by Jessica Kate
A blonde woman with a figure Natalie could only dream of looked down at her from atop five-inch black pumps. She twisted a Louis Vuitton purse in her hands, damp marks scarring the expensive fabric.
“Can I help you?”
“Is this the home of Jeremy Walters?”
Jem’s footsteps approached from behind. “Chloe?”
20
“Hi, Jeremy.”
Natalie wracked her brain for any mention of that name. Chloe? No search results.
But she had blonde hair, apparent familiarity with Jem, and the way he said that name . . . A cold sweat broke over her.
Oliver’s mother?
Be cool. You don’t know for sure.
All she could croak out was an incredulous, “‘Jeremy’?”
He pulled his dumbfounded stare from Chloe to her. “I didn’t go by Jem in Chicago.”
“Jem? What a cute nickname.” Chloe’s smile revealed two rows of blindingly white teeth. “May I come in?”
Natalie didn’t budge.
“And you are . . . ?” The words emerged from glossy lips. The woman was a total Barbie doll.
Throat frozen, Natalie let Jem pull her inside and step into her place.
“What are you doing here, Chloe?” His voice carried a weird edge she’d never heard before on him. Cautious. Wounded. Suspicious. Uncertain.
Or maybe she was just projecting.
“You told me Olly needed a mother.”
The words hit Natalie like a one-two punch.
Jem’s jaw tightened. “That was the day he was born.”
She acknowledged his words with a slight incline of her head. “I’m here now. Let’s talk.”
“Hallway. Now.” He marched her into the outer hall and pulled the door shut behind him.
Hot and cold waves alternated through Natalie’s body. This. Was. Not. Happening.
Should she eavesdrop? She stared at the peephole and debated whether she really wanted to hear.
“Who was that? Is Granddad here?” Lili emerged from her room.
“That’s . . . that’s Chloe. Oliver’s—Jem’s—” The words caught in Natalie’s throat. “The woman who gave birth to Oliver.” Oliver. The child that should’ve been hers. The child who’d squealed, screamed, and gurgled his way into her heart.
Lili’s eyes grew wide. “Jem’s ex?” She rushed to the door and pressed her ear against it.
Natalie was half a second behind her.
“I can’t hear any screaming.” Lili stretched on tiptoe to look through the peephole. “He should push her down the stairs.”
Natalie stared at the closed door, unable to agree or disagree. What did this woman represent? Someone who genuinely cared for Oliver? On the one hand, she hadn’t terminated her unplanned pregnancy. That had to mean something. But she had left Olly. That meant something too.
Was she a threat to Jem’s custody? Possibly.
A threat to Jem’s heart?
Unknown.
Natalie blinked. Not that she had—or wanted—any claim to Jem. Those kisses were just hormones, the result of a long dry spell, an emotionally charged week, and . . . well, mutual history and attraction.
But they were not the promise of any kind of future.
Lili pressed her ear to the door again, then gave up. She looked at Olly, gumming a rubber Marvin Martian toy and drooling up a storm. “Is she here to take Olly away?”
“No. She can’t do that. Jem wouldn’t let it happen.” Natalie had no idea if her words were true. Surely Jem had full custody.
But then a mother often got sympathy in family court. And contact with his mother should be good for Olly. But what if Jem became an every-second-weekend dad?
Olly threw down his toy and cried. She scooped him from his chair and bounced him. He’d been unusually fussy this week. The two white stubs poking from his tender gums were probably to blame. Though usually teething put him off his food, and this week he’d been hungrier than ever.
“Shhh, bubby, shhh.” She poked her finger in his mouth and let him chew it.
She peeked out the peephole again. Jem stood with his feet planted, arms crossed, profile toward her. Chloe waved her hands as she spoke. Neither looked happy.
“I think dinner’s ready,” Lili said from beside the stove. “It’s a bit early, but I’m starving.”
Noodles slopped into a bowl. Natalie kept her face pressed to the peephole.
“Do you want some?”
“No, thanks.”
She couldn’t even think about eating right now.
* * *
Natalie was trapped.
Her rapid steps echoed down the concrete corridor at Potted Plants 4 Hire, but the door at the end was locked. She was alone. Fear crushed in on her, a weight on her chest. Rubbing fog from a glass pane in the door, she peered through. Chloe stood with her back to the door, arms wrapped around a man. A man with broad shoulders, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and red highlights in his hair. Jem.
“Nat.”
Her world shook. She threw a hand out. Instead of solid wall, her hand smacked something soft.
“Ooof!”
Her eyes popped open. The room was dark, but enough moonlight shone through the window to illuminate Jem kneeling next to where she curled up on his couch. His hand covered his right eye.
“Jem?” A warm weight against her torso registered. Olly.
The night’s events rushed back. Jem had stayed in the hallway for hours. Lili went to bed early. Natalie had sat down on the couch for what she feared could be her last cuddle with Oliver.
She tightened her hold around the precious bundle, his head snuggled into her chest. She inhaled his scent—talcum powder and milk. She hadn’t realized until tonight just how attached she’d become to Jem’s baby boy.
“You nearly poked my eye out.”
“What time is it?” She snapped the words, heart still slowing after the nightmare.
He pulled his hand from his face, eye still screwed shut. “Just after ten. You must’ve been tired.”
She rubbed a hand over her face. Crying did that to a person. She lowered stiff legs toward the floor. “Where’s Chloe?”
“Gone.”
“For good?”
He stayed silent.
“Why is she here?”
“We just spent hours discussing that. I’m still not sure.” His voice carried a dread that chilled her core.
Jem slid onto the couch beside Natalie but didn’t reach for her. He just held his head in his hands.
She shifted Olly’s weight against her. “Does she want to see him?”
“Yes.”
“Does—Does she want to keep him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can she?”
A pause. “I’m not sure about that either.”
“You don’t have full custody?”
“I started the process, but I was just trying to survive on my own as a parent. I could barely keep myself in clean clothes and fed for the first four months. Then the move happened and . . . I had an appointment with the lawyer next week to get things rolling again. But at the moment . . .” He let the sentence hang.
She didn’t say anything.
“I know. I’m a horrible parent.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re mad.”
She paused. He knew. She could tell. The volcanic wrath that had surged through her at the sight of Jem’s former lover was nothing short of apocalyptic. An equal amount flowed in Jem’s direction. And the thought that custody of this little ball of sweetness could go to the woman who’d abandoned him— She fought down anger at Jem for leaving the loophole open.
Instead, she searched for the right words. “I’m scared.”
“So am I.” A glint of light reflected on Jem’s wet cheeks as he reached for Olly. It tore at her, anger notwithstanding.
She handed the baby over. “It . . . it’s going to be okay.”
Jem pr
essed his forehead against his sleeping son. His shoulder, pressed against hers, shook.
Anger could wait. She couldn’t take the sight, the vibrations, of Jem crying.
She scrambled to her knees and threw her arms around him. Jem pressed his forehead against her shoulder. Tears, warm and wet, dripped onto her collarbone. One arm snaked around her waist. The other held Olly against them both.
“It’s going to be okay.” She laid her cheek atop Jem’s head and rocked from side to side. Brushed her hand along his back, twisted his reddish-brown locks between her fingers. “We’ll figure this out.”
Meaningless words, all of them. Worse still because the “we” part was a lie, and they both knew it.
But there would be time for that tomorrow.
For the past several weeks, Jem had been there for her whenever she needed it.
She could be here for him tonight.
21
Someone was going to die tonight.
Natalie embedded a knife deep into the heart of a sweet potato as Chloe poked through Jem’s kitchen cabinets. Even Lili, doing homework on the opposite side of the counter, rolled her eyes.
Chloe had only been in their lives for a day, but it felt like an eternity.
The woman opened a cabinet under the sink. “Where do you store your poisons?”
“Next to the milk.” Natalie lopped off another slice of sweet potato.
Jem had said Chloe would drop by “in the late afternoon.” When Chloe showed up two hours after he left, she’d been tempted to leave her in the hallway. Fear of a custody battle had been the only thing that prompted Natalie to open the door. And now, since she wasn’t comfortable leaving Chloe alone with Olly and Lili, she was stuck here till Jem got home.
She’d tried to keep an open mind about the woman’s qualities. If Jem had dated her, surely she wasn’t the devil incarnate. But after six hours of the woman’s snooping and condescending questions, she was tempted to relocate her nail file into Chloe’s eyeball.
Chloe strolled over to the dining table, apparently content with Natalie’s answer. Her perfume floated over and Natalie breathed through her mouth. The woman even smelled sophisticated—never mind the Ralph Lauren pantsuit.
Natalie tossed her pile of vegetables into the roasting pan. She’d swapped yoga pants and a T-shirt for black slacks and her prettiest blouse, covered in tiny pink and orange flowers. But next to Chloe she might as well have worn the yoga pants.
The day wouldn’t have been so bad if Chloe had paid an ounce of attention to Olly. But she’d ignored him, instead fiddling on her phone or grilling Natalie on what kind of care the baby received.
Olly fussed in his high chair and gummed at his sippy cup, with only a few drops of water left.
Natalie refilled the cup. He guzzled it. She’d never seen the little guy so thirsty before. She glanced at Chloe, confirmed her back was turned, and ran her fingers over Olly’s forehead. No fever. But he hadn’t quite been himself the last few days. She made a mental note to tell Jem.
“Who put your festival program fliers together?”
Natalie looked up. Chloe had parked herself in front of Natalie’s laptop, set up on the dining table, and scanned the draft flier she’d thrown together last week at 1:00 a.m.
Chloe shook her head at the screen. “Whoever they are, fire them. I studied graphic design in college, and this is atrocious.”
“How many festival fliers have you seen before?” Natalie tempered her tone for Olly’s sake, but her grip on the knife tightened.
Chloe didn’t seem to notice any tension. “Tons. I run an event management business.” She tapped at the keyboard with manicured nails.
Event management? Second to ministry, that would be Natalie’s dream job.
And Chloe was successful in it. Figured.
After ten minutes of silence, Chloe pushed the computer away. “There. I’ve done the best I can.”
Lili rolled her eyes.
Natalie sneaked a glance at the screen. Huh. Chloe’s design didn’t really look any better than hers had.
Though she was probably biased.
Her phone beeped again. Sam. Her lips twitched upward. He’d noticed her tension when she dropped into Wildfire that morning and sent her a hilarious GIF involving a puppy, a baby, and a puddle. They’d texted memes and GIFs back and forth all day long.
“Do you always spend this much time on your phone when you’re nannying?” Chloe’s imperious tone grated Natalie’s tenuous grip on decorum.
“I have two jobs. This is my other boss. Jem’s fine with it.” The fact she had to explain herself at all increased her tension headache. She’d been clenching her jaw all day.
Natalie glanced at her watch. Jem should be home in a few minutes. And he was going to get an earful.
Chloe resumed her inspection of the apartment, opening the fridge. “Do you feed him organic food?”
“The moth he found on the floor was organic.”
Lili snickered.
“What about baby education? Does Oliver know any sign language? Recognize numbers?”
“Jem reckons he can pass gas on demand.”
A laugh escaped Lili before she covered with a cough.
Chloe sent her a look, then started on the freezer contents. Natalie slid her pan into the steaming oven as the door opened beside her.
“Hey, ba—uh, Natalie.” Jem stumbled over his words as Chloe pulled her head out of the freezer. “Chloe. What are you doing?”
“Hi, Jeremy. How was work?”
The words hit Natalie like a slap in the face. They rolled off Chloe’s tongue like she’d said them a thousand times before. Because she had.
Natalie clunked around with the oven as scenes flashed through her mind. Chloe greeting Jem when he arrived home. Eating dinner together. Kissing . . .
She blinked to clear the mental image but couldn’t shake the inner turmoil so easily. It had burned her insides ever since she answered that knock on the door yesterday afternoon. Chloe’s presence was an unforgettable reminder that Jem had chosen a whole different life over Natalie. And no matter how much she tried not to let it, it still stung.
She needed to move on with her own life. It was long past due.
Jem stared at Chloe a moment, then swung his gaze toward Natalie. “I need to talk to Natalie. In private.” He grasped Natalie’s wrist and tugged her into the hallway.
Her skin thrilled at his touch, the memory of his kiss sending tingles through her lips as he closed the door behind them.
But Chloe had those memories too—and far more.
Jem turned to her, face lined. “What is she doing here?”
She pulled her hand from his. “Driving me to the brink of homicide.”
“Why did you let her in?”
“You said she was coming over.” Natalie’s pitch rose with her ire.
Jem shook his head. “This afternoon. Once I was home. Didn’t I tell you that?”
Yeah, right, blame me. She folded her arms. “You forgot. Just like you forgot your phone. I sent you eighteen texts before I realized it was on the coffee table.” She gritted her teeth. “Believe me, I almost threw her out ten times already. Why did you tell her she could come?”
Jem rubbed a hand over his face. “She wanted to make sure Olly was getting taken care of properly. She’s in town for business till Friday.”
Natalie wrinkled her nose. Surely he could see how unlikely that was.
“I said she could have a few supervised visits between now and then.” He shrugged. “I thought maybe if I appeased her, she wouldn’t press things further.”
He had a point. Not that she had to like it. “Fine. I’ll bar the door till you get here. Next time, tell me before you leave.” She uncrossed her arms, irritation deflating a little. “Speaking of afternoons, I’ve got a ton of work to do this week, prepping for the festival. I can’t stay late like today.”
He leaned against the wall and nodded. “I’ll tell Lil n
ot to answer the door to Chloe unless I’m here. And I’ll make sure Chloe knows she’s not welcome before five thirty.”
She rubbed her temple. “What are you going to do about Friday?”
His brow creased. “Friday?”
She pinned him to the wall with her stare. “Don’t tell me you forgot your Dad too.”
His face blanked. “That’s this week?” His eyes widened. “Nat, I’m begging you.”
“I’m not getting you out of it.” Fixing other people’s problems was starting to get old.
He ran a hand through his hair, giving it that bed-head look. That Chloe had seen. Natalie folded her arms again.
He groaned. “This week. Of all the weeks.”
She shook her head. “You’ll have to deal with it yourself.”
Jem clasped his hands together like he was imploring her. “You’ve always been so good at keeping Dad civil—at least more civil. I’ll get down on my knees if I have to.”
“I’m working at Wildfire all day.”
“But you’ll be off by dinner, right?”
“Chloe’s a stranger. That’ll keep him civil.”
Jem looked at her like she’d suggested he bungee jump naked from the Empire State Building. “Dad and Chloe in the same room? I’m not a lunatic.”
She pressed her lips together. She should say no. She needed to say no.
“Please.”
“No Chloe?”
“No Chloe.”
She shut her eyes. “Fine. But as a friend only. And I’m not cooking.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you.”
She gave a pointed look at them.
He removed them, palms up in defeat, expression a tad . . . sadder.
Natalie marched inside, grabbed her stuff, and flounced back out the door and down the stairs, leaving Jem alone in the hallway. She would not let that puppy-dog expression get to her. No siree.
Her phone vibrated as she reached the ground floor.
Incoming call. Sam.
“Heeeeey, Natalie.” A slight undertone of nervousness scored his words.
She attempted a lighthearted tone as she exited the building and made for her bicycle. “I’m still looking for a GIF to top that kangaroo freaking out at a mirror.”
