Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Angus
K nox is Sawyer’s father.
Of all the things that could have come out of Mia’s mouth, that confession never crossed my mind.
Knox is Sawyer’s father.
Knox is Sawyer’s father.
Knox is Sawyer’s father.
This is why she said I would hate her. Because he had her first. My big brother has been inside the woman I’ve loved my entire damn life. He fathered her child.
When I pull up to the barn, I have no idea how I got there. My bag is on the passenger seat, although I don’t really remember packing it. The moment the words came out of her mouth, I blacked out, functioning on autopilot, arriving here.
The crisp April air hits me as soon as I shove the truck door open, and I think I might be sick. Not allowing myself to pause long enough to lose my spaghetti, I stumble into the barn as though I were ten shots of tequila deep.
The first thing I spot is the tack room door. The door that leads to one of the best nights of my life. My life that is now fucked. In so many ways.
My stomach wants to empty itself as my heart aches and my eyes begin to leak, but that’s not my style. Instead, I let my fists take over. The instant the skin on my knuckles splits open against the oak wood of the door, my shocked stupor turns into a white-hot rage, all of my feelings rising to the surface.
Left. Right. Left. Right. Left.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” an angry voice bellows in the distance, not breaking through the roar in my head. I keep pounding on the door.
“Angus! Stop!”
I don’t think so.
A freight train tackles me from my left side, sending me flying to the ground on my right. “Christ, Angus! Enough!”
Callen.
He shifts me to my back but stays on top of me, pinning me to the ground. This happened a lot when I was a kid, but eventually, I bested him. Today, I don’t even try.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Fuck off, Cal.”
“Sorry, bro. Not gonna happen.”
“Dude, get off me!” I struggle under him, but my heart isn’t in it, because it’s been torn out of my chest and trampled on.
“Tell me what’s going on and I’ll think about it.”
I want to scream that Knox is Sawyer’s father. But then the look on Mia’s face the night she told us she was pregnant flashes in my mind. It’s not my story to tell. And just like she said, this news changes everything for everyone.
“Get off me.”
“Tell me what the damn door did to you first.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
God, I want to. I really do.
Rage is building inside me. The need to get everything off my chest is so intense all I can do is open my mouth and bellow until the rafters shutter and the horses whinny. After I’ve screamed for what could have been a few seconds or minutes, my chest is heaving and my throat is sore.
Cal sits us up, pulling me into his arms. “What is it? You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
I can’t tell him Mia’s truth, so I tell him mine. “I love her, Cal. I fucking love her and that kid so damn much it hurts.” My words are so low, I doubt he would hear them if he wasn’t hugging me as tight as he is.
Hearing myself admit my feelings out loud opens a floodgate of pain that rushes through my soul. Deep down, I knew that’s what this was. Of course I did. It’s always been love when it comes to Mia. Dr. Laughlin has asked and I’ve answered, but I’ve never said it out loud to myself or anyone else, including her. And now, what does it even matter? She was out of reach before, but now…
Why couldn’t I have stayed on the sidelines? I should have continued to watch from afar. Sure, I was a miserable bastard, but this pain…. I’ve felt nothing like it before. It’s not the same hurt you feel with the loss of a parent. It’s not even the same as the devastation of losing Chris and the others that day. Now I know what it’s like to eat dinner with her and Sawyer every night. To help with bath time and story time. I know what she tastes like. Feels like. Sounds like when she comes. I could only imagine all of this before. Now, I know what I’ll be missing and the future I had been na?ve enough to think might be ahead of me has been erased.
Cal pulls back, leaving his hands on my shoulders. There’s a small smile on his face. “Of course you do. But that doesn’t explain the door.”
“What do you mean, of course I do?”
Why is he not surprised by my confession? Yes, he questioned me the other day, but I never confirmed his suspicion.
He scoots away, pressing his back against the door I was trying to murder mere moments ago. We’re still sitting on the barn floor, but my chest is no longer heaving, and my violent range has tamped down.
“The way you two look at each other is hard to miss, little brother. I’d venture to say the feeling is mutual. So, what sent you into such a fit?”
“You think she loves me?”
“Don’t be stupid. What’s not to love?”
“Seriously?”
“Gus, if the way she looks at you is any indication, I do.”
I let his words zip around my head and, unfortunately, my heart. A childhood crush doesn’t mean love. She may want me. But loves me? Could my idiot brother be right? And what if he is? What does it matter now?
“You still with me?” Callen says with a snap of his fingers.
“What? Uh, yeah. I’m still here.”
“So, what’s got your panties in a bunch?”
“Listen, it doesn’t matter. None of it does. We can never be, so fuck it. You know?” I stand and brush the dust and hay from my clothes. Avoiding my brother's eyes as he stands too.
“Why? Because of Daisy?” he challenges.
“I have a feeling Daisy would have a lot to say about the matter, but it’s more than that.”
“Please tell me it’s not about Chris.”
“I would say the fact that she’s my sister’s best friend, mom’s goddaughter, and her brother died in my arms are pretty sizable roadblocks. Besides, I don’t deserve her.”
It’s taking every bit of willpower I have not to tell him about Knox. Devastated or not, I don’t share. Hell, Knox doesn’t even know.
How could she not tell him?
This whole situation is just so fucked up.
For now, if Cal thinks Daisy and Chris are what’s holding me back, so be it.
He shoves my shoulder. “That’s bullshit and you know it. She’d be lucky to have your love. You know that, right?”
Unsure what the hell I’m supposed to say to that, I shrug.
“Angus, you are—” Callen stops short when the distant sound of a car horn blaring interrupts us. “You hear that?”
“It’s coming from my place. What the fuck?”
Without another word, we’re both on our feet and in a split second, jumping into Cal’s truck. He points it in the direction of my house worry extinguishing my rage as we bounce along the dirt round leading to Mia and Sawyer.
Shaking from the inside out, my body doesn’t know if it’s coming or going with the swing of emotions it’s been through in the last what? Thirty minutes? If it’s even been that long. I have no idea what to feel, but I know I need to get to her. Put eyes on them both and make sure they're okay.
The moment the house comes into view, Cal bursts out into a fit of laughter. “God, I love that damn cow.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter at the sight of Bernadette’s back end in the front doorway. Mia has her car door open and is honking her horn and yelling to get her attention. She’s out of luck, though. Bernie doesn’t work that way. Bernie does what Bernie wants.
Relieved the two of them are likely fine, I wish I was anywhere but here. As much as I may love her, I can’t look at her. Not now. Not yet. But here we are.
Cal parks the truck next to Mia’s car, getting her attention. The mist of rain that started a few minutes ago plasters her hair to her face, her eyes filled with frustration until she sees me. My favorite bright blue eyes have lost their sparkle. They darken with shame as she lowers her head.
In the seconds I’ve studied her face, Cal has gotten out of the truck. I follow suit just in time for him to say, “Well, you’ve got yourself in a pretty little pickle, don’t ya?”
Focusing on my brother, she speaks only to him. “I don’t know where she came from.”
Cal, chuckles. “You missed a thousand-pound cow? She’s pretty hard to miss, Mia.”
Twirling her granny’s ring around her finger, she tells the truth. “I wasn’t in the right headspace to notice much of anything.”
Cal lifts an eyebrow, his eyes flicking to me for the briefest of moments. “What had you so rattled?”
She moves her ring from one hand to the other and back again before she answers. “I needed to talk to Angus, but by the time I made it outside, he’d already left. I needed a moment to collect myself, so I stayed outside to take in the fresh air. When I snapped out of it and went back to the house, there she was. Half in. Half out.”
“And honking a car horn was what you thought would move her?” The smile on Cal’s face says he’s loving every second of this.
“Well, I went through the back door to get into the house and try to push her out, but she wouldn’t budge.”
“You left the back door unlocked?”
My question earns me a glance over her shoulder, but it’s fleeting. Her attention returns to the grinning asshole in front of her.
“Well, it looks like Bernie did you a solid. You needed to talk to Angus, and here he is.”
There is no way we are having a conversation with Callen here. No way in hell. “I’ll go get her.”
Stomping along the side of the house, it’s only a second before I hear another set of boots marching over the soggy ground behind me. I speed up, but Cal catches up to me at the back door.
“You know she only told me she came after you so you would hear her, right? She wanted you to know that whatever led to you bloodying your knuckles on the tack room door, she wasn’t done.”
“Stay out of it, Cal. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spit at him as I push through the back door.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.”
Siblings are so fucking annoying.
Even though I saw her in the doorway out front, seeing an adorable, albeit huge, highland cow in my house brings a smile to my face and a shake of my head. Bernadette is a beauty and a pain in the ass simultaneously. Always has been. She’s the perfect McKinnon family mascot.
Callen laughs. “Dude, there’s a cow in your house.”
“Why wouldn’t there be? My life can’t get much more fucked up.”
We each take her by a horn, gently guiding her all the way inside. I push the couch out of the way and Cal walks her in a circle around my great room and out the front door.
“I’ve got it. I’ll load her into the back of the truck and take her back to Mom’s.”
“I can help.”
“No need. I’ve got the built-in ramp on the back of the truck. I’ve got it.” He gives me one of his famous, I’m older and know better looks. “From the sound of it, you and Mia need to talk.”
Bernadette and Cal slowly, at her pace, tromp out the front door. I take the moment inside alone to check on Sawyer. He’s tucked into his bed, Bruce hugged tightly to him as he sleeps on his side facing the door, giving me a perfect view of his chubby cheeks and blond head of hair. Squatting on the side of the bed, I examine Sawyer Brian Powell, the little boy I had been daydreaming about being a father figure to. My chest hurts when I think about the fact that I'm actually his uncle and will never be his daddy.
I don't know when that yearning started for me, but now that the possibility is gone, I realize how bad I wanted it. A life together. The three of us. It was just a couple days ago when I finally came to the conclusion I no longer cared what the family thought about us being together.
Mia and I were endgame.
At least I had hoped we were.
Looking at Sawyer now, I see the resemblance. His wavey hair, his perfect nose, the dimple on his chin, matching the one on Knox’s. And his middle name. She kept his true identity a secret but gave him a part of us by giving him the same middle name all the men in my family have.
How did I miss it?
As I did earlier this evening, I feel sick to my stomach thinking about Knox with Mia. Knox has the honor of being Sawyer’s daddy, and he doesn’t even know. The myriad of emotions swirling through my body brings angry tears to my eyes. I need to remove myself from this situation before my emotions get the best of me. Placing a kiss on Sawyer's head, I stand and watch him sleep a few seconds more. He’s gonna be so sad he slept through a cow being in the house. The thought brings a small smile to my lips.
Exiting his room, I close the door quietly behind me and take a fortifying breath before heading down the hall to face his mommy. A lifetime of images flash through my head as I slog to what feels like my death. All memories of Mia. Decades of friendship, longing and, for the last few months, the intimacy we’ve shared. It feels like I’m losing it all.
My best friend.
The love of my life.
Finally summoning the courage to face her, I make my way through the house to find Mia leaning against the front door. Her arms are crossed in front of her as she shivers from being outside in the rain. When she sees me, her arms drop and her hands fists at her sides.
She’s blocking my way out. When I’m only five feet in front of her, she locks eyes with me, not letting me slip away so easily this time. “This is why I was scared to start something with you. I knew you would hate me one day.”
“I could never hate you, but I need to wrap my head around this.”
“Of course.”
“Knox needs to know.”
“Angus, you were there at the Grammy after-party. You heard the things he said about any woman who claimed to be pregnant with his child. I never meant for this to happen, and I refuse to be accused of being the kind of woman he described that night. But most of all, I refuse to let my child feel unwanted or like he was a mistake. I knew falling in love with you would end like this, but that little boy is my entire world. He will never be a mistake.”
The conversation she’s referring to rings a bell, but that’s not the part of her statement that has my heart trying to break through my chest. “What did you just say?”
“My son is not a mistake.”
“Before that.”
She takes two steps away from the door. She’s so close my skin tingles from her nearness.
“You mean the part where I fell in love with you?”
My pulse quickens hearing her say it again. I’m unable to control the heaving of my chest as her words sink in.
“And not the love I felt for you growing up. That was a teenage crush. It was nothing compared to what I feel for you as a woman. I have fallen madly in love with you. And even though I knew telling you the truth would end us, I couldn’t be with you and keep the truth from you. Daisy, my parents, nobody has mattered enough for me to risk coming clean, but you… you needed to know. Is that the part you’re talking about?”
“Do you think loving me was a mistake?”
“Never. But I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you. I’m sorry about that. You’ll never know how many times I’ve wished it had been you.”
“But it wasn’t, was it?”
Images of her with my brother flash through my mind for the hundredth time since her confession. My rage threatens to rush back to the surface. Space. I need to put space between us so I can think clearly.
Pushing past her, I storm through the front door and into the heavy Oregon drizzle so familiar this time of year, but before my feet hit the last porch step, her voice reaches me. She’s so quiet at first, I’m not sure she meant for me to hear her. But her words pierce through my chest as they splinter my heart.
“Maybe it was because all I ever wanted was for you to see me. But you never did, and I knew you never would. That night, a McKinnon brother finally saw me. It was just the wrong one. He wasn’t you, but he was the next best thing.”
Frozen to my spot on the stairs, I don’t dare move. I don’t turn to look at her. It hurts too much. To hear her truth. To know she’s wanted me all these years, and I missed it. She continues, slicing my heart through and through with each word.
“A two-minute indiscretion changed my life forever. It gave me my son. Angus, as sorry as I am for hurting you, I will never apologize for Sawyer.”
My first tear falls, mixing with the rain soaking me to the bone. How could she ever think I would expect her to be sorry for Sawyer? She shouldn’t be. He’s amazing. But I don't tell her that. Instead, I keep my back to her like a coward.
“Was I wrong to keep it from Knox? Maybe. But the moment I took that test and found out I was pregnant, I knew I would protect my child with everything I am. That includes shielding him from his father, a man who made it clear he doesn’t want kids and will never see him as more than an accident some woman used as a ploy to gain access to his fame and fortune. Knox and all that comes with him is the last thing I want. The last thing I’ve ever wanted. The only person I’ve ever wanted is you. I understand if this is too much for you to overcome, I do. I will accept my fate, as long as you know you are the only person I’ve ever wanted. You are the only man I’ve ever loved. It’s always been you, Angus.”
Her words fall silent, but the wooden board under her feet squeaks when she takes a step down the stairs toward me. But being the coward that I am, I take the last step from the porch and flee from the only woman I’ve ever loved.
I’m not in control of my emotions and I need the trek back to my truck to gain some semblance of sanity. I need space. Time to wrap my head around it all.
Around the fact that Mia and Sawyer aren’t mine.
They never were.
And most shocking, that a woman like Mia loves me.
She fucking loves me.