Unbroken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 4)

by Vercier, Stephanie

  “Paige was in love with someone else,” I tell her. “I’m not.”

  “No? What about that ex of yours? Shawn is it?”

  I sigh. It doesn’t matter how she found out about Shawn, just that she did. “Garrett is well aware of that situation, and he knows I want nothing to do with him.”

  “You’re a pretty girl,” Skyler says, “and pretty young girls don’t always know what they want.”

  “I—”

  “I’m just saying, you better be damn sure it’s Garrett you want and just as sure you can give him everything he needs. He’s my brother, and I love him, and he deserves the best. Can you give him the best… give him everything he needs?”

  I turn to Meg who thankfully is so busy playing with her bath toys and talking to herself that she doesn’t notice the whispered words between Skyler and myself. There are moments I believe I am the best for Garrett, that I can give him everything he wants and needs, assured by his very own words. But all it takes to be knocked down a peg or two is for someone like Skyler to question it, for me to start imagining that, given another year or two, that Garrett might start to think like Shawn did, that he might not think I’m good enough. It’s the kind of thinking that makes me want to grab up my skin and twist. But that seems so silly now, a diversion, a temporary reprieve from thinking that doesn’t do anything at all to help in the long run.

  “All I can do is try,” I tell her, standing stall, making sure there is conviction in my voice.

  “Trying isn’t always good enough.” Skyler turns from me, walks down the hallway and disappears.

  I’m left standing there, half frozen.

  She knows.

  And it doesn’t matter how.

  I thought I had a handle on her, thought I’d earned her trust or respect or something. But her words were harsher than they needed to be, maybe words she’d regret or hadn’t even planned on saying but did because she thinks she’s looking out for her brother. A part of me wonders if she’s punishing me for what Paige did, thinks my sister and I are cut from the same cloth, and that, given enough time, I’ll break Garrett’s heart too.

  And why should Garrett be spurned by a girl who can’t even have a baby?

  That’s what Skyler probably really wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  But she doesn’t know me, not really. And even though I don’t owe her a damn thing, I decide then and there I’ll prove her wrong.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  KATE

  Edina.

  That’s the town Meg was talking about. It’s an affluent suburb west of Minneapolis with lots of trees and some fairly large homes.

  We’ve received more information on Meg. Her last name, like Kayla’s, is Millbanks, but the father on Meg’s birth certificate is listed as unknown. However, some of Kayla’s friends have been talking, say that the man Kayla had lived with on and off is Milton Beers, a player for the Minnesota Vikings.

  “Milton?” Garrett of course knew him—he was his teammate. And after he’d allowed this information to settle for a few minutes, he’d gotten this look on his face, like a light bulb moment you don’t want to have.

  And I’d known just what that moment was about. I’d looked up a picture of Milton online, and Meg was his spitting image.

  So going in for the results of the DNA test today seems an almost pointless task. In fact, social services is already trying to contact Milton or any of his or Kayla’s family. As Garrett and I enter Dr. Cramer’s office at the small clinic in town, we already know the answer he’s about to give us.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that the child in question is not your daughter,” Dr. Cramer says, his hands folded on the desk we sit across from him at. “I know this isn’t a shock, but I also understand you’ve likely become attached to the child.”

  Garrett doesn’t say a word, and I take his hand, which he barely accepts.

  “I’ll report these findings to social services,” Dr. Cramer tacks on when neither Garrett nor I say anything. “Once they find the mother or father, I imagine they’ll be wanting to send the child back. But until then—”

  “Her name is Meg,” I say to Dr. Cramer, not really a fan of him or his somewhat dismissive demeanor. “Not child… Meg. Thank you for the confirmation, though.” I turn to my side, already gathering my purse, ready to go. “Garrett?”

  It actually takes some prodding for Garrett to even notice I’d said anything and finally to stand. He still has a dazed expression on his face once we’ve entered the parking lot, and I realize I’m the one that is going to have to drive. He gets into the passenger seat without argument, and I pull the driver’s seat of his truck up as far as I can.

  “We kind of already knew,” I tell him, putting his keys into the ignition. “It’s going to be okay.”

  He doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes and nods so imperceptibly that I barely catch it.

  Inside, my heart is breaking, and my guts feel like they’re being twisted and turned, then beaten and bloodied by some unseen fists that I can’t stop no matter how hard I might try. But on the outside, I try to hold it together, driving us back to Garrett’s parents’ where Meg is at.

  I want to cry and scream, but I don’t. What good would it do? Meg will likely be taken away from us, no thread of DNA to keep her tethered to Garrett. And gone too will be the ease with which our new little family might have begun with a little girl dropped on Garrett’s porch. Gone is the idea of her being our own.

  “Sorry for being such a baby,” Garrett finally tells me when we pull up to his family house. “I just…” he shakes his head. “I was holding out an ounce of hope she was mine. It was stupid, but I was.”

  “I know.” I place my hand on his, and he looks at me, offering me a slight smile.

  When we enter the house, everyone has a look of anticipation in their eyes. Like Garrett, his mother and father and Skyler and Matt, maybe even Charlotte and Wayne who are in school, all have been holding out some hope that Meg belonged to them, to their tribe. She’s a hard girl not to love, a girl that would be nearly impossible to say goodbye to.

  “Where is she?” Garrett asks, entering the dining room where everyone is gathered around cups of coffee and applesauce cake.

  “She’s playing up in Charlotte’s room. What are the results?” Skyler asks this, but she surely must already know the answer just by the look on her brother’s face.

  Garrett shakes his head, and the light seems to be sucked right out of the room.

  “I’m sorry, son.” His father stands slowly from his chair and walks over to Garrett. He hugs him, and then Garrett begins to cry. It’s a tender moment between a father and son, but I wish it didn’t have to be because of Meg.

  Meg skips in just then, her Elsa doll held tight, Henry the bear now relegated to being her second favorite toy. I cut her off before she can go any further, before she can see the tears that her having to go away are causing.

  “He’s crying.” Meg has seen anyway, and I have to coax her a little harder to get her into the family room. “Why is he crying?”

  “He’ll be all right.” It’s Skyler who says this, who has followed us out from the dining room. “He’s just sad about something.”

  “What is he sad about?” Meg pulls herself onto the couch, nesting Elsa close.

  Skyler looks at me, like she has no idea at all what to say.

  “He just got some bad news,” I tell Meg, feeling as though I could fall apart just as easily as Garrett had, feeling as though I’m just about to.

  Skyler goes to Meg and sits next to her, puts her arm around her and strokes her head. She is a mother and a protector, and even if she’s been hard on me, I know that Meg will be safe here with her.

  “There’s something at Garrett’s I need to grab.” I say this in a burst of words, holding my insides tight so that I don’t start to cry. I bend down and kiss Meg on her forehead. “I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t be gone so long!” Meg calls to me.
r />   “I won’t,” I say, looking at her and Skyler both before I slip out of the house.

  * * *

  The tears came hard and fast the moment I’d stepped out the door. I’d pretty much run to Garrett’s, left a note for him and then climbed into my car. At first, I’d planned on going to my Mom’s, but she and Clark wouldn’t be there at this time of day, and there was no way I was going to burden my grandmother with everything I was feeling.

  And so I drove, am still driving as I’m wracked with sobs and taking the exit off the freeway into downtown Spokane and then up the hill until I find Paige and Evan’s house and park outside. Even pregnant, Paige is still teaching and won’t be home for some time, and I’m never sure of Evan’s always changing schedule, but I don’t feel as though I have anywhere else to go, and so I stay.

  It’s a long wait, time I spend thinking. There are moments I’m ready to start the car back up and go right back to Basin Lake, wanting to return to Garrett and what little time is left with Meg. But I stop myself because no matter how much Garrett has tried to make me believe he’d never leave me, I still keep thinking he just might.

  It had been his tears over Meg that had convinced me that Garrett had wanted his own child more than he’d let on. He had to know the DNA test would prove he wasn’t Meg’s father, and yet it still crushed him. So, he could tell me all he wanted that he’d never need his own child, but his reaction proved otherwise, at least to me.

  The tap at my window scares me enough that I jump and accidentally hit the horn. When I see that it’s Paige, I put a hand of recognition up, then step out of the car.

  “Is everything all right?” Her purse is slung over her shoulder along with a book bag full of papers, watercolor art peeking out of the top, her expression one of concern.

  There is really no way for me to tell her it is. I’m sure my eyes are puffy and that mascara has run down my cheeks in inky black rivers. “Not really,” I finally say.

  “Let’s get you inside.” She offers a soft smile and an encompassing arm as she guides me toward the house.

  Over a hot cup of tea, a slice of fresh lemon floating at the top, I don’t hold back and tell Paige absolutely everything, about Meg, her mother, Skyler, the DNA test and finally Garrett’s reaction to it.

  She sets her own cup of tea down and eases back into her chair, resting her hand on her pregnant belly. “That’s an awful lot,” she finally says. “I can see why you feel so overwhelmed.”

  “Afraid is more like it. I’m really not sure I can be what Garrett needs.”

  Paige reaches over to me and puts her hand on mine. “I know a little bit about how Garrett thinks, Kate, and when he sets his mind to loving someone, then he’s going to love you and not need you to be perfect.”

  “But he might change his mind. He dated Beth in high school, didn’t he? And then he broke up with her to be with you. He moved on… just like that.”

  Paige gives me one of those looks older sisters give you, a look that says she knows so much more than you ever could. “It wasn’t like that at all, Kate. He and Beth were destined for friendship—even without me in the picture. They were going to break up when he went off to college, and she eventually realized it was for the best. And he and I were destined just for friendship too. Whoever he’s been with in the interim, they’ve been placeholders. He’s been waiting to really love someone, and that someone is you, no matter what his older sister says or how unsure you feel.”

  I want to believe her, and maybe I should, but all I can do is bury my face in my hands and cry. They are tears of sadness for Meg and tears of anger at myself for not seeming to have the capacity to believe I might actually be worth something, to truly believe Garrett will always be there for me without the doubt that keeps coming round, time and again. It makes me feel weak and uncertain, and I hate it.

  “Can I stay here… at least for tonight?” I ask once I’ve at least partially composed myself.

  “Of course you can,” Paige says, her hand on my back. “You can stay as long as you like.”

  “Thank you.” I’m grateful to be close to my family again, to know I can go to them when I’m hurting.

  Maybe one night away will be enough, for me to find the strength, once and for all, to stop doubting and to believe fully in Garrett’s love.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  GARRETT

  “Is Kate there?” I ask Paige. I’m not sure why I didn’t think to call her sooner after finding the note Kate left for me on the dining room table.

  “Why should she be?” she returns.

  “Because she left me a note, and I can’t track her down. I’ve called and looked everywhere I can think of. It’s been hours, and I’m starting to worry.”

  “Maybe she needs some time on her own.” She says this without concern, which leads me to believe she knows something or that she’s probably there.

  “Is she there or not?” I ask, not as nicely as I had the first time, my irritation growing.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Fine… can you have her call me if you hear from her? I really need to talk to her.”

  “I will,” she says, “but don’t worry. She is an adult.”

  “Yeah… sure.” I hang up and pinch the skin of my throat. I’m pretty sure Paige is lying, that she knows exactly where Kate is. And, in a way, that eases my worry about her physical safety, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to talk to her, wanting to discuss the note she left.

  “You didn’t answer the door,” Skyler says, appearing in the entrance to the dining room.

  “Sorry.” I hold up the note Kate left. “I was on the phone with Paige… I didn’t hear you.”

  “She left a note?” Skyler walks over, and I hand it to her.

  I hadn’t even known Kate had left my parents’ house until I’d gone to look for her, and Skyler said she was running back to my house to grab something. I figured it had to be something for Meg, so I didn’t worry, not until ten minutes had turned to twenty and then thirty. She hadn’t answered my calls, so I’d hurried back to the house and found the note, then driven myself across town looking for her while calling everyone I could think of, Paige being last on my list when maybe she should have been first.

  “‘I need some time on my own to think, and maybe you need some time too,’” Skyler begins, reading the note out loud. “‘I could see how devastated you were that Meg wasn’t your own, and I think you need that, to have a child who has the same eyes and nose and mouth as you. I can never give that to you. I don’t think I’ll ever be enough.’” Skyler looks up to me, then lowers her gaze just as quickly. “I feel awful.”

  I pull out a chair and sit, feeling absolutely drained. “Yeah, well, how do you think I feel? She thinks that I’m lying to myself or something when I tell her she’s more important than being able to have our own kids someday. I thought we were over this.”

  Skyler sits across from me, sets the note in front of her and looks over it again. “I’ve been very unkind to her. I should have been as understanding as when you first told me about her condition, but—”

  “What do you mean? Did you say something to upset her?” Skyler can be tough—it’s part of who she is. But I’d be disappointed in my sister if she’d said something to make Kate feel as though she had to run.

  “I’m sure I did.” She sighs, closes her eyes and shakes her head. “That time she brought Meg for a bath, I asked her if she could be what you really needed. I was unfair, and I lumped her in with Paige, even with what I knew… I’m sorry… I really am.”

  It almost doesn’t matter to me what Skyler said because everything in that note was about me, not my sister. “I told her the only way she’d hurt me is to leave me… and that’s what she’s done... and now Meg.” I could probably cry again, but I don’t. If anything, I’m starting to feel numb about this entire thing. I’m used to things not working out where love is concerned, so why should now be any different?

  S
he reaches her hand across the table and takes mine. “You’re crushed. You thought she was yours.”

  I nod. It’s all I can do.

  “So, maybe Kate is right? Maybe you do need to meet a woman who… well, someone who can give you your own child? I’m sure that my friend, Melody, is still—”

  Looking up at my sister, I let out a sharp laugh. “Seriously, Skyler? You really just said that?”

  “I don’t know what to say. I just want you to be sure of this.”

  “I am sure. And you know what? I could care less if Meg is related to me by blood or not. The only reason it mattered was because it would have kept her in our lives. I couldn’t give a shit about DNA, sis. All I know is that I love Kate and I’ve grown to love that little girl, and the idea of losing both of them is just too damn fucking much!”

  Skyler doesn’t cry often, but tears form in her eyes. “Then I was wrong, and you have to find Kate. And maybe Kayla doesn’t want Meg. Maybe there’s some way to keep her?”

  “I don’t know… maybe. But finding Kate first… how the hell can I do that if she doesn’t want to be found? How can I ever convince her if she doesn’t believe enough in me? Maybe I should just give her the time she’s asking—”

  “No! You have to try,” Skyler says resolutely. “I’ll head back to the house—Meg will be fine with us. And I’ll talk to Matt… to Mom and Dad. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure something out or at the very least create a united front to help protect that little girl. All you have to do is go and find Kate and make her believe.”

  “You’re on board with all of this, then? You won’t try to push Kate away?”

  She almost breaks into another round of tears before she stops herself and straightens her posture. “You can trust me. I’ll be in her corner too.”