. “Yeah. But he was sent away by the state and you lost track of him.”
Her smart boy remembered everything she’d told him about his father.
“Well, sometimes fate steps in and brings people back to you.”
He looked at her funny. “I’m confused.”
She laughed. Right. Of course he was confused because she was beating around the point. “I ran into your dad, honey. I hadn’t seen him for years, and then I walked into a house to meet a contractor and there he was.”
“You saw my dad?” he asked, his voice rising.
She nodded. Swallowed hard. She took his hand, which was so big now, and held on. “And so did you. Remember the man from the pizza place? Jake Nichols?”
Her son nodded, eyes wide.
“Well, he’s your father. I was surprised to see him there, too. And I didn’t want to spring it on you in public. And I hadn’t told him about you yet. So I needed to talk to you both alone.”
She was rambling to her eleven-year-old.
She pulled herself together. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“That man I met… he’s my dad?”
She nodded.
“Does he know about me yet?” he asked, sounding more like an uncertain little boy than he had in a while.
Her heart squeezed as she answered. “Not only does he know but he’s dying to… well re-meet you, this time as your father.” She waited a beat, then asked, “How do you feel about that?”
He kicked his bare feet against the hardwood floor. His smelly bare feet. But she needed to wait before getting on him about a shower.
“Do you want to see him?” she asked.
“Does he really want to see me?”
“Oh, honey. He really does. I had to ask him to let me tell you by myself. He wanted to be here so badly.”
He shrugged. “Then yeah. I want to see him, too,” he said, trying to sound cool when she could tell he was vibrating with excitement, his body practically shaking.
She grinned. “Is tomorrow too soon? Because I have to call and let him know and he’s going to want to do it soon.”
“Yeah, that’s good,” he said, suddenly sounding uncertain.
“What’s wrong?” She put a hand on his shoulder. “You can talk to me.”
He looked up at her from beneath thick lashes. “What if he doesn’t like me?”
Her throat filled at the fragile question. “What’s not to like?” she asked, nudging him with her elbow. “You’re smart, you’re friendly, you’re a good kid with a big heart. Come on. He’s going to love you.” She pulled him into her arms, grateful he was still young enough to accept her motherly affection.
She dreaded the day he pulled away from her and she’d have to let him go. “You have nothing to worry about,” she promised him, and because she knew what an upstanding man his dad was, she was certain she could trust in her own words.
* * *
Jake leaned back in his bed, his shirt off, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs as he relaxed before bed.
His phone rang and he glanced at the screen, surprised when Phoebe’s name flashed on the screen. He answered immediately. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi. So I wanted to tell you that I told Jamie about you tonight,” she said, obviously speaking quietly into the phone, her voice a husky sound that, despite the seriousness of the subject, went straight to his groin.
“How’d he take it?” he asked, holding his breath.
“Really well. He’s excited to see you again.”
Relief flooded through him. “That’s great.”
“Yes. But he’s nervous, Jake. He’s wondering if you’re going to like him,” she said, clearly prepping him for what to expect.
Jake let out a rough laugh. “I’ve been worried about the same thing.”
“He’s a good kid. You have nothing to worry about,” she reassured him.
“What did you tell him about me?” he asked, curious.
“What do you think? That you’re a good man and you’re going to love him.”
“Do you really believe that? That I’m a good man?” Sometimes, in the dead of night, when prison crept up on him and his past closed in, he wasn’t so sure.
“I wouldn’t lie to my son. And if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t let you get near him, regardless of the fact that you’re his father.” Her voice sounded warm and calm in his ear.
Silence echoed between them but it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. “I missed you, you know. After we were separated, I thought about you all the time,” he couldn’t help but tell her.
She sighed. “Me, too. And after I found out I was pregnant, I wanted you with me so badly.”
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “We were too fucking young. I wish I could change the past.”
“Not all of it,” she said. “Not what we meant to each other. And not Jamie.”
His heart thumped hard in his chest. “No, none of that. You got me through it, you know. Thinking of you and the times we spent together, I was able to leave my body and pretend I was somewhere else. With you.”
“Jake,” she said, her voice cracking.
He didn’t want her to be sad. “It’s all good now. We’re going to make up for lost time.”
“You and Jamie are, yes.”
He closed his eyes against those words. Because when he thought about his future, he was beginning to believe he wanted her in it. Too soon to think that way? Probably. But now that she was back in his life, he didn’t think he could let her go again.
* * *
Nerves about meeting Jamie again kept Jake up most of the night, and by the time he walked into Phoebe’s house the next day, he was strung tight. He did his best to keep his body and facial expression relaxed, not wanting to scare Jamie because he looked too serious or intense.
He followed Phoebe into the den, where Jamie waited. He sat on the couch, almost the spitting image of Jake when he was a boy.
“Hi,” Jake said, sitting on the couch not too close so as not to overwhelm him.
“Hi.” Jamie glanced down, shyer than when they’d met at the pizza place with sticky soda hands between them.
Jake was at a loss and glanced at Phoebe, silently asking for help.
“Why don’t you tell Jake about baseball,” she suggested to Jamie. “Jamie plays in the town league.”
“Yeah? What position?” Jake asked.
Jamie still didn’t look Jake in the eye as he said, “Left field.”
“Do you like it?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. I need practice. Coach says it’ll help my skills but I don’t get much chance.”
Jake didn’t know what to make of his answer. Once again, he glanced at Phoebe.
“I’m not much of a sports person,” she said from where she stood watching them. “Kane works with him when he can, but the garage has been busy lately and he hasn’t been able to take the time off.”
“Kane?” he asked, wondering about this other man in her and his son’s life.
“Halley’s boyfriend. They’ve been together almost a year. He’s been great, stepping in when he can. But there’s just us women in the family otherwise. Until now.”
He breathed a groan of relief that there was no man with whom he had to vie for Phoebe’s and his son’s attention.
As for baseball, although Jake didn’t want to push, he saw an opening with which he could get to know his son better. “If you like, I can come by and we could throw the ball, practice a little?” he offered.
The first glimmer of interest sparkled in Jamie’s gaze. “You’d do that?”
“Sure thing. If it’s okay with your mom, we can go outside in a little while.”
He glanced over to see Phoebe smiling at the suggestion.
“What’s your favorite team?” he asked Jamie. “I’m a Yankees fan, myself.”
“Me, too!” he said excitedly, a grin on his face.
They spent the next few minutes talking about favorite players before Jamie asked, “Can we go outside now? Please, Mom? I need to practice and … he said he’d play catch with me. Please?”
Jake caught the boy’s stumbling over what to call Jake and his heart gave a small squeeze. He knew it was too soon for Jamie to call him Dad, but with everything in him, he hoped for the chance.
“Jamie, why don’t you go get changed to play outside. I want to talk to Jake for a few minutes.”
“Okay.” He ran to his room, leaving them alone.
Phoebe turned to Jake. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“A little shaky,” he said honestly, his stomach still in knots over the meeting. He’d wanted so badly for Jamie to like him. “It’s not every day you fumble for conversation with a son you barely know.”
“Well, sports is the great equalizer.” She smiled at him, obviously pleased with how this first meeting had gone. “He’s nervous, too, remember? Just be yourself. It’ll get easier over time,” she assured him.
He nodded at her certainty. “You’ve done a good job with him, Phoebe.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “Thank you. I can’t say it’s always been easy, but he’s such a good kid, he makes it simpler.”
Needing to be closer to her, he walked over to where she stood. He didn’t know how to broach the subject on his mind other than to just spit it out. “I want to be there for him, and for you, from now on. In reality as well as helping out financially.”
Another thing he’d given a lot of thought to since finding out he had a son. He made a very good living with Brent, and he didn’t live expensively. But he paid spousal and child support to Lindsay. While she had stayed in the small house they’d bought as their starter home, he’d taken a reasonably priced apartment with enough room for his daughter to stay over. Jamie could sleep there if he ever stayed over, but if Callie were there, too, Jake had a pullout sofa that he could use. But he was getting ahead of himself. For now he just had to worry about re-budgeting so he could pay his share for his son, too.
She blinked, clearly startled by his proclamation. “I… Well … we can discuss things,” she said hesitantly.
He leaned a hip against the back edge of the sofa. “Talk to me. What are you thinking?”
She met his gaze. “My pride wants to tell you I can handle it, but my common sense says you’re his father and I should let you help.”
“You’re honest as well as pragmatic and I respect that. But your common sense is right. It’s my pleasure as well as my responsibility. We can work out specifics another time.”
“Okay.” She inclined her head. “Umm, do you want to stay for dinner?” she asked.
“Thanks, but no. I think I should go easy. I don’t want to overwhelm Jamie with my presence. We can set up another time for me to see him and go from there.”
She nodded. “Sounds good.”
“That takes care of me and Jamie, but what about me and you?”
She wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“Me finding out put a wrinkle in our plans to go out for dinner. You owe me a date,” he said in a low voice because he heard drawers opening and closing from Jamie’s room, reminding him they weren’t alone.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly when I agreed to go out with you again. We have Jamie to worry about.”
“I don’t think he’d mind his parents sharing a meal.” He brushed her hair off her shoulders, threading the soft strands through his fingers. “I’m not going to take no for an answer because you already indicated you want to go out with me again.”
She trembled beneath his featherlight touch. “I just think we should be smart.”
“And we will be.”
He just wasn’t willing to sacrifice them for the sake of problems that weren’t there.
* * *
With the weekend behind her, Phoebe walked into the real estate office on Monday morning, planning to do some paperwork before she had a showing later today. She looked through the daily hot sheet, familiarizing herself with information on new listings, price changes on properties, etc. She pulled listings to show today’s clients, a couple with a pregnant wife who was looking to upgrade their current rental apartment to their first home.
She headed into the break room to get a cup of coffee and ran into the owner, Harvey Walsh, a man she usually tried to avoid being alone with.
“Good morning, Phoebe.” He turned from the coffeemaker to face her, then looked her over, his gaze leering as he stared, from her bare legs in her suit to her chest where her camisole parted beneath the jacket.
She deliberately didn’t react to his perusal, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of knowing he made her uneasy. “Good morning, Harvey. How was your weekend with Renee?” she asked of his wife, deliberately inserting her name into the conversation. As a reminder that he was married. And even if he wasn’t, he was still crossing a line in the workplace.
“We had a very nice weekend. Thank you.” He stepped into her space, his big body too close to hers. “And that’s a lovely suit you’re wearing. It shows your figure quite nicely.”
She stiffened, this time unable to hold back her reaction. “I think I’ll get my coffee later,” she said, spinning around and heading back to her desk, heart pounding harder than normal.
She tried to concentrate but couldn’t focus, not after her boss had been so blatant in his inspection of her clothes and body. Instead of doing more paperwork, she gathered her things and headed out for the day, planning to stop at Celeste’s house before her afternoon showings.
She told herself she needed to check on progress, but the truth was, she wanted to see Jake. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking of him since Saturday, when he’d come to see Jamie. The meeting between them had gone well, Jamie turning into his shy, introspective self around his newfound father. But at the mention of baseball and at the idea of practicing, her son had lit up.
He and Jake had spent an hour outside, Jake giving Jamie pointers on how to throw and catch, and doing it in a way that had built up Jamie’s ego, not tearing it down when he missed or performed incorrectly. Her heart had warmed watching them, the excitement on Jamie’s face when he did something new or correctly and the awe on Jake’s that he’d reached the boy. For the rest of the weekend, all she’d heard from Jamie was Jake said this or Jake did that, she thought with a grin.
She’d also spent the rest of the weekend contemplating Jake’s offer to help financially. The fact was, Phoebe had had a recent high-end sale that put her into a very comfortable position. Jamie didn’t want for anything, and she was able to pay her aunt a fair amount of rent, not that Joy needed or wanted the money. It was Phoebe’s pride that demanded she stand on her own.
But with Jake’s help, she could start putting money away for college for Jamie. She didn’t know what he earned, but she was sure he paid for his daughter’s support, and then there was his ex-wife. He probably also paid money there. She hoped this situation wasn’t squeezing him too tight, but he hadn’t given her any indication there were issues. It was for him to figure out, she told herself.
As for Jamie, and her accepting money, there would be luxuries he wanted for his birthday and next Christmas, and she wouldn’t have to be as careful with her choices. He was his father, after all, and even Halley thought she should accept his offer.
Phoebe hadn’t seen Aunt Joy since she’d found out she’d lied to her about Jake’s whereabouts when she was a teenager. She’d forgiven her aunt immediately, knowing she only had Phoebe’s best interests at heart, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some lingering resentment there for the years her son had missed out on with his father. And for the time Jake had missed, as well.
And for what might have been between Jake and Phoebe as a couple. After all, they’d been in love when they’d been separated. What would have happened between them had he come back into her life? After he was let out of prison, would they have picked up where they left off before he’d met his ex-wife?
She shook her head, knowing the futility of wondering or changing the past. She had the present to deal with, and in the present, Jake wanted to get to know her again. And despite the pragmatic part of her that worried about her relationship with Jake affecting their son, her heart wanted to take a chance.
* * *
Phoebe walked into Celeste’s house to find Jake painting the chair rail in the entryway. “Hey there,” he said, glancing up at her, looking sexy in his black tee shirt and paint-stained jeans. Jeans that hugged his hips and cradled the bulge in the front of the denim.
He put the paintbrush in the can and walked over to greet her. “I didn’t think you were coming by today. But I’m glad you did,” he said, a welcoming smile on his face.
“I needed to get out of my office.” Her voice trembled because no matter how hard she tried not to think about it, she was still shaken by how uncomfortable Harvey had made her.
“What’s wrong?” Jake grabbed her hand in his and she took comfort in his strong, reassuring touch.
She met his gaze. “Nothing I can’t handle. Just my boss looking me over like he had every right to inspect my body.” She shivered in disgust.
“That’s it,” he said, sounding pissed, his sudden anger reminding her of when he was young and impulsive. “Someone needs to have a talk with that entitled asshole.” Jake’s ire was obvious, bubbling up and coming to the surface, all in her defense.
She placed a hand on his forearm to calm him down, his muscles jumping beneath her touch. “Jake, please. I need to work there. I can’t go starting trouble.” Nor could she have him stepping in for her.
Besides, he had a record and he could not get into a fight with Harvey, no matter how much she liked the thought of the man being pushed into a corner himself.
“You can damn well start trouble if he crosses the line, and he’s fucking crossed it,” Jake muttered.
She squeezed his arm tighter, his muscles hard beneath her fingers. “I really can deal with him. Today I just thought it was better to walk away.”
He swore beneath his breath. “If he touches you or it gets worse, I want to know about it.”
“Are you my guardian?” she quipped, trying to keep things light as she tipped her head slightly, studying his tight, serious expression.
“I want to be.” His voice was serious as hell.
His tone rubbed her in the most intimate way, her body swaying toward him. “Jake.”
He reached out a hand to cup her face, his calloused fingertips rough against her skin. So intense were his features, so erotic was his touch, his protectiveness cloaking her in heat. Her nipples even puckered into tight points of need.
“If I had my way, nobody would be able to take advantage of you, because they’d have to go through me in order to get to you.”
Her face warmed at his words. “That’s sweet of you to say.”
“I’m not feeling very sweet. In fact, I’m feeling pretty damned protective.”
He was, and she liked it. A lot.
His fingers skimmed her cheek as he spoke. “I was lucky enough to find you again. I want a chance to see what could be between us,” he said, taking her off guard.
But God, she wanted that, too. Despite her brain telling her they needed to tread carefully, that they had a little boy to protect, her traitorous heart still wanted more.
His blue gaze bored into hers, causing her heart to pound hard in her chest. “I know things are complicated right now, but how many people get second chances?”
“Not many,” she agreed, knowing how lucky they were.
“So wouldn’t we be foolish to waste the opportunity?”
She sighed, unable to argue with his words. “I want the chance, but I’m worried about all the things that could go wrong.” Their son, his daughter, and his ex-wife, who Phoebe still didn’t know enough about. Why had they broken up and what was their real relationship like now?
“Let me worry for both of us.”
She wished she could do as he asked, but her makeup was to plan ahead and only do the smart thing, the right thing for her son.
“Now, what are your plans this weekend?”
She was relieved he’d let the subject of them go. “I promised Jamie we could go to the beach.” She hesitated, then said, “Do you want to come with us?” It would be a great opportunity for Jamie to get to know his father and vice versa.
His eyes lit up at the invitation. “I’d love that. I was supposed to have Callie this weekend, but Lindsay asked if she could take her to her mom’s, so I’m free. She said I could have a night during the week to make up for it.”
And there was one of their potential obstacles. “Does Lindsay know about Jamie?” Phoebe asked.
He shook his head. “I was going to tell her when I picked up Callie, but since she canceled, I have to wait. I think telling her in person is the right thing to do.”
She appreciated that he cared about his ex’s feelings enough to respect how he informed her of this major life change.
“I agree,” Phoebe said. “In person is the smartest way.”
“Can I pick up you and Jamie for the beach on Saturday? I’m assuming you have a place in mind?”
She nodded. “There’s a public stretch of beach I was planning to go to. You can come by at nine? I want to get a spot before it gets too crowded.”
He grinned, obviously pleased to be able to spend the day with them.
Not as happy as she was to be with him.