by Maisey Yates
Nathan’s eyes blazed. “You can’t do this. You’re just going to walk around ruining my reputation? Ruining my family?”
“This may come as a shock to you but I have no desire to ruin you—” as he spoke the words, he realized they were true “—but I’m not going to pretend. I’m not going to hide. And I’m not going to owe you a debt. Now, I know I needed your money to get the start I got. Because frankly, growing up like I did, with nothing, it would have made getting to my position a whole lot harder, if not impossible. But I’ll take the loan as my due, since you were able to dodge child support for the first eighteen years of my life. I’ll consider it payment for keeping the secret all that time, for allowing you to stay married to a woman who probably has no idea what a jackass you are. For letting you keep your family intact while your kids grew up. You know, the kids you acknowledge. And now I owe you nothing. That’s the most important thing I can think of.”
“Did you expect I would respect you for this? Because I don’t,” Nathan said, sticking the envelope in his pocket. “I don’t think much of anything about you.”
Jack waited for pain, for a sense of rejection. There was none of it. Nathan was just a man. An old man. And he might have been responsible for some of Jack’s genetic material, but not for anything else. And now there was no debt between them. Whatever Jack wanted to do about their relationship, if he wanted to do anything at all, he wasn’t bound by any sort of agreement.
“Did you expect me to cry when you said that, Dad?” Jack asked drily. “Because I promise you I won’t. I’m going to go home, to my nice house. I’m going to figure out a way to win the woman I love, and when I do, I will treat her like a queen. I will stay faithful to her all my life. That’s a lesson you taught me, whether you meant to or not. Because I’ve seen the other side of it. I will never be you. And I am glad of that. I know you think I should be proud that you’re my dad, that you should be ashamed I’m your son. But nothing could be further from the truth. I may go on hiding the fact we’re related because I’m ashamed of you.”
Jack turned away from the old man, not waiting for a response. And with every step he took, he felt as if he was shedding years of weight from his shoulders. And as he reached his truck, he felt as though a tether snapped between himself and his father. Whatever he owed him was settled. It was done.
And now he was going to make good on the promise he had just made to his father.
He was going to win Kate’s heart. And when he did, he was going to do everything in his power to keep it.
* * *
THE WAITING ROOM at the birthing center was filling up with friends. Where the Garretts were short on family, they didn’t lack for support.
Kate was sitting next to Eli and Sadie, her fingertips biting into the pink patterned fabric that covered the arms of the waiting room chairs. She had underestimated just how terrifying Liss giving birth would be. Everyone around her seemed calm, firmly accepting that this was the normal order of things. That women had babies, and everything was fine. But Kate was terrified.
Because life wasn’t always fine. And she knew it.
She couldn’t fix it. She couldn’t control it. Here in the waiting room, she was just a little girl, sitting on the step at the school, waiting for a father who would never show. At the mercy of the wind or life or whatever it was that saw fit to play so dangerously with her.
She hated this. She hated everything about it. Why was life so fucking scary?
It was so much easier when you didn’t have all these people to love, all these opportunities to bleed.
Jack was just one more. And she just couldn’t. She couldn’t.
“Are you okay?” Eli asked, his tones hushed.
“Fine,” she lied.
“Connor told me a little bit about what happened with Jack,” Eli said, his voice measured.
She was almost relieved that he was asking about Jack instead of dredging up the deep brokenness that was in her. The screaming, knowing little fear beast that exposed her for the coward she was.
“He told you?”
“Yes. I had to talk him out of killing Monaghan, so you should be grateful he came to speak to me.” Eli paused for a moment. “Unless you want him dead.”
“I don’t want him dead,” she said, her heart fluttering. “I don’t even like to joke about that. We are kind of a lightning rod for crap, if you hadn’t noticed.” The entire situation had set her on edge.
“Of course we’re not going to kill him,” Eli said. “But I do have questions.”
Sadie’s head appeared around her husband’s shoulder as she leaned in, her expression keen.
“Obviously, Sadie has questions,” Kate said, her voice monotone.
“About a thousand,” Sadie said.
“There isn’t anything to say. It happened. It’s not happening now.”
“But how did it happen? Why did it happen? How long did it happen?” This was from Sadie, and Eli just sat there looking visibly uncomfortable.
“I don’t think Eli wants the same level of detail you do,” Kate said.
“That is a fact.” This came from Eli.
“What happened?” Sadie asked, deciding to be more selective in her questioning, clearly.
“Things. Stuff and things,” Kate said. “I’m over it,” she lied.
Just then the thing she was most definitely not over walked into the waiting area, a fluorescent green visitor tag on his shirt.
Eli simply stared at him, not offering a greeting. Sadie looked from him to Kate, then did a noncommittal half wave.
Then Eli stood. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for everyone. Stopped by the Farm and Garden to see if Kate was there and was told you were all here. So now I’m here, too.”
“Nobody called you,” Eli said.
Guilt twisted Kate’s internal organs. Because if not for her, him and all of the fallout, there would have been no question about him coming today. He had been friends with Connor and Liss for years, so of course he would have been here for this. She had ruined it. They had ruined it.
“I’m well aware nobody called me, Eli. But I’m here all the same. Because I’m not about to let something that happened between myself and your sister, who is an adult, by the way, keep me from supporting Connor through this. Liss is a friend, too. Why would I miss this? Just because you’re pissed right now? Anyway, I’m pretty sure I would be mad in your situation, too, but I’m not sure you have the right to be. Kate makes her own decisions. She always has. There is no pushing her when she doesn’t want to be pushed—you know that. I’ve recently had a reminder of that. She does what she wants. She knows her own mind. I didn’t talk her into anything.”
Kate could barely tear her eyes off the ground to look at him, but even though it was hard, she did. “You should also know that Kate doesn’t like being discussed like she’s not here.”
“I didn’t figure you were speaking to me,” he said.
“Well, I didn’t figure you were speaking to me.”
“I went looking for you, didn’t I?”
“Not sure why you would.”
“The little matter of being in love with you.”
Eli straightened a little bit at that. “What?”
“So you didn’t hear about that part,” Jack said.
“No,” Eli responded.
“It doesn’t matter. That shouldn’t matter. And let’s not discuss this now,” Kate said. “Better yet, let’s not discuss this ever. Jack and I have said everything that needs to be said to each other, and the rest isn’t your business.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, holding herself tight. Protecting herself. She would be tough.
But you aren’t being brave.
Yeah, well, screw bravery. S
he didn’t want to be brave.
She wanted to be safe.
Of course, Liss was in there giving birth, and Connor was in there trying to cope with that. The people around her seemed to refuse to climb into her little bubble and insulate themselves. And what could she do about that?
Then there was Jack, who was trying to tear it all open, expose her to the elements.
In this moment, she hated them all.
“I’ll just go sit over there.” Jack turned away and went to a row of chairs that was unoccupied, then sat there resolutely, his arms crossed over his chest.
Her heart felt as though it was cracking open all over again. How did other people not see the faithfulness of Jack Monaghan? He was here. Even when he wasn’t wanted. Here because it was right. That was how deeply he cared, how true his loyalty ran.
How could anyone think he was fickle? How could anyone think he was nothing more than bad blood? Even Liss had doubted him, and he was still here for her.
She would have been proud of him if she wasn’t so irritated with the bastard.
Minutes stretched into hours. Kate got up from where she was sitting and walked down the hall toward the water and ice machine that was there for their use.
She heard heavy footsteps behind her and she didn’t have to turn to figure out whose they were.
“What?”
“I want to talk to you,” Jack said.
“Not now,” she said.
“Fine. After.”
“Assuming everything is okay.”
“Of course everything is okay.” In spite of herself, she looked at him. “Everything is going to be fine.”
He could see straight through her; more to the point, she let him. She showed him her fear. She didn’t know what it was about him that compelled her to do it.
“You don’t know that,” she choked.
“I guess I don’t,” he responded. “I guess we can never really know for sure. But without hope, what do you have, Katie?”
“Protection? Protection from disappointment.”
“Do you really think expecting bad things to happen makes bad things hurt less?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. But all we can do is survive the best we can, right?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his blue eyes assessing. “I would have agreed with you not too long ago. But now I think maybe we should try for better than surviving. I think maybe we should try living.”
Living. It was an entirely different image than survival. Survival conjured up a picture of her huddled in a cave, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around herself while the storm raged outside.
Living made her think more of dancing in the rain, daring the lightning to strike.
She wasn’t sure she could do that. The cave wasn’t all that appealing, but it was safe.
“I can’t talk about this right now.” She turned away from the machine and headed back to her seat, only realizing once she was in view of Sadie and Eli again that she had forgotten to get the water she had gone to fetch in the first place. Great.
Just then the door to the delivery room cracked open, and the nurse came out. “She’s here. Healthy. A beautiful baby girl.”
All of the breath in her lungs escaped on a rush, her ears buzzing. “Everything is okay?” she asked, unable to disguise the fear in her voice.
“Everything is okay.”
The nurse disappeared for a moment, then reappeared. “Kate? Your brother wants you to come in and see the baby.”
Kate stood, her legs wobbly. “He wants me to come in?”
The nurse nodded. “We’ll start with you.”
Kate walked forward, and any pretense of being fine and together was out the window. They walked into the room, the sounds of bustling and a baby crying hitting her hard. The nurse swept the curtain aside. Liss was lying in the bed, her feet still up in stirrups. Kate chose to look away from that. It wasn’t hard anyway.
Because Connor was standing there, big and strong and as infallible as he’d always been in her mind, with the smallest baby she’d ever seen nestled in the crook of his arm and a tear on his cheek.
He looked up from the baby, only for a moment, meeting her eyes. “She’s just perfect, Katie. Isn’t she?”
Kate felt like she’d been punched in the chest. “Yes.”
“A girl,” he said, smiling now. “My daughter. Ruby. I have a daughter.”
She looked at the baby, at Connor, at his wife. At a whole second chance playing out right in front of her that would never have happened if Connor had chosen to simply survive.
Something felt as though it was swelling inside her. Growing too large for her to breathe around. She couldn’t breathe.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’ll let... I’ll let Eli and Sadie come in now.”
She turned and walked out of the room, and then she walked out of the waiting room, out of the hospital. She got in her truck, and by the time she started the engine, tears were streaming down her face, matching the rain that was starting to fall from the sky.
* * *
WHEN KATE GOT back to the ranch, she parked her truck in front of the barn, killed the engine and got out, her boot pressing down deep into the muddy ground.
The rain was falling hard and fast now, and a smart person would take shelter. That was how you survived, after all. She should go back to her house and light a fire in the woodstove, put on her sweats and hunker down. That was surviving.
She was tired of surviving.
She was tired of being stripped down to the essentials. She kicked her boots off, and the mud was slick between her toes, the gravel that was mixed in painful as it dug into her tender skin. But she could feel it.
She moved toward the stretch of green field in front of her. She walked through a gap in the fence, the mud deeper now, velvety blades of grass creating a barrier between her and the squishy ground. She just stood there for a while and looked up at the sky, letting the rain roll down her face, mixing with the tears she was certain were falling now.
Standing here, stretched out like this, facing the broad expanse of sky, she could feel the stiffness inside of her, the strain from having been curled up, stagnant for so long. She was never one to sit still physically, perhaps in part because it gave too much voice to the internal.
So she stood still now, and she let herself feel. The cold, the rain, the grass, the mud. And her heart. Beating steadily, painfully.
Beating for Jack.
Emotion rose up inside of her, grew, expanded. Love. She loved him.
And it was worth every risk, every possible outcome. Because she would so much rather stand out in the storm than keep hiding.
She thought of Jack’s face, of the pain in his blue eyes when she had rejected him. She had hurt him. She had been so focused on her own fear, on her own trauma, that she hadn’t paused to consider what he had risked. She hadn’t thought of his pain, because she hadn’t imagined she could possibly hurt him.
She had. She had made him feel as if she thought he was a secret, as if she was ashamed of him.
Protecting herself had hurt the man she loved most. And if she had needed any other bit of confirmation that she had to change, that was it.
She heard the slam of a car door and turned to see Jack standing by his truck. The sound of the rain must have obscured the sound of the motor.
She stood there frozen as the rain washed down her cheeks, watching as he approached. He was wearing his hat, that hat that never failed to make her heart squeeze tight, the tight black T-shirt that outlined his perfect body and the jeans that knew him almost as intimately as she did. It was like watching her soul walk toward her. And the closer he got, the more complete she felt, the m
ore right everything felt.
“Did you follow me, Monaghan?” she shouted over the rain.
“Yes, I did. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He moved through the same gap in the fence that she had and stopped when he was about a foot in front of her. “And I wanted to make sure you didn’t weasel out of our talk.”
“Nothing quite that calculated. I just needed... I just needed some time.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “And have you had it?”
“Yes,” she said. “You were right. I was being scared. I’ve spent my whole life being scared.”
“You, Kate Garrett? Scared?”
“Yes. Me. My mom left when I was two. My dad died when I was in high school. My sister-in-law... Life has always been kind of a scary, unpredictable thing for me. But the one thing I could do was make myself tough. Make it so I didn’t feel it quite so deep. I told myself I was fine because I had Connor and Eli to take care of me. Because I had you. Except then things changed between us. It wasn’t just you taking care of me, making me smile. You broke me open and made me feel. That was scarier than anything. Scarier than going pro, scarier than facing down an angry mama bear. Scary. I told myself I was upset because of the changes. Because I might turn into something I didn’t want to be. But the simple truth was, I was just afraid to feel. When you feel, when you want, loss can hurt you. Not just hurt, devastate. It changes things inside you that you can never put back. It’s a terrifying thing to sign on for, Jack.”
He cleared his throat. “I can’t even pretend to know loss the same way you do, Kate. I know in some ways I have more experience, but in other ways I feel like you’ve lived more life than I have. And not life I envy.”
“Connor tried to talk to me, but I wasn’t ready. Then today... I saw him with Liss. Their baby. Jack, he has all of that because he refused to give in to fear. He has life—he made life. I want that. More. Everything.”
“Everything?” He took a step toward her, gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Really, everything?” His expression was fierce, his voice hoarse. “Does that mean you love me, badger-cat?”