Page 50 of Bad Mother

“I don’t know what you’re doing. I only know you made your choice years ago. You let me go, you threw me away, and you don’t just get to take me back whenever you feel like it.”

He tried to take her hands, but she stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Say whatever you need to say. I can take it. But also, let me explain—”

“Explain? What is there to explain?” But again, she didn’t turn away.

He took in a big pull of air. “I saw your college-acceptance letter, Si, saw the scholarship offer for the criminal-justice program.”

She faltered, obviously not expecting that. “But... what? How? I threw that letter away.”

“Not before your mother saw it.”

“Mymother?” Now she looked even more confused.

“Your mother came to me with the letter and showed me what you were about to give up. She was a miserable shrew ninety-nine percent of the time, Sienna, but she was right to do that. I think... I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe your mother took a wrong turn at some point and ended up where she was.Whoshe was. Maybe the one decent thing she ever did was see where her daughter might make the same mistake and do what she could to stop it from happening. You’d have given that up to marry me and live in some clapboard house with a leaky roof and questionable electric work. A scholarship that you’d earned because you’d worked your ass off despite everything you had going against you.”

She stood there, her wheels obviously turning, her mouth slack as she stared. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking, but he knew this was his opportunity to explain to her what he’d done and why and that he would not get another. “Yeah...,” she said, “I would have given all that up to marry you. It wasmychoice, Gavin, and you took that from me.”

“What were you going to do?” he asked. “Give up your dreams to follow me around the country as I entered tournaments? It was all I had going for me. There was zero guarantee I’d ever win anything. I had no real idea what I was facing. I felt the pressure of that, Si. I didn’t knowhow to balance my career aspirations and our relationship. I wanted to give you stability because it was the one thing you’d been denied your entire life, but I was scared. That rental house you were so excited about seemed like a variation on a theme. Almost like a trap—”

“Atrap?”

“For both of us,” he said. “I realized later that to you, that house represented potential, but at the time I couldn’t see it. At the time, it seemed like nothing more than a lateral transfer. And so when your mom showed me that letter, it seemed like a weight was taken off my shoulders. It was a way out for you... but it was a way out for me too. I didn’t have to carry the pressure of failing you.”

“You couldn’t explain that to my face?” she said, her voice rising.

“No, I couldn’t explain that to your face. I was too weak to do that. I never would have left. I couldn’t look you in the eye and break your heart. Hell, at the time, I barely had the words to articulate what I was feeling. What I did know was that you had even less support than I did, and I was trying so hard to be your rock, until I crumbled. I loved you, but I was eighteen years old, too, Sienna.”

“And so you snuck away like a coward,” she accused, and he saw the tears glinting in her eyes, and again, her pain crushed him, even now. He shut his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath. He’d been wrong. Or at least, he’d been wrong in the way he’d gone about breaking up with her. Very wrong, and so goddamn messy.

She had deserved the truth. He hadn’t given it to her, and for that, he was truly sorry. “Yeah, I guess I did. I snuck away like a coward,” he said. “But answer me this: Would you have gone? If I came to you and told you about my doubts and that I knew about the scholarship and I wanted you to take it, that your mother of all people had told me about it, would you have gone?”

She let out a shuddery breath, looking away over his shoulder. He could tell she was considering, perhaps putting herself back in her eighteen-year-old shoes and really thinking about it from the perspectiveof the girl she’d once been. He appreciated that she took the time and contemplated her answer honestly. It would have been easier to say,Yes, of course I would have gone if you’d been honest with me,but she didn’t take the easy way out. That was Si. Fair to a fault. Truthful where he hadn’t been. He’d wondered where she could have possibly come by her delicate beauty in light of who her parents were. But he’d also wondered about her unceasing commitment to integrity, to truth, for the same reason. Maybe the more curious question was not how she’d come by those qualities but how she’d retained them.

“I... I don’t know. Maybe not.” She suddenly looked weary, and he was sorry for it but not. She took the few steps back to the bench and sat down as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore, and he did the same. They’d needed to have this conversation. It was eleven years past due. She turned to him and met his eyes, and though the spark of anger had died, the sadness was still there. “You were my dream, Gavin. Not a college degree, not a career I couldn’t picture and wasn’t even sure I’d be good at. You. And maybe that was misguided. Or shortsighted or whatever you want to call it. But it’s the truth. At the time I thought maybe I’d do all that... later, but I... I wasn’t sure. I was only certain of one thing, and that was that I wanted you to be my future, and I wanted to be yours. I figured if we started there, the rest would work itself out.”

That longing again. Because he’d had her whole heart once, and he didn’t anymore. And he wanted it back. God, he did. He wanted her to want him. He wanted her to desire him the way he still desired her. The way, somewhere in the back of his mind, he always had. He’d never allowed himself to fully ponder it because when he’d made the decision to leave town before their wedding so many years ago, he’d done it knowing he was leaving her behind forever. She wouldn’t forgive him, not for deserting her. And he’d told himself that he had to do it that way, leave himself no small doubt that she’d ever take him back, because if he did, he’d find her, he’d beg her to give him another chance, and then what would it have all been for?

“And now,” he said quietly, “considering the life you have, the job you do, all the things that have happened between that day and this one, do you wish it had been different? In hindsight?”

She sighed. “How can I answer that? Do you want me to tell you what you did was right? That I’m grateful to you for obliterating my heart?”

He ran his hand through his hair, his shoulders dropping. “No. But I hope you can find it in you to understand.”To forgive me for the pain and loss I caused you.

“And you?” she asked. “Would you take it back, knowing what you know now?”

He let out a gust of breath. It was a fair question. He’d asked her the same. “I don’t know either,” he said. “My view of the world was so different then.” He’d been hotheaded, impulsive the way all young men tended to be. But he’d also been doubtful of what his future held, what the world might have in store for him. Mirabelle had dissuaded him from attempting to make a career of gambling, and he supposed any good mother would have. He couldn’t blame her for that. Who wanted to send their child out on the road to follow a path that relied on such a high percentage ofluck?

He’d believed in his own gift, though. At least enough to gamble on himself. He just hadn’t believed in it enough to ante up with Sienna’s future. “I used to go over it. I played the what-if game for a while and never came to any solid conclusions other than I missed the hell out of you.” He paused, glancing at her profile and then away. Otis wasn’t on the water anymore. He’d made it to the distant shore and shaken off his tail feathers and was doing whatever swans did as the moon grew bright in the sky. “And I wished... I wished I could have figured out a way to have it all without risking any of it.”

Sienna let out a small sound that he thought held a note of humor but more of wistfulness. “That’s not how life works.” She sighed, looking over at him, and even in the dim light, or maybe because of it, hewas so struck by her beauty, the outline of her bone structure, those high cheekbones, her gently sloping nose. He’d watched her turn from a girl to a woman and thought her beautiful during every stage of her life. He’d realized he was in love with her one early April day when he was fifteen years old and accepted it as naturally as the earth accepted the rain. And with just as much necessity.

And though he’d thought he’d moved on, he never really had. It was still her. Always her.

Their eyes locked, and Gavin leaned in, allowing his lips to brush against hers. He didn’t even realize he’d done it until he heard her small, soft gasp. His breath halted, and she blinked at him, but she didn’t move away, and so he pressed his mouth against hers more firmly, tilting his head slightly and using his tongue to lick across the seam of her soft lips. She opened, and his heart soared, his hands cupping her face as she let out another small sound—a moan this time. It raced across his mouth and down his spine to settle in his groin and vibrate there as he swelled, pressing against the zipper of his pants. Her tongue met his and she melted against him, tenderness and arousal mixing within.Sienna. Sienna.It was the same yet different. Past and present melded as he reacquainted himself with her taste, her textures, and the feel of her in his arms. How had he lived without this for so long? It seemed a miracle that he’d survived.

With a small, strangled gasp, she broke away, turning her head and bringing the back of her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Gavin,” she breathed. “This is wrong. We’re over. We’ve been over for a long time.” She stood, and for a moment he continued to sit there, stung and stunned.

They’d talked, yes, perhaps found some understanding. Some peace. But as far asthem, nothing had changed. He pulled himself to his feet, and dammit if his legs weren’t a bit shaky. He almost laughed. Only one woman could make his legs shaky, and apparently it didn’t matter if he was seventeen or twenty-nine. “Come on. I’ll take you to your car,” he said, and though she followed him, she kept her distance.

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