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“The owner of the Pig Stand in Beaumont invented Texas toast,” she told him, and then proceeded to read everything this restaurant had. His stomach growled at the mention of chicken-fried steak and pork sandwiches.
“Look on the map. Can we go to Beaumont?” he asked.
Palmer handed the phone back to Kent and let him do the honors. He pulled Beaumont up on the map and saw it was near the Louisiana border and out of their way. It was his stomach talking, and the idea of diverting to southern Texas flew out the window when the server set his burger down in front of him.
By the time he’d added the condiments, Palmer had already dug into her mashed potatoes. She closed her eyes when those Yukon Golds touched her palate. Seeing her this way made him happy. Food was a struggle. The stuff she loved often made her sick, and if she ate anything, there was always a risk she’d throw it up. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case today.
“Do you want a bite?” She nodded toward her plate.
Kent was never one to pass up food and stabbed the roast beef and toast together and made sure the gravy coated his bite. As soon as the combo hit his tongue, he moaned. “Holy crap, that’s delicious.”
“I’m glad you like it because there’s no way I’m eating all of this.”
If she ate a fourth of her food, he’d be happy.
“I’ll gladly finish what you don’t. Do you want a bite of my burger?” He held it out for her and waited. She studied his burger for a second and then shook her head. It was probably for the best. The firecracker burger had jalapeños, and he’d pay the price for it later.
Palmer ate slowly, savoring each bite with a satisfying hum. By the time she pushed her plate toward Kent, she’d finished about half her meal. Kent dug in and devoured the rest, and then sat back in the booth and groaned.
“Now I wish you knew how to drive,” he said, feeling very uncomfortable. “I ate way too much.”
“Are you in a food coma?” she asked. She reached across the table and poked at his belly. “I think you have a food baby in there.”
“I do and I’m naming it Palmer.”
“Hey, that’s not nice.”
“What, why not?”
She shrugged. “Do you want to be the father of Maeve’s baby?”
It was Kent’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of it. I guess I’m waiting for her to tell me whether I am. What about you—did you ever think about having kids?”
“Once,” she said. “I dated this guy in college—he was my first and only boyfriend—but it never went any further than whatever we were. I used to dream about coming home to him and our children, but after about nine months, we went our separate ways.”
“If things were different and you could have a child, what would you name them?” Kent asked.
“I’d want a girl, and I’d name her Juniper.”
“Why Juniper?”
Palmer shrugged. “It’s unique. Like Palmer.”
“I wonder how your parents came up with your name?”
“They didn’t.” Her cheerful tone changed to sadness. “The orphanage named me Faith. I changed my name when I aged out of the system. I wanted a fresh start.”
Kent masked his emotions. Her words gutted him, tore his heart into pieces.
“When’s your birthday?”
“I don’t know. Any paperwork on who I am or who my family is, the orphanage lost a long time ago. I was just a number in the system. That’s one of the reasons I took the DNA test, to find out who I truly am.”
“Well, let’s hope Courtney has the answers.”
When the server returned, Kent and Palmer passed on dessert, paid their bill, and headed toward the Jeep. Kent wasn’t ready to leave Athens quite yet and decided to drive around.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Palmer found herself checking Kent’s phone more often than paying attention to the sights. Kent caught her a couple of times and chastised her, saying he was going to take it away if she didn’t point things out to him. She was supposed to be sightseeing, not checking emails every ten seconds.
He didn’t understand her, at least this part of her. At lunch, they’d talked about his potential child, and while she’d brought it up, she hadn’t expected him to ask her if she wanted children. She had, when she was sixteen and yet another family had passed her up. She vowed she’d be a mother who loved her child, no matter what. Palmer would never abandon her child like her mother had done to her.
When she was a senior in high school, she’d hoped a boyfriend would materialize. She was friendly with a couple of the boys in her class, but that was as far as it went. When she got to the community college and met Rick, her classmate, she thought her life was going to change. For nine months, she was happy. The happiest she’d ever been. He didn’t care that she lived in a halfway house because once she was done, they’d move in together. Rick allowed Palmer to hope and dream, until he wasn’t in school one day. She took the bus to his apartment and learned from his roommate that he had moved back in with his parents—in Oregon.
