Coming Up Roses

by Staci Hart

  He smiled sadly. “I figured. What happened?”

  “Before the installation broke, Wendy showed up at the shop. She … she’s pregnant, and she says the baby is Luke’s.”

  “You … you’re kidding.”

  I shook my head. “We were exhausted—it was chaos. And we got into a fight. No … not a fight. I just couldn’t deal with the shock, so I bolted, came home. And yesterday, he came in to talk to me about it. But I can’t tell him what he wants to hear, Daddy. I can’t tell him everything’s fine because it doesn’t feel fine. It doesn’t feel anywhere close to fine.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “Inside out. Unreal. Scary. I’m afraid,” I said softly. “Afraid that everything will change. That he’ll leave me. That I’ll come second to Wendy, always. That she will manipulate him until the end of time. And I don’t know how to manage that fear. I don’t know how to take a risk, not when the circumstance is sticky with unknowns.”

  “Life is full of unknowns. It’s scary, and you can’t avoid that. You can’t plan for it. The happiest and most successful people in the world are flexible, Tess.”

  “But what if I make a mistake? What if I get hurt? What if I lose?”

  “When was the last time you beat me on Rainbow Road?” he asked, the corner of his lips rising.

  “Thanksgiving 2012. You had the flu.”

  “Has that ever stopped you from playing me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s a video game, Daddy.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe the stakes are lower, but the feeling is the same. You can’t tell me that just now, when you thought you were gonna beat me, your heart wasn’t banging and full of hope. What if you’d beaten me? If you hadn’t played, you wouldn’t have won.”

  “You beat me,” I said on a laugh.

  “But what if I hadn’t? If you want to play the what-if game, I’m gonna make you consider the good, not just the bad.”

  “No risk, no reward, right?”

  “That’s the idea. Listen to me, Pigeon. Don’t sacrifice your future just because you’re afraid. Sacrifice your fear for hope.”

  My gaze fell to my hands, emotion tightening my throat.

  “Luke makes you happy, and that’s not gonna stop just because of Wendy. Deep down, you know that. Don’t ignore it just because you’re scared. If you need time to come around to the idea, take it. Luke will wait. I think that boy loves you, and I think you love him too. Don’t throw that away, Tess.”

  I nodded, unable to speak. But he didn’t require a response, just reached for my hand. And I found my way into his arms, hoping he was right.

  23

  TICK TOCK

  LUKE

  Three days since the bomb had been triggered, and every tick of the clock had brought me to this moment.

  Silence crackled in the room, sharp with anticipation as the doctor watched the ultrasound monitor.

  My lungs were empty and locked, my pulse loud in my ears. Wendy lay on the exam table, her face tight and eyes bright. She reached for my hand, and I let her, the feeling of her clammy palm against mine sending a shudder of aversion through me.

  Everything about this felt wrong.

  Wendy’s presence. The cold exam room. The static on the monitor. The fluttering sound of a baby’s heartbeat. The disbelief that the creator of that heartbeat was me. The sick sensation that I didn’t want it to be and the subsequent guilt that it could be. And what a shitty father I was for wishing for something so abhorrent.

  The only sound was the bow, bow, bow of a heartbeat and the clicking of the doctor’s mouse as she took measurements.

  Every second was protracted, unending, the suspense slithering its way through me.

  “Well,” the doctor said with a smile, “baby’s looking great. Strong heartbeat, which is a good sign. Looks like we’ve got our due date wrong though. You’re measuring two to three weeks ahead.”

  Just like that, my lungs opened up, and I breathed in fire.

  Wendy’s eyes widened, but she smiled, laughing casually. “No, that can’t be right. I know when my last period was. I marked it.”

  My hand unwound from hers. I took a step back, mind racing.

  The doctor chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. There are a lot of reasons it could be off, like when you ovulated, when you conceived. Plus, a lot of the time, we just have the dates wrong. But the good news is, everything’s looking like exactly what we’d expect. You’re almost in the safe zone.”

  Shallow sips of air, stoking the emotion stirring in my ribs.

  “I don’t have the dates wrong,” Wendy insisted, her voice sure and light. “Are you sure I’m not just measuring ahead?”

  Lied. She lied.

  The doctor spun on her stool with a ghost of a frown on her lips. “The margin of error on a pregnancy this early on is only about a week. You’re easily two weeks ahead, more like three based on my experience.”

  Numb hands. A tingle of disbelief. A satisfying sense of rightness, coupled with overwhelming revulsion.

  “You should check again.” Her voice trembled. She hadn’t yet looked at me.

  Out. I had to get out. I had to get away.

  The doctor’s gaze darted to mine in confusion, her frown fully formed. “I can, but the numbers will be the same.”

  “I know when I conceived!” White ringed her eyes.

  “You lied,” I breathed.

  The doctor’s frown flattened, lips pursed as she stood. “The date that you gave me is not the conception date based on the development of your baby.” She moved around the table, giving us both a knowing look that lingered on me. I saw an apology in her eyes. “Let me give you the room for a few minutes.”

  I had backed several feet away from the table, unable to fight, unable to fly. Instead, I froze, staring at her, parsing the truth I’d known in my heart.

  “You lied.”

  She sat, swinging her legs over the edge of the table, her face wild. “I didn’t. I swear, Luke.”

  My head slowly, absently, shook its assent without my telling it to. “It’s always the same. The same line, the same story, but with new, painful ways to hurt me. You came back here to trap me, to lie to me. To take advantage of me because you knew I would help you because I always do. I always do. But this time is different. This time, when I walk away, I’m not coming back.”

  Wendy’s face bent, cracked open, and the tears fell. Genuine though they might have been, I had no sympathy.

  “Luke, please.”

  “Please what?” I shot. “Save you? Take on another responsibility that’s not mine?”

  She shook her head. A sob racked through her as she looked at her hands, resting open in her lap.

  “I’m not doing this,” I breathed. “I’m not fucking doing it, Wendy. Stay away from me and my family. Stay away from Tess. This is over. Over.”

  She jumped at the sting of the word, at the jab of my finger in her direction. I turned on my heel, reaching for the doorknob, overwhelmed by the desire to run as hard and fast and far as I could until I collapsed.

  I cursed her, cataloged every betrayal, built a wall with every painful memory, not expecting her to speak, not anticipating the depth of honesty in her words when she did.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered, the words broken.

  My hand stilled.

  “When I found out, I-I went to Chad. He told me to have an abortion. Dumped me when I refused. Kicked me out. Blocked my number. But I couldn’t. I … I tried, made it to my appointment, and then … I just couldn’t do it, Luke. But I don’t know how to take care of it either, how to provide. I want to give this baby the life I didn’t have. I wanted its parents to love each other, to raise it with love. And I knew you were the only one I could come to. I knew you would take care of me.”

  I turned, fuming over her as she took my hand.

  Her eyes were on our hands as she traced the lines of my fingers. “I thought you still loved me, thought I could
get you back for good this time. This baby should have been yours. I came to you because you are the only man in the world I want to father my child. And I’m sorry I lied to you—” The words died in a sob. “I d-didn’t know what else to do. I love you, Luke. And I f-fucked up. Now … now all I can think about is this baby and how I’m going to take care of it.” She pressed her palm to the flat of her stomach, her head bowed. “I have no job. I have no insurance. I have no means and no support. Only you.”

  My anger ebbed, though my jaw was still clamped shut. Because I understood. I hated that I understood, and I hated that I gave a fuck.

  But I did.

  “I don’t love you,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  She nodded at her shoes.

  “And I can’t help you. Not anymore.” My heart ached, twisting and tight. “You have to figure this out yourself. And we both need to move on.”

  Another nod, a sniffle. “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m so sorry.”

  I fought the urge to soothe her, my mind occupied with imaginings of what she’d do on her own. And even now, even after all this.

  “I wish you’d come to me and told me the truth. Because I could have helped you without all this. But you’ve gone too far. It’s all gone too far.”

  “I thought I could get you back. I … I didn’t know you’d moved on.”

  “Wendy,” I said, taking her by the shoulders, waiting for her to meet my eyes. “We will never get back together. Do you understand?”

  Sheer and utter sadness touched every angle and plane of her face. “I understand.”

  And for the first time, I actually believed she did. But this time, I wouldn’t wait for proof.

  Not with my own life to look forward to.

  24

  A CERTAIN FAITH

  TESS

  “I don’t know how you’ve avoided him,” Ivy said into a bucket of rhododendrons.

  “I don’t know either.” And it was both a blessing and a curse. I found I didn’t want him in the zip code just as desperately as I wanted him to walk through those doors, just so I could breathe his air.

  I’d spent the last days looking for answers by avoiding all the questions. I wondered if seeing Luke would jar something loose. If he’d walk through the doors and the clouds would break, shining light on him like a saint in a burst of divine intervention. But I had convinced myself that seeing him, talking to him beyond the few cursory texts we’d exchanged, would only confuse things more.

  The last thing I needed was more to be confused about.

  “Marcus has been keeping him out of the shop, and Mrs. Bennet too. He’s so deep in the doghouse, he’ll be making it up to her for years. But I figured he’d find ways to come see you anyway.”

  “I asked him not to, and he said he wouldn’t,” I said quietly and with a touch of regret.

  Ivy watched me, though her hands moved flowers to a pile on the table. “Have you heard from him?”

  A nod, just one. “We’ve texted some. The … the doctor’s appointment is today.”

  She groaned. “Oh God. No wonder you’ve been so quiet. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I rolled a shoulder. “Because I didn’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Tess, I know it feels safer to board up your shutters and lock yourself away from everyone, but you don’t have to go through all this by yourself. You don’t have to carry the burden alone.”

  “I know.”

  She chose her next words carefully. “I know it’s not easy … to be vulnerable. But you’re allowed to have feelings. You’re allowed to be confused and hurt and angry. However you feel is valid.”

  But I shook my head. “Every time I’m vulnerable, I get hurt. Every time I love, I lose.”

  Ivy frowned, pinning me with a look. “You haven’t lost me. Mrs. Bennet. Your dad.”

  “And trusting someone else is dangerous. Because the more I love, the more chances I have to get hurt. The more I open up, the more helpless I am. Why am I not allowed to protect myself against that?”

  “Because you’re not protecting yourself—you’re running away. And those are two very different things.”

  I had no response to that. My throat squeezed painfully, and I swallowed to open it up.

  “I know you think you can plan for danger, but when you’re constantly looking for something to go wrong, it inevitably will. You become the master of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I have a little secret for you.” She paused, waiting until I met her eyes. “Uncertainty is part of life. You can’t plan for it. You can’t brace yourself. There was no way for you to have seen Wendy coming.”

  Tears bit at my nose. “So what am I supposed to do?” I begged, my voice shaking and tight. “How am I supposed to react? Because I don’t know another way.”

  She reached for my hand, covered it with hers. “You can’t run away, and you can’t fight it. You can’t freeze from indecision and overthink it to death. Sometimes, there’s no right answer and there’s no wrong one. The only way through it is to have faith.”

  Faith. Complete trust and confidence, but in what? Life? Luke?

  Life had not been kind, but it had given me so much too. My father’s words rang in my ears—sacrifice fear for hope.

  “Whatever happens, Tess, it will work out. Luke wouldn’t have it any other way. You have to know that.”

  I nodded down at our hands. “I do,” I said, the truth of it slipping over me, into me, warming my heart and setting a tear on a track down my cheek.

  “You have to have faith in him,” she urged. “Believe that it will work out despite how much it hurts to get there.”

  Hope glimmered quietly in me. I pictured myself letting go of my fear. I could see it, my admission of feelings, our reunion. I imagined how it would feel to see him smile, to see the relief on his face, to feel the relief in my heart and the weight of his arms around me. For all my indecision, for all my uncertainty and fear, one truth remained, unflinching.

  Luke was all I wanted. There was no choice to be made—there never had been. It was clear and crisp for the first time after days spent wandering through soupy fog.

  “I’ve got to tell him,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my phone. “Do you think he’ll talk to me?”

  Ivy smiled. “Oh, I think he’ll talk to you all right.”

  My bottom lip slipped between my teeth as I wrote out a text.

  Hey, if you have a minute, do you think—

  I deleted it and started over.

  I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch—

  Are you busy? I wanted to—

  Ivy rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, stop overthinking it.”

  With a laugh, my fingers flew as I reminded myself to have faith in Luke, myself, that everything would be okay. But before I hit send, Ivy drew a sharp breath.

  My gaze snapped to her face, but hers was locked behind me. Judging by her expression, I imagined who was there before I looked, my neck turning slowly, deliberately to find Wendy Westham.

  She seemed smaller, dimmer than I’d seen her. The fever in her eyes was gone, replaced with a quiet sadness, her hands clasped in front of her. She looked frail. Fragile.

  “I … I’m sorry to bother you, Tess. Could we talk for a minute?”

  Fear straightened my spine—not of her, but of what she might say. There was news on her tongue, and I found myself certain that no matter what she spoke, things would inevitably change.

  Uncertainty is part of life. Have faith.

  I tried to smile against my anxiety, wiping my hands on my apron as I stood. “Sure.”

  Ivy grabbed a couple of vases and headed toward the front. “Let me just take these to Jett for delivery.”

  A moment later, she was gone, and Wendy and I were alone.

  I didn’t know how to start, what to say, and it seemed that she didn’t either. For a moment, we just stood there with our thoughts whizzing and our mouths firmly closed.

  And then she spoke
. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of, and almost all of them I’ve done to Luke.” She took a heavy breath and held my eyes. “I love him, I always will, but I just keep hurting him, over and over. And he’s always been there, despite it all. Until now.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “The baby’s not his.”

  My lungs contracted, emptied like I’d been kicked in the chest. In that moment, I realized I’d convinced myself that it was his child, that everything he and I had to face, we would have to face it with a child and his ex-wife between us.

  Somehow, the knowledge that she had lied about something so serious was a thousand times more shocking.

  “Why?” I breathed. “Why would you do this to him? To the Bennets?” To me?

  She swallowed visibly, her face tight with pain and regret. “Because I didn’t know what else to do. You … you have to understand—I know you’ve seen it for yourself. He is my safe place. No matter what happens, he’s always there. The man who fathered this baby doesn’t want it and doesn’t want me. I … I’ve never been able to support myself, and now? This baby’s future depends on me, and I don’t know if I can provide it. So I did the only thing I knew to do—I came to Luke. Because I knew he would take care of this baby and me. I thought maybe he could even love me again. But I was wrong. I didn’t know he was in love with you.”

  My hand had found its way to my lips, my thoughts tripping over themselves.

  “I came here to make amends. To tell you the truth. You deserve to know that he didn’t do anything wrong, except trust me. As long as I’ve known him, he’s only denied me once before you—when I cheated. When I called, he always came. When I needed him, he was always there. He has been the most steady and true thing in my life, my entire life. But he’s not mine, not anymore. He’s yours.”

  She took a step toward me, her eyes bright with pain.

  “Please, don’t let my mistakes stop you from loving him. Because he deserves to be with someone who will give him what I never could.”

  My hand fell to my side. “Did he tell you to come here?”