The Deputy's Unexpected Family

Gabe scrubbed a hand through his brown curls. “So Andrea knew she was pregnant when she left.”

“Yes.” Harper turned back toward him. “She said that she knew you didn’t want to get married or have kids, and once she realized she was pregnant, she knew that she had to make her choices with a child in mind, too. And she couldn’t keep doing...whatever it was you two were doing. The back and forth. The constant trying. So she came home.”

Home. That was Comfort Creek for Andrea, but this town wasn’t home for him. He’d been determined never to return to this hypocritical town. It had an attractive enough veneer, but he knew what was burbling underneath...and suddenly a thought struck him for the very first time.

“And no one told me.”

“Andrea made me promise to keep the secret,” Harper said.

“And you’re the only one who knew? I’m sure her parents knew I was the father. And her brother would have known, too, I imagine. If they knew, there would have been others—aunts and uncles, close friends, promising to keep that secret.”

Pink rose in Harper’s cheeks. “I told you.”

“She’s four.” He couldn’t mask the edge in his tone. “It’s been five years.”

“She wasn’t my daughter then,” Harper retorted. “And it wasn’t my business.”

Yeah, that’s what everyone in this town said about his grandmother, too. The way she raised her grandson was none of their business. What she did behind closed doors was her personal business, and far be it from them to push into someone else’s privacy. She was old, and he was a handful—they could sympathize with poor Imogen. But never once did they question whether Gabe’s behavioral issues might have arisen because of his crotchety old grandmother.

Gabe had been a little boy who was told how terrible he was on a daily basis. He’d been an adolescent hiding the emotional bruises from his grandmother’s caustic comments. And now most recently, he was the father of a daughter he didn’t even know existed. Not deemed good enough by Andrea and those closest to her. Ironically, that wasn’t very different from his grandmother.

This town had clean streets and cordial smiles, like the one from Chief Morgan, and under it all was the cesspool of secrets. He had a little girl, and Comfort Creek had kept its collective mouth shut. This stupid town hadn’t changed a bit.

“Not your business.” He nodded slowly. “I should have known about her, and long before this.”

Harper nodded and tugged her ginger curls away from her face. “I agree. But I’m telling you now.”

“And if it hadn’t been for that car accident?” he prodded. If Andrea hadn’t died, leaving her daughter...their daughter...in Harper’s care, what then?

Harper shrugged faintly. “What would you have had me do, Gabe? Go behind my best friend’s back and inform you about Zoey? I couldn’t do that. But I was the voice of reason and balance. I encouraged her to tell you, and eventually...I think she would have.”

“When Zoey was a teenager?” he asked.

“I thought you didn’t work with what-ifs?” She looked away.

So, he’d hit a nerve, had he? Good—she deserved to squirm a little bit. This whole town did! His emotions were kicking in now, and it wasn’t the appropriate emotional response...not what people expected to see when a man discovered he had a child. He wasn’t overflowing with love. He wasn’t feeling tender and paternal.

“This town.” His voice trembled with barely restrained anger. “Everyone keeps their secrets, don’t they? They close the circle and claim to be so innocent. But what happens when they close the circle and you’re the one on the outside? Huh? I was raised in Comfort Creek since my mother dumped me with my grandmother shortly after my birth. Chief Morgan just gave me a very touching speech saying that I’m one of your own. But this town didn’t take care of me. And one day, it might not take care of you, either.”

“So you wanted to know.” Harper shook her head. “Andrea didn’t think you would! If you had any kind of flexibility, maybe you should have let Andrea know that, because I’m not taking responsibility for—”

Zoey appeared in the doorway, and as Gabe’s gaze landed on the girl, the words died in Harper’s mouth.

“We shouldn’t discuss any of this in front of her,” Harper said, her voice tight.

“Yeah. Agreed.” Even he could see that their old, festering issues would be poison for that little girl.

Zoey stared at them, gray eyes wide. Did Zoey have any sense of who he was? When he was a boy, he used to imagine that his dad would come back for him. His mom was a lost cause, but he’d held out hope for a dad. He’d figured that he’d know his dad right away—some sort of innate feeling, or something. But that had only been a childhood fantasy. In reality, it was possible to look your own child in the face and have no idea who she was.

“Zoey, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Harper said, her tone softening. “Come here. We’re done talking about that anyway.”

“Are you fighting like with Aunt Heidi?” Zoey asked doubtfully.

“Yes.” Shame clouded her expression. “Something like that. But we won’t anymore.”

Gabe had to get out of here. He needed space to process all of this, and he didn’t trust himself to do it in front of Zoey.

“I’m going to head out.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

It was too casual of a statement to encompass it all, but he didn’t know how to deal with this—and his anger wasn’t going to be of use right now. He needed space.

Before Harper could say anything, he marched to the door and pulled it open. Outside that door was freedom, but something tugged his gaze back over his shoulder once more to the curly redhead who stared at him with regret swimming in her eyes and the dark-haired child next to her, an apple slice held aloft.

He’d promised himself that he’d never come back to this town for good reason, but that was before he’d known he had a child here, and all of his issues aside, life had just gotten a hundred percent more complicated.

“I’ll be back,” he said, moderating his tone. He wasn’t sure why he said it. Maybe it was because of their stricken expressions, or because he knew that he owed that child something more than DNA, whether he liked it or not.

Then he pushed out onto the sidewalk and pulled the door solidly shut behind him.

Chapter Four (#u5c67eb0d-8160-5d8c-ba05-113fbbf0da0d)

Harper hadn’t handled that very well, had she? Or maybe it was just Gabe who hadn’t taken the news very gracefully. It wasn’t like she’d had a lot of time to plan it out. If she’d waited and told him another time—maybe when he was back in Fort Collins—there would always be the question of why she hadn’t told him now. This was the right thing...wasn’t it? How much gentler could she have been?

Regardless, Gabe had run for the hills, and she wasn’t surprised. At least she shouldn’t be.

Harper finished dismantling the mannequins that had been slashed—she couldn’t look at those demolished dresses any longer. They were expensive gowns, and while insurance would compensate her for her loss, it wasn’t only about the money. The vandalism was violent, frightening and such a willful destruction of something beautiful. She took some photos for insurance purposes and then folded what was left of the gowns into storage boxes. Maybe she could make use of some of the fabric for something else and they wouldn’t be a complete waste.

Harper kept looking up whenever she heard a noise, expecting to see Gabe come back in, but he didn’t return. Zoey finished drawing her pictures, and when Harper was convinced she wouldn’t get anything more done with her daughter underfoot, she locked up the shop and drove Zoey home.

Harper didn’t live far from the shop. Her house was a little two-bedroom bungalow two streets over from where she’d grown up. It was the perfect-size home for a woman on her own, so bringing Zoey into the mix had required some reshuffling—of everything. What used to be her home office was now Zoey’s bedroom. It was just as well, Harper decided. Now that she had a child to care for, she’d leave work at work. There was no more room for it in her evenings with Zoey.

“Will we get the crowns back?” Zoey asked, kicking off her shoes. Harper caught the girl’s jacket before it hit the ground and hung it on the peg behind her.

“Probably not,” Harper said. “But the insurance company will give us money to order more.”

“I miss the crowns.”

So did Harper. This robbery felt personal. It was an invasion, and it had left her more shaken than she liked to admit.

“Are you hungry?” Harper asked.

“Yep. Can I have a snack?” Zoey asked hopefully. “I want cheese.”

“I’ll make supper,” Harper replied with a rueful shake of her head. “And after supper, you’re going to visit Grandma Jane for a little while. She’s going to make cookies with you.”

“Cookies?”

“You know Grandma Jane’s cookies.” She smiled.