He stumbled over the last word and as she caught his slip and tried to make sense of it, all those stray pieces clicked into place. Of course! She leaned back in her seat, the rest of her lunch completely forgotten as she tried to absorb the stunning truth.
So much of his behavior made sense now and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. She released a breath and spoke before she really thought through the implications.
“Christopher Page is your son.”
* * *
HER WORDS SEEMED to echo through the SUV, bouncing off the roof, the windows, the floor mats.
Christopher Page is your son.
For so many years he had held the secret close, knowing he might have a son out there somewhere but trying not to think too often about it.
It felt so strange to hear someone else say it aloud for the first time ever.
Over those years, he had still hung on to the idea that the baby couldn’t have been his. He and Nikki Jacobs Page spent one wild weekend together and had used protection.
A few years earlier, on a whim, he had tried to look her up on social media. It hadn’t been easy—which he found out later was probably because she married twice more and changed her name multiple times.
Louise Jacobs had been his ticket in. When Louise finally joined social media and became friends with his mother, he had been able to slip through the back door to track Nikki from his mother’s page to her mother’s to her own social media profile.
What he found had made him sick. More than a decade after that wild weekend they spent together, Nikki Jacobs Page Alexander Guyman had seemed as immature and self-absorbed as ever. She hadn’t posted a single picture of her son and rarely mentioned him.
And then about a year ago, Louise had put up a picture of her grandson and his heart had stopped.
Christopher Page is your son.
He stared at Andrea now, not sure how to respond.
“Who said anything about Christopher?” he finally said, stalling for time.
Her sideways look told him plainly not to bother dissembling. “It wasn’t very tough to connect the dots. His grandmother is my good friend. I know his mother died this summer and he fits the age frame you’re talking about. His parents were divorced when he was young and Louise told me his father has nothing to do with him.”
She paused, her gaze sharpening. “Christopher is the reason you moved to Haven Point from Shelter Springs after Wyn left for school, isn’t he?”
There was no point in denying it when he had done everything but draw her a picture. He didn’t want the whole world to know—the boy in question didn’t even know—but he sensed he could count on Andrea to be discreet.
In some little corner of his mind, he was actually relieved that someone else knew the truth. He didn’t have to carry this secret by himself any longer.
She didn’t seem condemning or judgmental, only concerned. That was almost more of a relief.
“When Wyn told me she was going to rent her house out while she was in Boise working on her master’s, I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to move into the house next door to him. It seemed the perfect opportunity to make a connection.”
“Have you?”
“So far it hasn’t worked out the way I planned. I don’t quite know how to barge in and say, Hey, guess, what? I’m your father.”
“You seem so sure of that. How can you be, without a DNA test?”
“Except for the dark hair, he’s the spitting image of Wynona’s twin, Wyatt, who died five years ago. To tell you the truth, I can’t believe no one else in my family has picked up on it yet, now that Christopher is living in Haven Point. I guess everyone has been too busy planning weddings to notice.”
He couldn’t imagine what his mother would say when the truth came out. Would she be understanding of the choices he had made or would she be disappointed in him for not initially stepping up to take responsibility for his child?
“You’ve been living beside them for months and you still haven’t told them?”
“He’s so angry and hurting right now. At this point, I’m not sure how he will react when he finds out about one more person who walked away from him.”
“You’re here now, though, unlike his mother and the man he thinks is his father. You moved to Haven Point to be closer to him. That ought to give you a few points.”
“Or tip the scale toward creepy stalker.”
She smiled a little and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Sunlight danced in and out of the tree branches. As he watched the random play of light on her features, he felt a little jolt in his chest.
“I think you should tell Herm and Louise first and let them work with you to figure out how best to let Christopher know the truth.”