Page 14 of Together Is Where We Belong

A car door closing in the distance caught my attention, and I turned my head in the direction. Carolina walked up the driveway in my direction.

She hugged both of her parents and whispered something to them I couldn’t make out.

“Have a good night. Don’t worry about Luke. We’ve got him. Call us in the morning,” her dad said before he and her mom walked down the stairs of the porch to leave.

I took in the sight of Carolina as she walked over to me.

Just saying her name in my head made my chest ache. She’d hurt me more than she realized when she walked away from me. From us. From the future, we’d both planned.

She looked the same as she did eight years ago. Her brown hair was in a messy bun, and she wore a pair of denim overalls with a baby pink T-shirt underneath.

Carolina sat down beside me, and I turned my head to face her.

Her wide chocolate brown eyes stared back at me briefly before she looked down at her hands. She wrung them together in her lap the same way she used to when she was nervous.

I continued to look at her and remained silent because I didn’t know where to start. How to start this conversation without coming off as harsh and angry, both of which I felt.

“This wasn’t the way I pictured you finding out,” she finally spoke before looking up at me. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall.

I needed to remain rational and calm, but it was hard. I’d barely gotten my head wrapped around her return, and now I had to wrap my head around the fact that I was a father.

“How did you plan on tellin’ me?” I asked, trying to refrain from unleashing my anger that she’d kept our child from me all these years.

“I was going to come to the ranch tomorrow and speak with you. I thought you still lived there. I didn’t want you finding out from someone other than me,” she confessed.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” I had to know why she’d kept him from me. Even though she broke my heart and I hated her for it, I never thought she’d keep our child from me.

“I tried, Leo. I called repeatedly. I emailed you to call me. I wrote you letter after letter, and you never once responded. I didn’t want to just leave something like that on your voicemail. I did try, Leo, endlessly. But you never responded. You wouldn’t listen,” she said through the tears that now fell. Her lip quivered after she finished.

I rubbed my hand through my hair as I processed her admission.

I only got one of those letters. And I’d read it, but I ignored it because I was too heartbroken over her leaving. I remember word for word of that piece of notebook paper because I’d reread it repeatedly, trying to decipher what she’d have to tell me. My eighteen-year-old self thought she wanted to tell me she regretted leaving or boast about how good her life was. I never thought in a million years she would try to contact me about being pregnant with our child.

“Did you get those letters, Leo?”

I looked over at her as she wiped the fresh tears off her cheeks. My anger only slightly subsided at the sight of her upset.

“I only ever got one of them,” I admitted.

“Why didn’t you call me, Leo?” Her voice broke.

Because I was a coward. Because you broke me. That was the truth, but I wouldn’t admit that to her.

“I was young and hurt. What’s his name?” I needed to know the name of her son. My son. Our son.

Even just the thought caused me to shiver in the Texas heat.

“Luke. His name is Luke,” she whispered.

My head snapped up and looked over at her as realization dawned. One of the many nights we’d spent laying in the bed of my truck, we’d discussed the names of our children. Luke was my top pick for a boy. Hers was Jackson. Tears filled my eyes at her picking the name I’d loved for one of our future children.

I couldn’t speak. I was at a loss for words. I had a son, and his name was Luke.

I’d missed so much. I knew nothing but his name, and I had so many questions. So many things I wanted to know about him.

“His full name is Luke Alexander Courtright,” she said with a proud smile that held a bit of sadness.

I gasped, and the unshed tears fell.