by Annie Stone
She smiles. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know.”
She chews on her lip before she looks me in the eyes. “I was so happy this one weekend.”
“Me too,” I say, my voice a little hoarse, knowing exactly what she’s talking about.
“It was perfect.”
“It was.”
She nods. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand the situation like I should have, Hunter. I wanted to take your hand that day. I really did, but…”
“But what?”
Her fingers close around my arms more tightly. “But… You didn’t do anything wrong that night Hunter, but I did. I was in a relationship, and I cheated on Carter. The fact that he caught us was the worst possible way for him to find out. I wanted to talk to him and apologize. Explain it to him. I mean, it must have been such a shock to find us, you know?”
“I don’t feel sorry for him,” I almost spit out. “Plus, you seem to have forgotten that he cheated on you, too. There’s no reason to put all the blame on yourself. Besides, you could have sorted all that out later. In that moment, you should have taken my hand, Mac. You really should have! How could you not? How could you let me believe you were choosing Dad?”
“I’m so sorry, Hunter. I made a huge mistake! I’m so incredibly sorry. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“I was so mad at you. And so hurt. Up to that point, you’d always done the right thing, but when you did that, I just wanted to rip your head off!”
“I know! If I could change it I would! I swear. I only wanted you. Only you! The thing with Carter and me…” She bites her tongue.
“Say it. I need to know, even if I don’t really want to know.”
“I’d been feeling like I was just a nanny for him for a while…”
I frown. “That he was only with you so you’d watch Carey?”
She nods. “He’d been off in New York for months.”
“Does that mean…you didn’t have sex with him for months?”
She shakes her head. “That’s how I knew immediately that only you could be Hazel’s dad.”
“And after that?” I ask, just to make sure.
“Of course not! I was in love with you! I wouldn’t sleep with anybody else.”
I’m stunned. “You haven’t had sex since that night we spent together?”
She shakes her head and murmurs, “No.”
I want to rip my shirt off and drum my chest with my fists while grunting. Of course, I don’t do that. Instead, I murmur, “Hmm.”
“What?” she asks, and I kind of want to hide my face in my hands.
But I have to get this out there. “I stopped sleeping around when I fell in love with you.”
Her eyes widen. “You were seventeen.”
I shrug. “I stopped sleeping with that girl… What was her name? After that, I never fucked anybody else until that night we spent together.”
“That’s more than three years,” she states unnecessarily, because obviously, I know that. I can even tell you the number of days and hours.
“I know. My hand was so sore.”
“But you were being an ass.”
“Yes. Initially because I hated you, and later because I wanted you so much.”
“And after our night together?”
I swallow hard. “Not going to lie, Mac. I was desperate after that. So when I was in Virginia between my first and second deployments, I met a few women.”
She bites her lip. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” I say quickly.
She smiles a little. “I hate that you slept with other women.”
“I know.”
“But…had you lost all hope that we would end up together?”
“Yes,” I say. “And my balls were so blue, they would have dropped off.”
“Hunter!” she squeals, exasperated.
I grin. “Just telling you the truth, baby.” I bend forward, breathing against her ear. “But I only ever saw you.”
A shudder runs down her back, and every hair on her arms stands up.
“And your perfect tits,” I add, grabbing them.
She lets me for a second before she says, “I wrote you so many emails. Tons of them! I wrote that I loved you, that I was pregnant. I tried to call you. Carey tried to call you. I was so worried about you! Both times!”
My hands release her breasts. It doesn’t feel right to touch her like that while she’s so vulnerable.
“I spent every night lying awake, cursing the decision I made that day,” she confesses. “I could have endured so much more of Carter’s rage if…”
“What?” I ask, shocked. “Carter’s rage? What does that mean? Mac, what did he do to you?”
She bites her lip. Obviously, she didn’t mean to reveal this. “It’s over now.”
“Oh, no,” I snap. “Tell me!” But she only looks down. “Tell me, Mac! Or I’ll ask Carey.”
She must realize he would tell me, because she says, “He was verbally abusive and threatened to sue me for seducing minors.”
I frown, anger rising in me. “Minors, plural?”
“He accused me of sleeping with Carey…when he was fifteen. And… Oh God!” She buries her face in her hands.
Gently, I peel them away. “And then?”
“Then…” She shakes her head.
“I need to know, Mac. I need to know.”
Tears run down her cheeks. “He grabbed my hair…”
Oh my God! What? Fuck! “Mac, did he… Did he…?”
“He threw me against the wall, and then…”
Red creeps into my field of vision. Everything inside me is coiled. I want to… I want to… What do I want to do?
Kill him. He hurt Mac. Mac, of all people. Who has gone through so much shit already. And he knows that.
“And then he hit me in the face,” she finishes in a rush.
It takes all my strength for me to stay where I am instead of marching right to New York on my new prosthetic to strangle him. “And then what happened?” I grind out.
“And then Carey was there to protect me,” she said quickly. “He has always protected me.”
I nod. I owe my brother so much. And my father? “I’m going to kill him.”
“Hunter, don’t—”
“Mac, he knew what happened to you! He knew it! And he still hit you. In spite of everything. If I ever see him again, I’m going to break more than just his nose.”
Her fingers reach around my face. “No, Hunter! We’re leaving the past behind us after today. Those were your words! We need to let go of the past.”
“Our past, Mac. But this is between Carter and me.”
“Hunter, please…”
I put my hands on hers. “I promise you I’m not going to drive out to New York while you’re sleeping. But if I ever see him again, I’m not going to be able to keep quiet…”
She sighs. “Okay…”
“You will not keep any secrets from me, Mac,” I say seriously. “It is my job to make sure you and Hazel are okay. You will not keep secrets from me. And you’ll let me take care of them. Is that clear?” My eyes bore into hers until she finally nods.
“Okay. But—”
“No buts. I’m your man.”
I can see arousal flooding through her. Through the fabric of her top, I see her nipples getting hard.
“Why now?” she suddenly calls out, sounding upset. “And why couldn’t you just give me a chance to explain things to Carter?”
“Because you broke my fucking heart, Mac! I didn’t even know how to keep functioning!”
“And then you just went off to Afghanistan! How do you think I’d have functioned if you’d been killed over there? I couldn’t have lived with the guilt!” Her voice is shrill, and there’s pain in her eyes.
“I couldn’t stay!” I yell. “I had no hope left! If you could leave me after telling me you loved me, then… Fuck! Mac! You said you loved me, and then you chose him! My
heart was shredded!”
“I did not choose him! I chose you!” she yells right back.
From the outside, this must be a great show. She’s sitting on my lap as we touch each other, yelling.
“But I didn’t know, because you didn’t take my fucking hand!” I cry.
“Because I wanted to apologize to Carter!”
“Fuck that! If the man you love stretches out his hand, you fucking take it!”
“And when the woman you love repeatedly sends you emails telling you she’s pregnant, you read them!”
“Why has Carey seen your pussy?” I scream.
“Because—” Her brows drop. Her open mouth, ready to scream drifts closed like a deflating balloon. “Wait, what?”
“Carey said he saw your vagina.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, because he’s an ass. I wanted Sheila to be with me when Hazel was born, but it was Carey. I told him to stay in the safe zone, near my head, but he just had to be the one to catch the baby and cut the umbilical cord.”
Oh. I’m quiet for a second. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Me too.”
“I wish I’d seen her when she was a tiny baby.”
Tears run down Mac’s cheeks. “I would have loved to see you together.”
I pull her to me, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “Thank you for giving me such a wonderful gift.”
“Thank you.”
We hold each other, reminiscing and dreaming about the could-haves, would-haves, and should-haves of our relationship.
“I couldn’t read your emails,” I finally explain. “I thought you were saying goodbye to me. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. As long as you hadn’t told me it was over, I could still live in my imagination.”
She nods, stroking my cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Hunter. It’s my fault.”
I shake my head. “No. It was both of ours.”
She leans her forehead against mine. “Have you read my emails now?”
“No, I haven’t had access to a computer.”
“Okay. Then wait. Don’t read them yet.”
“Why?”
“I want to give you the things I made for you. Then you can read everything and look at everything in chronological order.”
I nod. “I cannot believe you chronicled every single day of Hazel’s life for me.”
“And every day of my pregnancy, since I found out.”
I smile and kiss her. “You’re really something, baby.”
She shrugs. “Yup. I’m in love.”
I scoot away from her a little so I can look her in the eyes. “I want to be with you, but…”
“But?” she says, fear pervading her voice.
“I don’t want to rush things. We need to get to know each other again. Really get to know each other. You only know me as your boyfriend’s son, and I only know you as the unreachable girl of my dreams. We need to get to know each other slowly and properly. I want us to be together. For us, but also for Hazel, so she has a mom and dad. You know what I mean? I want this to last forever. But…maybe it won’t because we’re not even compatible. We need to be sure. You understand?”
She nods. “Yeah. I get it. We need to be sure for Hazel. Not that she’ll ever not have the both of us. I mean…” She takes a deep breath. “You need to know that I’ll always want you to be part of Hazel’s life, if you want. I would never keep her from you. Never. If it doesn’t work out between us, we’ll file for joint custody. She is your daughter, and you need to be in her life. I would never—”
“I know, baby.” I stroke her cheek. “Don’t worry. I know that.” I run my finger across her bottom lip. “I’m very grateful you see it that way. I never want to be without Hazel again.”
“She’s fantastic.”
“She is. Because she has a fantastic mom.”
Mac runs her fingers through my hair, which is longer than it’s ever been. “And because she has a fantastic daddy.”
I laugh. “I will be. Once I learn how you’re raising her, so I don’t get it all wrong.”
Mac shakes her head. “Don’t do stuff just because I think it’s right. You have the right to make your own decisions, too.”
I shrug. “Whatever you’ve been doing seems to be working.”
She smiles. “What really matters to me is that she knows we love her, that we’re proud of her, and that she’s our top priority. Of course, I don’t want her to be a crybaby or anything, but so far it doesn’t look like it. When she falls, I always wait a little before I go to her because she usually gets up on her own and only starts crying once you give her attention.”
“Oops.”
Mac gives me a curious look. “Are you spoiling our daughter already?”
I smile. I love how she talks about our daughter like that. “I may have picked her up when she fell the other day. But she didn’t cry. She just said her hand hurt. I blew on it and kissed it better.”
She laughs. “Oh, I wish I’d seen that!”
I’m quiet for a moment. “What about discipline?”
“If she does something wrong, I tell her. I try not to yell at her, but it doesn’t always work. Especially when it’s something dangerous.”
“Spanking?” I ask.
“Never. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course.” I rub my neck. “Just be patient with me.”
She nods. “Sure, if you yell at her or—”
“I don’t mean that. It’s just… Well, I’m afraid I might end up being the good cop…”
Mac laughs. “Oh, my sweet wuss!”
I hold her face. “Mac, I would never hit her. Never. And I would never hit you, either.”
She wraps her fingers around my wrists. “I know that, Hunter. I know.”
“It’s important to me that you do.”
She bends forward and kisses my lips. “I do. I’m always a hundred percent sure with you.”
I look at her for a moment. “I haven’t been suffering from PTSD so far, aside from…you know. But I don’t think that was PTSD. Still, I’ve seen a lot of shit. It might come later. And that usually affects the people around you.”
“Whatever happens then won’t be on purpose,” Mac says gently. Sometimes I forget she’s a therapist.
“Okay, but don’t forget that,” I say. “Never forget that. I’m never going to be a threat to you on purpose.”
She shakes her head. “I want you in our lives. If I thought you might be bad for us, I wouldn’t say that.”
I run my thumb across her lips. “You’ve made me the happiest man in the world, baby.”
She stands and leans her forehead against mine. “I’m so happy you’re here. But don’t you want…?”
I know what she’s going to ask. “It’s better for both of us if I stay at the clinic for now. We just agreed to take things slow, and three minutes later, I can’t keep my hands off you. We both need some physical distance, babe. Otherwise we’ll be all over each other like animals.”
She grins. “Not the worst idea.”
My fingers move down her back, reaching around her perfect ass. “We’ll fuck, Mac,” I promise. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else.”
I can see her face cloud over. “Why didn’t you get in touch, Hunter? Why did you shut me out so rigorously? I broke your heart, but you broke mine, too.”
I thought this would happen. It was going much too smoothly. Of course, I know I hurt her with my continuous rejection. Of course.
“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life,” I try to explain, “but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’d always had so much hope. Something inside me had always told me we would end up together at some point. But then… Mac, reverse our positions in that night. Imagine it was my girlfriend who’d caught us. Imagine you asking me to come with you, but I stay. What would you have felt like? You were the first girl I ever loved. The only one. I’d been waiting for you for four years, and finally, there
you were. I finally had you… And what do you go and do?” I rub my neck. “I was crushed, Mac. I was broken.”
“I missed you so much, Hunter. I know I let you down, but then you pushed me away, and that sucked, too. You made me feel like you didn’t want me.”
“I didn’t want to want you anymore.”
“Well, that hurt me, Hunter. You’re not the only one who suffered.”
I stroke her cheek. “I know, baby. We both made mistakes, and we both ended up paying for them.”
“I needed you.”
“I know.”
“I wanted you to be there when she was born.”
Fuck, I want to have been there, too! I should have been there. What kind of a dad isn’t present when his baby is born? I gently hold her face in my hands. “I will always regret that I wasn’t there.”
“I know you were in Afghanistan, but…”
“I wouldn’t have gone if things had been different. I would have finished Force Recon.”
She leans her forehead against my chest. “God, Hunter… It’s all so fucked up.”
My fingers gently massage her neck. “It must be, if it’s making you swear.” She snorts into my shirt. “I’m sorry I cut off all contact. I’m sorry I told Carey not to talk about you. You’ll never know how sorry I am about all that. I’ve missed out on everything. Plus, Carey ended up seeing your pussy…”
She snorts again. “You only have yourself to blame.”
Smiling, I lift her chin. “Let’s promise each other something.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s promise each other we’ll never doubt each other’s feelings again. Let’s promise never to shut each other out again. If we don’t like something, we’ll talk about it until we find a solution. Or end up having hot sex.”
“Okay.”
“Say it, Mac. How do you feel about me?”
Her fingers touch my cheeks, my beard. “I love you, Hunter Tilman.”
I smile. “I love you, Mackenzie Hall.” Suddenly a question pops into my head. “What’s Hazel’s last name?”
Mac looks down. “Tilman.”
A warm feeling spreads inside me. She gave Hazel my name? I can’t believe it! “Really?”
She shrugs.
I firmly pull her toward me, my heart throbbing so hard it’s going to burst out of my chest any moment. “You make me so incredibly happy.”