Gabi beamed at him. “What a great idea! It’s an ongoing angle for promotion.” She raised her hand for a high five. “What a team!”
Wade captured her hand and held it. “Keep thinking that way, darlin’. Keep thinking that way.”
As it turned out, she was starting to think that way more and more often.
* * *
Wade was startled when he glanced around and realized it was dusk outside. He and Gabi had been talking most of the afternoon, tossing around ideas, which she frantically scribbled down on one of her lists. He loved seeing this side of her, working at full stride, her mind engaged, right along with her enthusiasm. It made him even happier that he was at least in part responsible for having planted the idea that she was running with.
“Hey,” he said, nudging her in the side. “Have you noticed that it’s getting dark? I think Cora Jane and Jerry are long gone. We probably need to think about getting you and the little one some dinner.”
Just then her tummy rumbled, emphasizing his point. She smiled. “I think you’re right. Let’s grab takeout and head back to Cora Jane’s.”
“You have your car?”
“Actually, no. Cora Jane picked me up so she could go with me to my doctor’s appointment. If she’s gone, I’m stuck.”
“You’re never stuck if I’m around,” Wade said. “Let’s go. Where would you like to stop for some food?”
“I’m dying for a hamburger,” she admitted. “I got that into my head when I was with Meg a couple of days ago, but we ended up at a vegetarian place, and I still haven’t had one.”
“Want to stop and pick up the meat? I know a place that only sells the organic stuff with none of that pink slime filler. We can cook them ourselves. I make a halfway decent burger.”
“Go for it,” she said at once. “Just make sure you get all the fixings. I want tomatoes, cheese, onion, the works.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Wade said. “You can sit in the car and catch a quick catnap.”
An hour later they were pulling into the driveway at Cora Jane’s, where Wade spotted an unfamiliar car parked just behind Cora Jane’s and the truck he thought to be Jerry’s. “Looks like Cora Jane has company,” he said. “Unless Jerry’s gone out and bought himself a fancy BMW.”
At his words, Gabi’s eyes snapped open. She sat up straight, then muttered a curse.
“What?” he asked.
“Paul,” she said succinctly.
Wade regarded her incredulously, a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “The baby’s father? That Paul?”
“That’s the one,” she said.
“What’s he doing here? Did you have any idea he was coming?”
“Are you kidding me? He’s the last person I want to see,” she replied, though resignation was already settling on her face.
“It’s not too late for me to pull right back out of the driveway,” he offered, worried by the sudden pallor in her cheeks. “We can go to my place.”
She sighed heavily. “Much as I would love to do exactly that, I can’t stick Cora Jane with handling him.”
“I’m sure she’s probably delighted to give him an earful,” Wade said. “Come to think of it, I have a few choice words for the man myself.”
Gabi gave him a worried look. “But you won’t say anything, right? I’m not up to a scene.”
“No scene,” Wade promised. Unless the jerk started it, he added mentally.
Inside, they found Paul seated at the kitchen table, his shoulders stiff, his expression uncomfortable. Wade studied him intently, trying to see what Gabi had once seen in him. He was handsome, he supposed, in the slick, polished way that some successful men worked hard to achieve. He was dressed impeccably in a suit that had probably cost a month’s salary, French cuffs with eighteen-carat-gold cuff links and a Rolex on his wrist. A lot overdressed for a visit to the beach or to an ex-lover, in Wade’s opinion.
Across from him, Cora Jane was eyeing him as if she’d found a particularly nasty poisonous snake in her garden. The silence was deafening.
When Wade opened the back door and Gabi stepped inside, Paul bounced up looking relieved, at least until he spotted Wade right on Gabi’s heels.
“Well,” he said with a little huff that spoke volumes about his reaction to finding Gabi with another man.
“Hello, Paul,” Gabi said mildly, her head high. “This is a surprise.”
“I thought we should talk,” he said, his gaze riveted on her rounded belly. “About the baby.”
“The baby’s no concern of yours,” she reminded him. “I have the paper you signed proving that.”
“It’s still my child,” he insisted.
“No, she’s mine,” Gabi replied firmly.
Paul regarded her with a startled expression. “It’s a girl?”
“Yes.”
He glanced around at Cora Jane, and then at Wade. “Gabriella, could we speak privately?”
“I see no point in that,” she told him, taking a step closer to Wade as if seeking his unspoken support. Wade put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
Paul clearly got the message and just as evidently didn’t like it. “So, that’s the way it is? You’ve already hopped into another man’s bed? Or was it his baby to begin with, one you just tried to pawn off on me?”
Wade’s temper flared. “Hold on, pal,” he said, taking a step forward.
Gabi interceded. “It’s okay, Wade. Let him rant. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Cora Jane frowned at that. Though she’d remained quiet since Gabi and Wade had walked in, she spoke up now, her furious gaze directed at Paul. “Young man, if you dare to speak to or about my granddaughter that way again, I will have you thrown out of here.”
Paul actually looked flustered by the threat, but he still put on a show of pure bravado. “By whom? Him?” he asked with a disdainful glance at Wade.
Jerry walked into the kitchen then, standing close enough to intimidate. “By the two of us, if need be,” he said
