“He was tough. He got me sober, and we did wind up sleeping together, obviously, but it was different from before. I wanted him—out of gratitude, I think. For what he’d done for me, not for what I could get from him, going forward. He wanted me back, even if he was never truly comfortable with it. He broke it off before I knew I was pregnant, and I took it real bad. I made it ugly, and he made it ugly right back. I tossed out some real low blows, and he dealt a few of his own. I’d never seen him that angry before, and it scared me. Enough to be too afraid to tell him about the baby. The way we left it, and the way he’d met me . . . I was afraid he’d try to get her taken away, or take her himself. And once I was involved with all of you guys, I was terrified he’d tell you about me. About the kind of person I was.” She looked to the car seat and her daughter.
“So it was more than just fearing for your safety.”
She nodded, gaze falling to her hands. “It was self-preservation. Which makes me feel all the more awful. I’m . . .” She looked up, met his eyes with tears stinging her own. “I’m so sorry. I let you get so close, to me and to her. I never should have, not with so many secrets. You deserved to know who you were getting involved with, but I was too scared of losing you to say.”
“You deserved to know things about me, as well.”
After a pause, she said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me, these past couple days. About who you used to be.” She paused when the baby fussed, and rose to free her from the seat in the hopes of settling her. She sat back down, bouncing her gently.
“After everything I’ve just said, it might sound ridiculous, me saying that I’m trying to do good now. That since I found out I was pregnant, the worst thing I’ve done is lie—which for me is an improvement, sadly. But I really am trying. I just want to work, and make enough to support myself and the baby. No more secrets, no more dependence. I want a fresh start, more than anything. To believe that whatever new life I make for myself is an honest one. A genuine one . . .” Thoughts were forming. Solidifying, and she spoke them as they came. “And I think you want that, too. To put your old life behind you.”
“I do want that,” he said softly. “A fresh start. A respectable life. It took me way too long to regret what I’ve done. It took what you said for it to register . . . and it took the fire at the ranch, and losing Don, for it to really hit home. Now that it has, I . . . Christ, I feel sick. I think about what I used to do and I feel like I could throw up.”
She believed him. There was pain on his face, so real and so sharp it stabbed her in the heart.
“We want the same thing,” she said, realizing it as she heard herself speak. “But when you were honest with me, I turned my back on you.”
“Not without good cause.”
She shook her head. Something had come loose in her chest, like a clog finally washing free, letting things flow. She could breathe for the first time in days. She could feel air in her lungs, and blood moving through her body, as though her decision had shut her system down, protested by every cell in her body.
“Neither of us can fix what we’ve done in our pasts,” she said. “But neither of us gets to move on, either, not until somebody knows what we’ve done and chooses to forgive us. Chooses to believe we’re capable of doing better, going forward.”
He nodded, and now his own eyes were welling. He sipped his drink, sniffed softly, held his tongue. There was fear in those shining blue eyes, and hope as well.
“I forgive you,” she said, and leaned close to put her hand to his face—on his soft skin and scratchy beard. “Whatever you did before you met me, that was another life. And I don’t want to punish you for it. I only want to see what comes next. What you make of this life.”
He covered her hand with his. “That means a lot.” Other thoughts hid behind his lips, and he seemed poised to share them, mouth opening and closing. When he did speak, it was only to say, “For what it’s worth, I forgive you, too.”
She felt her chin crumple, and tears rolled fat and heavy down her cheeks to land on the baby’s leg. She choked out, “It’s worth way more than you know.”
“Put the baby down a second.”
She moved Mercy back to her seat, and as she sat once more, Casey set his glass on the windowsill and pulled her against him, cradling her head, rubbing her back. He let her cry for long minutes, until her bucking shoulders went still and her breathing deepened. He seemed calmer himself. Stronger, if still uncertain.