“Come on then, slowpoke. Come and meet Erin. She’s on her way out just now, but I thought you might want to say hello. You know, as one bass player to another.”

Oh. He was a bass player too? Erin had remembered he played in a band, but knowing the kid played bass like she did warmed her heart.

She held her hand out and he shook it nearly off her arm. “Wow. This is so awesome. I never knew Mum had famous friends I’d actually recognize. I love your music. I’m trying to learn ‘Lashed’ right now. Well, we are, my band and me. I. Whatever. Wow. Just wow.”

Gillian, grinning, stepped closer to Miles and put her arm around his waist because he already towered over her. “Easy there, kid, she needs her arm to tote around her baby and her guitar too.”

He laughed, letting go, and Erin so badly wanted to hug him. She settled for another smile. “I’d love to help you work it through sometime. You’ll see me again, I promise.”

“Go on.” Gillian indicated the house with a tip of her chin. “Homework before you even touch your phone or the computer.”

“Aw, Mum!”

“Listen to your mother, Miles. It was my pleasure to meet you. I need to go, anyway. My son has been spending the day with his fathers and they’ll need the rest.”

Miles stammered another greeting and ambled off to the house.

“He walks like Adrian does. That slow lope. Good lord.” She looked back to Gillian. “He’s a beautiful kid. Thank you for this. Can I call you? Perhaps spend some more time with Miles? I mean, obviously I can’t speak for Adrian, but I can speak for myself and I want to know Miles and you too.”

“Yes. They said the results would be back within two weeks, probably sooner. So once Adrian gets his answers I expect this will all begin to move. Thank you for being so understanding about why I didn’t come forward sooner.”

“You can’t own what someone else did. We talked about this already. I learned that one myself. I’ll be speaking to you soon.”

She drove away and headed straight to Adrian’s.

She didn’t bother buzzing him at the gate. Though the siblings had decided to let Adrian lick his wounds for a few days, time was up. She keyed in the code herself and parked, smiling at the sight of one of Rennie’s soccer balls near the side of the house.

She headed straight for the studio, where she found him smoking one of his forbidden French cigarettes, bare feet propped up on a table, a yellow notepad at his right hand and a guitar in his lap.

“Your son plays bass.”

She came in, shoved his legs off the table and sat, tossing her bag to the side.

“What?” He sat forward. “He does what?”

“I figured there’d been enough talking through lawyers. This woman is your son’s mother and she deserves respect and courtesy. Plus I wanted to take her measure myself so I went over there today.”

He blinked. “You lie.”

“No. I’ve just spent three hours with Gillian Forrester. Moreover, I met your son. He practically shook my arm off and told me he was learning the bass line from ‘Lashed.’ ”

Adrian pushed from his chair. “You had no right to give her any more ammo against me.”

Erin didn’t bother with anger or even annoyance. She knew he was hurting. Still, he needed to stop wallowing. “Is that what this is to you?”

“We’re not supposed to be contacting her!”

“Sit down and be quiet for a minute while I take you to school, smart-ass. I went over there ready to kick some butt if I had to. This is my family and I will protect it. But then I pulled into her driveway and saw that house and I knew then she was not out to extort or harm you. She’s built a life there.”

He handed her a bottle of water.

“So she opened the door I knocked on and recognized me after a moment, and though it took me a while to win past the hole you’ve dug with your attitude toward her, I got to know her a bit. She made me tea. She talked to me about Miles in the way only a woman totally in love with her kid can sound.”

“What’s she like?”

“She runs a design business. Websites, corporate logos, brochures. That sort of thing. Good work actually. I’ve seen some of it around town. She gives piano lessons a few days a week. They live well. Not this kind of well.” She waved at the home studio Adrian had built for himself. “But the house is good. Solid. She’s got a life, Adrian, and there is nothing I saw today that made me think she’d try to raise herself up by hurting anyone else.”

“And the boy?”

“Say his name, Adrian. Let yourself believe this. I only met him for a few minutes. He’d just come home from school. Math club, she said. Anyway, he walks just like you do. Christ, he has Brody’s smile and his way of things. There is no doubt in my mind that he is your kid. Sweet. A little shy. Super excited to meet another bass player. Ha!”

The ache he’d had in his belly since that very first meeting with her in the café dulled just a bit. A deep slice of yearning replaced it. “You really think he’s mine?”

She leaned forward and took his hands in her own. “Yes. I have absolutely no doubt about that. You have a son, Adrian. Happy father’s day.”

It hit him then with such force he had to sit back to breathe. The reality he’d been holding at bay, telling himself it probably wasn’t true, crashed back into his life.