The keys made a clattering sound as I dropped them in the small bowl Chloe had made last year. Walking into the large living room, I started talking to myself. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
The doorbell rang and I spun to answer it. Opening the door, I smiled when I saw my baby sister standing there.
“Hey,” Amelia said.
“Hey back at ya. What brings you here?”
She shrugged, then walked in. She was carrying a computer bag over her shoulder, a diet Pepsi in one hand, and giant shopping bag in the other. “Thought I would do some work here and keep you company. I figured today would be a rough day with dropping Chloe off at school and all.”
I raked my hand through my hair. “Yeah, it was rough in a few ways.”
Amelia placed her bag on the coffee table and turned to me.
“Paxton?”
With a nod, I dropped into an overstuffed chair. I still wasn’t used to having all of this. Not that we didn’t have a nice home in Portland, we did. But that was all it was. Nice. This was over the top. My parents were loaded; we knew that growing up. But they never spoiled us and we all had to work on the ranch learning every single aspect of the business. I always thought I’d come back from college and work alongside my father. Instead I got a degree in business management with a minor in math. I fucking hated math, but I was good at it.
“Since you left, Paxton has pretty much avoided the family. I mean if she ran into us, she was always pleasant. But when she came home from college she never stopped by no matter how many times Mom begged her to. Then when she moved back to town, if she saw us, she’d go out of her way to go in the opposite direction.”
My stomach tightened.
“What in the hell did you to her, Steed? Whatever it was, I know you told Mom and that’s why she isn’t talking to you. She told Dad she’s never been so angry with one of her kids in her life.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Amelia kept on. “She said she was ready to let Paxton make good on her threat. Now I remember that threat, even though I was twelve. You said something to her at y’all’s graduation and she said she hated you. Was going to cut off your—”
“Oh. My. God. Meli, stop talking.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Last week when you and Mom went out to talk, Paxton was a basket case. She tried to act like she was okay, but her hands were shaking, and she kept touching her stomach.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not stupid and I’ve put two and two together. Please tell me you didn’t make her do something you would both regret.”
I froze. “What? What in the hell do you mean?”
She leaned forward. “Abortion?”
I jumped up. “Fuck no. I would never do that!”
Letting out a breath, she mumbled, “Thank God. So why is Mom so pissed at you?”
I shook my head. The memories hit me hard. Paxton’s cries echoed through my thoughts. Maybe it was selfish to want to tell someone else, but I was tired of keeping it a secret. Tired of pretending it had never happened.
“The last day of school our senior year, Paxton told me she was pregnant.”
Amelia covered her mouth. “She was pregnant?”
Swallowing hard, I was transported back to the day.
Paxton sat in the stands staring out over the football field. I’d gotten her text to meet her there not long before. The second I walked up, I knew something was wrong. My heart started beating harder. We were both set to go to Texas A & M that fall. We were moving in together much to our parent’s disliking.
What if she changed her mind? Shit.
“Hey, pumpkin. Is everything okay?”
Paxton forced a smile. Then she started to cry.
Rushing to her, I pulled her into my arms. “Pax, baby tell me what’s wrong.”
She buried her face in my chest and pulled at my T-shirt. “Tell me it’s going to be okay, Steed. Please.”
The pleading in her voice scared me. “You have to tell me what’s wrong, Paxton, before I can tell you it’s okay.”
I pulled back and found that her blue eyes were bloodshot, liked she’d been crying for hours. My heart was racing.
“It’s okay, pumpkin. Tell me.”
She chewed on her lip and stared at the ground before looking back into my eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
The words felt like someone had thrown them at me with a brick attached to them. “W-what?”
She shook her head. “I know how scary it is, but we can make this work.”
I dropped my hold on her and took a few steps back.
“I don’t want to be a dad right now. Fuck. I can’t be a dad right now. This is going to mess everything up.”
Her face dropped. “I’m not giving up this baby, Steed.”
Taking a few steps, I shook my head again. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now. I need to think.”
“So you left her standing there alone?”
I nodded. No use in trying to sugarcoat anything.
“What a total asshole move. No wonder Mom isn’t talking to you. Prick.”
With a frown, I replied, “That’s not the worst part. I ignored her until the day before graduation.”
Amelia gasped. “Steed Parker.”
“I needed time to think. Shit, my whole life had just changed. Once the shock wore off and I realized that we could make anything work as long as we had each other, and how much I’d love the baby, I went to her. It was too late.”
My sister’s eyes grew wide. “Why? What did she do?”
Paxton walked slowly up the stairs of the high school, her head down. Rushing over to her, I called her name.
“Paxton!”
Her eyes filled with tears the second she saw me.
“Hey, I’m so sorry I’ve been avoiding you. I needed time to think about everything. I’m sorry.”
She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and I hated myself for putting her through all the stress.
“I know I said I didn’t want to be a father, but…I’ve been thinking. We can make this work, Pax. I love you and I know I’ll love the baby too.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I lost the baby early this morning. I just got back from the doctor.”
Relief washed over my body and I closed my eyes, whispering, “Thank, God.”
When I opened my eyes, Paxton’s horrified expression stunned me. “What?” she said.
“Nothing. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you call me, Paxton? Did you go through that alone?”
Her eyes seemed lost. “Why would I call you? You made it clear you didn’t care about me or our baby. I need to sit down, I was supposed to go home and rest, not come here.”
I stood there stunned as she turned and headed into the school for graduation practice. My stomach churned; what I had done was unforgivable. I’d left her alone to deal with the pregnancy. And the loss.
When I opened my eyes, tears were rolling down Amelia’s cheeks. “Oh, Steed, how could you? Do you think the stress caused her to lose the baby?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A few months after I left home, I started to do some research on miscarriages. It’s likely there could have been something wrong with the pregnancy and it naturally aborted itself, but my heart tells me it was the stress Paxton was under. I caused her to lose our child. That’s why I never came home. Not for holidays, not even after Chloe was born. The idea of seeing Paxton … knowing what I did to her … the guilt has torn me up inside all of these years. A part of me thinks my marriage to Kim was my karma. My punishment for what I put Paxton through. But I got Chloe out of it.”
Amelia walked over to me. “That is crazy, Steed. You don’t know what caused her to lose the baby.”
Letting out a gruff laugh, I nodded. “The day of graduation, I tried to get Paxton to talk to me, but she was so angry. She threw it in my face that I’d said I was glad the baby died. When I tried to tell her it was a strange mixture of emotions, she lost it. Told me she hated me, and threatened to seek revenge.”
“Surely she’s still not angry with you.”
“You don’t know Paxton. Me showing back up in town and having a daughter to top it off … it’s like rubbing salt in a wound.”
Amelia made a face. “Oh, I wasn’t even thinking about Chloe. But Paxton would never do anything to Chloe.”
My hand went to the back of my neck where I tried to rub the ache away. “I know. But the way she looks at me. It’s like the hate is still as strong as that day ten years ago.”
Taking my hands in hers, Amelia peered into my eyes. “Steed, I’ve done a lot of research on miscarriages, I wrote about one in a book of mine. For some women, it’s a loss so great they feel it for years. Small things will trigger the memory of the loss. That has to be why Paxton avoided the family so much. We reminded her of you…you reminded her of the baby she lost.”
“But she wasn’t that far along.”
She smacked the side of my head so hard I was positive it rattled my brain around in my skull.
“What the fuck, Meli!”
“You idiot! Steed, think about the moment you found out Kim was pregnant. How did you feel?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“Sad. Angry. Because the only woman I’ve ever wanted to have a child with was Paxton.”
Amelia’s hands covered her mouth. “That’s the saddest, sweetest thing you’ve said yet. You stupid asshole.”
My shoulders slumped. “Stop calling me names!”
“Hey, if the shoe fits!”
I sighed. “After the shock of Paxton telling me she was pregnant, I was actually excited. Scared as fuck, but I knew we’d made something beautiful together. I wanted to tell her that. I just didn’t know that when she dropped the bomb on me. When Kim told me she was pregnant, I had to deal with the guilt of having a child with another woman. The only thing I knew for sure was I was not walking away from that baby. When I saw the sonogram, I was instantly in love.”
“If you’d seen the sonogram from your child with Paxton, would it have made you react differently?”
I shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. I was older when Kim got pregnant. Almost out of college. More sure of myself and my future.”
“The baby was inside of Paxton, Steed. Your child growing in her. Think about what that loss was like for her, then remember she not only lost your child … she lost you too.”
Fuck. Son-of-a-bitch. I ran to the half bath and dropped to the ground as my breakfast decided to make a second appearance.