Page 20 of Second Chance Baby

Carrington just kept coloring as if she wasn’t paying any attention to Polly at all. Since I had no idea how far she’d go, I hoped our daughter remained disinterested.

“Oh, what grade were you in?”

“Yep, I remember you,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “You were always benevolent to us little people. Never snooty.” She pointed at me and cocked her finger as if it was a firearm. “Weren’t you the damn prom queen too?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Though I got the crown on a technicality.”

“What technicality was that? Being super hot and banging the hottest dude in school to boot?” As if she’d just realized Carrington was at the table too, she flushed and slipped away from the table, hurrying off into the back.

“Guess she didn’t want the answer?”

“Think she’s gotten her own answers a long time ago, if you know what I mean.”

I wasn’t sure, but I was so grateful to be able to share laughter with him I just nodded, chuckling softly as if it made all the sense in the world.

Travis leaned over the table to tap the spider crawling along the placemat’s edge that Carrington was currently coloring hot pink with black stripes. “I went by the Gideons today. Now I know why you want to make our place cool like theirs.”

“Not cool like theirs. Cool likeours,”she said definitively, raising her gaze to pin mine. “Do you want to go shopping with us?”

That question seemed far too weighty for the subject of Halloween decorations.

“Yes,” I said quickly, gripping the edge of the table with my long red nails. “Who are the Gideons? I don’t remember that name. Did we go to school with them too?”

“No. John is a fairly new transplant to the Cove. He’s a big contractor in town. Murphy works with him, actually. My brother?”

“Yeah, I remember Murphy. Moose has a million kids now, doesn’t he?”

Travis laughed. “Not a million but he and Vee have a good amount for sure. All my brothers have kids now. Except Penn, that ass.”

At Carrington’s pointed look, he shrugged. “I’ll put a five in the swear jar, cover all my infractions at once.”

Apparently, she was content with that, so she went back to coloring.

“His wife is fairly new in town too,” he continued. “John’s wife, I mean. Macy owns Brewed Awakening. The coffee shop?”

I nodded again, though I didn’t have the faintest clue what he was referring to.

All at once, my brief happiness faded away.

I didn’t know any of these people that were part of their community. They were all strangers to me, just as I was a stranger to them.

So much for going home again.

FIVE

They were probablythe best cheese fries I’d ever had in my life.

Then again, I’d missed lunch and we’d worked up quite the appetite at the hotel.

Which I’d have to face soon enough when I finally dealt with my slew of waiting text messages, several of which were from Daphne, I was quite sure. I just hoped that we could re-shoot our, uh, unexpectedly steamy session unless the edits Drake had mentioned could work.

Until then, these fries were hitting the freaking spot.

I grabbed the last three on the platter and swiped them through the puddle of melted cheese and bacon bits. “Dang, these were great. Though are they making these orders smaller now?”

Carrington giggled. “No, you just ate the whole thing in like five bites, Dad.”

“Oh, crap. Did I?” Smiling sheepishly, I glanced at Bridget’s also empty plate. “You got some, didn’t you? I wasn’t paying attention.”

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