Chapter 29

“It’s not the same,” Daniel repeated. “It’s not.”

“How can you even say that? How is it not the same?”

“She’s just…afraid.”

Of course she was. How could she not be?

“Afraid of having a baby? Afraid of…me?”

“Afraid that you’ll be a good and decent man.”

Jasper stopped. “What?”

“You dropped her like a hot potato, man. Only weeks ago. She knows damn well you weren’t ready to be anything more than a one-night stand—an accidental one, at that. So she knows damn well that you don’t want to be a father.”

“She can’t possibly—”

“But she also knows you’d do the right thing. She just doesn’t know whether you’d be doing it because you want to, or because it’s the right thing to do.”

Jasper took a deep breath and started pacing again, trying to decipher Daniel’s words through the zigzag fog enveloping his brain.

Okay, he could see that. He could. Here he’d been, saying sayonara after a magical night, so why in the universe would she think he’d be happy to hear that their one night together had resulted in a miracle?

She wouldn’t.

And that was his fault.

“I’m going after her.”

“Jasper.”

“Don’t try to convince me not to.” He punched a couple of buttons on the cash register and pulled out a pile of bills, then locked it up.

“I’m not going to. But maybe”—Daniel sighed—“maybe make sure you’re really, really ready. Take it from a guy who’s been here. Make sure you’ve shut the doors you need to close first, so you can open the new ones with a clear conscience. That’s all I’m saying.”

Jasper paused.

“Next flight out doesn’t leave till six tonight.” Daniel slid a boarding pass across the counter. “Hayley booked you an hour ago. Make sure your head’s clear before you get on it.”

Two hours later, the meadow grass was crisper than it had been even a few weeks ago, the colors more weathered and yellow as Jasper dismounted near the tree he’d helped Emma climb.

It seemed like ages ago, and it seemed like yesterday.

He’d been trying since that night to forget about that day, and he’d done a lousy damn job of it. He’d tried to stay busy, tried to stay clear of her, tried to convince himself that the whole thing had been a dream.

But sitting on her bed two days ago, seeing her eyes water as she talked about her baby, had wrenched something so hard inside him that he hadn’t felt like he was walking straight ever since.

He’d left, because if he hadn’t left, he’d have kissed her. And if he’d kissed her, he wouldn’t have ever been able to leave her again. He’d known it, so he’d fled.

Again.

He opened the backpack he’d brought with him, spurred on by both Daniel’s words and the boarding pass in his pocket. When his hand closed around the plain wooden box inside, he paused, swallowing hard.

He’d avoided doing this for five years. He’d kept this box on a shelf, in plain sight, so he could look at it and remember. Learn. Do better.

He’d never felt ready to let go, never felt like he’d done enough to deserve letting go.

But the thought of Emma Winthrop boarding a plane this morning had brought a sort of jagged, dangerous clarity.

He’d never really had her, but he could lose her.

Lose her.

And not only her. He could lose so, so much more.

Maybe he’d never feel like he deserved to move on—not really. But his father’s words echoed in his head, and he hadn’t been able to silence them since Dad had tossed them lightly across the table. Emma was a gift. That much was painfully clear. And whether he deserved her or not, he knew now—knew it so hard that it physically jabbed his ribs—that if he let her go, he’d regret it for the rest of his lonely days.

But first, there were steps he needed to take, and for the first time in five years, he felt ready to take them.

He stood on the edge of the ridge and opened the box slowly, reverently. He spoke words he hadn’t even known he remembered, called up from some childhood pew. And then he tipped it, let the breeze carry its contents, watched the fluttering ash as it sailed slowly up, outward…and finally out of sight.

From Jasper’s special spot in the oak tree, Emma watched, her heart in her throat. She’d set out for the airport this morning, but she hadn’t gone twenty miles before she’d realized there was no way she could really go. He was still scarred by a woman who’d walked away, and she’d be damned if she would add to his damages with her own desperate flight. He deserved better than that.

So she’d turned around, her hands shaking on the wheel, because she had to tell him, but what in the world would she say? What thirty-five-year-old woman got pregnant by accident these days? Nobody, that’s who. But in one insane, out-of-body night, she’d managed to irrevocably alter two lives. With a shaky breath, she put her hand on her stomach.

Three. Three lives.

She’d driven back to Whisper Creek, pulled his car around behind her cabin, and set out on foot, not even knowing where she was headed until she’d crested a hill and spotted his tree. And then she’d hauled herself up into the branches, determined to find peace and answers.

He’d said it had worked for him years ago.

But then he’d appeared, long before she got clarity or peace, and now she was stuck up in this damn tree, witnessing such a private, painful scene that it made her chest actually ache.

She saw the box, saw the ashes, saw Jasper’s shoulders shake as he sat down afterward, the empty wooden box beside him.

His wife.

It had to be.

She felt tears prick at the edges of her eyelids as she watched him from above. God, the pain! The utter devastation in his face, his posture, his sunken shoulders made her want to climb back down and throw her arms around him, desperate to comfort him.

She knew she should avert her eyes—should go back to lying in the tree-hammock and resume staring at the sky—but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop watching him.

Couldn’t stop—oh, Lord—loving him.

And that was the worst possible emotion she could be feeling at this moment, because clearly, she was watching a man who was far, far from being over his wife. The scene she was witnessing left no doubt in her mind that it would be a long, long time before Jasper would be ready to welcome another woman into his life.

Maybe he never would.

The thought made her stomach squeeze in fear. He’d pulled back like lightning after their night together, so a sane woman wouldn’t exactly have been having hopeful doubts here. But a sane woman wouldn’t normally be finding herself pregnant from that one night, either.

She had to tell him. She had to. But to see him sitting there, shoulders shaking as he bowed his head, she also knew that she needed to be prepared to go it alone with this baby. She’d entertained glimmers of hope over the past twenty-four hours, tiny sparkling dots that invaded her head and made her wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might have a chance of making something work.

But looking at him now, it was clear that she’d been completely, utterly delusional.

She wished the realization didn’t hurt quite as much as it did.