CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mason
The long road between Sara's mother's house and my apartment felt like the enemy. It stretched out endlessly in front of me when I just wanted to get her and the baby into my apartment to find out what the hell happened.
“Get the fuck out of the way!” I cursed out the driver of a slow-moving Prius. Swerving to the left, tires screeched behind me but I didn’t turn around to see what happened.
Sara gasped and I heard her mutter something. Yes, she was scared, I knew that, but I wasn’t frightening her on purpose, I just had to get out of there. With Sara and the baby in the car, I was desperate to leave that neighborhood and all that it stood for. Secrecy. Sara’s obvious shame. The idea of an unclaimed baby. My unclaimed baby, for crying out loud.
Shame coursed through my massive frame. Holy shit, no child of mine was going to go fatherless. Skylar had a dad, and I was gonna be there for him, come hell or high water. He was mine, and those baby blue eyes looking back at me innocently wrecked my heart. I’d already missed his first months of life and it absolutely killed me, made me feel like an ant.
But Sara didn’t know that, and right now, she was frightened from the crazy card ride. Brown eyes wide and frozen, she stared at the road, clutching the baby in her arms.
“Slow down, Mason!” she said in a strained voice, barely able to get the words out. “There’s no rush.”
“I know what I'm doing,” I bit out in reply.
But that obviously wasn't true. Because my life had been out of control before, but now it was ten times more crazy. If I’d been a mofo in my past life, fucking girls right and left, at least it’d been controlled damage. Now, things were completely out of whack. My best girl was here. She’d been pregnant. She’d had my son. Holy fucking shit. Beat me with a bat and leave me for dead.
And shame coursed through me again because from the looks of it, life hasn’t been easy for Sara. The brunette was still luminously beautiful, ripe and lovely, but there were circles under her eyes, and a new drooping of her soft shoulders. I swore to erase that stuff as soon as humanly possible, that was my next mission.
But still, I was the man who’d done this to her. My sweet girl. The brunette was my beautiful woman, and I’d put her through hell.
Slamming on the brakes, the car screeched into a parking space and I rushed my new family inside. Sara dropped onto the couch with the baby, and as she sat, obviously trying to get comfortable with little Skylar in her arms, I looked around at the room with new eyes, seeing it for the first time.
Everything was white and cold and sterile. Ikea fake-wood furniture I’d never bothered to paint, bare white walls, and regulation blinds over the windows. Only the big screen TV and rust-colored recliner had any real personality and both shouted, “Bachelor who couldn’t give a shit.” My place was a fucking sty, and it was never more obvious now with Sara on the couch, trying her hardest to make herself and our baby comfortable.
This was no place for a wife and child.
What the fuck? A wife? What the fuck was I thinking?
But shit, that sounded right. Deep in my gut it felt right and I stared at them like a madman. The brunette was a Madonna with my baby at her breast, her dark head looking at the peaceful child, the sleeping boy completely unaware of the turmoil around him. And something moved in my heart, something stirred so deep and powerful, that I couldn’t breathe for a moment. My big frame was still and a lightheaded feeling rushed over me, making me wobble visibly. Because shit, life had just become more complicated but also a thousand times more clear.
Skylar and Sara were mine. That was obvious. They belonged to me, one hundred percent, and there was no way I was leaving them behind. Career in the Navy be damned, next tour be damned, because right now, I had a girl and a baby on my hands, and they were my everything.
But the brunette had no idea. The mother of my child gripped the child tighter to her chest, looking at the bare white walls uncomfortably before glancing my way.
“We’re here now,” she said in a low voice. “We’re here, Mason.”
That’s right, they were here. And it was right despite the bare white walls and the mass of misunderstanding. So I took a controlled breath and started slow.
“What the fuck happened, Sara?”
Okay, that wasn’t slow, that was fucking harsh and in your face. But I couldn’t help it. I had to know.
The female just looked at me like I'd asked the stupidest question. Her voice low and trembly, she replied.
“What do you think happened, Mason? You fucked me and I got pregnant. That’s what happened.”
Oh shit, that was a harsh reply and I stood there stunned. Sara took a deep breath then, getting her bearings.
“Give me a sec,” she said in a low voice. “I’ll be right back.”
And balancing Skylar and his huge baby bag, she disappeared into my bedroom for a moment. But then the brunette reappeared with a baby monitor in hand.
“He’s fine,” she whispered, not meeting my eyes. “Come on.”
And hips swaying, the girl strode into the kitchen. Like a puppet on a string, I followed blindly, mesmerized by that sweet form. Because she was everything I’d left behind, and even more. My curvy, innocent teen had become a mama, and Sara was a thousand times more beautiful now.
But still, she had no idea how much I admired her, she was completely in the dark. And as the brunette lowered herself into a chair, tiredness seeped from that gesture, causing a dagger of pain to lance through my heart again. Fuck. I done that. I’d done that to my best female.
I straddled the chair across from her and crossed my arms across the back of it. Might as well be upfront, we already had a child to show for our efforts.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked in a low voice. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
The brunette looked away, eyes gazing at nothing really.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know where you were, Mason. How could I tell you if there was no way to reach you?”
I nodded.
“There are ways. You could have gone to the local Navy recruitment center. They would have been able to track me down.”
Her head snapped to look at me then, expression incredulous.
“Are you kidding Mason? After the way you left me? I’ll have you remember that you booted me out of your apartment like I was radioactive waste that last time. Like you couldn’t stand to see me anymore,” she added, her voice breaking. “Like I was nothing but garbage.”
My heart wrenched.
“But still, you were pregnant,” my voice came, deep and urgent. “Even if you felt bad, there were ways.”
This time those caramel eyes flashed.
“I don’t care,” she spat. “I wasn’t about to humiliate myself further by going after a man who didn’t want me. And telling him about an unwanted baby? Yeah, right.”
That made my hackles raise, although my voice stayed preternaturally calm.
“Who said I didn’t want the baby?”
Her chin snapped back in my direction.
“Mason,” she spoke, voice tight. “This was never a real relationship. You told me that. You’re the one who made clear from the get-go that we were casual only. Pump and dump, remember? That’s the way you roll, and I was just another girl.”
Those words made my heart break again, but I shouldered ahead, determined.
“Shit, even if you thought that, a baby is different,” I growled. “It’s a different situation.”
Her eyes flashed then, temper rising.
“How would I know?” she said in a low controlled voice. “All I knew was that you kicked me to the curb, making it one hundred percent clear that we were done. And then you disappeared, vanished into thin air. You know how I found out you were in Afghanistan, Mason? You know how I figured that out?”
I took a deep breath.
“You talked to one of my buddies,” came the growl. “Or you talked to the bartender at Killian’s, he knew my deets.”
Sara shook her head violently, those brown curls flying.
“No Mason,” she said, her voice low, tight with pain. “I found out I was pregnant, and I was so terrified and desperate that I looked up one of the hooches you slept with, and asked her. Some skinny blonde chick you banged a couple years ago. She was the one who told me, she was the one who took pity on me and gave me your deets. And you know what? It broke my heart to have to ask her!” Sara began screaming now, filled with rage and pain. “I had to ask one of your past fucks to find out where you were, and IT BROKE MY HEART!”
At that, the girl began sobbing, bending her head and leaning over the table, face in hands. My big frame was paralyzed, chest tight. Because if I’d felt bad before, then it was ten times worse now. I’d forced my best girl to go out and talk with some disgusting whore, begging for details about me. Who does that? What kind of fucking asshole does that to the woman he loves?
Heart in my throat, my big hand reached out to gather her to me but Sara immediately shook my hand off her shoulder, instead jerking her head up and glaring with big brown eyes.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “You don’t get to touch me after everything that’s happened.”
That made me growl because I’m going to touch wherever I damn well please, and that meant all over this curvy figure. But fine, I could give her some peace for now.
“Calm, baby girl,” I directed. “Calm, hush.”
She turned furious eyes to me.
“Don’t you tell me when to hush, don’t you tell me what to do,” she raged, spitting like a cat on a hot tin roof. “That’s not your place.”
I backed off, big hands held up in a truce.
“It’s true,” I said in as soothing of a voice as I could manage. “That’s true. I’ve been gone and everything went haywire while I was away. But I’m back now and I’m gonna make everything right,” I growled, emotion stirring my soul. “Everything’s gonna be fine now that I’m back.”
But Sara wasn’t done yet, fury and confusion mixing on her face, and those brown eyes flashed.
“Oh really, how? What are you going to do Mason? Are you going to marry me? Are you going to name me your next of kin? Put me into your will?” she asked sarcastically, tiny fists gripping the tablecloth.
Come to think of it, that didn’t sound bad at all. In fact, it sounded exactly right, and I was willing to do all of those things and more. So I rolled with it.
“Would you?” I rumbled deep. “Would you marry me Sara?”
But the brunette was too stressed and couldn’t process the question. She merely shot me a look of fury before turning away.
“No absolutely not,” she snapped. “If you haven’t noticed,” she said sarcastically. “We’re way past that. The train’s left the station, Mason, and you’re five hundred miles behind.”
Okay, that was true, but give a guy a chance. I held up my hands again.
“I’ve been away, but I want to do right by you,” I said seriously this time, seizing her eyes. “I’m gonna do right by you and Skylar.”
But Sara was done with this conversation, and instead of snapping back at me with a sharp retort, the female looked away again, staring blindly out the window.
“You mean like how you’ve done right by us so far? Like what you’ve done so far?”
And the limp lifelessness in those words killed me. Because it was easier to manage a high-strung, panicky woman than this. At least then, there was someone to fight with, to love and soothe, to spar with and pacify. But now, there was nothing, just a dense silence, so thick that my heart began to pump with worry. Aw fuck, she wasn’t giving up, was she? I hoped to god that my best female was still in the game, that the brunette wasn’t tossing in the cards.
Because without her, I wasn’t sure we’d survive. We could go our separate ways, yeah, but to be a family, I needed her. She was part of the story, and without that sweet form, things just wouldn’t work. So I grabbed a tiny fist in mine.
“Listen,” I ground out roughly. “Things have been tough for you, I know that. I know that we didn’t part on good terms, that I was a whole lotta asshole, and you didn’t deserve what happened. But baby girl, I’m gonna make things right,” I swore again, blue eyes blazing. “I promise.”
But Sara was only half-listening, her hand limp in my fist. She took a deep breath, those curvy boobs rising, and then exhaled once more, still not meeting my eyes.
“Okay,” she said tonelessly. “Okay Mason.”
And the words killed me. Because it was clear Sara was just trying to end the conversation, she didn’t really want to work things out. And my heart began leaping with panic, beating like a fucking drum, almost bursting from my chest. Because what would I do if I didn’t have her? What would I become, what did I have? A bunch of hooches on my trail? Memories of fucking Afghanistan? More tours where I patrolled the desert, thinking only of Sara? Holy shit. My life was on the line, my whole existence in peril … and I was terrified that we’d reached the end already.