Page 15 of Sweet Thing

She sure did. But right now, I wasn’t thinking of Vicki. My mind rewound to the disappointment in Adeline’s gaze when I told her I’d be bailing on this baby biz ASAP.

I refocused on the primary problem. “There should be a number for the mother in that bag.”

Theo laid all the bag’s contents on the table with the rest. Diapers, boxes that looked like formula, a couple of those one-piece jumpsuits with built-in socks, and a birth certificate. I noted my name was listed nowhere, and that the date of birth roughly corresponded to nine months after I’d met Vicki the first time.

I flipped the birth certificate over while Theo searched the side pockets of the bag.

“No number.” He shrugged. “Should be easy enough to find, though. No one can ever truly disappear.”

Too right. The sooner I found her the sooner I could fix this mess.

For the first time since the bar, I looked down into the supposedly Nyquist eyes. This kid had been crying havoc as Vicki sought me out in the bar but since finding me, she hadn’t made much of a fuss. Was it possible she had my stoicism baked into her genes or did she recognize me in some way that only evolutionary biology could explain?

She looked up at me, those big blues snagging all my attention and pulling hard at my ice-compacted heart.Don’t even think of relying on me, kid. Go work your blue-eyed mojo on some other sucker.

“Aw, look at that! She likes you.” Exactly what Vicki had said before she unloaded her bombshell news. I read that, and Elle’s observation now, as reassurance for my fragile male ego.

Thank God for the Kershaws.

But I wondered about one Kershaw in particular, and if she still thought I was an asshole.

Adeline

Lars Nyquist is a dick.

Sure, the man had just been blindsided with staggering news but did his first instinct have to be how to get rid of the problem? That was an actual baby in that kitchen, and the man wanted nothing to do with her.

It was late, close to midnight, but I knew the one person I could talk to was probably still up. Rather than walk through the kitchen, I headed out the front door and circled around back to the coach house. The light was on, a beacon to weary old me, and the door opened as soon as I toed the threshold.

“So Lars Nyquist is a daddy!”

My great grandmother—Aurora to everyone—stood at the coach house entrance, hip cocked, a martini glass in hand. (Filled with water as she never imbibed alcohol after 10 p.m. She just liked the silhouette of the glass.)

“News travels fast.”

“Your brother texted, though I would’ve thought I’d hear it first from my favorite great-granddaughter.”

“Your favorite? Poor Tilly.”

Aurora waved that off. “She’s too young to understand such nuances. Come in and tell me everything!”

Armed with a cup of cinnamon-apple tea, I sat and filled her in. This kitchen was my favorite room in the Kershaw Compound. Warm cherry wood cabinets formed a semi-circle, like an amphitheater where the French country style table was the stage.

When I finished, she tilted her head and asked, “And why are you here?”

“Sharing the gossip. Why else?”

Aurora hoisted a well-shaped eyebrow and pushed her stylish gray bob behind one ear. She might be eighty-three, but she looked not a day past seventy.

“No, you’re not. You came to express your disapproval—or maybe, disappointment? Though why you’d care whether Lars Nyquist accepts his fate with grace and maturity, I have no idea.”

My shrug was stiff with effort. “I just don’t like seeing men get away with things or not stepping up to accept responsibility. His first instinct is to think of how to bail. That kid needs him.”

“Of course she does. And knowing what I do of Lars, he needs her.”

I startled. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, he’s become quite the fixture at our dinner table over the last year. Almost one of the family at this point, and I get the impression he needs someone to love. Other than us Kershaws. Sure there’s plenty of love to go around here, but a man like Lars needs something dramatic to make him see it. Give him focus other than hockey, especially after how his father left God’s green earth.”