Chapter Five
Everly
I follow Seth, trying desperately to ignore the way his jeans fit so perfectly to his thighs, although it’s not that easy… not when he’s here, right in front of me, after all this time.
My stomach’s turning somersaults, and as for my heart… it doesn’t know what to do.
Neither do I, so I let my eyes wander upward, over his muscular back, hidden beneath his leather jacket. I’ve always liked this jacket. It suits him, and I feel myself blush, remembering the way I used to let my hands roam inside it across his chest.
It brings back so many memories…
“Is this table twelve?” he asks, stopping at exactly the right place, and I nod my head, grateful that he carried the coffees, because my hands are shaking. So are my knees, and I sit before he does, just in case I fall.
What is he doing here?
And why now?
And how can he make me want him just with a look of his deep blue eyes?
He sits opposite, leaning back in his seat and tilting his head to one side, while I make a conscious effort not to let my eyes wander. Even that doesn’t help very much, though. His face is just as perfect as ever… his hair slightly unkempt, his stubble at just the right length to make it prickle against my skin. Not that I’m touching him. But I’d like to, while his lips grazed mine.
I cough, needing to focus, or calm myself. I can’t be sure which, and I watch as he picks up his cup from the table, taking a sip before he puts it down again and nods over my shoulder toward the counter.
“Who’s the heartthrob?” he asks, his question surprising me… and making my blood boil.
So much for stubble, and prickles, and lips. Who the hell does he think he is?
How dare he question me when he’s only just walked in the door… when he’s been gone for a year… when he was the one who walked out on me?
“His name’s Owen,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him.
“I know. I heard you say his name.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Because I want to know who he is.”
“He works here.”
“I got that. The apron kinda gave it away. What I really want to know is, are you and he…?”
He leaves his sentence hanging, although he doesn’t need to finish it. I know exactly what he means and I push my cup aside and lean forward, so I can whisper, “It’s none of your damn business, Seth. You left, remember? I haven’t heard from you since, and that means you don’t have the right to come marching back into my coffee shop and start questioning me about what I’m doing with my life.”
“I didn’t march anywhere,” he says, pushing his own cup to one side, and leaning closer.
“Maybe not, but after a year of silence, you can’t come back here and ask what I’m doing, or who I’m doing it with.”
What’s wrong with me? Why am I defending myself like this? Okay, so Seth doesn’t have the right to ask, but it’s not as though there’s anything going on between Owen and me… or that there ever would be.
He holds up his hands, leaning back again and shaking his head. “Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry. I got it wrong.”
“Yes, you did. What I do now is my business, Seth, and you can’t…”
“No, you don’t understand.” His interruption takes me by surprise and I frown at him.
“What don’t I understand?”
“I didn’t mean I was wrong to question you. I meant I was wrong to leave you.”
“So you think it’s okay to interrogate me, do you?”
“Interrogate might be a slight exaggeration, Everly, but no, I don’t think that’s okay, either. Although the greater felony has to be leaving you, doesn’t it? I should never have done that, and I’m sorry I ever did.”
I feel sick.
Why now?
Why not two weeks after he left, when I found out I was pregnant? Why not four months later, when I first felt our baby move? Or on the day of my sonogram, when I decided against learning what sex it was going to be? Why not later that evening, when I chose to name our baby River, regardless of whether it was a boy, or a girl? Or on the day she was born, when I held our daughter in my arms for the very first time, and cried because her father wasn’t there.
My head’s spinning and a lump forms in my throat. It’s one I can’t possibly speak around, and for a moment, I can’t decide whether to cry, to throw up, or to faint. The latter seems like the best idea. At least I won’t be conscious and have to witness my life disintegrating around me.
Why did he have to say that?
Why did he have to mean it, too? Because he did. I could see it in his eyes. They were so filled with regret… and I know exactly how that feels.
It’s not like I haven’t dreamed of him walking through the door, and telling me he got it wrong, is it?
It’s not like I haven’t asked myself whether I’d take him back, and resolved that I would.
He’s not asking to come back though, is he? He’s just saying he shouldn’t have left, and I guess that’s something we can agree on. Although I can’t help wishing he could have timed it better.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, sitting forward again, his hands resting on the table between us. I gaze down at them, studying his fingers, trying not to think about the way he used to touch me, driving me wild with need.
“N—Nothing,” I say, my voice working its way around that lump.
“Then why are you so pale? I know you better than anyone, Everly, and you’re never normally this pale.” He glances over my shoulder again and shakes his head. “Are you seeing him?” he asks. “Am I too late?”
“It’s got nothing to do with Owen,” I say, wishing I’d thought harder before speaking, and found a better way of phrasing that… a way that didn’t confirm his doubts about me. Or at least about there being something wrong with me.
“But there is something?” he says. “Or someone?”
I can’t deny that. There is someone. She’s fast asleep in her crib, just a few yards away from her father. The man who knows nothing about her. Not even that she exists.
I feel even more sick, my stomach churning, as I wonder how he’ll react if he finds out.
If…?
Who am I kidding? He’s here. How can he not find out? Even if I somehow manage to get him out of the coffee shop without him seeing his daughter, someone in the town is bound to mention River to him…
“Tell me,” he says, interrupting my internal panic.
I stare at him, trying so hard not to be swayed by how much I still want him… by how hard it is just to breathe in his presence. No matter how often I’ve dreamed of this, and longed for it, I wasn’t prepared to see him again, or to hear his voice, reminding me of soft whispered words, urgent entreaties, desperate pleas… and love.
“You can’t come back here and tell me you got it wrong, just like that,” I say. I know I’m deflecting, but what can I do? This is neither the time, nor the place to tell him about River.
“Why not?” he says. “It’s the truth. I made a mistake, Everly. I should never have left you. And I should never have stayed away for so long, either.”
Is that supposed to help, when I know that if he hadn’t walked out the door, or even if he’d come back through it sooner, things could have been so different?
I can’t help the tears from forming in my eyes, as I think about the nights I’ve fallen asleep without him, and the mornings I’ve woken up alone. He clearly notices, and he reaches out, my name a whisper on his lips, his concern obvious, although I pull back, shaking my head.
“Y—You can’t do this.”
“Yes, I can,” he says. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
I pull right back, my chair scraping on the floor. “Those are just words, Seth.”
“They’re a lot more than words.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because I was a selfish fool, too impatient to talk or to listen.”
That’s not an answer… not a detailed enough one, anyway. Even if he was selfish and impatient, that still doesn’t tell me anything. But now doesn’t feel like the right time to discuss our failings. It’ll only make me cry.
“And why didn’t you come back?” I ask instead.
“Because I was ashamed of what I’d done…”
“What you’d done?” I say, sitting forward again, although I don’t move my chair, which makes it a little uncomfortable. Images of him with Helen Rogers flash through my mind, and I feel my stomach churn. “Why? What had you done, Seth?”
“I’d put myself first, ignoring how hard things were for you, just because it suited me. I might have wanted to help you, to lighten the load, but it didn’t come across like that.”
“No, it didn’t. But was that all you did?” I ask, those images still running riot around my head.
“There were other things, too… other ways in which I was inconsiderate to you. But whatever else I got wrong, whether real or perceived, I’m sorry.” I can see in his eyes that he means it, but looking into those sapphire pools only reminds me of his daughter, and I swallow down the lump in my throat and shake my head. “Don’t you believe me?” he says, misunderstanding my reaction.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“No. You just left me.”
He sighs, pushing his fingers back through his hair. “I know. But I’m trying to make it right again. Don’t you want that, too?”
More than anything .
I stand, surprising him, I think. “I—I can’t do this now,” I say, knowing that the longer he stays, the more chance there is of River waking up. She never sleeps for long at this time of day, and I really don’t want him to find out about her by accident. I might want him back, but we need to talk first, and I need to work out how to tell him he’s a father… and I can’t do either of those things in the middle of the coffee shop. His eyes widen and he sucks in a breath. That obviously wasn’t the response he’d expected… or hoped for, although he nods his head and gets to his feet, reaching for my hand. I let him take it, and he looks down, studying my fingers.
“Can I come back another time?” he asks.
How can I say ‘no’? He so clearly wants this, and I do, too. There’s no point in pretending I don’t. I’ve always wanted him back… providing we can work things out between us. Besides, he has a right to know about his daughter, and to hear of her existence from me, and no-one else.
“Okay.”
He takes a moment, breathing deeply and raising his eyes to mine. “How about this evening? I could take you to dinner, if you like?”
That’s too much like the first time he came here, and besides, there are too many things to decide… like whether to have River with me when I tell him who she is. If I don’t, who will I get to look after her? Whoever it is, I’ll have to tell them what’s going on, and I don’t know how to do that, when I barely understand it myself.
It’s complicated, and I need more time to work it out.
“I’m busy this evening,” I say, and he frowns.
“Are you seeing him?” He glances over at Owen, and I pull my hand from his.
“No. I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Tonight, or at all?”
“Stop it, Seth. You can’t question me like this. I’m not yours anymore.”
“Like hell you’re not,” he growls, my body heating as he steps closer, gazing down into my eyes. “Tell me when you first became mine. Tell me when it happened for you.”
He already knows the answer to this, but rather than reminding him of that, I say, “Th—The moment we met.”
He nods his head. “Exactly. It was the same for me. And nothing’s changed.”
I can’t deny that. Why would I want to? I’m his, and I don’t want it any other way. “I’m still not free this evening,” I whisper, and he nods his head.
“Okay. What about tomorrow afternoon? Can I assume you still close the coffee shop at noon?”
“Yes.”
“Then can I see you at, say, two?”
“You’re gonna drive back here?” I ask, although it’s not that unexpected. As he once told me, Concord is hardly the other side of the world. I suppose I’m just surprised he’s so willing to put himself out.
“No. I’ve booked myself into the hotel. I’m staying here.”
I’m even more surprised now, although it’s a short-lived sensation, as I’m quickly reminded of the weekend after we first met, when he arrived here out of the blue and checked into the hotel. Is he trying to recreate that perfect moment in time? Or is he just trying to show me how committed he is to me… to us?
I shake my head, dismissing the idea. Staying here doesn’t prove he’s committed to anything. It just means he doesn’t want to keep driving back and forth. And as for recreating the past… we can’t do that.
Everything’s different now, even if he doesn’t know it.
“How long for?” I ask.
“I have to go back to work on Monday, but I decided to stay for the weekend because I want this to work, Everly. I know you’re busy, but I want us to have as much time together as we can… to work things out.”
I take it back. He certainly sounds committed, but I can’t respond to that. I can’t give him a reason to stay, either. Not until I’ve worked out what to say, and how to say it.
Instead, I just nod my head to show I’m not dismissing him, and then I pick up the cups, trying not to let it show that my hands are shaking. As we walk back to the counter, I’m aware of Seth, right behind me, and of Owen watching the two of us closely as we approach. I’m not sure that’ll help the situation, given Seth’s unusual and totally unfounded jealousy, but all I can do is put down the cups and turn to face him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says before I can utter a word.
“Okay.”
“Do you want to meet somewhere, or shall I…”
“Come to the apartment,” I say, and his eyes sparkle. He’s misinterpreted my invitation, little realizing that I just want to talk to him in private. Because, whether or not River is in the room with us, I don’t want to tell him he’s a father when we’re surrounded by other people. That’s far too personal a conversation to have in public.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll see you then.”
I nod my head and for a moment, he just stares at me, his eyes dipping to my lips for a second or two before he raises them and lets out a sigh. I wonder if he wanted to kiss me then, and how I would have reacted if he did. The moment’s passed, though, and with a nod of his head, he turns and leaves. I wait, still like a statue, my nerves too frayed for words.
“Has he gone?” I whisper, loud enough for Owen to hear.
“Yes,” he says, looking up and checking along the sidewalk, and I collapse onto the stool beside me. Owen moves a little closer, leaning over the counter. “Can I ask you something?” he says, and I nod my head, although whether I’ll be able to answer is another matter. “Does your ex have a problem with me?”
“Why do you ask?”
“He kept glaring at me.”
I lean back slightly and shake my head. “He assumed we were together.”
He smiles. “I hope you put him right on that.”
“I told him it was none of his damn business, actually… because it’s not.”
“No,” Owen says, sounding doubtful. “But I think it might have been better if you’d told him the truth. Did you at least tell him about River?”
“No.” His eyes widen in surprise.
“Don’t tell me you spent the entire time having a pointless fight about me?”
“No, but I need some time to work out how I’m gonna tell him he’s a father. It’s not something I can just drop into a conversation, is it?”
“I guess not.” He steps away a little. “Is that why you’re seeing him tomorrow?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes. I have to tell him before he finds out from someone else. No matter how much he hurt me, he has the right to hear it from me.”
Owen nods his head. “I’m guessing you won’t get much sleep tonight.”
“I doubt I’ll get any,” I murmur, letting my head rest in my hands as I wonder how the man who was my dream come true has suddenly turned into my worst nightmare.