And then he looked her right in the eye, chin up. “I guess the answer to your question is...both. I won’t risk children’s lives on a chance that I’ll ever feel about caring for them as I felt about caring for the old woman who’d been the only good in my life. I won’t know, until someone is fully dependent on me. And I can’t take the chance that it would happen again. Nor can I risk not knowing if I’m capable of loving a child enough. My father didn’t care enough to stick around. Or at least check for consequences for what he’d done with my mother. And she clearly didn’t seem to find having me worth the sacrifice...”
Sage stilled. Too full of conflicting emotions raging through her to do anything but feel them all.
After all those years...she finally understood.
Was seeing him differently.
And it didn’t help.
Didn’t make anything better. At all.
She’d thought they’d been so close that, other than their familial needs, they’d been open and honest with each other. That she’d known him better than she’d known anyone. Even her twin brother.
She’d given him all of herself.
While he’d been hiding himself from her all along. If he’d only let her in. Talked to her, at least. Let her love the whole younger man while he grew into the successful man he’d become. Maybe he’d have seen life differently, through the eyes of faithful, every-day love. Maybe not. But at least, if he’d have given her a chance, given her the truth and let her make her own choice...
“I’m sorry.” She heard sorrow in his tone. Didn’t meet his gaze. Whether he’d followed her thoughts, or was just sending out a general politeness, Sage couldn’t even try to tune in to find out.
“I’m sorry, too,” she told him. Needing the conversation to end.
In her current, somewhat broken and shocked state, all she knew was that her life with Gray, any kind of future relationship they might have, had just changed forever.
Most particularly in light of a possible consequence from their few seconds of stolen pleasure on the beach.
Gray went straight back to Ocean Breeze that night. No more stopping for a long dinner and a beer, or a sports bar, watching a game he didn’t care about, and having a beer. No more looking at homes he didn’t want, or sitting with the architect to draw up plans for renovating the interiors of the various Buzzing Bee Clinics locations he was in the process of leasing and buying. He’d managed to eat up Sunday through Thursday nights, to avoid any chance of time with Sage on the beach, but Friday night, he just didn’t have it in him to run anymore.
He’d been at it since he was old enough to know that his life wasn’t like his friends’ lives. He’d very likely lost Sage’s respect because of it.
So he was running to avoid becoming what he was. A product of a nontraditional, sad and painful, but still loving home. There’d been enough to eat. He’d always been warm and fed. Clean. And treated with kindness.
He’d never had a hand lifted to him.
Or, as far as he could remember, a harsh word spoken to him inside the walls of his home, either.
Opening up to Sage...had opened up his past to himself. Allowing him to see alternate views of his reality. The woman had always had a way of making him feel...all the things he’d never felt at home. Safe. In a nonphysical sense.
But in the space of one sentence, that had changed.
Nothing Sage had said. It had been his own words.
And between the capital letter at the beginning, and the period at the end, he’d finalized his own life sentence.
My father didn’t care enough to stick around. Or at least check for consequences for what he’d done with my mother.
Six days before, he’d had unprotected sex. A first for him. A major, unforgivable first. He was assuming Sage was on birth control. But he hadn’t asked. Had been too busy running from what they’d done, trying to avoid the consequence he felt he may have created. He did not want to lose their friendship over a glorious minute in the sand.
He’d felt a change come over her that afternoon. Felt her withdrawing from him.
And knew he had to ask about the birth control.
He would not be his father. Period.
He’d suffocate, have his lungs blown out, go on oxygen twenty-four seven, chain himself to within a few miles of the kid at all times, if that was what it took to assure himself he’d stick around. He’d never have a child of his growing up without a father. Wondering where he was.
He’d never abandon a woman pregnant with his child.
Most particularly not Sage Martin.
