Page 68 of One Big Little Secret

Eh, maybe he reallyisworking. He’s that much of a control freak.

Sometime between our one-night stand and whatever this is now, the man lost any sense of work-life balance.

“Mommy!” Arlo sits between my legs and taps my knee. “Mommy, let’s go!”

I squeeze my feet onto the sled and push off.

We rock gently for a moment before the sled dips and goes skidding down the hill.

Arlo screams happily, clutching at my leg for grip.

I’m caught off guard by how fast it is.

A second later, I’m squealing and losing my hat.

It flies off behind me before I can clamp it down on my head. But we’re going too fast and there’s nothing we can do now but hold on.

Soon, we veer off course and the ground levels out, slowing us down slightly before we plow into the piled snow at the bottom, laughing like crazy.

“Mommy, your hair’s a mess!” Arlo pushes my mess of hair off my face and plants a huge kiss on my cheek.

“You know what?” I pull off his hat and ruffle his hair aggressively. “Now we match!”

He howls, grabbing for his hat and pulling it down over his ears.

These are the little moments every mother lives for, I think, leaning back on the sled and looking at the iron-grey clouds above, still sending small flakes spiraling down.

Sitting next to Arlo, I point up. “Check out that cloud. Looks like a polar bear, I think.”

“Mom, that’s a rabbit.” He gives me a look of disdain only a five-year-old cloud expert can manage.

“Really? Then where are the ears?”

“Right there, Mommy. Look!” He jabs his mitten at the sky.

“Well, maybe if you squint really, really hard…”

He huffs impatiently.

My smile fades.

Now, every time I look at him, I just see Patton’s dark-brown hair—coppery in the sunlight—and the same sharp blue eyes all the Rory brothers inherited.

Does Grumpybutt himself ever notice the resemblance?

I wonder.

If he has, I’m sure he’s in denial.

Then again, it’s almost worse if the idea never enters his head. What if he thinks I’m just some skank who sleeps around, and he was one more fling in a long line of blue-eyed boys that night on the boat?

You could always tell him,that nagging little voice in my head reminds me.

Yeah, I could.

That might fix the violent guilt that’s eating me to the bone.

But I could also throw myself off a bridge into the freezing Missouri River, and it would probably be easier than dealing with Patton becoming my officialbaby daddy.

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