Page 13 of One Small Secret

I tip my head so he can see that I still think he's a little slow, even though he never was. “We’re going on a walk.”

“But…” He looks as if he's going to ask another question, then stops. For the first time since I found Axley in my bedroom, I am one hundred percent happy he's here. If nothing else, he’s given me this moment. I have stunned Ruben Palmer speechless. He blinks a few times and looks up at my apartment building. Despite my valiant efforts, Axley and I have only made it a few feet. Mom should’ve bought him a sled instead of a stroller. “How’s your head?”

I’d almost forgotten the way he banged me up on my second and final day at work. “It’s fine.”

“I felt terrible.”

I don’t respond, because of course he should feel terrible about it, and maybe if I wait long enough he will give me an actual apology about that and a few other things. Instead, he clears his throat. “I heard you were going back to Vietnam.”

“Oh, you heard that, did you?” He arranged it. But the joke is on him. I’m not going to Vietnam, and he'll have to deal with the fact that I’m in his hometown, unemployed and destitute, thanks to his decision to try to get rid of me.

“You aren’t?”

“No, we aren’t going to Vietnam.”

At the word “we,” he glances at Axley again. He hasn’t even asked me about him. Axley is one tiny burping elephant in the room.

“Christian Rasmussen cornered me after a town hall meeting and told me you had a child. I didn’t believe him.”

I narrow my eyes. “You don’t think I could convince a man to have a child with me?”

A lightning bolt strikes in the thunderstorm behind his eyes. He leans over me and I’m bludgeoned by the one thing I never had a chance to compete with him on. He outgrew me in 6th grade and I never caught up. “I think you could convince a pole to have a child with you. I just thought you were focusing on your career.”

He thinks what? I shake my head. Flattery is kind of his thing. Usually not towards me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of it. “Women don’t have to do one or the other anymore, Ruben,” I bite back, even though he had been perfectly correct about me. Christian wasn’t the only man I'd turned down because of work. I did want to have a family someday, and if the right man came around I would have accepted a date, but thus far, no one had excited me more than whatever project I was working on.

He winced. “I know. I didn’t mean…” He trails off, and I silently thank Moira again. If I'd known all I needed to do to make Ruben lose his cool was to have a baby, I might have considered doing it sooner.

I heave the stroller and it slides forward. Barely. I said I was going for a walk. If all I do is make it to the corner of the block and back, that’s still a walk, isn’t it? I push again, another inch.

Ruben’s leather-gloved hands join mine on the stroller. His right arm crosses over my left, and his hand rests between mine. His other hand takes the outside edge on his side. His body heat blocks the wind, and suddenly my walk has become a lot more comfortable. But also, a lot less comfortable, in non-weather-related ways.

The stroller moves forward as if there’s no snow on the sidewalk. The stroller bar isn’t exactly huge, so Ruben’s legs and side are pressed against me. I try to keep my stride opposite of his to decrease the amount of touching going on, but our legs sliding past each other is too distracting, so after a few steps I match my stride to his. Every inch of my body that touches him is hot, and I despise myself for feeling the slightest thrill. Stupid social media propaganda.

Ruben glances at me. “I checked your file. You aren’t married.”

“Is that legal? To snoop around in employee files?”

“No,” is all he says.

I don’t have company files to research Ruben’s life, but then again, I don’t really need them. “Well, I checked Wikipedia, and you know what? It basically says you’re a prat.”

He chuckles, and we're so close together that I can feel his chest rumbling. If this keeps up, I may not need my coat. “You’ve read my Wikipedia page?”

“Pshhh.” I lift one hand and wave it into the air. “I mean, I have, but I didn’t really need to. I know more about you than any stupid site.”

“And I thought I knew you. But maybe we both have secrets that can’t be found in personnel files or websites.”

My jaw flexes. “What do you want to know, Ruben?”

“Christian only said you came home with a baby. No one else came with you?” He's looking forward, pushing the stroller firmly.

“Christian doesn’t know what he's talking about.”

Ruben furrows his brows again. He's going to get some major frown lines. Then what will all his supermodel girlfriends think? “You didn’t bring him from Vietnam? Or you two didn’t come back alone?”

I’ve had two days to think about this. For as long as I’m able, I’ve decided to keep Moira’s secret. I won't tell anyone that Axley is Moira’s baby, but I also don’t want to be seen as a big, fat liar when the news does finally break. So…I’ll evade. Let people draw what conclusions they will, and at the end of the day, their conclusions will be their own problems, not mine. “No, I got him for Christmas.”

Ruben’s steps falter and he stops pushing. Immediately the stroller comes to a stop. I’d somehow been letting him do all the work. He glances down at Axley who rewards him by blowing a bubble with his lips. After a moment Ruben looks up at me. “Which Christmas?”

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