Halfway to Clearview, she turned in her seat to look at him. She didn’t speak, just stared. Finally, he met her gaze, a brow raised.
She looked away.
The fact he’d cheated didn’t change anything. He deserved to know about Wade.
“Are you still involved with her?”
“Who?”
“The woman you left me for,” she intoned flatly.
Kirk’s fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white beneath his golden tan. He was already regretting the lie. “I’m not involved with anyone right now.”
“I see.” So it hadn’t even been worth it. Somehow, that made it so much worse. “Why didn’t you just tell me this? Save me wondering all this time.”
“I thought sticking to the facts would spare you pain.”
She snorted inelegantly. “Oh, yeah, right. What facts, exactly? Your email was three lines long. Dear Beth, I’m sorry to hurt you but I’ve realized I can’t marry you. I never intended to hurt you. I hope you can move on quickly and enjoy your life without me. Kirk.”
It was, word for word, what he’d dictated to the staff sergeant.
“I didn’t see any point in justifying my decision.”
“Your decision,” she said on a sob. “It was our decision. Our future. Our engagement. Ours. Yours and mine. You ended it without so much as telling me why. That’s contemptible. Even you must see that.”
His hands gripped the wheel tighter. “I knew you’d argue with me.”
“No,” she shook her head slowly, and despite the fact it had all happened half a decade earlier, tears stung Annabeth’s eyes. “I might have been tempted to fly over to wherever the heck you were and kick your ass,” she muttered. “You caused me more pain by leaving me wondering.” She fingered the frayed edges of her shorts. “You weren’t just my fiancé, Kirk. You were my best friend.” Her voice cracked, and she looked out of her window, so that he wouldn’t see the way tears were running down her cheeks. “
Grief hung between them. Kirk felt a buzzing in his ears, the sound of blood pounding in his brain. He shook his head. It had been for the best. He had no doubts on that score. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
She pressed her mouth to the back of her hand, to stop from crying. “I wrote you, you know.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t read the letters.” They’d arrived back, unopened.
“No. I told you. I didn’t want to discuss my decision.” He hadn’t wanted to read that she was hurting, half a world away, and him, impotent to help in any way. He had known that glimpsing her words would weaken his resolve.
Annabeth hadn’t been writing to him about their engagement. In the cruelest twist of fate, the day after she’d read his email, she’d discovered her pregnancy. She’d been over four months along, which made it easy to work out the night they’d conceived. His last night in the country. She’d tried to tell him, figuring he had a right to know. He hadn’t wanted anything more to do with her, though.
She shook her head, emotions making rational thought difficult. “Just… let me out here.”
“It’s a mile to the bar, Annabeth, don’t be silly.”
“Kirk,” her voice was high-pitched, bordering on the hysterical. “Please let me out before I’m sick all over your car.”
He swore, swerving the car off the road. “I don’t care about the damned car, Annabeth. I care about you.”
“Bull,” she groaned, pushing open her door and stepping out. Still no breeze, but at least in the fresh air, she could breathe again. Out of the confines of his car, so close to him, reality began to tilt back on its normal axis.
“Why is that so hard to believe,” he asked, hopping out of the car and crossing to her side.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He swore again. “You know what I don’t get, Beth? Why you’re acting so cut up about all this. It was five years ago.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, but his eyes were screaming at her. “You have a child. Clearly you moved on.”
Beth twisted her fingers together, nerves shuddering and shaking her body. “If you’d read my letters, you’d know I didn’t.”
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
Her expression was haunted. “I found out the day after you dumped me.” She forced herself to meet his enquiring gaze.
“Found out what?”
“That I was pregnant. Wade’s yours, Kirk. And if you’d read my letters or emails, or taken my calls, you would have known that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
He’d been deep in one of the most dangerous warzones in the world, but nothing could have prepared him for the sense of complete shell shock he was experiencing at Beth’s raw confession.
“What did you say?” He demanded, unknowingly taking a step closer.
“He’s yours. Wade.” Saying the words brought her relief. So many years of carrying the secret, and now he knew.
“No,” he shook his head, a wholly new emotion forging through his body. “I don’t believe it. You would have told me.”
“I tried,” she whispered.
“Not hard enough.”
“For months, I wrote you. Eventually, you moved, and it wasn’t you returning my letters, but the US post office. I got the hint, loud and clear.” She swallowed. “I thought it would be better to raise him alone than force you into his life, anyways.”
“I can’t… how old is he?”
“Four,” she smiled weakly, thinking of their son. “Going on ten.”
He shook his head. “I just… I can’t believe it, Annabeth. I’ve been back four years. You could have contacted me through Don and Mary. There were ways.”
“I told you,” she said, staring at him levelly, “I didn’t want to force you into his life. I know, better than most, what it’s like to have a parent in your life who doesn’t love you.”
She was alluding to her mother, who’d given up pretending around the time Annabeth turned nine. She’d woken up one morning to find her mother gone. Horace had never really spoken to Annabeth about it, but Beth had known. Her mother didn’t like being tied down. She hadn’t wanted to have a child. She’d run away when it finally got too much for her.
“I want to see him.”
Annabeth jerked her head in a sign of dissent. “No.”
“No? You’re actually going to try to keep my own son from me?”
She bit down on her lip. “I don’t know, Kirk. I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“There is no need to think. It’s not something you can control. I am going to meet Wade, regardless of what you think.”
Fury flowed into her veins. “You’re kidding, right? Another one of your, ‘my way or the highway’ resolutions?”
His grim frown was set. “He is my child.”
“And mine, too. I’m the only parent he’s ever known. Before you go getting involved in his life, you should think about how involved you want to be. Long term. Children aren’t toys, Kirk. You can’t decide on a whim to stay or go.”
“He’s my child.”
“Yes, and if you really want to be a part of his life, in a meaningful way, then we’ll talk about it. But you’re not going to impetuously decide something so huge right now and have me go along with it.”
“Says who?” He demanded fiercely, taking another step, so that his hips were pressed against hers.
“Says me,” she responded fiercely. “The woman who’s done a damned fine job looking after our son for four long years. I would walk through fire if I had to, to protect Wade.”
“You don’t need to protect him from me,” he said firmly, staring down into her wide-set eyes.
“Forgive me if I’m not convinced, Kirk. I’m only the girl you left pregnant and heartbroken while you got straight in bed with GI Jane, or whoever.”
He shook his head, anger and regret making his head swim and his heart groan.
“Fine. If it makes you happy, I can wait until tonight. But I want to meet him, Annabeth.”
She shook her head. “Tonight’s no good.” Before he could speak, she forestalled him with a shake of her head. “Wade’s gone fishing with friends for a few days.”
“When does he get back?” A question laced with demand.
“Wednesday.”
“Fine. I presume you’ll have no objections to my coming for dinner on Wednesday, then.”
Actually, she had several. “If you still feel this way Wednesday, then that can be arranged.”
“Why do you think I’m going to change my mind?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “You told me you loved me. That you’d always love me. You changed your mind. All your life you wanted to join the Navy. And then, what? You changed your mind. You quit and came back to run your family business? Your track record is hardly impressive.”
Annabeth couldn’t have known that each accusation was like a knife in his gut.
His desire to serve his country in the Navy had been borne out of a love of the States, and pride in his nation. His discharge sat heavily on his shoulders. It would for the rest of his life. They could dress it up with as many war medals as they wanted, the fact was, he was home, living a life of obscene luxury, while terrorism continued to flourish in the Middle East, and his comrades were dying every day.