The Road Not Taken (The Daddy Diaries) Read online

  Caro’s stomach growled as if on command, making her realize she was all but starving. The piece of toast and cup of tea she’d had several hours earlier had barely been enough to sustain her through the morning. Adrenaline, however, had staved off the worst of her hunger.

  Apparently, until just now.

  Caro wanted to be appalled. She found herself laughing out loud instead. Bonnie joined in. Jake, however, gaped as if she’d gone mad.

  In her head, Caro heard her mother-in-law say sternly: “Only a woman of ill breeding would comport herself in such a manner.”

  Caro sobered.

  “What about you guys?” Jake was asking Bonnie.

  “Oh, we ate a little over an hour ago.”

  “Jillian said you were worried about me,” he reminded her wryly.

  “I was, which is why I indulged in two bowls.” Bonnie’s smile vanished and she poked his chest with her index finger. “Don’t do that again. I don’t care how much Dean ticks you off. Don’t do that again. Do you hear me?”

  Jake grabbed hold of the finger before she could jab him a second time and gave it a squeeze. “I hear you. Next time, I’ll pick Dean up and dump him outside in the snow.”

  “One stipulation,” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “Wait until I have the camera handy.” Bonnie left the room chuckling.

  “That’s nice.”

  Jake turned to face Caro. “What?”

  “You, your family. It’s obvious that you’re all very close.”

  He nodded, but from his expression it was hard to tell if he was happy about that.

  “You’re lucky,” she murmured, thinking about her own parents and the bond they’d shared.

  Caro hugged the robe to her chest. God, she missed them. She missed their frequent phone calls, their encouragement, their support. She even missed their counsel, which had bordered on meddling at times, but it had always been well-intentioned. They’d loved her. Unconditionally. Only one person in the whole world loved Caro that way now. Cabot. She couldn’t lose him to Truman and allow his sweet, open nature to be corrupted by the Wendells’ strict code of behavior.

  “Go take your shower.”

  Jake’s gruffly issued words snapped her back to the present.

  “I won’t be long,” she promised. Before she could close the bathroom door, his voice stopped her.

  “Caro?”

  “Yes?”

  He was frowning again, but he didn’t appear angry. Concerned? She decided she must have imagined that because in the end all he said was, “Don’t use all the hot water.”

  Jake scrubbed a hand over his face after the door closed behind Caro. For just a moment, she’d looked so lost and vulnerable. He’d wanted to ask her what was troubling her. It wasn’t his concern, he reminded himself again. He was out of the hero business, done with trying to save or change lives. If he’d truly suffered from the God Complex some people had accused him of, he was over it now. Cured for good. He hadn’t been able to help his own unborn child.

  He heard Caro turn on the water. The taps squeaked in protest and the pipes knocked together. As he made his way to the closet, Jake mentally added both to that long list of repairs that included the banister. He found a pair of jeans and a thick black sweater. Although he’d told Caro to save him some hot water, his shower could wait. He changed quickly and went downstairs. When he returned with an armful of logs and some kindling a few minutes later, the water was still running and he thought he could hear her humming. By the time it switched off, the kindling was aflame and he was adding the first log.

  “Oh.”

  Caro stopped in the threshold, clearly not expecting to find him kneeling in front of the hearth. Steam floated out around her as she stood framed in the door. She hastily gathered the robe together. Nearly every inch of her was covered now, including her feet, thanks to Bonnie’s wool socks.

  How was it possible that she still looked sexy?

  Maybe it was because he’d glimpsed a pink bra and equally delicate-looking pair of panties before she managed to secure the robe.

  He forced himself to forget about silk and lace and concentrate on the damp wool pants and turtleneck sweater that were draped over her arm.

  “I got a fire going for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She brought her free hand up and ran her fingers through the length of her wet hair. The gesture bespoke nerves rather than flirting, but his libido didn’t care about the distinction. Interest welled up as she pushed a tangle of curls back from her face. Even without a stitch of makeup, she was lovely, ivory skin all but translucent in the light from the bedside lamp and the subtler glow of firelight.

  It looked soft, too. The kind of skin a man wanted to take his time running his hands over.

  He ran his hands over his whisker-roughened face instead and pushed to his feet, uncomfortable not only with the direction of his thoughts but his seeming inability to control them.

  “I’ll get out of your way.”

  “I … I saved you some hot water,” she said as he started for the door.

  “Thanks, but I decided I’d eat first. My stomach doesn’t want to wait.”

  He stopped to pick up his wet clothes, and chanced a glance back at her. It was the wrong thing to do. She was nibbling her bottom lip, a task he would be only too happy to do for her.

  “I can take your wet clothes,” he forced himself to say. His manners might be rusty, but they weren’t lacking entirely, especially with his mother on hand and eager to remind him how civilized people acted around company. “The inn has a laundry room.”

  “These are dry-clean only.”

  Of course they were. “My mom will know what to do with them.”

  “Oh. Well, then, terrific.” She handed them over. “I’ll be down in a minute. I just want to blow-dry my hair first.”

  Caro was as good as her word. She padded softly into the kitchen as Jake sat at the table spooning up chili. His mother was fussing at the sink, washing the bowls, cups and utensils the rest of his family had used earlier. Doreen wiped her hands on a towel and smiled warmly. If there was one thing his mother could be counted on to do, it was to make guests, even unexpected ones, feel welcome.

  “Don’t you look all refreshed and pretty now,” she enthused. Before Caro could answer, Doreen was already shooing her toward the table. “Go and sit and I’ll get you a bowl of chili. It will warm you up from the inside the same way the shower warmed you up from the outside.”

  Caro took the seat opposite Jake’s. Her gaze stayed on his only a moment before it strayed to the window.

  “I can’t believe this weather,” she murmured. “It’s Easter weekend.”

  Outside, the snow had yet to let up. In fact, it was coming down as hard as ever in the same huge flakes.

  If Dean hadn’t ticked him off, and Jake hadn’t stalked out to work off his temper, Caro might still be waiting for help. All alone. Freezing. Her gaze was back on his. Something in her expression told him she was thinking the same thing. Any second now she would be thanking him again. The last thing Jake wanted was more gratitude.

  “Yeah, well, a good nor’easter doesn’t give a damn about the calendar,” Jake said.

  “Language,” Doreen admonished as she set a steaming bowl of spicy soup in front of Caro. “The local forecast is calling for another four inches before it begins to taper off this evening.”

  “There must be a good foot out there already,” Caro remarked.

  Growing up in North Carolina, she had never gotten used to snow. At least not this much of it. Even several years in New England hadn’t prepared her for a late storm of this magnitude.

  “At this rate, it’s going to take road crews a couple of days to make the main roads passable,” Doreen said. She sent a wink in her son’s direction. “It’s a good thing we were planning to make it a long weekend anyway.”

  Jake ignored her. “Don’t worry. I imagine the interstat
e will be among the first roads plowed,” he told Caro.

  She nodded and picked up her spoon. “Well, once I get where I need to be, it can snow until June for all I care.”

  The kids rushed into the kitchen then, once again clamoring to dye eggs.

  “Please, Grammy,” Jillian begged in her high-pitched voice.

  “Pretty please with a cherry on top,” Riley added, not to be outdone.

  Doreen ushered them out, presumably in search of their mother to get the okay. Jake’s attention stayed on Caro. She certainly was determined to get where she needed to be, he thought again. All because of some man? His cop instincts were telling him no, but then he’d been in love once. He knew firsthand how much the emotion could blind someone to reality.

  “Word to the wise,” he began. His gruff tone startled Caro, who flinched. He decided not only to moderate his tone, but to change what he’d been about to say. He pointed to her bowl with the business end of his spoon. “My mother’s chili is known for its heat.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EVENING BEGAN TO FALL before Caro was ready for it. All things considered, she was having a decent time. An interesting time, she amended as she spied Jake.

  He was seated with Dean at the small table on the other side of the living room from where she sat on the couch with his mother and sister-in-law. The men were playing chess, a game Caro knew from experience required both skill and concentration to win. Unless she missed her guess, he was three moves from checkmate. Yet every time she glanced over, his gaze was on her, those deep-set blue eyes full of questions and not nearly enough answers for her liking.

  He made her feel vulnerable and oddly exposed, which perhaps explained why her hands always went to the lapels of her robe afterward, as if to ensure her modesty.

  After eating Doreen’s chili, which had been every bit as spicy as Jake warned, Caro had considered going back upstairs. But to do what? Sit in a room by herself and fret as she stared out at the falling snow? She was in the mood to be around people. So, instead, she’d remained downstairs. Jake’s family made her feel welcomed.

  She’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be so at ease—and while wearing a borrowed bathrobe, her hair a mess and her makeup long gone, no less.

  Truman’s mother had found fault with everything from the moment her son proposed. Truman, too, was critical, but he’d claimed his criticism was intended for her betterment and to help her fit in with his social circle.

  You’re a diamond in the rough, Caroline. With the right clothes and a little polish, you’ll outshine all others.

  Her initial flattery over his assessment gave way to frustration, then exasperation and finally irritation. She wasn’t a lump of clay to be molded, as malleable as she must have seemed when they first met. When she found her backbone, the arguments began. She might have left him, but she was old-fashioned enough to want to try to honor her vows, to find a common ground, especially when she discovered she was pregnant.

  Then along came Cabot, and despite the harried pace of new parenthood things seemed to fall into place. Even if theirs would never be a great love match, she and Truman were no longer at odds. He respected Caro’s decisions and trusted her judgment where their son was concerned.

  Unless his mother was around.

  Unfortunately, Susan’s visits became more and more frequent as time went on, and just after Cabot’s first birthday, she moved into their home. She did so with Truman’s blessing and without Caro’s consent or much prior knowledge, for that matter.

  As soon as Susan Wendell settled into the guest wing of their home, Caro’s tiny island of contentment began to erode. Not even the joy she found in motherhood was enough to offset her growing unhappiness.

  It didn’t help matters that her mother-in-law increasingly usurped Caro’s role as both Cabot’s mother and the woman of the house. Dinner menus, social functions, Cabot’s bedtime, even the new furniture for the great room—all bore Susan’s stamp. And any time Caro complained to Truman in private or spoke up in front of Susan, she was made out to be spiteful or ungrateful.

  She’s just trying to help, Caroline.

  How many times had she heard that?

  She’d gritted her teeth and tried to make it work, going along to get along for the sake of her son. Until one day she knew she could take no more.

  The final straw hadn’t been something big. Nothing dramatic happened. There’d been no heated arguments. No lines drawn in the sand. Rather, Caro was watching as her son played at the park. Other children were in the sandbox, best friends after having just met mere minutes earlier. But Cabot stood away from them, looking uncertain and looking like an outsider dressed as he was per Susan Wendell’s specifications: no denim and no pullover shirts. He was wearing belted tan walking shorts and a collared blue button-down. Both were designer label, of course.

  At three years old, the boy owned more starched oxfords, bow ties and blazers than most adult male professionals. He was a miniature version of his father, becoming more so by the day, and in ways far more concerning than his clothing.

  That had been Caro’s wake-up call.

  She did not want to raise another Truman Wendell. She did not want to raise a son who would be entrenched in and trapped by convention, roles and rules. She didn’t want to raise a son who would expect perfection at the expense of his own contentment. Or who would manipulate others even as he allowed himself to be manipulated, as Truman did with his mother.

  She wanted Cabot to be a toddler boy, not a miniature man. She wanted him to laugh often and maybe just a bit too loudly, as Riley and Jillian were doing now across the room. The children had changed into their pajamas and were sharing space on their grandfather’s lap as he read them a bedtime story.

  A couple of hours earlier, they’d colored eggs, insisting that Caro join them. She glanced down at her hands. The tips of her fingers were an unidentifiable shade, but that was a small price to pay for the fun she’d had.

  “That will come off eventually, you know,” Bonnie said to her now.

  “Oh, I know.”

  “You should have used the spoon to lift the eggs out of the coloring,” Bonnie replied, though the tips of her own fingers were similarly hued.

  “But where’s the fun in that?”

  “Exactly.”

  Caro had planned to enjoy this Easter tradition with Cabot. Just as she’d planned for him to wake in the morning in their small apartment and have to hunt for a basket filled with treats and other goodies before they dressed and headed to church.

  None of that was to be.

  Instead, her son would wake in the big house on Lake Champlain to find a basket the size of a small car brimming with more toys than most children received for their birthday and Christmas combined.

  From past experience, Caro knew that regardless of what she had picked for him to wear, he would be outfitted in a little suit with a pastel shirt and striped tie that coordinated with Truman’s. Susan would see to it. Then he would be bustled off to church before he could snatch so much as a jelly bean from his basket.

  Once there, he would be marched up the main aisle of the church the Wendell family had attended since before the turn of the last century. He would sit in the pew that no other family dared to lay claim to even on those Sundays when the Wendells were out of town.

  And Susan would be beside him, tapping his head when he became too fidgety, which would be almost immediately. He was three, after all.

  Caro glanced up and found herself lost in a pair of questioning blue eyes. But only for a moment. Jake’s gaze was still on her when he said, “Checkmate.”

  Pushing back his chair, he stood, and, even as Dean sputtered in protest, he took his leave.

  She couldn’t quite figure him out. One minute he seemed the epitome of a loner: gruff and uncommunicative. The next, the sort who put family before all else.

  “You’re frowning, dear.” Doreen made this assessment as she sipped her coffee. “Is ever
ything all right.”

  Caro blinked. “My mind wandered. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize for that.” Doreen, however, wasn’t fooled. “Are you missing your family?”

  Caro swallowed.

  “My … my family?” To her horror, her eyes misted with tears. Perhaps it was the events of the day or the fact that her separation from her son was being extended due to circumstances beyond her control, but yes, she was indeed missing her family. The parents she’d lost all too tragically and the little boy who was all she had left in the world.

  She couldn’t bear to lose him, too.

  “I’m sorry.” Doreen was the one to apologize this time. She reached over to rest a comforting hand on Caro’s arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course you’re missing your family. It’s Easter. It’s always hard to be away from loved ones on holidays.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Bonnie chimed in. “To be with Jake.”

  Dean sauntered over then. “That’s right. My brother wouldn’t come to us, so we came to him in Vermont.”

  “It wasn’t so much he wouldn’t,” Doreen inserted. “He just … couldn’t.”

  Caro was curious, but she didn’t want to pry, especially if Jake were around to hear her. She glanced toward the door. When she didn’t see him, she asked, “The inn?”

  “Among other things,” his mother said slowly. “He recently came through a bad spell.”

  “He was screwed over, Mom. And instead of fighting back, he decided to take it.”

  “Language, Dean.”

  “Sorry, but let’s call a spade a spade. The department hung him out to dry. And then Miranda … God, what she did to him.” Shaking his head, he stalked away.

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” Bonnie said once her husband was gone. “Dean has strong opinions and he doesn’t know when to keep them to himself, which is why Jake was out in the storm in the first place. We hadn’t been here twenty-four hours and already Dean had started in on him.”

  “It’s a family trait, I’m afraid,” Doreen said. With a wink, she added, “On their father’s side.”

  Screwed over? How? Dean had started in on Jake about what? And who was this Miranda and just what had she done? Far from being satisfied, Caro’s curiosity kicked into overdrive.