The Lawman's Surprise Family. Patricia Johns

enough,” Ben said, but he sounded a little deflated.

      This was her fault, really. Her son had little interest in knowing his father because she’d never talked about him, never shown him any pictures. She’d told him that it would be just the two of them, and that they’d be just fine together. Then, after fending off all sorts of questions about the father he’d never met, she’d presented Ben as if he was supposed to be good news. Of course this would be a big adjustment for Jack. How could it be otherwise?

      “I told my mom about Jack today,” Ben said, and Sofia felt her heart constrict.

      Mrs. Blake had never liked Sofia, and she’d made no secret about it. At first, Sofia had thought it was simple maternal protectiveness, thinking that no girl would ever be good enough for her son, but after a few months she’d realized that it went deeper than that. She’d always felt a little wounded about that when she and Ben had been dating. But she was no longer a teenager, and while Ben’s mother’s opinion of her didn’t matter to her personally, it did matter to her when it came to her son. Shyla Blake was Jack’s grandmother, and if his grandmother hated her, how exactly would this extended family work?

      “Does she still hate me?” Sofia asked, attempting to keep the edge out of her voice.

      “She’s just protective,” Ben said absently. “She’ll be fine.”

      Sofia had tried to forget that with introducing her son to his father, she’d also be introducing him to the entire extended family. Sofia hadn’t ever had to share him before. Even when it came to dating, she was cautious and didn’t bring any men close enough for Jack to get attached. She’d lived near her mother in California, but it had felt natural to share her child with her own mother. Shyla was a different story. Shyla was a woman biased against her at every step.

      “Your mom complicates this,” she said. “Jack doesn’t need the pressure right now.”

      “The pressure of meeting his grandmother?” Ben asked, and she noted the tension in his voice.

      “Ben, let’s just be straight here,” she said with a sigh. “Your mother can’t stand me, and Jack has just been told that you exist. This is going to be very difficult for him, and it will be harder still if he’s introduced to a grandmother who hates his mom.”

      “And harder for you,” he added.

      “Yes,” she said, her irritation rising. “It would definitely make it harder for me. And while we all want to make Jack the highest priority here, as his mother, I definitely factor in!”

      “Hey, I didn’t say you didn’t. I was just pointing out that it would be harder for you, too.”

      She sucked in a breath and attempted to control her temper. She knew that Shyla was a part of the equation, too, and that scared her. No one happily handed their child over to bond with someone who actively disliked them.

      “Full disclosure here,” Ben said after a moment. “My mom is still mad because you left.”

      “I thought she’d be glad to be rid of me,” Sofia said wryly.

      “Yeah, me, too.” Ben laughed softly. “She was always afraid you’d hurt me, and then when you left, she was proven right. I know you had every right to go—we weren’t together then—but it was still hard for me. I know she can come off as really tough and thick-skinned, but deep down she just wants to protect me. You’re a mom, too. I’m sure you understand that feeling.”

      She did, actually. Sofia would do anything to protect her son from being hurt, and the thought of some girl ripping his heart out in eight or ten years was agonizing. But this wasn’t about Shyla’s grown son; this was about Sofia’s little boy. There was a big difference.

      “I’m willing to have you get to know Jack,” Sofia said, “but I don’t want to include anyone else in that right now. And that includes your mom. Meeting his dad is big enough.”

      “I’m fine with that,” he said.

      “Are you sure?”

      “I’ll have to be.” He was quiet for a moment. “So I have a question for you. How come your dad never filled me in about Jack?”

      Sofia knew that when Ben had time to think this through, he’d resent her. It stood to reason that he’d resent the people who’d helped her keep her secret, but her father wasn’t in a place to be handling anything extra on top of his cancer treatments.

      “Because I asked him not to,” she said firmly.

      “So your whole family kept the secret?” There was a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

      They had, and saying it out loud made it sound worse somehow. They’d all agreed that keeping the secret would be best for Jack. Jack needed a certain caliber of person in his life, and his father hadn’t made the cut. Her parents were just as happy to pretend that Ben had never existed. Once she’d moved to California with her mother, she’d never come back to see her father, either. It had been a tangled mess of strained relationships.

      “Your dad and I actually saw each other pretty often,” Ben said. “I mean, in a place this size it’s hard to avoid people, but more than that, I think that I was the only one who really understood what your dad was going through.”

      “So you were friends?” she asked, surprised.

      “No, not friends,” he replied. “It was all pretty unspoken. But I helped him out when he needed it, and we—” He sighed. “It’s a guy thing. Men don’t have to talk these things through.”

      “Oh, I hadn’t realized.”

      “So if he let eight years pass and never once told me that I was a father, you aren’t the only one with a few grievances, Sofia. I know your dad didn’t want you and me together, but once there is a child in the mix—” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. She understood the point.

      Their relationship—in any form—had never been supported by either of their families. She felt as if the room was getting closer, and all those old tensions from years ago were sweeping back in between them: his mother’s resentment, her parents’ disapproval and the fact that Ben was so much like her father that it hurt.

      “Ben, I’ve been the center of Jack’s world for his entire life,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “This isn’t about my dad, and it isn’t about your mom. Not yet, at least.”