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He lowered his head and finally met my gaze. “There were good times, but we let the bad times overshadow it all. Maybe even made them out to be worse than they were,” he conceded.
“That’s just human nature.” I tried to console him.
“Charlotte, please don’t excuse me on this one. I ended up hating my father so much, I drove a wedge between my parents.”
“I’m only trying to give you perspective.” After all, he was a child at the time. I leaned in and brushed his lips.
He pressed his lips harder against mine and groaned, tempting me to deepen the kiss.
I gently pulled away. “Tell me more.”
“I’d rather kiss you.”
“I thought we decided we were keeping it mostly platonic for now.” I smiled.
“Says the woman who crawled in bed with me and just kissed me. By the way, I didn’t agree to that plan.”
“Let me at least pretend I can keep you at arm’s length.”
“Why would I do that when I would rather hold you in my arms?”
Those words had me feeling all warm and fuzzy, but . . . “I do love being in your arms, but I need to know you plan to keep me here. Which means I need you to come to terms with your past so you can move ahead with me and our son.” I loved saying that—our son. “I can’t have you running anymore.” I had to know he wouldn’t run from Jameson when the going got tough.
He sighed while gliding the back of his hand down my cheek. “I’ve been running from this for so long, I don’t know what will happen if I stop—and that scares the hell out of me, but . . . I realized last night, when I almost blacked out from the pain, losing you scares me more.”
“Good. That I can work with.” I spat out a faux-evil laugh. “I’ve always wanted to be scary,” I teased.
“You’ve always frightened the hell out of me.” He wasn’t teasing.
“I can live with that. Now tell me what you need to,” I demanded, scarily.
He gave me a half-smile. “You are adorable.”
“Adorably scary,” I countered.
“I’m shaking in my boots.” He kissed my brow.
I settled back on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart, my heart. “Why did you hate your dad?”
It took him a minute to answer. “Because I thought he was getting in the way of Jameson’s and my dreams.”
“What were your dreams?”
“For starters, to get off the farm and get the hell out of Idaho. Jameson and I had grown to hate it there.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. “You know, I live in Idaho.” Or Wydaho, as they called it, on account of it being right on the Idaho-Wyoming border.
“I’m well aware of that.”
I couldn’t read his tone. Did that bother him? I wanted to ask, but I needed him to tell me more about his family situation, so I decided not to ask him to elaborate just yet. We had so many details to work out. Instead, I asked, “What other dreams did you have?”
“It sounds so juvenile now, but we wanted the big city. Jameson would visit his grandparents in Seattle often, and he would come home and tell me how much better life was there. No waking up at the crack of dawn to feed the animals, or shoveling snow or manure, and he got to eat out every night. Our town had one café and we never ate there because my father thought it was wasteful to pay someone to feed you when we had all the food we needed at home.” Drake’s fingers danced down my back. “Boyish resentment built up. It didn’t matter that our father was trying to teach us a good work ethic, or that he tried to show us why the farm, that had been in our family for generations, was so important to him. All we cared about was what we wanted. And we didn’t want his life,” his voice hitched.
“What about your mom?” I had so many questions about her. Like how did she meet his dad? Where was she now?
“My mom,” he whispered. “I think . . .” He paused. His heart pounded and pounded. “I think she loved all three of us so much it hurt. We all put her in a hell of a position, constantly fighting with our father and trying to pit our parents against each other, and it broke her heart. As we got older, Jameson and I would plot how to break them up. We would tell her she deserved better and beg her to leave Dad.”
I gripped his shirt, trying not to react negatively or positively, but failed miserably. That was a bold thing for children to do. It made me wonder if my Jameson would ever do such a thing. “Was your dad abusive?” If that were true, I could understand why they had done what they’d done.
