Page 7 of Hold on Tight

He crossed the room, then paused and turned back. “Nice to see you, Mira.”

“Wait. Wait.” Her heart pounded like crazy.

He hesitated.

Half a room separated them. She crossed the space and stood next to him. “Sam. He’s seven.” Her voice had slid to a whisper.

“Good age,” Jake said.

Was he being deliberately dense? Subtlety wasn’t going to do it; she’d have to blurt it out. After all these years, it was no easier to say the words. Her heart beat hard, her stomach clenched tight, her hands and feet were numb. When she opened her mouth, she didn’t say what she’d meant to say.

“I should have called or written right away, once I knew, but they said—everyone said—that I should wait. Till you were home on leave.”

Something moved behind his eyes, just enough of a shift that she was sure he heard the urgency in her voice.

They—mainly her friend Polly, who had a brother in the army—had said it would be dangerous to give the news of her pregnancy when he was deployed. That he’d lose his focus and get himself killed.

“And you’d said you’d be home for leave in six months, so I waited, and then I called. Did you get my texts and messages?”

He shook his head. Slowly, his eyes wary.

“I didn’t know how to find you, other than the cell number. I tried to find your parents, but—”

“Their number was unlisted.”

“I kept thinking you’d get in touch. That you’d see the texts and messages, and then you didn’t, and then—I wanted to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Sam’s yours.”

If she’d expected a reaction, if she’d expected drama, she would have been thoroughly disappointed. His jaw might have tightened a notch, but otherwise, she couldn’t see any evidence that he was moved by her revelation. Her life might have been remade from scratch, but she could have told him there was a donut shop opening in town, for all the emotion he’d showed.

Just when she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to say anything at all, he said, “We didn’t have sex.”

Oh, fuckyou,dude.

In all her fantasies about what it would be like to tell Jake that he had a son, he had never denied responsibility. It had never crossed her mind that he would deny responsibility. She guessed that made her ridiculously naive.

“Wedidhave sex.” The word “sex” sounded particularly loud in the empty waiting room. Mira looked over at the receptionist, but she was making calls with a headset on. “Just because it wasbadsex doesn’t mean it wasn’t sex.”

That got more reaction from him than the news that Sam was his son. She saw a muscle jump in his jaw.Just telling it like it is, baby denier.

“I wore a condom.”

“You put it on too late. I was shocked, too, believe me. My OB said the odds are low, but it definitely happens. Look. I’m telling you Sam’s yours because I thought you might want to know. I thought you might want to know that there was a person walking around on this earth with half your DNA, doing stuff he probably inherited from you. For all I know he got all the asthma and allergies from your side of the family, because he sure as hell didn’t get them from mine. But whatever. We don’t need anything from you. We’ve done perfectly fine without you up to this point. I didn’t tell you so you could argue with me about whether he’s really yours.”

No reaction, other than a few blinks and a swallow. As if they weren’t fighting about achild. What waswrongwith him?

“If you guys are doing so fine, what was that phone call a few minutes ago all about?”

She shut her eyes.Seriously?He was going to refuse to admit Sam was his son but then get all up in her business about her life? She took a deep breath. He was damaged. Something had happened to him. He needed her—her sympathy. Her patience. “I have some childcare issues.”

“Some,” he repeated. “Your babysitter bailed on you.”

“What are you doing, volunteering?”

She wasn’t sure where the snark had come from.

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