“Give it up.” Simon laughed. “You were out classed.”
“In your dreams.” Mick handed Simon a bottle of water and after taking a long drink, he asked, “So, you want to tell me why you were swinging with such a vengeance today?”
Simon sat down on the closest bench and watched a handful of kids running to the cages. They were about nine, he guessed, with messy hair, ripped jeans and eager smiles. Something stirred inside him. One day, Nathan would be their age. He had a son. He was a father. In a few years, he’d be bringing his boy to these cages.
Shaking his head, he muttered, “You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.” Mick toasted him with his own water and urged him to talk.
So Simon did. While late-afternoon sunshine slipped through the clouds and a cold sea wind whistled past, Simon talked. He told Mick about the visit from Tula. About Nathan. About all of it.
“You have a son?”
“Yeah,” Simon said with a fast grin. “Probably. I’m getting a paternity test done.”
“I’m sure you are,” Mick said.
He frowned a little. “It makes sense, but yeah, looking at him, it’s hard to ignore. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it myself. Hell, I don’t even know what to do first.”
“Bring him home?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s the plan. I’ve got crews over at the house right now, fixing up a room for him.”
“And this Tula? What’s she like?”
Simon pulled at his ice-cold water again, relishing the liquid as it slid down his throat to ease the sudden tightness there. How to explain Tula, he thought. Hell, where would he begin? “She’s … different.”
Mick laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Good question,” Simon muttered. His fingers played with the shrink-wrapped label on the water bottle. “She’s fiercely protective of Nathan. And she’s as irritating as she is gorgeous—”
“Interesting.”
Simon shot him a look. “Don’t even go there. I’m not interested.”
“You just said she’s gorgeous.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing,” he insisted, shooting a look at the boys as they lined up to take turns at the cages. “She’s not my type.”
“Good. Your type is boring.”
“What?”
Mick leaned both forearms on the picnic table. “Simon, you date the same woman, over and over.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“No matter how their faces change, the inner woman never does. They’re all cool, quiet, refined.”
Now Simon laughed. “And there’s something wrong with that?”
“A little variety wouldn’t kill you.”
Variety. He didn’t need variety. His life was fine just the way it was. If a quick image of Tula Barrons’s big blue eyes and flashing dimple rose up in his mind, it was nobody’s business but his own.
He’d seen close-up and personal just what happened when a man spent his time looking for variety instead of sensible. Simon’s father had made everyone in the house miserable with his continuing quest for amusement. Simon wasn’t interested in repeating any failing patterns.
“All I’m saying is—”
“Don’t want to hear it,” Simon told him before his friend could get going. “Besides, what the hell do you know about women? You’re married.”
Mick snorted. “Last time I looked, my beautiful wife is a woman.”
“Katie’s different.”
“Different from the snooty ice queens you usually date, you mean.”
“How did we get onto the subject of my love life?”
“Beats the hell outta me,” Mick said with a laugh. “I just wanted to know what was bugging you and now I do. There’s a new woman in your life and you’re a father.”
“Probably,” Simon amended.
Mick reached out and slapped Simon’s shoulder. “Congratulations, man.”
Simon smiled, took another sip of water and let his new reality settle in. He was, most likely, a father. He had a son.
As for Tula Barrons being in his life, that was temporary. Strangely enough, that thought didn’t have quite the appeal it should have.
“I don’t know what to do about him,” Tula said, taking a sip of her latte.
“What can you do?” Anna Hale asked from her position on the floor of the bank.
Tula looked down at the baby in his stroller and smiled as Nathan slapped his toy bunny against the tray. “Hey, do you think it’s okay for the baby to be in here while you’re painting? I mean, the fumes …”
“It’s fine. This is just detail work,” Anna said, soothing her, then she smiled. “Look at you. You’re so mom-like.”
“I know.” Tula grinned at her. “And I really like it. Didn’t think I would, you know? I mean, I always thought I’d like to have kids some day, but I never really had any idea of what it would really be like. It’s exhausting. And wonderful. And …” She stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “I have to move to the city.”
“It’s not forever,” Anna told her, pausing in laying down a soft layer of pale yellow that blended with the bottom coat of light blue to make a sun-washed sky.
“Yeah, I know,” Tula said on a sigh. She walked to Anna, sat down on the floor and sat cross-legged. “But you know how I hate the idea of going back to San Francisco.”
“I do,” Anna said, wiping a stray lock of hair off her cheek, leaving a trace of yellow paint in her wake. “But you won’t necessarily see your father. It’s a big city.”
Tula gave her a halfhearted grin. “Not big enough. Jacob Hawthorne throws a huge shadow.”
“But you’re not in that shadow anymore, remember?” Anna reached out, grabbed her hand, then winced at the yellow paint she transferred to Tula’s skin. “Oops, sorry. Tula, you walked away from him. From that life. You don’t owe him anything and he doesn’t have the power to make you miserable anymore. You’re a famous author now!”
Tula laughed, delighted at the image. She was famous in the preschool crowd. Or at least, her Lonely Bunny was a star. She was simply the writer who told his stories and drew his pictures. But, oh, how she loved going to children’s bookstores to do signings. To read her books to kids clustered around her with wide eyes and innocent smiles.
Anna was right. Tula had escaped her father’s narrow world and his plans for her life. She’d made her own way. She had a home she loved and a career she adored. Glancing at the baby boy happily gabbling to himself in his stroller, she told herself silently that she was madly in love with a drooling, nearly bald, one-foot-tall dreamboat.
What she would do when she had to say goodbye to that baby she just didn’t know. But for the moment, that time was weeks, maybe months, away.