Chapter 16

16

E llen pushed the door open quietly and stepped into Travis's house.

It was quiet, but that didn't necessarily mean it had been a good night. For the last two nights, Alice had been up all night long crying. When Ellen had gotten there in the morning after teaching her aquatics class, Travis had looked like he was ready to drop.

She felt terrible for him but didn't know what to do. Other than to keep coming and giving him a little bit of time to rest while she watched the baby, cooked a meal or two, and did a little bit of cleaning.

They barely talked, because Travis had been so tired.

She tiptoed into the living room, which was where Travis usually crashed if the baby had been up.

She wasn't sure whether he did that so she didn't have to go back to any bedrooms, or whether he just felt more comfortable there. Whichever it was, she appreciated it. She heard the rumors around town that said she was the mother and Travis was the father, and had been asked outright, and had avoided the question as much as she could, which protected the mom of the baby, but it made people very curious about her and her relationship with Travis.

As she walked in, she could see him sitting on the couch, slouched down, with the baby on his chest. He had two pillows beside him, keeping his arm propped up so he formed a little cage with his body so the baby couldn't go anywhere.

She took a moment to just look at him and smile. He'd come so far from the gangly teen that she first knew, becoming a man of character and someone she admired greatly.

"I hope that smile means that you made coffee," he murmured, and she realized that his eyes were open.

"I stopped at the bookstore and grabbed some." She held up the cup she had in her hand.

He drank coffee, while she didn't care for it. But she enjoyed the smell, and she really enjoyed the way it made him smile.

"My favorite."

She nodded. He claimed that he'd been all over the world, but that the coffee in the bookstore at Sweet Water was the best anywhere.

She didn't know if he was just saying that because he loved Sweet Water, or if it was because it was true.

"Hard night?" she asked, although she didn't figure she needed to.

He nodded, shifting up carefully without waking Alice. "She just fell asleep about an hour ago. From experience, I think we can pretty much drop a bomb in the next room and she wouldn't wake up now."

"I'm sorry. I don't think you've had a night of good sleep since she came."

"No. It…makes me understand a little more when people say how parenting is so hard. Is such a sacrifice. I don't think she's going to be appreciating this anytime soon."

"Probably in another thirty or forty years," Ellen said with a small laugh. She didn't really remember her own mom, but she must have stayed up overnight with her. Must have fed her when she was hungry, changed her, and put cute little dresses or outfits on her.

"What's that look for? I feel like I lost you."

He always noticed. Even when she didn't want him to. Not really. Although, she did want to share those memories or thoughts of her mom.

"I guess I was just thinking about my mom. I don't really remember her at all, but she must have stayed up with me. I suppose at this point in time, I'm ready to thank her for it, but… I don't even remember."

"That's sad. You had a mom who cared, whom you can't remember, and I had a mom who didn't care, and I remember her all too well."

That made her heart clench, and she wanted to go over and sit down beside him. Take his hand in hers, and somehow cover the ache that must be in his chest over the fact that his mom never really seemed like she liked him very much.

"Although, she did kind of give me a gift with that."

"She did?" Ellen asked, walking over and handing him his coffee instead.

"Yeah. You don't know how many times in the last couple weeks since Alice came that I thought to myself, if somehow I managed to survive the neglectful care that I know my mother gave me, surely I can't really do anything that's going to hurt Alice."

"I guess that's one way of putting a positive spin on it." Leave it to Travis to find the good in it.

He nodded.

"Here. Let me take her, and you can have a little bit of peace and quiet time."

That was usually the extent of their conversations, because by the time he would get up, she would be ready to leave.

But he shook his head this morning while slowly straightening. Moving the baby down so she was cradled in his arms, he stood with his coffee in one hand and the baby in the other. She almost made a joking comment about how he'd gotten really good.

She didn't, because she was too busy wondering. Maybe he heard the rumors and was going to tell her to go home. That he could handle it by himself from now on.

He had the pack and play still set up in the living room, although she had gone to the store the second day he had Alice and bought the crib. That was set up in the spare bedroom. The one that used to be the boys' room.

He set the coffee on the end table and put Alice down in the pack and play gently, tucked her blanket around her, and straightened.

"I've been so tired, it's been so…hard. With the baby, coming in and trying to get settled, and rearranging all the plans I had for when I hit the ground here in Sweet Water. I haven't had a chance to thank you."

"You don't need to thank me." Was that all he wanted? She didn't need a big production. She was here because…he was a friend and she…loved him.

"Maybe I just wanted to."

"Okay. You're welcome." She shrugged her shoulders, thinking it wasn't that big of a deal.

He took a look at Alice, as though to make sure she'd not woken up after being set down, then he closed the distance between them.

"No. You deserve more than that. You deserve…everything." His words were slow, as though he were struggling to find them, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and she couldn't have helped him if she wanted to as he stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She forgot to breathe.

She couldn't swallow. Her throat was too dry. She waited.

A soft feeling. Light touch. Dark look, hooded but sincere. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Had trouble remembering her name, and without realizing it, her hand came up and touched his waist.

"Ellen," he murmured.

Because she touched him? Because he wanted to talk to her? She wasn't sure. Just knew that the way he said her name made her feel like he cherished her, which was crazy. It was just a name. A sound in the air. He hadn't done anything.

Their breath mingled, the only sound in the room, as they stood like that, his hand on her shoulder, hers at his waist, and stared into one another's eyes.

"Do you remember that night?" he finally murmured.

She tried to swallow so she could talk, but her throat wouldn't work. She nodded her head. She knew exactly what he was talking about. The night he left.

"I wanted to kiss you so bad. Wanted to stay." His hand came up and touched her cheek, running the backs of his fingers softly down her skin, his breath shallow and ragged. "I never wanted anything so much in my life before."

She, as young as she was, had wanted it too.

"The best thing for you was for me to leave. I know, I know I could have gotten in trouble. That really wasn't the heaviest thing on my mind. It was you. You needed more years."

It was true. She had been too young. He had made the right decision by walking away, but that had been ten years ago. Why had he stayed away? That was what she didn't understand. That was what made her feel like he'd changed his mind.

There were a thousand, a million ways he could have let her know he wanted her. But he didn't and he hadn't, and she set her heart on being friends. The best friend she could be.

"I don't think I've ever done anything harder than walking away from you that night."

"I didn't want you to."

"That was part of what made it so hard. I knew that."

Maybe she should be embarrassed of that. She hadn't realized her feelings were so transparent.

"It doesn't feel like the right time to tell you this now. It wasn't the right time then, then there was more for me to learn, then Ford wanted me to go to Brazil. There just never seemed to be the perfect time for me to tell you how I feel." His eyes dropped to her lips, and his finger traced across the skin just beneath them, and she resisted the urge to pull them in and bite them.

"So I decided I was going to make the time." A small smile lifted his lips but didn't show his teeth. "Last night, Alice was crying, screaming, and I was thinking about my mother. How much I would have loved to have had a tender word from her, a soft touch, some kind of sign that I was more to her than just a strange kid who happened to hang out at her house a lot."

"That hurts my heart to hear that."

"This is not about that." He shook his head, like he wanted to get past that, didn't want her dwelling on that. "But I thought about how short life is. How many opportunities she had, but maybe it didn't feel like the right time to her. Maybe she really wasn't thinking of me, or maybe… I don't know. But I didn't want to let another day go by without me telling you how much you mean to me. I didn't want…things happen. You could be gone tomorrow. I could be gone tomorrow?—"

"Don't say that!"

"It's true. One day we're here, the next day we're not. Our life is a vapor. And I didn't want to live my life or to have you live yours, to lose you without ever telling you that I love you. I've loved you since you were a skinny teen, hauling your cow around everywhere, with your dog as your best friend."

"I was fat."

"No, you weren't." His brows drew down, like somehow he'd never noticed?

"Chubby. I was chubby."

"I don't care. I never paid attention to that."

"It didn't feel like it. It felt like…like there were cheerleaders who caught your eye."

"And you waited for me to get some sense. I wasn't perfect."

"I didn't expect you to be."

"I didn't see you like that for a while. You were a lot younger. But…you were faithful. Faithful in a way that no one else in my life has ever been. Maybe that's what drew my attention to you to begin with, but I fell in love with you at some point, and I've never fallen back out. Ever." He pressed his lips together and blew the breath out of his nose as he lifted his eyes and looked over her shoulder as though deciding whether or not to say more. "I've been faithful to you since that day in the barn. The day that I wanted to kiss you, but didn't and walked away instead."

She blinked. Trying to process what he was saying. She… She wondered over the years. Maybe he'd left because he had girlfriends. Maybe he hadn't stayed because he changed his mind. Maybe she was just friendship material while there were other girls that were…more.

He didn't need to say this now. Didn't need to tell her everything, didn't need to discuss the time that elapsed between them. If he wanted to, he could just pick up from today.

But he wanted her to know that he'd been faithful. To her.

"I wondered what you've been doing. All the times you were away. But we didn't talk about it for a long time. You never mentioned anyone, but that didn't mean there weren't people, women."

"No. Occasionally I had to take a date to a business party or lunch or something, and Ford usually found someone for me. I think he tried to find people who would never be interested in a skinny kid, since my dates always seemed to be older women who were interested in someone else."

"I'll have to thank him," Ellen murmured. Not sure what direction Travis was going with this conversation, but the fact that he was touching her, telling her he was faithful to her, talking about the time he almost kissed her, and didn't. He'd said he loved her, but maybe he was talking about as a friend.

"Yeah. I have a lot of things to thank Ford for." He bent down, kissed her forehead, just a gentle touch of his lips on her skin, and she closed her eyes as he stayed there, like he just wanted to be close enough to touch her, to catch her scent, to feel her heat.

She remembered the little boy he'd been and how he longed for his mother's touch, and maybe he just needed that closeness. Or maybe it was something more.

"It was a lonely ten years, and I never asked you to wait for me. I didn't want you to not be with someone, just because you promised. It took a lot of faith, but I wanted you to want me enough to wait. Without me asking. I thought to myself that if that happened, then when I got home… Maybe it meant you felt for me exactly what I felt for you."

"You know I've been faithful. If I hadn't been, everyone in town would be talking about it." He snorted a little at her words. "And the fact that a baby shows up, and everyone assumes that if it was yours, it was mine."

"I guess that was all I needed to know."

"But I hate those assumptions. After the struggle to do right, to be what the Lord wanted, that everyone would just assume that we hadn't, it's frustrating."

"It's good for the baby. And it was good for my heart. I shouldn't admit that, and I know that it shouldn't feel as good as what it did, but the last ten days as I listened to the rumors, every time I hear that people think it's yours, and they think I'm the father, it just makes me smile. There's never been another name associated with you, and…that just really makes me feel good."

"It wasn't on purpose. It was just, there just wasn't anyone else who compared. Ever. For anything."

"That's hard for me to believe. I'm not that great of a person."

"You are to me. You've grown into a better one since the boy I knew walked away."

There was silence for a bit, and she thought maybe he was just enjoying the closeness. She brought her other hand up and slid her hands around his back. He let out a groan but didn't move. Almost like he was afraid to.

"Do you think you could love the man I've become?" There was a bit of anguish in his voice that broke her heart.

"I do! I love the boy you were, and I love even more the man you are now." How could she tell him how her heart turned over when she saw him holding Alice? She lifted her head, and he pulled back a bit to give her room. She took one finger and traced the bruise that was fading from his eye, the scab that had healed up on the edge of his jaw, where the edges were red and painful looking.

"You didn't have to come back and have a fistfight for me. I would have gone willingly."

He grinned a little, and maybe she shouldn't have tried to lighten the air at all, but she didn't like the anguish she'd heard, like telling her what he felt was painful.

But she also understood that he hadn't had a whole lot of love in his life. That having feelings for someone almost always involved pain for him and weren't usually returned.

That loving her was a risk for him. No matter how rich or successful he had become, a person's childhood never really faded completely away, and the idea that she might reject him probably loomed large in his head.

She couldn't fix any of that stuff. She couldn't take his childhood away and give him a happy one instead. She couldn't make anything in the past better.

She realized now that she had probably done the best thing that could possibly have been done for him when she'd been faithful, even though he hadn't asked. Even though he hadn't been around, even though he hadn't kissed her before he left and declared his feelings.

If that didn't convince him that she loved him, she figured there probably wasn't a whole lot that would.

"You know I'd do that again, as bad as it hurt."

"Of course. Because that's the kind of man you are. I know you didn't want to."

His smile said that he appreciated the fact that she acknowledged that. That he wasn't bloodthirsty and didn't have an ax to grind or any kind of male posturing to prove. That the fight had been for her.

"I love you," he said, still smiling.

"I love you too," she said simply.

"It's hard for me to believe."

She lifted her brows.

"But I do. Mostly because you waited. You were faithful. You didn't give up on me, find someone else, and walk away."

"No. I've got a feeling that in this lifetime, you're the only man for me. So take care of yourself."

"Maybe I'll just let you do that."

"Well, I have a tendency to be clumsy. And I come with some cows."

"Don't forget about Chewy."

The dog whined at their feet, and they both looked down and smiled.

"I don't want to think about it, but Chewy is getting older, and she's not going to be with me forever, but…you are."

"Yeah." His eyes rested on her arms, still dark, still swirling with the motion. "So about that night when I walked away?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think there's a day that's gone by that I didn't pray that I'd get a second chance."

"A second chance?"

"To kiss you."

"Oh." Her fingertips started to tingle.

"How about now?"

"Now? I don't think so."

He lifted his chin, his lips pressed together, his eyes showing disappointment, and a little confusion, and maybe pain at what he perceived as her rejection.

"You waited too long. It's my turn. I'm kissing you."

He let out a breath, laughing a bit, and then he stood still. "All right. That's fair. I can give you that."

"Good. Because I was going to take it even if you didn't give it."

"Really?"

"Because you said you loved me. I feel like kissing is part of that."

"I feel like you might be right."

But maybe that wasn't the way to go about it. "I think I'm wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe, maybe it should be both of us. Not just you. Not just me. Both of us."

"Yeah. You're right. I have a feeling something like kissing is better done together."

They were both smiling as his head lowered, and she closed her eyes, feeling like an eternity slipped by between each second as his arms tightened around her and she waited for his lips to touch hers.

Her fingers fisted at the back of his neck as their lips met, and the boy of her dreams became the man in front of her, kissing her, holding her, loving her.