If he was being honest, the reason he wanted to check out the diner had nothing to do with food. He needed to start searching this town for Alex. It had shaken his confidence a bit when he’d discovered that she wasn’t in Tirsdale. He hadn’t realized how sure he had been that he would find her there. Herald Springs seemed a lot less likely, given the fact that it was a smaller town and you had to go all the way to the top of the mountain to reach it. Would she really have come this far?

  The diner he had seen was the only one in town, and he kept his eyes on the members of staff as he was seated, but none of them looked familiar. He held out hope, though. When the server came to their table, he decided to ask the question.

  “Have you made any recent hires?” he asked her.

  “Recent hires?” The poor girl frowned, obviously confused but wanting to do her best to provide quality service. “I don’t think we have. I’m not completely sure about the kitchen.”

  “But no one in a server position?”

  “No, it’s been the same serving crew for over a year now,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  He couldn’t come out with the truth in front of Jack. If his son knew they were looking for Alex, and then they didn’t find her, he could end up getting seriously hurt. “I’m just curious about how often new people come through a town like this,” he fibbed. He glanced at Jack, who was busy with the maze on the children’s menu and didn’t seem to be paying attention — he probably wasn’t at risk of putting the pieces together and figuring out what Elijah was talking about. “Do you get a lot of newcomers to this area?”

  “Not really. Are you thinking of putting down roots here?”

  “Oh, no, we’re just passing through,” Elijah said. “It was just idle curiosity.”

  He ordered a club sandwich and a grilled cheese for Jack. The two of them ate in relative silence. Elijah had discovered lately that neither he nor his son were any good at making conversation when there wasn’t anything specific that needed to be said. It had always been Alex, it transpired, who had driven their talks. Without her, it felt as if neither of them knew what to say half the time.

  When their meal was finished and they had paid, they went back out onto the street. “Now what?” Jack said.

  “I guess we go back to the room and get some rest,” Elijah suggested. He was so down that he didn’t feel up to much else.

  But Jack frowned. “We’re on vacation,” he pointed out. “We’re supposed to be doing fun things, and it’s still early. I don’t want to go to bed. Can’t we do something fun?”

  “What would you like to do?” Elijah felt bad. He’d been selling this road trip to Jack as a fun vacation, and his son was justified in pointing out that there hadn’t been much fun involved so far.

  Jack pointed at a little bakery across the street. “Can we go get some dessert?”

  Elijah couldn’t see any harm in that idea. “All right,” he agreed, taking his son’s hand so they could cross the street safely. “But only one thing, okay? We’re not buying up a bunch of snacks.”

  “One thing,” Jack agreed, with a grin so broad that Elijah knew he was hopeful that it wouldn’t be just one thing at all.

  He was so focused on shutting down Jack’s dessert hoarding ambitions that he almost didn’t see her. It was Jack’s gasp, followed by his cry of “Alex!” that brought Elijah to attention.

  Alex stood behind the counter wearing a pink apron, a pastry box in her hands. When she saw them, she fumbled it and dropped it behind the counter.

  “I want a clean box,” the customer in front of her said. “You have to throw that one away.”

  But Alex paid no attention to her customer. She wasn’t even looking at Jack. Her eyes were fixed on Elijah, her face a mask of shock. He couldn’t read her response. He had no idea whether she was happy to see him again or not.

  But he had found her.

  That was a start.

  CHAPTER 23

  ALEX

  At first, she could do nothing but stare. It was surreal. Could Elijah really be here, standing right in front of her? How had he found her?

  He looked back at her, eyes wide, and Alex knew for sure that it wasn’t the case that he had known she would be here. He looked far too surprised to see her. He had walked into this donut shop with no idea of what he was going to find.

  Alex didn’t believe in fate. She didn’t believe that the universe was watching over her, pushing her in the direction it wanted her to go. Her luck had been too bad in her life to allow her to believe something like that. If the universe was watching her, it must not like her very much.

  But what other explanation was there for what she was seeing? Elijah, here? She had never expected to see him again, and certainly not walking into the donut shop on a Saturday evening.

  He stood stock still, staring at her, and Alex couldn’t help wondering if he was going to turn around and walk right back out the door. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  Maybe she should be the one to run away. Maybe she should get out of here while she still could, before this turned into a full-on confrontation and she was forced to discuss things she didn’t even want to think about.

  But could those things be avoided now that he had found her again?

  Jack was bouncing around on the floor in front of her like he’d had too much sugar. She was used to seeing kids act like this in the donut shop, of course, but it was out of character for Jack, who had come to be so even-keeled during their time together. It made her wonder what things had been like for the two of them in her absence. Had Jack regressed, returned to the behavioral problems he’d had before she had arrived? Was he throwing tantrums again?

  Maybe she’d been wrong to leave them. Maybe she had been thinking too much about what she needed and not enough about what was right for Jack.

  But they had come after her. They’d found her.

  No. They didn’t come after me. They weren’t looking for me. As much as she would have liked to take it that way, she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. Elijah didn’t care about her. He had come in here accidentally, that was all. He’d be leaving any moment now.

  But the least she could do would be to greet Jack.

  She shook off the shock of the moment and came out from behind the counter. Jack immediately flung his arms around her waist. “You’re here!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think we were ever going to see you again! But you’re really here!”

  “And you’re really here too.” Alex returned his embrace, then held him back at arm’s length. “You’ve gotten bigger, I think.”

  “I have?” Jack turned in a circle, clearly delighted. “Dad, am I bigger?”

  “You get bigger every day,” Elijah said, but his gaze was fixed on Alex.

  She felt as if she was swimming in his gaze. Drowning in it. The floor seemed to be tilting beneath her. She wished she’d stayed behind the counter so that she could lean on it to keep her steady. She had forgotten altogether how intense and piercing his stare could be. And now she was remembering what it had been like to lie in his bed, to watch him on top of her, and she felt dizzy with sudden desire.

  Jack bounced up and down on the tips of his toes. “Is this where you work now?” he asked. “I don’t think it’s as good as our house. But there are more donuts here. I guess you came here because you wanted donuts, huh? That makes sense.”

  “What are you two doing here?” Alex asked slowly.

  “We’re on a road trip,” Jack said.

  “A road trip?” Alex looked at Elijah for confirmation.

  “I thought the two of us needed to do something together,” he said softly. “I had a feeling you might approve.”

  It felt like he was trying to say something else — something more. She shivered slightly and wished she had the sweater she kept in the staff room. It would have made her feel better to be wrapped up in something warm.

  “You came on a road trip — here?” she asked, still trying to piece together in her mind what was going on, how they had come to be in Herald Springs at all, much less in her donut shop.

  “I have a long weekend from school,” Jack explained. “We’ve been driving all over the mountains.”

  “You have?” She felt incredulous. She’d been worried that Elijah might not be paying enough attention to Jack in her absence, but now it seemed that that wasn’t the case at all. He’d taken his son on a road trip. It was nearly impossible to imagine Elijah doing something like that, and yet he had. He had decided to step away from his work for long enough to devote time to Jack.

  It warmed her heart. She’d had to leave them, it was true, but it was clear that she’d left her mark on them anyway. They had been changed by having her in their lives, and she was so glad to know it.

  “All over the mountains,” Elijah said quietly, and again, Alex had the uneasy feeling that he was trying to say something more than what his words conveyed. She wondered whether she wanted to know or not. It was an intimidating thought.

  “Have you been enjoying your trip?” she asked Jack. Keeping the conversation focused on him was easier than turning to Elijah. She wasn’t ready to speak to him yet, although she knew she was going to have to eventually.

  “It’s been kind of boring until now,” Jack said. “There’s nothing to do in any of these towns.”

  “You haven’t done anything fun?” She glanced at Elijah. “I could give you some recommendations of fun things to do, maybe.”

  “The fun part is riding in the car with Dad and getting to see the mountains,” Jack said. “And it’s been nice because I knew you were in these mountains, Alex. But I didn’t think we’d actually see you here.” He turned to his father. “Did you know we were going to find Alex, Dad?”

  “I hoped we would.” Elijah’s gaze was still steady on Alex.

  She had forgotten how unbearably handsome he was. He towered over her. His hair was a bit longer than she remembered, but as always, he wore it well. She couldn’t help remembering what it had been like to run her fingers through it, and she longed to do that again. She felt her body leaning closer to him, almost as if she was being drawn in magnetically. She gripped the counter behind her, feeling as if she was physically restraining herself from moving closer to him.

  “You hoped you would?” she repeated.

  “Jack told me that you were in the mountains,” Elijah explained. “I didn’t know if you meant that literally or not, but I had to come up here and see for myself.”

  “Why?” Alex asked. “You didn’t try to stop me when I left. You didn’t mind seeing me go. Why would you come after me now?”

  The idea of it gnawed at her. She wanted to be happy about seeing him again, but she couldn’t let go of what it had felt like to walk away from him and to know that he didn’t care. He hadn’t tried to make her stay. He hadn’t wanted her to stay. And she had spent the past month moving on. It was true that she hadn’t gotten him out of her head yet — far from it — but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him again. If anything, it only made this more difficult. How was she supposed to face him after what had happened?

  “You shocked me,” Elijah said. “Leaving like you did — you took me by surprise, Alex. It was so sudden. I didn’t know what to do. What could I have done?”

  “Anything. You didn’t do anything. You just let me walk away.”

  He sighed. “I thought that was what you wanted me to do.”

  “I don’t know what I wanted.”

  “Do you have a minute to talk?” he asked. “Maybe we could sit down and try to figure out what went wrong that day. I’ve been longing to go over it with you.”

  “I’m supposed to be working.” She wasn’t sure she felt up to talking to him. It had only been four days since her pregnancy test, and thoughts of the baby still occupied every waking moment. How was she going to look him in the eye and have a conversation with him, all while knowing that she was keeping such a massive secret from him? She couldn’t do that. And she couldn’t reverse her position and tell him the truth just because he happened to be here. If she told him, it would have to be because she had thought it out and decided it was the best thing to do, not because he had shocked her by appearing at her place of work.

  “You can take a break, can’t you?” Elijah asked.

  His eyes were so soft. Nothing like the way he’d looked at her on their last day together, when she had been sure he didn’t give a damn what she did. The way he was looking at her now reminded her of the conversations they’d had late at night, after Jack had been in bed. The way the two of them had opened up to one another about the traumatic things in their past. The way she had felt safe to confide in him — something she hadn’t felt with anyone in a very long time.

  And now he was standing in front of her, giving her that look and asking her to take a break and talk to him, and she found herself incapable of refusing him. She couldn’t have refused him anything.

  “I can talk,” she said.

  She had to be careful, she knew. This was so dangerous. She didn’t want to come clean with him about her pregnancy, but if she was going to keep it to herself, she needed to navigate this conversation carefully. She led him over to a booth in the corner of the shop and sat down.

  “Hang on,” Jack objected as they took their seats. “Dad, you said I could get a donut.”

  “How much are they?” Elijah asked.

  “Two dollars,” Alex said.

  Elijah pulled a five out of his pocket and handed it to Jack. “Go ahead,” he said. “And you can use the change to play that pinball machine in the corner. Ask the person at the counter to give you quarters back so you can play as much as you want.”

  “Really?” Jack lit up. “I can use all this money for pinball?”

  “Yeah,” Elijah said. “Absolutely. Go nuts.”

  They watched as he ran over to the counter to buy his donut and collect his quarters. “You sent him away so we could speak privately, didn’t you?” Alex asked Elijah.

  He nodded. “I’ve got to talk to you,” he said. “Now that I found you, I’m not leaving until the two of us have hashed all this out. We need to figure out what went wrong between us. And I’m hoping that we can figure out a way to put it right.”

  “Elijah…”

  “Please, Alex. It’s a stroke of luck that I was able to find you at all. I didn’t know if I would. Please let me have this.”

  Alex swallowed, anxiety welling up in her. How could she possibly have this conversation and not tell him everything?

  But she didn’t think she could walk away from him either. Not now.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ELIJAH

  “Iowe you an apology,” Elijah said. “I want that to come before anything else.”

  She didn’t protest or try to convince him that he didn’t have anything to apologize for. She sat there, arms folded on top of the table, and waited.

  He respected it. He did owe her this apology, and he hadn’t wanted to have to convince her of that fact. Better that she was ready to accept it from him.

  That didn’t make it easy to say what he needed to say, though. He took a breath to steady himself. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when you talked to me about missing family day at the school,” he said. “The truth is that you were right. I was wrong to miss that. And I knew it at the time. I knew when I came into the house that night that I had some explaining to do, that I’d messed up and I was going to get called out for it. And Alex, you were right to call me out, and I’m glad you did it.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You didn’t like that I did that,” she said. “You got angry at me.”

  “But I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t really angry at you. I was just lashing out. The truth is, I was feeling embarrassed and guilty. I was ashamed of myself because I knew that everything you were saying was right. I knew that I should have been there. And Jack has reinforced that to me every day since it happened. I can see how much it hurt him that his father didn’t show up for him. I’ll never make that mistake again — but I’ll also never have the chance to correct it. I can never go back in time and watch him make his first school presentation. The family tree is in our house, but it should be a good memory, and instead it’s just a reminder of a time when I wasn’t there for my son. That’s what it will always be — except that, for Jack, I think it’s a reminder of you.”

  “Is that why you came looking for me? Because of Jack?”

  Elijah let out a long sigh and raked a hand through his hair. “That’s part of it,” he said. “You know how much you mean to him. I think you knew better than I did. I didn’t know how cut up he would be when you were gone — but you did, didn’t you?”

  “I guessed,” she admitted. “It made it so hard to go, knowing that — but I had to do it before we got in even deeper. Before things got worse. Imagine if I had stayed, Elijah. He would have gotten even more attached to me, and eventually I would have had to leave. It would have crushed him. I couldn’t put him through that. Could you?”

  “Why would you have had to leave?” Elijah asked. “You could have stayed with us, Alex.”

  “After what happened between you and me—”

  “No, I know,” he said. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did, and I don’t blame you for being upset about it. I don’t blame you for wanting to leave over it, even. But couldn’t we try to put it behind us? I was completely in the wrong. I can admit that. I’ll do better.”

  But Alex shook her head. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. “That was a fight. It wasn’t so serious. You’re right, we could have gotten past that eventually. But when I say what happened between us — Elijah, that night with the wine…”

  “You told me you didn’t regret it,” he said, wondering if she could read the sadness in his voice.”