Page 75 of Baby I'm Yours

My chest aches at the sight.

I would have been a terrible father. The fact that Elaina made me doubt that for even a day or two is proof that it’s best we went our separate ways.

If only we’d broken up before this longing seeped beneath my skin, making it itch every time I see a couple with a new baby. Making me wish things had ended differently, and I’d been given the chance to prove myself wrong…

I’m so busy watching the family—and reminding myself of all the reasons I would have let a child down, sooner or later—thatI don’t realize Mom’s been gone too long until the waiter finally swings by, offering the dessert menu.

“Yes, we’ll see the menu, and two espressos, please,” I say, glancing at my watch as he leaves.

It’s been at least twenty minutes, maybe more.

I’m about to go check on Mom, worried she might have fallen—she’s steadier on her feet but still has bouts of vertigo from time to time—when she reappears, crossing the dining room with her lips pressed together in a thin, irritated line.

I know that expression from childhood, and I know I’m in trouble even before she arrives back at our table.

She rests a hand on the back of her chair as she demands, “Did you know about this? About Elaina?”

I frown. Hard. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I just spoke with her friend, Maya,” she says, sending my brows zipping up my forehead. What the hell has she been up to? “She said that you haven’t been communicating with anyone from Maine, that you’ve even been avoiding your friends in the city, so you probably have no idea what’s happening. But I wanted to make sure.” Her lips tighten again. “I would be so disappointed if youhadknown and left her to handle this alone.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask again, my heart beating faster. “What’s happened? Is Elaina okay?”

“No, she’s not,” she says, throwing fuel on the fear fire building inside of me, setting it to blazing. “But she will be. We’re going to make sure of it.” As the waiter approaches with our espressos, she shifts her attention his way. “We’re going to need those to go, please, and the check as quickly as possible. We have a family emergency.”

The second he’s gone, I demand, “What emergency? Is Elaina hurt? Was it a car accident or?—”

“I’ll tell you more in the car,” Mom says, cutting me off as she shrugs into her coat and reaches for her purse. “We need to getback to the hotel and pack up. Quickly. I told Maya we’d be in Sea Breeze by seven. Seven thirty at the latest. It’s only a ninety-minute drive from here. Luckily, we ate early, so we won’t have to worry about stopping on the way.”

I stand, biting back the questions surging up my throat, knowing better than to push her when she has her mind made up. She’ll tell me in the car, just like she said.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to do my best not to lose my fucking mind with worry.

“Maya has a vacation rental available,” Mom continues as we leave the restaurant, heading across the darkening parking lot toward my car. “She said we could stay there. She seems like a delightful young woman. Very sweet and such a devoted friend.” She shoots me another narrow look as I open the passenger’s door for her. “Not the kind who would leave someone she loved to navigate a difficult time alone, even if she does have a three-month-old baby of her own to take care of.”

For a moment, I consider telling her that Maya is married to a very wealthy man, and can absolutely afford a night nanny, a day nanny, and a personal assistant to hold the child while she makes phone calls, if she wanted one, but I don’t.

It wouldn’t make a difference, and…that’s not really the point.

The point is that Maya has clearly stepped up for Elaina in a time of need, while I have been absent, so busy licking my own wounds that I never stopped to think that maybe Elaina wasn’t living her best life up in Maine. In my head, I imagined her back to her old self, drawing the gaze of every male in the room at line dancing and inviting handsome tourists up to her apartment. I was sure she’d already rebounded from our brief romance and was probably well on her way to finding happily ever after with one of the mouth-breathing fishermen who couldn’t stop drooling over her at the lobster boil.

But clearly, I was wrong.

Elaina isn’t okay. She’s in some kind of trouble. Even if my mother wasn’t deliberately holding information until we’re on the road to Maine, that would have been enough to make me pack with record speed.

I don’t care how badly things ended between us, the thought of Elaina hurt or suffering makes me crazy. I don’t want that for her. I want her to have the happiness she deserves; the kind I’d hoped to give her before everything went sideways.

Before you pushed her away because you’re a control freak who couldn’t handle how vulnerable he felt, you mean? You were so spooked by how deeply she was able to hurt you that you cut off your nose to spite your face.

But that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is that you cut offhernose, too.

And she didn’t deserve that. She deserved the chance to make things right. A braver man would have given her that chance. He would have done it that first morning, let alone by now.

What the hell is wrong with you? How long are you going to let a few bad decisions on both your parts ruin your chance at happiness?

Are you really that much of a coward?

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