Chapter 15
Chloe - Nine Days After Chloe’s Birthday
Three days on the road had taught me that running away solved exactly nothing.
Like animals who fled when injured, distance didn’t heal the wound - it just delayed treatment. And delayed treatment often made things worse.
I’d driven aimlessly for the first day, putting miles between myself and Willowbrook until I was too exhausted to drive anymore.
Small motels, cheap diners, long stretches of highway where I could pretend my biggest problem was which exit to take next.
I’d slept ten hours a night in anonymous rooms, and gone completely incommunicado from everything that reminded me of my real life.
And through it all, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sam.
Not the Sam that Jenna had described – the man trying to figure out how to restructure his life without me in it.
The real Sam, the one who made Sunday morning pancakes shaped like hearts when I’d had a rough week.
The Sam who listened to me decompress after difficult cases without trying to fix everything, who rubbed my shoulders when I was stressed about a sick animal, who held me like I was the most precious thing in his world.
The man who always saved me the last bite of his dessert.
On Monday morning, my third day away, I finally turned on my phone.
Twenty-two missed calls from Sam. Voicemails, which I haven’t listened to. More text messages than I could count, starting desperate and gradually becoming more determined. The most recent one made my chest tighten:
Chloe, I know you need space, and I’m trying to respect that.
But I need you to know that everything Jenna told you was a lie.
I bought your engagement ring months ago and was planning to propose on your birthday, but then Jenna showed up with Leo, and I was completely blindsided.
I thought I needed to figure everything out first before asking you to take on a ready-made family.
I was planning to tell you everything when I got home and ask if you’d still consider marrying me.
I never wanted to end our relationship. I want to marry you more than anything.
I love you, and I want you to be Leo’s stepmother if you’ll have us both.
I’ll be waiting at home when you’re ready to hear the truth. Love, S
I stared at the message until the words blurred, trying to reconcile it with everything Jenna had told me.
There were messages from my parents, from Harper, from Sarah at the clinic, all asking if I was okay and when I was coming back. But it was Sam’s messages that made me finally understand what I’d done.
I’d run away from a conversation that might have saved us instead of destroying us. Worse, I’d lumped Sam in the same box as Sean, assuming the worst instead of trusting the man I’d fallen in love with.
The drive back to Willowbrook felt endless. I kept rereading Sam’s messages at rest stops, trying to piece together what had really happened. By the time I reached the town limits, I was a mess of anxiety and hope and dread.
I’ll be waiting at home when you’re ready to hear the truth.
Part of me had expected to find an empty house – expected that, despite his messages, Sam would have moved out like I’d asked. The other part hoped desperately that he’d still be there.
His truck was in the driveway when I pulled up.
I sat in the driveway for ten minutes, trying to work up the courage to go inside and face whatever conversation was waiting for me.
The house looked exactly the same as when I’d left, but everything felt different.
I felt different. Three days on the road had stripped away the panic and hurt, leaving behind a clarity I hadn’t possessed when I’d fled.
I’d run away because I’d been scared.
But sitting in my driveway, looking at the house where Sam and I had built something real together, I finally understood what my mother had tried to tell me years ago after the Sean disaster: sometimes you had to trust that love was stronger than fear.
I’d learned in veterinary school that healing required the right environment - clean wounds, proper nutrition, freedom from stress. Trust was the same. It needed safety, honesty, and time to regrow properly.
The front door opened before I reached it, and Sam appeared looking like he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was disheveled, his clothes wrinkled, his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion. But when he saw me, his entire face transformed with relief and hope and something that looked like desperate joy.
“Chloe.” The word was barely a whisper, filled with relief and disbelief.
“Hi,” I said, suddenly unsure of myself. “Your message said you’d be waiting.”
“I would have waited however long it took.” He stepped aside to let me enter my own house. “How was… where did you go?”
“Nowhere special. Just drove. Small motels where no one knew me and I could pretend my biggest problem was which exit to take next.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Did it work?”
“No. Turns out you can’t drive far enough away to stop loving someone.” I set my bag down by the door, noticing the tiny signs that Sam wasn’t just waiting for me but that he hadn’t actually moved out. “You stayed.”
“Of course! I couldn’t leave, Chloe. Not when I knew you were coming back to a conversation we needed to have.”
“Sam, I need to know the truth. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said immediately.
“But first, are you okay?” he asked, then shook his head.
“No, that’s a stupid question. Of course you’re not okay.
” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair.
“Are you willing to listen? Are you willing to consider that maybe the situation isn’t what she convinced you it was? ”
I studied his face, seeing exhaustion and regret and desperate hope, but not the guilt I’d expected to find if Jenna had been telling the truth about him wanting to end our relationship.
“I’m willing to listen,” I said. “But, I need complete honesty.”
“Complete honesty,” he agreed.
We settled at the kitchen table where I’d written the note before I left, and Sam began talking. “I don’t know where to start, but maybe with this,” he said, pulling the engagement ring from his pocket and setting it on the table between us.
I stared at the ring I’d seen the receipt for in his office weeks ago, the ring I’d been so excited about before everything fell apart. My internal cheerleader, who had been sulking in a corner for days, lifted her head with cautious interest.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning.”
Sam took a deep breath. “I was planning to propose on your birthday at the Rosewood Inn, but just after we sat down, I received a text from Jenna with photos of Leo. The text said he was my son. I went to see them the next day. She said she’d split up with her husband and had nowhere to go.
They were staying in motels, running out of money.
I panicked and gave her cash - a few hundred dollars - just to make sure Leo had food and a place to sleep while I figured out what to do. ”
“Cash?”
“I know, I know. Arthur told me that it was stupid the minute I told him about it. No paper trail, no documentation. He said from that point forward, everything had to go through legitimate channels - credit cards, receipts, everything documented.” Sam ran his hand through his hair.
“So I stopped the cash and paid for everything directly - motel, meals, toys for Leo. All documented and traceable.”
“Why?”
“Arthur said if Jenna was lying about anything, we’d need proof that I’d been responsible and above board.
If she’s manipulating the situation, we can claim back what I’ve spent on her specifically, as opposed to Leo.
” Sam looked me in the eye. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. I was trying to do it right legally.”
I processed that. It made sense, actually. That was the Sam I knew.
“What else?”
Sam’s jaw tightened. “The morning you left - Friday morning - Jenna came to The Copper Fox. She…” He paused, looking almost embarrassed. “She asked me to marry her.”
“What?” The word came out sharper than I intended.
“She said Leo needed stability. That we should get married, move into my house, be a family for his sake. Leo gets his father, she gets financial security, I get my son without having to navigate the complications of shared custody and co-parenting.” Sam’s voice was bitter.
“She’d done research on me, Chloe. She knew about the bar, about my rental property, about the money I have saved. She saw me as a meal ticket.”
Despite everything - the pain, the fear, the three days on the road - I felt a laugh bubble up. “She asked you to marry her? Jenna actually had the audacity to propose a marriage of convenience after keeping your son from you for four years?”
Sam blinked, clearly not expecting that reaction. “I… yes?”
“That’s insane.” The laugh felt good, cleansing somehow. “She shows up out of nowhere with a child you didn’t know existed, and then thinks you’ll just… what? Say ‘sure, let’s get married, that sounds totally reasonable’?” I shook my head. “The woman has some serious nerve.”
A small smile tugged at Sam’s lips. “I’m glad you can find the humor in it. At the time, I was just angry.”
“Oh, I’m angry too. Trust me.” I leaned forward. “But wait - back up. Why didn’t she tell you about Leo from the beginning? Four years, Sam. She kept your son from you for four years.”
Sam’s expression darkened. “She was already seeing someone else when she found out she was pregnant. David - her ex-husband. He was wealthy, had good prospects. I was just a bartender she’d had a summer fling with. So she let David believe Leo was his, married him, and built a life on that lie.”
“She WHAT?” The anger hit me like a wave. “She let another man believe he was Leo’s father? She married him under false pretenses?”