.

“Yes, he was,” she shot back too fast and too angrily. New Bethlehem Flat, aka “the Flat” to everyone who lived there, had a population of around eight hundred. The Rossi family was an old and respected name in the Flat. Matteo had run Rossi’s Hardware Emporium for half of his life. And before him, his father, Christopher, had owned the store.

       Bowie said, “I’m…sorry that he’s gone.”

       “So am I—and Johnny won’t be home from school for hours yet.” And the last thing he’ll be expecting is to see you here. And really, how could this be happening? What exactly was happening? She still didn’t get it. Her heart was working overtime, beating a sick rhythm under her ribs, the rhythm of dread. If he tried to take Johnny away…

       But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. No court in the world would give him custody of the son he’d made no effort to visit in almost seven years.

       And no matter how much she might wish that he could have just stayed away, well, she knew what was right: he should know his son.

       And Johnny needed to know him.

       She asked, “How long are you going to be in town?”

       “I’m keeping it open-ended.” He leaned toward her a little.

       She sat back, maintaining the distance between them. “Staying with your mom, at the B and B?”

       “I’m not sure where I’ll stay, Glory.”

       “Well, aren’t you just a font of useful information?” It came out really sour-sounding. She turned to the window and watched the swirling snow beyond the glass, knowing she had to get a grip. Nothing would be gained by her playing the bitch about this. The past was a foreign country now. And so far, even though he wasn’t telling her much about what his plans might be, he’d been perfectly civil. More so than she’d been, certainly.

       “Glory, I’m sorry. I really am. Sorry about all of it, the thousand-and-one ways I messed things up.” His voice was full of sadness.

       She had no doubt he meant every word of what he’d just said. Still, she didn’t look at him. “A letter, you know?” she said to the white world outside the window. “A letter now and then. It would have meant so much to him. You couldn’t even manage that?”

       “Things were bad at first. I had to get sober and it wasn’t easy. I told myself that when I was sober for two years, when I had some kind of handle on myself, on my behavior, I would get in contact, start trying to work things out. But then you married Matteo…”

       She made a low, furious sound in her throat. “Oh, that’s your excuse, then? That it’s my fault you never got to know Johnny. My fault because I got married.”

       “I didn’t say that.”

       “But it’s what you meant.”

       “No, Glory. It’s not what I meant. What I meant is I knew enough about Matteo Rossi to realize that he would be a good husband. I knew he was gentle and patient and kind. And he brought in a good income. He was pretty much everything that I’d never been. I thought that it would be the best thing, to stay away. To let you have a life, you know? Not to cause you any more trouble.”

       “A son needs to know his father.” She hated to say it. It only supported his claim on Johnny, however late in time he’d returned to make that claim. Still, it was the truth.

       “I see that now.” His voice was soft. Reasonable.

       She wanted to pop him a good one right in his too-well-remembered face. “He’s a little kid,” she accused. “He doesn’t understand why his dad went away before he was even a year old, why you never came back. All a little kid knows when his dad disappears is that it must somehow be his fault.”

       His expression darkened. “I used to think that when I was a kid.” His voice wasn’t so gentle now and his square jaw was set. “I wanted my father to come back. I blamed myself that he didn’t. But then I grew up and I learned more about him, enough to be glad I’d never met the rotten bastard.”

       “That was a completely different situation. You are not your dad.”

       “I’m just saying it’s not absolute, Glory. Given who I was when I left town, Johnny was better off not knowing me.”

       “I don’t believe that.” She spoke low, with heat. “I’ll never believe that.”

       “Just stop. Just think for a minute.” His blue gaze pinned her.

       “Stop and think about what?”

       “You said you understood, don’t you remember? You said that you were okay with it, when I left.”

       “I did understand. It’s a small town. People make judgments. And here in the Flat, you were everybody’s favorite screwup. You could never get anything right. They all expected you to mess up again, no matter how hard you tried not to. And you never disappointed them. I understood that you needed to get away, to get out from under that judgment, to figure out for yourself who you are, really. What I didn’t expect was never to hear another word from you.”

       “You heard from me.” He said it to the window.

       “Checks in the mail are not ‘hearing’ from you.”

       Bowie sipped his coffee. He stared blankly out at the storm, the same way she had done a few moments before. Finally, he set the cup down—a little harder than necessary—and he turned his gaze on her again. “It’s not like you ever came looking for me, not like you gave me any kind of sign that you wanted me around.”

       She met his eyes and she refused to look away. “It wasn’t my job to make you feel wanted. It was your job to be a father to your son.”

       A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he kept his voice strictly controlled. “You don’t give an inch, do you, Glory? You never did.”

       “I couldn’t afford to. I had a son to raise.”

       “Ouch,” he said, too softly. And then he continued, “The good news is, I do get what my job is. And I’m ready to do it, to be a father to my son. You’re not chasing me off this time, no matter what you say or what you do.”

       Her temper flared. “Meaning I chased you out of town before? You know that’s not true.”

       “How many times did you refuse me, Glory? A hundred? A thousand?”

       She stared him down. “Tell me to my face right this minute that you think a marriage between us would have been a good thing. You go ahead, Bowie Bravo. You tell me that lie.”

       He had the grace to look away. And then he brought up his big, rough yet heartbreakingly graceful hands, and scrubbed them down his face. “I didn’t come here to do this, to play the blame game. I honestly didn’t.”

       “Then stop,” she commanded in a hissing whisper. “Just…stop.” She shoved back her chair and lumbered upright. Too bad that once she was on her feet, she didn’t know what to do next. So she turned and went to the counter. She got the coffeepot, brought it back to the table, held it up.

       “Great. Yeah,” he said.

       She refilled his cup. It was an awkward moment, standing there beside him, pouring with her arm extended at an odd angle. She had to turn a little to the side so that her bulging stomach wouldn’t touch him. She didn’t think she could have borne that right then, to have her stomach and her baby inside it—Matteo’s baby—touching Bowie Bravo.

       She managed to pour without spilling and also without any part of her body making contact with his. That accomplished, she took the pot back to the coffeemaker. Then she turned, leaned against the counter and told him, “You should know that Johnny and Matteo were close. Johnny loved his stepdad a lot.”

       Bowie gave one slow nod of his close-cut golden head. “That’s good. For Johnny. And Johnny is the one who matters.”