Chapter 36
Denver
Drip. Drip. Drip.
In the darkest parts of my mind, water meets water. Thick fog hugs my brain, my eyelids too heavy to lift, my body a dead weight. Goose bumps creep across my legs, a bitter breeze climbing across my thighs, and I stir. Something tells me to wake up. To move.
I force my eyes open. My vision is blurred, and a solid throbbing at the front of my brain increases, even in the dim light of the room. Stained and matted material scratches my skin as I shift onto my back, sofa springs pushing into my spine. A mold-ridden ceiling stares back at me.
The room swirls when I drop my head to the side. A second sofa is across from me. It’s olive green, the material stained with dark rings of damp and dirt, and someone is sitting in the central seat.
“Hello, little bird.” A voice I know. One I used to love hearing.
Something feels … wrong, and I wonder if everything was a dream. My life. My marriage. I blink slowly, taking deep breaths, trying to figure out why he looks so strange. He’s holding something.
“Where are we?” I ask, my voice small and scratchy.
“Home,” he says, looking at whatever is in his arms. He rests his cheek against it. “We’re home.”
My eyes start to adjust, and my breathing stops when I realize what he’s holding.
Who he’s holding.
I recognize the rosy cheeks. The thick, dark hair, long lashes against pale skin. I tremble as I push myself up slowly, and Theo sighs, sleeping in Ranger’s arms.
“You had him protected,” he says quietly, his voice distant and strange. “But not enough. I made sure he didn’t see anything when I took him. I didn’t … I didn’t scare him.”
“Where’s his mother, Ranger?” I whisper.
“She’s fine.”
I doubt she is, knowing Theo has been taken from her. It’s a pain I know all too well.
“He cried at first, but then I think he knew me.” I sit up straight and grip the old couch cushion. “I only went to see him. But then when I did see him …” Ranger meets my eye. “He’s my son, isn’t he?”
The tears burn my eyes so quickly that I can’t stop one from falling. I say nothing, my words lost in a lie I told for so long I started to believe it.
Ranger’s gaze searches mine. “Tell me.” I nod slowly, my lip trembling as Ranger’s eyes shine, too. He kisses Theo’s head. “My son.”
“He’s not ours anymore,” I whisper. “You gave him away.”
“Because I thought he was Wyatt’s,” he bites back, and takes a breath when Theo stirs. He holds him closer. “How? You were already pregnant when we slept together.”
That’s what I thought, too. I’d taken a test, and it was positive, so when I’d gone to Ranger and given in to him, I hadn’t worried about him getting me pregnant.
But then my blood tests at the doctor’s the next day revealed I wasn’t pregnant.
Then, three weeks after my one time with Ranger, the nausea started.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, Denver. You lied. For years.”
“I would have always lied to you about it,” I say. “You were barely a father to Axel. I would never let you have my son, too.”
“Our son,” he hits back. “I was alone when I had Axel, I didn’t know what I was doing. I would have been better with Theo. He would have been my second chance—”
“Children aren’t our second chances, Ranger,” I cry out. “They’re not brought into this world so we can fix our mistakes.”
He looks away from me, wrapping his arms around his son. “You should have told me.”
“And break your heart?” My voice cracks as I say it. “Unlike you, Ranger, I wanted to preserve our happiness. What would it have achieved to tell you your son had died?”
And then I notice the box of matches on Ranger’s lap.
And the smell.
The drip isn’t rain, but a turned-over gas cannister under the worn curtains.
Tears fall down my cheeks. “Ranger.”
“I wanted to fight for you. I wanted us to get through this. I really thought we could, because I told you once I’d forgive you for anything, and I would.” He sniffs, resting his cheek on Theo’s head. “Except leaving me.”
“I won’t leave you,” I whisper, my eyes darting from Theo to him.
“We can go home. But we … we just have to take Theo back. But I’ll come with you, back to San Francisco, and we can be a family, just the two of us.
” I can’t stop the free flow of tears, or the desperate need to snatch Theo from Ranger’s arms.
“You’re lying,” Ranger says.
“Look at me,” I say, and he does. I force the smile and my next words. “I was never going to leave you for Colt. It’s always been you, remember? Just … please let Theo go home, okay? He’s happy there. He’s happy without us.” My voice breaks. “Please don’t hurt him, Ranger.”
He runs a hand across Theo’s small back. “It’s too late.”
I go to him, getting to my knees. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.
I always will. I can forgive you, I can, but if you hurt Theo, it’ll destroy me all over again.
” I push myself up on my knees and lean forward, kissing the back of Theo’s head.
The first time I’ve kissed him in three years.
My baby boy. So close to me, but not mine.
Ranger watches as I reach out and place my hand on his cheek.
“You look so tired, my love. Let’s go home.
” Tears shine in Ranger’s eyes, and I reach out, gently taking hold of Theo.
“Let me hold him, and we’ll take him home.
Then we’ll go back.” Ranger relaxes his arms, and I pull Theo from him.
Relief is a tidal wave as I lift my baby into my arms and stand. He whimpers softly, and I rub his back. “It’s okay, baby. It’s me. It’s Mommy.”
I smell his hair. I cling to his tiny body.
My baby boy.
But he starts to cry. Stirs in my arms. Tries to get free because he doesn’t know me, does he? Someone else wiped away his tears and rocked him to sleep. Another woman sang him lullabies, and another man held his hands during his first steps.
Theo starts to scream—and wants to go back to Ranger.
My heart is already a broken, beaten thing, but this only destroys it further. I look desperately at Ranger because this wasn’t how I imagined this moment. Theo should want to be with me. He should know me, shouldn’t he?
“It’s okay.” Ranger must see my despair, because he wraps his arms around the both of us. “It’s us, Theo. It’s Mommy and Daddy.”
Mommy and Daddy.
A monster who took him, and a woman who could only ever offer him a life filled with moments like this—close to death. Always so close to death.
Theo settles, his lip still trembling, but soothed by Ranger’s presence.
Ranger smiles at me, tucking my hair behind my ear. “We’re a family.”
My heart plummets so suddenly that my knees almost dip. The words don’t comfort. They horrify me. Theo deserves so much more than the kind of father who would steal him.
I kiss Theo’s hair. “My baby. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
A gunshot tears through the quiet. Theo jerks in my arms and starts crying again. Someone shouts.
And I hear him.
Calling my name.
Ranger’s gaze snaps to mine. Anger overtakes the sadness. Pain.
There’s only rage.
I cry out, “No, Ranger—”
He picks up the matches.
A snatch against wood.
“No!” I scream as he throws the match, and the fire roars to life.