Susan Mallery - Sweet Trouble

“So, you’re back in Seattle?” Nicole asked as she sank into a chair at the table.

“For now.” Jesse remembered the pictures she’d brought and went to get them. When she returned, she handed them to her sister. “Gabe’s been asking about his father. I’ve put off their meeting as long as I could, but I’m running out of excuses. So we’re here, at least for a few weeks.”

She hesitated because Nicole hadn’t looked at the pictures. “I went to see Matt this morning. He wasn’t expecting me.” There was an understatement. “I’d told him I was pregnant when I left, but he didn’t believe he was the father. Given the circumstances, I guess I can’t blame him.”

Now came the hard part, Jesse thought. She’d practiced what she wanted to say dozens of times, but suddenly couldn’t think of any of her carefully prepared phrases.

“I didn’t sleep with Drew,” she said, jumping in and hoping her sister would listen. “I never slept with him, tried to sleep with him or thought of him as anything but your husband. He and I were friends. We would talk and that was it. I was in love with Matt.”

Nicole stood and crossed to the dishwasher, where she pushed a couple of buttons to start the cycle. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“We have to eventually.”

“Why?” Nicole turned to face her, then sighed. “Okay. Maybe. But not today.”

Jesse wanted to push. She’d felt awful about Nicole’s hurt and anger for five years and she didn’t want to wait any longer. But the mature choice would be to let her sister get used to the idea of her being back first.

“I’ll leave the pictures,” Jesse said quietly. “You can look at them later. There’s a lot of Matt in Gabe. Especially in his eyes. It made it hard to forget.”

Not hard. Impossible.

Nicole nodded. “I will.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “I thought I’d hear from you when you turned twenty-five.”

Meaning she thought Jesse would show up to get her half of the bakery. Their father had left the business to both of them, with Jesse’s half held in trust until she was twenty-five. Once she’d graduated from high school, Jesse had bugged Nicole to buy her out soon and give her the money. Nicole had refused. It had been just one more thing for them to fight about.

“I don’t want to be given anything,” Jesse told her. “I want to earn my way in.”

Nicole raised her eyebrows. “Meaning what? You want a job? I thought you hated working at the bakery.”

A job? Jesse hadn’t thought that far, but she could sure use the money. “A job would be great. But I have something else to offer. A brownie recipe. I’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of years. It’s finally ready. It’s better than anything out there.”

Nicole didn’t look convinced.

Jesse fought disappointment and the voice that whispered her sister would never see her as anything but a screwup. The truth was, Jesse might know how much she’d changed, but Nicole had to be convinced. That was fine. Jesse wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

“I’ll bake a couple of batches,” Jesse told her. “We can set up time for a tasting.”

“All right. But if they’re that good, why didn’t you just start a business on your own?”

A genuine question or a slam? Jesse wondered. Five years ago, she’d taken the famous Keyes chocolate cake recipe, made the cakes out of a rented kitchen and sold them online. Nicole had been furious and pressed charges, throwing her baby sister in jail.

“They’re that good,” Jesse said calmly. “I could have gone out on my own, but I wanted to bring them to the bakery. I told you-I’m interested in earning my way back in.”

Nicole stared at her, obviously not convinced. Jesse took that as a hint to leave.

“I’ll call you,” she said as she headed for the door. “So we can set up a time that works for you.”

“How can I get in touch with you?” Nicole asked.

The question gave Jesse hope. Maybe her sister hadn’t given up on her completely. “I left my cell number on the pictures.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Jesse reached the front door.

“Wait,” Nicole called.

Jesse turned.

“Thanks for helping with the twins. I’m usually more together than that.”

“Babies are tough,” Jesse told her, pleased she’d been able to make a difference. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Jesse walked to her car, smiling and feeling more hopeful than she had when she’d left Matt’s. Nicole would take some convincing, but Jesse felt that she could earn her way back into her sister’s good graces. She would have her family back and, right now, that mattered more than anything.

JESSE PARKED IN FRONT of the YMCA in Bothell. The Y in Spokane had been a big part of her life ever since she’d had Gabe. She’d taken baby CPR classes there, had gone to Mommy and Me classes where she’d met other young mothers. She’d worked out in the gym, knowing her son was safe in the day care center and the babysitting service they provided had saved her butt more times than she could count.

Now she walked in to pick up Gabe and smiled as she saw him playing with two other little boys. As always, he was laughing and in the center of everything.

One of the teenagers there came up to her. “Hi, Jesse. You’re back early.”

“My meetings went quicker than I’d thought. How was Gabe?”

“Great. He’s really outgoing and he does so well with the other kids. Especially the shy ones. He takes the time to draw them out. Bring him back anytime.”

Jesse smiled and nodded. She wanted to take credit for Gabe’s easy personality, but she knew it was just one of those moments of chance when the gene pool did something beyond right.

Her son looked up and saw her. His smile widened and he raced toward her. “Mommy, Mommy, I made new friends.”

She bent down and grabbed him as he launched himself at her. “Did you? That’s great.”

“I had fun and I want to come back.”

“We’ll have to make sure that happens, won’t we?”

He nodded vigorously.

Jesse signed the paperwork and left, Gabe chatting as he walked with her. He gave her a real-time account of his morning, every event more fun and exciting than the one before. More good luck, she thought as she helped him into his car seat. He was a cheerful, happy kid. She wasn’t sure how she would have survived if he’d been any different.

She closed his door, then got in the driver’s seat.

“Now what?” he asked. “Are we going back to the hotel?”

“We can,” she said slowly, thinking about where they were and how far it would be to the hotel.

A thought pushed into her head. She tried to ignore it, but it just got bigger and louder.

Talk about crazy, she told herself. Hadn’t she been through enough for one day? Did she want to keep torturing herself? Even though she knew it was a bad idea, she heard herself say, “I think there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Gabe’s face brightened. “My daddy?”

“Um, not yet. But someone else. Your grandmother.”

Gabe’s eyes widened and he looked as if she’d just offered him a puppy. “I have a grandmother?” he asked, his voice low and filled with wonder.

“Uh-huh. Your daddy’s mother.” Gabe knew the basics about grandparents, mostly that he didn’t have any. Well, except for Paula.

There was only one problem. Matt’s mother had always hated her.

It’s been a long time, she reminded herself. Maybe Paula had changed. If not, it would be a very short visit.

Jesse drove into Woodinville, to the pretty house Matt had bought for his mother years ago, after his first computer game had been licensed for millions.