THAT EVENING, HEATHER made sure she had plenty of time to get to Tim Hortons before Hank. The queasiness Xander had asked about had made an appearance. Hormones? Nerves? She couldn’t know, but if she was going to have a hard time, or need a peppermint or some crackers, she wanted to have her supplies set well before Hank arrived.
So of course, he was already in a booth when she walked in the door.
She managed her best casual wave and went to the counter to buy herself time. She placed her order and inhaled deeply, deliberately testing the assortment of scents. So far, so good. At least the evening crowd wasn’t as heavily into coffee as the morning rush.
Maybe she would be okay.
She carried her food to the booth, attempting to rehearse her speech as she navigated through the lines. The problem was that every opening she came up with kept getting hijacked.
Hank, it’s been over a month since you said you’d think about it... And I only have so many months left before everything is going to spin sideways again.
Hank, I’m starting the new job next week, so I think this is the perfect time... Because if we wait too long to get into a new schedule, guess what?
Hank, Millie is having a hard time understanding why this hasn’t been resolved yet... So I’d like to have this settled before I have to discuss other things she might find difficult to comprehend. Like, oh, pregnancy. Especially since this was a case when Heather couldn’t use the old line about when a man and a woman loved each other very much.
Oh hell. She was not going to go there. Not now.
I’ll think about it.
And she would. But tonight was about Millie, and she would not let herself be waylaid by thoughts of Xander again. Millie first. Everything else would come later.
“Hi.” She placed her food on the table and slid into the booth. “Hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Not too long. I had some errands to run, so it was easier to come straight here.” He glanced at her soup. “That looks good.”
“Yeah, I think it’ll hit the spot tonight. Now.” She pulled her notebook and phone from her bag and set them on the table. “Calendars first?”
It wasn’t cowardice to start with the routine, she told herself. It helped get them into that familiar rhythm, helped them remember that they knew how to discuss problems constructively.
They talked through the upcoming weeks, the back to school events, the start of Guides and Sunday school. As they dealt with each successive week, Heather had to work harder to stay focused, to deal with only the item at hand. She couldn’t let herself get knocked off pace by the fact that each flip of a page brought them closer to Millie’s birthday.
Instead, each time they worked their way to another Sunday, she ate more chicken soup. Comfort food.
She was enjoying it until she noticed that Hank got a funny expression on his face every time she ate some.
Maybe he skipped lunch. “Oh,” she said. “The volcano project. I want to work on that with her this weekend. Do you have any chicken wire?”
“Yeah, I can send some with her. And if you need any tools, let me know. She’s pretty excited about this.”
“Which only adds to my terror.”
“I’m with you on that one.” He gave her now-empty bowl another of those odd looks, shook his head and leaned forward, his hands wrapped around his mug. “I’ve been thinking about what you asked,” he said abruptly. “About shared custody.”
Her breath fluttered. “Thank you.”
“Uh... I don’t think I gave you an answer yet.”
“You didn’t. That was for thinking it over instead of, you know, saying an automatic no.”
“Yeah, well, you can thank Brynn for that, too. She’s the one who told me to give it a few weeks.”
“I always knew I liked her.”
He shook his head, as if amazed that the ex and the current wife could be so comfortable with each other.
Could he and Xander ever—
She couldn’t think about that now.
“So here’s where I’m at,” Hank said. “I’m not ready to give you a full yes right now.”
She willed herself to stay composed, crushing the empty cellophane from her crackers between her fingers.
“But I would be okay with giving it a test run. You know. A trial period. Say, from now until Christmas.”
Air whooshed from her lungs as his words sank in. He was giving her a chance.
So much for staying composed.
“Thank you.” The words came out choked and watery. Stupid hormones.
He frowned. “I know you would rather I say yes right away, but—”
She shook her head and her hand, cutting him off. “No. This is...” Relief and gratitude. Exhaustion and confusion. And that was just today’s parade of emotions. “This is good. Really. You have no idea.”
“I might have an inkling.”
“Want me to draw up a couple of sample schedules? I can email them to you, and we can go from there.” That would be great. It would give her something concrete to do, something to command her attention between her return to the doctor at the end of the week and Xander’s texts and her own promise to consider Xander’s proposal.
“Sounds good.”
“I won’t say anything to Millie yet. Not until we’re ready to roll.”
He nodded.
“When we have everything worked out, would you like to be the one to tell her?”
He dragged his eyes back from the thorough inspection they’d been giving to her bowl. “Me?”
“If you don’t want to, I understand. But Hank—this is really a gift from you to her. It’s only right that you be the one to tell her.”
“I don’t—” He stopped, seeming to give the matter some thought. Heather was about to suggest he wait to give her an answer when he shifted forward again.
“I think,” he said slowly, “maybe the best thing would be for us to tell her together. So she knows we’re both good with this.” His faint smile told her how hard he was trying. “I hear that’s something we might need to practice. You know, with adolescence just around the corner.”
She was not going to cry. “Too true.”
“Okay. You send me your ideas, and we’ll go from there.” He grabbed his empty mug. “Anything else?”
Oh, just a complete public breakdown. “I think that’s it.”
“’Kay then. I’ll get going.” He picked up his mug, hesitated and grabbed her bowl. “I’ll take that for you.”
“Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
He nodded and headed for the exit. She busied herself with putting her things away, hoping she could make it to the car before the day finally caught up with her and she fell apart.
That soup had hit the spot. Maybe she would get some to take—
She stopped, frozen in place as the reason for Hank’s bowl fetish became clear.
When she was pregnant with Millie, she hadn’t been truly sick, but she also couldn’t stomach most of her usual favorites. The one item she had craved, the one thing she would make Hank hunt for in the middle of the night, was—
Oh hell.
* * *
I’LL THINK ABOUT IT.
Heather couldn’t help but laugh at the irony—that her answer to Xander’s question had been the same as Hank’s initial reply to her custody request.
I’m trying to ask you to marry me.
His proposal—and her promise to consider it—jumped up and demanded her attention every time Xander called or texted. When she returned to the doctor and heard that everything still looked good. Even now, on a sunny Saturday morning with Millie bouncing at her side and both of them frowning at the mess bubbling in the saucepan.
“It’s not working, Mom. Why not?”
“Are you sure?”
“Mrs. Weaver’s didn’t look like that when she helped Abby make her volcano. Theirs was thicker. Like glue. Ours looks like soup.”
Hundreds of dollars on parenting classes over the last eight years, and not one of them could have covered arts and crafts?
Heather gave the pot another stir. “Maybe we need to try a different recipe.”
“But we already tried! Twice!”
“Look, Mills. Just because we didn’t get it right the first time, that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to—”
It’s a lot easier to tell yourself you don’t love someone than it is to admit you’re afraid of failing again.
Heather tried to shake Leah’s voice from her head.
“There’s five million recipes online for papier-mâché, hon. Maybe we need different ingredients.”
And I’m a whole different person. Than Hank, I mean.
Dear Lord, there was no escape.
Eventually, they found a recipe that hung together. They soaked newspaper strips and molded chicken wire and, finally—and not without a few panic attacks—created something that resembled a volcano.
When you make up your mind to do something, you give it your all.
Except she had given it her all, once. She had really tried.
I won’t pretend that I’m not nervous, but I’m not that same person.
But was she different enough to make a marriage work?
And what if she decided to take the chance and she failed, and she ended up hurting Xander? Not the way she had hurt Hank. She would never run away again. She knew that the way she knew the sound of Millie’s voice. But there were about as many ways to mess up a marriage as there were recipes for papier-mâché.
Maybe it was just because she’d lived it once, but the thought of hurting Xander, of seeing him look at her with anger and hurt and something that verged on hatred—
No. She couldn’t do that. Not to him, not to their baby. She needed to keep things calm and stable and under control.
Control. That was the ticket.
Sunday was the last day before starting the new job. Heather resolved to put everything else out of her mind and focus on Millie. It was a glorious mid-September day. Tomorrow would bring the start of a new adventure, but for now, there were bikes to ride and games to play and the secret anticipation of more time together very, very soon.
First, though, there was a volcano to paint.
Heather sent Millie to the garage to fetch the volcano while she started lunch. She zipped around the kitchen, tossing Millie’s favorite frozen chicken into the oven, pulled salad parts from the fridge, set potatoes to boil.
Potatoes.
Millie loved mashed potatoes, especially with fried chicken. But Heather hadn’t been able to eat them since the night she called a halt with Xander, telling him that she couldn’t trust herself around him.
You’re afraid of failing again.
No. Not today.
She opened the fridge, grabbed the bottle of sparkling grape juice she’d picked up along with the chicken and set it in a bucket of ice.
Special. She was going to make this special, for just the two of—
“Mom!”
Millie’s horrified cry had Heather dropping cherry tomatoes into the sink and racing for the garage, where Millie’s sobs were growing louder and more heart wrenching by the moment.
“Mills? What’s wrong, baby? What’s the matter?”
As soon as Heather stepped into the garage, she saw the problem.
The volcano.
Half of it was missing.
“Oh no!”
She took the creation from Millie with one hand while pulling the sobbing child against her with the other.
“Mommy! It’s ruined! I have to hand it in tomorrow and it’s dead, it’s all messed up and I worked so hard and now it’s horrible!”
Heather set the display on the hood of the car and examined it, hoping against hope that it could be salvaged. Maybe, if it had simply collapsed in on itself, they could glue it back together.
But as soon as she turned it for a thorough inspection, her heart sank. As did her stomach.
“I think something ate it.” Sure enough, the closer she looked, the more certain she was. The fact that chunks were totally absent as opposed to having simply fallen over, the crumbs...
Oh hell. Those weren’t crumbs.
She let it drop back to the hood with a bang. She was pregnant. She shouldn’t be inhaling mouse crap or squirrel crap or—
“Come on, kiddo. We need to scrub our hands really well.” Would bleaching them be excessive?
“But Mommy, what am I going to do?”
Heather marched Millie to the bathroom and started the water. “I don’t know.” Honesty was the best policy, right? “But we’ll figure out something. I’ll go online and look for ideas. I promise you, we’ll have a volcano for you to take to school tomorrow.”
“But how? I hafta go home by five, and then it has to dry. And we have to paint it.” Millie slammed the tap, turning it off. “We can’t do it all, and Mrs. Wilcoxin is going to think I forgot, or that I waited until it was too late, and she’s going to give me a bad grade and this is science, Mom. I can’t get a bad mark in science!”
Heather was about to offer to email the teacher and explain the situation when a new sound hit her ears—the unmistakable hiss of water boiling onto a hot burner.
“The potatoes!”
She shoved a towel into Millie’s hands and ran for the kitchen. Sure enough, a mass of white bubbles had overflowed the pot and spilled all over the stove.
No, no, no. She turned the burner off, grabbed a pot holder and lifted the lid. Still a little water. Yay. The rest of the day might have been knocked sideways, but they could still have Millie’s favorite meal.
Except as she poked a fork in the spuds to check their level of doneness, something stirred in the back of her mind. Something about Xander. And mashed potatoes.
And volcanoes.
“Mills?”
Millie slumped into the room, wiping the tears from her cheek.
“Sweetie. Your volcano doesn’t have to be papier-mâché, does it? Can it be made of anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like mashed potatoes?”
Millie tipped her head. She seemed doubtful, but some of the abject despair left her eyes.
“I think it can be anything.” Her nose scrunched up, wiggling her glasses. “I think Aidan said he was gonna make one out of Legos.”
“Do you want to go totally wild and crazy and blow Mrs. Wilcoxin’s mind?”
“Would I still get to eat some? I’m kinda hungry.”
Laughter bubbled through Heather, lifting her, making her feel lighter and more hopeful than she had in days. Which made no sense at all. She was still pregnant. She still had questions and worries. She still needed to give Xander an answer.
But as Millie skipped out of the room to check her teacher’s website—“Just in case, Mom”—Heather grabbed her phone and shot off a quick text.
You just saved Millie’s volcano. Thank you.
The answer came almost immediately.
You’re welcome. Would love to know how I did it.
She considered her answer. She could tell him about the potatoes. She could describe the scenario.
Or she could give him the truth.
By being on my mind.
As soon as she sent the message, she realized she had left out the most important part.
And by being you.
Because that was the key. Xander took chances, yes. He bent the rules and suffered the consequences. But he also saw things in a different way. He was quicker to roll with what was dealt him. He could come up with a solution where she saw none.
And he had come through for her kid, even without trying.
Maybe she couldn’t trust herself when she was around him...but maybe that wasn’t so horrible. Because maybe, just maybe, he was capable of picking up where she fell down.
She still needed to give him an answer. But for the first time since he’d asked, she was no longer so certain that the answer would be no.
* * *
I’LL THINK ABOUT IT.
Xander held those words close as September slipped into October. It killed him that words were the only thing he could hold right now, but he forced himself to give Heather space. He was asking for a lifetime. Surely he could give her three weeks—especially when it seemed that she might, perhaps, be coming around.
It was nothing dramatic. He couldn’t pinpoint a day when he felt a shift. But by the first weekend in October, he had a sense of change, and not just in the seasons. Her answers to his texts were longer now. There were phone calls, too, half the time coming from her, and even a lunch date after her last doctor appointment. By unspoken agreement they didn’t talk about the baby or the future. The here and now, that was the key—Heather’s love of the new job, Millie’s joy at hearing that she was going to have more time with her mom, Xander’s ongoing adventures in potty training Cady.
He made it clear that he would be ready to talk about the future whenever she was, and then he let it go. The one indulgence he allowed himself was when he enrolled her in a fruit of the month club. After all, babies needed lots of vitamins, right? The fact that Heather would be the one eating the mangoes and berries, that she would be the one thinking of him as she bit into the peaches and pears, well, that was just a bonus.
The first Sunday in October was a picture perfect autumn day, the kind that felt like a reward after the humidity of summer. He and Cady were planting bulbs in the front yard. Well, he was attempting to plant. Cady, on the other hand, was doing her best to dig up everything he planted. Except, of course, when she was trying to convince him to let Lulu come out with them.
“Dada! Lulu out! Lulu come out! Me play Lulu!”
Maybe encouraging Cady to speak a lot wasn’t such a great plan after all.
“No, Cady. Lulu can’t come out. She might run into the road and get hit by a car. Here.” He dropped a bulb into the freshly dug hole. “Can you cover this up, please?”
She eyed the mound of dirt, eyed her little plastic shovel—and whopped him with it.
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm. Who knew someone so little could pack such a punch? “That hurt, kid. No hitting.”
Her little mouth pursed. “Want Lulu.”
“Well, you’re not getting her. And you can’t hit people. Give Daddy the shovel.”
She backed away. “No! Mine!”
“I know it’s yours, but you can’t use it like that. Now come on. Hand it over.”
He reached for the shovel, but the little stinker sent it sailing behind him to land in the bushes.
“Cadence Joy, you are in a world of trouble.”
Oh God. He really was a parent. He had just quoted his mother.
“Come on, kid. We are going to get that shovel, and then we are going to have a talk.”
Smart kid that she was, she immediately dropped to the ground and let out a lungful of wail. Too bad for her that even he had his heartless moments.
“Sucks to be you,” he said, and tucked her under his arm football-style. This, of course, led to louder wailing and some beating on his butt by tiny fists.
“Cady! Come off it. Stop hitting Daddy. We’re going to find the shovel, and then it’s naptime.”
At the dreaded word, she burst into even louder sobs.
“Noooooooooo!”
“Oh yeah.” He lowered himself to his knees—no easy task while carrying a wriggling mass of toddler—and reached past the lower branches of the bush for the shovel.
“Hey! Watch the kidneys!”
If her brother or sister had a punch like hers, he could be in big trouble someday.
Maybe to get used to taking a hit, he should invest in some boxing lessons, or jujitsu. Anything to give him a leg up on—
The wailing stopped abruptly, only to be replaced by a voice he hadn’t heard nearly enough lately.
“Did you lose a contact?”
Heather?
It was ridiculous, the way one little amused question could make him feel like the world had suddenly tilted toward the sun.
He twisted as best as he could, catching a glimpse of—yes—Heather and Millie. All of a sudden, bruised kidneys weren’t such a big deal.
He set Cady on the ground, pushed to his feet and brushed dirt from his hands. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re on our way to the library. Someone needs to research Jacques Cartier.” She nodded toward Millie, who was sitting cross-legged on the grass playing peek-a-boo with Cady. “Millie saw you two outside and asked if we could stop. I hope we didn’t, um, interrupt anything.”
God, he had missed her. The catch in her voice when she was trying to hold back laughter. The slant of her head as she took in the scene. The way she shimmied her shoulders as she waited for his answer. All those little habits and behaviors he would have sworn he hadn’t memorized until this moment, when every one of them was like a long-awaited reunion.
If this wasn’t love, he wasn’t sure he could survive the real thing.
“Well, yay for Millie.” He hoped Heather could hear what he didn’t dare say, not when they had company.
“Yeah. She...usually has very good ideas.”
“I always have good ideas, Mom. Except when my brain goes on vacation.”
“On vacation?” He hadn’t heard that one before.
Millie spoke first. “You know. When you don’t want to think anymore, so you pretend you’re someplace else. My brain goes on vacation all the time.” She launched a sneak tickle attack on Cady’s belly, eliciting a wave of giggles.
Xander took advantage of the shrieks and laughter to lean a bit closer to Heather’s ear. “My mind’s been traveling a lot lately, too.”
“Has it now?”
“Mmm-hmm. Funny thing, though. No matter which way it flies, it always lands in the same place.”
She closed her eyes, but she didn’t seem distressed. In fact, if he had to guess, he would say she looked...pleased. Like he had said exactly what she had needed to hear.
“How are you doing?” Silly to ask, he knew, given that he had texted her a variation of the question at least three times a day since learning about the baby. But he needed to hear her say it.
“Okay. No big changes yet.”
“No pressure? No pain?”
“Not a—”
“Mommy?” Millie’s eyes were sharp and worried. “Why would you have pain?”
“Nothing, honey.” Heather leaned down to ruffle Millie’s hair. “I was telling Mr. Sorenson about having a tooth pulled.”
“Oh. Do you have a toothache?” Millie asked him.
“I—uh, no. Not now. But I did yesterday.”
Millie nodded. “Can we play with Lulu?”
Heather rushed in. “Honey, we can’t just barge in and—”
“Absolutely,” he interrupted. Yeah, it would probably undo every point he was trying to make with Cady, but sometimes, a man had to take the long-term view. “But we’ll have to go in the back.”
“Okay!” Millie grabbed Cady’s free hand—the other, he saw, clutched the instrument of torture known as the shovel—and skipped toward the corner of the house. Heather tugged at his sleeve.
“Are you sure? This is your time with Cady. We don’t want to intrude.”
“Heather.” With Millie and Cady so far ahead, he dared say a bit more. “I’ve been waiting to see you again. Do you honestly think I’m going to turn down this chance?”
She didn’t answer. Not with words. But the pink in her cheeks made him suspect that he had stumbled onto the right phrases once again.
God, he wanted her.
Not just to re-create the magic they’d found on the sofa, or the bed, or at the Cline place. He wanted her laughter in his mornings. He wanted her teasing in his kitchen. He wanted her smile in his every minute, and her tears in his heart, and her life in his home.
Most of all, he wanted to be the one giving her those smiles, those laughs, that life. He wanted to make everything good and right and magic for her.
Cady and Millie disappeared around the corner.
“Heather—”
He stepped closer. He didn’t dare kiss her. Not here, in the front yard, where anyone driving by could see, especially not when Millie could backtrack at any moment. But he wanted her to know that it wasn’t simply the baby pulling him closer to her. That even if there was no baby, he would still want her in his life.
This wasn’t the time or the place to tell her all of that. But surely, he could give her a glimpse.
“Listen, Heather. That day in the parking lot, when we were sitting in the car, you asked me—”
His words were cut off by the slam of a car door. He glanced sideways, then did a double take.
A police cruiser, parked behind Heather’s car.
And a police officer, walking toward him.
It could be nothing. Heather’s car was parked on the wrong side, maybe.
“Mr. Sorenson?”
Heather grabbed his hand. Or did he grab hers? Hard to tell. All that was certain was that her fingers, tight through his, were the only thing holding him steady while the rest of him bounced from possibility to possibility like the world’s most terrifying game of ping-pong.
I didn’t do anything. Not this time.
“Mr. Sorenson, I need to ask you a few questions.”
Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ve done nothing.
A startled yelp came from the side of the yard. Millie. Oh God, whatever it was, Millie and Cady were going to see it.
Heather’s fingers slipped from his.
“Sure. Let me grab my daughter, and we can go inside.”
“Not here.” The cop glanced toward the side yard, then to Heather. “I need you to come with me.”
No. Not again. Not here. Not now.
Cady’s whimpers sliced through him.
“I—Sure, but what is this about?”
“We’ll talk at the station. If you don’t mind.” The cop’s tone made it clear that he was only being polite for the sake of show.
Cooperate. Stay quiet. Think, damn it.
“Sure. Of course. I need a second to—” He looked to Heather and immediately wished he hadn’t. She had taken a step back—when?—and was watching him with her hands over her mouth and all kinds of horror in her eyes.
She thought he had done something.
It hit him straight in the gut, driving the air from his lungs. No matter that the cop hadn’t divulged any details. No matter that she knew him, that she was carrying his baby, that she understood him better than anyone else in his world. She couldn’t see past the police officer. Past his history.
Her face flushed deep red, the shade of guilt and shame, and he knew he’d read her mind without an ounce of psychic ability.
He’d been such an idiot.
“Call Darcy.” He spoke to Heather but kept his eyes locked on Cady, now in Millie’s embrace. “Her number’s inside, on the fridge. Tell her to come get Cady. And ask her—Have her or Ian call Carter.” Xander didn’t know what the hell was happening, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Ian’s brother the lawyer on hand.
Of course, he had thought it would be good to have Heather at his side, too.
He turned to the police officer, who was taking everything in with eyes that didn’t miss a beat. “I need to say goodbye to my daughter. The little one.” He nodded toward Cady. “Let her know her mother is on her way.”
A brisk nod was his only answer.
He crossed the space quickly, pulling Cady into his arms with a murmured word of thanks to Millie.
“Come here, pretty girl.”
Cady burrowed into his shoulder, and he closed his eyes.
She’s too young to remember this. She’ll be fine.
It helped—for the moment.
From the corner of his eye, he was aware that Heather had put an arm around Millie and was speaking to her in hushed tones. He caught a glimpse of Millie’s eyes, wide and terrified behind her glasses, and cursed the universe for letting this happen.
I haven’t done anything!
“Cady,” he whispered, “Daddy has to go away for a few minutes. Heather and Millie will stay with you until Mommy comes. I’ll see you as soon as I can, baby.”
She wailed and clung to his neck. Heather stepped up and reached for her.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “You go...do what you need to do.”
He didn’t look at her. What was the point? He wouldn’t see anything there that he hadn’t already seen in too many other faces.
“Shh, Cady. Shh,” Heather crooned as he handed Cady into her arms. “It’s okay, sweetie. Everything’s okay.”
“Oh yeah,” he said as the police officer moved closer. “Everything’s just right as rain.”