Page 85
“I don’t know many other people who would rearrange their life for two kids like you have done. Or who would be willing to change it completely, if it came to that.”
“You would do the same thing,” she said.
He wasn’t entirely sure of that.
“If I can give Morgan even a tiny bit of peace by promising to love Carter and Riley the way she would, then of course I’m going to do that.”
He couldn’t seem to breathe. Seeing her there with snowflakes catching in her hair, he knew with sudden clarity that he would love this woman for the rest of his life.
There wouldn’t be anyone else.
“I’ll stay and watch them if you want to keep walking with Kodi,” she said after a minute, glancing at the dog as he tugged lightly at the leash, eager to explore more.
“I’ll go to that end of the park and come back,” he said, needing distance to handle the turmoil of his emotions. “I won’t be long.”
As they walked, Kodi sniffed at every interesting snowdrift and patch of frozen grass. The noise of the nearby highway was muffled here and the sound of his footsteps in the snow and the faint rushing of the creek seemed abnormally loud.
Except for his sister and his grandparents, Wes felt as if he had been alone for most of his adult life. Oh, he had friends and colleagues and had dated off and on but he realized now that he had been careful to keep everyone at a safe, comfortable distance. He had never let anyone else ever truly see to his heart the way Hannah had.
She had seen past all his defenses, had known him when he was still figuring out who he wanted to be. She had loved the parts of him that he had been afraid to show anyone else. His uncertainty, his tendency to overthink everything until he talked himself out of taking chances. With Hannah, he had not needed to pretend he had all the answers.
And he had thrown it all away. She had been the one person who had truly understood him, who had seen his flaws and chosen to love him anyway, and he had been too scared, too proud, too convinced he was protecting them both to fight for what they had.
Now, watching her move through the world with such purpose and grace, he finally understood all that he had lost. He hadn’t just given up Hannah. He had surrendered the version of himself that had existed when he was with her.
He had burned that bridge so thoroughly that there was no way back across it, no matter how much he might want to try.
Chapter 27
“Do you want me to drive for a while so you can rest?” Hannah asked when they reached the pickup and returned the dog to his crate and the kids to their seats.
As she expected, he shook his head. “I’m fine. Thanks, though.”
“Are you sure? I know it’s a huge leap of faith to trust someone else behind the wheel of your truck, but I’m a very good driver. Except for that slide-off a few years ago, I haven’t had an accident since I was sixteen, when I backed into my mom’s birdbath and decapitated her concrete cherub.”
“I remember that tragedy. The poor cherub never saw you coming.”
She laughed, the sound easing some of the tightness in her chest. He gazed at her for a long moment then turned away.
“I like driving,” he said, his voice sounding clipped. “It helps me stay awake.”
She shrugged and climbed into the passenger seat. In truth, she wasn’t all that sorry to let him keep control. The sporadic snow had begun to fall more steadily, blurring the edges of the fields and the distant mountains.
Bad weather always made her hands tense on the wheel and her shoulders knot with stress. Letting someone else take the lead, just this once, felt like a small relief.
“Can we listen to some Christmas music?” Carter asked from the back seat as Wes pulled out.
Wes glanced at her then back to the road. “I’ll let you drive the music options if you want.”
She made a face. “So much responsibility.” Still, she fished her phone out of her bag, connected it to the truck and scrolled through her playlists. She finally landed on a mix of carols and holiday pop songs and within a few minutes, the truck was filled with sleigh bells and familiar choruses.
“Hey! That’s our concert song,” Riley exclaimed when the opening notes of the song “Where Are You Christmas” kicked in. She and Carter started singing along, a little off-key but enthusiastic.
The rest of the drive seemed to pass quickly. The kids grew tired of Christmas music after a while so she read to them again from the dinosaur Christmas chapter book. When she finished, all of them gave a happy sigh. Even Wes seemed to enjoy it.
After she finished the book, the kids decided to watch a movie together on one of their tablets.
Hannah opened her laptop, created a Wi-Fi hotspot with her phone and answered a few work emails. After that, she went over her hectic schedule for the week on her calendar. Christmas was now less than two weeks away and she had so much to do before then, especially preparing for the annual concert a few days before Christmas Eve. Feeling a little more organized, she shut down her laptop and watched the passing scenery, mostly farmland with the occasional small town.
