Page 31 of Bear's Midlife Bridesmaid
“You did?” Bailey asked incredulously. “You never told me that!”
“Because it’s embarrassing,” Ian snorted. “I grew my hair out long and wore all these ridiculous clothes. Some people were giving me weird looks,but Dad just took me to a music store and bought me a guitar.”
“You know how to play the guitar and you’ve never written me a song?” Bailey asked coyly.
“No, because I don’t actually know how to play it,” Ian laughed. “I tried, and I thought I was going to be something. I hope I managed to delete all the videos I took of myself. I told Dad I wanted to sell the guitar a couple of years ago because I didn’t use it anymore, but I felt really bad about it. He said it was fine because I had the chance to explore something I was interested in, and that was all that mattered.”
Now Ruby had found Erin’s bracelet, touching each little stone.
“Sounds like he’s been supportive for a long time,” Erin noted.
Ian nodded. “He has, although I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how great he is. You already know or else you wouldn’t be here. He really has been a good dad, though. I’m glad to see him getting the chance to live his own life again.”
“What do you mean?” As far as Erin could tell, Jace was a pretty free man. He worked a job he was passionate about, and in his free time, he still knew how to find an adventureor two.
“Well, you know.” Ian shrugged. “He’s been a single dad for a long time. He’s always put me first. I appreciate that, and it’s what I’d want to do with my own kids if I have any, but I know it had to be hard to just forget about anything he wanted to do for himself. Once I move out and get my touring company going, he won’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“I’m sure he’ll still worry about you. That’s what parents do,” Bailey pointed out.
“But not in the same way,” Ian insisted. “He did all the diaper changes, and then all the hormones, and all the soccer practices and games. Now he can just be himself.”
Erin took off her bracelet, showing Ruby how the elastic underneath the round beads stretched. She felt so twisted inside. She wanted to be with Jace. The wild part of her said it didn’t matter how or where as long as they were together. But that wasn’t reality.
In the times when she’d allowed herself to mentally explore the logistics of a relationship with him, she’d been skirting around some much bigger issues. Jace, as Ian had just pointed out, was done raising his child. He was free to just be himself now, without all the duties that came with parenting. Erinknew she wanted children. That deep desire had lived in her for a long time, and she’d always thought that meeting her mate would be the solution. But it’d come so late! She was too old to have those babies now, and Jace had already lived that part of his life.
Maybe that meant she’d have to resign herself to never being a mother, though that wasn’t a thought she relished. If she did, there was still the matter of negotiating this with Jace. Looking around at the bonfire and the sweet little child in her lap, Erin could see how rooted Jace was there. It wasn’t just a matter of a job he happened to have or a home he happened to own. Everything felt so impossible. Meeting her one true mate wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
Erin felt so disheartened. She decided she needed to make the best of what she had in the short time she had left in Truro. What else could she do?
“I think we could expand eventually,” Bailey was saying to Ian. “The sharks are a great place to start, but I don’t see why we couldn’t get our share of the whale tours, too. Having more than one option and diversifying things a bit might really pay off and keep us booking customers more steadily.”
Ian looked at her with soft, loving eyes. It was alook Erin had seen on Jace’s face, too, and the similarities between father and son were pretty cute. “How did I manage to find someone so smart?”
“Guess you’re just lucky,” Bailey grinned.
That prickling feeling took up residence in Erin’s spine once again. She looked around, wondering what the hell was going on. Her stomach was jumping now. The sensation was building, making her feel like she had when she thought she’d seen large shapes in the water while Jace was fixing the sailboat. Figuring she had a marine expert right there, Erin was just about to ask Bailey what it might be when she heard Barbara speak up.
The older woman had been standing near the fire with a glass of wine in her hand, talking to another woman who’d been introduced as Carol. “Do you feel that?” she asked, running her free hand up and down her arm as though fighting off the cold. “I feel like I’m being watched.”
Carol had been happy and carefree the whole night, but now her face was somber and serious. “So do I, but I’m newer to all this.”
So it wasn’t just her. Erin remembered another time she had this feeling that something was present yet not visible: when she and Jace had heard themini golf customers screaming about a beast. Something was definitely happening.
“What is that?” This came from Stacey, Dylan’s mate. She pulled her children close as she pointed to a dune at the edge of the Brighams’ stretch of beach.
Erin looked, and her heart froze. Several red lights glowed on top of it. They bobbed and moved, and as she watched, she realized they weren’t pairs of lights. They were pairs ofeyes.
14
Another figure stepped forwardfrom the shadows. This one was taller and slimmer, and it didn’t have the glowing red eyes that’d caught everyone’s attention. Erin knew exactly who it was, but still, she blinked and squinted, wanting to be sure.
The figure descended the dune, one slow, confident step at a time. Her hips swayed slightly, and the breeze brushed her hair back from her face.
“Gretchen?” Erin knew it was her, yet she couldn’t believe it. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to ruin your life,” Gretchen replied simply. Her lips had been painted a deep red, and she showed off her white teeth when she smiled. “It’s only appropriate, isn’t it?”
A sick feeling washed through Erin’s stomach. Standing slowly from her seat, she stepped forward and handed Ruby to Carol, who seemed to know precisely what she needed and took the baby without hesitation. Whatever was going on, whatever Gretchen thought she was going to do, Erin didn’t want Ruby caught in the middle. In fact, she didn’t want anyone there to be involved. “Gretchen, I know you’re angry with me. I did my best, but I made some bad decisions. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry that my apologies aren’t enough. I’ll try to find some way to make it up to you, but that doesn’t need to happen here.”
