CHAPTER ONE
Gabriel
I’d hoped this time would be different. It wasn’t.
I could never understand why the women I dated didn’t think I was serious when I said I had no interest in having children. Okay, I understood a little. I came from a family with eight kids and had chosen a career as a pediatrician. But honestly, why would I say it if I didn’t mean it? But yet again, I found myself in the middle of a discussion I’d had at least a half dozen times.
Sharon and I had been seeing each other for nearly five months. We met on a dating app and my profile clearly stated that I didn’t want children.
Things had been going well. I’d even taken her to dinner at my sister’s restaurant, the Seven Brothers Brewery. It was a bit of a test since we’d see at least one and probably more of my siblings there. My siblings and I had learned to introduce our large family casually and slowly. That night, she met Laurel and my brothers Jeremy and Adam. They’d liked her, so I was considering introducing her to a few more folks.
Then she made her mistake.
As soon as she mentioned going to her cousin’s baby shower, I anticipated what was coming. When we got together for dinner at her house after the event, she talked almost nonstop about the party. I wasn’t surprised when there was a long pause in the conversation. I braced myself. “Did you mean it when you said you don’t want a family?”
There it was. I saw the hope in her expression and part of me hated that I was going to step on it like a bully killing a firefly, but there was no wiggle room in this.
“I did.” I hoped the short answer would stop her questioning. No such luck.
“Not ever or not now?”
Unfortunately, tonight I needed to step harder. “Not ever.”
“But why?”
I never gave a complete answer to that question. I responded the way I always did. “Because that’s the choice I’ve made.”
“But you’d make a wonderful father,” she said.
Yeah, I’d heard that a lot, too. No one accepted that the ability to be a good father and wanting to be a father were two different things. Not that I was convinced of my ability.
I stood and took my dishes to the sink as I considered what I was going to do next. Sharon and I could continue to see each other, pretending this conversation didn’t happen, but the countdown clock had started. No need to wait until it ran out. Turning to her as I leaned on the counter, I said, “Sharon, it’s been very nice spending time together. You may not want to hear this, but I won’t be seeing you again.”
She got up so quickly she had to put her hand on the back of the chair to keep it from falling over. “Because I asked you about having kids?”
“No, not because you asked. Because it’s something you want, and something I’m never going to want. It’s a deal breaker for me—and it should be for you. You shouldn’t be with someone who would require you to compromise on something that’s important to you.” They all thought they would be the one to change my mind. “There’s no reason to keep going when there’s no possibility of this working out. More time together isn’t going to change anything.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times as if searching for something to say while my words sank in. Finally, she said, “You’re right. I should have believed you. Guess this happens to you a lot.”
“It does.” Every damn time. You’d think I’d be used to it. I didn’t mean to hurt the women I was with, but I’d hurt them more if I stuck around. I walked over to her, took her hand in mine and kissed her cheek. “I enjoyed getting to know you.” It was the truth. As a person, she was great. But we wanted different things, and nothing she would ever say could change my mind. She gave me a hug and walked me to the door.
Good thing I hadn’t gotten around to introducing her to more family members.
Driving back to Fable Notch, grateful I’d chosen not to date someone who lived in my small town and who I might run into repeatedly, I found myself more relieved than upset. Sure, Sharon and I had fun, but the only time I thought of her was when we were making plans or together. There was no real relationship, not even much of a friendship. Hell, I’d only started sleeping with her because we’d been seeing each other for more than a month and it seemed silly not to. Not the best reason for doing something.
As I pulled into my driveway, it hit me that doing something because it was expected rather than wanted was true about more of my life than I cared to admit. I had my schedule. I followed it. I enjoyed my work and time with my patients. Fable Notch Pediatrics, the practice I’d created, was thriving. We’d even brought on a dentist in the last year, which had been better for business than I expected. But me?
I supposed everything was fine. But it was also not.
Maybe I needed a vacation. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out of town for more than a day or two. The few times I had gotten away were work related. Occasional meetings in Boston or up to Portland, Maine. And one all too unexpectedly memorable trip to San Francisco for the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference a few years ago.
By the time I got home, I made the decision to plan a vacation sometime in the new year. It was almost Labor Day. Maybe having something to look forward to would give me an energy boost.
For now, a new week waited.
I was at work on Monday by seven-thirty, ready to help answer the phones, which would start ringing a half hour later. By the time I had the coffee ready, my partner, Paula Joven, arrived, followed shortly by the rest of our staff, including our receptionist and nurses. Soon after I got into private practice, I learned that Monday mornings started with an unending string of calls for close to an hour. Even though someone was always on call, parents often put off reaching out on the weekend, not wanting to interrupt their plans, and kids frequently hid anything was wrong until it was time to get ready for school.
We scheduled our full staff to be in by eight on Mondays and thanked them for the early start by letting everyone go no later than three on Fridays. It was a good compromise. Fortunately, most kids didn’t need to be seen. Over the counter medication, rest, and liquids were enough to get them through. Out of the six calls I took, only one worried me enough to schedule an appointment. It would take my lunch break, but I didn’t mind if it meant what I suspected was a nasty case of poison ivy didn’t spread from a four-year-old to her infant sister. I instructed the parents to keep her away from the baby as much as possible and bring them both in at noon.
Other new appointments were made and by nine, the waiting area was filled. I barely stopped for the next eight hours when I finished with my last patient. I’d been going non-stop, and I’d skipped lunch completely. At least the baby had been spared from poison ivy.
And there’d be plenty of food tonight. I went to my office and thought over what I could do until it was time to go to my parents’ house for family dinner—held on Monday, not Sunday in our house because Sundays at an inn were one of the busiest of the week. Honestly, a couple of times during the day, I’d considered not going tonight. I was tired in a way that went beyond work and didn’t know if I had any polite conversation in me. And someone was bound to notice if I was off. That wasn’t a discussion I was ready to have. But I’d missed dinner last week because I was on call with the hospital and was called in for a pediatric emergency.
So instead of doing paperwork, I hung my lab coat on the back of the door and headed to my folks’ house. I’d be early, but it would be nice to have one-on-one time with either or both of them. When you were one of eight kids, that was something to be treasured.
As expected, I was the first to arrive. Even Owen, who worked at the Inn, which was walking distance from the house, hadn’t made it over. Most days, he arrived seconds before the meal started. “Shortest distance is the last to arrive,” my mother, Valerie, always said.
I found her in the kitchen. Whether she was at the Inn or the house, this was the room she was most likely to be in. It was one of her happy places, followed closely by any room that held her family. Our kitchen was large and spacious, although the one at the Inn had the more modern appliances. Each time the Inn got upgrades, the house got the “hand-me-downs.” The space was inviting, done in shades of yellow and blue in a style my mother called rustic, but I simply thought of as home. There was a huge corkboard on one wall with information on the coming week at the Inn, business cards from all over the area, and art done by children long grown into adults. I’m not sure there was anywhere I felt more relaxed.
Mom was bent over the open oven, basting the roasts, which probably had another half hour. The smell was heavenly, and my stomach grumbled. Yeah, coming had been the right decision. Besides, if it was a full house, which I expected it would be, I wouldn’t have to talk much during the meal. I could sit and listen. Maybe my siblings’ energy would give me some.
“How can I help?” Mom squeaked at my usual greeting as she stood up and put a hand to her chest. At nearly sixty, she was still beautiful. She’d let her hair gray naturally and never minded the appearance of a new wrinkle. Getting older, she said, was a privilege. And one she didn’t take lightly after beating cancer a few years ago.
Smiling, she put the roast back in before coming over and giving me a hug. I breathed in her familiar scent of fabric softener and coconut shampoo and gave her an extra squeeze. Not long after I turned thirteen, I was taller than her, and by the time I was sixteen, I topped out at a touch over six-feet, giving me almost seven inches on her. But even after more than twenty years, it still felt odd. In so many of my memories, I was curled against her, getting comfort, support, and understanding.
“You’d think after all these years, none of you would be able to sneak up on me,” she said as she went back to the stove.
“We could always sneak up on you,” I said, peering into one of the pots where potatoes were cooking. “Unless you’re talking to a guest or one of us, you’re lost in your thoughts. What is it this time? Are you playing mental matchmaker again?”
That earned me a swat with a dishtowel. And a smile. Ever since her friend Millie Sinclair’s three sons got engaged or married—there was one more wedding in a few weeks—Mom had been more interested than ever in seeing us paired off. I’d hoped Laurel’s involvement with Hunter Davis, my best friend, might buy the rest of us some time, but there had definitely been an uptick in talk concerning who any of us might be seeing. Good thing she didn’t know about Sharon.
“I was thinking about the new playground,” she said, handing me a knife, a cutting board, and vegetables to slice for the salad. I took them without thinking and got to work. “I am so excited it’s the goal for next year.”
I liked the excitement in her voice. Every year, the town chose a project and funded it using events from the three big festivals we held, with help from any other smaller events and donations that came in. She’d been thrilled when the Town Council agreed to her recommendation for next year’s project. A few months ago, on Owen’s suggestion and my endorsement, she and my dad added a small, inclusive and accessible playground to the Inn’s property. It was an immediate success. This year, Mom had proposed a full-scale one be built on land next to the public library.
“You’ll help us make decisions for what to include and how to lay it out, won’t you?”
“Absolutely,” I said. When we’d built the one on the property, my brothers and I had a blast putting it together and trying out the sections we weren’t too big for. Even Drew came home for the week the bulk of the work was being done. His work as a corporate team builder— or professional game player, as he liked to call it—kept him busy and traveling. Mom had been thrilled when he’d made the time. He said anything he could do to encourage us to have fun was worth it.
It had been great to build something with my family, and beyond that, I had enjoyed using my knowledge of childhood development and neurodiversity to help my parents choose equipment to engage children no matter their abilities or how they liked to play. I hoped to get involved when the larger one was designed. Nice to have something to look forward to.
As I finished my vegetable assignment, Dad came into the kitchen, clapped me on the shoulder by way of greeting and went over to give my mother a kiss that lingered and reminded me of how in love they were. At sixty-two, my dad, Roger, was handsome and fit, with his hair graying at the temple and in his beard. “How long until we eat?”
An odd question. All he had to do was look at the clock. We ate at six thirty every week. It had been earlier when we were kids, but once we were grown, the time had been set to make it easy for everyone to come after work, even if they had a longer drive as Lucas did when he was working at his firm’s Concord office. “You’ve got plenty of time,” my mother answered. I couldn’t understand why they were being cryptic.
“Good,” he said and turned to me. “Help me chop some wood?”
Automatically rising and following him to the back door, I said, “Guess it’s that time of the year.” All of the cabins had fireplaces, as did the Inn and our house. As summer waned, we chopped wood for ourselves and guests.
“It is,” he said as we headed to the back. “And we’ve got some big logs from when we cleared the land for the cabins. Figured we may as well get working on it. You want to change before we start?”
I looked at the polo I was wearing, my typical warm weather work shirt. I’d left the tie in my car. “Probably a good idea,” I said. It was getting cooler in the evenings, but in late August, that meant the low sixties, which would have me sweating before we were done. He went into the laundry room and came out with a T-shirt.
Once outside, we walked to the shed to get axes. We had an impressive collection. Even after all these years, there were still five different sizes from when we’d been kids. My father and I grabbed two of the largest and headed to the pile of logs waiting for us.
Most people probably thought my folks had a large family to create a mini workforce for themselves, but that had never been the case. We were all wanted and shown that by my parents’ actions. Neither I nor my siblings were made to work. However, that didn’t stop us from having the occasional—okay, maybe more than occasional—competitions to prove who could do the most, be the best or the fastest. That’s how wood chopping became a competitive sport in our family.
When I was nine, not long after my cousins Lucas, Jeremy, and Owen had come to live with us, I asked my dad if I could help when he started to prepare that season’s wood. I remember wanting to show my brothers I was the oldest and most capable. But Dad told me I needed to wait until I was at least ten. The summer after my tenth birthday, I was by his side, doing my best to keep up and shocked by how hard the work was. A year later, when Lucas turned ten, he insisted on joining us, and almost every year after, another sibling joined. By the time Laurel was ten, she was begging to be allowed to do what her brothers did.
It had been a few years since I had done this work, but it wasn’t something you forgot, and soon Dad and I had a rhythm going. As we worked up a sweat, the stack of wood grew. I was glad to have changed shirts and grateful I went to the gym a few mornings a week. This was more grueling than any weight machine. I could skip going for a few days after this.
After chopping for a while with the only sound being the ax hitting the wood, Dad asked, “So, what’s going on for you?”
“Nothing much,” I said automatically. “Just the usual. Work. Hanging out with Hunter when we can make our schedules line up. Business is better than ever since Dr. Teeth joined the practice.” His real name was John Cooper, but it was an easy nickname for a pediatric dentist, and his office was covered with pictures of the Muppets’ famous band. He even wore crazy hats when he talked to the kids. They loved him, and he made their first dentist experience a good one.
“Guess that makes you a member of Electric Mayhem,” said my dad, picking up on the reference.
“I’ve been a member—and maker—of mayhem for a long time.”
Dad smiled. “Maybe once, but I haven’t seen you do anything that could be considered mayhem in a long time. To be honest, your mom and I noticed you haven’t been doing much of anything other than working, and we’re concerned.”
So there was another reason I’d been called out back. “That’s not true.” My dad stopped his swing and looked at me. And waited. Yeah, that always worked. “Fine, it’s not entirely true. I have been going out. I even signed up for one of those dating apps.” Shit. Why did I tell him that?
“How’s that been?”
“Fine,” I said, and my dad shot me an unconvinced look. I was going to have to work on that in case anyone else asked. “Okay, maybe not so fine. I’ve gone out on a few dates, and was seeing someone, but we split this past weekend.”
The concern was back on his face. “Can I ask why?”
“The usual reason,” I said. He knew what I meant.
“Gabriel,” my dad started, but I held up a hand to stop him. I was not having this discussion. Dad knew my reason and the history behind it. There was no need for a discussion. I tightened my grip on the ax and took a swing that not only split the wood but had the two halves flying apart. My dad’s brows went up. “Okay, I guess we need a new topic.”
“Please,” I said and chose an easy one. “Mom’s looking forward to planning the new playground.”
Stacking the newest pieces of wood, he said, “She is. The one we built here is always busy and locals love coming by. Val can never tell them no.” I could hear in his tone he didn’t mind either. My parents loved our town, and any way they could make it better made them happy. They’d grown up here. Dad had always known he’d take over the family hotel and was proud of how it continued to succeed—and that Owen wanted to take his place. He and Mom had been high school sweethearts.
We shifted our focus to the Inn. Dad talked how business was already picking up with Labor Day around the corner and Owen’s plans to have the two new cabins ready before Thanksgiving. I was ready to bring the ax down again, when a familiar but unexpected voice said, “I’ve been tasked with bringing you two something to drink and calling you in for dinner.”
There she was—the real reason I feared things hadn’t clicked for me with Sharon. Zoe Davis, standing by the porch rail, her long brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a jacket over her V-necked sundress that revealed enough to drive me crazy. The woman with the gray eyes who did all sorts of dangerous things to my body and my mind. The woman I still fantasized about. Even years after a one-night stand that probably shouldn’t have happened, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret or stop remembering.
Even though she was my best friend’s younger sister.
And even though she had a baby.