Chapter 5

5

I was sitting with my feet in the sand, eyes closed, head tipped back, enjoying the sound of the ocean. The sun was warm, the fresh salty air working its magic.

I could stay here forever. I loved Georgia. Loved living by my family. But this place, my parents' vacation home in Myrtle Beach, was awesome. So much of my childhood was wrapped up right here on this very sliver of sand in front of me.

Lily and Lenox had purchased their house first. The second that the little cottage Aunt Lily had rented when she'd been pregnant with Carter went up for sale, Uncle Lenox bought it for her. When the one next door came available, Uncle Levi and Aunt Blake had bought it.

We used to all cram into the two small houses and spend a few weeks down in South Carolina, all of us together.

When my mom and dad added Quinn and the twins to the mix, we needed more space. Aunt Lily's friends Anthony and Adam, whom she'd met when she'd been staying at the beach, sold my parents their bungalow. Which was next door to Uncle Levi and Aunt Blake.

It would be years later when the house next to my parents' came available and Uncle Clark and Aunt Reagan bought it.

Four houses all lined the beach, each one owned by a member of my family. We came often. We'd also had a blast. Bonfires on the beach, night swims, volleyball games, you name it, we did it. I loved this place.

It was where I'd realized I was in love with Carter.

It was also the place where we shared our first kiss. It was my first, not his. He'd kissed a lot of girls before I'd finally found my courage and laid one on him. It hadn't gone well.

This was the place where Carter's father had asked his mother to marry him.

It was the place I needed to be. I was close to family; they were surrounding me. Memories of my youth, the good—no, great—old days. So while I could feel all the love that we'd shared on this beach, they weren't actually here. Not physically. And I needed that, too.

I didn't want them to see me like this. There would be no hiding the pain. Not today.

My hands found my flat stomach and I allowed myself to wonder, if he or she would've come today? Or would I've gone past my due date? Would he look like Carter? Or would she have my mom's blue eyes, or would she have her daddy's green?

There was a lot that haunted me about losing my baby, but knowing if it was a boy or a girl was high on that list. Never knowing if I would've had a son or a daughter wrecked me. The worst part was like it never existed. No name. No funeral. No place to go visit my baby.

One day I was pregnant, the next I wasn't and that was it.

Final.

Gone.

"Laney, baby, what the fuck?"

I jolted and my eyes popped open. But as soon as I saw the look on Carter's handsome face, I wished I'd kept them closed.

"What are you doing here?" I stood.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not," I lied.

Why? Why was he here? Why couldn't I just mourn the loss of our child alone?

"Baby, I can see the tears still falling."

"Stop calling me that," I snapped and did the only thing I could do. I fled.

My pace was quick as I walked up the boardwalk to my parents' house.

The screen door didn't snap closed behind me and my temper flared. I turned around and Carter still had his hand on the wooden frame getting ready to step inside.

"We're not doing this. Get out."

"We are, Laney. It's been two weeks and you're still not answering my calls, texts, or emails. All of which I know you're getting."

Two weeks ago after Tuesday and Jackson's wedding I'd done something monumentally stupid. I'd allowed him into my bed and curled into his body and cried. I was pressed so close I was hoping he could absorb some of the pain, and make it just a little manageable.

The next morning I'd woken up, like I had countless times before, to a cold lonely bed. Carter had left sometime after I'd fallen asleep. No goodbye, no promises. Just gone.

Typical.

I could see how that would've been misleading, me allowing him to hold me. But I figured when I still hadn't taken his calls, he would've gotten the hint.

Now he was invading my life at the worst possible time.

"Laney," he snapped.

My eyes focused on him and I got mad. Furious. Same shit.

"Get the hell out."

"I keep telling you, baby, we need to talk."

"Why, Carter? Why now? I don't understand. I've been begging, actual begging has occurred, for you to talk to me but you always refused. Years, I've tried and you've shut me down. Hell, I couldn't even ask you when the next time you'd be home was. Or how long you'd be gone on deployment, or where. Nothing. I got nothing out of you."

"You got everything. All I could give."

"Well, sorry, Carter, but it wasn't enough. Not then, not now."

"Laney, baby, I know I was wrong. I should've never pushed you away. I see it now. I know I should've—"

"Too fucking late!" I yelled.

"It's not. I'll make it up to you. I'll fix it. Please just give me the chance to prove—"

There it was again—fix it.

"You cannot fix this. You can't fix what I've broken. You can't make this better. It's gone. There's nothing left."

I felt myself falling apart. Everything was bearing down on me at once. The words I'd been waiting to hear on the tip of his tongue, the emotion in his voice, the concern in his eyes. I'd waited forever to hear him say he'd been wrong and he was ready for us. But it was too late. I'd ruined it.

"Laney, what'd you break?"

"Us. I broke us."

"That's impossible." He had no idea what he was talking about. "We can make it through anything."

No, we couldn't. Not this.

"I'm out of the Navy. I'm home."

His announcement was like a physical blow.

"What?" I whispered.

"We can…."

I stumbled back, felt the back of my knees hit the chair, and thank God it was there or I would've landed on the floor. I plopped my ass down and hung my head.

Why was this happening to me? Why was I being punished?

"Laney?"

Carter was in front of me in a crouch, his hand was coming up and I had to put a stop to this. All of it. I was dangerously close to losing it.

"Don't touch me."

He ignored my demand and his palm cupped my cheek and his thumb brushed away the tears.

"Tell me."

God, he was beautiful. Everything I'd ever wanted. Everything I could never have.

"It's too late."

"Baby, it's not. It will never be too late for us. It's always been you—always. I'm sorry, so fucking sorry I was so stupid. Never shoulda pushed you away. I thought I was doing right by you. I thought I was protecting you. I was wrong, Laney. Please forgive me—please. We can work this out. We can have everything. It's always been us—Carter and Delaney since we were old enough to understand what love is."

All my life I waited for this chance, for us to be together—really together. But now, every word he spoke felt like he was plunging a knife into my heart. No, my soul.

"We can't fix—"

"Laney baby, we can. We will. Let me dig it out, whatever's inside of you that's hurting you, let me take it from you."

Anger flashed. Take it out ?

"You can't take it out, Carter. It's already gone. It was beaten out of me. There's nothing left inside. Gone. Gone. Gone."

"Tell me what happened with Derek Lowe."

"No."

"Laney, you have to let it out, you have to talk about what happened. Mercy had to. Before she went back to work, the DEA made her talk to someone."

I knew Mercy had talked to a shrink; she'd begged me to go see one, too, but I'd refused. I didn't want to think about what happened. So I really hadn't wanted to talk about it.

"Just go away. Please. Let me go. I can't do this, not today."

"Why not today?"

I stared into his green eyes and remained silent. Exhaustion hit and I was so damn tired I could sleep for a year. I just wanted him to leave. I wanted to wallow in my misery alone.

"Talk. To. Me. Dammit. Tell me what happened. I'm dying, Delaney. It kills me to know you were taken and I was on the other side of the world. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't hold you after it happened. I couldn't—"

"You weren't there!" I shouted in his face. "But that wasn't the worst part. Not even by a long shot. You know what was worse than being taken by Derek Lowe? Taking a pregnancy test by myself and seeing a plus sign. Being so happy I could burst but I had no one to share it with. Because you weren't there. Going to the doctor and having that home test confirmed. Hearing our baby's heart beat for the first time—alone. You weren't there . I did that alone. That was worse. Something that should've been happy and exciting was sad and scary because I was going at it alone."

"Pregnant?"

If I'd been paying attention to Carter, I would've seen it, the confusion, the hurt, the cold fury in his eyes, but instead I'd snapped. I was lost in my own grief. My own personal hell, a place I kept myself locked in.

"Then I left the doctor's office on cloud nine. We were having a baby. Even though I was alone, I was happy. The happiest. I had this little baby growing inside of me, a part of you I'd always have. I was driving home in a haze of excitement. That lasted thirty minutes. Then Derek took me. All I could think about was protecting our baby. I didn't care what he did to me as long as he didn't hurt what was inside of me. I failed, Carter. I hadn't even had confirmation I was a mom for more than an hour and I failed. There is no fixing what I took from us."

"Pregnant?" Carter's voice was unrecognizable—so thick with emotion the sound shredded me.

"Today should've been beautiful. We should've been welcoming our child into the world. Instead I was selfish and stupid. I didn't listen to my brother or Mercy."

Carter reached for me and I batted his hand away. "All I could do was lie on the floor next to Mercy curled into a ball. I felt it, I knew the second he kicked me in my stomach my baby was gone. And you were not there. I was all alone. Always fucking alone."

"Delaney." My name sounded like it'd been tortured from his lips, hoarse and overwhelmingly sad. "Fuck, baby, fuck."

I blinked away some of the tears swimming under my eyelids and with them went some of the fog. Carter was on his knees in front of me, anguish clear as day, tears that matched my own streaming down his cheeks. His head came down into my lap and I was forced to sit back. His big hand went to my empty stomach and he wailed out his pain.

Hell.

I was living in hell.

Now he was, too.

I don't know how long we stayed like that. Carter's head in my lap, my hand in his hair trying to comfort him the only way I could.

Then he was on his feet, I was in his arms and he was walking us down the hall to the master suite. Carter gently laid me on the bed and followed. He rolled me to my side and fitted his broad chest to my back. He threaded our fingers together and brought our hands over my heart and held on tight.

This was familiar. He'd done this hundreds of times, one of the many things I loved about sleeping with Carter. He always held me close, like he was trying to meld our bodies. So close nothing could come between us.

But something had.

My stupidity. He'd never forgive me for what I'd done. How could he?

"I love you, Laney. So fucking much, baby. I'm so sorry. So goddamn sorry."