The Last Letter (Page 27)

“They weren’t very nice,” Colt noted.

“Nope. They never have been.”

Ella was quiet as we drove back to Solitude and faked her smile through dinner. Then she got the kids to bed, and I sat on the couch, silently waiting as Havoc snoozed at my feet.

A half hour later, she came down the stairs, having changed into flannel pants and a tank top. Her mouth dropped into a surprised O when she saw me. “I thought you’d left.”

“Nope. Sit.” I patted the couch next to me and looked away from the swells of her breasts that were lifted high along the neckline of her tank top.

She sank into the corner of the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest. “I bet you’re pretty curious about what happened outside the pizza shop.”

“Talk.”

She rested her chin on her folded arms and took a deep breath. “Those were Jeff’s parents.”

“So I assumed.”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

“You’re just like Ryan when you do that, make conclusions about everything around you. People, too.”

“Keeps us alive,” I responded before I thought. My eyes slid shut momentarily at the blunder and the pain that followed. “You know what I mean.”

She nodded. “They’ve never seen the kids before. Never even asked about them.”

I knew most of that. Scratch that. Chaos knew. But I wanted Ella to tell me, Beckett. To trust me as much as she had that faceless pen pal. So instead of lying, or asking her to continue, I simply waited.

“Jeff walked out when I was eight weeks pregnant.” She looked away, her face falling as she stepped into the memory. “He hadn’t wanted to get married, not really. It was all very Meatloaf.”

“What?” I rested my arm on the back of the couch and leaned in. “Like the food?”

“Like the artist. You know, ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’?”

“Ah, gotcha. No ring, no sex.”

“Bingo. We’d been together all senior year, and looking back, when I caught him lying about smoking—smoking of all things to lie about!—I should have walked away, but I was lost in that naive love-can-change-him mentality. Anyway, we were leaving for CU in the fall, and it all seemed really romantic. Run away and get married the day after graduation, have our wedding night in a hotel, and spring it on my grandma and his parents the next day.”

“I’m guessing that went over real well.” I hadn’t seen an ounce of mercy in that guy, which never made for a good parent.

“Like a ton of bricks. Grandma cried.” She swallowed and took a moment. “His parents disowned him, and we moved into one of the cabins for the summer, which were more camp-style than the ones you see now. Grandma was disappointed, but that never changed her love or her promise to pay for my college. Jeff was so sad after that first week. Honeymoon was over, I guess you’d say, and now he was stressed about how he was going to pay his tuition, and everything just spiraled. He’d gone from trust-fund baby to broke overnight. Four weeks after our little trip to the courthouse, I realized I was pregnant, and two weeks later, the doctor told me I was having twins.”

I tried to put myself in her position at that age and couldn’t. At eighteen, I’d enlisted in the military and was barely capable of caring for myself, let alone two other humans. “You’re incredibly strong.”

She shook her head. “No, because the minute the doc did that wand ultrasound after the blood tests, I had this moment where I regretted everything. Everything,” she repeated in an instant.

“You were young; I can’t imagine there’s any young woman in your position who wouldn’t panic.”

“I was eighteen and married to a guy who didn’t like to look at me anymore, well, unless I was naked. And even then…sex…” She shrugged. “Well, I guess it served its purpose. I told him the minute I got home, thinking he’d know what to do. He always had the plans, you know?”

“What did he do?”

“He sat there for a moment in shock, and I understood. After all, I felt the same way. Then he…he asked me to abort them.”

My nails dug into the back of the couch, but I didn’t say a word.

“And it was in that instant, when that choice was put on the table, that the shock faded, and I knew I wanted them. That there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect them. That’s when I realized that I’d loved the person he pretended to be: strong, loyal, caring, protective…and it was all a giant lie. He put on a great act, but he wasn’t some big, strong man who was going to carry me away to college and build this amazing life. He was a scared little boy who couldn’t put anyone else first, and that included me. And there I was, realizing I’d die for the twins, and he wanted me to kill them because they were inconvenient, and so was I. I refused. He threatened. I refused. He was gone the next morning.”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is, and it taught me to never trust a liar. You lie once, chances are you’ll do it again and again. Anyway, Jeff’s dad showed up a week later with a big, fat check and divorce papers, telling me I could have the first when I proved I was no longer pregnant.”

“Are you kidding me?” I growled. Now I wanted the asshole back in front of me, wanted that scrawny neck wrapped between my hands.

“Nope. So I signed the papers, snatched the check from his hand, and set it on fire right in front of him.”

That’s my girl.

“Nice. Very visual.”

“Yeah, well, I was a little dramatic, and ended up burning that cabin to the ground. Literally. Everything was gone.”

“So don’t leave you alone with a lighter, that’s what you’re saying? No barbecue grill, no s’mores, no fireworks?”

She laughed, lightening the mood, but I still wanted to strangle everyone in that damn family.

“And you stayed in Telluride and raised the kids,” I assumed.

She nodded. “Yep. Jeff never came back. Not once. Patty and Rich bought a place in Denver, but they still come back at holidays, as you saw today. But they’ve never seen the kids. Never asked to, at least, when they’d run into me. Even when I asked them for help with the insurance for Maisie, Rich said that the kids weren’t their problem. I won’t make the mistake of asking for help again.”

“I’m not sure they deserve to see the kids.”

“Me either, but I worry that Maisie might not get the chance if she wants it, you know? I mean, one day, they’ll grow up. They’ll ask deeper questions and seek out their own answers. And Maisie…” She buried her face in her hands.

I slid forward, until the tips of her toes grazed the outside of my thigh. Then I gently took her hands away, almost hoping she was crying, that she’d learned to release that pressure valve at a steadier, easier rate than during Maisie’s surgery.

But there were no tears, just a well of sorrow so deep it would drown an ordinary soul. But Ella was no ordinary soul.

“Maisie will have time to make her choice.” I had no right, but the thought wouldn’t leave, so I voiced it. “Do the kids ask about him? Jeff?”

“Sometimes. They’re curious, of course, and Father’s Day is always a touchy subject, but I’ve been really lucky to have Larry, and the kids have been pretty secluded from other kids out here. This was their first real year at school.”

“What do you tell them?”

“That of course they have a father, because babies have to have a father and a mother. But they don’t have a dad. Because while all men can be fathers, not all of them are qualified to be daddies, and theirs just wasn’t.”

Because your loser dad didn’t want you. He wanted the next fix more than a screaming piece of shit like you. My mother’s words banged around in my head like a ball set loose in a pinball machine.

“You are a terrific mother. I hope to God you’ve heard that often, because you really are.” My thumbs grazed her wrist, just over her pulse.

“I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done,” she refuted with a shrug.

“No. Don’t shrug it off. Because I am the product of someone who didn’t do what you did—what you do every single day. Don’t ever doubt that. Also, if I ever meet Jeff, I’m going to knock him out.”

She gifted me with a small smile. “Don’t do that. He’s a lawyer in Denver now. He’d probably sue you for breaking his precious nose. You ever want to hurt Jeff, you have to hit something he cares about—his pocketbook. And honestly, we’re better for him leaving. Life with him would have been miserable, and I wouldn’t want the kids learning from that kind of father, especially Colt.”

“I get that.”

Her gaze flickered to my mouth and away.

She’s not thinking about kissing you, I lied to myself. Because if I admitted the truth, I’d have her under me in three seconds flat. My hands would be in her hair, my tongue in her mouth, her gasps in my ear.

Silence stretched between us, screaming with the countless possibilities of what could happen next.

Slowly, I let go of her wrists and moved back to my side of the couch. “I should probably get going. It’s late.”

“It’s nine.”

“Help me out here, Ella.” And now my voice sounded like sandpaper. Awesome.

“Help you out of what?” she asked, shifting her position so her legs were under her.

“You know what. Don’t make me say it.” The minute I said it, we were both screwed, and not in the physical sense. Well, okay, that, too.

“Maybe…maybe I want you to say it,” she finished in a strangled whisper.

“I can’t.” Not yet. Not while I’m a walking, talking lie. If she looked at my lap, I definitely wouldn’t need words. I’d gone rock hard the minute she’d looked at my mouth.

“Oh. I get it.” She sat back on her butt, and alarm bells sounded in my head.

“Get what?”

“Like I’m going to say it?” She laughed in self-deprecation.