Lily set two of the fragrant brownies on paper napkins as they took turns with the kitchen towel. “Just one each so you don’t spoil your appetites for dinner.”
Lily and Jordan had been staying here with Pauline, but on the first of the month they’d be moving into a small furnished house that Lily had sublet. Even though this grand old Victorian had more than enough room for all of them plus Pauline’s boarder, Lily felt as though she and Jordan were imposing on the engaged couple’s privacy. Besides, Lily wanted to be settled into a place of their own before school began in the fall and she opened her accounting office.
“Mom, guess where we went?” Jordan asked around a mouthful of brownie.
She glanced from him to Wade, who suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I thought you were going to shoot baskets at the park.”
“We did,” Wade replied, concentrating on his snack.
“I saw two houses being built right near the beach,” Jordan continued. “Maybe we can buy one of them when it’s done instead of renting that other little house.”
“Oh?” Realization dawned on Lily, as clear and cold as a winter sunrise. She stared hard at Wade.
“I doubt we’ll be able to afford a house on the water,” she muttered, a ball of anger and disbelief forming in her chest.
She wanted to yell at Wade, to demand to know what the hell gave him the right to make decisions for her son. To reach over and shake him by his broad shoulders until his shiny white teeth snapped together.
“How did you happen to go there?” she asked, keeping her voice calm with an effort that singed her throat.
Wade stared at the knife in her hand, the one she’d used to cut the brownies. “Jordan was curious,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“Ah.” Carefully Lily laid down the knife. “Jordan, since you’re through eating, why don’t you go up and change before dinner?” she suggested. “Maybe you should take a shower, too.”
“Are you going to yell at Wade?” he asked.
“No,” she replied truthfully, “I’m not going to yell at him.” Maybe rip out his tongue with her bare hands or beat him silly with the wooden spoon she had used earlier.
Jordan hesitated. “Steve showed me how he and his crew were framing each room,” he said defiantly, “and he told me I could come back again to see how it’s going.” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “As long as it’s okay with you.”
Lily felt like a pot that might boil over at any second. “You and I will talk later,” she told him firmly. “For now, please go ahead and do what I asked.”
He ducked his head and left the room. “I liked him,” he grumbled as he went through the dining room on his way to the foyer.
“What were you thinking?” Lily demanded of Wade through clenched teeth as soon as she heard her son’s tread on the stairs. “You had no right to take him out there without discussing it with me first!”
Wade wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Good brownie,” he murmured. “The kid’s not deaf,” he went on when she didn’t respond. “He’s heard all the speculation about Steve, so he was curious, that’s all.”
“And Jordan told you that?” she demanded, hurt that her own son would choose to confide in Wade instead of her.
A muscle jumped in Wade’s cheek. “Well, not exactly, but I knew it had to bother him.”
Wade’s expression was defensive as he leaned his hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “It was just a casual meeting, not a parent-child reunion,” he added. “Nobody’s making any big deal out of it except you.”
When Lily continued to glare, he straightened again and threw his hands into the air in a gesture of defeat. “Look, if I overstepped, I’m sorry, okay?”
As an apology, it wasn’t much, but she knew he genuinely cared about Jordan. Biting her lip, she stared out the kitchen window at the hollyhocks blooming along the fence in her sister’s carefully tended backyard.
“I know you thought you were doing the right thing,” she said softly, “and I appreciate that, but you don’t understand the situation. It’s complicated.”
Wade rubbed a hand over his short black hair, his frustration obvious. The last thing she wanted was to alienate him, but neither could she allow her son to be hurt.
“No more visits to Steve without my permission,” she added firmly. “Agreed?”
Wade started to argue, but then he must have thought better of it. “Okay,” he replied with a solemn expression. “Still friends?”
Lily felt a wave of relief wash over her. “Of course.”
After Wade went upstairs, she threw together a green salad to go with the casserole. When he came back downstairs and left to pick Pauline up from work, she went in search of Jordan.
Pauline’s elderly boarder, Dolly Langley, would be back from her cruise this evening, so Lily intended to take advantage of the temporary privacy.
She found Jordan curled up on the living-room couch with a library book, his hair still wet from his shower. He looked up when she sat down across from him.
“So you had a good day?” she asked hesitantly, wondering just how much to tell him.
He nodded, closing the library book, and looked at her with a wary expression. “Yeah.”
“Want to tell me about it?” She felt as though she were walking through a mine field.
“I met Steve,” he said, with an edge of defiance in his tone. “He showed me both the houses that he’s building.”
Steve must have been stunned when Wade presented Jordan to him. The conversation she owed him was one that she dreaded with a deep ache of regret. If she could only go back, but then she wouldn’t have Jordan.
“Did Steve know about me?” he asked in a small voice. “I mean, before we came.”
“No,” she said truthfully. “I swear to you that he had no idea. Not even an inkling.”
The tension drained out of his thin shoulders, making her realize he’d probably come to the conclusion that his father had ignored his existence for the past dozen years.
“Can I go see him again if he asks?” His expression was a mixture of longing and curiosity that nearly broke Lily’s heart. At a total loss for words, she relied on the stock reply of parents everywhere for questions that had no answer.
“We’ll see,” she said, knowing she couldn’t stall her son forever—and figuring it was one request that Steve would most likely never make. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Three
When Steve’s doorbell rang on Saturday afternoon, the last person he expected to see standing on his front porch was Lily’s son.
“Jordan!” Steve opened the door wider as his two dogs stood eagerly behind him. “What are you doing here?” Steve’s house was a couple of miles outside of town on a narrow country road with very little traffic.
Jordan shifted from one foot to the other, obviously nervous. “I used my birthday money for a ride.” He ducked his head, shoulders hunched.
Behind him Steve saw the local taxi leaving his driveway. At least the kid hadn’t hitched his way out here.
“I probably shouldn’t have come,” Jordan mumbled, cheeks flushed, “but I need to talk to you about something.”
Steve had a pretty good idea what he meant. “Since