Page 66 of Once Upon a Holidate
“You wouldn’t be ratting him out.”
“You’re objecting to the word choice, but not the reality. This puts me in a horrible situation.” She slapped her hands on the table. “Why did he have to do this?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry you have to deal with it.”
“Me, too. I don’t want to be the grown-up. I’m not the right person to be doing this. I can’t do this.”
He leaned toward her. “Wynn, you’re the strongest person I know. You’ll figure it out. Trust your instincts.”
“I can’t. I have crappy instincts sometimes. I’ve done horrible things in my life. Maybe this is a payback for that.”
“Life isn’t that tidy. Besides, I don’t believe you’ve done terrible things.”
“You’re wrong. I have.”
“Shoplifting when you were seven?” he asked, his voice teasing.
“No. I never did anything like that.”
“You’re a good person. This is not some karmic justice. Hunter messed up. That’s all.”
She knew in her head he was right, but in her gut she was less certain. She looked at him.
“When I was nineteen, I fell wildly in love with a guy named Chas.” Despite everything, she smiled. “Not short for Charles or anything so mundane. Just Chas. He was blond and gorgeous and everything I’d ever wanted.”
Garrick’s gaze narrowed. “Are we talking about Hunter’s father?”
“We are. He was a professional surfer, waiting for the season to start up. Our meeting was so random, it shouldn’t have happened, but it did and I fell for him. I knew he was going to leave and I didn’t want him to go.”
She remembered the pain of realizing Chas was going to leave her forever. She didn’t think she could physically survive—without Chas in her life, she thought she would cease to exist.
“I begged him to take me with him. I told him I would paymy own way, carry his gear, anything.” She dropped her gaze to the table. “He said he wouldn’t take me along because he needed to focus. I would only be a distraction. I gave him my heart and he said I was a distraction. My heart broke.”
“What did you do?”
She reached for her coffee again, sucked in a breath and looked at Garrick. “I got pregnant. I did it on purpose. It wasn’t a mistake or an accident. I knew exactly what I was doing because I believed once he knew about the baby, everything would change. I knew it was wrong and manipulative, but still I did it.”
Garrick’s eyes widened slightly. She sensed he was trying to hide his shock, but she saw the tension in his body. “What happened?”
“I told him I was pregnant, and he said it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want me with him. He was sorry that I’d made the decision to try to trap him, but he was leaving. I could have the kid or not. That was on me. Then he left and I never saw him again.”
Garrick swore under his breath. “That was pretty coldhearted.”
“I don’t know. Part of me agrees with you and part of me says I got what I deserved. I knew I was doing the wrong thing when I did it, and that didn’t stop me. I can make excuses, but the truth is I made an awful decision. You can’t force someone to be with you. The situation was never going to end well.”
It had taken her a long time to come to terms with that. To accept that the blame was all hers. Chas had been clear about what he did and didn’t want—she’d been the one who wouldn’t listen.
“You could have had an abortion,” he told her.
“Legally, yes, I could have, but I wasn’t going to do that. Once I accepted I was on my own, I came up with a plan and hoped for the best. But having a child by myself was so much harder than I’d imagined. Everything was so expensive.I worked three jobs as long as I could, but once I had Hunter, I couldn’t make enough to afford day care. Just paying for the diapers about killed me.” She shook her head. “They’re expensive. I was out of money and about to be evicted when Chas’s lawyer showed up to tell me Chas had died and left me the proceeds of his life insurance policy.”
“He hadn’t forgotten you or the baby.”
“I guess not. I was shocked and ashamed and grateful. I vowed to make the most of what he’d left me. If he was still alive, I would want to apologize for what I did. I can’t regret Hunter, but my actions were unforgivable.”
“You were just a kid,” he told her. “You made a dumb choice and you dealt with the consequences. Look what you’ve done with your life. I hope you haven’t been beating yourself up about this for the past fourteen years.”
“Some,” she admitted. “It’s hard to let go, but I’m finally in the place where I think I can move on. Then Hunter does what he did and it makes me question everything.”
