Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(38)

Zoe, her gaze on the disappearing lights of the sports car, barely smiled. Lacey waited for the smart-ass quip, the sex joke or bit of sarcasm.

But Zoe turned to her, an expression of pain and fear changing her normally bright and happy features to something Lacey barely recognized. Behind her, lights bathed the driveway again, and Lacey and Zoe turned to see Tessa and Jocelyn jump out of a car the second it stopped.

“I got your text,” Tessa said to Zoe when they came inside. “And I thought you were going home with Oliver.”

“I changed my mind,” Zoe said, looking from one to the other. “I think what I really want to do is…” She took a slow, deep breath, the only other sound the splash of the Gulf waves in the distance and a chorus of cicadas. “Something I should have done a long, long time ago. I want to tell you guys a story about a girl named Bridget Lessington.”

“Who the hell is that?” Tessa asked.

Zoe turned to her, eyes brimming with tears as she tried to smile, but her lips quivered. “You’re looking at her.”





Evan was dead silent on the way home and trudged upstairs without much of a good night. Oliver chalked it up to sleep deprivation, which was taking its toll on him as well.

Collapsing on his bed, he wished like hell Zoe had stayed and was next to him. Under him. Wrapped around him.

Except he’d had his chance with Zoe—naked and swimming and begging for company.

What the hell was wrong with him? He certainly wanted her body, wanted her…

That’s what was wrong with him. He wanted her. More than anything.

He didn’t want to be her human vibrator. He didn’t want to be her escape or distraction or f*ck du jour.

She hadn’t been with anyone in four years?

Well, he’d done nothing but go through the motions of sex with a woman he barely liked, let alone loved, for the past nine years. There’d been no one else, not one single indiscretion, since the day he’d left Zoe’s house and driven to Adele’s, his decision made.

Thank you, but he’d had enough meaningless sex to last him a lifetime. If he needed to get his rocks off, he’d do what he had to do. He was old enough, smart enough, and lonely enough to know what he wanted.

“Dad?”

He reached up and turned on the light, blinking into the brightness. “What’s the matter, son?” His heart thudded when he saw that Evan had been crying. “Shit,” Oliver mumbled.

“Exactly.”

He almost smiled. “Come on.” He patted the bed. “Sleep down here for what’s left of the night.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Evan scrambled onto the oversize California king, slipping right under the covers. “I miss Mom,” he admitted, his voice sounding very small.

Evan might be a genius, but he was still a little boy who had been thrown into a situation he didn’t understand, and his mother was an ocean away. And if Oliver, of all people, didn’t get that, then he didn’t deserve to have even part-time custody.

“That’s perfectly understandable, Ev. It’s going to be daytime in Europe soon. Do you want to call her?”

He thought about that for a minute, squirming a little, as if the need for sleep was wreaking havoc on his little body. “I thought about it, just to ask her…”

“Ask her what?”

He screwed up his features, clearly building nerve, but Oliver had no idea what for.

“Was Zoe the girl Mom used to talk about?”

Son of a bitch. Why had Adele told Evan about this history? How could a child understand? “What girl?” he asked, even though he knew.

“She said you had a girlfriend before her and you still liked her even though you married Mom.”

How the hell did he answer this? He wouldn’t lie, but he didn’t want to paint Zoe as some kind of home-wrecker. The whole thing was too much for Evan, no matter what his brainpower.

“Well.” Oliver dragged the word out a good two seconds. “If you mean did I know Zoe before your mom and I got married, yes.”

“And did you like her more than Mom?”

Like. Now there was an understatement. “I liked her…differently. But I had to make a choice.”

“Because of Grandpa?”

Oliver frowned. “What does your grandfather have to do with it?”

“Mom said that you married her because Grandpa Walter made you.”

Actually, Adele’s father wasn’t exactly thrilled that his daughter walked down the aisle with a baby on the way. But he’d always liked Oliver enough to forgive him the mistake, and he’d paid for a country-club wedding with all the trimmings despite the fact that it was rushed to accommodate Adele’s growing belly.

At the reception, Walter had taken Oliver to the side and offered him a career-changing position at the hospital, focusing on administration and grooming him as the next CEO of Mount Mercy.

Oliver had accepted the position, because, with a baby on the way, it was the right thing to do.

“Grandpa Walter didn’t make me do anything.”

“But she told me. She said Grandpa tried to kill you.”

He choked back a laugh. “No, Evan, he never tried to kill me.”

“Then why did she say he had a shotgun at your wedding?”

He did? Oh, of course. Realization dawned, and he knew why Evan thought that. “Did she use the expression ‘a shotgun wedding,’ by any chance?”

He nodded. “I figured it was because Grandpa would kill you if you didn’t marry her.”

“That’s more or less what that means, but it’s just an expression. It doesn’t mean he literally had a shotgun there.”

“I didn’t think Grandpa Walter owned a gun.”

He smiled. “I doubt it, too.” He patted Evan’s shoulder. “It’s all history and it doesn’t matter anymore. Your mom and I both love you and that’s all that really—”

“So what does it mean, a shotgun wedding?”

Oliver stared at him. He could lie. He could make something up, like you would with any normal eight-year-old, but this was Evan. He’d Google the expression in the morning anyway. “It means that…”

Hadn’t he ever done the math? Or did his young mind not work that way yet, despite its advanced capabilities?

“Your mom was already pregnant with you, Evan. And that’s an old expression that means the mom was going to have a baby before the couple actually got married.”

He waited for the reaction, which, with Evan, could range from innocent shock to a lecture on the gestation period of the mammal.

Evan didn’t react at all, though. He turned away and looked up at the ceiling, saying nothing.

“So, you can stop worrying about Grandpa Walter shooting me.”

“Okay.”

Oliver gave his arm a pat. “This is serious stuff for the middle of the night, son. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about anything more serious than the weather.”

Evan gave him a sly smile. “Which is serious stuff.”

A rush of love almost choked him. His son had a sense of humor, a heart of gold, and a hunger to know everything. Zoe was right. All he had to do was relax and parenting came naturally.

Turning, Evan wrapped his arms around the pillow, a sleepy smile working on his mouth. “Pasha’s right. You and Zoe should get married.”

Just when he thought he had things under control. “Pasha said that to you?”

“When we were playing Rat Screws,” he said. “You guys were gone a long time and she said something like that. I don’t think she knew I heard her, but I did.”

Oliver blew out a breath and stole a look at the clock. “Hey, it’s almost three-thirty. Can we table this until I get some sleep? I have to be a doctor tomorrow.”

“If you tell me a story.”

Oliver could have cried. “You’re kidding, right?”

Evan looked at him. “A good one. Like when you were my age.”

“When I was your age, I…” Had a perfectly normal life in Wilmington, Delaware, with a dad who went to work every day as an engineer at DuPont and a mother who laughed a lot and played a lot and had a crazy streak that made her do impulsive things. “I liked to ride my bike a lot.”

“Where’d you ride?”

“You know, the usual. School, the baseball park, library.”

He lifted his head, shocked. “You were allowed to ride your bike to school when you were eight? I’m not.”

“Different world. Is this a story or an inquisition?”

Evan smiled. “Story. Tell me the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“You,” he said without hesitation.

“Okay, the worst.”

He knew that without hesitation, too. But he wouldn’t tell his son. That wasn’t exactly a bedtime story. He reached for the light, switching it off and bathing them in darkness.