Reality came crashing into this little bubble we had wrapped ourselves up in. I just had unprotected sex with a complete stranger! Regardless of who his family was, he could be anyone. A family does not a man make.

“You okay?” he asked as he nervously scratched his head.

“What? Yes. It just kind of hit me that we really don’t know each other and we just… you know… a lot.” I pulled myself together on the outside even though butterflies were still floating around my belly.

“We did.” He gave me a boyish grin that said exactly how much he enjoyed what we did together. The sight of it made the butterflies calm down a bit. Unprotected sex aside, I wanted to continue living in the moment and enjoying my dwindling time with this sexy man.

“This is crazy.” I let out a disbelieving laugh. This was so unlike me yet I had never felt more like myself then I did that night.

“It is,” he agreed. “Look, Maci. I like you and I’d like to see you again.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. His declaration took me completely by surprise. I never once considered this stranger wanting to be something more.

“You don’t need to agree now. Just promise you’ll think about it. Please?” he asked with an earnest look on his face.

My heart turned over at how damn cute he was. Throwing caution to the wind, I nodded. He leaned over and placed a loud, smacking kiss on my lips before jumping up and rifling for his boxers on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I sat up on the floor.

“Going to get our clothes out of the dryer. I’ll be back in a few.” He grabbed the card to the room and left me with a wink.

Climbing into bed, I pulled the covers over my body and burrowed into them. There was nothing I could do about the lack of a condom. For as much as it freaked me out, I had to let it go and not stress over something I couldn’t change. An appointment to get tested for diseases was high on my priority list, but that thought could wait until the morning light brought the real world back. For now I was going to bask in the glow of post-coital bliss.

I stretched my deliciously sore muscles and closed my eyes. Before I knew it, sleep claimed me.

FOUR

The bells on the shop door jingled, signaling a new customer. The quaint, little chocolate shop my husband and I had opened smelled of the decadent confections I created here each morning.

“Hi, can I help you?” I asked without looking up, as I stood from where I was bent down, arranging candies in the display case.

“I was hoping to pick up a dozen of the chocolate peanut butter truffles I’ve heard so much about,” the customer answered, his voice so eerily familiar my heart stopped beating for a few seconds before galloping wildly in my chest.

“Maci?” Jax asked from across the counter. His face registered shock and disbelief.

“Jax,” I returned. My hands picked at the strings of the apron tied around my waist. It was a nervous gesture. His being there had me freaked the fuck out.

When I had left that hotel room in the middle of the night, leaving behind nothing but a note, I thought I would never ever see him again. Sure, I had fantasized about it, but that was a long time ago. Four years was a long time to gain perspective.

“You left.” His voice held no judgment. Just sadness. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.

“I left a note.” It was a weak explanation but the only one I had. Leaving him alone in that hotel room had been a shitty thing for me to do.

He nodded and looked around the shop. “So this is yours? I’ve heard great things about it. Decided to finally pop in and see for myself what all the buzz is about. I would have stopped in a lot sooner had I known.”

His words made my heart leap, but I quickly tamped it down. The clock on the wall told me I was about five minutes from having my world implode on me.

“Well, let me get you a box of truffles. On the house,” I quickly responded in an effort to speed this up.

“I insist on paying,” he murmured, digging his wallet out of his pants as I hastily put a box together for him.

Just as I was sliding the box across the counter to him and he was handing me a twenty-dollar bill, the door jingled and my three-year old daughter raced towards us. Her hands waved excitedly as she screeched “Chocolate time!”

Jackie stopped abruptly when she rounded the corner and saw Jax standing there with an amused expression on his face. “Hi!” she chirped.

“Hello.” He knelt down to her level. His eyes moved over her face, so many questions behind them that I bit my lips and continued picking at my apron. I saw the exact moment when it dawned on him who she was. There was no missing his clenched jaw and tightened fists.

“I’m Jackie!”

“Hi, Jackie. I’m Jax. How old are you?”

“I’m this many!” She held out three fingers. Her right eye closing and her little tongue sticking out as she concentrated on keeping her other fingers down.

My stomach dropped to my feet at that moment, for I knew my past was colliding with my present, and the consequences were sure to be extreme.

“You’re beautiful,” he croaked out. His hand reached up to touch her dark curls, but pulled back when he realized she didn’t know him.

In slow motion I watched him stand and shake his head before turning towards me with so much pain in his eyes it took my breath away.

“Maci?” My husband, George, said when he finally caught up to Jackie and recognized the familiarity in Jax’s features.

“What?” I asked dazedly.

“I’m going to take Jackie over to the park. You going to be okay?”

No. I was never going to be okay, but I couldn’t really admit that. I didn’t want to freak Jackie out. She was so intuitive and could easily pick up on my mood. Even at three. All I could do was nod and give him an encouraging smile.

“You be good for daddy, baby,” I told my daughter as she blew kisses to me on her way out the door, her little fingers wrapped up in her father’s hand.

As soon as the door shut on George and Jackie, Jax looked ready to explode.

“How could you not tell me?” He bellowed and I couldn’t really blame him. Even if it did make me flinch.

“How was I supposed to do that?” I argued irrationally with tears stinging my eyes. I deserved whatever he was about to dish out. I knew that.

“You knew my name. You knew who my family was. One phone call and someone would have found me. You hid my daughter from me!” Tension vibrated through his stiff body.

“I know. I’m sorry!” I shouted back.

“And who’s that guy?”

“My husband, George.”

“George,” he mumbled with a thoughtful expression on his face. “George? The guy you dumped right before we hooked up?”

“Yes.”

“Christ, Maci. She called him Daddy,” he said exasperatedly.

“Because he’s all she knows.”

“How the fuck did this happen? Please, explain this to me, because I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around all this.”

“George texted me that night. Told me he was sorry for being an ass and wanted to marry me. I wrote you that note and left. A month later I found out I was pregnant.” I gave him the highlights, not wanting to delve too deeply into everything that had happened.

“Does he know?”

“Yes, I told him. He was upset at first but came around to the idea of having a baby. We found out last year he’s sterile and had it not been for my one night with you, we’d never have been blessed with Jackie.” Tears filled my eyes at the reminder that there would be no more little feet running through the house.

“This is so fucked up.” Jax scrubbed his hands down his face and looked warily at me.

“Yes,” I agreed and forced myself to let go of the apron string wrapped around my finger which was now purple from lack of circulation.