Owen drummed his hands on the passenger seat headrest in time with the music playing on the radio. Ava didn’t recognize the song, but then again, her mind kept wandering somewhere else.
Her world had been so small for so long—only her, Owen, and her parents. But in a matter of days, Owen’s family had grown exponentially to include a father, two uncles, and a great-aunt, all who’d welcomed him into the fold like he’d always been one of them. She swallowed back the guilt at what all of them had missed out on these past ten years. After she’d given up hope about Jack coming home after college, she’d resigned herself to this solitary life, convinced that her son was enough. In many ways he was. But she knew now, after seeing Owen with the family he’d never known existed, that it wasn’t enough for him.
“Did Jack really play college baseball?” he asked, forcing her back into the moment.
Ava grinned.
“Yeah,” she said. “He did.”
“Did you know him then? When he played?”
She shook her head. “When I met Jack, he was injured and couldn’t play. A broken leg. Once he went off to college? Well—we lost touch.”
Owen bounced in his seat. “I bet it was from an epic slide into home. Or maybe he had to wrangle some cattle with Luke and Walker and he got trampled or something.” She caught sight of him in the rearview mirror, his eyes bright with excitement. “I can’t believe there are real cowboys right here in our county—and that you know them.”
She forced her smile not to falter and kept her eyes trained on the road. How she wished that was Jack’s story—an epic slide into home. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to be in that house with those memories, a place that held far more pain than anything she’d ever endured. She’d expected today’s meeting with Jack to end with lunch, and instead he’d invited her and Owen to cross a threshold of sorts. She knew Jack was strong, but to let them in like he did today? She wondered if he had any clue how strong he really was.
“You liked the Everetts, huh?” she asked.
Owen laughed. “If you promise not to tell him, I even sort of like Luke calling me Shortstop. It’s like having a big brother or something.”
Ava couldn’t control the tear that escaped the corner of her eye, but she wiped it away without a sniffle, hoping Owen didn’t notice. He was quiet for several long seconds, and because she didn’t know what else to say, so was she.
“Do you think he does cool stuff like the Everetts?” Owen finally asked, and she knew what was coming. It had been a long time since anything had triggered questions like this.
“Your dad?” This time she did sniffle, because today had been amazing and wonderful and everything she’d wanted. Yet it had also been a lie. But the ball wasn’t in her court anymore. It was in Jack’s. She owed it to him to let things unfold on his timeline, to be sure about what role he wanted to play in his son’s life before they told him.
“Yes,” she answered him. “I think he does a lot of amazing things. You know he wouldn’t have left if he didn’t have to, right? I know it’s hard to understand, bud, but he was—is—a good man. I’m sure of it. But sometimes, even when people care about each other, their lives go in different directions. And that’s what happened with us.”
The tears were impossible to hide now, so she let them flow, rummaging in her purse for a tissue as they did.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Owen said softly. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“Never apologize for asking where you come from, sweetheart. It’s okay to be curious,” she said. And it’s your right to know. She was caught between two of the most important men in her life. She knew now, though, that whatever Jack decided about Owen—being in his life or not—they both owed their son the whole truth, which meant the pivotal role Ava played in all of this.
“Did he know about me?” Owen asked. “I know he left before I was born, but did he know I was…you know…on the way when he did?”
The last time he’d asked about his dad was a couple of years ago, and he’d always readily accepted that he’d had to leave before he got a chance to meet his son. She’d let him come up with theories of him being a secret agent or a superhero, telling herself it was okay to indulge his imagination because it comforted him. But the one question he hadn’t yet asked was the one he was asking now, and Ava didn’t want to lie anymore.
“He didn’t,” she admitted. “Not when he left. I was too scared to tell him because I knew he needed to go. It might not make sense to you now, but if I had told him, his life would have turned out much differently. Staying here would have been very painful for him.” She finally ditched the sunglasses so she could use the tissue to dry her tears. “That doesn’t mean that having you in his life wouldn’t have been a good thing, Owen. That’s not what I’m saying. But if he had stayed? I’m afraid some bad things would have happened to him, and I loved him too much for that.”
It was all the truth, as much as she could tell him without letting Jack tell his own part of the story.
They were finally on their street, approaching the safety of home. She reached her free hand toward the back seat and squeezed Owen’s knee. He rested his hand on top of hers.
“So you were kind of a superhero, too, then. Right?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You saved him,” Owen said, matter-of-factly.
Maybe she had saved him from something bad, but she’d also robbed him of so much good, and now she couldn’t decide which fate would have been worse.
“Did he love you as much as you loved him?” Owen asked, and she gave his knee another squeeze.
“Yeah, he did.” And Ava had broken his heart, as Owen would believe, to save him.
“Do you think he’ll ever come back? That he’d ever want to meet me?”
“I really do,” Ava said.
She pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. Then she spun to look at her son—this beautiful, understanding boy who she knew someday would be an amazing man, just like his father.
“You’re a lot like him, you know?” she said, and her boy beamed.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“It’s all I could hope for,” she admitted. “I’m so proud of you, Owen. And he would be, too.”
He undid his seat belt and leaned forward, giving her a kiss on her tear-soaked cheek.
“I’m gonna go toss the ball with Scully out back,” he said. “He’s probably been so bored all day.”
She nodded. “Have fun, Shortstop.”
He laughed and bounded out of the car.
The lights were on already inside, which wasn’t a shock, especially since her father’s car was also in the driveway. She’d barely made it through the door before her parents appeared in the small foyer, her mom greeting her with a glass of red.
Ava smiled at the woman who was a mirror image of her own self, twenty-five years in the future. Maggie Ellis wore her long, red hair in a braid over her right shoulder, the silver strands woven throughout looking more like highlights than a sign of age.
“Thank you,” Ava said, kicking off her shoes as she reached for the glass.
“It’s from the new barrel of pinot noir,” her mother said.
Her father opened his mouth to add to the conversation, but Ava knew once he did, the pleasantries would be over. So she held up a finger as she took a long, slow sip, then craned her head to peek through the kitchen and through the back door to make sure Owen was outside with the dog.
She sighed. “Dad—before you say anything, I’ve already agreed to help the Everetts get the vineyard back on its feet, so I’ll be spending some time in Oak Bluff over the next few weeks.”
He crossed his arms. “He lay claim to his boy yet?” Her father spoke soft enough so that only she and her mother could hear.
“Bradford!” her mother whisper-shouted, backhanding him on the shoulder, but his sturdy frame didn’t budge. The man was as strong as he was stubborn. For most of Ava’s life the former had made her feel like the safest girl in the world. But she knew now she was dealing with the latter, and first impressions were hard to erase, especially when the man had made up his mind about Jack Everett a decade ago.
Ava sipped her wine again before answering, letting the liquid heat her veins and soften her reaction. “Jack and I will tell Owen when we’re both ready,” she simply said.
When we know whether he’s going to be a regular for our son or if he’s going back to San Diego where he has his own life—the one I wanted for him.
That much she kept to herself.
“And until then?” he asked.
Ava shrugged. “Until then I help him and his brothers figure out how they’re going to run a ranch and a vineyard. Until then I let Jack and Owen get to know each other as friends so that when we do tell him the truth, there is a foundation set between them already.”
“And if I forbid this?” her father asked.
“Oh, Bradford,” her mom said, calmer this time as she rested a palm on her husband’s forearm. “She’s not a child anymore. We have to trust her and let her do this her way.”
Ava polished off the rest of her wine. She was usually one to savor a new vintage, but she was too on edge to take things slowly.
She strode past her parents, kissing them both on the cheeks. “Thanks for coming over. And making dinner. I’ll call Owen in to eat.”
And because her son was the one person her father couldn’t argue with, they sat and ate as the boy recounted his day at the ranch—of lemonade and riding a horse and his overall fascination that real cowboys lived right in the middle of wine country.
That night, after Owen had fallen asleep, Ava sat in her painting room with another glass of the pinot noir and a paintbrush in her hand. She was finally able to slow down—to enjoy not only the new vintage but her ability to do what she hadn’t done in years.
Not the tree. She still couldn’t make any headway with that. But she’d painted something, and something was definitely a start.
In the morning she made sure to hide the drying canvas where Owen wouldn’t see the portrait of a boy with auburn waves playing catch with his dad.
This could be her ticket into art school, but it felt premature to think that way. Because if this all blew up in her face, so would the image she’d seen in her mind’s eye that finally allowed her creativity to flow.
She was no hero, and neither was Jack. They were human. And they’d made mistakes. Maybe she’d protected Jack from more pain, but she’d also stolen from him the immeasurable joy she hadn’t known was possible until she’d first held her son in her arms.
No. She was no savior. But now that Jack was back, maybe—just maybe—their son would save them both.