Seclusion

by Leanne Davis

“I guess last summer sometime.”

  She slapped him so quick, so hard; that Sean momentarily didn’t react he was so surprised. She was openly crying. “So who is better? My mother or me? She’s probably kinkier, huh? What kind of pervert gets off doing it with a mother and daughter?”

  “Come on, stop it. You know it isn’t like that. Not between us. Besides, you slept with me first. I wasn’t planning on ever being with you again.”

  “But my mother? You knew she was my mother. I don’t understand how you could have done this.”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do. I do want to know how you came to sleep with my mother.”

  He slapped his hand to his leg. “You want to know why? Fine, I’ll tell you. I did it because you were never going to give me a chance. When were you ever going to give me a chance? You wouldn’t even look me in the eye without wincing. I did it to punish you. I’m not real proud of it, I’m not happy about it, but that’s what I was doing. I’ve been in love with you for eight years and you treated me like I had fleas. Like I had ruined your life. How could I have ever thought we’d end up together?”

  “You should have told me. At any point after that first night, you should have told me.”

  “I should have. But I purposely didn’t. I knew it would end things with you. I’ve never had a chance with you, Angie, not a real one, and it’s all I’ve ever wanted in life. You. I’ve always wanted you.”

  He said it so quietly, his tone so sincere she felt her heart stop. Break. Was he telling the truth?

  “I lied to you. I kept it from you, hoping and praying that before you found out, I would be able to make you fall in love with me. There it is… my nasty ulterior motive. I wanted the chance I’ve never had, the one I thought I’d never get with you. I tried to get over you; I tried to fall for other girls. But it never happened. I’d see you again, and it would all come rushing back.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t! Don’t you dare act as if you did something noble. Don’t blame me for what you did. I ignored you all those years because I didn’t know how to face the boy who hurt me, ignored me, and then left me to deal with what we did. How could it be my fault for not giving you a chance?”

  “I’m not that kid anymore. Give me that much.”

  “You slept with my mother. What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. Put it out of your mind. Look at me. Look into my eyes and see what we have. What I feel for you. Only you. God, don’t let Vanessa ruin this. She wants to. She wants to ruin everything good for you. Anything that will bring you happiness, or move you farther from her. She doesn’t want you to have a good life, and resents any attempts you make to have one.”

  Angie paced for several long moments. She stopped dead, wrapping her arms around herself and dropped to the sand, staring out at the waves. She shook her head again.

  “I can’t believe I ever thought this would work. Ever. There was no way. And I can’t even blame you for it all.”

  He dropped to his knees next to her, grabbing her hands in his. “We can work. We are working. You can’t deny that. I know this is bad, but we can work through this. Don’t give up, not so easily, not because of Vanessa. I’ll do anything, anything you need, to make this up to you.”

  She finally looked up at him. Her face different. Pale. Tragic. He touched her shoulder, her hair, and finally her face.

  “I love you.”

  She gazed at him, tears fell over her eyelids, as she shook her head in denial. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I do. I’ve always known.”

  “No. No, we’re all wrong. Always.”

  “Angie—”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He had been about to hug her. He stopped and pulled back in utter astonishment. In a shock so deep he felt fifteen again listening to two girls talking about Angie Peters being pregnant, as his world had imploded, and no one had known it was him.

  He let out a deep, long breath. “Okay. Wow. Okay, Angie, I mean it’s not what I was expecting. We’ve been so careful, considering our pasts, considering what we share, but okay. We’ll deal with this. It could all work out. It could work this time.”

  She looked up and blinked. “Oh God, no. No, Sean. It’s not yours. It’s why I came here to Seaclusion. I was already pregnant. I just, I didn’t know what to do.”

  Sean sat back on his heels in shock, in utter speechless, devastated shock.

  “You’ve been pregnant since you got here? Didn’t it occur to you I might need to know this?”

  “Of course, it did. I told you I was hiding things, reasons I came home. You said—”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t know you were pregnant with some other guy’s kid. Jesus, I thought maybe you’d gotten kicked out of school or something because of your affair with...oh Christ, it’s the married professor’s, isn’t it?”

  She dropped her head, hair falling over her face, so similar of times in the past when Angie was hiding her shame at being pregnant. He felt his gut knot in sympathy. But anger, betrayal, kept him from reacting, from easing her pain. From touching her in care.

  “Yes.”

  Sean got up and threw a rock as far as he could hurl it. His emotions were big, huge, uncontrollable. He wanted to lash out, hard, and mean. “Great. Just great. Didn’t you learn anything when you were sixteen? Like how not to get pregnant? What’s wrong with you? Who gets knocked up once accidentally, claims it’s the biggest trauma of her life giving up that baby, and then does it again? You’re twenty-four years old, not sixteen. Whose fault is it this time? Because you can’t blame me this time.”

  “Sean, please—”

  “Oh, Sean, please. Please what? You know what? I did screw your mother, but I was single, you weren’t around, hadn’t been for years. And you know what? She was good at it. Fantastic. The best I ever had. That’s why I did it. Not to hurt you. Not to get over you. Because she was so damn good, and there was no reason not to. Turns out there still isn’t.”

  She huddled there. She didn’t look up. She didn’t move. She looked sixteen again, shuffling down the school corridor, big with his baby, hair straggly and long, limp over her face, her head down. Her shame evident in the slouch of her shoulders and her inability to meet anyone’s eye. Now she couldn’t meet his.

  Sean turned on his heel and left, sprinting until he reached his truck parked near his sister’s store. He stopped nearly dead when he noticed who leaned against the hood, waiting for him. Vanessa Peters.

  Chapter 15

  What had she expected? Sean to run to the store and buy her a baby rattle to show her he supported her? Had she really expected he would be fine with her news? No. She had known to her core he’d react as he did, as any man in his situation would have reacted. That was why she had not told him before. She’d hoped time would make him be more sympathetic simply because time together seemed to make him care more about her.

  She sat on the empty, deserted beach for a long while until she grew chilled. Finally, she stood up. She glared out at the water. Didn’t it represent exactly how she felt inside? Big, empty, endless. Wasn’t it just fitting all this happened here?

  The thing was she didn’t know exactly what had happened or what she felt. She was ashamed. She was scared. She was pregnant and alone. But too, Sean had slept with her mother. That wasn’t something she could simply get past. He’d had sex with her mother. With Vanessa. Her. Mother. It was in huge glaring, neon lights in her head. The images it evoked sickened her. Images she could conjure up from being with Sean. And he’d done all that with her mother? Multiple times? Who was he to get so mad at her? She’d been honest she wasn’t telling him everything. Her mistakes had happened before she’d come back to town. And he’d had the gall to act as if she’d been the one to hide everything and do everything wrong?

  He wasn’t exactly the sterling example of morality now, was he? Who was he to judge her so harshly?

&n
bsp; She trudged back to Main Street, only to stop dead when Sean’s truck past her. He didn’t see her, because he was deep in conversation with her mother, who was seated in the passenger seat. Angie felt her stomach cramp in pain. Was he taking her mother home?

  As much as Angie hated the beach and ocean, Sean loved it. He found it soothing, calming, made him get outside of his own head. He went there a lot, below his sister’s house, sometimes to jog, sometimes to just get outside, get a new perspective. Today he went there to keep his sanity.

  He sat on the bench, the bench he and Angie had shared their first kiss as adults on, looking down toward the beach, and surf coming in under the gray sky. Wind brushed over him, feeling good to his overheated brain. He swore he felt like steam should be coming out the top of his head.

  It had been three days since their confrontation on the beach. Three days, he’d seen Angie of course, passing her coming and going from his sister’s property. He simply ignored her. He didn’t go into the house. He went to the shop or stayed in his trailer. He caught her eye once or twice as she’d been coming in jogging, or going out in her car, but he looked away. He didn’t know what to do yet. What to say. He didn’t know who was angry, him or her. She was pregnant with someone else’s kid. She’d let a relationship develop between them without giving him even a chance to know that.

  But he’d slept with her mother. He was pretty sure by the dirty looks Angie was aiming his way; she wasn’t letting that one go easily, either. He really didn’t know where it left them.

  A hand touched his shoulder. His heart bumped into his ribs and dropped when his sister sat down, not Angie. What had he hoped? Angie would come down here and try to confront him? Angie didn’t confront anything head on, hence hiding her first pregnancy for almost six months, and her second for six weeks.

  “What happened?” Sarah asked without preamble as she sat down. “Angie looks as miserable and angry as you. She won’t talk. So, what is it, Sean?”

  “Maybe it’s Dad? Think of that? It’s only been a few weeks.”

  “I know how long it’s been. But his death isn’t this kind of anger. It’s more of a lingering sadness over what should have been. The loss of his place in our life. Am I right?”

  Sean shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, Sarah, I should have told you right off. Dad and I’s blood types don’t match. There’s no way he could have fathered me. I didn’t even have to do a full paternity test, just check blood types. They had to have known. Mom and dad. They had to have known my blood type when I was born. That’s why they never officially found out; they knew I wasn’t Denny Langston’s kid. They knew my father was the one who raped her.”

  Sarah paled and groped around until she found his hand. “Oh my God. Oh, Sean. You know it still changes nothing. For me. For you. For Mom. Even for Dad. He was who he was. He raised you the best he could, same as he did me. Really…he was a cold, energy-sucking person who never said a kind word or opinion in my lifetime. That wasn’t unique to you. So forget it. Forget how you came to be. I just care you did come to me. You’re my brother. Always. No matter what.”

  “You’re a loyal sister.”

  “I’m also right. I’m always right, you know, you have to listen to me. But still, what else is it? With Angie?”

  “That can’t be enough to freak me out?”

  “It could be if it was new for you. So what is it?”

  Sean glanced back at the view. He kept his eyes glued to the horizon. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Angie’s pregnant? Oh. Oh dear, I guess you two have some things to work out again. But it can’t be as bad as the first time. Everything’s different this time.”

  “I had the same reaction. Thing is, Sarah, it’s not mine. She was pregnant when she got here. That’s what sent her running here to Seaclusion to hibernate. As we all knew it was something big. Huge. Life changing. I shouldn’t have ignored what I knew to be true about Angie, just because I was so freaking happy she seemed to want to date me.”

  Sean glanced at Sarah. She seemed as shaken as he’d been by the news. How could Angie be in this situation twice?

  “Why didn’t she tell us? How could she not learn the first time around?”

  Sean scoffed. “Because there’s something wrong with her. She can’t trust anyone. Ever. Even with this.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. Come on, we both know that. She’s afraid of being hurt, to the point it leaves her almost paralyzed in life, and in all relationships.” Sarah squeezed his hand. “So, who’s the father?”

  Sean sighed heavily and shifted his gaze to his sister. “A professor of hers. He’s old. And married. It’s a bad situation.”

  Sarah shut her eyes and shook her head. “Damn her. But don’t you see, Sean? This professor, I’m sure was safe because he really couldn’t be hers, now could he? Did you ever think about why she chose who she did? She would rather have him be married to someone else than trying to get too close to her. You know that about her. You also know how close you’ve gotten the last few weeks. An idiot would be able to see that you somehow have gotten past several layers of her defenses. And I’ll give you that this news is big. It’s real. It’s scary. It’s something to deal with. But ignoring her, giving her the silent treatment, it’s what you did when you were fifteen. Don’t do it again.”

  “She’s mad at me too.”

  “Because you reacted badly?”

  “No.” He hesitated. But as with Angie there was just no way to politely tell someone you’d slept with your girlfriend’s mother. “Because I slept with her mother.”

  Sarah groaned and shoved his hand away. Sarah hated Vanessa with a strange, intense unholy passion. Sean knew that. It was one of the reasons Sarah didn’t know about Vanessa and him.

  “Why? I’m sorry I have to ask it. You could have a dozen girls in this town, or the next three over. Why her? Why Vanessa? She was never not Angie’s mother.”

  “I know. It isn’t anything I haven’t said to myself. Why? Because she came after me. It was easy. It was flattering. And she’s a good lay. That’s it. Why I did it.”

  “She’s a blood-sucking leech.”

  “She’s not that bad. Really, she’s not. She’s sad. She’s crass and rude, I’ll give you that, but she’s also all alone.”

  “Whose fault it that? Did you miss the part she neglects and torments Angie? Did you forget that?”

  “Angie was gone for over four years when this happened. She wasn’t exactly on my mind.”

  “It’s her mother.”

  “I see where you weigh in on this.”

  “Angie never really trusts people will love her unconditionally, no matter what, because her mother never loved her like that. So while you’re down here sulking because Angie wasn’t open and forthcoming with you, she’s eating her heart out that you’re never going to even talk to her again. Add that to the fact that she was falling in love with you, and you slept with the person who is the cornerstone for every negative and bad thought that Angie has. Think about that. Our mother is crazy, and doesn’t leave the house, but she loves us, both of us, unconditionally, you can’t deny that.”

  Sean stilled. “Angie doesn’t love me. Nothing close. I was lucky she had started to kind of like me.”

  “She’s in love with you. There are just about ten layers for her to work through to realize it, let alone admit it. And don’t discount the fact she’s known all along she’s pregnant, and she knows she’ll lose you over that. So how far could she really invest?”

  “She kept this for six weeks from you and Scott. Do you realize the kinds of secrets she can keep? Tell me how am I supposed to ever trust her? She can keep things, big things to herself like no one I’ve ever met.”

  “Time, Sean. You teach her to trust you so she doesn’t feel the need to keep it all to herself.”

  “What are you saying? I should keep seeing her? Pregnant and all? Do you forget a baby will result from this? What am I supposed to do? Pla
y daddy to it? Or what? Date her and pretend the baby isn’t there? It changes everything.”

  “It does. It really does. I don’t know what to tell you, or what you want to do. But I do know first and foremost you at least need to talk to her. Quit being so childish. Help her.”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t know if I can this time.”

  “You didn’t help her last time when it was your kid. Maybe you owe her this time.”

  Chapter 16

  “How far along are you, Angie?”

  Angie looked up when the door to her bedroom opened and Sarah came in, speaking without any preamble. As always Sarah would take charge, take the lead, deal with things head on in ways that intimidated Angie, scared her, but also she counted on from Sarah.

  “He told you?”

  “He told me. How far?”

  Angie looked down. “About ten weeks. I came straight here, when I realized.”

  “And school? Is there really a project or did you drop out?”

  “I took a leave of absence. Officially. Unofficially my adviser gave me this thesis. I’d do it anyway, so when I go back I should be able to graduate.”

  “Good, it would have been stupid to quit school.”

  Angie smiled; Sarah was in full deal-with-this-shit mode.

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Of course. I learned a few things last time. Each month. So far I’m healthy and fine. I’ve been taking my vitamins even.”

  “Are you keeping it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I meant to. I did. And then…Sean and I happened. I didn’t plan on him. I hated him when I got here. He’s just so different than I ever knew. And—”

  Sarah eyed her sharply. “I know what Sean is; you don’t have to tell me. Still, why not tell me?”

  “The father’s married. My professor.”

  “And where does he fit in?”

  “He doesn’t. I left town. He doesn’t know where I went or that I’m pregnant.”