CHAPTER TWELVE
Skylar looked out at the manicured yard and the woods beyond it as she sat on the back deck, her leg propped up on a chair in front of her. It was a lovely warm, sunny day, but the most she could do to enjoy it was to sit outside and stare at the nature that surrounded her parents’ home.
The alternative was to be sitting in her apartment in Vegas. Which wasn’t a bad alternative, necessarily. But her view there certainly wasn’t as nice as the one she was currently enjoying.
It had been a couple of days since she and Aiden had babysat Shiloh for Charli and Blake, which had left her with a lot of emotions that she wasn’t sure how to handle.
Seeing Shiloh in that hospital bed, looking so frail, had cemented in her the need to stay in Serenity. It felt like it was important for her to stay close by.
It was getting easier to be around Shiloh. The confusion of emotions when it came to her—and Aiden—was still there, but the longer she was around them and Charli and Blake, things were slowly gaining clarity.
Well, the clarity came more regarding the situation with Shiloh, Charli and Blake. There was little clarity regarding Aiden and how she felt about him and what had happened.
It seemed that the more she was around Aiden, the more confused she became. That was not what she wanted. During the years since their disastrous breakup, her feelings and emotions concerning Aiden had always been very clear.
She hated him for what he’d done to her. The breakup and his reaction to the pregnancy. But now that she’d spent some time with him, that clarity had devolved into confusion.
Though she told herself that she still hated Aiden for what he’d done, it wasn’t as easy to hate him when she was around him. Like the exchange they had outside the hospital the other night.
His offer to get her car had been thoughtful, but it was his mention of when she’d last been on crutches and how he’d helped her that had made it difficult to ignore the good moments in their past. Which is what she’d tried to do for the past nine years.
There had been no point in thinking about the good times. They weren’t together anymore, and that wasn’t going to change. Sticking with anger and hate had been easy.
Now, however, it was much harder.
Being around him was hard enough, but having him treat her well and bring up fun memories from the past made it even harder. She wasn’t sure how to deal with him as a mature man instead of the younger version of him who’d treated her so callously.
He seemed to be very different from the person who had dumped her, and she really struggled with that. It would have been so much easier if he’d been willing to do the blood test but had no interest in Shiloh. Easier for her, but she was coming to understand it wouldn’t have been good for Shiloh.
She’d not just gained an uncle, along with the knowledge of who he truly was, she’d also gained another grandmother and cousin. It was selfish of Skylar to wish that away, just so things would have been easier for her.
She needed to stop thinking about just herself. To stop being selfish.
Skylar sighed, wishing she could escape the conflicted feelings. But she had a feeling that even if she went back to her apartment in Las Vegas, they would follow her there.
Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She reached out and picked it up from where it sat on the small table beside her chair. Also there, was a tall frosty glass of sweetly tart lemonade that her mom had made earlier.
Seeing Cole’s name on the screen, Skylar frowned. She’d already heard from him once a couple of days earlier, so she wasn’t sure why he’d be phoning again.
“Hey, Cole,” she said when she answered the phone.
“How’re you doing, sis?”
“I’m okay. Just sitting on the back deck, enjoying the nice weather.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It’s not bad. At least it’s not as hot as Vegas.”
“Are you planning to stick around Serenity for awhile?”
“Probably until my ankle has healed enough for me to go back to work.”
“I’m surprised you’re willing to stay there,” Cole said. “Considering Aiden is living around there now.”
Skylar didn’t need to be reminded of that. “Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes. A couple of times.”
She doubted that he would tell her what they talked about. But despite everything she’d told him about what had happened in the past with her and Aiden, she was pretty sure that they’d continue to be best friends.
They had been friends for most of their lives, so it stood to reason that they would continue to be best friends. Even when they were teens, Skylar had realized that if Cole had to choose between her or Aiden, he’d most likely pick his best friend.
It was one of the reasons she’d never told him about what had happened.
But now he knew, and Skylar was sure that his friendship with Aiden was still intact.
“Was there something you needed from me?” Skylar asked. Her tone of voice was probably harsher than it should be because of her thoughts about the friendship her brother and ex-boyfriend shared.
There was a long pause before Cole responded. “I was just wondering how you were doing. How you felt about Aiden and the situation with Shiloh.”
“I don’t think how I feel about any of that is relevant to anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“My feelings about all of it haven’t mattered to anyone.”
“Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Why?”
“Because I care about you,” Cole said. “I love you and feel bad that you didn’t think you could confide in me.”
“You’re best friends with the man who hurt me very badly.”
“That’s true, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t understand and support you.”
“Would you have supported me not wanting Aiden to meet Shiloh?” she asked. “Or me not wanting Charli and Blake to tell Shiloh about me and Aiden?”
Another long pause confirmed what she’d assumed would be his position.
“Sky, it’s not as black and white as that.”
“Of course it’s not,” she said. “For you and everyone else. But for me it is. No one else was there at the end of our relationship. No one else was there when he told me to get rid of the baby.”
“He said he told you that because he thought you were trying to trap him.”
Instead of anger, Skylar felt sad and a little sick. “You know I’m not like that.”
“I do know that,” Cole said. “But I also know how much you loved Aiden, and how much you hoped to have a future with him.”
“But not enough to lie about being pregnant,” she told him. “You know that. Plus, why would I want to be with someone who clearly didn’t want to be with me?”
“You’re right,” he said. “You never would have done that.”
“And Aiden knew that, too. He just chose to believe I would do something like that in order to justify what he said.”
“He knows that what he did back then was wrong,” Cole told her. “Both the way he broke up with you and how he reacted when you told him you were pregnant.”
Skylar didn’t respond to that. Aiden had expressed the same sentiment to her. She’d heard his apology, so she knew he was sorry.
She stared at the birds flying in the sky high above the trees in the distance. Suddenly, she felt weary. Weary of fighting for what she’d thought was right. Weary of being made to feel bad about not wanting what everyone else wanted.
“Sis, I’m sorry,” Cole said. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad about what you wanted in this situation. I know this all must have been really hard on you.”
“It is hard,” Skylar agreed. “But nothing I’m dealing with is as hard as what Shiloh is facing, and what Charli and Blake are experiencing. The focus just needs to be on them, and what is best for them.”
She truly believed that. So even though she struggled with what was going on, it was something she needed to keep to herself. This conversation with Cole would be the last time she addressed it.
Maybe she should go back to Vegas. That way, she’d be able to escape the weight of everything.
Shiloh can’t escape what she’s going through.
The thought slipped into her mind and made her pause.
“Skylar?”
She realized she’d missed something that Cole had said. “What?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. She’d survived plenty over the past several years, so she’d survive this too.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think you should try for a friendship with Aiden.”
His suggestion didn’t surprise her. “I’ll take that under consideration.”
“Not going to argue with me about it?”
“Nope.”
“But you’re probably not going to do it, are you?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just have to see how things go and how I feel.”
“Fair enough.”
With that, their conversation died out, so Skylar told him she needed to go, and they said goodbye. She set her phone back on the table and picked up her glass of lemonade to take a drink.
Everyone seemed so willing to welcome Aiden back into the fold. Cole’s feelings about Aiden weren’t a surprise, but the rest of the family‘s were.
Perhaps she’d done herself a disservice by not telling people what had happened in the past. She’d kept her pain over the breakup to herself, and she’d been alone as she’d tried to heal her shattered heart.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened before she’d given birth to Shiloh, which had meant that her heart was broken even further as she handed her baby over to her sister and walked away. No one had been there as she’d wept over the loss of the man she loved and the baby they’d created.
So no one truly knew the depth of the hurt she’d experienced because of Aiden’s actions, and she wasn’t inclined to parade it out for them now.
When Skylar heard the back door open, she looked over to see her mom step out onto the deck with a glass in one hand and a bowl in the other. She wore a pair of dark blue shorts and a light green and white striped tank top in deference to the warmth of the day.
As she joined Skylar, she set the glass and bowl on the table, then settled into the Adirondack chair on the other side of it. Skylar saw that the bowl held a mixture of berries.
“Cole called me,” Skylar said after she’d eaten some of the fruit.
“Really?” Her mom turned toward her. “What did he want?”
“To check on me, I guess,” she said. “And to tell me I should become friends with Aiden.”
“That would be a good idea, I think,” her mom said.
Skylar stared at her for a long moment, then shifted her gaze to the yard once again. “Why?”
“It would make things easier for you and for everyone else too, especially Shiloh.”
Like with Cole, her mom’s words weren’t a surprise. “Can you explain to me why you and everyone else are so willing to accept Aiden after what he did?”
“I can only speak for myself,” her mom said. “I learned a hard lesson about how I treated people when Kelsey came into the family.”
“What do you mean?” Skylar hadn’t been around when Zane and Kelsey had come to live in Serenity. “What happened with Kelsey?”
“I wasn’t as welcoming to her as I should have been.”
“Why weren’t you? Was there something wrong with her?”
Her mom shook her head. “I had a hard time with her relationship with Zane, especially because he’d changed after things had ended with his previous girlfriend. We hardly knew Kelsey, and then they eloped, so we weren’t even included in the wedding. It was the first time someone had come into the family that we didn’t know at all, and I didn’t handle it like I should have. I reacted badly, I know that. I didn’t show God’s love the way I should have. ”
“She came home with Zane for Christmas one year, though, didn’t she?” Skylar seemed to recall meeting her on one of her quick visits home over the holidays.
“Yes, but you know how chaotic that time of year is,” her mom said. “They were only here for a couple of days, so I didn’t have any chance to get to know her.”
“So you didn’t treat her well?”
“I wasn’t as welcoming as I should have been, and God really convicted me of my attitude. I’m just grateful that Kelsey was gracious and accepted my apology.”
“So what does that have to do with Aiden?”
Her mom didn’t answer right away as she took a sip of her lemonade, then held the glass between her hands in her lap. “I know he did some wrong things in the past. I know he hurt you… badly. But I see the man he is now. Someone who seems regretful and apologetic for what he did.”
Skylar couldn’t argue with that. Aiden did seem to regret what had happened.
“I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt,” her mom said. “Charli and Blake are willing to give him a chance to prove he’s changed. So I am too.”
In order to not have to respond, Skylar put a strawberry in her mouth. Her mom hadn’t told her anything she hadn’t already known. Because they were Christians, she’d been aware that they would be more likely to give Aiden a second chance if he seemed apologetic for what happened than to condemn him.
“How do you feel about Aiden being back?”
“You know I’m not happy about it,” Skylar said. “I might have been the one to tell him about Shiloh, but I didn’t want him to come back into our lives. I’d really hoped that he’d take the blood test but keep his distance.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Nope. He didn’t.” She took a blueberry from the bowl, but didn’t eat it right away. Rolling the smooth fruit between her fingers, she said, “And now everyone thinks we should be friends.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t be easy, darling,” her mom said, her tone gentle. “And no one thinks you have to be close like you once were. But a friendship of even a casual nature would make things easier.”
Skylar tried to picture how that might work with Aiden. So far, when they’d been around each other, she’d made a concerted effort to keep her negative feelings about him under wraps. Some times more successfully than others.
There was a part of her that worried that if she let go of the hurt and pain of the past, what would take its place would open her up to more hurt.
“Maybe you should start praying for Aiden,” her mom suggested.
Skylar managed not to laugh at the suggestion.
Prayer hadn’t been a part of her life for a long time. Though she prayed for Shiloh, it was hard to imagine praying for Aiden.
“When you pray for someone, it becomes more difficult to hold onto your anger or hate towards them.”
Skylar figured that that was probably true. Because of that, she wasn’t sure she wanted to pray for Aiden, even if she had been a praying person.
There was a light touch on her arm. “Have I told you how glad I am that you’ve stuck around?”
Looking at her, Skylar covered her mom’s hand with her own. “It’s not been as difficult as I thought it might be.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Her mom smiled. “Are you going to stay until your ankle is better?”
“Probably. No sense in going back to Vegas just to sit in my apartment.”
“Maybe you’ll decide that Serenity is a great place to live.”
“I already know it’s a great place to live,” Skylar told her. “It just doesn’t work for my job. There’s no airport here.”
“There’s one in Coeur d’Alene,” her mom said. “And I know private jets fly in there. Hudson flies in and out of there whenever he uses one of Alexander’s planes.”
Skylar didn’t know that she’d be able to get a job there as a flight attendant, but she could probably find a job doing something else. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that, however.
She liked her job. Though she wasn’t thrilled about living in Vegas, she liked her apartment and the opportunity to visit lots of places around the world. Moving back to Serenity hadn’t been part of her plan for her life.
Her mom squeezed her arm, then let go. “Okay. Moving on.”
Skylar chuckled softly. “Moving on.”
They discussed the latest news on Shiloh, which indicated that the little girl would be discharged soon. Then they’d have to wait. Wait to see if the treatment had been effective in getting rid of the leukemia. If not, the next step might be the stem cell transplant and all that that involved.
There had been no results from the blood tests yet. Though she knew it was a long shot, Skylar really hoped that there would be a match from among the ones who had been tested. She didn’t care who it was, just so long as it was someone. Even Aiden.
As she sat there thinking about her birth daughter, Skylar realized that if she was going to purposely pray for anyone, it should be for Shiloh. But the thought her mom had planted in her mind about praying for Aiden wouldn’t leave her alone.
But she wondered if God would hear her prayers for either of them.