Page 30 of Second Chance with Seth

“You shouldn’t have left me in the first place,” she says, shaking her head, revealing the depth of her pain as a lone tear falls onto her cheek. I reach out and brush it away with my thumb, making her breath hitch in her throat, and I takeadvantage of that moment and leave my hand cupped around her cheek.

“I know. That’s what I was trying to say yesterday, only you didn’t wanna talk then.”

She pulls back, my hand falling to my side, and I realize I shouldn’t have said that. “Do you blame me?”

“No. You weren’t expecting to see me. It’s understandable that you’d be shocked… that you’d need time.”

She shakes her head, confusing me, and then she steps a little closer, which feels good.

“It wasn’t that,” she whispers. “It was the fact that I knew River was asleep out back, and I was scared how you’d react if you found out about her.”

“Scared?” I don’t like the sound of that.

“Okay, maybe not scared so much as worried.” That’s not a lot better.

“What did you think I’d do?”

“I don’t know… get mad at me for not telling you and then leave?” she says, and I shake my head, knowing that’s exactly what I did.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, looking down at our daughter. She’s fast asleep, her head on Everly’s chest, and she has the cutest little nose, her lips in a slight pout that makes me smile. God… she’s adorable.

“I’ve been awake all night trying to think of the right way to tell you,” Everly says, and I look up at her again.

“There is no right way.”

She frowns. “Stop it. How can we hope to work this out if you keep blaming me?”

Work this out? Does that mean she’s willing to give me another chance? Or am I reading too much into a few simple words? She might just mean that we’ll need to work out how we’re gonna co-parent, while living separate lives, in separatetowns… although I hope not, because that’s not what I want at all.

“I’m not blaming you. Honestly. This is all on me. If I hadn’t walked out on you last year, you wouldn’t be in this position. If I hadn’t been too arrogant to call you, you wouldn’t be searching for the right way to tell me something I should have been here to find out about first-hand. That’s what I’m most sorry about, Everly. That’s what I need you to forgive me for. Do you think you can do that? Because if you can, I really think we stand a chance of being happy again… always assuming you can forgive me for all the other things I got wrong.”

Chapter Seven

Everly

I can’t answer him… not with the memory so fresh in my mind of Helen standing far too close to him, her hand on his arm. Even if he apologized and called me ‘babe’ while he was doing so, it brought everything back… reminding me how he used to love the attention she gave him, and how he defended his actions before he left me. As far as I was concerned, they were indefensible. He’d allowed another woman into our relationship, and regardless of how innocent he claimed their friendship was, she was a distraction… and one that he enjoyed.

Forgiving him for that is going to be hard.

Harder than forgiving him for leaving me?

It’s difficult to say. To me, they’re inextricably linked. He might have made his departure about my supposed lack of attentiveness, but in my mind, it was always about Helen.

As for what he did just now?

That’s something different.

I’ll admit, when he first turned and walked away, part of me thought he was putting himself first, just like he did before. He was only seeing things from his perspective, worrying about what everyone else might think about him, and the timing of his departure. But then I realized how much of a shock it must have been for him to discover he had a baby daughter. It must have been even more of a shock for him than I got when he walkedthrough the door of the coffee shop yesterday afternoon… and he’s prepared to make allowances for that, and for me not wanting to talk to him yesterday, even if he misunderstood why.

For myself, I was thrilled to see him. I know that now. But I was scared about his reaction to River… scared he’d be too mad to listen, worried he’d leave me again when he found out I’d lied to him and kept her from him. That was what made it so hard to work out how to tell him, and I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d had a sleepless night… although it wasn’t all spent thinking of ways to tell Seth he was a father. River woke me at just after one, and was grizzly, refusing to settle properly until nearly three-thirty. We haven’t had a night like that for ages, but it was as though she knew something was wrong. Which it was. Her mommy was confused… undecided… lost.

When I came downstairs this morning and found Owen waiting for me outside the coffee shop, he took one look at me and said, “What happened?”

“The predicted lack of sleep,” I murmured, opening the front door to let us both in.

“Did you close your eyes at all?”

“Not really.”

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