“Plans change” she repeated, more gently this time. The defiance in her eyes remained. “A different opportunity presented itself.”
“An opportunity you couldn’t discuss with me?”
Her chin dipped in the affirmative. “That was,” she licked her rosy lips, “my choice. Yes. We had a fling,” she said without meeting his gaze. “Lovely, but not sustainable. You had so many big plans and goals. I loved that for you.”
Loved? Past tense. That stung. And he wasn’t buying it. There was more. There had to be. “I should’ve been more persistent,” he said. He should’ve followed that urge to come back and check on her. “I thought you understood what you meant to me. What we meant to each other.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I-I did.” She straightened. “Admit it, you didn’t come back for me.”
“Not at first,” he agreed. “The area drew me back. I was happy here and wanted to see if that still held up. I had plans to ask around at the college to see if someone could put me in touch with you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Seeing you, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore about what brought me back. You.”
Her foot was tapping. “Do you have your closure?”
Was she kidding? Before he could reply, a tiny whirlwind raced over, colliding with Scarlett with enough force to make her sway. A smudge of white frosting highlighted the little girl’s chin and she had a small bag gripped in one hand. “Mommy! Ms. Connie said I can have the cookie with the extra icing because I helped her stack the trays!”
Mother and daughter smiled at each other and Cooper froze.
Struck with the obvious explanation. Pain lanced straight through him. He’d caught a glimpse of the girl last night on the video, but not enough to reallyseethe truth.
In statistics, there is a concept called the outlier—a data point that deviates so significantly from the rest of the set that it demands an entirely new hypothesis. As he looked down at the little girl, the entire data set of his life was rendered obsolete.
She was slender, with an athletic build that reminded him of his own sisters. And himself. Her hair was a wild, golden blonde that caught the morning light filtering through the bakery windows. He’d bet anything her hair had been nearly white at first, just like all the kids in the Moss family scrapbooks. But it was her face—the shape of her jaw, the freckles across her nose, the inquisitive tilt of her head—that stopped his breath.
And then she looked up at him. Her eyes were sea-glass green. A shade so specific, so rare, that he had only ever seen them in the mirror and in the eyes of his father.
“Hello.” She scooted even closer to Scarlett. “Who is he?” she asked in that childish whisper that carried so effectively.
“A friend.” Scarlett’s voice sounded as shattered as he felt.
Cooper felt the floor lurch. His brain, usually so efficient at processing data, began to run the numbers with a cold, terrifying precision: seven years sincethatsummer. One summer of passionate intensity. They’d been careful, but nothing was foolproof. And here was a child who looked to be the right age, who would blend right in with his side of the family. A child withhisgreen eyes.
The math was undeniable. The result was a singular, absolute truth that shattered every assumption he’d made about why Scarlett had ghosted him.
Why hadn’t she told him?
“I’m Cooper,” he managed. And what else? How did he explain his presence here? “An old friend of your mom’s. It’sa pleasure to meet you.” He dragged his gaze back to Scarlett, trying to keep his rioting emotions in check. Would she try to deny it? Feed him some sanitized version of the truth? Lie outright?
She shook her head and held out her phone. “Put in your number. I’ll call you after work.”
“Don’t forget.”
“She won’t,” the little girl—his daughter—declared. “She remembers everything.”
“That’s good to know.” She was looking up at him with a mix of shyness and curiosity, her small fingers laced with Scarlett’s.
“Excuse us, we need to get a move on.” She kept herself between him and the little girl. “We were approved for a late start, but we can’t take the whole day.”
“Bye!” His daughter waved at him.
Like he was just another friendly face in town.
They hurried through the door and out of sight, leaving him alone in the crowded bakery. Alone again. His appetite was gone, but his temper spiked over being denied the truth all these years.
And she wanted him to wait until she got off work?
