The infant had slit her eyes open as if she found the light of the world to be an unwelcome assault. Her lips formed a pink rosebud. Her eyes were dark, as was her dusting of hair.
She looked just like Dylan had when he’d been a newborn.
Sebastian had never felt such an overwhelming pull toward a woman in his life. He knew why he felt the pull. Leah was brainy, kind, at peace with herself, challenging, funny. He loved that she said random things about flowers serving as a metaphor for life and melons shaped like rhomboids.
What he didn’t know: Why, of all people, did the woman he felt this way about have to be the woman Ben loved?
After leaving the hospital, they came to a stop at Leah’s car, parked in an outdoor lot.
She dashed a piece of hair away from her face. “My head is spinning with everything I just learned.”
“I can imagine.” He wished he had something more comforting to offer. “Are you going to contact Trina and Jonathan Brookside?”
“I don’t know. At this point, I’m simply planning to stalk the Brooksides on the Internet ... in a very friendly, non-creepy way—”
“Very non-creepy.”
“—to see what I can learn about their lives and about their daughter’s life.”
When Sebastian was young and had asked his mom about his father, she’d told him plainly that she’d met him at a party and that they’d had a one-night stand. Later, when his mom discovered she was pregnant, she’d contacted his father as a courtesy. Sebastian suspected they’d both been relieved when they’d learned the other was happy to continue leading separate lives. His father didn’t have to be a father. His mother could be a mother without a stranger’s influence.
Sebastian knew his father’s name, but felt nothing toward him except vague resentment. No connection. No affection. No desire to communicate with him.
Leah held her purse strap with both hands, stacked one atop the other. “I can’t thank you enough for stepping in and helping me with all of this.”
“Not a problem.”
“No, really.” She regarded him steadily. “Thank you.”
His body roared in response, and he had to lock his teeth together to keep from sayingDon’t fall in love with Ben. Please don’t. “You’re welcome.”
His awareness of the rest of the world—the noise, the cars, the colors —sucked away.
“There’s something special about you, Sebastian. Something appealing. You should feel very proud of the man you’ve become.”
Her words came as such a shock that it took him a second to compute them. She found him appealing? Pleasure collided with guilt, freezing him.
She slid into the driver’s seat of her gray Honda Pilot, which was old but in good condition. “Good-bye.” Holding the door ajar, she waited for him to respond.
Say something, you idiot.
She started her car. “Good-bye,” she repeated, maybe thinking he hadn’t heard the first time.
“Good-bye,” he said.
She shut her door and drove away.
As soon as she was out of sight, he swung on his heel and tunneled his hands into his hair.
The day of the farmers market, Ben had said that Leah was rare.
He’d been right. She was rare.
And she wasn’t coming back.
Had that been awkward? What she’d just said to him?
“There’s something special about you, Sebastian. Something appealing. You should feel very proud of the manyou’ve become.” Her words had seemed appropriate to her while she was speaking them, but then his face had gone strangely blank in response.
