Dean’s cheeks colored. “That wasn’t just for me. It’s to protect both of us.”
I managed to keep from rolling my eyes, but just barely. “Okay.”
“Listen.” He leaned forward. “I know this isn’t easy for either of us. Also, I realize . . .” He paused. “I realize that you could’ve ignored my call or told me to go fuck myself when I asked you to meet me, and I would have deserved it. That, and more. I know that the other night—the night you told me—I was a dick.”
Some of the tension eased from my shoulders. “I wouldn’t say that.” One side of my mouth curved slightly. “Maybe I’d say you had a degree of assholery.”
“That’s fair.” Dean nodded. “So the first thing I want to do is to apologize for how I acted. I was shocked. I wasn’t at all prepared for the news you gave me. But that doesn’t excuse me treating you the way I did—or for leaving like that. It’s been eating at me ever since.”
I inclined my head. “Apology accepted.”
Dean’s brows drew together. “Just like that?”
I shrugged. “What do you want me to do? Yell and sulk and pout? Tell you that you handled it badly and that I’m still pissed off? Do you need me to make a scene right here? Will that make you feel better? Will it assuage your guilty conscious?” I shook my head. “Because I’m not going to do any of that, Dean. This whole thing . . . I mean, it’s just so crazy. I’d just begun to accept the whole idea that I was pregnant, and I knew I was alone because I had no way to find you. And then suddenly, there you are: the guy I had a night of fun with a few months ago, the guy who, as it turns out, also helped get me into my current predicament. I didn’t know how to react. I just had this incredible need to tell you as soon as I could.”
Dean steepled his fingers against his lips but said nothing, so I plunged on.
“I had settled it in my mind, you know? That I wasn’t going to be able to tell you that I was pregnant.” I fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth. “I called my friends—the ones who took me to the party? And I tried to be casual when I asked them if they remembered seeing you that night. I told them that I’d talked with you a little before I left. But they couldn’t place you, didn’t remember you.”
“I wasn’t there very long, and I didn’t know anyone at the party except for Lori. There’s no way you could have found me, Willow. Barring a miracle.”
“But here we are.” I spread my hands. “Is this a miracle, or just fate’s cruel joke?”
“I have no idea, to be honest. But I want to do whatever I can to help you. I want to take responsibility. I was there that night. We . . .” The flush on his face deepened. “That night was incredible. I hadn’t . . . I mean, I hadn’t done that for a long time. And you were—” He stopped speaking and cleared his throat. “And even though we took precautions, there was a consequence. So I want to do whatever I can to be responsible.”
A glimmer of hope, something I hadn’t felt since before my trip to St. Barnabas, stirred in my chest. “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. I can’t tell you how much.” I gnawed on the corner of my lip. “I was ready to do this completely on my own. But I’d really rather have someone I can talk to. Someone who could help me make all these crazy, important, impossible decisions.”
Dean shifted in his chair, an expression I couldn’t read flittering across his face. “I want to be that for you, Willow. I want to be there. But also . . .I need to lay out some facts to you.”
The server came over with a plate of lemons and her order pad at the ready. A little flustered, I flipped over the menu and ordered the first thing that looked good—an order of chicken tenders and fries. Dean asked for a cheeseburger and an order of potato salad.
Once she’d left again, Dean folded his hands loosely on the table and leveled his gaze at me.
“You haven’t been at West Point long, and I assume that since your father’s only been here a few years, you don’t know a whole lot about how things work—our honor system, for instance.”
“That’s a fair assessment,” I agreed. “I just know that this was the place Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British, ending with his defection to England to avoid a treason trial—and probably execution. I know that it’s been a school since about eighteen hundred, and that there was a class of men in the early twentieth century with an extraordinarily high number of generals—important generals. Like, Eisenhower and . . .”
“Bradley,” Dean supplied. “Yes, the class the stars fell on. Highest number of generals, before or since.” He took a sip of his water. “But what’s important is that we have this thing called the honor code, which means that we—cadets—we don’t lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.”
A prickle of apprehension ran down my spine. “All right.”
“So if someone asks me, point-blank, if I am the father of your baby, I am honor-bound to tell them the truth.”
I nodded. “I see. How likely is that to happen? The question, I mean. I assume you would abide by your honor code.”
“I absolutely would. I have done so for three years, and I plan to finish my cadet career without violating the code.” He blew out a breath. “As far as the likeliness of the question being asked . . . right now, I’d say it’s pretty low.”
“Okay.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I guess I don’t see where you’re going with this, then.”
He gave me a brief nod which I took to mean that he was getting to the point. “I recently found out that there is a big chasm of injustice when it comes to how the Academy deals with women who get pregnant while they’re cadets—and male cadets who father babies—and admit it.”
“Well, I guess I can see that. I mean, a guy doesn’t grow a belly and big boobs after he’s knocked up some girl. It’s not difficult to pretend nothing’s changed.”
“That’s true.” Dean adjusted his silverware, lining them up carefully. “Willow, if I go to my TAC officer and tell him what’s going on, I will be asked to make a choice. I’ll have to leave the Academy, or I’ll have to sign a document giving up my parental rights. You’d have to agree not to pursue me financially for child support—for any kind of financial support at all.”
My lips fell open. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He looked grim. “It would definitely affect my career here at the Academy and probably in the Army. It would be on my record.” He hesitated, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Willow, if you plan to go ahead and have this baby, keep it and raise it, I will do whatever you want me to do. I will go to my TAC and lay all of this out to him. Then I will work hard to support the child, however you want that to look like.”
