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For a peacemaker, Zilla sure knew how to drop a bomb. Holy hell. DNA?
Zilla twittered on. “See, once the paternity test showed that he was the father of the babies, you would be able to go after him for child support. The court would make him pay. We wanted to make it easy for you.”
Sylvie finally sat down, her legs on the verge of giving out on her. She felt cold all of a sudden. “I think that you’re going to need to tell me that again.”
Will seemed to think that she was interested in the details. He started talking animatedly with his hands. “You know how Alan has a thing for good-looking girls? I had Zilla here distract him, and we were able to get a swab of his fluids.”
Fluids? Sylvie shuddered. “I honestly don’t think I want to know that level of detail.”
“It was only his mouth,” Zilla said, sitting down beside her and patting her hand. “Inside his cheek, like on the forensic shows on TV.”
How in the world had Zilla managed to … never mind. She didn't want to think about it. Sylvie’s head pounded. “Seriously, just get on with it.”
“Well, if you want me to skip to the good stuff, I guess I can do that.” Will looked disappointed. His amateur sleuthing wasn’t being appreciated, and he was clearly put out.
Sylvie thought there’d never been a time in her entire life that she more wanted to punch him in the arm.
She rolled her hand in the air to get him going again.
“Well, you know how Zilla works part-time down at the clinic? Once we got the swab, we sent it off to one of those mail order paternity testing places.” Will paused for dramatic effect.
Then he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it. He set it on the coffee table in front of Sylvie. “Read it.”
Sylvie refused to pick it up. She shook her head.
“Go on,” he said.
“Nope.” Sylvie was now in full-on ostrich mode and no one could make her stop —
“Alan isn’t the father of your babies,” Zilla announced.
So much for ostriches, Sylvie thought.
She sat in silence, waiting while the news sunk in.
Alan wasn’t the father.
Alan wasn’t the father!
Good God.
She covered her mouth with both hands to hide her joy.
Heath was the babies’ father.
She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
Why had she waited so long to find out the truth? This was wonderful news, the best news ever. It was a revelation, the greatest relief she’d ever felt. When Heath found out — wait a minute.
Sylvie flinched and dropped her hands, pointing a finger at her scowling brother. “You can’t tell anyone about this, Will. You either, Zilla. This is important. You don’t know how important.”
Sylvie’s mind raced with the impact of the news. She had to keep a lid on it until she could figure out a way to broach the topic with Heath. The conversation must happen sooner rather than later before Will ’n Zilla spilled it.
She had no idea the best way to do that, though, especially after today’s conversation and knowing Heath’s concerns about being a parent. Plus, there was the tiny detail that she’d never told him being the twins’ father was even a possibility. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t let her gloss over that fact.
“We’ve got to know, Sis,” Will said. “If Alan isn’t the father, who is? Were you stepping out on Alan, too?”
His words ignited a flare of disdain inside of her. “You think that I cheated on him? No way. I’m nothing like Alan. I can’t believe you’d say that.”
Unable to sit still any longer, she got up and stalked into the kitchen. She began wiping down counters that were already clean.
Will followed. When he spoke this time, his accusatory tone was gone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re definitely nothing like Alan.”
Sylvie stopped scrubbing and looked at her brother. He appeared genuinely sorry. “Okay. I just need you to not tell anybody about this until I say it’s okay. I really, really need you and Zilla to promise me.”
Zilla slipped in beside Alan and he put his arm around her tiny waist. They both nodded at Sylvie and pledged they’d keep her secret.
“I want you to know,” she said, “it happened after I broke up with Alan. It’s something that I’ll take care of. Soon.”
“So did you know all this time that Alan wasn’t the father?” Will asked.
Now Sylvie was embarrassed. Part of the reason she had let everyone believe it was Alan was because she didn’t want to admit to anyone that it could have been one of two men. She had sex with both of them during the trip.
“Never mind,” Zilla said. “Leave her alone, Will. She’s embarrassed.”
Sylvie appreciated Zilla’s defense. “It’s okay. I’ve got to tell someone, sometime, right? I didn’t know if it was Alan or someone else. With the timing, either man could have been the father.”
“But you let us all believe that it was Alan, for sure,” Will said.
“I think of it as not correcting your assumptions,” Sylvie countered.
“Hairsplitting, and you know it.”
She sighed. “You’re right. The bottom line is this, I knew Alan could be the father, and the man who it turns out actually is the father didn’t know that I was pregnant. That’s why I didn’t say anything.” There, she had said it out loud. “Now I really need to be alone. I have a lot of thinking to do.”
Zilla’s face wore an expression of sympathy. She patted Sylvie’s shoulder. “At least, you know for sure now, right? I know it must be hard to think about telling somebody they’re a daddy.”
Sylvie didn’t want Zilla’s pity. She didn’t want anybody’s pity or sympathy. Right then, all she wanted was some peace and quiet.
She looked at Will. “I appreciate what you were trying to do. But you were out of line and may have just made a bigger mess of things. Can you just give me some space to think about this and deal with it on my own? Please?”
Will finally looked abashed “Of course. I really only was trying to help you and the boys. That’s how it started anyway.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry to have barged in here and upset you. I’m glad we didn’t wake the babies.”
“Me too.”
She let them out and then flopped down in her chair. She picked up the piece of paper that Will had left on the table. She couldn’t believe it. Alan wasn’t the father. Heath was.
It was a dream come true. So why was she more anxious than ever?
Part of her wanted to call Heath and tell him to come back so she could tell him the amazing news. The rest of her felt strongly that Heath wasn’t ready to hear the truth, not yet anyway.
It was important that she did this right. Sylvi
e took out a pen and paper and started to think. She had a pro-con list to make, and it meant her entire life.
Chapter Eighteen
HEATH SAT AT A SCRATCHED-UP table in the noisy Trapper’s Tavern and guessed he should feel flattered that Kent and Leon wanted to take him out for a drink. He had been in Zeke’s Bend a little more than a week, and he was starting to get to know Sylvie’s family.
They were reluctantly getting to know him too. He ran into Kent, Phae’s husband, on the street that afternoon, and the man had invited Heath on a boys’ night out. Heath had agreed, mostly because he thought it was important to get to know the people in Sylvie’s life.
When Kent said he’d invite Leon, Meg’s husband, there was no way Heath could decline. Meg was Sylvie’s business partner and was very important in Sylvie’s life.
Heath wondered what he would be like when he got married. He admired the way that Kent talked about Phae as if she were the most important thing in the world to him. Kent was obviously over-the-moon happy about becoming a father soon, even though he downplayed it.
Part of Heath was wistful he’d missed Sylvie’s pregnancy. It was a crazy idea to even cross his mind. Sylvie was already gorgeous but adding in the pregnancy glow had probably made her luminescent.
He shook his head and stared at his beer, watching the tiny bubbles stream upward to the surface, wondering about a fleck of something unidentifiable floating around in the golden liquid. The bar was pretty much a dump, a place that attracted locals who were serious about drinking and couldn’t care less about basic hygiene.
He tried to ignore the fleck and looked around Trapper’s Tavern. To say that it was a dive bar was an understatement, and as a result the it attracted mostly men. It was situated several miles outside of Zeke’s Bend on a state highway.
Heath listened with a cautious ear all night to the conversations going on around him. Leon and Kent were currently caught up in a rowdy game of darts. Heath went out early. He’d kidded with them when they first walked in the door that he had absolutely no athletic prowess whatsoever, and Leon and Kent proceeded to take full advantage of it.
