Chapter Fifteen

Daniel gave in to Hope’s request without arguing, and he wasn’t sorry about it. They’d had a really nice dinner and then made love again, the whole experience just cementing his determination to make this the best it could be. And that meant he had to start at the beginning. He shifted, pulling her closer against him. “I want to push that talk by about twelve hours.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m going to see your parents tomorrow.”

She tensed. “Why am I just hearing about it now?”

“You didn’t want to talk, remember? I wouldn’t have said anything at all, but I couldn’t get out there today and I want you to push your plans to go back to Dallas one more day.”

“I can’t keep postponing leaving. I know I didn’t want to talk today, but eventually we do have to come up with something resembling a realistic plan.” Hope lifted her head and frowned. “I really think you visiting them is a mistake. They’ve been calling nonstop all day, and I haven’t even talked to them.”

“I know.” And he also recognized how her mouth tightened every time she pushed ignore on her phone. She had always been close with her parents—especially her mother—and being on the outs with them was taking its toll. There were so many things in their life right now that he couldn’t control, but he could take the first step in making this right. “Darling, their problem isn’t with the fact that you’re pregnant—it’s that you’re pregnant with my baby. There’s nothing you can say that will affect their opinion—but maybe I can.” He had his doubts, but the only alternative was to cut them out of his and Hope’s life, and that wasn’t right. They were good parents, and they’d be good grandparents. It wasn’t their fault that they weren’t thrilled that their son’s killer was shacking up with their daughter.

He couldn’t be the reason Hope lost what remained of her family.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I know that, too.” He guided her head back to his shoulder and smoothed his hand over her hair. “It’s just one conversation. I’ll be gone and back before you know it.”

She sighed. “I guess my girls can hold down the fort for one more day. But that’s it. No matter what happens with us, I do have to go back to Dallas. I know you’re not going to change your mind about going to San Antonio, so do what you feel is necessary.”

He hated how defeated she sounded, but her doubts were unfounded. This was going to go a long way toward fixing things. Hope might not see that because she was wrapped up in guilt over disappointing her parents and worry over the future, but he knew he was right. Daniel drifted off to sleep with that thought centered in the forefront of his mind.

He woke up alone. He blinked and stretched, his hand encountering paper. For half a second, he was convinced that Hope had slipped out of his bed and his life in the middle of the night like a thief, but then his half-awake brain processed the words she’d written.

Went for a walk before it got too hot. If you’re gone before I’m back, just know I love you.

A smile fixed itself on his face and stayed there all the way through showering, dressing, and grabbing a bite to eat before he hit the road. Hope still wasn’t back, so he scrawled a quick response to her on the same note and left it propped up in the kitchen next to the coffeemaker he started on his way out the door. If the last week was any indication, she’d have a single cup and then switch to decaffeinated tea, but he figured she wouldn’t want to wait. And it made him feel good to know he was meeting her need before she even thought to ask.

Maybe that made him the caveman she often accused him of being, but he was okay with it.

The drive to San Antonio passed in a blur. He kept the radio cranked up and the windows cracked, but the noise didn’t quite drown out the little voice inside him whispering that this was a mistake—that there wasn’t an option where this encounter ended positively. He ignored it just like he had from the moment it start popping up.

Once he hit the city limits, he followed his written directions to a little suburb with houses in neat little rows and perfectly manicured front lawns. The Moores’ was a understated gray with sharp white trim that fit them perfectly. He turned off his truck and stepped out, the heat of the late morning making his shirt stick to his back. Or maybe that was just nerves.

It didn’t hit him until he was knocking on the front door that maybe he should have called first. Gary Moore had always worked, and though he was closing in on retirement age, Daniel kind of doubted he’d have stepped out voluntarily. He knocked before he could talk himself out of it and was rewarded a few seconds later by footsteps on the other side of the door.

Lisa Moore opened it a crack and stared at him. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t sound particularly angry, but calling her tone welcoming would be a stretch of the truth to the point of lying.

He took off his hat. “I came to talk, ma’am. I figure we’re due.”

“You’re about thirteen years too late and more than a dollar short.” She took a step back and opened the door wider. “But since my daughter isn’t returning my phone calls, I suppose this is going to have to do.”

Not the most promising start, but he followed her deeper into the house. She led him to a small living room off the main hallway that, judging from the pristine whiteness of every piece of furniture in it, didn’t see much use. Talking in the kitchen would have been a better sign, but he’d take what he could get. Daniel perched on the edge of one of the chairs, half concerned that he’d leave a dust imprint when he stood. “I love your daughter.”

Lisa waved that away. “You want to have sex with my daughter. That wasn’t love when she was eighteen, and it’s surely not love now.”

Daniel jerked back. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve spent considerable time wondering what I’d say to you if we ever had the misfortune of being in the same room again. After John—” Her breath caught, but she soldiered on. “After my son died, it went quite a bit differently in my head than it will go today. I blamed you, and I’m not particularly proud of that. You were all just kids, and it was easier to have a target for my grief.” She sighed. “That kind of pain never quite goes away, but it fades a little, and I’ve worked through the worst of it. We all have.”

That was better than he could have dreamed. Too good. He wasn’t fortunate enough to show up here and find arms opened in welcome. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have reacted so poorly to finding out Hope was pregnant with his baby.

He tensed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She didn’t make him wait long. “You weren’t responsible for killing my son, regardless of what my feelings were at the time.” He didn’t have time to process the full meaning of her words before she verbally kicked him in the face. “However, you did fail my daughter when she needed you the most.”

Daniel flinched. “I thought it would be better if I made myself scarce.”

“You were a coward.” She said the words softly, without any anger. “Do you know how many nights Hope spent crying because you never returned her calls? No? I can tell you. Three hundred and seventy-two. She mourned her brother just like the rest of us, but John’s loss wasn’t what kept her up at night when the pain of her leg got too much. She never blamed you for the car crash—and even went so far as to tell me how out of line my anger at you was. For three hundred and seventy-two days she held on to hope that you would come to your senses and come for her. But you never did.”

Daniel didn’t know what to say. He knew there wasn’t a single thing he could do to make this better. Hell, he’d known it was bad, but somehow hearing it from Lisa’s mouth made it so much worse. He sank back into the chair, the sheer enormity of what he’d done washing over him. “She’s fine.”

“She tries very hard to be fine,” Lisa corrected. “Most days, it’s even true. She worked to get past you, but the scars never faded. Hope doesn’t lean on anyone—she hasn’t since she went to lean on you and you weren’t there.”

If words could physically wound, he’d be bleeding out on the floor. “I love her.”

“Maybe you do now. Maybe you loved her then. It didn’t make a difference when you were twenty-one, and forgive me if I doubt it’ll make a difference now.” She pinned him with a look, her dark eyes so similar to her daughter’s. “From what I understand, you never sought her out. You never chased her down. You never even tried to make things right. If you had, maybe I’d feel differently, but I suspect it was a moment of weakness on my daughter’s part that resulted in this pregnancy, and I simply cannot support it.” She held up her hand when he would have spoken. “Let me rephrase—I support her. I support any choice she makes for herself and her baby. What I can’t support now and never will is her being with you.”

She smoothed down her skirt. “You’ve spent the last thirteen years more in love with your guilt than you were with my daughter. I have seen no evidence that that’s going to change. She deserves to be put first—both her and the baby. Not to be a consolation prize because you’re still trying to make right something that will never be right again. If I thought for a second you were with her for the right reasons…” Lisa shook her head. “But you aren’t. We both know that to be the truth.” She motioned to the door. “I think you should leave now.”

Daniel walked to the door in a daze. He’d known the Moores didn’t think he was good enough for Hope, but the reasoning behind it…

How could he argue with Lisa? She was right. He’d failed Hope. Hadn’t Hope herself told him as much a little over a week ago? When they’d had that argument, he’d bulldozed right over it—just like he had every other indication that there were core-deep issues that they hadn’t dealt with. All he’d seen was a chance to make things right once and for all—as right as they could ever be, at least.

It hadn’t occurred to him that he was doing Hope yet another wrong in his determination to make things right.

…

“We have to go into El Paso and look at baby stuff. I don’t have any of my own, so it’s up to you to give me my baby fix. I hope you’re okay with that.”

Hope laughed. She’d been leery of calling Jessica, but she was so nervous about Daniel off talking to her parents that she’d grabbed at the distraction with both hands. Two hours later, she was so glad she did. “We don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl. I’m not even sure I’m finding out.” There was something magical about leaving it as a surprise.

“Not finding out? Now you’re just teasing me. What is this, 1962? I have needs, woman.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Headlights shone through the front window as a truck pulled off the road and started for the house. She moved to push the curtains aside. Daniel’s back. “I have to go, but we’re still on for coffee next time I’m in town, right?”

“Wild horses couldn’t hold me back.”

“I’m looking forward to it, too.” She hung up as Ollie came tearing into the living room, barking as loud as she could. “He’s home, girl.”

It seemed to take forever for Daniel to shut off the truck and make his way to the front door, but that might very well have been her nerves talking. She couldn’t imagine how the conversation with her parents had gone—especially since she hadn’t received a call from them since this morning. This was going to either be very, very good, or very, very bad.

One look at his face as he walked through the door and she knew it was the latter. “What happened?”

He held up a hand to stop her when she would have come to him. “We need to talk.”

No good conversation ever started like that. Hope wrapped her arms around herself. She felt like she was standing on the tracks, hearing the train coming, and not able to move out of danger. “What did they say to you?”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” He said it so softly, he might have been talking to himself.

She blinked. “What?”

“We laughed about fate, but part of me couldn’t help thinking that maybe you coming back into my life—getting pregnant with my child—was the universe’s way of balancing everything out.”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. There was only one thing he could be talking about. John. Always John. She straightened. “That was a long time ago, Daniel. I thought we were starting over.” Please let us be starting over for real.

“I was going to make things right once and for all.”

He wasn’t going to let it go—any of it. She reeled back, feeling like the entire world had shifted beneath her feet. All Hope had wanted when she found out she was pregnant was for this to finally mean that they would both just move on. That they’d finally put their past behind them and start fresh. That she wouldn’t be the high school girlfriend whose older brother Daniel blamed himself for killing. That he wouldn’t be the boyfriend she’d loved so much who had failed her so spectacularly. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it. That crash wasn’t your fault. I thought you understood that.” She hoped. God, she hoped so much it made it hard to breathe. Please prove me right. Please, Daniel. I’ll say whatever it takes to just end this circling we can’t seem to stop doing.

He laughed, but not like anything was funny. “If our baby was a boy, I thought we should name him John.”

She gripped her arms so tightly, she distantly wondered if there would be bruises tomorrow. It didn’t matter. The pain was the only thing grounding her while she tried to process the insanity coming out of his mouth. “What?” Suddenly it all made sense. She pressed her hand to her stomach, the nausea so intense, it was a wonder she didn’t throw up on the spot. “My baby is not my brother.” It came out as little more than a whisper, so she said it again. “My baby is not my brother. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He frowned at her, finally seeming to see her for the first time since he got out of the truck. “What?”

Anger unlike anything she’d ever known rose, black and thick and almost enough to choke her into silence. She wouldn’t let it. Some things needed to be said, no matter how painful. “This—all of this—was about penance. You never wanted me, not really. You wanted a way to assuage your guilt and prove to yourself that you were worth a damn.” She took a step back and then another.

“Hope, will you just listen?” Just that. Not a denial—a plea to explain himself.

He didn’t need to explain himself. She knew how this conversation was going. The guilt on his face made her want to punch something. She shook her head. “Oh my God, I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I’m no good for you. I never have been. I thought I could make everything right, but I can’t.”

Her shoulders sagged. “You know, I spent the last thirteen years fighting against what you’re saying, and believing that I was right. Now? Now I’m tired, Daniel. I am so incredibly tired. I don’t know how two and two add up to seven in your head, but I don’t care anymore. If you think me being married to a man who sees me as an albatross around his neck—who sees my child that way—is a gift, then you’re crazy. I don’t have it in me to fight anymore.”

She took a shuddering breath, half sure that he’d break and tell her that she was wrong, that that wasn’t what he meant at all, that he loved her for who she was, not for the penance she represented. But the seconds stretched into a full minute, and the full minute into three, and he didn’t do anything but look at her with that damned guilt written all over his face.

“You’re right. Fuck, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He finally moved toward the kitchen. “You can have the master bedroom tonight, but I think it’s best we go our separate ways tomorrow.”

This was it. It was really happening. Instead of telling her that he loved her, he was all but admitting that he loved his guilt more. Hope shook despite her best effort to maintain control over herself. She wasn’t the only woman who’d been dumped by her boyfriend while pregnant with his child, but she’d never thought Daniel would do something like this—especially since he’d all but clubbed her over the head and demanded she stay in Devil’s Falls and his house. He had been the one driving this from day one, overriding her concerns and her fears, and now he was going to turn around and repeat history?

Her throat tried to close, but she’d be damned before she cried another tear because of Daniel Rodriguez.

Hope pushed her shoulders back and her chin up, holding it together by the skin of her teeth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Excuse me.” She sent a text to Jessica as she walked slowly into the spare room and packed up her seriously small number of things. She could feel Daniel’s presence in the house even if she didn’t see him as she made her way to the front of the house.

She paused at the door. “My child will not be named John, by the way, regardless of gender.”

The she walked out and didn’t look back, not once.