I groaned and covered my face. “Oh, God, Sam, I hope this isn’t what I think it is.”
He shook his head. “No, Ali. Believe me, if I’d caught you doing that, I wouldn’t have waited ten years to let you know. You were just cuddling, or whatever. Sitting close together. You didn’t see me, but I could hear you talking, and it hit me that you guys reminded me of Mom and Dad. How many times did we see them doing the same thing, just talking and you know,beingtogether. I thought, wow, those two really are going to go the distance.”
“Yeah, well, we all were wrong about that, weren’t we? I don’t see what that has to do with today.”
“It has everything to do with today.” Sam studied me, his eyes narrow. “Why did you and Flynn fight on graduation night?”
My mouth dropped open. “Aren’t you, like, nine years too late to ask that question?”
“Probably. At the time, I figured it was just something that you two would work out. And you were doing that girl-crying thing. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” His mouth twisted. “If I’d had Meghan around in those days, maybe she could’ve helped.”
I smirked. “If I were a really cruel sister, I’d point out that your girlfriend was only thirteen at that time. I somehow doubt she’d have been much help.”
Sam shuddered. “You really are cruel. The last thing I want to think about is Meghan being almost ten years younger than me. Anyway, you’re changing the subject. The point is, I never really knew why you and Flynn fought. Maybe if I’d been a better brother, gotten involved, things might’ve turned out different.”
I reached across the table and laid my hand on his arm. “Let me put your mind at ease. There was nothing you could’ve done to make things turn out different for Flynn and me. He gave me an ultimatum. I didn’t like it. He left. End of story.”
“What kind of ultimatum?” He tugged at the dark tie around his neck. My brother was so not the suit and tie type.
I waved my hand. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Ali.” Sam sat back, studying his hands. “Were you . . . were you seeing someone else behind Flynn’s back? Is that the ultimatum he gave you—give up Craig or he was leaving?”
“What the hell are you talking about? How could you think that about me?”
Sam’s eyes were clouded, his face filled with misery. “I don’t want to think it. I didn’t want to think it at the time. But Flynn left, and two months later you were marrying Craig. And then you were pregnant. It was awful sudden, Ali. You can’t blame me for wondering.”
I couldn’t answer him. It’d never occurred to me that Sam might think I’d been cheating on Flynn. Looking back, I could see his point. At the time, though, Id been so preoccupied with my own misery that I’d never considered how it might look to my brother. I’d been grateful that he accepted what I told him without question.
“Why didn’t you ask me about this before now?” I kept my voice low.
“I guess . . . it was easier not to wonder. I told myself you were grown up and you knew what you were doing.” He hesitated for a minute before lifting his eyes to mine. “I even thought once or twice that maybe . . . maybe Bridget was Flynn’s. But then I knew you’d never do that to him. You couldn’t deny him his own child.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and my chest tightened. I bit down on my lip, just to keep from crying. I couldn’t speak, but tears welled up and ran down my cheeks.
“Oh, no.” Sam whispered the words, and I saw the reflection of my own agony in his face. “Ali. You wouldn’t. All this time . . . and you never told him? You never toldme?How could you do that?”
I couldn’t answer him over the lump in my throat. I only shook my head.
“Alison.” He dropped his forehead onto the heels of his hands. “God. I can’t even . . . what kind of idiot did you take me for? Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve dealt with it together.”
“She.Not an it. Bridget was my baby. She’s my child. Don’t talk about her like she was a problem we could’ve solved.” Bitterness tinged my words. Yeah, maybe I still had some lingering resentment over how alone I’d felt in those days. Alone by my own choice, but I remembered how many time I’d wished Sam would figure it out.
“When I said ‘it,’ I meant the situation, not Bridge. God, Ali, you know I love that kid. I wouldn’t change anything about having her in my life. But I can’t believe you’d intentionally keep Flynn from knowing about her. He deserved to know. He still does.”
I choked back another sob. “But he’d left me, Sam. He’d walked away from me, when he promised he’d never leave me alone. If I’d told him I was pregnant, he’d have come back. But it wouldn’t have been for me. It would’ve been because he felt obligation. All Flynn ever wanted was to get out of here. You know that. He couldn’t wait to leave.”
Sam stood up and stalked across the kitchen. “And you didn’t think about that before you got pregnant? Before you—he—” My brother couldn’t get out the words.
“I thought I was going with him.” I finally voiced the words I’d avoided. “We’d planned . . . we were going to leave town together.”
Sam turned on me, brows drawn together. “Really? When was that decided? I don’t remember discussing it with you.”
I folded my hands on the table, squeezing them tight. “We were going to talk to you after graduation. I wasn’t going to just leave.”
“So what changed?” Sam braced his hands on the back of the kitchen chair across from me.
I swallowed hard. “I decided I didn’t want to leave Burton.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but it was as close to it as I was getting.
