Wendy Warren – His Surprise Son (страница 9)
And so Izzy had done what she had sworn to herself she absolutely would not do again: she had hoped. She had begun to believe the Thayers liked her, that the baby was becoming real to them, as it was to her. Surely this caring—this is what family did for one another.
And Nate’s weekly check-in calls...
At first, she had excused the fact their duration was brief and the content superficial. After all, the first weeks of college were busy and stressful. He would tell her a bit about his life when she asked him specific questions and he would ask her how she was feeling—whether she was eating right, if she was able to keep up with senior year homework. That, along with his parents’ interest, had been enough for her to begin dreaming again...
Maybe Nate would miss her and ask her to come to Chicago...
His parents would realize they couldn’t give up their first grandbaby...
She would prove that she could become a mother and support Nate’s studies and eventually his career, and someday the Thayers—and Nate—would look back and thank God that Izzy and her child were part of the family.
Welcome to fantasyland, Izzy thought now, where we pay no attention to pesky details like reality.
She had Mrs. Thayer to thank for setting her straight. With crystal clarity, she’d shown Izzy that Nate did not want her or her baby.
So in her fourth month of pregnancy, Izzy had left town, telling the Thayers she preferred to handle the adoption on her own, without their help, and that they could pass that information along to Nate, since she had no desire to see him again.
“I gave Nate’s parents exactly the out they were hoping for,” she said to Henry. “It was better for everyone’s sake to let them think they were getting what they wanted. The truth wouldn’t have changed the outcome anyway. It just would have created more tension and fighting.”
For a moment, Henry looked as if he wanted to argue, but how could he? They both remembered exactly how Nate’s family had felt about her. She had reminded them of everything they had worked so hard to rise above.
“Eli will be at camp for two weeks,” she reminded Henry. “I’m not sure how long Nate plans to be in town, but he is not entitled to any information that could hurt Eli in the long run.” As she spoke, she began to feel stronger. “Our policy has got to be don’t ask, don’t tell. Eli has me. He has you and Sam and Derek and everyone else at the deli. He knows you all love him and accept him exactly as he is. If he wants to look for his father when he’s eighteen, that’s his prerogative. Until then, it’s my job to protect him.” That had been her purpose all these years. “The Thayers wanted perfection—a son with a degree, six figures a year and a perfect family. Eli and I will never fit that mold.”
Henry shook his head. “You talk about what his parents wanted, but what did Nate want, dear heart?”
She smiled at the endearment. Dear heart. God had been good to her: despite her false starts, she’d been given a family. She answered Henry’s question honestly. “Nate wanted the life he planned before he met me.” She shrugged, way past the grief that had once consumed her. “We really were too young. If nothing else, the Thayers were right about that. Nate was a college-bound jock looking for a lighthearted summer romance, and I was a desperate, love-hungry teen.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
Izzy shrugged, unconcerned. “Maybe.”
Taking her seat, she fired up the computer. She had fought for the life she now lived, and it was a good one, built on hard work and a stern levelheadedness. She didn’t try to fool herself anymore.
Did she ever want more than she already had? Yes, sure. Sometimes. It was only natural that deep in the night, she would occasionally wish for a hand she could curl her fingers around, a bare foot to bump into, someone to hold her and make her feel warm again when life’s relentless everyday worries left her cold. But in those hungry, vulnerable moments, she would picture Eli as an adult—tall and strong, confident and self-accepting, pursuing a career he was passionate about and maybe starting a family of his own—and that would keep her on her path.
Right now, she needed to get back to business. Business was always a safe harbor.
She knew Henry would be pleased with some of the ideas she’d had while he was on vacation. Tapping on her keyboard, she said, “I’ve got some interesting advertising options to show you.”
In minutes they were talking about social media and mail outs and not mentioning Nate Thayer at all. Deep, deep in her gut, though, she wondered how long she could keep it that way.
Nate hadn’t experienced small-town life for a long time, and while some things had definitely changed, others remained memorably the same. The Thunder Ridge Public Library was a perfect example.
Still a two-story structure with a basement and ground-level square footage, the seventy-year-old building had the same heavy wooden tables and chairs and ancient shelving Nate remembered. Still smelled the same, too—a little bit like old books and a little bit like the dogs that had always been allowed to accompany their owners indoors. The major difference as far as he could tell was the current librarian, Holliday Bailey.
Ms. Bailey looked and smelled nothing like old Mrs. Rhiner, who, as Nate recalled, had resembled George Patton and smelled faintly of cooked broccoli.
“I can place a hold on some of the books you’re looking for and have them sent here through our interlibrary loan system. The problem is you’re not a local, Mr. Thayer. How am I going to get you a library card?”
Holliday tapped shiny cherry fingernails on her mouse, her matching red lips pursed as she looked from the computer screen to Nate. “And you said you’re staying at the inn? All by your lonesome?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you any friends in town, Mr. Thayer? Of the very close variety?”
“None with library cards they want to loan me, if that’s what you’re getting at, Ms. Bailey.”
“That’s exactly what I was getting at.” When she shook her head, silky dark brown hair that looked like a shampoo ad brushed her shoulders. “We need to connect you with someone in a position of power...so you can get the books you need.”
Nate grinned. Holliday Bailey was one of the most physically stunning women he had ever met. Long neck, perfect bone structure and slender as a willow with spitting-intelligent eyes, she would require a man who could keep up with her. While Nate was pretty sure he could, he knew instantly that the woman was harmless, far more interested in playing with his mind than with any other part of his anatomy.
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re more than welcome.”
Shaking his head in admiration, Nate walked away, heading for the nonfiction section and trying to remember if he’d ever dated anyone like her. His tastes had always run to women whose beauty was subtler, their attractiveness unfolding the more he got to know them.
That thought led inevitably to the woman who was trying so hard to ignore him.
When he’d first met Isabelle Lambert, he hadn’t intended to be anything other than polite. She’d been a high school student, one year behind him in school, and a waitress, and he’d respected that. In his senior year of high school, Nate had taken to spending part of every day at The Pickle Jar, where he could order a drink and, when he had the extra cash, a sandwich and study for a couple of hours without being interrupted, since his friends rarely if ever showed up at the deli. Izzy had waited on him a number of times.
She seemed to be there, working or studying at the counter, anytime he came in. Hazel-green eyes and sandy-brown hair she scraped back in a nondescript ponytail wouldn’t have drawn his notice necessarily, but her manner did. Calm, serious and almost deferentially polite, she was so different from the other teenage girls Nate knew that she became a puzzle to him, and he loved a good puzzle.
“You’re very welcome to stay and study as long as you like,” she’d told him when he’d asked if they needed the table during one lunch hour. Her eyes, free of makeup, had held his gaze steadily and all of a sudden he’d realized they were large and changed color—sometimes the color of an aspen tree’s leaves, other times the color of its bark.
“I see you studying at the counter,” he’d said in his first real attempt at conversation with her. “Whose classes are you in?”
He’d noticed her mouth then—pink, unglossed and bowed at the top as it formed a surprised O, as if she hadn’t expected him to ask her anything not related to his lunch.
“I have Billings for history and Lankford for Literature. I’m working on an essay about The Grapes of Wrath and how a current depression would manifest differently from the Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s. Especially on a local level.”
He’d whistled. “Who assigned that as a topic?”
She’d hesitated a second. “No one. The Grapes of Wrath was assigned reading, but I chose the topic. It’s interesting.”
Her intelligent eyes had lowered as if she’d thought she’d said something she shouldn’t have, and he’d noticed a pulse beating rapidly at the base of her slender neck. In that moment she’d reminded him of a cross between a falcon and a hummingbird. And he’d had a surprising revelation as an eighteen-year-old, realizing that around most girls, his smiles started on the outside and sometimes worked their way in; with Isabelle Lambert, his smiles started deep inside.