“Boy, you really are a mom. You kinda reminded me of my own for a second there.” The clouds were already lifting from his mood. He quirked the corner of his mouth ruefully.
It occurred to her then that Annelise’s sunny resilience might not be down to just being lavishly loved by her crazy family. Maybe it was a DNA gift straight from her dad. God knew her mom was hardly laissez-faire.
In fact, every single one of her mom’s nerves were still buzzing and squealing as if they’d been plugged in to a Marshall Stack and strummed, hard, à la Jasper Townes.
A whole treasure chest (Pandora’s box?) of discoveries like that awaited if Jasper became a part of their lives. Things that could deepen even her relationship with Annelise, make it even richer. Things she might even look forward to.
And there was a raw place in the center of her chest, as if someone had taken a peeler to her heart and shaved off a curl.
She yearned to turn her head to look at Gabe.
“So what do you think? Shall we tell her I’m her dad?” Jasper asked. Carefully. Reasonably.
How did anyone make this kind of decision? In a perfect world she’d haveweeksto mull. But her life, once again, was condensed into hours and minutes.
Maybe she’d only been stealing time with Gabe, anyway. Kidding herself all along.
Why, then, did she feel like she was being robbed of destiny?
“Yeah. Let’s do it,” she said.
Jasper’s face lit up charmingly.
And then she finally got over her pride and fully turned, took one gulping, hungry look at the crowd at that table.
Gabe was gone.
Chapter 16
How innocent her whiteboard had looked Monday morning. The poor thing didn’t know Eden’s life was literally a giant snarl at the moment.
Eden was tempted to take the marker and scrawl tornadoes, barbed wire, arrowed hearts, exclamation points, and question marks in the next few squares, just to illustrate her internal weather.
Danny arrived at the shop just in time for Eden to take Annelise to school. She had to get to Gabe first thing.
So she kissed Leesy goodbye, and with her heart pounding like jackboots coming down, she headed for Gabe’s office.
“Good morning, Mrs. Maker. How do you feel about baby roses today?”
She settled the little pot of roses on her desk.
“Oh, Eden, honey, you’re just the sweetest. Did you know Mrs. Pennington brings cookies when she wants to get in to see Mr. Caldera?”
“Um...”
“Oh, I know the roses are not a bribe, dear. I was just mentioning it.”
“Well, that’s interesting, thank you for sharing. Is Mr. Caldera in?”
“He is, and he has about fifteen minutes until his next meeting. Why don’t you just knock?”
So she did.
Hard enough for the sound to drown out the sound of her pounding heart, hopefully.
Gabe looked up at her from his desk, and his heart leaped in reflexive joy before his thoughts yanked it back down.
“Good morning, Ms. Harwood. What can I do for you?”