Page 7 of Play With Me

“Sort of.” My mom had taken off when I was about his age, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I had only the fuzziest memories of her. “I was like you growing up. No mom, only a dad. Except I didn’t have all those aunts and uncles you have. Or a grandpa. Just one big brother who helped me fall out of trees.”

That got a smile out of him. But it vanished as he spoke his next words.

“I thought when Dad found Mom, he’d be happy,” Jude said. “He always looked sad when I asked him about her. But he was yelling at her.”

Poor Cap sounded stricken.

“Sometimes…” I hesitated. “Sometimes people don’t know how they’re going to react until they’re faced with a problem.”

Jude had talked to me several times about his ex—but I never got more than a few words out of him after the basics. She’d been a model or an actress, maybe both. It had been a brief affair—he said he wasn’t interested in a relationship. I remember being surprised. I thought it was the brief tryst with Farrah that ended in a child that had turned Jude off relationships, but apparently he’d always been that way. She just made it worse.

But he’d only found out after she’d had the baby that she’d lied to him about her age—she was barely legal when he’d gotten her pregnant. Her parents were devastated. Furious with Jude.

The whole thing had messed him up. I knew he blamed himself for not only getting someone pregnant, but someone her age.

“Do you think he made her too mad to call back?” Cap asked now.

I shook my head, a lump in my throat.

Over across the snow, I saw a figure separating from the others, walking toward us, head hung low.

Jude.

My heart hurt for him. My heart hurt just looking at him, too. I knew he was ashamed of how he’d acted in front of Cap. But I also knew the only thing that could fix it was holding his little guy, just like I was doing right now.

“Nora,” Cap whispered. He’d looked up, as if sensing his father’s approach. I guess that’s why I’d looked up too. I’d sensed him. I always did. I sat up a little straighter.

“Yeah, buddy?”

Cap’s eyes went to his dad, who was maybe a hundred and fifty feet from us still. “Do you have any secrets?”

I was surprised at the question, but answered honestly. “Yes.” One big one. Because I still hadn’t told Jude about London. Had Cap sensed it? “Why are you asking?”

He hesitated. “Because I have one. But I don’t want Dad getting mad at me about it.”

“Oh, Cap. He won’t—” I cut myself off. I didn’t know what the secret was. For all I knew, maybe Jude would get mad at him, though I couldn’t believe that would ever be true.

“Okay, baby, it’s okay. As long as no one’s getting hurt—”

“No.”

“I want to tell you.” He swallowed.

I wondered what it would be like to have one more thing stuck between me and Jude. But I wouldn’t betray Cap’s confidence. Not unless there was real danger…

Jude was getting close now.

“Okay,” I said.

Cap looked up at me. Then he whispered, “Even though Dad said we were a team, just the two of us, and we didn’t need anybody else…I always wanted a…” His voice cracked. “I always wanted a mom.”

I smiled, my eyes watering. I’d made the right choice. As much as this would hurt leaving them, it was the right thing to do. “You should have one, Cap. You’re going to make a mom so proud one day.”

But then Cap surprised me by looking up at my face.

“That’s not the secret,” he whispered.

“Oh,” I whispered. “What is it?”

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