Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(43)
Author: A.L. Jackson

He leaned down, nuzzled his mouth against her hair, and looked up at me through thick, black lashes as he held her close.

And I knew I wanted him a permanent a part of my life, not as lovers, but in a partnership for our daughter, for him to take a place as a part of this family.

Chapter 11

Switching lanes, I accelerated through traffic, thankful the I-5 flowed free; the Saturday mid-morning traffic was light as I traveled north. Wind pounded my hair, windows and sunroof wide open.

The trip flew by, and faster than I could have imagined the GPS instructed me to exit, and I was hunting for an open parking spot. I slipped into the first one I could find, cut the engine, and jumped from my car. Black flip-flops that just months ago I’d sworn to never wear crunched against the loose pavement under my feet, flinging sand as I fol owed the walkway up and over the embankment.

I shielded my eyes, scanning the beachgoers dotting the shore below.

They weren’t hard to spot.

Elizabeth sat on a blanket in beige shorts and a red tank top, long legs stretched out in front of her as she reclined against her elbows, hair whipping around as she watched our child playing in the sand. She attempted to tuck a thick tress behind her ear before it was thrashed with another gust of wind.

Hurrying, I wound down the path and hit the heavy sand, sinking with each step I took.

Lizzie noticed me first.

“Daddy!” she cried out, dropping a plastic bucket and waving wildly. Elizabeth sat up and turned toward me, her lips stretching into a smile I was certain could bring any man to his knees.

I waved as I increased my speed, meeting Lizzie halfway when she ran to me. “Lizzie,” I sang as I lifted her, swung her around, and brought her to my chest in a playful squeeze. “How’s my baby girl today?”

She wrapped herself around my neck, kissed me there. “I missed you, Daddy,” she said against my ear.

I’d seen her only last night, yet I’d missed her too. So much.

I set her down and took her hand. She skipped beside me as we made our way to her mother, Elizabeth’s face aglow and peaceful as she watched the two of us approach.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

She pushed the hair from her face and squinted against the sun as she looked up at me. “Hey, Christian.

Did you find it okay?”

“Yep.” I contemplated for only a second before I plopped down on the blanket beside Elizabeth and pulled Lizzie down with me. I nestled her between my legs and held her around her smal shoulders.

I shook off my shoes, buried my toes in the cool, damp sand, and took in the beach that both Elizabeth and Lizzie had so many fond memories of. This place was something sacred shared between the two of them, and I felt honored to be included. I knew it was rare for even Matthew and Natalie to be a part of it.

And to think only last night I’d felt the bottom dropping out of my world.

Something had touched us in the parking lot of Elizabeth’s work Tuesday afternoon, a new connection after I’d walked headlong from my father’s firm. I’d been so sure of it that on the drive over to pick Lizzie up, I’d planned to ask Elizabeth to join us, daydreamed of her in my kitchen preparing dinner with Lizzie and me, saw her sitting next to me at my kitchen table.

I’d gone weak when I’d caught sight of her on her staircase, the reaction she invoked from my body, the things I envisioned doing to hers.

It had taken a few seconds for my mind to catch up with my flesh, and I’d realized she wasn’t dressed for an evening spent on the couch alone. She was going out.

Then that touchy bastard from Lizzie’s birthday party had shown up.

It’d felt like she’d run me over, the sharp sting of Elizabeth’s hand as it struck me across the cheek, spat in my face. I couldn’t help but turn to her, desperate to ask her why. all I found there were the results of my spoil, as if she’d received the same blow, one I’d inflicted, a reminder that I had done this.

Dinner with Lizzie had been difficult, but I’d forged through it, loved her, and made her smile, unwil ing to all ow my mistakes to steal any more of the precious little time I had with my daughter.

Then Elizabeth had asked me to stay.

“Are you hungry?” Elizabeth shifted to her knees and began unpacking the picnic basket, sandwiches wrapped in plastic, whole pieces of fruit, bottles of soda and water.

She glanced at me with a timid smile as she set them between us.

“Yeah,” I answered, helping Lizzie with the wrapper of a sandwich. I twisted the cap from a bottle of water for her and did the same for myself, and then I shared lunch with the two girls who owned me heart and soul. Lizzie rested against my chest between my bent knees, peeking up at me as I gazed down at her, grinning as she chewed her ham and cheese sandwich. Her hair flew around us, licking my arms, kissing my chin—it scared me that I might love her too much.

Sated and relaxed, Elizabeth and I sat in silence as Lizzie jogged back to her playthings, far enough away that she submerged herself in her own imaginary world of castles and dragons and princesses but not close enough to the water to cause us alarm. The sun washed over us, its heat the perfect contradiction to the coolness of the ocean breeze.

Elizabeth stared ahead, but I could almost hear the click, the quickening of her pulse, triggering the same reaction in my own, the rush of nerves as she hugged her knees to her chest.

“Did you think of us?” Her voice was pained, and her question hung in the air as a doorway to our past, one she final y asked me to step through. Up until now, every time I’d tried to talk to her, she’d shut me down; but now it came without provocation, her own instigation. As much relief as it brought me, I knew there was no way this conversation would be easy.

“Every day.” I looked over at her and watched the pain gather in the creases at the corner of her eyes.

She turned and rested the side of her face against her knees as tears pooled in the honeyed amber. “Why didn’t you come for us?” It was a solicitation for me to final y account for what I’d done.

No. There would be nothing easy about this.

I squirmed while I debated how to explain myself, knowing there would never be any justification. My conscience assaulted me, and I looked to my daughter for strength. I brought a knee to my chest and anchored myself to it as I dug my other hand in the sand, pul ing out a handful and watching it fal through my fist as an hourglass.

Exposed in all my shame, I turned back to Elizabeth in confession. “I did.”

I watched her as my words sank in. Her irises widened and a tremor shook her body. “What?” The word fel as a smal cry from her lips.