In the Land of Milk and Honey Read online

  Maybe I gave him the impression that I was on some type of contraceptive because Ian’s point was an excellent one. There’s no way Daniel Baird with a clear mind would have had risked impregnating me. He didn’t like kids, he didn’t want kids, and he was not joyous when he’d figured out we’d had one together. Maybe I learned the Pauper was actually a Prince and thought myself lucky to have found him in his moment of weakness so I could have my chance at hitching my wagon.

  I didn’t know what idea I liked least, being a druggie, a whore, or a gold digger, but they were all very real possibilities.

  I decided on one last attempt at contact and decided on a more personal appeal. Although it was against August’s advice to be informal, there was no matter more personal than this. I exhaled as I pressed ‘Send’, hoping I wasn’t being too pushy, but I figured two emails in the lifetime of an almost five-year-old boy wasn’t asking too much.

  -Friday 9:00 a.m.-

  Sender: mgvalentine - Valentine Designs

  Recipient: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

  Dear Daniel,

  I hope your week is going well. I’m not sure what to say, but I’d just like to hear from you if that’s possible.

  Sincerely,

  Gabrielle

  -Friday- Reply Email-

  Sender: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

  Recipient: mgvalentine - Valentine designs

  Dear Ms. Valentine,

  Mr. Baird has requested the sender discontinue contact.

  From the desk of:

  Daniel H. Baird, Chief Executive Officer

  BarclayBaird Corporation

  My heart broke as I frantically read the reply email over and over, realizing he wanted nothing to do with us at all. My phone buzzed again a few minutes later, and I opened the new email in my inbox to find the final nail in the coffin.

  Sender: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

  Recipient: mgvalentine - Valentine Designs

  This is best.

  ~o~

  By Saturday, I was riddled with guilt. I had allowed myself to move on from whatever it was that got me pregnant and disturbed, but it seemed these actions now haunted my son’s opportunity at having two parents. Tristan was paying for my sins in the form of whatever retribution Daniel was serving by ignoring us completely. No matter how I sliced it, it was my fault.

  Even if Daniel was motivated by selfish reasons for denying Tristan, I was the one who got pregnant by him. Instead, it should have been some nice man who could have loved his son and wanted a relationship with him. I’m not sure if he meant best for him, best for me, or best for Tristan, but I had a pretty good guess of whose interests he was protecting.

  I kept reminding myself that we were fine before him and we would be fine long after. It was over before it started.

  Saturday night Jill offered to take us out to dinner to try to lift our spirits. Tristan was still shaken by meeting Daniel because he remained at my side at all times, hovering around me like a little guardian. It would have been terribly cute if it weren’t for such an unfortunate reason. August came with us, so it was just us four. We went to Tristan’s favorite restaurant, Del Posto, for his favorite treat.

  “Ms. King, your table is ready,” said the maître de, and we followed him through the trail between tables until we arrived at a square table in the center of the room. Jill stared at it incredulously—I already knew what the problem was.

  “Javier, dear, I think you’ve made a mistake. My table is the booth in the corner,” she informed him and turned to point out the leather-backed booth that looked out on the floor. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  August and I followed her gaze to the table we usually sat, but it was filled. Of all the restaurants in all the world…Daniel Baird was sitting at the table filled with men all in suits. Under the dim lamplight, I could see his angular features clearly and the polished navy suit he wore with a white shirt. It looked like he was furious as he stabbed his finger forcefully down on the table and narrowed his eyes in a menacing way at the petrified group.

  “This table is fine, Jill,” I claimed tiredly, as I exhaled and pulled out a chair for Tristan.

  “We can go somewhere else,” August encouraged as he took my arm and looked at me sympathetically, but Jill spoke for me.

  “The heck we are. We are staying. Right. Here. He can take his bangers-loving British behind somewhere else if he doesn’t like it,” she insisted as she flipped her long hair and sat down.

  Tristan squeezed my hand and looked up at me with his “Oh, she’s in trou-ble” face because Jill cursed but I just smiled back. I’d let this one slide.

  “Javier, go ahead and put in an order for the calamari appetizer. Tell Mario I expect it to be on the house for the inconvenience,” she ordered as she perused the menu.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied before hurrying off.

  “Bree, we really can go somewhere else,” August said as he leaned in closer and his eyes darted to Tristan.

  “Why would we go?” Tristan asked, oblivious as he tried to angle a breadstick as long as a ruler into his mouth but kept poking his cheek. “This is my favor-wit.”

  “We’re not going anywhere, honey,” Jill cooed lovingly, and Tristan smiled back with his eyes alight. I was really going to have to put a stop to this little crush.

  We chatted for a few minutes as they brought out our drinks, but the appetizer was taking a little long; Tristan was growing impatient.

  “Excuse me,” Jill said as she snapped her fingers in the air at our passing waiter. He looked nervous as he approached the table. “Where is my appetizer? It’s been almost fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, which one did you get, ma’am?” he asked confusedly, and Jill was visibly irritated.

  “Are you new? The cal-a-mar-i. Javier put the order in, and this delay is unacceptable.” He looked like he was going to pee himself.

  “Uh, Ms. King? The thing is, we’re sold out of that for the night,” he said quickly and flinched.

  Jill was livid. “That piece of information would have been helpful when I placed the order, but now it’s just incompetence. Get Mario out of the kitchen,” she ordered.

  August and I exchanged wary looks. We knew this wouldn’t end well. Chef Mario came to the table with his ebony hair in a ponytail, glistening of kitchen sweat, in his white chef’s coat. He apologized, and after some mild flirting on Jill’s part—and some shameless ogling on his—he offered to cover the tab in penance.

  “Anything for you, my Jill,” Chef Mario replied affectionately, and to my absolute surprise, my little son’s mouth was tighter than a guitar string, and he was narrowing his eyes at the three-hundred-pound chef. This was all bad. Mario walked back in to the kitchen, and Tristan seemed to relax a bit.

  “Sorry, honey, no calamari tonight,” she said defeatedly, and Tristan looked a little sad. “What about the fried mushrooms or the…” Jill cut herself off and I watched her eyes follow a server hoisting up a black serving tray with a plate of what looked like calamari. We both watched the tray travel across the room until he set the tray down on a prop and began unloading food on Daniel Baird’s table. My eyes widened and flashed over to Jill.

  “That rotten, dirt-licking…” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  “Jill? Jill, let’s just enjoy the night. It’s nothing,” August soothed, and I saw him tense to restrain her if need be. Jill’s line of vision was unbroken as she spoke.

  “Tristan, I think you’ll have your calamari tonight after all,” she said quietly and Tristan smiled.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she replied. She shrugged off her coat and adjusted her cleavage to sit impossibly high in her sleeveless top.

  “Jill, please sit back down,” I ordered as she stood and wound the waistband of her fitted skirt a few times until it was tube top width. She fluffed her wavy strawberry blonde hair and in a matter of seconds she went from a stunningly gorgeous woman
to a dangerously sexy one.

  “I’ll be back,” she said flippantly and then leaned over to Tristan. “A kiss for luck” she asked, pointing to her cheek and he smiled and obliged. I tried to snatch her wrist, but she anticipated it and smirked back at me over her shoulder as she sauntered her perfect, model physique over to the Baird table.

  “This is bad,” I murmured, thinking now would be a good time to hide under the tablecloth.

  “I know. But you can’t look away, can you?” August commented as his gaze stayed with mine, following her slinking form. They didn’t call her Jill ‘The Body’ King for nothing.

  We couldn’t hear the interaction from where we were seated across the restaurant, but we watched as she stopped at the edge of the round table with one long leg extended out and a hand on her hip. Daniel was still in the middle of his intense discussion when the men looked up, pleasantly surprised with the intrusion—except Daniel. He eyed her contemptuously as she started speaking with her hands, and then leaned over the table exposing cleavage. From the back we could see her skirt was only an inch or so short from revealing her thong to the rest of the room. I saw her turn her head and point a manicured finger back to our table, and I spun my head quickly before Daniel’s eyes made their way to mine.

  “What is he doing?” I murmured to August, and watched Tristan happily distracted with another breadstick.

  “They call it ‘glaring”,’” August replied casually as he took a drink of water.

  I chanced another look and saw Jill reach across the length of the table and lift the appetizer plate that sat directly in front of Daniel before sauntering back to us with a smile, and I darted my eyes away again when I saw Daniel’s gaze heading towards me.

  I fleetingly wondered if he preferred Gruyère to cheddar, too. When I heard the cadence of heels approach, I looked up to see Jill standing triumphant with a plate in her hands.

  “Thanks, fellas,” she called across the room and waved. The men returned the gesture and became distracted, exchanging looks of arousal and whispers, but Daniel stared at her with a face of stone. He said something pithy to his group, restoring order. Jill smiled broadly and gave him the finger, then set plate down in front of Tristan. Quickly, his eyes grew alight as he wolfed down marinara-dunked calamari.

  “What did you say to them?” I asked, as Jill reached over and happily pinched Tristan’s marinara-covered cheek.

  “I just told them that I had a special little guest with me tonight who came especially for that dish. They very generously offered it to me. Wasn’t that sweet of them?” she asked, syrupy sweet to Tristan, who grinned and nodded.

  “All of them?” I asked skeptically.

  “Well, all but that one fellow,” she stated contemplatively and tapped her chin, really enjoying her little victory. “But once I pointed out who my little guest was, he didn’t say one little thing. Not one word.” She shook her head looking mystified, and then a satisfied smile crossed her lips.

  Jill was riding high. Fifteen minutes later Mario himself came rushing out of the kitchen with a steaming hot plate of calamari and looked to be apologizing profusely to Daniel as he wiped his sweaty forehead with a dish towel. Our waiter explained it was shuttled over from a sister restaurant because Mr. Baird was a special guest. That took the wind out of her sails.

  The rest of dinner went and we ate quietly. Upon leaving, Jill stopped and posed for some pictures with tourists, and I let my eyes wander to Daniel’s table.

  Maybe he realized I was looking, but I saw him slowly raise his gaze to meet mine. His green eyes were cold and expressionless. It was only a second, but I thought to myself how much easier it would be to be more upset with him if he were an ugly man. It’s unfortunate how something so wonderful looking on the outside could be so disappointing on the inside. It was like false advertising from God. His little joke. I would have settled for a terribly ugly man who was a plumber if it meant he’d play with Tristan at the park on weekends and teach him what life was about. Then I watched his brow rise as he looked downward. I looked down, too, and saw Tristan clinging to my leg and giving Daniel the sharp look he’d given the chef earlier that night. I patted his hair and he looked up at me. Then August put his arm around me, and we left without looking back once.

  ~o~

  I lay in bed that night alone in the dark, with my palms resting on my forehead as I took controlled breaths and fought the stinging feeling in my eyes.

  Chapter 12 - Black Bloom Blossoms

  By the next day, I had come to terms with our situation and put it behind me. I’d gotten good at that over the years. I considered my restless night the final mourning for the father Tristan would never have. Although I’d spent years unhindered about his biological father, I am inherently somewhat of a dreamer and in the back of my mind I’d held out some tiny ray of hope that he would be the kind of man worthy of calling himself a father to my son. The mystery was dead. So was the chance at a happy ending. The happy ending neither Violet nor I got as a child. No white knights, good white witches, or fairy godmothers. This was the curse of the Valentines.

  Everyone came over early for Sunday dinner. Ian was eager to see Jill, and Violet had been out of town. It was nice to all be together again. I didn’t go in to detail, but word was out amongst them, that Daniel had waived his opportunity. Mainly because Jill had broadcasted our night at Del Posto. August, Tristan, and Ian were assembling a puzzle on the dining table while the girls hung out in the kitchen.

  “What a prick,” Violet said, as she disorganized the spice rack. “You need more turmeric, by the way.”

  “I can think of much more colorful things to call him than prick,” Jill sneered.

  “Like Lord Daniel of Jerk-ville,” Violet announced, and they giggled.

  “What about Sham-iel Baird,” Jill added inventively, and they snickered again.

  Humor was their therapy, and I didn’t bother stopping it. The rejection stung us all, because the one thing we would have never anticipated was that there was someone on Earth who wouldn’t want to be a part of Tristan’s life. We were so used to us all jostling to get his time; it seemed unfathomable that someone would deny him. And we took all of our individual successes and failures as a whole, as a family, like it should be. I began unloading the produce to prep for dinner when August came into the kitchen.

  “Bree, do you have the number to that cabin we stayed at when we went camping last year?” he asked, with a furrowed brow, and I smirked when I saw him wearing the thick black-framed grandpa readers he wore for doing puzzles sliding down his chiseled nose.

  “I think I have it saved in my phone. Why?”

  “Tristan said he wanted to go camping for his birthday, so I thought I’d check availability,” he replied. “They book up quickly. Where’s your phone?”

  “In my purse on the coffee table,” I answered as I went back to chopping some corn right off the cob. Violet shook her head and tsked while she watched him walk off.

  “How can someone that hot be so Mr. Rogers?” she mused.

  “He’s just conservative. And happens to like sweater vests,” Jill defended. August strolled back in looking down at my phone with an intense expression.

  “Did you find it?” I asked as I darted my eyes up to his.

  “No,” he replied, stunned, and looked up at me while extending the phone out. “You have an email.”

  I squinted my eyes at him and laid down the knife before wiping my hands on my waist apron and reaching for my phone.

  -Email Sunday 3:45 p.m.-

  Sender: D. Baird

  Recipient: mgvalentine-Valentine designs

  Dinner at eight. We need to talk.

  Daniel

  It included a Fifth Avenue address.

  “He wants to talk,” I said quietly as I reread the email.

  “Not a chance. Hell no,” Jill said as she stabbed my paring knife into a cutting board.

  “Keep it down,” I shushed her.

&nb
sp; “No! No, no, no. He missed the boat. This ship has sailed.”

  “I’ll decide that, Jill,” I answered firmly. I leveled my eyes with hers and she stomped her foot.

  “No way, Bree!” she insisted and looked to Violet and August for back up. August looked back and forth from her to me before he spoke.

  “If he is willing to be reasonable, it could be productive,” he explained calmly.

  “Maybe he just needed some time to think about it…” Violet trailed off lamely, and we all looked at her. I was expecting her to be with Jill on this.

  “You cannot be serious right now,” Jill persisted, putting her hand on her hip. “Remember? Lord Sham-iel?”

  “But if he’s seen the error of his ways, maybe she should give him a chance. Maybe he reconsidered,” Vi replied, glancing down at her clasped hands. When she looked up, I gave her a reassuring smile and she returned it.

  “Oh, okay. I see,” Jill started sarcastically. “This makes sense now. Of course you three would think this is a good idea. You could fill the Potomac with all of your abandonment issues.”

  “Jill,” August, snapped sternly. Jill was taken aback. “I think we’ve heard enough from you.” It was a low blow; August and his father were in a bad place, but in the time they were bickering I’d made my decision.

  “I’m going to go and talk to him. He didn’t sign up for this, and maybe he just had a case of too much, too soon. I can’t let my personal feelings about him negatively affect Tristan’s well-being,” I explained resolutely.

  “But why, Bree? He’s an ass!” Jill complained, smelling defeat.

  “Jill, think about it,” Violet started. “He’s actually taking this much better than any of us did. Even Bree had a more intense reaction to finding out she was pregnant than he has about finding out he had a four-year-old person in the world.”

  August beamed at Violet. “If he has a chance to have a real father, and Daniel is prepared to step forward, we have no right to deny it,” August added.