you?”
The kid nodded. Hadn’t Jesse said he was verbal? Shouldn’t he be talking?
Paula ushered them into the kitchen. The room looked different. Matt guessed she’d remodeled sometime in the past five years. He wondered what else was different in her life.
“Here we go,” she said, pointing to the cookies she’d spread out on the kitchen table. There were pastry bags filled with colored icing. Paula eyed his suit jacket. “You might want to leave that in the other room and roll up your sleeves. This is going to get messy.”
Fifteen minutes later, he knew she wasn’t kidding. What Gabe lacked in skill, he made up for in enthusiasm as he gushed icing all over the cookies, the table and himself. He grinned and laughed as the gooey frosting oozed everywhere.
Paula leaned over his shoulder. “Is that a dog? I think that’s a dog.”
Gabe beamed. “Uh-huh. With spots.”
Matt stared at the mess of green and orange icing. How was that a dog? It wasn’t close to anything. How had his mom figured it out?
Matt used the white icing bag to put stripes on a few of the cookies. He felt uncomfortable and out of place. Gabe kept looking at him, as if expecting something.
Paula handed the kid several round cookies. “We talked about putting numbers on these,” she said. “Gabe, why don’t you start. You do the first number and your dad will do the second.”
“Okay.” Gabe grabbed a bag of purple icing and drew a fairly steady straight line. “That’s a one.”
“Good for you,” Paula said, then looked at Matt. “Isn’t that good?”
Matt nodded. “It’s great,” he said, feeling stupid. Jesse had gone wild with the praise when the kid had tied his shoes. Evidently, that was the way to a child’s heart.
“Now you do two,” Gabe said.
“Sure.” Matt squeezed out a two on a cookie.
Paula clapped her hands. “That’s terrific. What’s next, Gabe?”
“Three,” he said and bent over the cookie. He concentrated so hard, his face turned red. Slowly, a shaky three emerged.
They worked their way up to ten. When they’d finished, Paula looked at him. “Gabe knows his letters, as well, and he’s learning to read.”
“Okay.” Matt didn’t know if that was impressive or not. At what age did kids start reading?
Paula helped Gabe to the sink and rinsed off the icing. Matt did the same in the guest bathroom, all the time wondering what the hell he was doing here. Sure, he had to spend time with his son because that was part of the plan, but nothing about it felt right or comfortable. Maybe he just wasn’t a kid person. That happened, right? He’d grown up without a father and he’d turned out fine. He’d-
As he dried his hands on a small towel, he unwillingly remembered a middle-school announcement about “Bring your dad to school” day. All the other kids had been talking about their dads, but he hadn’t had anything to say. He sat there, his stomach hurting, feeling more out of place than usual. He’d never told his mother. What was the point? She wouldn’t have been able to change anything.
But this kid thing was tough. Heath had been right to point out that if he won his lawsuit against Jesse, he was going to end up with a child. His son. There was no way he could handle that on his own.
When he walked back into the kitchen, Gabe was gone. Paula turned on him.
“Did you know Jesse was pregnant?” she demanded. “Did she tell you?”
“Where’s Gabe?”
“Up in his room, figuring out which toys he wants to show you. Not that you’ll even pretend to be interested. Did she tell you?”
He didn’t know which attack to deal with first. “She mentioned she was, but I never thought the kid was mine. She’d been sleeping with-” Other guys. With Drew. Except she said she hadn’t and Gabe was obviously his. “I never thought the baby was mine,” he repeated.
Paula glared at him. “How could you let her just walk away without finding out the truth? You were raised to take responsibility. What kind of man doesn’t bother to find out if his girlfriend is carrying his child?”
Matt stared at his mother. “Where is this all coming from? Last I knew, you hated Jesse.”
“I made a mistake about that,” she told him, her eyes bright with anger. “Which isn’t the point. Do you know what we both lost? What can never be recovered? Years, Matthew. Years of seeing your son, my grandson, growing up. Of being there when he was born. All the firsts are lost. All those precious moments and memories. It’s gone because you couldn’t be bothered to find out the truth.”
“Hey, wait a minute. You’re the one who told me she was sleeping with someone else. And you were pretty happy about that fact.”
“I was wrong,” Paula said, looking him in the eye. “I was wrong about a lot of things and I’ve certainly paid for my mistakes. But I never knew Jesse was pregnant. If I had, I would have gone after her. I would have insisted she stay until we could confirm paternity. We’re talking about your child, Matthew. Your son. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Before he could answer, Gabe ran back in the room carrying a large fire truck that was nearly as big as he was.
“Look!” he said, obviously proud and excited.
Matt looked at his mother, who glared at him. No help there.
“That’s a really, ah, big truck.”
Gabe nodded. “It’s my favorite. I can ride on it. Want to see?”
“Sure.”
Gabe set down the truck, straddled it, then pushed himself around with his feet. He headed into the family room.
“Go with him,” Paula said in a low, angry tone. “Do something.”
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know him.”
“Whose fault is that?” she snapped.
“You could help.”
“I could, but I’m not going to. You created this problem, you fix it,” she said and turned away.
He followed Gabe into the family room where his son looked expectantly at him. Matt stood there, not sure what to do, furious at his mother and Jesse.
“Want to, ah, play a game?” Matt asked.
Gabe sighed heavily, then shook his head.
“Watch a movie?”
The boy rose and returned to the kitchen, where he ran straight to Paula, grabbed her around the legs and started to cry.
“I didn’t do anything,” Matt said when she glared at him.
“I know. And that’s the problem.” She stroked Gabe’s hair. “Matthew, you have a lot to learn about children.”
Feeling angry and confused, not to mention dismissed, he stalked out of the house and slammed the front door behind him.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought grimly, although he couldn’t say how it was supposed to be.
JESSE STOOD ON THE sidewalk of the strip mall, sucked in a breath, then entered the small Chinese restaurant. Matt was already there, at a booth against the side wall. He rose as she walked over.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
She nodded and tried to smile, but there were too many emotions rushing through her for her to pick just one and go with it.
She wanted to tell him she was only here because Paula had said his meeting with Gabe had been a disaster, but the truth was more uncomfortable. She was here because she’d missed him.
Seeing him the other night, being with him, talking and then kissing him, had opened too many doors to the past. She’d been caught up in what they’d once had together. Worse, she’d been unable to shake the passion he’d stirred in her. Passion that had disturbed her sleep with vivid sexual dreams and left her restless and aroused.
When she was seated, he leaned toward her. “Did she tell you how badly my meeting with Gabe went?”
