“Let’s say she’s forty-three. Will is nineteen so she would’ve had him at twenty-four. Old enough to have completed her schooling and have her license.”
“Will’s got her blue eyes.”
He cut her a look. “Or my dad’s. When I was interviewing Will, we got off topic for a bit and he laughed. Maggie, it sounded so much like my dad’s laugh, it was eerie.”
Maggie pressed a hand to his. “This must be so hard.”
“I don’t want to believe it. But the evidence is stacking up.” Josh returned to the photo. When he’d learned Will’s age, he’d done some math. At the time of Will’s birth, Josh would’ve been fourteen and finished with his treatment for lymphoma. But nine months earlier, at the time of Will’s conception, Josh would’ve been in the throes of treatment. Could his dad, in the midst of that ordeal, have turned to a colleague for comfort?
Maggie shook her head. “Your dad just turned sixty-five. That would’ve made him forty-six when Will was born. I can’t imagine him hooking up with anyone, much less a woman twenty years his junior.”
Neither could Josh. But every time he saw Will, he was taken aback by his resemblance to Ethan. “And yet that scenario happens so often it’s a cliché.” And the more he thought about it, the more it bugged him that his dad was so absent during his sickness. And a little distant even when he was present. Why hadn’t Josh noticed that before?
Maggie’s cell phone buzzed. She dug for it and checked the screen. “Sorry, I have to take this.”
“Sure.”
She handed him the laptop and headed toward the French doors. “Hello?”
“Yes, hi...” Her melodic laughter sounded as she opened the door and slipped out into the night. “Sounds about right.”
She was talking to a man—he could tell by the soft quality in her voice. She hadn’t closed the door but the roar of the surf made her words unintelligible.
As far as Josh knew, she hadn’t been seeing anyone back home. Had she met someone here in Seabrook? She hadn’t even been here a month, but Maggie was an attractive woman. She’d never had trouble drawing male attention.
Or maybe she’d reconnected with an old friend from high school. She didn’t have an old boyfriend—Ethan had been her one and only—but that didn’t mean some of her male friends hadn’t been interested. It wasn’t hard to believe she’d made contact with one of them. Would she have mentioned it to Josh?
As she continued her conversation, she leaned on the deck railing, her hair fluttering in the breeze.
He was letting his imagination run away from him. For all he knew the caller was a colleague or something.
On summer break?
Maggie was a friendly person. She had male friends.
Her laughter carried over the sound of the surf and jealousy pricked.
She straightened and wandered back inside. “All right, sounds good.” Another laugh. “No, I won’t... All right. Talk to you later then.” She pocketed her phone, closed the door, and returned to the couch.
Was it his imagination, or were her cheeks flushed?
He tried for a neutral expression. “Who was that?”
“Oh, just someone my mom knows. You know how she is.”
He arched a brow and went for playful. “She’s setting you up with a man?”
Maggie rubbed her neck. “Well... she’s trying to. I’m just humoring her.”
“Sounds like he is too.” The strain had crept into his voice.
Maggie’s gaze sharpened on him.
Even though jealousy now spread through his veins, he flashed a sardonic grin. “Mother knows best?”
“Hardly. But Derrick seems nice enough. We agreed to chat again, that’s all. Believe me, having my mother’s recommendation is an automatic red flag. He has an uphill battle and doesn’t even know it.” Maggie reclaimed the laptop and typed something into the search engine. “Find anything else?”
“Um, no.” Hopefully she wouldn’t notice the screen still displayed the same page as when she’d stepped away.
