Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Juni was still sound asleep after they’d had dinner, and Maren didn’t want to disturb her—or Camo. Arden had promised to bring Juni back after breakfast, so Colin and Maren returned to the safehouse alone.
If walking into the house after their day in Lyons seemed quiet, coming back to the empty house at night felt even quieter.
The two of them stood in the living room after the best evening he could remember in years, and Colin was acutely aware that Juni was not down the hall, Mac was not on duty, and there was absolutely no operational reason for either of them to be awake right now.
“I should probably get to bed,” Maren said, not quite meeting Colin’s gaze.
“Yeah.” Colin glanced toward the hall. “Me too.”
Neither of them moved.
After a moment, Maren sat down on the couch. Colin looked at the couch, looked at the hall, then sat down beside her.
They both stared at the middle distance for a second.
“That was a good evening,” Maren said.
“It was.”
“Arden’s a good cook.”
“Kyle grilled.”
Maren’s lips twitched. “Then Kyle’s a good cook.”
“He is.”
Maren tucked her feet up under her and looked at the dark window. Colin looked at his hands. Outside, an owl called once and went quiet.
“So,” Colin said. “You learned a lot about Sean tonight.”
“I did.”
“I noticed you didn’t talk much about Mira.”
Her jaw tightened for a fraction of a second.
“That’s because I feel like I don’t know her anymore.
I still don’t know how she met Sean. How long they were together.
It could have been a single night or it could have been years.
Though, I doubt it. After listening to Arden talk about him, he seemed like the kind of guy who would have told his friends about her if it was long-term or serious. Don’t you agree?”
“I do. Maybe he was protecting her.”
“Maybe.”
“So. What about you?”
Maren glanced at him. “Me?”
“Yeah. You didn’t leave anyone behind. When you left San Diego.” He kept his voice easy. Conversational. “You told your boss you were leaving town. No one else wondering where you went besides her?”
Maren smiled softly. “You mean like a boyfriend?”
“I wasn’t going to be that specific.”
“Hell no,” she said. “No boyfriend.”
“I’m surprised.”
And relieved. Definitely relieved.
I should not be this relieved. Shit.
She shrugged. “I’ve been busy taking care of Juni.”
“And before that?”
Maren was quiet for a moment. “Before that I was almost engaged. Or so I was told. A mutual friend of mine and my almost-fiancé’s said it was obvious, and honestly, I think she was right.
We had a trip to the Bahamas planned. I had a feeling he was going to propose there.
” She paused. “Then Mira’s accident happened and of course we cancelled the trip. ”
Colin waited.
“He was understanding at first. Perfect boyfriend, very supportive, said all the right things.” Her voice stayed neutral, but her jaw tightened slightly.
“Right up until he realized I was the only one who could take Juni. Then he tried to be subtle about talking me out of it, which he really wasn’t.
He told me I was too young to become a mom.
That I had my whole life ahead of me. What if I wanted kids of my own someday.
” She gave a short, quiet laugh. “Like the kids that came out of my body would matter more than Juni, or I’d suddenly love her less. ”
Colin’s hands flexed on his knees.
“When that didn’t work, he told me I was going to waste my life. Serious guilt trip.” She tilted her head. “So I ended it. And in hindsight, Juni was the best thing that ever happened to my dating life. Saved me from marrying an idiot.”
“He was a complete prick,” Colin said.
Maren looked at him, surprised, and then laughed—a real one, unguarded. “He really was.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
Her laughter faded. She looked at him sideways, the corner of her mouth curving up. “It’s a shame you’re not crazy about kids, Colin.” There was no bite in it.
Tell her.
“That’s not—” He stopped. Started again. “That’s not the whole story.”
Maren nodded, listening.
“I do like kids,” he said. “I just—I had a reason to stop letting myself think about it.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t push, and he was grateful for that.
Colin looked at his hands. “Her name was Lindsey. We met about four years ago, dated for about eight months. It was—it felt real, so I proposed to her and she accepted immediately. A couple months later she told me she was pregnant. I—” He exhaled.
Maren stiffened beside him. She reached out and took his hand. “Did you lose a child, Colin?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not…not like that. Lindsey carried to term.” He squeezed her hand, loving the warmth of her palm against his, the intimacy of it.
“When she first told me, I was terrified and then I wasn’t.
I was so excited. I wanted a child, it didn’t matter that we were doing things backwards.
I started building the whole thing in my head.
The kid, the marriage, the life together.
” His jaw tightened. “She moved in with me. There were times when I felt like I was more excited about this baby than she was, but I chalked it up to nerves and her just being tired from the pregnancy. I did everything to make it easier on her. I turned the spare bedroom into a nursery.”
He swallowed. This was the hard part. The part he’d told almost no one. Mac knew, and his family. He’d never told a woman he was interested in, but then again, he hadn’t stayed interested long, not after Lindsey.
“Then one day I came home and she’d packed her bags. She’d gone in for an ultrasound. She was having a little girl.” He paused. “She. Not us, not me. Because the baby was not mine.”
“Oh, Colin, I’m sorry.”
“She’d known since before the proposal. She’d been seeing someone else behind my back and the baby was his. He hadn’t wanted to be a father when she first told him, but now he wanted to be.” Colin shook his head. “She tried to tell me she was sorry, that she was leaving for the baby’s sake.”
“She totally used you.”
“She did, yeah. But the thing that…” Colin stopped until he found the words.
“The thing that broke me was that I’d already decided I wanted a baby.
I wanted to be that girl’s father. The whole thing had been a lie, and I just…
” He shook his head. “ So I lied to myself. It was easier not to go back there. Easier to say I don’t do kids than to explain that I wanted one so badly I didn’t notice I was being lied to for months. ”
“Colin.” Maren’s voice was quiet. “You didn’t miss it because you were careless. You missed it because you trusted her.”
“Same result.”
“Not the same thing.” She turned to look at him fully.
“That’s not on you. That’s on her. I know something about being lied to by someone you trusted,” she said.
“Even though I was right there helping her with Juni, Mira was leading a double life. She was my twin, and after she started at LRH, I always felt like she was shutting me out of some part of her life. I made excuses for her. I blamed myself. I spent so much time thinking I’d done something wrong. ”
Her voice was steady, but the effort it took was visible. “I know how it feels to go back over everything, looking for what you did and where you missed it. Then you realize you didn’t miss anything because you’re an idiot. You miss it because you loved them.”
Colin didn’t speak for a moment.
“I kept tabs on her,” he said. “The little girl. Katie. I’ve looked her up. Hated myself for it every time. I have no claim to her, she’s not mine, but I couldn’t stop.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Maren said simply. “You already loved her.”
Colin had to look away.
“The thought of going through that again.” He stopped.
“I understand now.”
He held on to her hand.
They sat like that for a while, the owl silent outside, the lamp warm and low, and Colin thought about the first night he’d been lying on this couch unable to sleep, listening for Maren and Juni down the hall.
“Juni picked you,” Maren said quietly. “I want you to know that. She’s never done that before. Not like she did with you.”
“She has good taste,” he joked to cover up the sudden ache in his heart.
Maren laughed softly. “She really does.”
She didn’t take her hand back. Colin knew he should let go. Knew that holding Maren Walsh’s hand after dark while Juni was elsewhere was the kind of decision that didn’t have a reverse gear.
You should tell her to go to bed, he thought. You should stand up, walk to the kitchen, give her space.
He looked at her instead. At the lamplight catching the line of her jaw, the way she was looking down at their joined hands.
Her thumb brushed across his knuckles—once, twice—and Colin felt that touch everywhere.
“Maren.”
And from the way her breath changed, he knew she understood.