“At least you had your mother,” he tried, running a hand over her knee.
“That’s one way to look at it.”
Silence stretched and he wondered if he should prompt her for the rest. With her head bent, he couldn’t see her face the way he wanted.
He longed to tell her anyone who left her was an idiot. She was priceless, no matter what her parents thought. But he didn’t want to stop her story if she was finally ready to share it.
“I was ten when Mom remarried. Her new husband was the love of her life, and she was happy to be with him. There was just one problem.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Me.”
“A child isn’t a problem,” he said, mimicking the words she’d once said to him so long ago.
“Yeah, well my new stepdad wasn’t crazy about raising someone else’s kid, and Mom didn’t want to risk her new life. I became…an afterthought, really. The live-in maid ghosting around the house, staying out of the way when I wasn’t wanted. Which was most of the time.”
She drew a deep breath. “Then the first of my stepsiblings was born. My mom’s new husband wasn’t much for the child-rearing, so that fell to Mom. Then she got pregnant almost as soon as my sister was born, this time with twins. By the time I was twelve, I had three baby siblings I needed to help take care of and it didn’t end there. I have five stepsiblings in total. Ones I practically raised by myself when my mother saw I was doing a better job of it than she was and left the chore of settling the babies to me.”
“That’s child abuse,” he said, his voice hard.
She shrugged again. “It’s not like I had anyone to speak for me. Besides, I had a roof over my head and three meals a day. Many others were much worse off than I was.”
“But you were a just a kid with no one to love you.”
Her hands shook before she slid them under her legs out of sight. “I left when I was old enough to do it legally and moved across the country. Our college was the farthest one away I was accepted to.”
“Sweetheart…”
“You see, I’m proud of how you’ve taken in Hunter. He will never be a child who wonders if he’s wanted, and that’s a gift.” She gripped his hands in hers. “You’ll be everything he needs, even if his mother never appears. He’s lucky to have you.”
“He’s even luckier to have you,” he replied. “You improve any life you’re a part of, Clara. Just look at what you’ve done for me.”
She ducked her head again. “I was firmly in my shell when we met. You were the one who brought me back to life again. You never wanted anything from me other than my company. I’d never had anyone in my life I could rely on the way I could rely on you.”
“The feeling was mutual,” he told her. “You were my rock through all those years. I loved you for it.”
She sucked in a deep breath before lifting her eyes to his. “What a pair we were.”
He kissed the back of her fingers. “Are,” he corrected.
“Are,” she agreed in a whisper.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself to speak of the one thing he’d tried so hard to leave behind. “It wasn’t my father.”
“What?”
His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile, but after hearing her confessions, how could he withhold his own?
“The parent who left. It wasn’t my father. Most days I wish it had been.”
It was the most he’d ever said aloud about his past.
But this was Clara. If he couldn’t tell her, he’d never tell anyone.
Chapter Seventeen
Clara gazed up at him in the dark room.
Telling him about her past had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Thinking about the way the people who were supposed to protect her had treated her made her skin crawl. She’d never been able to completely leave the mix of shame and anger behind. Logically, she knew her parents, and stepdad, had been monsters to raise her as they had. But that didn’t silence the little inner voice that whispered if she’d been a better child, cuter or more talented, someone would have loved her. Someone would have wanted her.
The way Walker did.
Now here he was, ripping off a Band-Aid of his own. And though she heard the pain in his voice, not a single cell within her pitied him. No, all she wanted to do was give him a safe space the way he had her. She’d listen to everything he had to say and when it was over, she’d love him just the same.
“The first few years of my life were wonderful,” he said. “I had parents who loved me and each other. Or so I thought. I was five when my mother kissed my forehead and told me to be a good boy. I watched her walk out the front door and waited for her to walk back through it. Except she never did.”