“She surprised him.”
“That’s so nice! Or…not? Your face is doing something weird, and I can’t be sure.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Janey quirked a brow and nodded along. “Hey, while you’re here, I wanted to talk to you about the baby shower we’re planning for Dex. I think it would be a nice touch to have his surrogate join us.”
“Freya?”
“Yeah, would you mind asking her? If it’s not okay for her totravel, no worries. Safety first. But if she can come…ohhhhh, we’ll give her the royal treatment!”
“Why?”
Janey put her hands on her hips, exposing her tattooed arms under the generous folds of her witch’s costume. “What do you mean, why? Because she’s carrying Dexter’s little miracle, and the whole town wants to welcome that baby. Not that everyone is invited, mind you. Fire hazards and all that. And why are you looking at me like this is the first you’re hearing about it?”
“Two weeks from today at Cooper and Silas’s house. I know.”
She beamed. “Good. So you’ll ask Freya?”
“Ja. No problem.”
“Thanks.” Janey hooked her thumb toward the kitchen. “Everything okay there? He didn’t exactly seem excited to see her.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe I should make sure he’s all right.”
“No, let them be,” I advised. “She’s come a long way.”
Janey gave a dubious shrug but didn’t argue. She probably thought I had some sage insight, and that wasn’t the case. The truth was…family confused me. I lived thousands of miles from my own for a reason. It had nothing to do with a lack of love or piety and everything to do with sanity.
Dex would establish boundaries with his child’s best interest at heart. It was what a good parent did. I wondered where my boundary would be.
I wasn’t family, I was a new friend—a temporary lover, an uncle of sorts on a mother’s side, though she had no rights. This time next year, the child might not recognize me at first glance. They might cry at the sight of the scary man with a bushy beard. I wouldn’t blame them.
Truthfully, I was more worried about how it would feel to not have a place in Dexter’s life. We both knew that space had to be cleared and priorities set. It was necessary, inevitable. And maybethat was why I couldn’t fathom that his mother would fuck up a chance for a front-row seat in her son’s life.
“I wish I could have ten children, Viggo. Won’t that be horrible and delightful? I don’t want a husband, though. Just kids. And cats. One per child. You’ll have to buy a bigger house, because we’re all going to come live with you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
Anni followed me as I crossed Main Street and headed for home. Leaves crunched underfoot and the woodpeckers responsible for hollowing out trees in the area pecked away noisily. My breath came in plumes, and my heart beat too fast.
Twenty-one years on Earth hadn’t been enough to harden Anni’s heart or limit her imagination. Forever hadn’t been a concept she’d attributed to love. She would have been overwhelmed by motherhood. On maudlin days, I found myself thinking how different life would have been if she was here…and if her baby had survived.
The “what-ifs” still haunted me. What could have been, should have been, and would never be. I’d become a sentry guarding old memories, clutching them like prayer cards—so focused on my grief and my solitude that I’d successfully warded off anything that wasn’t basic sex.
And now look what I’d done.
I was supposed to keep an eye on the father of Freya’s baby, as if I could protect them from the unknown. It was misguided and probably strange, but grief isn’t always reasonable. Nine months later, I was in over my head.
The cycle had started again. Different players, different roles, but this time the alternate ending would be a happier one for the people I cared about.
That’s good enough, I told myself. Good enough.
CHAPTER 29
DEXTER
My mother’s heels clicked on the hardwood floor as she sauntered to the bank of windows to peer out at the deck and the view of Lake Norman. I’d talked Viggo into carving a couple of jack-o’-lanterns with me to leave at the front door for trick-or-treaters last night. Mine was a traditional smiley faced one and his had a creepy mouth and bugged-out eyes. We’d left them on the picnic table to dry and taken the seeds inside to roast with salt and olive oil. Viggo had not been impressed.
