A Little Bit of Déjà Vu (36 page)

~~~

The next morning, Jake let Maggie in the front door and turned on the electric griddle. “Would you mind fixing a pot of coffee while I finish whipping up the pancake batter?”

The kids shuffled into the kitchen, wearing their bathrobes. Despite Alex’s serious case of bed-head, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He pointed at the griddle. “What’s with the pancakes? I certainly haven’t done anything to deserve them.”

“Who says you’re getting any.” Jake chuckled. “You can watch Maggie and Emma eat them all.” He lifted his hands in apology. “Actually, I’m doing penance for letting you down the last couple of weeks. Maggie told me the other night that you’ve been trying to talk to me, and I’ve been too distracted to listen.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Your father’s all ears now, Alex, and so is your wife.”

Alex twisted his mouth a moment and dropped onto the stool at the breakfast bar next to Emma. “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you....” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Dad.”

“You’ve never been a disappointment to me before, and I seriously doubt you could do anything to become one.”

“What if I quit playing football?”

Jake stared at his son a full half-minute. Why would he want to give up everything he’d worked so hard to achieve? “That depends on
why
you want to quit. If it’s because you don’t like the game, then I
will
be disappointed in you. Very.”

Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “Jake!”

He held up his hand. “Because if that’s the case, it means you haven’t been honest with me the last seven years. I’ve never wanted you to play ball unless it was what you wanted.”

Alex stared at the floor. “It was.”

“So then what’s the reason?” Jake poured six round pools of batter onto the griddle.

“I guess it stopped being fun this year when all the colleges started calling. Then I got that letter from the coach at Penn State, telling me how excited the other players were that Rocket Manion’s son would be joining their team.”

“And that’s intimidating you?”

“The whole world’s watching me, waiting to see if I can compare to you. We all know I can’t. My stats aren’t nearly as good as yours were in high school.”

Emma put her arms around him. “Alex, you’re just scared.”

“You’re damn straight I am. My dad’s fans can’t wait to see me fall on my face and make a fool of myself.”

Jake closed his eyes. He’d thought he’d been doing right by his kid in not comparing Alex to himself or telling his son how much better he was than Jake had been. He hadn’t wanted to give his son a swelled head. All he’d accomplished was to make the kid doubt himself and his ability.

Jake gazed at his son and saw the scared little boy he’d carried on his shoulders to kindergarten reflected in his eyes. “Tell me something,” he rasped past the walnut-sized lump of emotion clogging his throat. “If you turned out to be twice the football player I was, would it take anything away from my accomplishments?”

“No.”

“You have to play ball for yourself, Sport. All the coaches have a right to expect is that you give it your all and be the best that
you
can be.”

Alex smiled. “You sound like an Army recruitment ad.”

Jake chuckled and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “I’m going to tell you a secret that, in hindsight, I should’ve let you in on a long time ago. You’re
better
than I was at your age.”

“Yeah, right.” Alex sputtered. “Numbers don’t lie, Dad.”

“The ones you’re referring to do. You know football’s a team sport, and your performance is affected by the guys playing with you. When you talk about the percentage of completed passes, you have another person at the other end of that ball.”

Jake stepped over to the griddle and flipped the pancakes. “I played on a championship team that had two other players besides me eventually go pro—and one of them was a receiver.”

Maggie ruffled Alex’s hair. “You should listen to your dad. I’m sure he knows a lot better than you do how your numbers stack up against his.”

“That’s right, Alex, and you come out on top all the way around,” Jake told him. “You’ve been living and breathing football since you were born. You can run the hundred faster than I could at your age, and you can throw a ball farther and more accurately.”

His son waved at him. “You’re making that up. You can hit an upright ten yards farther away from where I can.”

“After five years in college and six seasons in the pros, I would hope so. Come on. You can’t be that naïve. Do you think you’re as good as you’re ever going to be, right now?”

His son just shrugged.

“Lying to you serves no purpose for me because I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you play ball or not. All I want is for you to be happy.” Jake transferred the pancakes to two plates and slid them across the breakfast bar to Alex and Emma. “Become a hairdresser for all I care. I just want you to be the best damn hairdresser you can be.”

Emma wiggled onto Alex’s lap and slid her arms around his neck. “I don’t care what you do, either. I didn’t fall in love with a quarterback, Alex. I fell in love with the guy that was nice enough to ask me to lunch.”

“Uhh—there’s something you ought to know about that.” Alex smirked. “My dad bribed me with pancakes to be nice to you. Meeting you in his classroom that day was a setup. I didn’t really need lunch money.”

She peered into his face. “Are you telling me you didn’t want to eat with me?”

“Not before I met you. But after you smiled at me, eating lunch was the furthest thing from my mind.” Alex pulled Emma’s mouth to his in a lingering kiss.

“Son?” Jake cleared his throat. “Now that you have my attention, could we focus on the issue at hand?”

“What do you want to do?” Maggie asked. “Are you leaving for school in August to train or are you waiting for the semester to start?”

Alex glanced at Emma. “Do you think Em should be that far away from Dr. Brennan?”

This from the kid who didn’t want the handsome doctor touching his wife.

“They have hospitals and doctors near the college if I have any more problems,” Emma reminded him.

“And if she does,” Maggie added, “I’ll request a leave of absence when school starts and come take care of her.”

Alex uncapped the maple syrup and shrugged. “Then I guess I owe it to myself to see if I’m as good as my dad says I am.”

“I’m glad.” Maggie smiled. “From what Simon tells me, you’re very talented.” All at once, she turned a sickly color and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no.” She dashed for the powder room.

Alex squinted at Jake, chuckling. “Is there something the two of you aren’t telling us?”

The kid was obviously trying to be funny and had no idea he’d stumbled onto the truth.

Jake leaned on the counter and held his head between his hands. Things would be a lot simpler if he could laugh it off as a bad joke. But the kids had a right to know what was going on. “I—uhh….” There was no graceful way out of confessing. “It seems I got Maggie pregnant the night of your wedding.”

A forkful of pancakes froze halfway to his son’s mouth, and he snorted in disbelief. “Damn, Dad. I was just joking. How could you, of all people, let something like that happen?”

“Look, Alex, I don’t need your outrage or your sarcasm. I know what I did was irresponsible. Even more reckless than the first time. We had a little too much to drink after the wedding.” Jake poured another set of hotcakes onto the griddle. “If you want to know the truth, I think subconsciously I wanted it to happen—to get back the baby I felt I’d been cheated out of.”

Emma sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “You’re going to marry my mom, aren’t you?”

“I want to, but she’s less than enthusiastic about the idea. She’s planning on raising the baby by herself.”

Maggie stormed back into the kitchen. “How dare you tell them about my pregnancy! The last thing my daughter needs to hear right now is that her mother’s having a baby.”

“He didn’t tell us,” Alex said. “I accidentally guessed.”

“It’s okay, Mommy.” Emma slid off her seat and hugged her. “It’ll be nice for our daughter to have another baby in the family to play with.”

“I didn’t see any point in telling you. I’ll probably miscarry like I have all the other times. You shouldn’t have to deal with that right now.”

“Don’t you think there’s a chance it was daddy’s genes that caused the problem?”

The wrinkle in Maggie’s brow suggested she hadn’t considered that possibility.

Emma climbed back on her stool at the counter. “How far along were you when you decided to have the abortion?”

“Your mother didn’t choose that,” Jake interjected. “Your grandmoth—”

“Jake.” Maggie cut him off. “My daughter doesn’t need to hear all the grisly details.”

“You’d prefer to let her think you—”

“Yes. I’m not going to prejudice my child toward my mother. I called her, and I’ve forgiven her.”

Emma’s head snapped up. “You did?”

Maggie nodded. “Your grandma’s flying here next week. She can’t wait to meet you.”

Jake stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “I’m glad, Rosebud.” He transferred half the pancakes from the griddle to a dish for Maggie and refilled his son’s already empty plate. Turning to Emma, he smiled. “To answer your question, your mom carried our first baby five and a half weeks.”

“In other words,”—Maggie held her hand over her abdomen—“this is still a
maybe-baby
.”

“Well, if you don’t miscarry, aren’t you going to marry Alex’s dad?”

Maggie ignored Emma’s question and shoved the plate of pancakes back across the counter at Jake. “Coming for breakfast was a mistake. Emma seems to be doing just fine. Since I’m not up to eating right now, I think I’ll go to the early church service.
Alone
.”

~~~

Jake spent the entire day brooding. The longer he thought about the certified letter Maggie insisted she’d sent him, the more it bothered him.

His father had always signed his name J.N. Manion. So if his dad had accepted the letter, Maggie wouldn’t have known the difference between their signatures.

Had his father wanted him to marry Roxanne so much he’d done something as deceitful as sign for the letter and deliberately withhold it? Jake found it hard to believe his dad would do that knowing how the loss of his child had devastated Jake.

At eight o’clock, he grabbed his keys and headed for New Jersey. He had to ask his father or spend the rest of his life wondering and possibly resenting something his dad had never done. Just like he had with Maggie.

Except now he knew it hadn’t been just bitterness that’d kept him dreaming about her for so many years. It had also been regret. The seeds of love they’d sown so many years ago had lain dormant in his subconscious and struggled to survive.

He might as well face it—fate had dumped a truckload of fertilizer on his heart the night Maggie walked into the diner. In the last month, all the feelings he’d been stomping on for nearly two decades had sprouted and come into full bloom. Despite nurturing his bitterness and denying his preoccupation with Maggie, his passion and love for her had flourished.

A half hour later, he knocked on his father’s door, and Helen swung it open. “Jake, what a nice surprise. Your dad and I were just about to have some cake and coffee. Would you like some?”

“Sure, thanks.” He kissed her cheek as he followed her into the bright airy kitchen.

Nick strolled in from the den and hugged him, slapping his back. “Hey, what’re you doing here?”

“I smelled Helen’s coffee and figured I’d bum a cup.”

His dad lifted one eyebrow in a dubious arch. “Come on, I know you better than that. You would never drive all that way this late without calling, unless you had something important on your mind.”

Jake flopped into the chair at the kitchen table. “You’re right. I need you to think back nineteen years, Dad. The week before I got married, did you sign for a certified letter for me?”

“I signed for a lot of letters for you. Do you remember how much mail you got after you made the draft?”

“I’m talking about one from Maggie.”

“
Oh
. That one.”

Damn. Part of him had been hoping his dad wouldn’t know anything about it. “So you did?”

“Yes. I remember wondering why she’d certified it. I worried maybe she was threatening you with some kind of legal action or something.” Nick’s gaze narrowed. “Are you telling me you never got it?”

The tension in Jake’s shoulders eased at hearing the sincere innocence in his father’s voice. Maybe, in his despair, Jake had accidentally tossed it in the trash with his junk mail. “No. Do you recall giving it to me?”

“No, I probably put it on the hall table where I always left your mail.”

Helen laid three mugs on the kitchen table and filled them with coffee. “Why is this letter suddenly so important?”

“Because it explained that Maggie was blackmailed into aborting my baby.” He told them all about what had really happened. “All these years I’ve been blaming her.”

“I can’t imagine what could’ve happened to the letter.” His father stared at the table. “Wait a minute.” He snapped his fingers. “I vaguely remember Roxanne being there when I signed for it. She’d dropped by to bring me the cuckoo clock she’d brought back from Germany. I was relieved she didn’t ask me who Margaret Hunter was when she saw the return address.”

Helen gasped. “You don’t think she could’ve....”

Jake didn’t like to think that Roxanne might’ve done something like that, but it was a reasonable explanation. In all the months she’d listened to him moan Maggie’s name, Roxanne had never asked him for any details about his relationship with her. Maybe it was because she’d already known the whole story. When he’d confessed to his wife after two years, she hadn’t seemed all that surprised.

He took a sip of his coffee and smiled at his stepmother. “I’m sorry, Helen, but I’ll have to take a rain check on the cake. I need to go home and call my ex and get to the bottom of this.”

~~~

When Jake arrived back at his house, he heard Alex and Emma showering together in the bathroom. He smiled and headed for the master suite just as his red-faced son slinked out of the bathroom, a towel slung around his hips.