Hit and Run (Summer Rush #2)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “I would have told you.” She bit her lip, her voice shaky as tears continued to glide down her cheeks. “I mean, if I’d made it to term, I would have told you. I would have wanted you to be a part of our baby’s life. You have to believe that.”

  He wanted to believe her, but she’d hated him then. Would she really have wanted to risk him influencing their child? “Who else knew about this?”

  She winced as she rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “At the time? Just your parents and mine.”

  He felt as if she’d sucker-punched him. “My parents knew you were carrying my baby and they didn’t tell me?”

  “Please try to understand,” she said, resting her hand on his chest. “They wanted to, but they thought that was up to me. And they probably knew that the first trimester is risky, especially with a first pregnancy. You were already going through hell, having to be in that place and dealing with everything that happened. They were just trying to protect you, because they loved you.”

  He moved her legs off of him as he leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. “I don’t even know what to say right now.” He knew he should have a million questions but his brain and mouth couldn’t work together to form even one. He was in shock.

  “Say you don’t hate me for not telling you sooner,” she whispered, setting her hand on his back. “Please. I just need to hear you say that.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder, feeling numb. “I could never hate you, Danielle.” He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him as soon as they re-connected, but her response would probably lead to anger and tears, which would only serve to widen the sudden rift between them.

  Looking miserable, she nodded. “But you’re hurt and angry and confused, right?”

  “Yeah, all of those things.” She knew him too well. “I just need some time alone to think.” He didn’t want to leave things like this, but if she stayed, he might say something he regretted.

  Sounding panicked, she said, “Please don’t kick me out yet. Can’t we talk first? I need you to know what I was thinking and feeling when I found out I was pregnant… before you decide how you feel.”

  That was the last thing he needed to hear right now. Hearing her say she’d actually wanted his baby would only make his pain and loss more unbearable. “We should probably both take some time to−”

  As though she hadn’t heard him, she whispered, “I was so scared. But I was excited too.” She finally looked him in the eye. “I wanted that baby. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “I don’t.” Being so young would have made it impossible for most, but he knew Danielle would have been an amazing mom.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head as he fought back tears. “I just know I can’t do this right now. I need time to figure this out. On my own. Please. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  He could tell she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay, to demand they talk it out, but instead she leaned in to kiss his cheek before she reached for her purse on the floor beside the sofa. “Just remember that I love you, okay? I didn’t keep this from you to hurt you. I only did it because I thought—”

  He held up his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t say anymore. Not right now. I can’t. I just can’t hear it right now. I need time to process all this.”

  “I understand.” She walked slowly to the door before she looked over her shoulder at him. “This doesn’t have to be the end of us, does it?”

  She looked so sad that all he wanted was to make her feel better. “I don’t want it to be.”

  ***

  Ace had already downed five beers by the time his doorbell rang a couple of hours after Dani left him alone to his thoughts.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, scowling at Chase.

  “You left this on the bus,” Chase said, holding up Ace’s iPod with the earbuds wrapped around it. “Thought you might need it for your morning workout or whatever.” He shrugged. “I was on my way home, so I thought, what the hell?”

  “Thanks,” Ace muttered, grabbing it. “You wanna beer?”

  “Uh, you do know we have a game tomorrow, right? Since when do you drink the night before an afternoon game?”

  “Since my girlfriend just dropped a bomb on me.”

  Chase followed him inside, closing the door. “Uh oh, what happened? She’s not getting back with her ex, is she?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Ace supposed things could be worse. She could have told him she was done with him and going back to the jerk who’d cheated on her. He sank down on the couch before reaching for his beer. “You want one?” he asked, raising his bottle.

  “No, I’m good.” Chase sat on the leather armchair across from him. “What I want is to know what happened to put you in this mood.”

  “She was pregnant.”

  “Was?” Chase asked, looking wary. “What does that mean?”

  “When we were teenagers, she got pregnant and didn’t tell me.”

  “Shit,” Chase muttered. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does. And you wanna know the worst part? My own parents knew and decided to keep it to themselves. I don’t know who to be more pissed at, them or her.”

  “Did this happen before or after the accident?”

  Ace downed the rest of his beer before slamming the bottle on the table. “She got pregnant before, obviously, but didn’t find out ‘til after they put me away, I guess.”

  “That must have been rough for her,” Chase said. “Trying to decide what to do.”

  He tried putting himself in Dani’s position and knew what she’d gone through couldn’t have been easy, but he was having trouble believing that she would have told him eventually. What hurt the most was believing she would have let his kid grow up without him because she deemed him unfit to be a father.

  “It’s not like either of us were ready to be parents,” Ace said, scowling at the empty bottle. “We were just kids ourselves. That’s why we took precautions to prevent it, ya know?”

  “I know all about that,” Chase sneered. “My ex and I thought we were being careful too. Turns out condoms aren’t fail-proof. Not that I’m complaining. Becoming a dad was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Ace’s gut twisted painfully when he thought about the baby he and Dani could have had together. Would it have been a boy or a girl? God, how old would they have been now? He did a little mental math and realized they would have been fourteen. He would have had a teenager…

  “You must miss her,” Ace said, looking up at his friend. “Your daughter.”

  “Every damn day.” Chase sighed. “Her mother too, if I’m being honest.”

  “Why’d you divorce her then?”

  “I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said, leaning forward, shoulders slumped. “After I decided to come here without consulting her, she said I was a selfish asshole and she was done with me. I thought she was just upset, that we’d have a chance to work things out when I went home during the off-season, but she served me with divorce papers a couple of weeks into spring training. I knew there was nothing I could do to fight it. She’d made up her mind.”

  “Did you even try?” Ace asked. “To fight the divorce? Did you try telling her you still wanted to be married to her, that you wanted to be a family?”

  Chase swallowed. “It all happened so fast. One minute I was happily married, and the next I was staring at divorce papers. In hindsight, I should have fought harder, but I just didn’t want her to hate me more for dragging it out, ya know?”

  Ace knew all about giving up when he should have fought harder. He’d assumed Dani would never want to see or talk to him again after her brother’s accident, so he hadn’t even tried. No wonder she’d felt alone and abandoned.

  “Well, I should get going,” Chase said, standing. “You okay?”

  “I will be, man. Thanks.” He knew it would take some time, but after talking to Chase, he knew what he had to
do.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ace walked into his parents’ house before practice the next day, trying to corral his emotions. He was still devastated by the news he and Dani had lost a baby he hadn’t even known about, and he was hurt that the people who claimed to love him had kept it from him. But he had to give them a chance to explain.

  “Hey, sweetie,” his mom said, lighting up when she met him in the foyer. “This is a nice surprise. But you have a game today, don’t you? I could have sworn when your dad checked the schedule earlier, he said…” She frowned as she reached for his hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk,” he said, sounding gruff as he withdrew his hand. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Uh, he’s out back watering the garden. I’ll get him.” She gestured to the living room. “Have a seat. I’ll make some coffee.”

  He didn’t want coffee. He wanted an explanation, but he did as he was told, needing a few minutes to collect himself anyway. He wandered around the room as he waited, too tense to sit, and looked at family pictures. He picked up one of him and his brother when they were about thirteen and fifteen.

  “That was always one of my favorites,” his dad said, watching him from the doorway. “You guys were best friends.” He pointed at the picture in Ace’s hand. “And that picture said it all.”

  They had their arms wrapped around each other’s necks as they leaned into the camera, smiling. Having lost his brother, Ace hated knowing that he’d taken another son and brother from his family.

  “I get why they hate me,” Ace said and sighed as he set the picture back on the table. “But I don’t know what I can do to makes things right.”

  “You’re talking about Dani’s parents?”

  “Yeah.” Ace hadn’t intended to talk to his father about this today, but it was one of the issues still weighing heavily on him. Even though he was pissed at his parents for keeping him in the dark, his old man always gave good advice.

  “Have you tried talking to them, telling them how sorry you are?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ace rolled his eyes. “They’d probably slam the door in my face.”

  “Maybe, but at least they’d know you cared enough to put yourself out there.”

  Ace’s jaw dropped. “Dad, you know how much I care. I’ve never been able to forgive myself for what I did.”

  “Maybe that’s part of the problem,” his dad said, pointing at him. “You’ve never been able to forgive yourself. That’s why you keep sabotaging your own happiness, because you don’t think you deserve to be happy.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’m happy.”

  “Are you?” His father narrowed his eyes. “Dani called to warn us that you may be stopping by today, and that you wouldn’t be happy. She told us that you kicked her out last night and she hasn’t heard from you since. Is that how we taught you to solve your problems?”

  “You don’t get to lecture me,” Ace said, raising his voice. “You taught me that being a man meant being honest and facing your problems. So why weren’t you honest with me? Why didn’t you give me a chance to man up when Dani found out she was pregnant? Were you afraid I wouldn’t?”

  Ace’s mom returned with coffee, which she distributed before sitting on the sofa and watching the two men she loved.

  “I was afraid you’d only make things harder for Dani,” his father said, glaring at him. “Whether you can see it or not, she was a victim in all this. She never asked to lose her brother or her boyfriend. And it’s not like she wanted to get pregnant. She had to live with her parents’ condemnation and−”

  “I—”

  “Shut up and listen for once.” His father’s face turned a ruddy shade, which let Ace know he was about to erupt. “We stood by you when you let us down because you needed us. You were our son and we’d never turn our backs on you. But Dani didn’t have that same unconditional love at home. Her parents made it clear that if she chose to let you back into her life, they were done with her and would have nothing to do with the baby she was carrying.”

  Ace sank onto a chair as his father continued to stand, scowling at him. Ace had come here to let them have it, but he should have known his parents would demand their say. Now he was glad he’d followed his old man’s advice and kept his mouth shut. He needed to hear the reasons they’d made the choices they had back then.

  “We talked about letting her come to live with us if her parents really did kick her out,” his mother said softly. “But we decided to wait and see how it all played out. They’d already lost their son. We didn’t want to see them lose their daughter and grandbaby too.”

  Ace set his coffee down before dropping his head in his hands. “I never meant to take their son away from them.”

  “We know you didn’t, honey,” his mother whispered. “It was a terrible tragedy.”

  “That happened because he was irresponsible,” his father cut in, exchanging a look with his wife. “Let’s call it what it is.”

  Ace couldn’t breathe as he looked at his father. It felt like that day all over again, when he’d stared up at his father from his hospital bed and his parents shared a look that said their lives would never be the same again.

  “You don’t think I know that?” Ace asked, feeling the burn of tears in his eyes. “You don’t think I’ve worked at being a better man every damn day since that accident?”

  “We know you have,” his father said, nodding. “And we’re proud of all that you’ve accomplished. But you wanna know what makes me the most proud?”

  Ace shook his head, expecting his father to cite one of his career accomplishments.

  “When I watched you sit in front of a room full of reporters and open up about what you did all those years ago. You didn’t know what the fallout would be. It could have ended your career, but you did something incredibly brave and maybe your decision to open up about your past will help someone else.”

  “Don’t make me out to be a martyr. I had to come clean, Dad,” Ace said, looking at the floor. “I had to make things right, for Dani’s sake and for mine.”

  “Yet you haven’t gone to see her parents,” his father reminded him. “Why?”

  “You know they’d never give me a chance to apologize face to face. That press conference was the only way I’ll ever be able to apologize to them.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I could send a letter or an email or—”

  “Let me ask you something,” his dad said, folding his arms over his broad chest. “How would you feel if we got an email from your brother’s killer tomorrow? Do you think that would be enough? Would you be okay with that? Would you expect us to be? Or would you at least want him to have the guts to apologize to us in person?”

  Ace rubbed the back of his neck as he felt his throat closing up. “What the hell? I came here to find out why you’d kept Dani’s pregnancy from me. How did you manage to turn the tables on me?”

  His dad chuckled as he swiped a hand over his face. “We may have been wrong for keeping it from you, son, but we did it for the right reasons. We put the girl you loved and your unborn child first. We knew that’s what you would have wanted us to do. Were we wrong?”

  “No, you weren’t wrong,” Ace muttered, knowing he’d been outmatched by an expert.

  “And I’m not wrong about you going to see Dani’s parents either.” He tapped his watch. “You’ve got a game later, so you best get a move on.”

  “You want me to go see them now?” Ace asked, scrubbing his hands over his face.

  “I’d say it’s long overdue, wouldn’t you?”

  In his heart, Ace had always known this day would come. He didn’t expect their forgiveness, but he knew if he wanted to let his best friend rest in peace, he had to tell Linc’s parents the whole ugly story and express his regret.

  ***

  Ace could barely breathe as he rang the doorbell and waited. When she opened the door and spotted him, Dani’s mother gasped, all color draining fro
m her face.

  Ace was shocked at how much she’d aged in fifteen years. She didn’t even look like the same person. That was when he realized he hadn’t just taken Linc’s life. He’d taken theirs too. “Mrs. Kipling, I know I’m the last person you want to see, but can we please talk, just for a few minutes?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  She tried to slam the door, but Ace wedged his fingers between the door and the frame. He was risking a season-ending injury if she crushed his fingers, but he hadn’t come all this way to let her turn him away. “Then just listen. Please.”

  “My husband will call the police if he sees you,” she warned. “He’ll have you cited for trespassing.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.” He was willing to risk just about anything to get inside and get just five minutes alone with the people he’d once called his second parents.

  She sighed heavily as she opened the door slowly. “Why now? After all these years? Is it because you’re dating our daughter again or—”

  “It’s because my father said something to me today that made me realize I’ve been running from this for too long. I was wrong not to come to you sooner.” He had to be brutally honest with them, to lay it all on the line, if he expected them to really hear anything he had to say.

  She stepped back, and Ace took that as a silent invitation to enter.

  Dani’s father rounded the corner, his shoulders slumped as he shuffled forward. It took him a minute to realize they had company, but when he did, he pointed a shaky finger at Ace and growled. “You get out of my house, boy!”

  Ace’s heart broke as he looked between them. All life had drained from both of them. They were just shadows of the people he remembered. They’d apparently given up on life as the last breath seeped from Linc’s body.

  He shook his head. “There are no words.” He swallowed as he flattened his hand against his pounding heart. “In my mind, I know that.”

  “Then why are you here?” Mr. Kipling asked, leaning on the banister at the foot of the stairs. “You haven’t done enough damage, taking our son and now our daughter from us? You had to come here and twist the knife a little deeper?”