by Amy Vastine
“I don’t know what all that means. What is endometriosis?” Blake asked.
“It’s a disease that affects the uterus. Stuff grows in there that shouldn’t and it hurts. It can lead to infertility.” Saying the word aloud was even harder than she’d imagined. She hated that word more than cancer.
“But it’s treatable?” Blake turned his body in her direction. “You’re seeing a doctor?”
“I’ve seen a lot of doctors. And they all say the same thing. My case is the worst, and I should end my misery and have a hysterectomy.”
His denial was so strong. “You don’t have to do that. You’re twenty-nine years old. We can go to better doctors. We’ll find the best doctor.”
Amanda had to remind herself that he was only hearing about this for the first time. She’d had years to process what was happening and her sad reality. He still had that pointless hope. “I’ve seen the best doctors. I’ve been to the specialists. I’ve gotten second opinions, and third and fourth opinions. They all say the same thing. I’m never going to have a baby.”
“Oh, Amanda,” Lily said again. She hugged Amanda’s arm, wetting it with her tears.
“I didn’t want to tell you or any of our sisters because I don’t want you guys to treat me different. I don’t want you to think that I can’t handle being happy for you when you get pregnant someday.”
“I’m glad Mom was there for you. I’m sorry you felt like you had to handle this all by yourself once she was gone. I could have gone to doctor appointments with you. Georgie’s going to be ticked that you didn’t let her consult.”
“Georgie will get over it,” Blake said. His voice still sounded off, gruff and pained. “I would sure hope none of you would give her a hard time about keeping this private.”
“No one’s going to give her a hard time,” Lily assured him. “How about you? Can you not give her a hard time?”
“Can I talk to her by myself? I need to talk to her alone.”
Amanda nodded and wiped away her tears. “Lily, can Blake and I have a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, pulling herself up. “Come here, first.” She held her arms open for a hug. Amanda stood and let her sister hug her tight. “I love you. I will be there for you when you need me. Let me, okay?”
“Okay.” Amanda didn’t want to let Lily go. Talking to Blake, although necessary, was terrifying. This was the moment she had been dreading and attempting to avoid.
Lily let go and wiped Amanda’s face for her. “Your mascara is a mess.”
“I didn’t think I was going to cry over cake samples.”
Lily kissed her cheek. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered in her ear.
If only it was that easy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BLAKE’S BRAIN WAS having a hard time organizing all his thoughts and feelings. He had come over here so sure that he needed to confront her about an illness that was possibly going to take her life. Every crushing thought he had been having had seemed justified when he’d heard what Tyler said to her.
She wasn’t dying, though. She was going to live a long life. Yet she still didn’t want him to be her partner in it.
“I’m so mad at you,” he said. If he was going to insist that honesty was the best policy, he had to practice what he was about to preach. Anger was only one of the many feelings that he had messing with his head right now, but it was the strongest.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“I fooled myself into believing that you don’t hide things from me. I know you do it with your sisters all the time, but I truly believed that you were honest with me, that you let me in on how you were feeling about things.”
She fidgeted with her hands. “Most of the time that’s true. You have always made me feel safe to tell you what was going on with me.”
“So why did you keep this to yourself? Especially after your mom died.”
“Mom died so suddenly. I had a person to talk to about it and then I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how to bring someone up to speed with what was going on after keeping you out of the loop for so long.”
“Let’s sit.” He put his hands on hers to stop her and walked her over to the bench by the front door. “I wish you would have told me from the start.”
She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them so he couldn’t get too close. “It first started when I was in high school, and I was not going to talk to you about my uterus.”
“This has been going on since high school?” How had he missed that she was dealing with some disease that caused her chronic pain?
“Like I said, it’s been a long time. Telling you now seemed so overwhelming. I knew you’d have all these questions and beliefs that you could make it better. It would be hard for you to understand that we were way past the simple solutions.”
“I’m not an idiot. I would have understood eventually.”
“Of course you would have. But when my mom died, we were adults and I had a firm grasp on what you wanted out of life and that I couldn’t give it to you.”
It was like the light bulb went on. Her resistance to even give them a chance made sense now. “This is why you want to only be friends?”
Tears were rolling down her face so fast and she was clearly unable to speak. He didn’t care how she was sitting—he was going to hold her regardless. She collapsed against him and sobbed in the crook of his neck. Rubbing her back, he just kept repeating, “I’ve got you.”
Lily came out with a box of tissues and quickly retreated back inside. Blake let her cry until she couldn’t cry anymore. When she finally came up for air, he waited patiently for her to get her thoughts together.
“I can’t have children. I will never be able to have children, Blake.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said, fighting the emotion that placed a huge lump in his throat.
“Don’t say that,” she choked out. “Don’t say that when I know you don’t mean it.”
Blake’s jaw quivered. “I do mean it. I don’t care about that. I care about you. I have loved you for so long and all I have ever wanted is for you to love me back. If you’re in love with me, nothing else matters.”
Amanda shook her head. “Since forever, you have told me how you can’t wait to have a family of your own. To hold your son or daughter in your arms. You have told me time and time again how you want a big family like mine, a house full of children. You seriously told me you asked Nadia to marry you because you’re worried about running out of time to have all those babies.”
Blake covered his mouth with his hand. He had said those things. He had felt those things. He thought about how that must have made her feel when she knew she had a problem. How many times had he unknowingly caused her so much pain?
“When you held that baby at Jon and Lydia’s, even people who didn’t know you could see that you were meant to be a father. I’ve known for a long time that I couldn’t have you. I could never ask you to settle for me when there are women like Nadia out there who can love you and give you the children you deserve to have.”
“Maybe we can talk to Georgie and she can find us a doctor who can make it happen. Let’s try.”
Amanda held his face in her hands. Her blue eyes were rimmed red. Her mascara had made a mess of her face. “I have tried. No one has tried harder to find a way. All I’ve ever wanted to do was find one doctor who would say it was possible. Had any of them given me even a glimmer of hope, I would have come to you and poured my heart out. I dreamed about being able to do that. You have no idea.”
“There are a lot of ways to have a baby. We could adopt. We could adopt as many babies as we wanted.”
“I knew you’d say that. I knew you’d immediately jump to adopting without thinking about what that would mean. None of our babies would look like you or me. The world would be depriv
ed of the handsomeness that’s sure to be a son of Blake Collins. Your sweet disposition. Your kind heart. Your surfing ability. That strong jaw. Those long eyelashes.”
He put his hands on top of hers. “You are more important than all of those things.”
She gave him that dismissive head shake again and let go of him. “That’s how you feel right now when the emotions are raw. But when you have time to think about it, really think about it and what you want and what you would have to give up, I’m not sure that’s how you’ll still feel.”
“I love you. I don’t need time to think about that. I have thought about that for years.”
“I love you, too. That’s why I never wanted to put you in the position of having to choose. Asking you to pick between me and your unborn children is horrifying. That’s an awful ultimatum and I know how you feel about those.”
“You understand that now that I know you’re in love with me, we can’t ever go back. I can’t just be friends ever again. Either we’re together or we have to go our separate ways, because I can’t be with you but not be with you anymore.”
Amanda dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap. “I know. I don’t think I could do it, either.” Her head lifted. “I need you to think about it. You have to really think about it and decide what you can live with.”
“Or live without.” That was the real question. Who could he live without? Amanda or the children he’d imagined for years that he would have someday?
“I need you to know that it’s okay if you choose Nadia. I will understand. I don’t blame you for wanting to go ahead with marrying her and having the family you wanted with her.”
Blake hadn’t been thinking about Nadia. She hadn’t crossed his mind even once during this conversation. When he thought about losing her, he felt nothing. He had made promises to Nadia because he wanted a family, not because she was his one and only. He needed to be careful not to do the same thing to Amanda. He didn’t want to let his emotions push him to say or do something he would later regret.
“I can’t think straight right now. All I want to do is stop you from hurting, and the last thing I want to do is make you promises that I can’t keep once I’m not caught up in all this emotion.” He stood up. “I need to take care of something and then I want to talk again. Can we talk again?”
Amanda balled up a tissue and held it in her fist in front of her mouth. He could see her trying so hard not to start crying again. She nodded.
“I’ll find you later. Will you let Lily be there for you? I don’t think you should be alone right now.”
She nodded again and went inside the cabin. He retreated from the porch and crossed the path to his cabin. He felt dizzy, like he hadn’t eaten all day. The weight on his shoulders was so heavy. The person he loved more than anything in this world had been harboring a secret for years. A secret that had kept her from opening up her heart to him all this time.
Nadia was at the café table, on her phone and her laptop at the same time. Blake sat down across from her and waited for her to finish so he had her full attention. He did what he could to calm his breathing and relax.
Every time he thought about Amanda, he thought about how he had inadvertently hurt her. He couldn’t do that anymore. Would she ever not feel guilty around him? Maybe the best thing to do was to walk away and give her a chance to have a relationship with a man she could be honest with from the beginning.
What was best for her? He wasn’t sure.
He watched Nadia conduct her business. He cared about her. He could see them making a life together if he wasn’t carrying a torch for his best friend anymore. They could have children and raise a family together. It would be easy. Did he want easy?
The answer came to him so surely and so clearly. He wanted Amanda.
“Can I help you?” Nadia asked when she ended her call.
“I can’t go back to San Diego with you.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” She closed her laptop.
“You deserve someone who doesn’t need to think about it. Your husband should never make you feel like you aren’t the one. I care about you and I think you are an amazing woman. The fact that you ever felt like anything less makes me a complete jerk. My head and my heart aren’t on the same page. You were right to call me out.”
“I hope I haven’t set you up to get your heart broken. You’re a good man, Blake. I hope she’s worth it. Just like I deserve someone who thinks I’m the one, you do, too.”
“I appreciate that.”
Nadia slipped her engagement ring off her finger and set it on the table in front of him. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t buy a dress the other day. I have a car picking me up in an hour to take me to Bozeman. I fly out tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sorry I rushed what we had and that I made promises before I was really ready to back them up. That’s on me.”
She slipped her laptop into her briefcase. “I should have been more cautious. We were moving very fast. You were too good to be true. I really wanted you to be true.”
“I’m sorry for that, too.”
“Can you not be here when I leave? I don’t think I can handle an emotional goodbye.”
“Fair enough.”
Nadia went into the bedroom to pack up her things. Blake pinched the engagement ring between his fingers. He had asked Amanda to help him pick this ring out because he thought she didn’t feel anything romantic for him. He had been asking her to help him plan a wedding. She had shoved down all of her feelings for him and done everything he asked. She was a gosh darn martyr.
He stuck the ring in his pocket and went outside. He walked to the clinic and decided to check on Pirate. Ethan was there with another horse.
Ethan lifted his head. “Hey, there.”
“Just coming to check on Pirate. How’s he doing?”
“He’s about the same. He needs time. These things don’t heal overnight.”
Blake knew that. That was the way life worked. It didn’t make it fair. In this world, things could get wrecked in an instant but take much longer to heal. Or maybe never heal at all.
“Ethan, I’ve got ten—” Tyler stopped dead in his tracks. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Blake said. The fact that Amanda went to Tyler about everything that was going on in her life was still mind-boggling. She’d been so vocal about not viewing the Blackwells as her family but as strangers who didn’t know anything about her, but she had chosen to open up on the most crucial aspect in her life.
“You’ve got ten what?” Ethan asked.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” Blake asked Tyler.
The man stood still, his lips pressed together. He was as open as a clam.
“Everything okay?” Ethan asked. He glanced back and forth between Tyler and Blake.
“I just have a couple questions,” Blake explained. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but you’re already on the spot and you’re the only one who can help me out here.”
Tyler nodded. “Sure. Come on.”
Blake followed him outside.
“What happened that made her tell you all of that really personal stuff?”
“I don’t know, man.” Tyler tapped his foot against the paddock fence. “She probably chose me because I had nothing to do with anything. Maybe she also figured I was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to say anything.”
“But you did say something. I want you to know that I appreciate that you encouraged her to come clean.”
“You should thank my wife for that. She was the one who pointed out that secrets and lies ruin the best things in life. We didn’t want that for Amanda.”
“She’s really fortunate that this family is full of good people. You all have been really great to her and to Lily.” Family was so important. It was everything. Without it, what did anyone really have?
Blake let that sink in. She loved him. He let himself feel it. Family was everything, but family wasn’t defined one way. Family was more than the people who shared your DNA. It was more than who grew up in your home or who took on the responsibility of raising you. Family could be a lot of things, but it was always love.
Amanda wasn’t okay right now, but she would be. If Blake had anything to say about it, she would be more than okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHEN AMANDA WALKED back into the cabin, the last thing she expected to hear was Peyton’s voice. Or Georgie’s. Or Fiona’s. But there on Lily’s computer screen were three video chats. The whole gang was here and they were all up-to-date on Amanda’s health condition.
“I can make a couple calls. I know an ob-gyn in Philly who specializes in infertility. Maybe she can help.”
“Don’t call anyone,” Amanda said, coming up behind Lily.
“Amanda,” they all said at the same time. Then they all started talking at the same time, and she couldn’t make out anything any of them were saying.
“Guys, guys, guys! Stop. I can’t hear you when you all talk at once.”
“Amanda, I love you,” Fiona said. “I am so sorry that this is happening. You need to let me know when you are having surgery because I am coming down to San Diego to be with you.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe that Mom didn’t tell me. I went to medical school. I could have helped if you would have let me.”
“I got diagnosed when we were in high school, Georgie. You were not qualified to treat my endometriosis when you were fifteen and had one year of high-school biology under your belt.”