Page 74 of Enforcing the Rules

“No. Never.”

I nodded.

She reached over and brushed a lock of my hair back. “I know this is incredibly unfair to you. I’m so sorry.”

I reached for the door handle, then paused, staring out the window. “I need time to… think about it.”

“Utah.”

I looked at her then. “I get what it cost you to come to me. You could have just left town.”

She shook her head. “I’d never hide her from you. Besides, you’d find me.”

“I would. Still, I appreciate you asking. When were you thinking of leaving?”

“Gregg put in a two-week notice. We’ll leave the week after.”

Three weeks and my daughter would be across the country from me. “I’ll call you.”

“When?”

“By the end of the week.” It was the best I could give her. I climbed out of her SUV, and she drove off. I watched her taillights disappear down the road, thinking how soon that same car would carry my daughter away from me.

I rode back to the clubhouse and climbed into bed with Kate.

She reached for me, her warm body pressing against mine. I think she sensed my turmoil. Her head lifted, and she stared at me in the moonlight. “Baby, is everything okay?”

“Nope.”

“What happened?”

I told her I’d met Stephanie, and I told her the reason, stroking my fingers absently along her upper arm and staring at the wall. “When Mia was born, I started a college fund for her. I put a couple hundred in it every month.” I shrugged. “And a little extra at Christmas time. It’s got over fifteen grand in it right now.”

Kate squeezed me, but kept silent, letting me talk.

“It hurt to see Gregg teaching her how to ride a bike. I was envious of the man.”

“What are you going to do? Will you let her go?”

“She has a family. Two other kids. I can’t destroy that for her. So, I guess I have to let her go.”

“Maybe someday…” She let her voice drift off and the room was quiet.

“Yeah. Maybe someday.”

“It’s a big sacrifice you’re making.”

I felt like my heart was breaking.

“Utah?”

“Yeah, babe.”

“I love you.”

The words went straight to my heart and soul, to a place way deep down I’d kept protected since I was four years old. I was immediately back there, watching my mother get in that car and drive away as I cried and banged on the storm door glass while my father held me back.

It was a place only maybe Mia had ever reached, but that love was only one-sided. I could love her, but she had never really been mine to lose. She was already lost to me the day she was born.

---