I’m delighted I’m having a girl, but feel a profound sadness that I’m not going through the pregnancy with Ryder by my side.
I know I need to tell him about our baby, but I need more time for my heart to start to heal because it still feels broken into tiny pieces.
Once I’d started moving on with my life, I started to realize that I should have confronted Ryder instead of taking the coward’s way out. I should have made him explain to me why he felt he had to stop the divorce, and let me go.
Thinking back, none of it made sense, but it was too late now, and he hasn’t even tried to get in touch with me. Not even a text.
I’d spoken to Mia a few weeks ago and she’d admitted that Ryder hadn’t asked anyone where I’d gone. Needless to say, I’d cried myself to sleep for the rest of the week.
But feeling my baby tossing and turning in my belly had brought me out of the slump I’d fallen back into, and of course, watching Max work out caused a distraction from my thoughts.
Max is well toned and doesn’t have use for a gym since he makes use of the obstacles around the park. Apparently, what he does is known as parkour. I mean, who knew? That was definitely a new one for me.
He certainly gets a workout, while I get mine from watching him. He’s exhausting.
And talking about exhausting, Daisy, from the coffee shop where I’ve been working four hours a day during the week, has sent me home today because, according to her, I look sick.
I feel tired but fine and I do worry on a daily basis about my baby and how I’m going to break it to Ryder about his pending fatherhood. Not only that, but I’m worried, or more like terrified, that he won’t want anything to do with his daughter.
He doesn’t come across as someone who’d do that, especially with how his conscience over Brittany affected him. But the worry is there at the back of my mind, and it won’t budge.
I’m kind of trying to avoid Max today, after having to listen to his lecture last night about not going to see Ryder.
Max is, or was, a college professor so he’s used to giving lectures, and boy, does he. Luckily, I’ve only earned the privilege of listening to him about three times since we’ve known each other. I’m good with that.
“What are you smiling at?” Max interrupts, as he walks into the house
So much for avoiding him today.
“How lucky I am to have only had three lectures from you since we met.” I smirk.
Max throws his head back and roars with laughter.
“Keep doing as you’re told and you won’t have another one.”
I toss a cushion from the sofa at him, which he catches.
“Nice throw.” He leans over the back of the sofa to look at me. “How are you feeling?” He places his hand on my stomach.
“I’m all right. Daisy said I looked sick and sent me home. Do I look sick?”
“A bit pale maybe, but it’s your usual color.” He grins. “I’m serious, Dahlia. You’re always pale, even from the first.”
“Well, apart from feeling tired, I’m good.”
Max slumps in the chair opposite.
“I wouldn’t mind going for a short walk along the beach.”
He rolls his eyes and moves toward me, picking my fake UGGS up from the floor.
I love the beach but hate the sand constantly getting in my shoes so I’d purchased these boots—problem solved. When I’d first arrived, it hadn’t been a problem since the snow and ice had hardened the sand but now, with the early arrival of spring, the sand filled every pair of shoes that I owned, and it was still too cold to walk barefoot.
Max shoves them on my feet before holding his hand out to me. He makes a fake groan as he hauls me from the sofa. I laugh and swat at him . . . I’m so not that big . . . yet.
Sometimes, I feel like a beached whale and I still have close to five months to go.
The swell of my stomach has seen me investing in a few yoga pants and tee shirts so that I’m comfortable.
Grabbing a sweatshirt Max tosses to me, I pull it on to keep the slight chill of the evening away. It can be breezy walking along the beach.
Taking his hand, he leads me down the path to the beach and our very own piece of heaven.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryder
Gripping the steering wheel in my fists, and with my forehead pressed tight up against it, I find I don’t give a shit if anyone sees me with tears running down my face.
It’s taken weeks to finally get here to Dahlia. My intention had been to find her and check on her weeks ago, but then Evan had called, saying Brittany’s last request was to spend some time with me, her husband.
So with a heavy heart, I’d spent each day with her until she passed away while I’d been holding her hand three weeks ago.
I’d read to her and we’d talked. A lot about Dahlia because she’d asked, and continued to ask. She’d apologized for screwing up my life, and told me that no matter what happens, I had to go after Dahlia as soon as she’d left this world.
In the end, we’d become friends of sorts, and yes I’d cried when she’d died. No matter what her lies cost us both, in the end, she didn’t deserve the life she’d been dealt. How could I not have compassion? I’m not an uncaring bastard, which I’d tried to be for years. I’d been running in fear.
I couldn’t come after Dahlia as soon as I was free because I needed to get my head on right. I need to be focused. My wife, who I’d spent most of our married life hating, had died after we’d made a truce. It was a hard transition to make, and I couldn’t come to Dahlia while my head was screwed up.
Unfortunately, for Reece, he found me when I was going through the angry, denial stage and by the time we’d both finished, it was a tossup as to who was hurt the most.
While Callie had been patching us both up, I’d admitted the truth about everything, and the fact that Dahlia had no idea about what had been going on, and about the way my screwed up mind had been thinking.
That’s why, yesterday, Reece gave me Dahlia’s address.
And now I wish he hadn’t.
Seeing her wrapped up in the arms of another guy with both their arms resting on the large swell of her stomach has just ripped what’s left of my heart right out of my fuckin’ chest.
She’s supposed to be mine. She’s supposed to be pregnant with my child, not someone else’s. I’m obviously so easily replaced.
Lifting my head, I notice they’ve disappeared so, grabbing a shirt from my bag, I use it to wipe my face. The last thing I need is to get in a wreck.
I head back to the airport and hope I can get a return flight today because I’m sure as hell not hanging around any longer than I need to.
But how the fuck can she do this to me? To us?
I swipe at another tear with anger as I try to calm down.
It’s a short ride to the airport, which I’m thankful for.
As soon as I enter the small terminal, I go to the restrooms to wash my face. Glancing in the mirror above the sink, it doesn’t look like me anymore. My eyes are red rimmed with heartbreak, and my jaw is tense from holding my emotions in check. God help anyone back home who gets in my way.
Grabbing my bag, I make my way to the check-in desk and manage to get a flight back.
While going through the motions of the ticket, security, boarding and then the flight, and landing back home, there is a part of me that says I should have stayed and called her on it. Asked her what the fuck she thinks she’s doing?
If I hadn’t seen her swollen with his child, I know that I would have done just that. But knowing she’ll never belong to me again, and that someone else is responsible for giving her a child, kills me.
I need to numb the pain and forget about her but something tells me she’s always going to be with me and that I’ll never be free. I mean, for fucks sake, she’s the only woman to enter my heart and I meant every word of ‘I love you’ when I spoke them.
Perhaps if I’d gone after her in the beginni
ng and explained the reason for my harsh decision when talking to Jace, then maybe she would have still been with me . . . or maybe not.
Not wanting to head home and face my lonely apartment when the plane lands, I turn my truck to Skeeter’s, the bar Jace hangs out in.
At this time, he’ll be here, grabbing dinner and a drink before he leaves for his empty house. I’ve always thought he loved his solitude but for a while now I think his main reason for spending so much time at Skeeter’s is for company. He’s lonely. God, is this how I’m going to end up? Because the thought of not having Dahlia in my life, and knowing she’s having someone else’s child, causes the air I breathe to freeze in my lungs.
I push my way through Skeeter’s and spot my brother in a booth, alone and nursing a beer.
He’s surprised when I slide in opposite him but, before he can comment, a waitress sidles up to the table for my order. I order the same as Jace before briefly meeting his gaze, which is full of curiosity.
“How long are you going to sit there until you tell me what’s going on? And why you are sitting opposite me instead of being in a different state?” He leans forward in his seat and refuses to let me look anywhere but at him.
I sigh and feel emotion choking me.
“Fuck,” he curses. “Tell me.”
“She’s with someone else.” His eyes widen. I might as well get it all out. “She’s . . . she’s pregnant.”
“What the fuck?”
“With him?”
“There was no one else there, so I presume so.”
“You didn’t ask her?”
“What was the point?”
He sits back, his mouth opening and closing a few times. “You didn’t talk to her?”
I shake my head. “She was walking on the beach and then the guy came up behind her. They both rested their hands on her sto . . . stomach,” I trip over the last word.
It still hasn’t sunk in yet that she really is out of my life. That she’s chosen a different direction for herself with someone else.
I feel the tears threatening again, so as soon as the server places my drink down I pick it up and down it in one, and, seconds later, I watch Jace do the same.
Neither of us dig into the food when it’s delivered. We just sit and stare at the other. Me wanting Jace to tell me I’ve been dreaming, but I’ve no clue as to what he’s thinking. He’s good at masking his thoughts, and I guess he’s had lots of practice.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you find some way of talking to her when she’s alone and asking her what’s going on. Because you only saw, perhaps a brief hug, which you could have wrongly misinterpreted.”
“I saw what I saw. I’m not wrong.”
He picks up his knife and fork and shovels a huge amount of the chicken casserole into his mouth. His eyes stay glued to me while he chews. Taking a drink of his new beer that arrived with the food, he places it back down. “If you truly believe that what you saw is fact, and you’re refusing to go and talk to her, then I hope, for your sake, it is the truth. Because if you find out down the line that all you saw was a new friend giving her a hug of encouragement to try and cheer her up because she was missing you, then you’re going to have to live with that.”
I try to eat some of the chicken, but my stomach doesn’t want it. All my heart and soul want is Dahlia.
Dahlia
Today, I’m officially five months pregnant, twenty weeks, and I’ve decided to go back to Alabama to talk to Ryder before I’m too far along in my pregnancy to fly.
Although I need to see him again, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what he’ll say when he sees me pregnant with his child. It’s not as though I can hide it now and work up to telling him. I mean at five months my stomach is already quite large. So much so that I struggle to fasten laces on my shoes, because my stomach gets in the way.
Before I do anything though, I’m going to have breakfast with Max and tell him my decision to finally make the trip back. Even though he’s been supporting my decision, I know the fact that I’ve been keeping my news from Ryder has been bothering Max.
My intention was always to tell him. No matter how much it hurts, I don’t have it in me to keep him from his daughter. He should, at least, have the decision to make for himself instead of me making it for him because of my broken heart, and his fear of rejecting his child.
Struggling up from the bed, I’m happy that the morning sickness everyone talks about stayed well away from me. I seriously don’t know what I’d have done if I’d suffered with that on top of everything else.
In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face to wake me up, and brush my hair before clipping it up on the top of my head. After relieving my bladder and washing up, I head to the kitchen, which is where I can hear the clatter of pots.
Max loves to cook, which has been a godsend, because I don’t and when I do, it doesn’t turn out very well.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Max chirps from the stove, making his usual, blueberry pancakes.
“Morning.” I sit where he points with the spatula.
After the first morning we met, he’s always happy first thing in the morning, and at first, he’d start going into himself during the course of the day, but now he stays smiling throughout the day. Occasionally, I’ll catch a glimpse of his sadness, but it isn’t ruling his life, at least it doesn’t appear to be. Just like Ryder isn’t in my every waking thought.
I do think about him on a daily basis, and I miss him even more than I can ever say, but I have our baby growing inside me. I need to keep my emotions and wellbeing in the feeling good bracket. It isn’t easy, but nothing in life is, and I know after I’ve seen Ryder that the pain is going to be at the front again.
“Why do you look as though you have the world on your shoulders?” Max finally asks, placing my breakfast in front of me along with a small jug of maple syrup.
Taking a sip of the juice he passes me, I admit, “I’m going to book a flight to see Ryder and tell him.”
He pauses with the fork halfway to his mouth.
“I’m going to go now before I get any bigger, and so I don’t have the worry about telling him on my mind any longer. It worries me and it’s at the back of my mind all the time.”
“You know this makes me happy.” He continues with his breakfast. “Do you want me to come with you?”
My eyes fill with tears at his offer. “Thank you, but I’ll be okay.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry honey, but I’m not going to take no for an answer. I’m going with you. We’ll book our flights after breakfast, and I’ll get a rental to get us around while we’re there.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything.” He pats my hands. “I’m your friend and not exactly doing anything right now, and you’re pregnant and might need a back rub or a foot massage . . . or, you know, I may have to pick something up off the floor for you.”
Just about to shove a huge chunk of pancake into my mouth, I try to scowl at him. Finally, giving up, I smirk. “Well, how can I say no to that?”
As I accept, I realize I do want him with me. He’s become a good friend since we met, and if it hadn’t been for him, I’d probably still be wallowing in self-pity.
“Are you going to let Reece know you’re coming back?”
“I’m not going to tell him beforehand, but I will call and see him after I’ve talked to Ryder. No one back home knows I’m pregnant, apart from Mia. I trust her to keep it to herself, but I didn’t want to risk anyone else slipping up and telling Ryder.”
“Good choice. Okay.” He points his fork at me. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast and then go and look flights up while I sort the dishes out. Once that’s done, we’re going to pay a visit to Theresa in the hairdresser’s next door to the café and get that head of hair glossy and sexy.”
I raise a brow. “We are?”
“Yes. And we’re going to go and get you a sexy, little dress.
Well,” his gaze sweeps over me as he tries to hide the smirk, “as little as your baby will allow.”
He laughs and I start laughing with him. I’ve known him long enough to know that these little jokes are there to make me laugh. “Honestly, you are beautiful Dahlia, but we are going to make you look your best so you can go back there and knock him on his ass so he sees what he gave up.”
“Okay,” I mumble, feeling choked on tears.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ryder
“You have to fuckin’ stop this.” Jace stands before me looking ready to knock my head off.
I’m doing what I’ve done for years; hiding my pain behind anger. The thing is I am angry. I’m angry at Brittany for constantly screwing up my life, even though I told her I forgave her before she died. She seemed to need that and at the time, I truly did. I’m angry at Dahlia for walking away instead of staying and facing me—calling me on what she’d overheard. I’m fucking’ heartbroken that she’s pregnant by someone else.
I’d planned a life with her and she ran, straight into the arms of another man. So yeah, I’m fuckin’ pissed. That is, until I close my eyes and my heart shatters all over again. I still miss her. I still love her. She’s the only woman I want.
“How are Mom and Dad?” I ask, wanting to deflect the talk I know is seconds from coming out of his mouth.
“They’re fine, which you’d know if you bothered to visit or didn’t disappear when you spot Mom arriving here. You have to stop avoiding us.”
“Oh, that’s great coming from you.”
His jaw flexes. Yeah, I’ve hit a nerve but he has no right to accuse me of doing the same thing he did once he was back on his feet.
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