Choosing Fate (Love in Eden 1.70)

Once again, her words ended without warning. She was sitting slightly hunched over in the front seat, wringing her hands together. She'd spoken so quickly that I'd probably missed half of what she'd said. Fortunately, I'd managed to catch a few eye-opening details.

"You have a son?" I asked. There were a million things I wanted to get more information on, especially the part about wanting to "you know" with me. The fact that she couldn't even use terms like make out or hook up or fuck had me inwardly smiling.

"I do. Cameron."

"How old is he?" I asked.

"He's seven."

I kept my attention on the road but cast her sidelong glances to see how she was reacting to my questions. There was no mistaking the way she lit up when she said her son's name.

"You have kids?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No," was all I said. My intent had been to stay silent on the subject, but I found myself adding, "Always wanted them, but I guess it just wasn't in the cards for me."

"You're still young," she said.

"Age isn't the problem," I murmured.

She was silent for a beat and then said, "If you really want it, Zander, don't give up on it, okay? Jackson and I didn't think we'd ever get lucky enough to have a baby, but then Cameron came along and he was so perfect… is so perfect."

There was no doubting how much she loved her child. It made something inside of me ache. I'd always wanted a family of my own, but timing and circumstance, maybe even fate itself, had always seemed to be working against me. "Jackson is your…?"

"Ex-husband," she supplied.

I’d figured as much since she'd mentioned divorce in her earlier outburst, but kids and marriage didn't always go hand in hand. I couldn't help but check her ring finger. She might've been divorced from her child's father, but that didn't mean there wasn't a new guy in the picture. And it wasn't like she'd be the first woman to step out on her husband. From everything I'd witnessed, I highly doubted that Ted had been anything more than a shitty date.

"You said your ex works in Broken Tree? Is that a town?" I asked.

"No, it's a ranch. A cattle ranch. He's a ranch hand."

"So he’s still in the picture… with Cameron, I mean. You share custody?"

We happened to be going beneath a streetlamp when I glanced at her right after asking the question, so I saw her expression. There was a smile on her face, but it was a sad one.

"Cameron lives with me, but Jackson sees him every weekend. He gets one weekend off a month, and a lot of times he’ll take Cameron up to his granddaddy's cabin to go fishing. And he never lets Cameron want for anything. Things… things are tight sometimes but we make it work. Jackson is an amazing father."

I had a feeling she was an equally amazing mother. I wondered if anyone had told her that enough. I was also desperately curious to know what had gone wrong in the marriage since clearly Jolene and her ex were managing co-parenting so well. But my car chose that moment to backfire again. I mumbled a curse beneath my breath, but Jolene heard it and started to laugh softly.

"What?" I asked her curiously.

"Nothing," she said quickly and tried to stifle her smile. Just seeing her lighter and more at ease had a comforting effect on me, and I felt my own tension start to ease. The strange sense of calm that I’d felt earlier when she’d started laughing about the condom returned. I didn't really know what to make of it. I understood attraction very well and if she'd been some random woman in a bar or club in the city somewhere, I would've acted on that attraction. But she was a single mom from a town I was just passing through. She’d also just had the date from hell, so she was more off-limits than the average woman. But the average woman didn't ever leave me regretting the off-limits part.

"What?" I prodded and then I nudged her elbow with mine where it was resting on the center console between us.

"This car, they call it a chick magnet, right? Jackson always liked those movies with fast cars. You know, the ones with the races and where most of the girls barely have any clothes on?"

"Yeah," I said because I was pretty sure I knew what movie franchise she was talking about. And my car was, in fact, similar to the one the main character in those movies drove. But I wasn't about to admit that I'd watched them myself and was a pretty big fan of the cars… and the scantily dressed women.

Jolene merely smiled and shook her head. I found myself laughing. "So what you're saying is that my car is cock blocking me?" When she looked at me in confusion, I added, "Keeping me from getting lucky."