Page 18 of Tangled in His Embrace

He didn’t back away. If anything, he leaned into her more, trapping her between his body and the counter. “I’m sorry I left you and Taylor, but at the time I thought it was the right thing.”

Turning around, she looked him in the eyes. “The right thing? How could you possibly think leaving me and your child was the right thing?”

Something in his expression changed for a split second, and before she could get a read on what it was, he left her standing there and went to get his plate from where he’d left it on the table. He started gathering the food up, closing the containers, acting as if they hadn’t been in the middle of a discussion. That was when it hit her that there might have been a reason why he’d left. Not because he was scared of being a father, which was what she’d always assumed, but a real, honest to goodness reason.

He brought his plate over and set it down beside hers. “Did you want to save this or just trash it?”

There was still a fair amount of food on his plate and she didn’t want to be wasteful. Besides, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t swapped germs with him already.

Thinking about his mouth on hers had her lips tingling again. What was it about Jax? She’d been on two dates since he left, mainly just to get out of the house, and neither of them had come close to making her feel what he did simply by being in the same room with her.

She cleared her throat and concentrated on the task at hand. “Leave it. I can eat the leftovers tomorrow. It will save me from having to cook.”

Once everything was in containers, she stuck them into the refrigerator. She’d been slowly putting things away, drawing it out as much as possible, to avoid their next awkward conversation. He’d come to talk about Christmas and he was right in that they needed to get on the same page.

Gabby thought he’d be sitting at the table waiting on her, but instead he was standing in the living room, looking out the window. As she drew closer, she realized he was frowning. “What is it?”

He motioned for her to look outside.

It took her a moment, but then she noticed it. Ice. The snow that had been falling when he’d arrived had changed to freezing rain and there was a thin coat of ice on everything. She knew what that meant. No matter how upset and hurt she was with him, there was no way she’d make him drive on a sheet of ice. Not when he didn’t have to.

“I’ve got some extra blankets and a pillow in the closet. You can crash on the couch.”

Jax glanced at her and then back outside. “I can probably make it to my apartment. It isn’t that far.”

She squared her shoulders, preparing for a fight. “No, you’re not.”

“It would be better if I left. We both know that.”

“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?” Gabby huffed, turned on her heel, and marched down the hall. She opened the door to the closet and selected a fitted sheet, two blankets, a pillow, and a pillowcase.

When she made her way back into the living room with the armful of bedding, he was still standing at the window. She had just placed the items on the couch when he spoke. “I lied to you.”

Gabby froze, her heart pounding. “What do you mean?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to face her. “I know when I left I made it sound as if I was scared of fatherhood, of all the unknowns it would bring, but that was a lie.” He looked down at the floor and then back at her. “I left because I thought I was dying.”

***

The look on Gabby’s face had him wanting to take the words back. He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Wh-what do you mean you were dying?” A million different emotions were playing across her face. He had no idea which one she’d settle on. For the moment, shock seemed to be winning out over the rest. Not that he could blame her. He’d felt the same way when he’d gotten the call.

“Do you remember the morning about a week before I left when I ran to the store to get diapers and baby wipes?”

She nodded.

“On the way home, I got a call from my doctor. You remember I’d been having those headaches.”

Gabby sucked in a loud breath and he knew she remembered. He used to sit with his head in her lap, her massaging his temples when they got really bad.

“I went in to see a specialist, hoping they could find out why I was getting them.” He knew it was better to get it all out. Better to rip off the Band-Aid in one go. “They found a mass pressing against my spine near the base of my skull.”

All color left Gabby’s face, and she reached for the arm of the couch and sat down. It took her a minute to get her bearings. “Cancer?”

“Luckily, no. But I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know much of anything except that the doctor said it needed to be removed or the headaches would continue to get worse.” Jax took a deep breath. “He said it was high risk, given where the mass was located. If something went wrong with the surgery, I might not be able to walk, talk, take care of myself... and that was assuming it wasn’t cancer.”

She wasn’t looking at him. In fact, he wasn’t sure she was looking at much of anything.

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