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“Gavin… I don’t want to. ”
Gone is the amusement and his look goes hard. He turns and starts walking back to his car, pulling me along behind him. “And I don’t really give a f**k, Sweet. Give me the damn courtesy of an hour of your time. ”
We walk past Brody, who is leaning back against his truck, his arms crossed over his chest as he intently watches this play out. He pins Gavin with a deadly stare and then lifts one hand to point at him. “You and me, boy. We’re going to finish this later. ”
Gavin gives him a curt nod, and I wholly surprise myself when I snap at Brody. “Oh, knock it off, Brody. You’re the one that wanted him to come back, you dumbass. ”
Stopping dead in his tracks, Gavin turns to look at Brody in surprise. Brody just throws his head back and laughs, then looks back at Gavin. “I almost pity you, dude. ”
The entire drive to Gavin’s house is in silence. I sit hunched in the passenger seat, my arms hugging my chest, and my gaze out the window. My mind swirls with the potential of all the things that Gavin may end up saying to me, and I try to harden my heart against them. I don’t want to hear those things. I’ve made my peace, done my healing. I did the phases of grief… denial, anger, bargaining, depression… a little more anger thrown in for good measure, then acceptance.
It’s done.
I’m done.
Except, I’m completely overwhelmed just sitting next to Gavin. My heart pounds, my hands sweat, and butterflies flutter in my stomach. Or is that indigestion? Could be both.
When Gavin turns into his driveway, he slows the car to a halt and looks at the broken realty sign still laying on the ground. Clearly, no one has noticed my vandalism and fixed it.
His head swivels, and he pins me with a direct stare. “Your handiwork?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I flippantly respond, “I have no clue what you mean. ”
Gavin snorts in response and continues up the driveway. “Right. ”
Because there’s no escaping the inevitable, I dutifully follow Gavin up the stairs and into his house. His house. Not ours, I affirm to myself.
Throwing his keys on the kitchen counter, he walks into the living room and comes to a dead stop. His shoulders stiffen and his hands clench. “Where are the horses?”
I don’t respond. Not going to make this easy on him.
He turns to me, and his eyes are sad. “What did you do with the photographs of the horses you gave me?”
I glance over at the southern wall of the living room where I had hung them over the fireplace. It’s starkly blank, almost mocking Gavin that everything I ever gave him I took back. “Probably the county landfill, I expect,” I say coldly.
“You threw them away?” he asks in astonishment.
“It was this whole anger thing I went through. That came right in between ‘denial’ and ‘bargaining. ’ But I didn’t just throw them away… I pulled them off the wall, put them on the back deck, and destroyed them with a hammer. Then I took the little itty bits of wood, glass, and paper, and threw them away. You know what it’s like, right? To throw something away?”
“I know a little something about it,” Gavin says softly, his eyes even sadder and shit… now I’m feeling sorry for him.
“Don’t even give me that ‘poor me’ look, Gavin. You have no right. ”
Sighing, he grabs my hand and walks to the far side of the living room, pulling me along. When he reaches the big, overstuffed chair that sits in the corner, he releases my hand and lowers himself down. I stand there, two feet from him, and watch as he leans back and plants his feet on the floor, legs slightly apart. He props his elbow on the chair casually. Lowering his chin into the palm of his hand, he looks at me with determined eyes and says, “Okay… let’s have it. ”
I blink at him. “Let’s have what?”
“Well, you’re obviously pissed at me. You need the chance to get it off your chest… lay into me. So let’s have it. ”
Standing there with my arms wrapped around my stomach, I look down at him primly and say, “No thanks. I’ve made my peace with what happened between us. ”
“Bollocks, you have,” Gavin says calmly. “In case you haven’t forgotten, let me remind you. You told me you were pregnant. I was a complete arse and blamed you entirely. I think I even called you stupid for doing so. I never once gave you the benefit of the doubt, I left you under the pretense of needing time to think, and I drove away from you. Straight to the airport without a backward glance, boarded a plane, and flew to England. ”
“Stop it,” I say softly, because I don’t need the recap.
He ignores me. “I left you high and dry, alone while you were pregnant. I stayed away for twelve long weeks and never contacted you once to see if you were okay. ”
“Enough, Gavin,” I say with a little more force, dropping my arms and curling my hands into balls.
“I left you, and you were scared… alone… unsure of what to do. You were heartbroken, angry, and sad. ”
Digging my nails into the palm of my hands, I glare at him.
“You cried and broke things,” he says, his voice hard and menacing. “You cursed me and then cried some more. Come on, Sweet… let me have it, because I sure as hell made it clear to you, by my actions, that neither you nor our daughter were important to me. ”
“She is not your daughter!” I scream at him, my chest rising and falling with anger and bitterness. My eyes fill with wetness, puddle deep, and then spill over. I take a deep breath and let it out, and then do it again, until I feel more in control.
My voice is a bit more rational when I repeat, “She’s not your daughter. You didn’t want her, and now you have no right to her. ”
Gavin stares me… his eyes wide, skin pale. Pain takes hold of his face… crumbling it right before me into a million pieces, and my heart lurches. I open my mouth to take back those cruel words, because no matter what… I didn’t mean that. I never meant that.
With lightning-fast speed, Gavin lurches forward in the chair and grabs me around my waist. My hands fly to his shoulders for balance as he pulls me in between his legs while he moves forward to sit on the edge of the cushion. His hands are fast… going to the hem of my sweatshirt, yanking it upward to the bottom of my br**sts, exposing my stomach, which is swollen in the lower portion. He stares at my belly, his eyes filled with remorse.
Leaning forward, he kisses my stomach so softly that I barely feel it. Turning his head, he lays his cheek against my skin and wraps his arms around my waist to hold me tight to him. I squeeze my eyes shut against the hauntingly beautiful image of the man before me, humbled against my womb as he hugs his baby and me.
“She is my daughter,” he murmurs. “I always wanted her. I may have been scared, but I always wanted her. ”
Hesitantly, I move my hands from his shoulders to his head, slipping my fingers in his cool, dark hair. I press against his head… pushing him into my stomach a little harder, and he gives a stuttering breath.
“I am so sorry, Savannah,” he says with so much anguish that I don’t think I can take it. I feel wetness on my stomach, and I know it’s tears from his eyes.
“Oh, God,” I croak, gripping his head tighter.
“So sorry,” he murmurs, turning to kiss my belly again. “So sorry. So very f**king sorry. ”
My own tears start again, and I let them freely fall. I let them fall… let them pour out all of my past anger and hurt…I let them slide down my cheeks and beg them to take away the bitter betrayal I’ve been feeling.
Gavin lifts his head and tilts his head back to look at me. His eyes are wet… tortured. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. A man can never do worse than abandoning his love when she needs him most. I did that, and I don’t deserve a drop of your kind heart. I don’t deserve for you to put your hands on my cheeks and tell me it will be all right. I have no right to ask for assurances or for a place in your life. I don�
��t have a single thing I’m entitled to right now, and yet… I’m begging you, Savannah. I am begging you with everything in my soul to please tell me it’s okay. To please forgive me, and let me back in. I will do anything you ask and, I swear, I will never let you down again. ”
Gavin pushes off the chair and drops to his knees, his face pressing into my stomach again as he kisses my skin, wetting it with more tears.
He presses the words into me… straight through the skin and muscle that protects our little peanut. “Please forgive me, daughter. Please forgive your father for his weakness. I swear I’ll never leave you again. Please ask your mommy to forgive a man for being scared and weak. For having too many demons in his closet. I’m begging you… please. ”
“Stop it,” I cry out and grab him by the hair again, pulling his face away. He sits backward on his haunches, and I drop to my knees with a straight spine so we’re face to face. “Please stop. ”
Gavin blinks at me, sending a fresh wave of tears down his tortured face. I bring my hands up and wipe them away, giving him a sad smile laced with the very forgiveness he is begging for. “It’s okay, Filthy. It will be okay. It’s going to be fine. I promise. ”
I lean forward and touch my mouth to his, continuing to whisper. “I forgive you. I understand. It’s okay. ”
When I pull back, his face is disbelieving of my words. I can see he’s still too disgusted with himself to believe the truth of them. I cup his face with my hands and give him a little shake. Leaning in closer, I look straight through his eyes… I look straight into his heart. “Hear me… I forgive you. We’ll start again… all of us… together. ”
I wait for it… watching closely, and finally, I see his dark eyes lighten. I see him accept what I’m saying, and I watch… all within the depths of his beautiful gray eyes, as he finally understands that his sins have been forgiven.
Gavin’s arms come around me… one around my lower back and the other with his hand gripping the back of my head. He pulls me in close and holds me tight as I bury my face in the crook of his neck and inhale him deep.
“Thank you,” he whispers simply. “Thank you. ”
We stay like that… for minutes, for hours… I have no clue. All I know is that this very moment, I’ve wiped the slate clean and I’m not going to think another moment on the hurt he caused me. I’m only going to think about our future together and building it strong.
Gripping me by the back of the hair, Gavin pulls my head away from his shoulder and stares at me. “I love you, Sweet. So f**king much it hurts. ” His other hand comes to rest over my stomach. “And I love our daughter, too. With the last breath in my body, I love her and I can’t wait to meet her. And I’m scared, Sweet. You know that’s why I ran, right? Because of Charlie… I’m just so scared. ”
“It’s okay, baby,” I croon to him as I lay my own hand over his while he strokes our baby through my skin. “It will all be fine. I promise. ”
“I believe you,” he says, leaning forward to kiss me. It’s a tentative kiss and utterly lacking Gavin’s confidence. He’s hesitant, not sure of where the boundaries lay.
I open my mouth to him… I slip my tongue inside his, and that tells him it’s okay. That I want him the way I know that he wants me. The way that he craves me, as I crave him.
Pulling me in tighter and tighter still, his mouth angles and he delves for a better connection. His tongue is so warm, and sweet, and I’ve missed it so much. His mouth moves from mine, skims my cheek, my jaw… he whispers in my ear how much he loves me, and then he kisses me again.
His hands stroke my belly, up to my br**sts, which are sensitive. My ni**les pucker hard between his hand and the silk of my bra. Magically… smoothly… with only the way that Gavin can do, he removes all of my clothes and pushes me down onto the living room rug. Kneeling between my legs, he places his hands on my stomach and gently rubs the swell there. He watches his hands, mesmerized, as he cradles his daughter for the very first time.
Sugar on the Edge Page 37