Uncertain where to begin, he said nothing. But she wadded up her napkin and tossed it on her plate.
“Are you finished picking at that mountain of food?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Then let’s take a walk.” He signaled the waitress and took cash from his wallet to pay the bill. The chair legs scraped on the wooden floor when Lark stood. With her face pinched in emotional pain, she struggled to pull on her jacket. He grabbed it and held it so she could shove her arm through the sleeve. Last night when he pictured this reunion of sorts, he’d imagined it would be all about strategies and plans. Dispassionate and businesslike. What a fool he could be sometimes. He might have known resentments, old and new, would be dredged up.
Once outside, they stood on the sidewalk in front of the café.
“I didn’t want to start an argument, Miles.”
He shook his head. “Me, neither, but it seems we need to clear the air. Let’s do it where we’re certain no one will overhear us.”
The coffee had left him jittery, or maybe he’d have been anxious, anyway. Especially now, knowing he’d put Lark even more on edge.
“Do you have time for a drive?” she asked. “We still haven’t made any decisions. That’s what this morning was supposed to be about.”
He nodded. “I didn’t expect to be so stirred up inside. Where do you want to go?”
“Follow me. I’m right next to the south end of the waterfront park in Two Moon Bay. I’ll pull into the lot in the park. We can walk on the beach and jetty and talk this through. Then we can warm up inside my cottage.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
* * *
TWENTY MINUTES AFTER leaving Hugo’s, Lark pulled into the lot adjacent to the beach and waited for Miles to park next to her. She watched him get out of his car and walk toward her while pulling a knit hat over his ears. Staring at the whitecaps forming on the water, he looked grim, his forehead wrinkled in thought, or perhaps consternation.
Unfortunately, Lark didn’t know him well enough to draw conclusions. Back in college he’d been an easygoing guy, out for a fun time. Now he was divorced and a responsible dad.
Regardless of what he was feeling at the moment, she’d bet money their baby had barely produced a ripple in the pond of his life. Not like the boulder that had crashed into hers.
“Let’s walk down to the end of the jetty.” She pointed to the left, where the concrete pier looked clear of ice.
“Lead the way.”
They headed down the beach, one of two jewels along Two Moon Bay’s waterfront. The other stretch was a stony beach and marina closer to downtown. Both offered grassy areas with picnic tables under the trees to provide shade in the summer. The concrete jetty, about a block long, appeared abandoned, even lonely on the cold, overcast day. The rising wind stirred up the water, sending spray flying over the far end of the jetty. In a couple of weeks the shallow water in this part of the bay would likely freeze over.
“No one else is crazy enough to be out here today,” she said, glancing at his glum face. She stopped abruptly. “Look, I didn’t mean to rile you.”
“I know.” He stared out at the lake. “It’s completely irrational, but yesterday I immediately thought of you as a partner when I suspected Perrie Lynn was our daughter. You weren’t the first person I thought to call. You were the only person.”
She closed the gap between them by lightly touching his arm. “Let me finish my whole thought. Then you can judge.” She repeated her reasoning for listing herself on the registry with the state of Minnesota. She’d assumed their daughter would look for her first. That pattern was well documented by decades of research. “But I would never have gone beyond the first contact—if I were blessed enough to have a contact at all—without making it clear to her that I could, and would, get in touch with her father.”
His features relaxed and a faint smile appeared. “Thanks for that.”
“Here’s the other reason for acting alone. I didn’t know how you turned out, or what kind of life you have. Or whom you’d confided in.” She lifted her open hands high in the air to emphasize her point. “After I saw you at the mall I assumed you were married. I could have tried to reach you, but I imagined that would have disrupted your life—in a big way.”
“Funny you should say that,” he said, nodding. “My ex-wife is the only person who knows about what happened. No one else.”
“Ha! That’s one more person than I told.”
“What? You must have told your ex-husband.”
She lowered her gaze and studied her boots. “Not on your life.”
His voice turned from puzzled to concerned. “I don’t understand.”
She waved him off. “Oh, it was very calculating on my part. I decided that if I’d, you know, confessed, then he’d have had a big fat issue as an arrow in his quiver. Sooner or later, he would have pulled it out and sent it flying toward me to wound me in some way.”
“Wound you?”
His shock surprised her, although it shouldn’t have. She’d already sized up Miles as a far more decent man than Lyle. The irony of that thought threatened to sink her into a bout of harsh self-doubt about her choices. “Lyle would have made me pay. One way or another.”
“Wow.”
She smiled wryly. “My ex is not a particularly nice guy.”
“Okay, I admit it. I’m stunned that you were afraid to talk with the man you married about such a significant part of your life.”
It was time to change the subject. “Tell me how your ex-wife reacted when you told her.”
“She was a little shocked.” Once again he stared off into the distance. “But I told her before we decided to get married. And I never believed she’d use it as a weapon against me—and she never did.” He turned to Lark. “We divorced for other reasons, and they had nothing to do with the past. It never came up.”
Lark met his eyes directly. “My ex didn’t fight fair. That’s what I’m saying. He looked for advantages, a little edge here and a point to score there. He still enjoys the sense of power any weakness on my part provides.”
Miles’s eyes had softened with sadness. “It can’t have been easy.”
“I didn’t mean to draw you into what’s old news.” She hesitated. “Or, more or less old news. Lyle and I still have our struggles.”
“I understand that.”
“Did your wife wonder why we didn’t keep the baby?”
Miles stared at the ground. “At first. But I told her we weren’t...”
She watched his face change as he seemed to struggle for words. “Serious about each other. Is that the word you’re looking for?”
“It will do. But I explained that we weren’t ready. Either of us.” He sighed. “Probably mostly me.”
She nodded, but didn’t like seeming to agree with him. Or maybe she didn’t want to let him off the hook, or be let off the hook herself. They could have done better, couldn’t they? Was adoption really their only choice? Why had it felt that way, so much so that she hadn’t seriously entertained the notion of keeping the child and raising her alone? At least she hadn’t considered that choice for long and never to the point of forming a plan. Why? Back then she’d blamed the emotional chaos of her parents’ split. She shook off that train of thought. Her parents and their troubles were issues to address another day.
“I know you’re leaving town,