Chapter Five
He would’ve accepted Rosie finding another man a million times over if it meant not having to hear the words that had just come from her trembling lips.
“I should have told you,” she cried softly, turning her hand around beneath his, trying to tangle their fingers.
He pulled away.
“Please don’t.” She reached for him again, but all of the anger he’d expected to feel upon seeing her again swept in out of nowhere, rushing through him like a flash flood, reckless and unforgiving.
He swung out of the chair so forcefully it nearly toppled over. “Don’t do this to you? To you, Rose? Jesus Christ!”
“Don’t yell. Please just…not here. Not like this.” She spoke calmly, despite the sudden tears slipping down her cheeks. Tears that made him want to run to the nearest trash can and lose the dinner he hadn’t yet eaten.
A baby.
They’d made a baby and she’d kept that information from him for nine fucking years.
“I don’t want to do this at all.” He dug his wallet from his back pocket and tossed some cash onto the table. A hundred different thoughts and questions ricocheted around in his head, but no way in hell could he ask coherent questions. Not when he couldn’t even look at her.
“I-I can understand that.” Rose stood, too, her purse already clutched between her fingers, ready to chase after him. “But there’s more you need to know.”
Oh, he bet she had tons of shit to say, but that didn’t mean he had to listen.
“What if it’s another nine years?” she asked. “I can’t live with this that long.”
“No?” A bitter laugh rolled in his chest. “But it was okay for you—” He broke off when he realized that Sally Ann was staring at them. So were the patrons at the occupied tables nearby, and anyone who’d ever lived in a small town knew what that meant. Half the town would hear about the unknown man arguing with Rose in the middle of Sally Ann’s before they stepped out into the snowy night.
Pissed as he was, he couldn’t leave Rose with that mess when he left.
“Outside,” he demanded. “My rental car.”
Rose followed after him without hesitation, but a park across the way caught his attention and he detoured toward the wooden sidewalk instead of the parking lot. The wind whipped down from the mountains and the chilly January air bit at his face. He welcomed it. The sting kept his mind off the ache churning in his gut.
“So…” he began as soon as he reached the railing that overlooked the river. “Do I have a son or a daughter?”
Behind him, he heard Rosemary’s heels stop short on the landing. Her whisper-soft response came several seconds later. “I don’t know.”
Ah. She’d taken that route, had she?
He shook his head as a hateful smile formed. “I should’ve known.”
“No,” she rasped defensively, closing the distance between them in a hurry until he could feel her hot breath and the sharp stab of her finger against his shoulder. “I might’ve been young and stupid, but I would’ve never willfully aborted our child, Ryan. My God. How could you even think that I’d do that to you?”
“To be honest, I’m not really sure what you’re capable of at this point. You left while you were pregnant. With my baby.”
“I miscarried!” Her pained cry cut through the night and the whirling in his stomach wound into a tight knot. “Before I’d even left River Bend.”
Son of a bitch.
“So, cut the damn attitude, okay? It took me three long, terrifying weeks to accept that my birth control had failed. I wanted to tell you. Really, I did. But by the time I’d finally gathered the courage, it was too late. I started bleeding and…and…” She staggered backward until her legs hit the snowy wooden bench next to them and she dropped hard, her breath coming in short, harried gasps.
“Everything happened so fast. So, so fast.” Swiping blindly at her tear-stained cheeks, she continued on, her voice breaking over and over again. “I was eighteen-years-old. Only weeks away from graduation, which was supposed to be one of the happiest times of my life. Instead, I was scared and ashamed. Not because we’d gotten pregnant. God, I could never hate that. But I did hate myself because I couldn’t carry what we’d created. I’d…I’d failed you.”
Jesus friggin’ Christ.
His hands clenched into fists at his sides and he forced himself to breathe. To not react like his gut told him to. So far, that hadn’t been his best course of action. “How could you think that?” he rasped after several long beats, throat dry and voice shaking.
“You wanted a family.”
“Miscarriages happen. I might’ve been a stupid, hormonal kid, but I wouldn’t have faulted you for something you couldn’t control.”
She laughed nervously and glanced away. “I didn’t see it that way.”
Obviously or they wouldn’t be having the conversation almost a decade after the fact.
“What does piss me off is that, rather than tell me about it, you decided to leave town.”
“I didn’t tell anyone, Ryan. I didn’t dare.” She shot him a sad smile, then pushed a hand through her hair. “I couldn’t risk you finding out, especially from someone other than me.”
That would have killed him. Still, he was pretty sure he would’ve appreciated the truth then rather than find out now, like this.
“I’m sorry you didn’t think you could tell me. And that you had to leave to hid it.”
She nodded and a new wave of emotion shimmered in her dark eyes. “So am I.”
“I would’ve supported you.”
A broken sound escaped her throat. “Like you did tonight?”
Shit.
She swiped at her cheeks with trembling fingertips. “Look, Ryan, there’s no way to know for sure what might’ve happened, but at least now we both know what did happen. That’s all that matters.”
He frowned. “You left without saying goodbye.”
“I said goodbye.”
“In a friggin’ note.” Was he bitter about that? Damn right he was. They’d spent more than three years together. They had plans. Not a single one of them involved her packing up overnight and moving to California by herself.
“It seemed easier that way. Less complicated.”
“How? How the hell was it easier to walk away from what we had than to tell me you wanted out? I know you, Rose. I know you couldn’t have done that without the guilt eating you alive.”
“I didn’t want out. But having you hate me for leaving was a more tolerable alternative than having you hate me for what I couldn’t give you.”
Huh? Before he could ask for clarification, a shiver overtook her petite body and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward it off. Frustration shook every fiber of his being, but he wasn’t that much of a jerk.
“You’re freezing. Jesus, you’re not even dressed to be outside, let alone outside in the middle of winter. Here…” He hurried over, pulled her to her feet, hands rubbing up and down her slender back. “Let’s go back inside.”
“No.” She shook her head, but tucked in closer to his chest, her body trembling. “I’d rather not.”
Probably for the best. More fodder for the rumor mill. “Is there somewhere else we could go? Another restaurant maybe? A coffee shop?”
“Not at this time of night.”
He gave a reluctant nod. “I should get you home then.”
Rose shifted another inch closer, teeth chattering. “Please don’t. Not yet.”
He watched her eyes dart longingly from one side of his chest to the other, clearly battling some kind of internal struggle, before she quickly dug beneath her scarf and revealed a heart-shaped locket. The very locket he’d given her for her sixteenth birthday.
“You still have it,” he murmured, his frustration and confusion from only a short time ago slowly waning. If all of the things she said were true…
“I still wear it,” she corrected. “Every single day.”
A hard lump formed in his throat and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her fully into the haven of his arms. She signed instantly, her breath warming his chest, even through the sweatshirt.
For a moment, he let himself close his eyes and do nothing but breathe her in. Her hair smelled the same as he remembered--sweet and fresh--and, if he tipped his face to the side, his cheek could rest perfectly atop her head. Her arms wound naturally around his waist and her breasts pressed against his ribcage just enough that he could feel her chest rise and fall with his.
“A baby,” he said out of nowhere, and she nodded. “Wow. She would have been beautiful,” he whispered, fingers lifting to cradle her face while he kissed her hair. “Just like you.”
“Or maybe he would have been handsome like you.”
A stabbing ache turned in his gut and he clenched his jaw. “I’m so sorry, Rosie.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she sniffed and stepped away. He hated the disconnect instantly. “I am, too. But I’m also a firm believer that things happen for a reason. I may not understand now, but someday…” She paused, sucking in a shaky breath. “Someday, I hope we both will.”
This felt far too much like another goodbye, but there was so much left to be said.
“Let’s go back to your place,” he said abruptly. “I’m not ready to say goodnight.”
Rose tipped her head to the side, her lips pressed into a small smile. “You’re forgetting that Janine is there.”
Shit. He had forgotten. “Maybe she’ll be sleeping.”
“She’s a night owl, and her office shares a wall with my bedroom.”
So, no privacy. They definitely needed privacy for the kind of conversation he wanted to have. “Come back to Tahoe with me.”
Her eyes widened before she blinked. “Tahoe? It’s getting late--”
“Let’s not start something else we don’t finish, Rosie.”
Her dark eyes softened and, when he reached for her hand, she let him take it.
“Leave your car here and I’ll bring you back later.”
A small laugh vibrated between them. “You’re just as crazy as you used to be.” And yet she hadn’t turned him down.
He smiled, feeling boyish and wondering how they’d managed to come full circle again tonight. “What do you say?”
Rose pressed her pretty pink lips together. “I don’t want another nine years to pass by.”
“So?”
She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a warm kiss against his cheek. “Tahoe it is.”