33. I Can’t

33

I Can’t

W e drove home as night spread its velvet across the sky, its stars winking into sight. Evidenced by the sleepy toddler in the back seat, being the life of the party was hard work.

“The fireflies are out,” I commented. The night was magical, only made more so by the man squeezing my hand beside me.

If Dylan stayed asleep, we could build a fire in the pit in the backyard.

I could tell him I was ready to move in with him.

“She enjoyed herself today,” I murmured quietly.

Gabe smiled, his capable hands steering us toward home.

Home.

Gabe was my home. And he was ready for that next step. Despite the lingering fear fate could snatch it away at any moment, I wanted it too.

As for Dylan? I loved her.

Irrevocably.

Having her didn’t negate the loss of my other children, but she turned the page upon which I could write a new story.

Different from the one I had planned, but still good.

Slowing down to a crawl in order not to bump Dylan awake, Gabe turned into the driveway.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to waste another moment apart. I took a deep breath and braced myself to take the fall. I turned to Gabe. “I’m read—"

Gabe narrowed his gaze as his jaw clamped tight.

Following the line of his vision, I saw Zoe standing on his front porch with a suitcase, gift bags at her feet.

My heart dropped to my feet. “What’s she doing here?” I whispered, then gave my head a hard shake.

Of course, she was here. My stomach sank. It was her daughter’s birthday. Where else would she be?

Gabe threw the truck into park. Glancing at me briefly, he muttered, “Can you please get Dylan out of her seat? I need a fucking minute.”

He stalked across the yard while I opened the door and swung my legs out of the truck.

Gabe said Zoe usually called. That she only came a couple of times a year. My heart thudded wildly in my chest. I knew what she was here for.

With my hands shaking, I pushed the button to release the safety belt on Dylan’s car seat.

Easing her out of her seat, I laid her against my chest and held her close.

I closed my eyes.

Breathed her in.

Her little head drooped sleepily on my shoulder, her arms hanging limp. How must it be to trust someone so implicitly?

To give yourself over without a single thought to carrying your own weight?

The distance between me and Zoe shrunk all too quickly.

She barely spared me a glance. Her yearning gaze searched the sleepy face of her child.

I tightened my hold.

Her lips thinning into a straight line told me it did not escape her notice.

She returned her attention to Gabe. “I wanted to see her for her birthday.”

“Then you should have called and made arrangements,” he snapped.

“I miss her. I miss you.” Turning slightly away from me, she rushed on. “Even if it’s only for Dylan’s sake at first, I think we could have something special. At the very least, I want to try.”

I recoiled, punched backward by her words.

I suspected all along it would come to this, but the fact she had the audacity to say it in front of me like I was nothing shocked me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gabe growled.

Dylan raised her sleepy head and looked around. “Aunt Zo-Zo,” she murmured, smiling shyly.

Zoe winced, her regret obvious.

She looked at me then.

I recognized the wild in her eyes. The desperation. The panic. The willingness to do anything to change the outcome.

Could she see the same in mine?

I’d been there more than once.

She was the mirror of my past.

The blood rushed to my feet. Because I was the reflection in their rear-view.

Gabe scoffed and angled his body away from both of us. Hands on his hips, gaze trained to the ground, chest rapidly rising and falling, he fought to rein in his temper.

Lifting his head to meet my eyes, he jerked his chin for me to take Dylan inside and, putting himself between Zoe and me, placed a guiding hand at my back and unlocked the front door.

Holding it open, he dropped his voice to my ear. “Please, Shae-baby, take Dylan inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Dylan didn’t protest as I walked past her mother, my knees shaking so badly I was surprised I managed to walk a straight line. As much as I despised Zoe, I could hardly bear the pain she must have felt at Dylan’s easy dismissal.

Dylan’s head drooped once more to my shoulder.

Every atom of my being urged me to listen at the door, but Dylan needed her little bed. And if things got ugly, she didn’t need to hear it.

Thankfully, we’d changed her into her pajamas before leaving her grandparents’ house. She went down easily, and I headed back to the front door to listen shamelessly.

“Zoe, where is this coming from?” Gabe asked quietly. They sat side by side on the top step. “We’ve never been anything more than friends.”

She snorted. “The child we made gives evidence to the contrary.”

He leaned away from her, shaking his head. “I put my dick a lot of places I shouldn’t have. Are you saying I should have made a family with any one of the other women if one of those hook-ups resulted in a child?”

“So, I’m just a hook-up now?” she asked bitterly.

“No, Zoe. You were my friend. And sometimes we hooked up. But that’s all we ever were.”

“If Shae wasn’t here—”

He interrupted impatiently. “I cut things off with you long before Shae came back into my life. And if, God forbid, you were able to drive her off somehow, we still wouldn’t be together.”

“So, that’s it?”

He stood and stepped back, his hands on his hips. “No, that’s not it. If you try to fuck things up between Shae and me, I’ll cut you out of my life.”

She gasped and drew back. “You can’t do that.”

“Can and will.”

She stepped close to him, cajoling, “You have to think about what’s best of Dylan. You’re a good father, the best. But Gabe, Shae left you once before, what’s to say she won’t leave again?”

Gabe snorted and shook his head. Eyes narrowing to slits, he warned, “You’re trying my patience, Zoe, and I never had all that much to begin with.”

Undeterred, she beseeched him, “Dylan needs her mother.”

He leaned toward her, his face red. “You were the one who didn’t want her to ever know you were her mother. You were protecting your own interests. I knew it was a fucking mistake to lie to her.”

Her eyes widened. “We can fix it. Together, we could give Dylan a sibling. You told me yourself Shae can’t have children.”

I choked back a cry.

He told her about my greatest failure.

Slit open the tender underbelly I’d so hesitantly exposed.

Gabe’s head shot up, his eyes met mine, and his expression morphed from thunderous fury to guilt stricken.

I stepped back, my hand over my mouth.

Gabe turned to Zoe. “Leave. Now.”

Bounding across the porch, he swung the door open and stepped into the hallway. Eyes on me, he closed the door and turned the lock.

“Shae…” He held his palms out as if to calm a wild animal. “Don’t run.”

I wrapped my arms around my torso, my womb seemingly emptier than before. “You told her about me,” I accused quietly.

“Baby,” he whispered, dropping his hands. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. The lines bracketing his mouth deepened. “It’s not how you think.”

I raised my stricken eyes to his. “No?”

He shook his head, his eyes intent on my face. “No. She was concerned about Dylan being left out in the cold if we were to have our own children.” His face flushed. “I opened my mouth before I thought it through. I’m so sorry.”

I dropped my eyes and swallowed my pain.

And my shame swallowed me.

He hazarded another step toward me. “Shae,” he began hesitantly. “Would it be so bad if Dylan knew Zoe was her birthmother? It wouldn’t change anything between us, and it doesn’t mean you won’t be a huge part of Dylan’s life, too. Dylan could have both of you. Shae-baby,” he murmured, “as much as I wish it was you, Zoe is her birthmother.”

The world spun its stories, leaving me untouched at its center once again.

Gabe continued to speak, his eyes intent on my face, but his words didn’t reach me.

I saw my future, and it was bleak.

More pictures on the mantle. Zoe, Gabe, and Dylan. Me, outside their circle, clinging to the perimeter, begging him to let me in.

Sweeping up the crumbs to hoard for my own.

He reached out his hand, a frown line forming between his brows.

No.

I backed away.

One step.

Another.

I raised my chin and faced him, my voice steady. Resolute. “I need to go now.”

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened with fear. “Shae,” he breathed.

I shook my head. I couldn’t go through it again.

I moved on autopilot. Everything that was me, curled into a ball, buried in the deepest recess of my mind.

“Don’t go. Please. We can talk this out,” he rushed on. “You told me not to walk away. Please don’t run, Shae.”

He was there.

He’d been there for all of it.

I shook my head, bile climbing my throat. “I can’t, Gabe.” I gestured at the mantle where the imaginary pictures would one day sit on display. “I can’t keep doing this.”

He looked at the mantle, his face contorting with panic and confusion. “What are you talking about?”

On the outside looking in.

I skirted around him, unlocked the door, and stepped out onto the porch.

Poor Shae.

I don’t think she can have children .

The ache of empty arms, arms that had grown used to the weight of the four-year-old girl who called me Mommy.

Gabe and Zoe would sit her down.

Explain with smiles on their faces to tell her the good news that she wasn’t just her aunt. The best news.

I closed my eyes.

Mine big, big, mommy.

“Doing what?” he demanded, throwing his arms wide as he followed me out onto the porch where Zoe had stood not five minutes earlier. “She doesn’t mean anything to me!”

My hands rolled into fists, my lips thinning as my teeth gritted together.

I hate her .

Evading his hand, I turned and ran down the steps to the path, my only goal to reach my car before I began screaming.

“You’re a coward, Shae O’Neill,” he snarled.

I spun around to face him, the unfairness of his accusation burning a hole through my rage, rage at the betrayal done by the one I was set to leave.

Again.

We were kids.

You can’t have it both ways.

The one I was set to leave again, knowing this time beyond a doubt what I was sacrificing.

And understanding what it would cost me to stay.

Losing a child over and over and over again. Reminded every time Zoe deigned to roll back into town that Dylan wasn’t mine.

It was crazy. Dylan had only been mine for a few weeks. But a few short weeks was all I’d ever been allotted.

I turned and stared at him. My voice shook. My lip trembled. My hands fisted at my sides. “You’re asking the impossible. You want me to live out my nightmare every fucking day.”

“No, Shae, I don’t. But I need to know you want me for me, just me.”

I shook my head.

Of course I wanted him. How could he think I didn’t?

He jumped down off the porch and walked toward me, slamming his palm down over his heart. “But that’s not enough for you, is it? You’re all the fucking same. You want your fairytale fucking family and if I can’t give you that wrapped up neat and tidy and tied with a big fucking shiny bow, you don’t want me!”

“That’s not true!”

“Yeah? Then why are you out here set to run away instead of in there where you belong with me and Dylan working this out?”

And Zoe? I asked silently. Would she also come to the table to work this out?

Cold sweat broke out across my brow.

If only she’d never called me Mommy.

If only the gift had never been given only to be ripped away.

My stomach heaved.

I sucked in a ragged breath, and it lacerated me on the way out. “I can’t.”

His eyes, wide and glossy, held mine. “Shae, if I lose you now, it might be forever.” His voice broke. “And I can’t. Please .”