Every minute she spent with him deepened her connection to him; what a fool she had been for thinking she could stop herself from falling for him. Maybe that was why, in Milan, she'd insisted they not hook up again. She'd subconsciously known they could never be just bed buddies.
Jaeger was a good guy. In fact, he was one of the best she'd ever known.
He deserved to know about Ty, to be the dad her father had never been.
Ty deserved to know him. It wasn't fair to either of them to keep this a secret.
So how to tell him? And when?
Jaeger approached her and lifted up his half-eaten dog. "Want a bite?" he offered.
Piper shook her head. "God, no. Processed food and carbs and preservatives."
Jaeger looked at his hot dog, then at her, and took another enormous bite, his eyes reflecting pure mischief. He chewed and swallowed. "Tastes damn good."
"Smells good, too," Piper reluctantly admitted.
Jaeger popped the last piece of his third breakfast into his mouth, and they walked into the park, her pushing the stroller with one hand. She loved this park. It was her favorite place to walk or run, with Ty or not. Both she and Ty loved being in the fresh air, and in the summer she'd spent a lot of time lounging on a blanket with Ty in the Long Meadow. She turned her head to watch Jaeger, who was looking around with interest.
"Have you been here before?" she asked.
"I'm ashamed to admit I haven't. It's stunning."
"In summer it's a riot of green, but I think it's prettiest in fall, still pretty in winter. A little starker, a little emptier, but..." Piper shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. "I think it's awesome. I've been coming here since I was a kid, so I consider it my personal playground."
Ty shouted and Jaeger jumped, his face instantly worried. Piper laughed. "He's fine. It's his way of telling me he's happy to be outside."
Jaeger turned around and walked backward, looking at Ty. "He's missing a sock and a shoe," Jaeger pointed out.
Piper stopped the stroller and let out a long sigh. Jaeger bent down and lifted a tiny sock. "The sock is here. One shoe is definitely AWOL."
Piper looked back to see if she could find it on the path. There it was, about sixty feet from them. Jaeger spotted it and immediately jogged away to pick it up. When he returned, she tucked it into her tote bag. "I can't tell you how many shoes I've lost in this park."
She walked around to the front of the stroller and pulled Ty's sock back onto his foot, tucking his blanket around his feet to keep him warm. Ty held up his arms and sent her his patented, hard-to-resist, please-pick-me-up smile. Without asking her, Jaeger reached down, popped the button to release his five-strap safety belt and lifted the baby to his chest. Ty sent her a See how irresistible I am? look, happy to perch on Jaeger's forearm. Jaeger pulled Ty's blanket from the stroller, draped it over Ty's shoulders and tucked it under the baby's butt. Ty just patted Jaeger's face with tiny, excited hands.
Jaeger smiled at him. "Happy now?"
Ty blew him a raspberry and shouted at a pigeon flying past. His hand narrowly missed hitting Jaeger's nose.
"He's happy," Piper said, her tone dry. "And you're a sucker."
"He's a very cute kid," Jaeger said as they resumed their walk.
"I think so," Piper softly replied.
Jaeger ran his free hand down her hair, over her back. "I think you are pretty awesome, you know. You're raising a kid on your own, and you seem to have it all under control."
"I don't have a choice," Piper stated. "Life gives you what it gives you, and you have to handle it as best you can."
"And his father? Does he have any contact with Ty?"
She'd dodged this question last night, and here it was again. After Jaeger fell asleep last night, she'd rehearsed answers for when he asked again. All those carefully constructed responses were forgotten as she stared at the pathway in front of her.
She didn't know how to tell him the truth.
"I never told him," she admitted.
Jaeger jerked to a stop. She knew that behind his aviator sunglasses, he was frowning. "Why not?"
Piper rocked on her heels, unable to look into his face. "It's complicated."
Jaeger transferred Ty to his other arm and turned him around so Ty faced the road, Jaeger's strong arm across the baby's chest. Ty yelled his approval at his new view, and Jaeger rubbed his chin across the baby's head.
How would he react if she blurted out the news that he was holding his son, that he'd provided half Ty's genes? It still amazed her that nobody could see they shared the same eyes, the same face.
But if she did blurt it out, everything between them would change immediately. She had a week, maybe two left with him before the sapphires sold. Was it so wrong to want to delay the inevitable so she could enjoy being with him, just for a little while?
The memories she made now would have to last a lifetime. He'd never see her the same way once he knew.
She'd tell him. She would. Soon. Just...not today.
"When my girlfriend told me she was pregnant, I was furious. But under the anger, I was soul-deep scared."
It was Piper's turn to stop, and the stroller jerked when she slammed on the brakes. "You have a child?" She shook her head to clear it, not sure whether her ears were playing tricks on her.
Jaeger ran his free hand through his hair before shoving his sunglasses on top of his head. His eyes were a shade of blue she'd never seen before-colder, harder, full of pain. "I was twenty-one. She was twenty. I wasn't as careful about protection as I am now-"
Piper told herself to keep her mouth shut.
"I was in college. So was she. Luckily I'd come into some money a few months before-money from a trust my parents set up for us-so I could house and feed us and still attend college."
"What did you study?"
"Geology, gemology, business," Jaeger replied. "Andrea dropped out and moved in with me, and we got engaged. It was...difficult."
Piper watched as his mouth tightened and the tension in his jaw increased. Ty felt it, too, and he immediately twisted his head to look at Jaeger. Jaeger turned Ty around to face him, and Ty immediately dropped his forehead into Jaeger's neck and closed his eyes.
Within ten seconds he was asleep.
"He's asleep?" Jaeger asked, his eyes wide with surprise. "How does he do that?"
Piper smiled. "That's-" she pulled back the your just in time "-my son. Want me to put him back into his stroller?"
Jaeger shook his head. "I'll carry him."
They resumed walking, and Piper flicked a glance at him. "You were telling me about Andrea?" she prompted him.
"Yeah." Jaeger blew out his breath. "One minute we were college students. The next we were about to be parents with no friggin' idea what we were doing. Andy threw herself into being a stay-at-home mom, spending money and preparing for the baby. It was all she could think about, all she could talk about."
"She was excited?"
"Insanely." Jaeger's bottom lip disappeared between his teeth. "Her entire focus became the baby. She couldn't think about anyone else, even me. I was competing for her affection with our unborn child and I was losing."
"You loved her," Piper stated.
"I did. She was my world. Then Jess arrived and we seemed to gel into a family. I was working part-time for the company, still studying, but life was good. Andy was happy being a mom, Jess was amazing and things smoothed out."
Jealousy oozed into Piper's veins. Lucky, lucky, lucky Andrea to be the first and probably only woman to be loved by this amazing man. "What happened?"
Jaeger placed his hand on Ty's back, his jaw brushing the top of Ty's head. "It was a Sunday morning. Andy nursed Jess and put her down in her crib. I went to check on her fifteen, twenty minutes later and she was gone. Just...gone."
Piper placed her hand across her mouth, knowing what was coming. "Oh, God." she murmured. "SIDS?"
Jaeger nodded. "I tried to resuscitate her, but I knew my efforts were useless."
Piper blinked her tears away. What an absolutely horrible thing to have happened. "I'm so sorry, Jaeger."
"Yeah. It was rough. Andy fell apart. Our relationship fell apart. Everything fell apart," Jaeger stated. "It was a very bad time."
"Could you not stay together?" Piper asked, hearing the pain in his voice and wishing she could crawl inside him and fix his cracked heart.
"I tried. For about six months, we tried to go back to what we were, what we had, but she was in a very bad place. Eventually we split up. She went back to live with her folks, and it took her a while to deal with the loss, to conquer the depression."