Page 42 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

I didn’t know the boy, but I already felt like he was a part of me, though I didn’t know why. All I knew was that I would find him.

We rushed toward my car as Allie got on the phone with the police. But just as we arrived at the parking lot, we both stopped in our steps as we saw a tiny figure rushing toward us from the sidewalk.

It was a little boy covered in snow.

“Caleb!” Allie screamed, and the boy instantly began running to her. She ran to him, too, and they met somewhere halfway. When he slammed into her, he wrapped his hands around her waist, burying his face in her stomach.

Allie dropped to her knees, shaking and clutching the little boy as her breaths came out in rough pants. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

She was shaking hard, and I was about to walk toward them, but then the little boy looked up at me.

I froze.

I briefly remembered Allie’s friend—her ex, Ken. He was a blonde-haired fellow, tall but lean, with a toothy smile. We didn’t interact much in town, and it would be odd for me to remember exactly what he looked like, but I’d always been good with faces.

Ken looked nothing like Caleb.

In fact, the little boy had brown hair like his mother, but it was his hooked nose and dark eyes that told me something.

He looked like a younger version of my father.

My heart started beating hard in my chest, going at double time.

God, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t fucking be.

Allie was picking her son up in her arms while my mind went chaotic with the recent groundbreaking epiphany.

The thought that I was forming such a conclusion over arbitrary details seemed ridiculous. Lots of people had brown hair and noses like that. I was likely making a mountain out of a molehill. There was no way. There was no way I had a son I didn’t know about. Allie would tell me.

She wouldn’t keep my son away from me.

Allie glanced at me as I stood there, and there was a flash of fear on her face as her gaze instantly skittered to her son and then back to me.

That was what convinced me that I was right.

Fuck.

Fuck.

What the actual fuck?

Allie tore her gaze away from me, turning her attention back to the little boy at her feet.

“Come on,” she was saying. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“I’ll drive you home,” I said. Allie glanced at me, and it looked like she wanted to say no, but she ultimately nodded.

She must have known that the conversation was coming whether she wanted it or not.

“Let me go talk to Ronnie,” she said, hoisting the child onto her hip. “See if I can pay him to cover the rest of my shift for me.”

I nodded tightly and she headed back to the store. I followed behind her, but stopped at the entrance, watching her interact with the teenage boy. He didn’t seem pleased at the request, not until Allie reached into her pocket and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. The boy took it and nodded with a significantly brighter expression.

I frowned at the exchange. Something about it didn’t sit well with me and I wasn’t sure why.

You know why. You don’t like watching her spend her money. You want to be the one to take care of all her bills.

I brushed the thought aside as she walked back to me, having retrieved her purse from under the cash register. She clutched the strap of her purse with one hand and supported our son against her body with the other.

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