Keeping Secrets

by Parker, Weston

  “I can see that.” I was so overwhelmed by her joy to see me that I stepped out from behind the counter to catch her in a hug instinctively. I scooped her into my arms and held her tight, breathing in her strawberry scent and burying my face in her soft hair.

  For that second, everything felt right. It felt like we were meant to be a family, like Winter was meant to be this close to her half-brother or sister.

  It was only for that one moment in time, though. Then I realized I’d stepped out from behind the counter, my shield, and my eyes flew up to meet Callen’s. His face said it all.

  White as a sheet, he seemed torn between clenching his jaw and having it hit the floor. Eyes wider than I thought it was possible for human eyes to stretch, his body stood rigid in the same spot he’d been in when I’d first come out.

  Actually, his foot was lifted off the floor like he’d been about to take a step but had then forgotten to actually to do it.

  Fuck.

  “How would you like a welcome home ice cream?” I asked Winter, not waiting for her answer before filling a cup with butter pecan. I always kept it on hand now, a little something to remember them by, I supposed. Julia had once pointed out to me that it was because of a spark of hope in my heart that a moment just like this one would happen and they’d come back to me, that I wanted to be ready when they did.

  Now that it was happening, I felt anything but ready.

  “Julia’s in the back,” I said as I handed over Winter’s ice cream. “Do you want to go say hi to her?”

  My best friend would know I needed a minute alone with Callen as soon as she saw Winter, so when the little girl nodded and skipped into the back room, I breathed a sigh of relief. It only lasted for a beat before tension ratcheted through me again.

  Crossing my arms above my growing belly, I met the shocked gaze of Callen’s deep green eyes. “So, um, this is what I wanted to talk to you about the day you left.”

  He opened and closed his mouth a few times with no words coming out, his throat working. After a solid minute when he finally managed to speak, question upon question came tumbling out of his mouth.

  “How are you? Are you okay? How far along are you? Is the baby okay? Do you know what it is yet? God, Tiffeny, why didn’t you tell me?”

  I took another deep breath. “I’m fine. The baby is fine. I’m going on seventeen weeks now, so nearly halfway there. I don’t know what it is yet. The baby was shy at my last ultrasound, so they’ll check again at the next one in a few weeks.”

  My eyes fluttered closed as I answered the most difficult of his questions. “You know why I didn’t tell you. Our relationship was what it was, remember? This wasn’t something we planned and I’m not looking to have you come back into my life because you feel forced to do it now. I’m fine, really.”

  Pain and hurt flashed in his eyes, but he didn’t argue. Winter and Julia came out from the back before he could say anything.

  He held his hand out to her and jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Come on, baby. We should go. Hi, Julia. Bye, Julia. Tiffeny, we’ll see you around.”

  Everything in me burned as pain rocked me back on my heels when he turned around and left without a backward glance. Winter waved, smiled, and followed him. Then they were gone. Again.

  A sob broke free as soon as they were out of sight, but I refused to give in to the grief wanting me to fold in on myself for losing them once again.

  “Are you sure that was what you wanted?” Julia asked quietly, winding her arms around me from behind.

  “I don’t want a relationship when the person I’m with doesn’t want to be there. I don’t want to force him into being with me, with us. It isn’t what I wanted, but what other choice did I have?”

  Chapter 37

  Callen

  “Thank you for watching Winter for me,” I said after watching her disappearing into Julia’s house.

  Tiffeny’s best friend gave me a much kinder smile than I deserved, her hand coming up to rest on my bicep. “No problem. You’re doing the right thing, Callen. Just do me a favor and fight for her, okay? Don’t let her push you away. Not if you really want to be with her.”

  “You think I still stand a chance?” Shame threatened to drown me as I stood in front of the woman who had been there for my girl when I should have been. “Thank you, by the way. I assume you’ve been supporting her while I’ve been out there, acting like a fucking coward.”

  “I’ve been there as much as I could, but I’m glad you’re back. As for you still standing a chance, I think you do, but you’re going to have to convince her that you’re doing this for the right reasons.”

  “Yeah? What reasons are those?” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans to hide the anxiety that was making me fidgety.

  Julia cocked an eyebrow. “If I have to tell you, then maybe you’re not doing this for the right reasons after all. I hope you figure it out, Callen. I really want both of you to be happy.”

  “Me too,” I said, my voice growing thick.

  It had been a week since my life had been thrown upside down when I walked into that ice-cream shop to see an unmistakable baby bump I really hadn’t been expecting. Thrown for such a loop that I could only stand there like an idiot, I only managed to bite out the first few of the hundreds of questions barreling through my head.

  Then when she’d said what she had, I just didn’t have the mental capacity to formulate any kind of argument, to tell her any of the things I’d actually gone by to tell her.

  All I could do was recognize that I would only do more harm than good if I tried to push the issue while trying to process the shock I’d just gotten. So I’d done the only thing I felt I could. I swallowed my pride, my questions, and the burning need to take her into my arms and promise her I’d never leave again, and I’d left.

  All I’d thought about the last week was how I could make this right. It had taken me all week to come up with the most obvious answer. It was time to tell her the truth. All of it. No holds barred.

  It had taken me one look at that bump to know that I couldn’t hide in the past anymore, couldn’t let it dictate my decisions or actions any longer. The past could hold me back and ruin the future for all of us, or I could take the lessons it had taught me and apply them to grab life by the balls and make a better future.

  The past didn’t have to be an anchor keeping me stuck in place any longer. Alice wouldn’t have wanted it to be either. My past could be the fresh ocean breeze filling the sails of my future as I embarked on a new leg of my journey.

  I was choosing for it to be just that.

  Just as Tiffeny flipped the sign on her door to closed, I jogged up to her. She paled when she saw me, pain piercing through her clear blue eyes.

  Her black hair tumbled past her shoulders, a perfect contrast to her smooth, pale skin. She had on another soft but fitted shirt, a deep purple one that brought out the color of her eyes.

  Flat leather sandals adorned her feet and a gray and white skirt skimmed her ankles. She looked damn good. Then again, I always thought that.

  Our gazes caught through the glass separating us. Then I saw her chest rise and fall on a sigh as she unlocked the door again. She stepped back and opened it, then motioned for me to come inside.

  “Callen,” she said, her voice strong but her arms folding across her chest like she needed to protect herself. From me.

  Seeing it sent a searing pain through me, burning all the way to my bones. Because I knew I had caused this need she had to protect both herself and our baby from me.

  The worst thing was knowing that I deserved it. The knowledge made it difficult to speak, but I also knew I had to. It was now or never.

  “Hey, do you have time to talk?”

  She flicked her hand toward the shop, her words light but her tone flat. “Well, I don’t seem to have any customers, so I guess I have a bit of time.”

  After shutting and locking the door behind me, she led the way to
the booth in the corner. Arms folded on the counter, she linked her fingers together and leaned forward when I sat down.

  “Look, I’m actually glad you came by. You need to know that I don’t expect anything from you. I—”

  “No, don’t. I’m sorry, Tiffeny. I’m so fucking sorry. Sorry for leaving, sorry for not asking you what it was you wanted to talk to me about that day.” Emotion tightened my throat, but I kept going, even though my voice was on the verge of cracking. “I wouldn’t have left if I’d known. Or at least, I like to think that I wouldn’t have.”

  “That’s the thing, Callen.” Her eyes were hard, but the expression in them was sincere. “I don’t want to hold you back and I don’t want the baby too, either. You left to go do your thing. Like you said, it’s your life. You don’t owe us anything. You don’t have to change for us. Don’t worry.”

  “But I want to worry,” I protested, then reached across the table and took her hand, holding it tightly as I kept my eyes on hers and implored her to see the truth in them. “I want you, Tiffeny. I want the baby. I want us all to be family. I don’t want you to expect nothing from me. I want you to expect everything. I want to give you everything.”

  She yanked her hand away and dropped it in her lap, her eyes shutting as she shook her head fast. “No, you don’t. You didn’t. You made it perfectly clear we didn’t have that kind of relationship before, and that’s fine. I don’t need you in my life—in our lives—if you only want to be there out of some misplaced sense of obligation.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. “I’d never keep this child away from you, Callen. If you want to be in its life, you can. I’m not the type who’s going to tell him or her lies or use them against you, but don’t spin this like you want us all to be together when you don’t. Don’t turn this into some fairytale where we get to live happily ever after as a family. This is real life. It’s not perfect and not everybody gets a happily ever after.”

  Determination and belief were laced into every one of her words, while I was lost for any of my own. Nothing came to me at first. I’d fucked up, and now she believed, truly believed, I didn’t want her. She wasn’t going to let me in again unless I could make her see I wanted to be with her, that the mistake had been what I’d done before and not now. How can I make her understand?

  “Alice was my wife,” I said finally, closing my eyes as I braced myself for telling the truth I hoped would save me. Tiffeny blanched but didn’t interrupt me. “Winter’s mom, her name was Alice. We were married.”

  “Oh,” she breathed but let me continue.

  “She had cancer. We found out shortly after Winter was born.” Piece by piece, I gave her my past until my soul was stripped bare and every ugly thought and doubt I’d had lay on the table between us.

  I swallowed hard. “The morning after you first stayed over, Winter asked me if you were her mother. When I said no, she said she wished you were.”

  Tiffeny’s eyes were so wide, it looked like they were in danger of falling out. Silent tears fell down her cheeks as she listened to me.

  “I freaked out. I got flung back into a deep pit of doubt and uncertainty. I felt like I was betraying Alice and I didn’t know what to do. Clark offered me a spot on the tour as a way to get some space and time to clear my head, and I took it.”

  I was breathing deeply now. “I never stopped thinking about you, never stopped missing you. Neither did Winter. At some point, it hit me that I was in love with you and I finally admitted it to myself shortly before leaving the tour. I was so scared to love someone again, struggling so much with how it would affect Alice’s memory. Fuck, I didn’t even know if I was allowed to love again.”

  With my elbows coming down on the table, I buried my head in my hands and fought to get my breathing under control. I felt Tiffeny’s warmth before the seat dipped when she sat down beside me.

  Her fingers closed over mine, prying them gently away. I didn’t try to stop her.

  One of her hands held both of mine, the other reaching for my chin and, with the lightest of touches, urged me to turn my head toward her. I expected to see pity in her eyes, maybe anger over getting involved with her in the first place.

  What I hadn’t been expecting to find there—never in a million years would have expected—was acceptance. But it was there. Clear as a whistle and bright as day. It was in the softened corners of her eyes and the relaxed set of her jaw, the slight tilt of her head as her thumb stroked along mine.

  “How about now?” she asked. “Do you feel like you’re allowed to love someone else now?”

  “Yes,” I said, getting lost in a sea of hope at the expression she was wearing. “It took me some time to get to the point where I could let myself, but I finally have. When I told you I wanted us to be a family, it wasn’t because I felt forced. It was because that was what I came back here for, before I even knew about the baby. I came back here to make a life, a future, with you.”

  “You swear that’s true?”

  I nodded. “If you don’t believe me, ask Clark. We can call him right now.”

  Reaching into the inner pocket of my jacket to pull out my phone, I remembered about the wad of papers I had folded in there. I pulled out the phone and tossed it on the table, but when I looked up, Tiffeny was frowning at the papers.

  “What’s that?” she asked tentatively. “If it’s about the baby, I—”

  “It’s not.” I reared back, dropping my chin as I pulled the papers out to show her. “I would never have anything drawn up about the baby without your knowledge and consent. These are the papers for this mall. I bought it from Nicholson.”

  “You… what now?” She blinked at the words she read as she unfolded the paperwork.

  While she read, I told her what I’d been up to this week. “I figured out what I wanted to do with the touring money, and it was to buy the mall. I couldn’t stand the thought of that Nicholson guy creeping around. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to keep him away from you once and for all, and this is what I came up with.”

  “You bought the entire mall?”

  “Yep.” The first stirrings of a smile started tugging at my lips. “I guess this is kind of our shop now, huh?”

  She groaned and clapped a hand over her face. “If you start with that, I’m chucking you out right now.”

  I chuckled softly, flipping the hand she was still holding over to fit her palm against mine while lifting the other to her cheek. “I was kidding. It’s all yours, baby. I told you I want to give you everything. I want everything with you. If you’re willing to give me a second chance, I won’t fuck it up again.”

  “You sure about that?” She didn’t sound like she was.

  I injected some steel into my voice. “I’m sure. Sometimes, something might trigger me, but I promise you that next time, I’ll work through it with you. You know everything now, so if you’re willing to throw your baggage in with mine, I’ll buy us a fucking cargo container to keep it all in. As long we get to keep it together.”

  For a long couple of minutes, she didn’t say anything. Her eyes darted between mine, her mouth moving from side to side as if she was trying to decide.

  Finally, she nodded. “I’ll give you a second chance, Callen, but I’m going to need you to be honest with me when it gets hard. No more running away or shutting me out. I promise I won’t push, as long as you promise to tell me what you’re going through instead of pushing me away.”

  “I promise, but I’m doing better. I swear it. I’ve come a very, very long way in the last six months. Further than I thought I ever would. I’m not just saying this, Tiffeny. I’m in love with you and I want to be with you. I even wrote a song about you.”

  “Well, good,” she said, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Because I’m in love with you, too. You really wrote a song about me?”

  “I did. I’ll play it for you sometime..” There were more pressing issues right now, like finally giving i
n to the urge to wrap her up in my arms and kissing her until it finally felt like there was no more distance left between us.

  When we broke apart, we were both breathing heavily. She looked unsure of what to do next, so I took her hand and slid off our seat, pulling her with me. “How do you feel about dinner at my place?”

  “Where’s Winter?”

  “At Julia’s. She agreed to watch her for me.”

  “I miss her, but okay. I guess I’ll be seeing a lot more of her again soon, assuming that you’re really sticking around.”

  “We’re sticking around,” I said firmly. Then I spun around to face her and looked into her eyes as I squeezed her hands. “I love you. I mean it. I know I have a lot of making up to do, but I’m willing to do the work, Tiffeny.”

  “I was kidding, trying to lighten the mood, but I’m glad to hear you saying you’re willing to do the work because it’s going to take me some time to trust that this is really what you want. I also really want to hear that song.”

  “Then you’ll hear it. This is really what I want.” I brought my hands to her face. “I love you. I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face if that’s what it takes. I’m sorry, Tiffeny. I never should have left. I know that now.”

  Her hands covered mine as she took a step closer to me. “You came back. That’s what matters. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been for you to lose Alice and then to have to work through everything after by yourself. I wish you’d told me sooner.”

  “Me too. I don’t even really know why I didn’t.”

  “But you’ve told me now. I know it isn’t always going to be easy, but I’m here for you, Callen. I love you, and I want to support you in any way I can, but I couldn’t take it if you walked out on me again.”

  “I’m not going to,” I said firmly, my eyes blazing and locked on hers. “The only way I can prove it to you is to show you every day, and that’s going to take time, but I swear to you that I will prove it to you. I’m in this with you, Tiffeny, and I’m not going anywhere.”