by Violet Duke
“Xoey is part-owner of one of the most successful businesses in Cactus Creek,” growled Isaac, defending Xoey when it was clear she had no intention of defending herself. He got that Vivian was hurting and trying to do what was best for Blake but she was out of line. “And do you really think she wouldn’t make changes in her life to do what was best for Blake? Do you truly think that little of her?”
At Vivian’s continued silence, he snapped. “If you do, you don’t know Xoey at all. And I feel sorry for you, because she’s one of the best persons I’ve ever known. Blake would be damn lucky to have her raising him.”
Vivian flinched at the censure in his voice. “I think Xoey’s great.” She turned to Xoey. “I do, honest. And I know you’d do everything in your power for that little boy sitting out in that waiting room. But do you really, truly think you’d be a better parent to him than I could be?”
Charles stepped in then. “Vivian, that’s quite enough. This is not your decision; it’s Darcy’s. And I will not allow you to bully the person that she has thought long and hard about entrusting her child to.”
Vivian’s shoulders fell.
A look of sympathy crossed Charles’s face. “Viv, you know me. Trust me when I tell you that this will get ugly and messy and it’ll cause irreparable damage if you try to contest it. Trust your sister enough to know what’s best for her son. And moreover, let him see that you support his mom’s decisions. If not…you might end up harming your own relationship with him as well. He’s already scared enough about losing his mom. Don’t put him in a situation where he feels he’ll lose you, too. Not when his mom, your sister, is fighting for her life.”
“But…I’m his aunt. And she’s just—”
Shaking his head sadly, his face became a resigned, yet rigid stone mask, his voice granite hard. “Before you think of saying anything else disparaging about this woman, may I remind you that yes, while you are Blake’s aunt, Xoey here is his biological mother.”
Isaac stared at them all in shock.
Wait, what?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE WAS NOW the temporary legal guardian of Blake…of the precious little baby she’d given up for adoption nine years ago.
Nearly six hours later and Xoey was still reeling from the news.
“That’s why you’ve dated so much, why you’ve been so insistent on only getting serious with a Mr. Right isn’t it?” Isaac murmured softly. “Because you’ve gone through all of this on your own once. Because of Blake’s father.”
The first and worst Mr. Wrong.
“Yes,” replied Xoey, honestly. “For years after Blake was born, I didn’t date. Not seriously. But when I finally did, I told myself, the next time I truly fell for a guy, it had to stick. Marriage, kids, happily ever after. The whole nine yards.”
He nodded in a way that made her think that he truly did understand. None of her other friends really got it. The feeling of not wanting a do-over—Blake was a miracle she’d spend her lifetime being thankful for. She didn’t want to do anything over, but rather, simply, a ‘do-better.’
“Everyone in Cactus Creek is going to freak out when they learn about this. Most of the old-timers knew me back when I was pregnant. I’d taken a semester off school to work full time at the brewpub as a waitress until he was born.”
He did a double take. “Wait, so they know you’re Blake’s mom?”
“They’ve met him over the years. They know like Blake knows that I’m his biological mother, just like they know and Blake knows that Darcy is his mom. They knew I wasn’t going to get to keep him, which is probably why no one talks about it—crazy, I know, for our little gossip-crazy town. But they never gossiped about this.”
Xoey fluffed the pillow on Darcy’s bright zebra print futon sofa absently, wanting to be sure it was comfortable enough for Isaac. She didn’t bother with her own pillow, doubting she was going to get a wink of sleep tonight, whether she was in his arms or not.
Already, her brain was going a mile a minute trying to get everything in order.
Going grocery shopping for the week, looking up the directions to Blake’s school to be ready for Monday, not to mention everything she had to do to make sure everything ran smoothly at the brewpub while she stayed out here with Blake.
Given all that Blake had gone through already, Xoey didn’t think dragging him all the way to Cactus Creek was a good idea. He had school here and it was hours away from the hospital.
So she’d prepared herself to spend her first week as his legal guardian apart from him.
Back at the hospital, not long after Xoey had signed the Standby Guardianship paperwork, Vivian had looked utterly surprised when Xoey had asked if Blake could continue to sleep over. At least until she was able to rent a house or an apartment in the same town, hopefully by the end of the week.
“You’re going to move out here?” she’d asked, blinking in disbelief. “What about your brewpub? Cactus Creek?”
“I’ll figure out a way to make it work. But the most important thing is to give Blake a stable home. It was tough for him to stay in his room without his mom there so I’ll find a short term rental house or apartment for us in the same area until Darcy wakes up. And if she doesn’t wake up…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I have a lot saved up so price won’t be a problem—with any luck, I’ll have a week-to-week or month-to-month lease signed and at least his bedroom ready to be moved into by the weekend.”
Vivian had moved from surprise to absolute shock when Blake had walked over to them and interrupted their now peaceful, and same-paged planning with a quiet, “I think mommy would want me to sleep at home tonight.”
He then gave them all a serious nod that belonged on someone lightyears older than his sweet eight year old self. “Don’t worry, you guys, mom and I already talked about the plan. She told me that if something ever happened to her, Xoey would take care of me and that I was to do all my homework, eat all my veggies, and make my bed every morning.” Tears flooded his little eyes. “Just like always. So I’m going to do the plan just like we said. Don’t worry, Aunt Vivvy. Mommy will be proud of me. I’ll be okay in my own room tonight.”
Vivian’s arms shot around him and wrapped him up into a tight hug. “Oh Blake, honey.” Overwhelmed tears mixed with a sad chuckle. “I forgot how you and your mommy talk about everything.” She set him back down and cupped his cheeks. “I think that’s a terrific plan. And your mommy will definitely be proud of you.”
After that, Vivian had been like a totally different person. She came over to give Xoey just as emotional a hug. “Take care of my nephew. I know I’m not his mother or his mom—ˮ
Xoey hugged her back. “You’re his favorite aunt.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m his only aunt.”
“No, his favorite. You’re the one who tells him and his cousins the best bedtime stories, and makes the best spaghetti and meatballs. The one who made him the quilt on his bed with all his favorite cartoon characters, and the one who sat with him at the doctor’s and made him laugh the day he’d fallen and broken his arm.” Xoey smiled. “The one who he looks forward to seeing every weekend. The one I’m going to make sure he keeps seeing every weekend.”
At Vivian’s renewed rush of tears, Xoey squeezed her shoulder. “I promise.”
Vivian just nodded vigorously and hugged her again.
Looking around Blake’s childhood home now, Xoey was glad things had worked out the way it had, with Blake sleeping soundly in his own room.
She and Isaac had tucked him into bed two hours ago, and irrational or not, she’d checked on him on the hour since. Just as she was heading over to do right now.
“When he sleeps, he looks so much like you,” murmured Isaac, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
Xoey smiled. “That just happened in the past few years. When he was first born, he looked mostly Caucasian.”
They quietly let themselv
es out of his room and headed over to the kitchen, her mind racing the entire time. She felt like she was nine years too late to the starting line and now had to sprint like a madman just to catch up.
“Honey, sit down. Rest a little. You haven’t taken a single minute to slow down.”
Xoey halted in her tracks and realized she’d been pacing around the living room randomly dusting here, picking up a toy there, and jotting down note after note in the notebook on the coffee table.
Suddenly feeling like a deflated balloon, she sank down onto the now fully reclined futon sofa, which, she didn’t even remember opening up.
Isaac pulled her into his arms and just held her.
She didn’t know how many minutes had passed when she whispered softly, “You haven’t asked about Blake’s father.”
His entire body tensed behind her, but his voice revealed nothing when he replied, “I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.”
For once, she actually did want to talk about it. “He never wanted us. Me or Blake.”
Isaac was silent for a few beats before he asked quietly, “It was that guy, wasn’t it? The slick suit? Your first?”
“Yes.” Shame and embarrassment flooded through her. “I was a one night stand for him. Period. But I was too naïve to know that then. I’d thought that night was the start of something great between us.” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I waited, you know. Every day for weeks. I waited for him to call me. When he didn’t, I was crushed. But that didn’t stop me from holding onto this glimmer of home all over again after I’d found out I was pregnant. That he’d tell me it’d all been a misunderstanding. But it wasn’t.”
“So you told him you were pregnant?”
“I tried. I went over to the place he’d taken me to that night. But apparently, he didn’t live there. He’d just used his buddy’s place to bang me. And because the door that had closed on my face that day was pretty thin, the laughter of his friends at my expense came through loud and clear. Evidently, not only were there many girls as stupid as me who’d fallen for the jerk, but he’d even used a fake name on me as well. Needless to say, I was mortified. A feeling that came rushing right back again when I filled out Blake’s birth certificate nine months later and had to leave the birth father’s name blank.”
“That bastard,” snarled Isaac. “Dammit, Xo, I want to kill the guy for being so heartless.”
“It’s okay. It’s his loss. He’s not getting to see this amazing child grow up.
“How often do you get to see Blake?”
She tilted in head in thought. “I guess about once a month or so. More during the summers, and of course the holidays.”
Surprise filtered over his expression. “You guys spend the holidays together?”
“I head over there for Thanksgiving lunch, and Christmas morning. You knew that. I told you I was spending both days at my friend’s house up north last year.”
He nodded. “Right. I just didn’t connect the two. This is honestly the most open adoption I’ve ever heard of.”
Smiling, she started a fresh pot of coffee. “It’s actually not that uncommon. When the caseworker first told me about open and closed adoptions, I thought no adoptive mother would ever want an open adoption. But Darcy did. She was insistent, adamant, really. She told me stories of cases she’d read where birth parents would just stop visiting and writing the children they’d given up for adoption even after they’d promised they’d do so for the rest of their lives. The children were crushed. Darcy told me that if we were going to have an open adoption, she expected me to follow through.”
The look of respect on Isaac’s face was probably the same one she was wearing. “It was probably right at that moment that Darcy became Blake’s mom in my eyes. I’d told the caseworker right after the interview was over that I was going to pick Darcy. She’d had me interview the others still, all two-parent families she highly recommended, but I’d made my decision.”
“You made a good one,” said Isaac quietly as she poured him a mug. “Blake’s a great kid.”
“Yes he is.” She raised her eyes up to his. “Giving him up was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Isaac came over to drag her against his chest. “I know, baby.”
“Do you think he thinks I didn’t want him? That his father didn’t want him?”
“No. I don’t think Darcy would’ve ever allowed him to think that.”
Xoey nodded. No, definitely not. “Darcy was able to give him a life I couldn’t back then.”
“Which makes what you did one of the strongest, most loving things a mother can do for her child. It’s what she’s doing by choosing you to take care of him now.”
“Do you think I’ll make a good mom for him, Isaac?”
“I think you’re already a great mom to him, Xo, just like you’ve been since he was born.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ISAAC HAD JUST GOTTEN through throwing a bunch of Xoey’s clothes into a duffle bag for her to wear this week—and a miniscule handful of other items of clothing he’d found which he was throwing on her bed for her to wear for him on a rainy day—when he came across something in her closet that just plain burned his fingers.
It was a Chicago Bears jersey.
He shuddered.
Grinning, he contemplated hiding it or otherwise pranking her with it somehow, just a little bit, when something about the jersey made him freeze.
He knew that jersey.
With their heated Packers vs. Bears rivalry that had resulted in many a wager and endless smack talk since almost the day they’d met, Xoey’s owning a Bears jersey wasn’t what had him rooted to the spot in shock.
It was the fact that it was a Walter Payton jersey with signatures from the entire 1985 Super Bowl winning team that had him bowled over.
Examining it with a fine-toothed comb, he was a hundred percent sure it was authentic.
Moreover, he was a hundred percent sure it was his dad’s jersey.
The one Isaac had thought he’d misplaced in the move out of his buddies’ house back when he’d quit his job at the investment banking firm.
His eyes cataloged each and every signature, matching them up to his memories exactly. Each signature was the equivalent of the jersey’s fingerprints, each placement differing on each jersey. Each signature placed exactly where he remembered them. How could he forget? His dad used to tell him and Cody stories of every single one of these greats, pointing out each signature while he regaled the career highlights of each legend that had taken the time to sign their name.
This was definitely his jersey.
But how?
A thousand thoughts and feelings hit him then, all at once. Shards of memories, came flooding back in bits and pieces, now with more answers than questions.
That night.
That girl.
The night he still found himself replaying as best he could in his mind’s eye, the same way he had for the last nine years. Just to catch another glimpse of her face, her eyes, her hair.
Her.
In hindsight, now he saw it—all the details he’d been blind to before because he hadn’t known to be looking for them.
The short chin-length bob that had been chunked and highlighted with a kaleidoscope of shades from red, to brown, to blonde, had masked her original hair color. But not at the base of her scalp.
He’d kissed his way up her spine that night and remembered now that she’d turned and looked at him over her shoulder, flipping most of her hair to the side, so he could see the fringe of dark nearly espresso-brown locks that had been untouched by the highlights.
Her eyes, which for years, he’d remembered to be a striking sea green, now paled in comparison to the true rich, doe-like brown shade that had been hidden under color contacts.
It was Xoey.
She was the girl he’d spent almost a decade not being able to stop thinking about.
Which meant he was the guy
she’d spent almost a decade simultaneously hating and being hung up on.
He was Xoey’s first and worst Mr. Wrong.
…And Blake was his son.
The shrill ringtone of his cell phone pierced through the silent apartment, jarring his already rattled composure.
“H’lo?” he picked up on autopilot, unsure of what else to do besides let the world keep turning.
“Hey! Are you still at my apartment?”
“Yep,” he replied woodenly, still too thrown to be able to provide more than one-worded answers.
“Oh good. Blake wants to go bike riding this afternoon and I told him I’d join him on my roller blades. They’re in the hall closet. Do you think you can bring them back with you?”
“Sure.”
Pause.
“Isaac, are you okay? You sound…strange.”
He snapped out of it then, giving himself a hard shake, mentally and physically. “I’m fine, sweetie. Just distracted.”
“Oh. Is it work? I’m sorry, I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with me and Blake lately—ˮ
“No,” he broke in, probably more loudly than he needed too. “There’s no problems with work. And why on earth are you apologizing for that? I love spending time with you two.”
“We love spending time with you, too. But I know it’s a lot.” She hesitated for a beat. “I’d understand if you just need to take some time to…assess everything, or even take a break. I know you only signed on for one of us. So if this is too much right now—ˮ
“Xoey, stop. Just stop. Do you honestly think I’d break up with you because you have a son? That I’d suddenly just up and not want you anymore?”
“Sometimes it happens,” she said quietly. “It’s no one’s fault.”
He growled. “Tell me you’re not thinking about Blake’s biological father right now, Xoey.”
Her silence compounded his frustration.
