His Surprise Son (5 page)

No, he didn’t lie. But he had been lied to.

Izzy’s palms grew damp as nausea filled her stomach.

“We have a time constraint here, Izzy.” Irony shaded Nate’s voice. “Not that
I
have anywhere pressing to be today.”

He tilted his head in question.
Will you change your mind and talk awhile?
Nate was in his early thirties, like she was, but in this moment, even beneath the fluorescent glare, he looked eighteen again, sweet and teasing and persuasive.

She wanted so badly to get out of here so she could think. For the entire length of her son’s life, she’d told herself that Nate knew he’d fathered a child and simply didn’t care. She’d thought he’d been content to assume his child had been adopted and that he was completely off the paternal hook.

His lips curved as he gazed at her, and an electric feeling zinged through her veins. The first time she’d noticed him watching her, she’d been waiting tables at the deli, joining sweet, elderly Mr. Wittenberg in a quavering rendition of “Happy Birthday” while Mrs. Wittenberg giggled at the giant slice of New York cheesecake Izzy had set in front of her. The dessert was topped with so many candles Mrs. Wittenberg’s face had glowed like a girl’s in its light.

The Wittenbergs had been married as long as Izzy or anyone else could remember. They’d been old that long, too, and tended to look after each other like a parent hovering over a newborn—with a tenderness and tolerance that was both enviable and, for Izzy, as out of reach as the burning sun.

After Mrs. W had blown out her candles, with help, Izzy had headed toward the kitchen, passing the booth where Nate had been nursing an iced tea and studying. That was when she’d noticed him watching her. Holding her gaze steadily, he’d said, “That’s exactly how I want to spend my birthday when I’m their age.”

She’d started loving him a little bit right then. By the time she’d realized she was pregnant, Izzy had loved Nate Thayer with every fiber of her teenage heart. When it had appeared he didn’t love her at all, she had taken cold comfort in believing he was just one more irresponsible, self-centered teenage boy who’d had his fun and wanted to get on with a life that did not include a girl he didn’t love and a baby he hadn’t intended to make. Keeping that thought always in the forefront of her mind had gone a long way toward helping her let go of Nate. It had helped her let go of romantic fantasies altogether.

But now...

Dizziness and nausea rolled through her again. “Did your mother tell you about the miscarriage?” Was that her voice? She sounded calm.

Nate nodded.

Raw, burning anger filled Izzy’s body. She started to shake.

“I know it must have been painful. Terrible,” he said. “But I could never figure out why you didn’t tell me yourself. You were a gutsy girl.”

Gutsy. Is that what he thought? “I was never gutsy. I was always terrified.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth.

No hint of a smile remained around his lips. “That would have been more reason to phone, wouldn’t it?”

There was no miscarriage to phone about!
She wanted to scream it. Shriek it. She wanted to find his parents and throttle them, and she was not a violent person.

Was she “gutsy” enough to tell him the truth now?

Would the truth have made a difference back then?

No. Nate went to college and moved on with his life. She was just the girl who was going to ruin everything for him. Her baby was such a “mistake” that Nate’s parents chose to pretend he’d died rather than be part of his life.

Revulsion filled Izzy until she honestly thought she was going to throw up.

My son is not a mistake, and nobody—nobody—is going to make him feel that way.
The Thayers had thrown away the chance to get to know Eli, to be part of his life, to influence him in a positive way. The Thayers—Nate included—had never done a thing to deserve Eli Lambert.

“You were involved with college, Nate.”

“So?”

“You’d moved on with your life.”

“I was in Chicago, not the antipodes. I cared about what was happening back here.”

Which is why you found another girl right away.
“You were busy all the time—”

“Not too busy to talk to you, damn it!” Obviously frustrated by her responses, Nate slammed his hand on the heavy oak table in the meeting room.

“We cannot do this here,” she hissed, rising from her chair and glancing at the door as she slung her purse over her shoulder. She shook her head. “I don’t want to do this at all.”

“Too bad.” Nate blew the air forcefully from his lungs as he, too, rose. The conference room felt claustrophobic as he advanced on her. “Look, I didn’t come to town intending to stir up the past. I didn’t even know you’d be in Thunder Ridge.”

Izzy’s teeth clenched. Was that supposed to make her feel better?

“But we’re both here, for the first time since we were kids.” His demeanor softened. “That’s got to mean something.”

Oh, no, she refused to get sentimental. Maybe he had nothing to lose by rehashing the past, but she did. Eli did.

“It means you have business in town, and I liked Thunder Ridge enough to make my home here. That’s
all
it means.”

“You sure?” He regarded her steadily, and her skin began to prickle with awareness. “I have time tonight. We can have dinner.”

“No.” Absolutely no. Scraping back her chair, she rose so quickly she got dizzy.

With one hand on the table, he leaned into her. “You’re going to keep avoiding me, aren’t you?” His eyes and his voice were velvet—soft, smooth, strong.

She remembered that voice in the dark, remembered the way his whisper had seemed to penetrate her very pores and how she’d often thought she could feel his words vibrate inside her.

“Meet me tonight,” he stated again.

“I have a previous engagement.”

“Break it.”

“I can’t do that.” She had to go somewhere and think. Right now. Making a show of looking at her watch, she announced, “I have to go. I’m late for work.”

“Fine.” He straightened. She felt a momentary relief until he said, “Call me later today when you know your schedule, and we can set up a time to talk more.”

Without answering, she headed toward the door.

“Don’t wait too long, Izzy.”

Reflexively, she turned. His blue eyes were narrowed and considering, trying to decide, she knew, if he could trust her to call him. Black hair, as thick and shiny as it ever was, fell across his tanned forehead.

Her reluctance to see him was only whetting his curiosity.

Swallowing hard, she shot out the door, realizing he’d followed right behind her when she heard someone say, “Nate Thayer, is that you?”

The voice belonged to an older man. She didn’t recognize it right off and refrained from turning around. Even though she was a fixture in town today, back in high school she’d primarily hung around the deli or by herself at the library. Or in the broken-down trailer she shared with Felicia. It was Nate who’d been something of a local hero. Varsity football quarterback who’d led the Thunder Ridge Huskies to their first state finals. Valedictorian. Polite and well raised. Never made a misstep until he’d met her.

Izzy walked quickly toward the front of the library. Holliday was still at her desk, apparently postponing her lunch hour. Her customary provocative smile was in place as she looked at Izzy, but it dropped the second she noted her friend’s expression.

“Do you want to talk?” she offered, half rising from her chair.

Izzy had always been a private person—more so, she had been told, than most. For once, though, she knew she needed her best friends.

“Derek’s bringing pizza tonight,” she managed to choke out as tears clogged her throat.

“I’ll bring a salad and drinks and see you around six thirty.”

The tears reached her eyes. “Thanks.” Quickly scrounging in her purse, she found her sunglasses, slipped them on and gave one wave to Holliday before leaving the library.

The sun was directly above her, the clouds picture-perfect in the late-June sky as Izzy stepped onto the street. After two slogging steps toward the deli, she changed her mind and headed for home. She’d been at work since five that morning; no one would complain if she took a break, and she didn’t want to see anyone now, not even Henry or Sam. For the first time in memory, she was actually glad Eli wouldn’t be home when she got there.

She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt more confused. If Nate thought she’d had a miscarriage, then he wasn’t the total bad guy she had believed him to be all these years. On the other hand, he’d wanted her to put their child up for adoption and left her in the dubious care of his parents while he pursued a solo life in Chicago. So, he wasn’t the man she’d once hoped he was, either. Did she owe him the truth today?

Arms swinging, feet pounding the hot pavement, she wished she could outrun her thoughts.

What she needed tonight was a little pizza, a little wine, a whole lot of ice cream and her friends to remind her of who
she
was: a woman tasked with the job of protecting her son from heartache and confusion. A single mother by circumstance and by choice, committed to raising a secure, confident human being who knew he was the pride and joy of the people who loved him. The biggest threat to her success would be falling, once again, for a man who didn’t want to be a husband to her or a father to their son.

Her heart couldn’t handle making that mistake twice.

Chapter Five

“W
ow.”

Izzy smiled weakly at Derek’s stunned expression. She’d felt far too nervous to take more than an obligatory bite of the pizza he had brought over, but he and Holliday had done justice to the extra-large “kitchen sink” pie while Izzy pieced together the story of her high school romance. When she got to the part where she’d told Nate she was pregnant and his parents had convinced them that having the baby would ruin their lives and their child’s, Derek stopped chewing, leaned his elbows on his knees and listened intently. His brows lowered more with each word, and Holliday traded her dinner plate for a wineglass, her green eyes filling with concern.

“Were his parents pissed off?” she asked.

“They didn’t show it. Not in the beginning,” Izzy answered honestly. “They were certainly disappointed. I think they’d started Nate’s college fund the day he was born. He was voted Most Likely to Succeed
and
prom king in his senior year of high school. All set to take the world by storm.”

“Were they compassionate?”

“At first.” As her mind traveled back to the memories, Izzy felt the surge of emotions she usually resisted. “The Thayers made their points kindly. That was the problem. If they’d been furious right off the bat, maybe I would have kept my perspective. And before Nate left for school, he was...”

She closed her eyes against stinging tears.

“Before he left for school, Nate was what?” Holliday urged.

“Protective. He seemed to care...about me
and
the baby. He told his parents he was worried about how I would manage if there were problems with the pregnancy and he wasn’t here. He knew my mother wasn’t going to be any help. Plus, choosing the adoptive parents, dealing with the lawyer—he said it would be too much for me alone.” His beautiful eyes had been awash with concern. No one had ever—ever—looked at her that way before.

He’d even kissed her as he’d left for the airport. They hadn’t been romantic since she’d given him the news. Pregnancy had hijacked their relationship. The goodbye kiss had been just a sweet, soft touch of his lips to her cheek, but he’d done it right in front of his parents.

“I didn’t know anything about family back then. It was easy to convince myself that what Nate and the Thayers were offering was as good as it ever gets. I even began to pretend Mrs. Thayer was my mother-in-law.”

“What happened when you realized you couldn’t go through with the adoption?” Shifting on Izzy’s sofa so that she was more comfortable, Holliday nursed her wine while she waited for more of the story.

“I worked up the courage to tell the Thayers I wanted to keep the baby and give them the gift of a wonderful grandchild. I’d honestly convinced myself they’d be happy. I said I was sure Nate would fall in love with the baby the minute he saw it.”

Derek swiped a hand down his face. He knew what was coming. By her expression, so did Holliday.

“Yeah—” Izzy nodded “—that spooked them. I was an obstacle to everything they’d worked so hard for. Suddenly, they weren’t as nice anymore, and I was such an idiot, I was actually surprised.”

Derek swore, colorfully. “You weren’t an idiot. You trusted them, and they were—”

“Frightened,” she said before he could use a much less kind word. “They were really frightened. Mrs. Thayer even told me that Mr. Thayer hated being a ‘glorified janitor,’ but he’d had to take any job he could to support a family. She implied their marriage wasn’t all that happy and asked if that was what I wanted. She said Nate had dreamed of being an architect since he was ten years old and wouldn’t it hurt me to see his resentment if he stayed in Thunder Ridge and wound up like his dad.”

“Powerful stuff,” Holliday said quietly.

“Yes, but I didn’t let that stop me. I told her I was strong and a good worker, and I would never let Nate quit college. I said I’d work as hard as I had to for as long as I had to. She looked at me for a long time, and I thought I’d actually convinced her. But then she brought out the cannon.”

Derek frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She showed me a photo Nate had mailed his parents. He had his arm around a girl. They were at a party, and they were grinning at each other. She was really beautiful...stunning...wearing an evening gown, and he was in a tuxedo. They looked just the way I’d imagined us looking if we’d gone to the prom together. And Mrs. Thayer said, ‘I’m sorry, Isabelle, I really am. But Nate has plans, too. Does he look like a boy who’s thinking about becoming a father with the girl he dated
one summer
after high school?’” Izzy shrugged sadly. “It was the truth.”

“What did you do?” Holliday set her glass on the table, tucked her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees as she watched Izzy.

“I told Henry and Sam I was pregnant, and they helped me move to Portland to live with a friend of theirs. My mom had done one of her disappearing acts, so no one thought it was strange that I left.”

“And he just carried on with his life?” Derek looked and sounded disgusted.

“That’s what I thought.” She explained the rest of the story as she knew it—how she had impulsively told Mrs. Thayer she didn’t want to speak to Nate ever again, and how today she’d discovered that Nate thought she’d had a miscarriage.

Holliday put both hands to her mouth.

“He should have looked for you!” Far from behaving like the levelheaded sheriff the townspeople had come to trust, Derek stormed around the room. “You were a kid, and you were alone. Now he thinks he can come back here like the prodigal son. I’ve seen him all over town, shaking hands like he’s running for mayor. I don’t know how long he plans to stay, but we are not going to make it easy for him.”

Holliday lowered her hands. “Now you’re talking, Wild Bill,” she said. “Let’s take him out to the stockade.”

Derek glared. “I don’t endorse a mob mentality, which you would know if you ever bothered to come to a town meeting. I’m talking about loyalty and invoking a sense of community on Izzy’s behalf.”

“Or we could babble him to death.”

“Now look—”

“I love you two.” Watching her bickering friends, Izzy felt a burst of thankfulness for them both. “But I don’t want you to do anything. Maybe Nate didn’t love me the way I loved him, but he was a good person at heart.”

“Except when he cheated on you the first chance he got,” Derek reminded her furiously. “While you were pregnant.”

Yeah, except for that, which was so out of character. Izzy frowned.

“Izzy,” Holliday interjected quietly, “what do
you
want?”

Nate’s face, the way it had looked today in the library, lodged in Izzy’s mind. He had been intense, earnest...interested? Yes, he’d looked interested in her, in the way that had always made a flight of butterflies rise and swirl inside her.

What did she want? What she had always wanted, she supposed. A white picket fence. A husband, a few kids and a dog. A yard filled with laughter, a house filled with love. And a future that seemed predictable even if it wasn’t, really. She wanted all the things she’d thought would never be hers until she’d met Nate Thayer and started to believe that a future was possible.

* * *

“Come on, jump in. What are you waiting for?” Grinning, water glistening on his shoulders and dripping from his hair, Nate bobbed in the swimming pool at The Summit Lodge and challenged Izzy. “I’ll race you. Winner gets a neck rub in the hot tub.”

Izzy stood at the edge of the pool in the perfect light of an early summer evening and shivered. She wasn’t cold—she was nervous.

Nate’s father was the head of housekeeping and janitorial services at The Summit, a seventy-five-year-old lodge built of giant beams and rough stones, hundreds of which formed a fireplace and chimney so wide and deep that Santa, his sleigh and eight reindeer could have fit into it all at once. Constructed during the pre-WWII years, The Summit nestled at the base of Thunder Ridge and had been the site of numerous movies and, in its day, celebrity weddings. Now it was a tourist destination, hosting skiers all year round. Izzy had never been here before.

Working for his father in the summers throughout high school, Nate cleaned the pool area and mopped the lobby floor at four in the morning. He was perfectly comfortable in the lodge and absolutely at home in a pool.

“Nate, I don’t... I’m not really...”
Oh, just say it.
“I’m a terrible swimmer. I never learned, not really, and I...I’m kind of afraid of the water.” In fact, she felt a little sick just standing at the edge of the deep end of the pool.

Surprise altered his features. Diving beneath the surface, he swam to where she stood, then emerged, looking like a merman, somehow otherworldly and more perfect than real life. Pushing himself out of the water, he stood before her.

“You sure look good in that bikini.”

Izzy shivered again as his gaze embraced every bit of her body not covered by the purple triangles.

“Trust me?” he asked, and she nodded yes. Because she did. Over the past several weeks she had begun to trust Nate Thayer more than she’d ever trusted anyone.

Taking her hand, Nate walked with her to the shallow side. There was no one in the pool, save for the two of them. With snow clinging tenaciously to the side of the Ridge, most of the lodge guests were still skiing. The magic of swimming while the late-afternoon sun glistened on the water and on the snow just above the pool area was not lost on her.

“We’ll take it as slow as you want.” His voice was coaxing as he led her into the water, the shock of cold offset by the warmth of his hand and his eyes.

First, he held her around the waist while he taught her to trust her body to float. The delicious sensation of water slipping between their skin distracted her from fear, and eventually she didn’t know what was more buoyant, her mood or her body, as she realized the water was supporting her. Their legs tangled happily as he moved them into the deeper area and taught her to tread water.

He helped her to float on her back and to feel comfortable submerging her head, every word, every gesture, gentle and encouraging. Then, when she was so relaxed she thought she could stay in the pool forever, Nate made magic. Having her hold his shoulders, her body resting on his back, he plunged them both beneath the surface, giving her the experience of swimming underwater. She felt like a mermaid! Never before had she realized that trust could feel so exhilarating or that safety in another person’s care was such a gift.

When they resurfaced, she was laughing, and so was he. “You did it,” he said. “You’re a water baby.”

“‘Baby’ is right.” She giggled, pleased and embarrassed by his obvious pride in her. “I only did what most five-year-olds can do.”

“I don’t know too many five-year-olds who can swim
and
rock a bikini,” he pointed out, fire in his eyes and an intoxicating huskiness in his voice. “And you are definitely, definitely doing both.”

Delight filled every nook and cranny of Izzy’s body.

Holding on to the side of the pool, she and Nate grinned at each other. One of his arms curved around her, his hand on her back. And then, as if the lapping water were nudging them, they moved closer until her legs rested on his hips and both his arms were around her. They weren’t two bodies anymore. The water and the wonder created the illusion that they were one. Or maybe, Izzy imagined dreamily, less than one; it was as if they moved inside a single cell.

As their lips met and their chests touched, she felt Nate’s heart beat with hers.
For
hers. Suddenly, she couldn’t think anymore and, for once in her life, felt no need to. With every word, every action, he made her feel important, special exactly as she was.

Lingeringly, as if they had all the time in the world, they spoke by touch and in kisses—soft and sweet, warm and deep, a language that, tonight, was all theirs and theirs alone. Izzy knew that loving Nate had changed her. She would never, ever be the same again.

She would never, ever want to be.

* * *

Anticipating getting Izzy’s voice mail after several rings, Nate was vacillating between leaving a message and hanging up when finally the ringing stopped, and a tired voice answered, “Hello.”

Concerned momentarily that he’d woken Izzy up, he checked the digital clock by his bed in his room at the inn: eight thirty. “It’s Nate. Did I wake you up?”

There was a pause. “No.”

“Are you home?”

Another pause. “Yes.”

“You busy?”

He thought he heard a soft sigh. “No.”

He stared at the mug of coffee on his end table. Fourth cup of caffeine since he’d left her today. He was never going to sleep tonight, but he craved the taste of coffee when his mind wouldn’t settle, and at the moment every one of his thoughts felt like a speeding train.

Izzy had already told him to get lost, hadn’t she?
Get lost
was closure.

Problem was, he seemed not to want to let it go, and the dog-with-a-bone feeling persisted. It didn’t feel half-bad. For the past couple of years, he hadn’t cared enough about anything to fight his way upstream.

When Julianne, his now ex-wife, had suggested they separate, she’d said, “We have a pleasant relationship, Nate. A nice life. But there’s not much passion, is there?” She’d said it gently, clearly not looking to blame, and in the end he’d had to agree. There hadn’t been much passion—in or out of bed. There should have been: they were both good-looking, smart, and worked in similar fields. Somehow, though, they’d been like two matches without the friction necessary to strike a spark. He wouldn’t have ended the marriage over that, however. Commitment, responsibility—those were the principles on which he based his adult life. When Julianne left, he’d tried to carry on with business as usual, but he kept getting stuck in memories. Memories of a time before his marriage, before he was truly an adult. Memories of a time when passion had been the rule rather than the exception. And not only passion in bed.

With an elbow on his knee and one hand palming his forehead, he held the phone in his other hand. “We’re not finished, Izzy. You know we’re not. There are things left to say.”