“Okay?” she asked quietly enough that he hoped she hadn’t.
“Okay,” Jonah said.
Marcel did not sayokay.Marcel walked, without further comment, out the back kitchen door into the yard, where Roux and Gumbo immediately rose from a wet patch of sun and followed at the heels of his boots.
A few minutes later, Jonah and Pepper stood in the yard, surveying the downed branches and two toppled birdfeeders. Somewhere far off, Marcel’s voice could be heard talking to his two dogs.
Jonah loaded the baby paraphernalia into the trunk of his “pitiful” Honda as Pepper watched, holding Atlas.
“What did he say to you?” she finally asked.
“Not much.”
She gave him a “get real” look.
“He said our relationship isn’t a conflict of interest and you can date anyone you want,” Jonah said as he closed the trunk.
“Our…we don’t have a….” Color drained from her cheeks. “Jonah, this was great and I loved having you here and…and…can I take him to Sunset Shores next Saturday for the dance class? Because they are expecting me and if I don’t go, I’ll lose that gig, too. And it doesn’t pay.”
He smiled, thinking of how she taught sweet old people how to waltz on Saturday evenings. Just another thing he…no, no, not loved about her. But really, really liked.
“You’re not losing this gig…or guy,” he said. “You’ll have him on Saturday. As far as your dad? He’ll come around. I don’t think he’s as opposed as you do.”
“But what about me?”
He looked at her. “You? You’ll come around, too?” He meant it as a joke, but she didn’t smile. Not even close.
Instead, she just swallowed hard and looked scared.
“We’re going to talk about it, you know,” he said, lowering his voice and coming an inch closer to her. “Not today. Maybe not this week. But Pepper, you and I are going to talk about whatever this thing is. And I’m going to make you see that it doesn’t matter. I am not the man before me. And I want a real chance to prove that to you, on my own merits, on the schedule you set. But you have to give me the chance.”
Her eyes filled. “Not yet,” she said.
“I get that.”
She shook her head as if to say he wouldn’t get it, but he ignored the subtext. Instead, he tipped her face up, leaned in, and kissed her, quick and light.
Then she passed Atlas to him, and lifted his small hand and waved it at herself. “Bye-bye, Miss Pepper!” She smiled up at Jonah. “I’m determined to teach him bye-byes.”
His heart darn near collapsed at the admission—she was darling, she was perfect, and whatever she was hiding, it wouldn’t end her job or their relationship. Didn’t she know that?
“Driftwood will open later this week,” he said. “So…”
“I’ll be at the Summer House, right on time.”
“Awesome.”
He buckled Atlas into the car seat, shut the door, and pulled the driver’s door open, pausing, one hand on the frame, to look at her one more time.
“Pepper…”
“Bye!” She got up on her toes with dancer’s grace, did a playful pirouette, and leaped to the front door, leaving him with an image that he would replay a thousand times.
On his way home with six million other evacuees, the sun came in through the windshield and Atlas snoozed. The road was wet and shining in patches, packed with trucks and chainsaws and people doing the work of putting the world back together again.
She is carrying something. It is a hard thing.
Afraid you will be the kindest man she has ever met and still not be able to stay.
