She tried her soothing voice, the same voice Lloyd Sunnergren had used that time a coyote had wandered into the feed store a few years back.
“Jasper... just so you know... in case you were worried... we never needed or wanted anything from you. And we still don’t. Not money, not time, certainly not publicity. We are really, really great. Annelise has dozens of people in her life who adore her and will always be there for her, and we have a really great, happy, full life. So you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
She stopped just short of saying,So you can walk out guilt free right now if you want. She knew he was smart enough to recognize what she’d just said for what it was: the ladder dangling from the rescue copter for the guy who’d tumbled into a ravine. And if he latched on to that ladder, it would be an out for her, too.
“I’d like to talk more with you about this. Can we? I’m here for the next two days. Staying in J. T. McCord’s house while he’s in Los Angeles filming some spots with Franco Francone. Then I’m off to Sacramento, and from there San Francisco, then Europe. Here’s my number.”
A collection of bracelets jingled on his wrist and seemed to collectively act as a fan that sent a little waft of patchouli toward her when he held out his card.
What adult male hadtimeto dab on patchouli? None of the men in or on the periphery of her life were scented by anything other than deodorant soap and deodorant and sweat and in the case of Giorgio the grill cook, hamburger grease. Gabe always smelled clean in a way that immediately made her picture him nude in the shower.
When she didn’t immediately take the card, he placed it on the counter and slid it over to her.
And slid the photo back into his own hands.
“I don’t have too many photos of her. I carry this one around with me. Prop it up on hotel room nightstands when I’m on tour.”
He carried a photo of his mom and parked it on his hotel nightstand like an anchor, she supposed. Because he was a rootless guy. She remembered that about him. “I flow like a river, baby,” he’d told her then, and that had struck her as profound right before she slept with him, and a month later when that pink plus sign showed up it seemed like possibly the most dangerous thing a man could say.
And now she understood him a little more.
Whynow, was the question?
She asked it. “Why now, Jasper?”
He hesitated. “Eden... I swear I don’t have an agenda. I don’t want to disrupt her life or yours. I just... happen to know what it’s like not to know who your dad is. I still wonder about mine. And even if Annelise doesn’t pester you about it, I’d bet my left nut that she wonders about it. And my left nut is my favorite.”
He waited for the laugh, which of course wasn’t coming. Not today.
“I didn’t know my dad. And you know what? After a while I stopped asking about him, because I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings, because I didn’t want her to think she wasn’t enough.”
She couldn’t say a word, because he’d just voiced precisely everything she’d been thinking for going on two months.
“Anyway. Good seeing you. Call me or text me if you want to have dinner to talk about it tonight. I’ll let you get back to...”
He waved his hand vaguely, puzzled, to indicate the shop, her life. Her ordinary, extraordinary life that had just shifted to allow in the possibility of an extraordinary man. Gabe Caldera.
She was no stranger to sacrifice, but what she had to do next seemed so wildly unfair she was arrested in a moment—just a tick of the clock—of grinding self-pity at the injustice and gracelessness of the universe’s timing.
And then, because she always had, she did what she had to do.
Chapter 14
Gabe stared at the text for so long his stillness drew the attention of all his friends.
I apologize profusely, Gabe, but I can’t make it to Firelight Falls today. Something has suddenly come up.
He now held in his hand what felt like a grenade, but which could be a perfectly innocuous text.
What did it actuallymean?
And to think, just an hour before he’d been standing in the shower singing an homage to one of Eden’s guilty pleasure songs: “The first time... ever at Firelight Falls... ba da da daaa... dum de da da da da daaaaaa...”
Eat your heart out Roberta Flack, he’d thought.
That mood suddenly seemed eons ago.
Did she need help? Did she have cold feet? Had she changed her mind about the two of them? Did he have the right to press the issue?Shouldhe press for answers?