Bella took a deep breath. “Do your grandparents know where you are?”
“They were asleep when I left, but I left a note.”
“A note.” Bella said flatly. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket as she mumbled under her breath, “I need to call them.”
“Fine. Call them, but I’m not going back there if he’s there.”
The girl leaned down to get her suitcase and that’s when we saw each other for the first time.
I froze.
She screamed.
Bella dropped the phone and grabbed her daughter, pushing her behind her like a fierce mama bear protecting her cub. When she saw it was just me standing there, she released her arm around the girl and put her hand over her stomach.
“I forgot you were there.” Her breathing was rapid, but the rest of her body relaxed.
I, on the other hand couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” The girl pointed at me. “That’s…you’re…that’s…”
“Sadie Jade, this is Colton—”
“McCord!” Sadie finished. “You’re Colton McCord! Oh my gosh! I’ve seen every show you’ve been on! I saw the finale last night! I love Heather by the way! If you had picked Sasha or Julie I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
Bella must’ve seen the look on my face, because she spoke to her daughter in a tone that I’d never heard her use as she unlocked and opened the front door. “Sadie. Go inside and call your grandparents. Tell them you’re okay.”
“Mom!” She protested.
“Now, Sadie.”
“Fine.” The girl rolled her eyes and grabbed her suitcase. Before she went in the house, she walked towards me and her hand fluttered up and down. “Oh my god. You have no idea how big of a fan I am. After I call my grandparents can we take a selfie?”
“Sadie.” Bella warned.
Sadie dropped her head back and rolled her eyes, but then when she straightened and looked back at me she was smiling. “It was so good meeting you, Colton!”
Finally, I was able to find my voice and speak. I hoped that I looked and sounded normal when I responded. “It was good meeting you, too, Cara.”
“Sadie.” Bella corrected harshly. “Her name is Sadie.”
“Oh my god,” Sadie’s eyes widened. “Colton McCord just got my name wrong! Just like the outtakes on YouTube. I have to call Natalie!”
Sadie started running inside, but Bella stopped her. “You are not going to call, Snapchat, text, email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or use any other form of communication to any of your friends. You are going to call your grandparents. Tell them where you are and that you’re safe. Apologize for running off and then you are going to go to bed. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, mom.” Sadie had a lot less attitude with that answer. She must’ve sensed that Bella was serious.
The girl went inside and when the door shut, I opened my mouth to speak but Bella lifted her hand, halting me. “Back house.”
She picked up her purse, that had fallen on the grass when she’d run to Sadie and I followed behind her. But this time I wasn’t looking at her ass, there was no Pied Piper about it and there was no way that I was going to let her off the hook without answering my questions. The first one being, “Why didn’t she tell me that I had a daughter?”
Chapter 20
Bella
“Don’t judge people by their kin.”
~ Papa Duke
My heart was in my throat as I led the way to the back house. The moment that I never thought would come to pass had just passed. I was shaking all over, not from fear, not from anxiety, not from nerves. I was furious.
All of the things that I’d told myself about forgiving him. That I’d told myself I could compartmentalize so that I could have closure, was a crock of shit. Seeing Sadie standing in front of him and him barely being able to speak to her was the final straw.
How could a man so loving, so giving, treat his own daughter like that? Maybe when he was seventeen and she was just an abstract thought to him. But she was talking to him, telling him that she was a fan and he barely said one sentence to her and he called her the wrong name!
I stomped up the wooden steps and the loud thunking it made was oddly satisfying. I’d never been a violent person, but I wanted to punch someone. To hurt someone. To punch and hurt Colton.
When we were both inside I slammed the door behind me as we both spoke at the same time.
“What the hell was that?!” I yelled.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me I had a daughter?!” Colton gritted out through his teeth.
“What?” We both asked in unison.
“What the hell was that?!” I repeated.
At the same time he echoed, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me I had a daughter?!”
This was getting us nowhere, I threw my hands up in the air. “What are you talking about?!”
“That girl. Sadie.” His hand was shaking as he pointed to the main house and took a step towards me and spoke deliberately. “Is that my daughter?”
“Yes,” I said the same way that Sadie had told me that she’d flown to Texas.
For the first time I saw that all of the color had drained from Colton’s face. His hands were trembling as he raised them and put them behind his neck and tears formed in his eyes.
I stared, unable to figure out why he was acting like this was news.
“What?” I asked unable to contain my anger. “Did you think I was lying?! Did you think I was just trying to trick you so I could come back home and be with you?!”
“I…I…” he stammered, shaking his head back and forth in disbelief.
“You did!” I exclaimed as a white-hot searing pain shot through my chest. “You thought I was lying. That’s why you hung up on me. That’s why you sent the papers, isn’t it? Because you thought I was lying?!”
I didn’t know what felt worse. Him not wanting his daughter, or thinking I lied about being pregnant.
“What papers?! What are you talking about?! I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
I started digging in my purse. I used to carry the copy around because whenever I would start missing Colton or my memories about how amazing he was would get the better of me, I’d pull them out as a physical reminder of just how much he’d hurt me. I put it back in my purse when I was packing up to move. After today, that wouldn’t be a problem. I’d never again let myself feel anything for the man standing in front of me.
“I never thought you were lying! You never told me anything!”
It was incredible to me that this man, the father of my child, the man that had been inside of me less than an hour ago could actually be trying to turn this around on me. I snatched the papers from the inside pocket of my purse and shoved them into his chest. Hard.
He took them, looking equally as furious as I was and started reading them. His head started shaking again and his face twisted in confusion as he flipped through them several times.
“I’ve never seen these. I didn’t sign these.”
He had to be kidding. I stabbed my finger where his signature was. “Yes, you did!”
“But…I didn’t…I’ve never….” He just kept shaking his head before he lifted it. “Where did you get these?”
“You sent them to me! I sent you pictures of our daughter and you sent me these!” I couldn’t believe he was acting like this, I had no idea what he was going to pull, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with anything. He needed to take some responsibility. I sure as hell had. “A month after she was born! When she was still in NICU! And don’t try to blame it on being a kid, because I was sixteen when I had her and you sent these to me a week, a week after you turned eighteen!”
He stared at me for a moment and then something changed. His face transformed from looking confused and angry to knowing and irate. His voice was deadly calm as he asked, “You got these a week after I turned eighteen?”
&nbs
p; His insta-demeanor change really took the wind out of my rage sails.
“Yes.” I answered in a more subdued tone.
He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of the documents he held. Then typed something and sent a text. After that, he pressed a button and held out his phone, I heard it ringing and realized he was calling on speakerphone.
“Hello,” an older man’s voice filled the small space.
“Did you get my text?” Colton asked in the same tone.
There was a sound of rustling for a few minutes and then the man called out, “Deborah, have you seen my phone?”
Deborah. That was his mom’s name. He must be calling his parents.
“It’s right here. Why do you need it if you’re on the landline?” His mom’s voice came over the speaker.
His dad explained. “Colton’s asking about a text.”
“A text?” his mom questioned.
Finally, after a few moments of muttering about finding glasses the line went completely silent. I looked to see if the call was still connected. It was.
After a few moments Colton spoke again. “I’m only going to ask you this once. Are these the papers you had me sign when you told me I was signing to be Cara’s legal guardian if anything happened to you? When you came to the hospital after I’d been with Cara all weekend when she went through her roughest chemo. When I hadn’t slept in four days. When I was exhausted and terrified and you told me that this was the only way to keep Cara safe. Are these the papers you had me sign?”
My hand flew over my mouth as I gasped and my eyes shot to his. They were brimming with unshed tears and his face was stone.
“Answer me,” he demanded.
“Son, it was for your own good. Her daddy was the only good thing in that family. She was no good, hell she got knocked up—”
“Stop!” He yelled. “Just stop.”
Everyone went silent. I just stared at him, unsure of what to do, what to say, still reeling from the gravity of this discovery.
Colton, on the other hand, knew exactly what to say. “I wish I was more surprised that you did this. I wish it was unthinkable to me that my parents, the people that were supposed to love me unconditionally, protect me from pain, had done something so hateful, so selfish, and so damaging. But this sounds exactly like something you would do.”
“Colton, your father and I—” his mom tried to speak.
“Don’t.” Colton shut her down. “There is no explanation on this earth that could justify what you did. This is the last time you will ever talk to me. It’s the last time that I will ever call you. It’s the last time we will ever have any interaction. Don’t call me. Don’t email me. Don’t try to get in touch with me in any way.”
“Colton you’re being ridiculous!” His mother said.
His father chided. “You better watch your tone, son, and remember who you’re talking to.”
“I’m not your son, you don’t have a son anymore.” With that declaration, he hung up the phone. Then, like a balloon that had a leak, he lost all of the air that had filled him and he sank into the chair directly behind him.
I was still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. How it was possible that all this time Colton hadn’t known that he had a daughter and I thought he didn’t want her.
He let his face fall into his hands as his shoulders started shaking.
“Colton…” I stepped up into him and he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me to him and held me tight with his cheek against my belly.
“You had a baby. Our baby,” I could hear the sob in his words. “I have a baby.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I repeated over and over as I held him and ran my fingers through his hair as my own tears poured down my face.
I wasn’t sure if we were like that for twenty seconds or twenty minutes when my phone rang. It was Sadie’s ringtone.
Stepping away, I pulled it from my pocket, thankful it wasn’t Facetime. I didn’t know how I would explain to her why I was crying. I didn’t know how I was going to explain a lot of things to her.
I tried to hide the emotions in my voice as I answered. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” she asked. “I’m hot and I don’t know where the A/C is. I’m so tired and you know I can’t sleep when I’m hot.”
“I’ll be right there.” I hung up the phone before she could respond.
I wiped my cheeks and fanned my face, hoping to cool down some of the redness I was sure was there. “I need to go, but as soon as I get her—”
Colton stood. “I’m going with you. That’s my daughter.”
“You can’t.” As much as I hated that I had to do this, that I had to break his heart all over again, I did it because it was the right thing for Sadie. “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
“I didn’t know anything about this,” he pleaded. “Don’t you see that now? I have to tell her. I have to tell her that I love her and I didn’t know. I have to make this right. You can’t punish me for what they did.”
Hearing Colton say that he loved her, that he loved our daughter lifted weights off my chest I hadn’t even known I was carrying. But it didn’t change anything. “I’m not punishing you. And I will tell her, you will tell her. But not right now. A lot of things have changed for her recently. I need to make sure that she’s okay and then we can all talk. I promise.”
“When?” He demanded. “When can we tell her?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
He started to protest and start towards the door, but I put my hand on his chest. “Give me a couple of hours with her. Let her take a nap. Eat something. I’ll call you before dinner, okay? I’ll call you in a few hours.”
My phone rang again with Sadie’s ringtone. I looked down at the phone, still in my hand. “Seriously?!”
“It’s fine. Go.” Colton snapped.
I placed my hand on his chest and I could feel his heart beating wildly beneath my palm. “I have to go take care of her, but as soon as I get her settled, I’ll come over to your house. Okay?”
He stared down at me. His nostrils flaring. “Fine.”
The second he agreed I was out the door before he changed his mind. As I walked back to the house I tried to assimilate all of the information that I’d just been given. Colton had no idea about Sadie. All of these years that we’d been apart, that I’d struggled as a single mom and then struggled in a lonely marriage. I thought he’d just gone on with his life but he never knew he had a daughter. We could’ve been together. We could’ve been a family.
Tears started coming again and I wiped them off. This wasn’t the time for crying. This was the time to go and take care of my daughter. Just like I always did and always would.
Hope blossomed in my chest. Maybe from now on I wouldn’t be alone. Maybe Sadie would have two parents that were present, that loved her, protected her, and took care of her.
From the look on Colton’s face when I’d told him that he couldn’t come with me, and then the resignation when he agreed, it seemed like she already did.
Chapter 21
Colton
“You can put icing on a pile of crap, but that don’t make it a piece of cake.”
~ Papa Duke
I stood and walked to the window again even though I knew exactly what I was going to see. No lights. No car. Bella had only called two minutes ago to say that she was on her way. I knew that she wouldn’t be here yet. But that didn’t stop me from getting up and checking every few seconds.
My phone dinged and I looked down and saw it was a text from Cara checking to see if I was okay.
I’d gone straight to hers and Trace’s house when I left Bella’s a few hours ago. Before I’d even finished explaining what happened she was in tears and hugging me. She was shocked, but had basically the same reaction as I did; it wasn’t as surprising as we both wished it was.
She said she was done with our parents. I tried to tell her
that she didn’t need to do that, not for me. She said that it was for me and for her and Trace’s baby. She said that she didn’t want people in her son or daughter’s life that would hurt them. But it was also for Bella, and for her niece, Sadie, who she couldn’t wait to meet.
Hearing my little sister refer to Sadie as her niece made the entire situation that much more real to me. I had a daughter. Cara had a niece.
I texted back that I was fine and that Bella was on her way over. She said to give Bella her love and let her know that she and Trace were there for her and Sadie if they needed anything.
As bad as Cara felt for me, the thing that had upset her the most was that Bella had gone through all of that by herself. She’d lost her dad, and basically her mom, I broke up with her, she got sent away, then found out she was pregnant, and had a baby all by herself and thought I wanted nothing to do with her.
It made me sick to my stomach.
After another check out the window, I started pacing. Again. I was going to make it up to her. Somehow. Someway. I was going to make it up to her and Sadie both. My daughter was going to know that her dad loved her.
My daughter.
The words sounded so foreign and so right to me at the same time. I felt so conflicted, I was all over the place. One minute I was happier than I’d ever been. The next I was madder than I’d ever felt. The next I was heartbroken thinking about everything that Bella and Sadie had been through without me. Then I would be overwhelmed with gratitude thinking about how lucky I was that after all these years the truth came out. Then I would be on cloud nine thinking about Sadie and Bella. Then I would feel rage for the time that was robbed from us and the cycle would start all over again like I was a hamster on a wheel of emotions.
I’d just finished several more rounds of sitting. Standing. Window checking. And then pacing, when I heard a soft knock on the door.
I opened it and there was Bella, standing on my porch looking like the angel she was.
“I didn’t hear a car.” I looked behind her.
“I walked.”
“You walked?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I needed to clear my head.”
Claiming Colton (Wishing Well, Texas Book 5) Page 14