and folks nodded at Julie in greeting as she let Gordon steer her toward the back, where he’d scored one of the booths.
He waited until she was seated before sliding into the seat across from hers.
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” he said. “It’s good to see you again, Julie.”
The waitress appeared, handed Julie a menu. “The special is a grilled chicken sandwich, extra for cheese.”
“I’ll have that, please,” Julie said. “Without the cheese. Unsweetened iced tea, too, with lemon.”
Gordon asked for a double-deluxe cheeseburger with curly fries and a side of coleslaw, plus a cola.
“Fishing must be hungry business these days,” Julie commented, to get the conversation going.
“I’m not fishing anymore,” Gordon answered. “I’m in construction.”
“I see,” Julie said, though of course she didn’t, not really.
“How is Calvin?” Gordon asked.
“Except for his asthma, and he hasn’t had any problems with that for a while, he’s healthy and happy. He has a dog, a beagle named Harry, and he’s been learning to ride horseback out on the Silver Spur.”
“I can’t believe he’s in kindergarten,” Gordon said.
Their drinks came, and neither of them spoke until the waitress had gone.
“Believe it,” Julie said. “Calvin can already read and do simple math, and he would have skipped kindergarten and gone directly into first grade if I hadn’t refused to let him do that.”
Gordon watched her pensively, stirring his tall, icy cola with his straw. “I’m not here to make trouble, Julie,” he said.
“I didn’t say you were,” Julie pointed out.
He grinned. “No,” he agreed, “you didn’t. But you’re not happy to see me, are you?”
“No,” Julie admitted glumly.
Gordon chuckled at that. “Okay,” he said. “That’s fair. I appreciate the honesty.”
The food came, and Gordon took the time to salt and pepper his burger, line up the little wells of ketchup for dunking fries.
Julie cut her sandwich in half to make it more manageable and surprised herself by eating a few bites.
“I think I told you about Dixie,” Gordon began. “My wife?”
“You told me,” Julie said. “Are you still living in Louisiana?”
Gordon shook his head. “Dallas,” he said. “That’s Dixie’s hometown. Lots of construction going on, so I’ve been working steady.”
“That’s good,” Julie said carefully.
She had lived with this man.
Made love with him, borne his child.
Even back then, in the throes of passion, she’d known so little about Gordon Pruett. Never met his parents and very few of his friends. She wondered, then and now, if he’d been trying to keep her a secret for some reason.
“Dixie’s dad owns the construction company,” Gordon explained, with no trace of apology or defensiveness. “We have a nice home in a good neighborhood and—”
“You can’t have Calvin,” Julie broke in, frightened again. Still. “I’m all he knows, and I won’t just send him off to live with total strangers, Gordon.”
Gordon raised both hands in a bid for peace. “Julie,” he said, leaning toward her a little, his voice slow and earnest, “let’s be clear from the beginning. I have no intention—zero—of going after full custody, or even shared custody. I’ll continue to make the child-support payments. But I want to get to know Calvin, and have him get to know me.”
Julie eased up a little. Although her appetite was gone, she made herself eat a little more, so her blood sugar wouldn’t plunge in the middle of the afternoon.
“And how would you go about this? Getting acquainted with Calvin, I mean?”
Gordon smiled, and Julie was reassured by the kind twinkle in his eyes. “Very slowly and carefully at first,” he replied. “Maybe we’d just go out for pizza in the beginning, or play some miniature golf. Of course, you’d be included in any outings Dixie and I planned for Calvin—we wouldn’t expect you to be comfortable with any other kind of arrangement, at least in the beginning.”
Julie’s relief must have shown clearly in her face, because Gordon reached across the table, took her hand in a gentle grip and gave it a fleeting squeeze.
“Except for spending the night with one or the other of my sisters, Libby or Paige, Calvin’s never been away from home,” she said tentatively. “His asthma doesn’t flare up very often, but when it does and it’s bad, he’s terrified. Usually the inhaler works, but sometimes he needs a ventilator.”
Gordon’s Calvin-blue eyes were solemn. Looking across the table at this man, this familiar stranger, Julie slipped into a time warp for just a fraction of an instant and saw her little boy, all grown up.
“Dixie’s an RN,” he said. “She knows all about medical equipment and medicines and the like. And she loves kids. In fact, we’re expecting one of our own next April.”
Julie felt a too-familiar ache on Calvin’s behalf.
Gordon was excited about the baby he and Dixie were expecting. He was ready to be a father. Where had all this maturity been when Calvin was born?
On the other hand, shouldn’t she just be grateful that Gordon wanted a relationship with his son at all? As absentee fathers went, he was surely one of the better ones.
“How long will you be in town?” she asked, after taking a long sip of iced tea to wet her nerve-parched throat.
“We’ve got to be back in Dallas by the day after tomorrow,” Gordon answered. “I was hoping you and Calvin could have supper with Dixie and me tonight. The café at the Amble On Inn isn’t much, but they serve a decent meal.”
Julie would have liked a little more time to prepare Calvin for his first real meeting with his dad and stepmom, but since she’d sort of forced Gordon’s hand by dodging his calls and e-mails for more than a month, the opportunity was clearly lost.
Gordon had been patient, even kind, but he was nobody’s fool. If he and Julie couldn’t work out a visitation schedule they’d both be able to live with, he would almost certainly take things to the next level and hire an attorney.
“Okay,” Julie said, checking her watch again. Her lunch period was almost over, and after eleventh-grade English literature, she was meeting with Arthur Dulles and several school board members in his office. He was determined to make her set aside the three one-act plays she’d intended to showcase and put on a big, splashy musical instead, because those made more money. And he was
