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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.”
