Page 6 of Needing You

“I went to my mom and told her the truth. I told her about Will—about how much I loved him—and she promised me everything would work out. Then the next day, she and my father came into my room and told me they were sending me to Georgia because they didn’t want to deal with the scandal. My dad was the mayor of Grand City at the time. I was supposed to give the baby up for adoption and come home after.”

April’s eyes were wide, and she sucked in a breath, letting it out in one long exhalation. “But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell Will,” Ellie said. “I get that your parents didn’t want the scandal, but why not tell Will at least?”

“I didn’t think I was strong enough to talk to him in person, plus I knew Will had a temper back then. Not towards me, of course, but I was afraid he’d beat down my parents’ door and cause a bigger scandal than the one they were afraid of. So, I wrote him a letter explaining everything and telling him how sorry I was that it had to be this way. I gave him my grandmother’s number and told him to call me so we could figure things out. It sounds so dumb when I think about it now, as an independent adult, but I didn’t think I had a choice in all of this. My parents controlled everything in my life. I was so…”

“Fifteen,” April supplied with a scrunched nose. Then she tilted her head. “So, did you not send the letter or something?”

“My mother promised to give it to him, and I believed her. But she didn’t, and I didn’t find out about that until five years later.”

“So,” Ellie said, her eyes flicking to the sky as she tried to arrange all of this in her mind, “for five years, you thought he knew. But since I assume he never tried to contact you, you probably thought that meant—”

“That he didn’t want anything to do with me,” I finished for her. “Orus, I guess.”

April and Ellie shared a pitying look, then April sat forward and patted my knee. “I’m sorry, that must have been really hard.”

“It was. But I also wasn’t willing to let him go that easily. Once I made up my mind to keep the baby, I saved up enough money to come back here to see if Will was ready to be a father. But by the time I came back…”

Ellie groaned. “Lemme guess, Will was already gone.”

“Yep.”

I went on with the story from there, telling them about how when I got to Colorado, my mother admitted she’d burned the letter. Crushed, I went to Walker’s to find Will and tell him about his son, only to learn he’d taken off to New York after his father had passed and was trying to become a chef in the city. So, I took a risk with our limited funds and flew out there with Jackson.

“That’s really brave of you,” April said with an encouraging smile. Then it faltered slightly. “Though, I suppose that’s not the end of the story.”

“No,” I said with a dark laugh. “As soon as we arrived at the restaurant, I spotted Will at the bar with his arms around not one buttwowomen, taking turns kissing them in a very not-safe-for-work kinda way. Not safe for his son to see, either.”

Ellie buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Will.”

I sighed, the pain of that day ten years ago forever seared into my heart. “So, we hurried back to Colorado, and that was that. Will was off living his bad-boy life like my parents had always warned me he would, and it was up to me and only me to raise our son to be a good, honorable man.”

“Why come back to Granite Springs, though? I mean, with all of us—with the Walkers being here and knowing you and Jackson from around town, why would you want that?”

Shrugging, I blinked back tears as I looked at my untouched coffee on the table. “I don’t really know. I cut ties with my parents after I found out about the letter, and I didn’t want to go back to Georgia. I guess I figured that even if Will wanted to have a crazy, sex-filled life in New York, at least we could live a good life in his hometown, and we’d be here whenever he got it out of his system.”

“I bet you didn’t think it would take this long, though,” April grumbled, looking annoyed for me, rather thanatme.

“Definitely not. And the more time that passed, and the more rumors I heard about the party boy Will never aged out of being, the more I wanted to keep everything a secret to protect Jackson and the life we’d built here. I didn’t want him to come back out of obligation if he wasn’t ready to be the kind of father my son deserved. Now that heisback, that’s all obviously out the window.”

“The second he sees Jackson, he’s going to figure it out,” Ellie said, alarm in her voice. “Oh, shit, Kate. You need to hurry up and tell him. Everyone knows everyone in this town, so it’s only a matter of time before he somehow sees you together or hears that you have a fifteen-year-old.”

“I know,” I whined. “But he won’t talk to me. I went to Walker’s the other day to ask him to sit down with me, but he couldn’t get away fast enough.”

Ellie shifted forward in her seat and reached for my hands, squeezing them tightly. “I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like you could talk to us about this. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so close with the Walkers, or practically a Walker myself, but just so you know, I would have been supportive of you. I love having you as a friend, and I understand that you were doing what you thought was best for your son. So from now on, if you need to talk about anything, we’re in your corner. Okay?”

“Aw, this is like a Disney moment,” April teased, giggling when Ellie and I both shot her a glare. “Seriously, though,” she went on, “Ellie’s right. I may not be a Walker becausehello,family drama, but I am your friend. So anything we can do to help, just let us know.”

“Thank you both,” I said with a sniff. “I guess I need advice on how to get him to talk to me. I have to tell him before he figures it out on his own.”

Ellie pulled back and reached into her pocket, dragging out her phone. “Hold that thought. It’s Jake.”

April and I nodded as she took the call, and I busied myself with checking my own phone to make sure Jackson hadn’t texted me or anything. Sure enough, there was a text with a crying emoji and a steak emoji. I let out a little chuckle despite everything going on in my world. This kid always brought me joy, even when things seemed too hard to handle.

Ellie hung up with Jake and saw me laughing, so she lifted a brow and nodded at the phone in my hand. “What’s so funny?”

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