Page 6 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

When I got home, my mother was seated in her wheelchair, staring morosely outside the window.

She did that pretty much every evening ever since my father left town and the mob descended on us to demand payment for his debts.

The memory still haunts me sometimes.

They had attacked us and demanded we pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars even though they knew we couldn’t afford it.

I’d been working in construction since I was a teenager. I was a pretty large kid, and at fifteen, I was already six-foot-three and one-ninety pounds of pure muscle.

I started working under the table so my mother wouldn’t have to work three jobs anymore, just so we could get by. I didn’t know what my father did, but I never saw him work, only travel a lot. I didn’t give a shit when he was gone. It wasn’t like he was much of a help when he was around anyway.

I worked and continued school because I wanted to show people I wasn’t going to be a deadbeat like him. I was determined to go to college, so I got good grades and gained a scholarship to Montana State for architecture.

And then it all blew up in my face the day it came out that my father scammed a bunch of people right before he skipped town.

We never saw him again.

The mob showed up at our house demanding compensation and took everything that wasn’t nailed down. Then, they threatened to send my mother to jail if we didn’t pay the rest. It may not have been legal, but this was a small town, so they could do whatever they wanted. They knew we didn’t have the power to fight them anyway.

The incident nearly broke my mother, who was already fragile after my dad left. I gave up my scholarship because I needed to work to continue to provide for her.

I went back to construction.

So Allie was partially correct. Saying that I couldn’t see myself doing anything apart from construction was true, but whether or not I loved it was another thing.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” my mother murmured. “They haven’t forgotten.”

And she was likely right, but I couldn’t be too upset about it right now.

THREE

ALLIE

“This isn’t a good idea,” Athena said as she watched me pull on the third dress I’d tried on that evening. It was a simple A-line black dress with just a hint of cleavage. Cute but also made me look like I was sixteen.

I sighed.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes, Athena,” I responded, letting her hear how tired I was of the conversation.

This was why I didn’t even want to tell her about the date in the first place. But I needed to since she was the only one available to watch Caleb while I was gone. Caleb also preferred her company to anybody else who wasn’t me. Maybe it was the resemblance between the two of us that put him at ease.

But anyway, asking Athena for the favor ultimately meant divulging what I planned to do this evening because she would always ask a million questions until I told her. She was like a hound dog when she was looking for information—she wouldn’t stop until she got it.

And unfortunately, I’d never been that good at lying.

I’d tried to mention it as casually as possible, hoping it would somehow slip past her. When I’d dropped by with Caleb, I’d said, “Hey, could you help me watch Caleb for a few hours? I need to catch up with an old friend.” I’d hoped she would just say, “Sure,” and then move on to the next thing. But instead, her head swung around, and she frowned. “Which friend?”

I couldn’t lie to her then. She always knew when I was lying, so I reluctantly told her that I was meeting with Marcus.

Instant disapproval. Her eyes widened, and her lips tightened. Then, she shook her head and said, “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

Yeah, I hoped I did too.

It wasn’t like I didn’t acknowledge her concerns about this situation. There were several reasons why I shouldn’t be dating right now. Between Caleb and the resort, I had enough on my plate without adding anything more.

But Caleb was also partially the reason why I agreed to go on the date in the first place.

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