Slow Burn Cowboy(28)

There was never a need to have this discussion with any of the men she had dated because she had known those relationships would only last a few months anyway. She had never told her friends because she didn’t want them to look at her and think of it every time she walked into a room.

But most of all, she had never told anyone here in Copper Ridge because she had left home for a reason. Because she had wanted to leave the past behind and not bring even one piece of it with her.

It had been nice, to put it away like that. To lock it down deep inside of her and to know that no one around her was ever thinking about it. To know that nobody looked at her and thought: she’s that sad girl who got pregnant at sixteen.

She had been given a chance to rewrite her story, and she had taken it.

And with just a few words she had blown all of that to hell.

She waited for him to say something. To ask if she was kidding. To say something judgmental. To say something supportive. Just something. Anything to give her an indication of what he was thinking before she continued on.

He didn’t.

He was waiting. Waiting for her to finish.

It enraged her. To know that he wasn’t going to fall in line the way she wanted him to. To know that he was just outright refusing to be that stalwart inanimate object she depended on him to be.

Yet again, she was very conscious of Finn’s maleness. The way that he stood there, all hard-edged strength. So big and broad and just kind of looming near her. She was very aware of the safety net that had once existed between them, and the fact that it was no longer there.

If the kiss hadn’t changed things past the point of no return, then her bombshell certainly had. When his lips had touched hers he had altered the way she saw him forever. She had a feeling this admission had done the same for him.

“I was sixteen,” she said, pressing on. “He was my first boyfriend. We weren’t planning on having sex. You know, basically I’m an after school special. No condom, no forethought at all. I didn’t think... I didn’t think it would just happen. That we would go from kissing, to fumbling, to that. But we did.” She laughed, which was ridiculous, because nothing about this was funny. “And you can most definitely get pregnant the first time, Finn. If you were wondering. That’s why you should always wear a condom.”

He still didn’t say anything. He was just looking at her, that same granite expression affixed to his face. It made her want to... Something. Punch him. Maybe kiss him. Except she wasn’t going to do that again.

“Anyway. He was one of those boys with a future. And it was really important. More important than a baby.” She blinked, and her eyes suddenly felt scratchy. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel when she talked about this. About her son.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stand up anymore. She braced her hand on the wall and went down on her knees. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t think those words. Ever. She didn’t talk about this. Ever ever.

Then, the mountain moved.

He was down in front of her all of a sudden, his thumb and forefinger pinching her chin, tipping her face up so that she had to look at him. “Can you breathe?”

She shook her head.

“You’re going to have to breathe, Lane,” he said. “I need you to. Because you need to.”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to turn away from him, curl up into a ball, her knees up tight against her neck, and block all of this out. Give in to the building, mounting pressure in her chest. Maybe howl a little bit to try and relieve it.

He wasn’t letting her, damn him. He wasn’t letting her fold in on herself. What good was he? He wouldn’t stand there and be an immovable shelter for her, and he wouldn’t let her crumble either.

“I didn’t rehearse this,” she heard herself mumble. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I was never going to tell anybody. That’s the point of adoption, isn’t it? You give them a better life, and you go on with yours. And it isn’t easy, but the point is that it’s better for everybody.” She took a sharp breath. “It’s supposed to be better.”

It was. She knew that it was. At sixteen she had not been ready to be a mother. Particularly without parental support, or support from Cord. There would’ve been nothing she could have done. She would have come to Copper Ridge with the baby; she would have had to live with her brother. She would have had to find babysitting while she waited tables. Every difficult thing about breaking away and making a life for herself would have only been made that much more difficult.

Even if they hadn’t pressured her into doing it. Even if everyone would’ve just taken a step back and given her the opportunity to make her own choice, she was pretty sure she would have done it the same way.

But it was the pretty sure that got her. The pretty sure that was part of the problem.

That would always eat at her. That would always make her wonder.

She looked up at Finn, at the expression on his face, and she knew that she had accomplished at least part of what she had set out to do. She had driven a wedge between them. Except, it was more than she had wanted. Different than she had wanted. He was looking down at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

She was angry then. Because she could feel it. The intense betrayal that was rocketing through him over this. Over the fact that he didn’t know this about her. This foundational, deep thing that had brought her here to Copper Ridge and had made her who she was.

It was her life, her secret to tell or not. He didn’t have the right to be mad. And it sucked that she understood why he was.

“I didn’t see the point of bringing the story here,” she said. “But that’s been the problem. He... The boy I was involved with had a future. And he really made the most of it. And here I am, and I own this little shop. And suddenly, it just didn’t seem like enough. Because if I gave up my son... My son, Finn. Then I should have done something really amazing. I didn’t. I’m not. He did. They were right about him. He gets to stand up there with his two perfect kids. And every time I see them I wonder... I wonder if my son looks like those kids. If that’s what he looks like now that he’s older. He’s almost twelve. And I can’t forget that. I know it. I know his birthday. And every year I wonder all these things. I wonder what his favorite cake is and if he got a bike.” She was rambling. The worst kind of ramble.

Emotional. Teary. It wasn’t about French fries or pumice stones, but she still couldn’t stop it. It was like all of these words had been stuffed down deep inside of her for years, and now that she had started, she couldn’t stop them.

“I hate the father so much sometimes,” she said. “But at the same time if he hadn’t done well, I’d hate him even more. And if the story about the baby ever came out it would ruin him, and then there really wouldn’t have been a point.”

“I don’t know the whole story,” Finn said, his tone gentle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Senator Cord McCaffrey,” she said, her voice muted.

Finn’s brows shot up. “Really?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, well. He wasn’t a senator then. He was a high school senior with a really nice car. And we lived in the same neighborhood, in these ridiculous manor houses that have servants’ entrances.”

“I mean, I knew your family was rich. From what Mark had said.”

“He undersells it. Trust me. Because until you see it firsthand, you don’t know. It’s all that Mayflower Society blue blood First Family kind of stuff. I hate it. I hate all of it.” A tear slid down her cheek and she dashed it away. “I’ve had an entire life ripped out from under me. And I’ve lost... I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I’ve lost. Because I gave it up before I had a chance to find out. So I ran. As hard as I could, as far as I could. But now, Cord is on TV everywhere. And I have to look at him. And I have to look at myself, and the life that I have, and I can’t feel anything but completely underaccomplished.”

“Does this have anything to do with the subscription boxes?”

And just like that, she felt understood again. Just like that, the gulf seemed to be bridged. She felt like maybe she wasn’t so much of a stranger to him. Not when he understood that so quickly, so easily.

“It might have everything to do with the subscription boxes,” she said, her voice sounding small. “But you know, everyone was obsessed with his promise. Even then, he was being groomed for politics. I suppose they thought that I could have been a decent senator’s wife. But there was no way either of us could have fit into those roles if we had a kid when we were teenagers.”

She took a deep breath, trying to fill some of the emptiness inside of her. There was no point feeling that way now. No point being full of regret.

It didn’t mean that she wasn’t either of those things. Empty and full, happy with her life and sometimes unfulfilled. Saddened by thoughts of what could have been, relieved that she hadn’t put either herself or her child through the struggle.

A little bit ashamed when she saw other people thriving under the circumstances she had sought to avoid. Relieved sometimes too. Especially when she saw someone with a screaming child and a hollowed-out, exhausted look in her eyes.