Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(57)

Eli goggled at him. “Dad—are you? You look like hell.”

He laughed. “Just came in from a run. I’m fine. Finished the book yesterday. First draft, anyway.”

“That’s awesome! But Dad…I…you’re sitting, right? You look like you’re in the kitchen. Are you sitting?”

Theo tried to decide if he was about to get bad news or good. Eli looked a bit wide-eyed and tense, but not enough to determine whether it was excitement or stress making him so. “I’m sitting, E. What’s wrong?”

Eli took a breath. “You know I came to Quiet Cove with Rosa for Thanksgiving, right?”

Of course he did, and Eli knew he knew. He was stalling. “Eli. Out with it.”

“We’re here at her brother’s house. Staying here. Everybody came over tonight for dinner and games. It’s a thing they do a lot. Everybody’s here, Dad.”

Now he knew that this was about Carmen. That was what Eli was saying without saying. “I know. I expected it. It’s fine. Don’t feel like you’re disloyal or something stupid like that. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. And it’s not that.” In the background, Theo heard Rosa’s voice, and Eli turned away from the camera.

Eli, God. Just say it. You want me to tell him, I will. I’m going to get my ass kicked anyway.

No, Rhody, I got it. Just…okay. He turned back to the screen.

“Dad, can you get here? I think you need to get here. Maybe now.”

Something was wrong with Carmen. “Christ, Eli. What the hell is wrong? Is Carmen sick? Hurt? What?”

Eli swallowed hard, and Theo’s heart, which had only just returned to its normal rhythm after his run, picked back up to full speed. “She’s pregnant, Dad.”

His ears heard, but his head rejected. “What?”

“She’s about five months now.”

Carmen was pregnant.

Five months pregnant.

She’d gotten pregnant five months ago.

In the summer.

Carmen was pregnant with his child.

Theo’s heart thumped hard, stopped, and then resumed its speedy beat.

And then the camera shifted and Rosa filled his screen, looking surprisingly blonde but otherwise adorably familiar. “She said not to tell you, that she was figuring out how to do it in her own way, but forget about it. She’s halfway gone. I get it if you don’t want to come, but you need to know. You needed to know a long time ago, I.M.O. What do you want to do?”

Anger. Joy. Sorrow. Shock. Love. Hate. Fear. He felt it all. “I’m coming. Soon as I can get there.”

“You want us to say anything?”

“I don’t care. Up to you.”

Rosa grinned, and Theo, whose head was a cacophony of incomprehensible thoughts, had a moment’s pause. That grin was positively viperous. “I’m not gonna say, then.”

“Fair enough.” He closed the Mac and started packing.





15



Seeing Eli and Rosa for the first time in a couple of months had been exactly as awkward and unpleasant as Carmen had anticipated it would be. She wasn’t showing hugely yet, and she’d dressed to try to camouflage her belly, but she’d known that her time of dodging reality was coming to an end.

Shockingly, her family had kept her secret from Rosa, too. Carmen attributed that to the way that Rosa, since she’d gone to college four years ago, had sort of faded to the back of the family. Whether that circumstance had evolved by Rosa’s influence or the family’s, Carmen wasn’t sure. Probably a little bit of both. In any case, in this case, it had worked in her favor, and she’d gotten until the end of November to ignore key facets of her reality.

It was not her usual approach to be such a *, but what was happening to her was so enormous and life-altering that she hadn’t been able to make any clear decisions. The baby was due in April. She couldn’t afford another summer away from work—though her staff had done a great job covering everything while she was away, and she’d been apprised regularly of all their progress, some clients had not been thrilled to know that the woman they’d contracted with was barely even reachable while the work happened. She’d need to be able to get in front of clients in the coming season.

Worrying about that, trying to wrap her mind around the possibility that she’d have to find a new home, and simply confronting the truth that she was going to be a mother—that was all her mind could face. The little bit remaining was a raw sore from the continuing hurt of missing Theo and knowing she’d f*cked up irredeemably.

There was nothing left for the thought that she’d have to face him and tell him that not only had she f*cked them up, but they were now connected forever. So she’d set that thought aside and decided to wait until she had no other choice but to deal with it. She’d expected Thanksgiving to be that time, and she’d arrived at the house girded for the discussion. But then Eli and Rosa hadn’t noticed, and she thought she’d have some more time.

Everyone had converged at the house. The men were in the cellar watching the big television, and the women were in the kitchen, wearing aprons, baking pies and doing whatever prep they could the day before Thanksgiving. Eli had tried to join them in the kitchen, but Adele had swatted him with a tea towel and told him to go be with the men. He’d made a show of being run off, and everyone had laughed. Rosa had been in a great mood, and the vibe in the kitchen was merry.