Chapter Twenty-four
T his time, Wren didn’t sneak out on Sam in the morning. Instead, she kissed him goodbye before she left, whispering, “I’ll call you later.”
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he mumbled sleepily.
“I have to get home and get ready for lunch with my family.” Plus, Duke usually got breakfast around this time, but Sam’s eyes were closed, so she didn’t bother explaining the rest.
“Well, have fun. I’ll miss you.”
Wren’s heart squeezed at his barely audible whisper. Even though she knew Sam was half asleep, she thought he might actually mean it.
And if he did mean it, how did she feel about that?
So many things had shifted between them, especially last night. They’d gone from reconnecting sexually to becoming friends. Then last night she’d been so moved by his gift that she couldn’t resist touching him. It was strange because up until she had returned to Mistletoe, she knew exactly who she was and what she wanted, but this place seemed to change her every day. It was like the warmth of the people and tight-knit community of the town made being alone almost impossible. There was so much to share with someone, and the person she’d been reaching out to the most was Sam.
After they’d gone to her place and fed Duke last night, they’d decorated the tree, then curled up on the couch under a blanket to admire it. She’d been overwhelmed with the idea that they’d created this beautiful tree together and that they could be creating a baby, but then the heaviest thought of all hit her like a ton of bricks.
What they had together felt like a real relationship, maybe even one that wouldn’t turn to stone after a few years. Or was that just her wishful thinking? They had been apart for so long, imagining that they could be together. But maybe because Wren was nostalgic, she was seeing things that weren’t real. The only time she’d ever been in love was when she was a teenager, and it had torn her apart to let him go. When she’d found out that she hadn’t needed to, that they could’ve spent the last nineteen years together, it ate her up inside. What would their life look like? Would he have followed her to Arizona while she went to school? Would Sam have opened a tattoo shop there? Would she have left the police force in Arizona and moved on, or would they have stayed there because of his dream? Maybe he would have followed her to her next job in Houston and loved it there. Would her father have forgiven them both or gone through with his threat?
If Wren had told Sam that she’d taken a pregnancy test all those years ago, would it have ended the same way, with a false positive and her period starting a few days after he left? Even when it had turned out to be nothing, if she’d told him, would he have stayed no matter what?
She thought about that moment all the time. Deep in her heart, Wren knew Sam would have taken on all her father’s wrath if she’d given him hope. Especially if he’d known the reason her father lost his head that day.
Even now, with his paper signed and his parental rights terminated, she couldn’t imagine Sam not being there for her or the baby.
Suddenly, shame overwhelmed her, so intense that tears pricked her eyes. How had she been so selfish, so cruel? Despite what was said about him in town, Sam had always been good to her. He was kind. He was strong. He was honest and trustworthy. He was a catch, and she’d done the same thing every other woman in town had.
Wren had made him think he was less than.
That sick feeling became more intense when she pulled into her driveway and saw that it wasn’t Pete’s truck parked in his usual spot, but her father’s. He was sitting on the top step, waiting for her when she got out of her car and waved at him.
“Aren’t I seeing you in a few hours?” she asked, climbing the steps where he was sitting.
“Yes, but,” he said, getting to his feet with a groan, “I thought we might want to talk away from the family.”
“Oh, that sounds ominous.” Wren wiped at her eyes as she passed him, realizing that she had tear streaks on her face.
“Have you been crying?” he asked.
“Yes, but nobody made me cry. I was just crying.”
“People don’t just cry.”
He followed her into the house, and Wren hung up her jacket while he greeted Duke.
“Hey, bud.”
“Women cry all the time, and people blame hormones. You can blame our overactive imaginations. Heck, you can even blame female hysteria, because apparently, it’s still on the books as a ticketable offense.” The last was said with an air of irritability, and Robert Little gave her a quizzical look.
“Are you okay?” her dad asked, sitting down on her couch. Duke immediately put his head in Robert’s lap, sitting by his side.
No, because I’ve made a mess of my life, and I don’t know how to fix it.
“I really don’t know, Dad.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to elaborate, and when she didn’t, he said, “I guess we could start with an easier question. Where were you coming from this morning?”
“Sam’s place,” she said, waiting for the snarcasm to start.
He didn’t acknowledge her answer, waving his hand toward her Christmas tree. “I see you got your tree up.”
“Yeah, and I even decorated it.”
He walked over to the ornaments she and Sam had made last night. They’d come over after their moment on his porch and fed Duke before getting to work on the tree. She’d even found the tree base so they could get it out of the bucket. After they’d snuggled a while on her couch, they’d headed back to his place and made love.
“Who helped you make all these?” he asked, fingering an orange ball with a sunset painted on the front.
“Why do you think I didn’t make them all myself?”
Her dad smiled at her as he walked back to the couch and sat. “I love you, sweetheart, but you’re not exactly the artistic type. I still have a drawing you gave me when you were sixteen that looks like a cross-eyed four-year-old did it.”
“That’s mean and inaccurate,” Wren said dryly. “Sam helped me do them. He came over here last night after making the ornaments, and we decorated. Then we went back to his place.”
“So that started up again?” he said, his tone resigned.
And there it was. The snarcasm. “Nothing ‘started up,’ and even if it had, I don’t wanna get into it with you.”
Her dad’s expression turned thunderous. “What does that mean?”
Wren threw her hands up. “I don’t know. You’ve never liked Sam, and I’ve kind of made things overcomplicated. So, if I was going to get it off my chest, I’d rather talk to someone who won’t tell me to just ‘dump him.’”
“Isn’t complicated enough? What does ‘overcomplicated’ mean?” For a moment, she thought he was trying not to laugh. His amusement rubbed her wrong, and suddenly, she was furious.
“You’re making fun of me, but I have spent so much time thinking about you and Mom—”
“Honey—”
“No, let me finish please,” Wren said, pacing the floor. “When Mom left and you were so sad, I was angry. I assumed it was something us kids had done that drove her away, and then I thought it was you. That she was so angry at you, she refused to come back. Then I went to meet her, and I realized that it was her. She didn’t want to be a wife and mother, but I couldn’t see that at the time. I thought that maybe if she had left you sooner, she would’ve been happy and she would’ve loved us still.” Wren sighed, her shoulders slumping with the release of her frustration. “It took me a long time to realize that she did what society said she was supposed to by getting married and having kids, and she was miserable. And instead of trying to find the joy in the life she had and continuing a relationship with her children, she left. But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, shooting her a wry smile. “Although I’m sure there are times in your childhood when you wished that I had.”
“No. As mad as I was at you at times, I never wanted you out of my life.” Wren hesitated, unsure if she wanted an honest answer to her next question. “Would you have called in charges if I hadn’t given Sam up?”
Her dad sighed, running his hands over his face. “I wanted to. You have no idea what it’s like to try and do everything you can to keep your kids safe and happy and on the right track. Then you find a pregnancy test in your kid’s bathroom, and it can only belong to your seventeen-year-old daughter.”
“I was technically sixteen.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to remind me of that,” he said dryly. “I was a mess. I was running on anger and terror, and all I could think about was your future. I saw that eighteen-year-old as a man on a motorcycle with no prospects. I pictured you staying in Mistletoe, moving into some dump apartment because that’s all you guys could afford. I saw you repeating your mother’s life and being miserable because we got married too young and the passion faded. When real life settled in, we were not prepared for it, and that’s why we fell apart. I didn’t want that for you, and I thought that if I could scare him away, it would save you.”
“But what if there had been a baby and I chose to keep it?”
“I would’ve helped make sure you could still continue your education. The last thing I want to do is fail you, and sometimes that comes through as me trying to control you, but that’s just because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to make mistakes, and I didn’t want that for any of you.”
“Dad,” Wren said, sitting next to him. “You didn’t fail anyone, but you have to let us make our own decisions. You can give us an opinion, but treating us like we’re still kids and calling us stupid doesn’t work. I’ve decided that having a child on my own at thirty-five, with a good job and a house, is what I want to do. That’s my decision, and you need to respect it and be the best grandfather you can.”
“Is that really what you’re going to do? Are you going to go to one of those clinics and pick a man out of a book?”
She laughed. “Did you see that on television?”
“Is that not how it’s done?” he asked innocently.
“There are other ways. They have at-home kits now, so if you have somebody who’s willing to donate, you can take care of it yourself.”
He put his hands on his forehead, massaging it. “Are you interviewing potential fathers for my unborn grandchild here in Mistletoe?”
She laughed. “No, although it was topic of conversation between me and Millie one night over a pint of ice cream.”
“God help me.”
Wren patted her dad’s shoulder. “I have a friend who offered to help. Now I’m worried that I may have made things weird between us.”
“Does this friend drive a motorcycle and bring back PTSD to your father?” he grumbled.
Wren laughed. “Most definitely.”
Her father grunted. “Well, maybe some artistic ability will rub off on the kid.”
“Dad!” She laughed. “It hasn’t happened yet, and now that all this other stuff has come up, I’m not sure if it will.”
“Do you want to talk about other stuff with me?” he asked.
“I’d like to get through a conversation without you telling me what an idiot I am first.”
“Sweetheart, I am so used to boys. I grew up with boys. My mother didn’t have any girls. My dad was hard on me. It’s just the way I was raised. Sometimes I’m a little tactless and forget you need something different from me, but I wanted you to be tough.”
“I know, and I’m grateful because if you hadn’t raised me the same as my brothers, I wouldn’t have been able to live this incredible life that I have. I wouldn’t be as strong and self-assured as I am, but right now, I just need you to listen and be my dad and tell me if I’m crazy.”
“Lay it on me, and I promise to tell you if you’re crazy,” he said.
“When I first got back to town, I was angry at Sam because he left me all those years ago, and I was angry with you for a long time because of everything you’d done to make him leave. Then he and I had a moment—”
Her father held up his hand. “I don’t need details.”
“And we talked, and he told me about a letter he left in a tree trunk.”
Her dad looked away, confirming her suspicions.
“You took my letter, didn’t you?” she said softly, fury spreading through her body like a fever, her skin pricking with heat.
He glanced at the ground, avoiding her gaze. His voice came out soft and gruff with more emotion than she’d seen from him in years. “I was afraid you were planning on running off with him, so yes, I took your letter. After a while, it seemed like you’d moved on, and it didn’t make sense to give it to you, especially after you got accepted to college in Arizona.”
“But you kept vital information from me,” she snapped, her voice thick and trembling.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”
“No, you don’t understand how much I loved him. Giving him up broke something inside me, and I never healed from it, not until I came back here and saw him again.” Wren’s tears spilled over, and she dashed at them angrily. “When he told me about the letter, that was the moment I believed that he hadn’t abandoned me. I didn’t even need to see the letter to know that he had written it, because deep down, I knew he wouldn’t lie to me. I think a part of me had created this wall because I felt so betrayed by him not fighting for me. But now I know that even after I told him to leave back then, and I gave him so much crap when I got back, he didn’t give up. He brought something to life inside me I hadn’t even realized was dead. When you told me that my desire to have a child on my own was crazy, he supported me and does these amazing things, like help me decorate my Christmas tree.” Wren took a deep, bracing breath in an attempt to rein in her emotions, and she admitted, “I don’t think I ever stopped loving him, and the thought that I might have had another life with him, a life you stole, is unforgivable.”
Wren got up from the step, and her father leaped to his feet, grasping her hand. “Please, Wren. I know I was wrong, and that I should have told you a long time ago. I don’t always make the right calls. I know I can’t change what I did, but I will do everything in my power to make it up to you, to earn your forgiveness.”
She stared down at his big hand wrapped around hers and shook her head. “Why do you care? You spend most of the time ignoring my existence, so why do you care if I forgive you or not?”
“Because you’re my daughter, and I love you. I might struggle with showing my softer side, but you kids are my world. I would do anything to protect you, to make sure that you have an amazing life. Maybe that made me a little controlling—” Wren cleared her throat, and he conceded, “or a lot. But please know, I wasn’t being malicious. I thought I was doing what’s best for you.”
Wren wasn’t quite ready to fully let him off the hook, but she could at least see how he thought that he was protecting her. He didn’t want her to become a dissatisfied housewife, stuck in a loveless marriage.
Her dad didn’t want her to relive his life.
Wren squeezed his hand gently, her expression solemn. “It’s going to take time, but I’ll try to forgive you.”
“Thank you,” her dad said, pulling her in for a hard hug. The smell of cedar and smoke wrapped around her like a familiar cloak, and she laid her cheek against his chest, having forgotten how good a hug from her dad could feel.
When he finally released her, he asked, “Can I ask why you’re going along with this arrangement if you love Sam Griffin? Why don’t you just be with him, and if a child comes from it, deal with it together.”
“I’m afraid if I tell him, it’s all going to blow up in my face.”
“Wren,” her dad said, covering her hands with his, “it doesn’t matter that after thirteen years together, your mom walked out and found a whole new life. The good times we had together included love, sorrow, and growth. They were amazing, and I don’t regret them, not for a single second. Especially because they gave me you kids.”
“Even Pete? Have you seen him eat chips?” Wren asked, making a face. “It’s disgusting.”
“Yes, even Pete with his chips and Garrett with his pit stains.”
Wren laughed and gagged at the same time. “Gross! Who taught him to do laundry?”
“Apparently me, and I failed miserably.”
When they sobered, Wren squeezed his hands. “Thanks for talking to me, Dad.”
“I’m here for you. Even when you might not like what I have to say, I’m here.”