Chapter 5
five
Leo
Her words echoed in my mind. My hands grew clammy, and my heart raced inside my chest making it hard to breathe.
He’s yours.
He’s yours.
I had a child.
A son.
I rubbed my clenched fist against my chest to try and ease the ache.
I looked from Carolina back to the now closed front door.
Her mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear what she said.
I could only hear her words on repeat.
Carolina’s hand touched my arm, almost breaking me out of the full-blown panic attack that brewed.
I stumbled backward as I tried and failed to speak.
“Leo, why don’t we sit in the rocking chairs and talk,” she suggested, but I didn’t know if I could make my legs move.
Shock still coursed through me at the realization that there was a miniature spitting image of me as a child that was just on the other side of that front door.
I shook my head and somehow managed to make my legs move to take a few short steps over to the rocking chairs Carolina suggested we sit in.
The chair creaked under my weight as I flopped down.
I still couldn’t manage to speak. I leaned over, and put my head in my hands, running my fingers through my hair and pulling it at the ends.
The pain kept me grounded to the here and now as I tried to gain my composure enough to have a conversation.
The porch steps creaked, but I couldn’t be bothered enough to lift my head.
Carolina had a son. My son.
A son I knew absolutely nothing about.
Carolina spoke to whoever arrived, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“It’s good to see you, Leo,” I heard, breaking me out of my spiral.
Looking up I noticed Carolina’s parents, Bonnie and Wade, standing on the porch. They both looked at me with such concern like they knew my world was about to be upended. Little did they know it already had been.
“It’s good to see you too, Mr. and Mrs. Sutton,” I managed to reply.
I’d known her parents all my life, and they'd never said anything about their grandson. I knew I should wait until Carolina and I had a chance to talk, but I couldn’t stop my mind from reeling with all the things that raced around.
Resting my elbows on my knees, I held my head in my hands and pulled at my hair as I tried to wrap my head around the little boy I’d just seen. I heard voices in the distance and footsteps across the porch, but I was too consumed in my thoughts to register what occurred around me.
A car door closing in the distance caught my attention, and I turned my head in the direction. Carolina walked up the driveway in my direction.
She hugged both of her parents and whispered something to them I couldn’t make out.
“Have a good night. Don’t worry about Luke. We’ve got him. Call us in the morning,” her dad said before he and her mom walked down the stairs of the porch to leave.
I took in the sight of Carolina as she walked over to me.
Just saying her name in my head made my chest ache. She’d hurt me more than she realized when she walked away from me. From us. From the future, we’d both planned.
She looked the same as she did eight years ago. Her brown hair was in a messy bun, and she wore a pair of denim overalls with a baby pink T-shirt underneath.
Carolina sat down beside me, and I turned my head to face her.
Her wide chocolate brown eyes stared back at me briefly before she looked down at her hands. She wrung them together in her lap the same way she used to when she was nervous.
I continued to look at her and remained silent because I didn’t know where to start. How to start this conversation without coming off as harsh and angry, both of which I felt.
“This wasn’t the way I pictured you finding out,” she finally spoke before looking up at me. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall.
I needed to remain rational and calm, but it was hard. I’d barely gotten my head wrapped around her return, and now I had to wrap my head around the fact that I was a father.
“How did you plan on tellin’ me?” I asked, trying to refrain from unleashing my anger that she’d kept our child from me all these years.
“I was going to come to the ranch tomorrow and speak with you. I thought you still lived there. I didn’t want you finding out from someone other than me,” she confessed.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” I had to know why she’d kept him from me. Even though she broke my heart and I hated her for it, I never thought she’d keep our child from me.
“I tried, Leo. I called repeatedly. I emailed you to call me. I wrote you letter after letter, and you never once responded. I didn’t want to just leave something like that on your voicemail.
I did try, Leo, endlessly. But you never responded.
You wouldn’t listen,” she said through the tears that now fell. Her lip quivered after she finished.
I rubbed my hand through my hair as I processed her admission.
I only got one of those letters. And I’d read it, but I ignored it because I was too heartbroken over her leaving.
I remember word for word of that piece of notebook paper because I’d reread it repeatedly, trying to decipher what she’d have to tell me.
My eighteen-year-old self thought she wanted to tell me she regretted leaving or boast about how good her life was.
I never thought in a million years she would try to contact me about being pregnant with our child.
“Did you get those letters, Leo?”
I looked over at her as she wiped the fresh tears off her cheeks. My anger only slightly subsided at the sight of her upset.
“I only ever got one of them,” I admitted.
“Why didn’t you call me, Leo?” Her voice broke.
Because I was a coward. Because you broke me. That was the truth, but I wouldn’t admit that to her.
“I was young and hurt. What’s his name?” I needed to know the name of her son. My son. Our son.
Even just the thought caused me to shiver in the Texas heat.
“Luke. His name is Luke,” she whispered.
My head snapped up and looked over at her as realization dawned.
One of the many nights we’d spent laying in the bed of my truck, we’d discussed the names of our children.
Luke was my top pick for a boy. Hers was Jackson.
Tears filled my eyes at her picking the name I’d loved for one of our future children.
I couldn’t speak. I was at a loss for words. I had a son, and his name was Luke.
I’d missed so much. I knew nothing but his name, and I had so many questions. So many things I wanted to know about him.
“His full name is Luke Alexander Courtright,” she said with a proud smile that held a bit of sadness.
I gasped, and the unshed tears fell.
I swallowed hard as I processed what she said.
“You gave him my middle and last name?” I choked out as I brought my fist to my mouth and bit down to keep my emotions at bay.
“I wanted our son to always have a piece of you with him. Even though I could’ve given him my last name, he’s a Courtright. I couldn’t take that piece of you away. I wouldn’t do that to him. Or you, for that matter,” she said as she put her hand on my jeans and gave a light squeeze.
Her touch was enough to bring me to my knees if I were standing.
I couldn’t resist putting my hand on top of hers, just briefly, so I could return the comforting gesture.
The feel of her skin beneath mine lit a fire that started beneath my palm and moved up my arm, hitting me straight in the chest.
I removed my hand because I couldn’t be this close to her, touch her, and continue this conversation.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. Even though I was mad I'd missed so much time, I needed to fully process that I was a father before we talked about anything further.
“For what?” she asked as she cocked her head to the side.
“Our son.”
It would take a long time for me to get used to saying that.
My family is never going to believe this.
“Where do we go from here, Leo?”
“When do I get to meet him? Does he know about me?”
I’d only caught the briefest look at him, but I wanted to make sure the transition to meeting me went well.
“How about you come over for dinner one day this week? If you’re free, that is. Luke already knows about you. That’s why I wanted to keep him from seeing you. He doesn’t know that you don’t know about him. He’d recognize you anywhere.”
He knew about me.
“You told him about me?”
She just continued to keep shocking me.
“When he was old enough to know that kids had both moms and dads after hearing about them at preschool, he came home and asked if he had a dad. I’d already prepared myself for what I’d tell him.
I’d tell him stories about us as kids, and I showed him all our pictures and pictures of the ranch.
He’s already asking when he can see you. ”
“You showed him pictures of me?”
What I really wanted to ask was, you kept pictures of us, but I refrained.
“Yeah, I did.” She fidgeted in her seat and looked away from me, but not before I caught the pink tint of her cheeks.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. She’d shocked me with her confession, and I had a tough time wrapping my head around it all.
“Just let me know when you can have dinner, and we can go from there.”
“What did you tell him about why I wasn’t there?”
If he was anything like me at his age, he was likely as inquisitive as I was, questioning everything more than once.
“I told him you had important ranch business to tend to, and you’d be in his life when you could. It’s the best I could come up with that was the closest to the truth.”
“I don’t want to keep you or anything. I’m sure you’re busy unpacking. I just have to know one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Now that I know about him, do you plan on staying in Haven Valley?”
My heart hammered in my chest as I waited with bated breath for her to respond.
I couldn’t handle getting to know my child and have him be ripped away from me because she decided to leave on a whim. I wouldn’t let her take him from me without a fight.
“I’m not planning on going anywhere, Leo,” she admitted before looking away.
That wasn’t a definite answer, but I’d take it. For now.
“Can you give me your number so I can message you about a day for dinner?”
I’d deleted her number right after I blocked her eight years ago because it was too tempting not to call her.
I handed her my phone, and she put her number in.
“You might need to unblock the number. I never changed mine just in case you ever decided to call about Luke.”
“I’ll do that and let you know a good day.”
She fiddled with her phone before she turned it to face me.
A little blond-haired blue-eyed miniature version of myself stared back at me.
Warily I reached for the phone, which she handed over.
I stared at that photo of Luke on the monkey bars, his little legs on one rung, while his arms held onto the other, his head hanging upside down with a toothless smile.
He was missing his two front teeth but seemed so happy.
His blue eyes mirrored my own. He looked so much like me it was uncanny.
I reached in the back pocket of my jeans after I handed Carolina back her phone and researched how to unblock a number. Once I had it figured out and her number could go through, I asked her to text me that photo of Luke.
My phone pinged in my hand, and Carolina’s name appeared in the text box. I hadn’t seen her name on my phone screen in so long it was odd seeing it there now.
“I’ll let you get back to unpacking. Thank you for the photo of Luke,” I said as I stood.
“Have a good night, Leo,” she replied before she stood and walked me over to the steps.
I left with my head reeling and a frantic need to talk to my brothers now more than ever.