Jake leaned on the counter and held his head between his hands. Things would be a lot simpler if he could laugh it off as a bad joke. But the kids had a right to know what was going on. “I—uhh….” There was no graceful way out of confessing. “It seems I got Maggie pregnant the night of your wedding.”
A forkful of pancakes froze halfway to his son’s mouth, and he snorted in disbelief. “Damn, Dad. I was just joking. How could you, of all people, let something like that happen?”
“Look, Alex, I don’t need your outrage or your sarcasm. I know what I did was irresponsible. Even more reckless than the first time. We had a little too much to drink after the wedding.” Jake poured another set of hotcakes onto the griddle. “If you want to know the truth, I think subconsciously I wanted it to happen—to get back the baby I felt I’d been cheated out of.”
Emma sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “You’re going to marry my mom, aren’t you?”
“I want to, but she’s less than enthusiastic about the idea. She’s planning on raising the baby by herself.”
Maggie stormed back into the kitchen. “How dare you tell them about my pregnancy! The last thing my daughter needs to hear right now is that her mother’s having a baby.”
“He didn’t tell us,” Alex said. “I accidentally guessed.”
“It’s okay, Mommy.” Emma slid off her seat and hugged her. “It’ll be nice for our daughter to have another baby in the family to play with.”
“I didn’t see any point in telling you. I’ll probably miscarry like I have all the other times. You shouldn’t have to deal with that right now.”
“Don’t you think there’s a chance it was daddy’s genes that caused the problem?”
The wrinkle in Maggie’s brow suggested she hadn’t considered that possibility.
Emma climbed back on her stool at the counter. “How far along were you when you decided to have the abortion?”
“Your mother didn’t choose that,” Jake interjected. “Your grandmoth—”
“Jake.” Maggie cut him off. “My daughter doesn’t need to hear all the grisly details.”
“You’d prefer to let her think you—”
“Yes. I’m not going to prejudice my child toward my mother. I called her, and I’ve forgiven her.”
Emma’s head snapped up. “You did?”
Maggie nodded. “Your grandma’s flying here next week. She can’t wait to meet you.”
Jake stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “I’m glad, Rosebud.” He transferred half the pancakes from the griddle to a dish for Maggie and refilled his son’s already empty plate. Turning to Emma, he smiled. “To answer your question, your mom carried our first baby five and a half weeks.”
“In other words,”—Maggie held her hand over her abdomen—“this is still a maybe-baby.”
“Well, if you don’t miscarry, aren’t you going to marry Alex’s dad?”
Maggie ignored Emma’s question and shoved the plate of pancakes back across the counter at Jake. “Coming for breakfast was a mistake. Emma seems to be doing just fine. Since I’m not up to eating right now, I think I’ll go to the early church service. Alone.”
~~~
Jake spent the entire day brooding. The longer he thought about the certified letter Maggie insisted she’d sent him, the more it bothered him.
His father had always signed his name J.N. Manion. So if his dad had accepted the letter, Maggie wouldn’t have known the difference between their signatures.
Had his father wanted him to marry Roxanne so much he’d done something as deceitful as sign for the letter and deliberately withhold it? Jake found it hard to believe his dad would do that knowing how the loss of his child had devastated Jake.
At eight o’clock, he grabbed his keys and headed for New Jersey. He had to ask his father or spend the rest of his life wondering and possibly resenting something his dad had never done. Just like he had with Maggie.
Except now he knew it hadn’t been just bitterness that’d kept him dreaming about her for so many years. It had also been regret. The seeds of love they’d sown so many years ago had lain dormant in his subconscious and struggled to survive.
He might as well face it—fate had dumped a truckload of fertilizer on his heart the night Maggie walked into the diner. In the last month, all the feelings he’d been stomping on for nearly two decades had sprouted and come into full bloom. Despite nurturing his bitterness and denying his preoccupation with Maggie, his passion and love for her had flourished.
A half hour later, he knocked on his father’s door, and Helen swung it open. “Jake, what a nice surprise. Your dad and I were just about to have some cake and coffee. Would you like some?”
“Sure, thanks.” He kissed her cheek as he followed her into the bright airy kitchen.
Nick strolled in from the den and hugged him, slapping his back. “Hey, what’re you doing here?”
“I smelled Helen’s coffee and figured I’d bum a cup.”
His dad lifted one eyebrow in a dubious arch. “Come on, I know you better than that. You would never drive all that way this late without calling, unless you had something important on your mind.”
Jake flopped into the chair at the kitchen table. “You’re right. I need you to think back nineteen years, Dad. The week before I got married, did you sign for a certified letter for me?”
“I signed for a lot of letters for you. Do you remember how much mail you got after you made the draft?”
“I’m talking about one from Maggie.”
“Oh. That one.”
Damn. Part of him had been hoping his dad wouldn’t know anything about it. “So you did?”
“Yes. I remember wondering why she’d certified it. I worried maybe she was threatening you with some kind of legal action or something.” Nick’s gaze narrowed. “Are you telling me you never got it?”
The tension in Jake’s shoulders eased at hearing the sincere innocence in his father’s voice. Maybe, in his despair, Jake had accidentally tossed it in the trash with his junk mail. “No. Do you recall giving it to me?”
“No, I probably put it on the hall table where I always left your mail.”
Helen laid three mugs on the kitchen table and filled them with coffee. “Why is this letter suddenly so important?”
“Because it explained that Maggie was blackmailed into aborting my baby.” He told them all about what had really happened. “All these years I’ve been blaming her.”
“I can’t imagine what could’ve happened to the letter.” His father stared at the table. “Wait a minute.” He snapped his fingers. “I vaguely remember Roxanne being there when I signed for it. She’d dropped by to bring me the cuckoo clock she’d brought back from Germany. I was relieved she didn’t ask me who Margaret Hunter was when she saw the return address.”
Helen gasped. “You don’t think she could’ve....”
Jake didn’t like to think that Roxanne might’ve done something like that, but it was a reasonable explanation. In all the months she’d listened to him moan Maggie’s name, Roxanne had never asked him for any details about his relationship with her. Maybe it was because she’d already known the whole story. When he’d confessed to his wife after two years, she hadn’t seemed all that surprised.
He took a sip of his coffee and smiled at his stepmother. “I’m sorry, Helen, but I’ll have to take a rain check on the cake. I need to go home and call my ex and get to the bottom of this.”
~~~
When Jake arrived back at his house, he heard Alex and Emma showering together in the bathroom. He smiled and headed for the master suite just as his red-faced son slinked out of the bathroom, a towel slung around his hips.
“Sorry, Dad, we didn’t expect you back so soon. I need to get Em’s robe.”
“No, it’s my fault I came back early. I need to call your mom.” He glanced at the bathroom door, which Alex had left open a crack. The room was pitch black inside. “I think you accidentally turned off
the lights and left Emma in the dark.”
Alex yanked the door closed and whispered, “Uhh, she’s a little—uh.” His Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of times, and he tossed his hands up. “Jeez, we’re married, why am I apologizing and explaining to you?”
“I don’t know. Why are you?” Jake chuckled and continued down the hall. His guess would be Emma was still a little shy about undressing with the lights on. He had to give his kid credit for being patient with her.
When he got to the bedroom, he punched out Roxanne’s number and fought to keep the rage out of his voice when she answered. “Hi, Rox, how are you?”
“Actually, I couldn’t be better. Chris was planning to call you tomorrow. We’re getting married. Do you think forty-two is too old to become a mother again?”
Jake’s throat constricted as he thought of his three children who were never born and the fourth that might soon be lost. “Not at all,” he rasped in a hoarse voice. “Lots of women have babies in their forties. Congratulations.”
“Maybe I can get it right this time. How’s Emma doing?”
“Good. But she’ll be seeing the doctor every week from here on out.” He drew in a deep breath. “Listen, Roxy, if you never do another thing for me, I need an honest answer from you about something.”
“Uhh—okay.”
“The week before we got married, did you take a certified letter Maggie sent me?”
His ex-wife’s breathing accelerated on the other end of the otherwise silent line. After several agonizing moments, Roxanne choked out, “Can you ever forgive me?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Yes, Honey. I just need to know what happened. I’ve been caught between loving and hating Maggie all these years.”
“I’m sorry.” Roxanne’s voice cracked. “I’d convinced myself that you’d gotten snared in a pre-wedding fling, and that if I loved you enough, I could make you forget her.”
“That’s funny. I hoped the very same thing.”
His ex-wife sniffled. “By the time I realized what a terrible mistake I’d made, it was too late. I lived in terror you would find out what I’d done and hate me. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“Ahh, Rox, I’m the one who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. I never should’ve married you, feeling the way I did.”
“Well, maybe now you and Maggie can—”
“I only wish that was the case. I asked her to marry me. She’s not interested.”
The doorbell’s chime echoed through the house. He glanced at his watch. The guys on his team knew better than to show up after ten. “I have to go, there’s someone at my door.”
When he answered the bell, Brandy stood on the porch with a large envelope. “Hi, Coach. I’m sorry to visit so late, but it’s important that I speak to Alex.”
Now what? He closed his eyes, refusing to speculate as to what could be so urgent. The last thing he wanted was to let this girl talk to his son, but that wasn’t his decision to make. Alex was an adult with the right to make his own choices—even if he sometimes showed the good judgment of a goalpost.
“Come in.” He showed her into the living room.
Brandy stared at the carpet and whispered, “I guess you don’t think very much of me anymore, huh?”
“My opinion of you isn’t important. What counts is what you think of yourself.”
“I’m not very proud,” she admitted.
“Then why’d you do it?”
Her lower lip trembled. “I just wanted Alex to like me.”
“You’re too smart and pretty to degrade yourself that way, Brandy.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not as if I’ve ever actually had sex with anyone.”
“Your definition needs revising. Bringing a person to orgasm is sex. Going down on your knees for boys might get you a lot of dates, but it won’t earn you their respect. Do you really want a guy who’s only using you to get off?”
She gnawed on her lip and silently shook her head.
He glanced pointedly at her low-cut blouse. “Do you want the man you care for to see you as just a sex object? Or do you want him to consider you a friend he might want to share the rest of his life with?”
“I want to be his friend,” she murmured.
He tipped her chin up and stared into her eyes. “If I recall correctly, you won an academic scholarship, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I’m going to commute to Temple on the train.”
“Well, when you get to college, you’ll have a chance to reinvent yourself. No one will know you or have any preconceptions about you other than the image you project. It’ll be your choice what sort of person you become. I’m hoping it’ll be someone you can respect.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Thanks, Coach. Alex is lucky to have you for a dad.”
That was debatable. He’d really let his son down lately.
“Would you mind if I come by to visit you once in a while to talk?”
“Not at all.” Jake smiled. “I’d like to hear how you’re doing at school. I’ll go get Alex.” He wandered down the hall and tapped on his son’s door. “Alex,” he called, “Brandy’s here.”
“What the hell does she want?”
“You’d know that better than I would.”
A few moments later, his son flung the door open and stomped out of the bedroom, wearing just a pair of gym shorts. Alex glanced back and noticed Emma shadowing him in her robe. He turned and put his arms around her. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“I want to,” she whispered. “It’s her I don’t—”
“No, Angel. If you don’t believe I’m capable of resisting Brandy’s come-ons, it’s me you don’t trust.”
Emma hung back in the family room with Jake. Her gaze kept darting to the hallway for several interminable minutes while the sound of Alex and Brandy’s muffled voices drifted in to them. Finally, Jake couldn’t stand watching his daughter-in-law suffer any longer. “You know there’s nothing to stop you from joining them.”
“No, I can’t. Alex is right. I need to learn to trust him. At least until he gives me a reason not to.”
A few minutes later, his son strolled into the family room, carrying the envelope Brandy had brought. “You’re not going to believe this, Dad. Brandy told me practically every one of Dr. Carmichael’s patients called and canceled their appointments on Friday. On top of that, Phil told Brandy his mom is sick of the rotten role model his dad is, so she’s filing for divorce and suing for full custody of his younger brother and baby sister.”
“Great.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Now the SOB will blame me for his practice and marriage failing and losing his kids, too. Is that all Brandy wanted?”
“No.” Alex smiled at Emma. “The reason she called my cell phone the other night was to warn me that Phil was bragging to everyone that my father and I were going to get what was coming to us at the board meeting. Afterward, when she found out about the picture, she made Phil give her all the copies and watched him delete the files from his computer. She came here tonight to apologize and to give me the prints to destroy.”
Emma stood and wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck. “I can’t believe that jerk gave them to her so easily.”
“Well, he didn’t, exactly.” He grinned. “Not until she threatened to spread some very nasty rumors about a certain part of his anatomy.”
“That I can believe.” Emma chuckled, pulling on his arm. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“You go ahead, Angel. I’m not really tired anymore. I think I’ll stay up a while.”
She slid one hand up his bare chest. “We don’t have to go to sleep.” Her mouth curved in a shy smile. “What I mean is—I don’t mind if you leave the lights on.”
Jake smiled as Alex grabbed his wife’s hand and dragged her down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “Goodnight, Dad.”
Maybe for him it was. As far as Jake was concerned, the whole day had sucked and the night wasn’t looking much better.
/>
Chapter 20
The phone rang just as Maggie dozed off. She answered groggily and sat right up when the caller identified herself as Roxanne Warrington.
“I’m sorry for bothering you so late. You’re probably wondering why I’m calling at all.”
That was an understatement.
“You see, I just got off the phone with Jake. I wanted you to know he was telling you the truth about the letter you sent him. I’m ashamed to admit I took it.”
“Stealing mail is a federal crime.”
“I know it was wrong and stupid. But I was terrified of losing him. He’s forgiven me, and I’m hoping you might, too.”
Maggie swallowed hard. “Well, that’s a lot easier for Jake, seeing as he loves you. But you’re my daughter’s mother-in-law, so it wouldn’t do much for family harmony if I hold a grudge against you.” She’d harbored enough bitterness to last a lifetime. The only person it hurt was her.
“Thank you. I don’t know if I could be as charitable in your place.”
Maggie squeezed her eyes shut. “I understand you’re moving back. I hope things work out for you this time.”
“That’s very sweet of you. Actually, we decided tonight to get married and, if all goes well, we’ll be having a baby. I never dreamed I’d get a second chance.”
The only time Jake could’ve been with Roxanne was the night before Alex and Emma got married. Right before he’d taken Maggie into his bed—the same bed that evidently hadn’t had a chance to cool from Roxanne’s visit. Maggie preferred to believe he’d snuck into the guest room to sleep with his ex-wife. At least the thought of that didn’t turn her stomach quite so much.
“Congratulations.” Maggie wiped her eyes and sniffled. “I’m sure Jake’s thrilled.” Her throat tightened making it difficult to speak. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Goodbye.”
She hung up and buried her face in her pillow while her body shuddered through brokenhearted sobs. How could she love someone she hated so much?
Sure, the champagne might have impaired Jake’s judgment the night of the wedding, but he’d been completely clearheaded the evening he’d seduced her in her kitchen and held her in his arms until dawn. He’d taken her that night with no more qualms or hesitation than he’d shown nineteen years ago while he was still engaged to Roxanne. Some things never changed.
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu Page 29
