Page 20 of Knocked Up By The Mountain Man

"Finally," I bark into the phone when I pick it up.

"Hello to you, too," Adam says breezily. "What's up? You need an update on your woman already?"

The way he says your woman quells some of my concern for some reason. Apparently, I'm more possessive than I thought.

"Yeah, I want a fucking update," I snap. "How is she doing?"

"Uh, well, she is currently standing on the porch of that jackass who sold me a lemon of a car last fall.”

"Toby Finneagan?” I ask.

"Yeah," Adam says with distaste. "That guy. He still owes me four hundred bucks!”

"I don't think you're getting your four hundred bucks from him," I say, thinking of the weathered old man with the foul attitude.

He has a bad reputation in Wildwood, with more than a few of the local townspeople having negative stories to tell about him, my own best friend included.

I put the pieces together quickly in my mind as I turn at the bottom of the mountain, in the direction of Toby's run-down shack of a house.

He must be her father, the man she said she was here to see.

"I don't know what you did," Adam continues. "But this woman seemed like she’d seen a ghost on the drive down here. She's seriously upset. I've never been the best at reading women's emotions, much less talking to them about them. But I have a feeling you fucked up, man.”

"Yeah, yeah," I say.

"Any chance you know what you did?” Adam asks me.

"I know exactly what I did," I say. "And I'm gonna fix it."

CHAPTER 11

ALYSSA

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, standing awkwardly on the doorstep with Adam idling in his truck behind me.

I tried to wave him off and tell him I'd be fine, but he refused to leave. And to be honest, I guess that's a good thing because it looks like my dad isn't going to answer the door, and I have no idea how I would get a ride back to town without him.

I’m so stupid, I think to myself as I ring the doorbell again.

The porch is dusty and covered in old leaves. The welcome mat is so worn out that the W is missing entirely, spelling “elcome” in the dark, dusty shade.

There are cobwebs in the corners, and the glass on the screen door is dirty and smudged.

This place looks abandoned. It's not what I had in mind when I'd found my dad's last known address.

I hadn't been able to look up the place on Google Maps because even Google Maps doesn't come this far out into the mountains…so this is a complete surprise.

In my mind, I pictured a place kind of like Jack's. Clean, cozy, well taken care of.

I don't know why I assumed that. I have no idea who my father is or what to expect from the man.

But I guess I just never imagined that he'd be living in a hovel like this.

Maybe he doesn't live here at all. Maybe this is some kind of abandoned shack that he used to get his mail at. He probably doesn't even live in Wildwood anymore. Maybe he never did.

I'm foolish. Foolish for coming back out here to the mountains, both to find Jack and hope that he might want to be somewhat involved in our child's life, and to find my dad, kind of for the same exact reason.

The parallels are impossible to ignore at this point.