All I Ever Wanted(55)

"I did. I fell deeply in love with you. Bella, you were all I ever wanted. You still are."

"I believe you, Grady, but that didn't make having screaming girls throw themselves at you any easier. The paparazzi, the lies they told about us? And there were times when I was pushed to the side, forgotten at the end of the concert. Sat alone on the tour bus waiting while you and your brothers were surrounded by hundreds of adoring fans."

"When all I wanted was to get back to you," Grady said, and it was true. "The funny thing about life is that if it wasn't for Heartbeat we would never have met, and yet it was Heartbeat that ended up coming between us. And now here we are. You came back because of the concert. We've come full circle," he said, and watched her blink back tears. "We can start again."

"I wish now that I hadn't run away without telling you. But I can't change that. And the miscarriage threw me into a depression that Granny York helped me claw back out of. I wanted the baby, Grady. Even after that horrible night, I still wanted the baby. Your baby. Desperately. I hope you understand that, believe that."

"Of course I do."

She looked up at the sky and shook her head. "It used to be that I'd be at the mall and a young mother would go past me pushing a stroller and I'd have to leave. I immersed myself in my work, finally saving enough money to start Hip, Hop, Health."

"I can't imagine what you went through."

"It still hits me at unexpected times. When I first came to Sea Breeze, I was having coffee and a cookie in front of Thelma's bakery and this cute little girl was making a deal with her mother to have a treat if she would eat her veggies later. She was just so adorable . . . and I felt this longing, this pang in my chest." She put her palm over her heart as if she was feeling the pain again. She picked up her glass and took a sip.


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"I can't tell you how much I wish I'd been with you."

"I've been thinking about that for the past few days. Maybe this is just sour grapes or me trying to ease my guilt, but I don't know that we could have made it back then either way. Heartbeat was at the peak of stardom." She swung her hand in an arc. "The cards were stacked against us in so many ways. Even though I traveled with you, we were apart so much. And the exhaustion . . . the never-ending concerts, the frantic pace. We couldn't ever have a real date night. . . . I guess all that bothered me more than I let on back then. But what could you have done?"

"I should have made more time for you. Whisked you off to private places."

"Oh, Grady, fame has a price. I'm not blaming you. It's just that we're finally having this long-overdue discussion. And I'm glad everything is finally out in the open."

"The fact that Mom's health started to fail played into everything, Arabella. We couldn't really enjoy the success the way we wanted to. But we're not doing that again, if that's what you're worried about. Remember, we've been down this road, and you know how we feel. Oliver might pursue something, but not the rest of us. So get that out of your head."

"Yeah, but I've been thinking about all of it. Oh, I don't know, Grady, do we have too much baggage to make this work?" She gave him a level, worried look.

Grady took a step closer. "My life will never be complete without you."

"That doesn't really answer the question. We've had a few days apart to think through some of this. Away from the passion that clouds clear thinking," she said with a smile tinged with sadness.

He looked up at the sky and then back at her. "You know, I wondered if the baby was a boy or girl? For some reason, I pictured a girl. She'd be a teenager now. The thought rocked me to the core. You had your time to grieve, to cry. I didn't. Mom could have held a grandchild," he said in a cracked voice. "I wasn't prepared for how much thinking about it was going to hurt."

She gave him a heartbreaking smile. "I've thought about the same things. As soon as I found out, I started writing down my favorite names. Walked around in the baby section at department stores. And I wanted to share the news with you."

"Why didn't you confide in your mother?"

"My relationship with my mother-my parents-has been, I don't want to say rocky, but not as close as it should have been. But thankfully, I'm working on it." She tilted her head to the side. "People don't view a miscarriage as as much of a tragedy as they should. Of course, Granny York said what she thought were the right things. That I was young, healthy, and I'd have babies someday. I get that, but I wanted that baby," she said with a tremble in her voice.