That, of course, was when I saw her.
She… Jesus. She was stunning. A mixture of her mom and me. She had the delicacy of Rachel’s features, with the rich dark hair that was all mine. She had my jaw, though, and my height. A bit of my stockiness too, but that could have been a sign of good health. It had been a long while since Rachel was a healthy weight, though she hadn’t been as skinny at Christmas.
Her hair was pinned back in a braid, and she wore a pair of black tailored pants and a white shirt that I figured were a part of her uniform.
The warmth of the morning combined with how fast she was walking gave her a rosy-cheeked glow that melted my heart.
I jerked to my feet the second I saw her, and as she crossed the street and her gaze collided with mine, the nerves disappeared. Melted away with the power of recognition.
That was the only way I could describe it.
She knew me, as much as I knew her, and it had nothing to do with how we looked.
Wynter, pausing once she’d crossed the street, sucked in a breath before she moved over to me.
Determined to make this as easy on her as I could, I stuck out my hand for her to shake when she approached the table I’d staked out for us.
Gingerly, she accepted it and shook mine before she murmured, “Hi.”
“Hi,” I greeted back. “Do you want a coffee or some breakfast?”
Her eyes lit up at that, but it immediately dampened. “Just coffee will be fine, thanks.”
Wondering what that was about when she was clearly hungry, I asked, “Will you be okay here? While I go and order?”
She scowled at me. “I think I can handle sitting by myself for five minutes.”
Shooting her a sheepish glance, I apologized. “What would you like to drink?”
“A latte, please. One shot of espresso.”
Nodding my understanding, I retreated to the counter, and I put in an order for our drinks and then grabbed a couple of pastries and ordered some hot food for breakfast too.
If my kid was hungry, she’d eat.
It was a testament, I thought, to my anxiety that my sweet tooth wasn’t triggered by all the pastries. I was too fucking nervous to eat.
This was worse than being interviewed by the cops on a murder charge.
When I returned with a tray stacked high with different kinds of food, she jerked upright, mouth rounding as I made it outside.
That she might love sweet treats as much as I did made me hide a smile.
“I didn’t know what you’d like to eat,” I said awkwardly. “So figured you could graze whatever caught your eye.”
I didn’t say that I’d have asked her if she’d have told me what she wanted to order.
This was our first meeting, and I intended for there to be more.
“You’re going to eat some?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” I told her, even though I wasn’t hungry at all. “There’s an omelet coming and a sausage muffin if you’re really hungry.”
She didn’t have to answer—I saw in her eyes she was.
What the fuck was going on with her?
It set my nerves on edge, but I made myself take a seat and lounge back. Every part of me wanted to shake some answers out of her, fix whatever was broken, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the right.
Yet.
As she picked up a pain au chocolat, moaning when the chocolate hit her tongue, I took a sip of my espresso and monitored her.
She had shadows under her eyes, and some strain around them too.
“What time does school start?”
Wynter peered at me from under her lashes. “An hour.”
“How far away is it?”
“It’s a ten-minute walk.”
I jerked up my chin. “I can take you there if you’re not afraid of bikes?”
“You would?”
“I would.”
She bit her lip, looking so much like Rachel at that moment I nearly fucking wept.
Before she could say anything, I pulled out my wallet. Flipping through the folds, I retrieved my driver’s license. “So you know I am who I say I am.”
Hesitantly, she took my license, and her shoulders dropped some. “I thought you were, but thank you for showing me.”
“Trust your instincts, but trust proof even more,” I said jokingly.
She graced me with a measured glance.
“Here,” I said next, passing her a photo.
Her mouth rounded when she saw a much younger me holding a much younger her.
She’d been swaddled in hospital blankets, faded pink that offset just how rosy her cheeks were.
“That’s me?”
“It is.”
“You carry it with you?” she asked, her finger tracing a dog-eared corner.
“Always.”
Her bottom lip got nibbled some more. “Do you have a picture of my birth mom?”
I nodded and handed her another couple photos. “This is her back then.”
Wynter blinked as she took in the truly horrendous sight of Rachel back when she’d given birth. Her fingertips drifted over her mom's face.
“She’s almost skeletal.”
“She was in bad shape.” I sucked in a breath. “I'm sure you have questions but, in all honesty, I don’t have the details yet. I’m working on it.”
She frowned. “What makes you think she’ll tell you now?”
“I gave her an ultimatum.”
“About what?”
“Your mom and me…” I sighed. “Your birth mom and me, I mean—”
“I knew what you meant.”
My smile was tight. “We’re together. But it’s a weird relationship. I’m tired of that. I want to move forward but she’s buried in the past. We agreed, last night, that we were going to try to make things more normal between us.”
“What’s normal?”
Well, how the hell did I explain without her wondering what kind of freaks her birth parents were?
I cleared my throat. “We don’t currently live together. She lives next door.”
“She’s your neighbor?”
“We’re exclusive, but we don’t date. We don’t really hang out that much either. Most of the time, we only talk business.”
Her mouth rounded. “Wow. That’s very dysfunctional.”
“It is,” I agreed, laughing self-deprecatingly at her statement of surprise. “It’s not ideal. I miss her, and I know she misses me.”
“What’s made the change? Is it like with me? It’s to do with your dad?” Her tone, I noted, wasn’t as sour as it had been yesterday.
“Yeah, it is.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that I didn’t think I could take another of Rachel’s cutting dismissals. She didn’t need to know that. Neither did Rach. That would only set things back.
I knew it would take a while to get through Rachel’s barriers, and I didn’t doubt there’d be painful times ahead. But with the promise of us working together to resolve things, I could deal with her being an ice queen from time to time.
I just needed progression.
I just needed to know we were both working toward the same end goal.
“Was she sick?”
“When I left?” I asked.
Wynter’s lips tightened. “No. When she gave birth to me.”