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“I know.” He chuckled. “If I hadn’t witnessed you two together, I can still see it written on your face.”
Taking a deep breath, she broached the obvious subject he wanted to discuss. “I never planned to tell you about Maisy. Joel convinced me otherwise.”
Frustration clung to his next kick of snow. They stopped walking suddenly, and he turned to her with a hurt expression. “I wish you would have told me sooner. At least a few months sooner. With or without Joel’s influence.”
“You have to understand, Calle. If Liam ever found out you were Maisy’s father, he would have killed her. No question. I’ve spent so long keeping the secret. It’s not easy to give up that secret after all this time, especially when Liam still frightens me. Even from the grave.”
“My brother, that bastard,” he muttered.
In a moment of bravery, she touched his elbow. “And even then, you had too much to lose. Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have left Skaja to make this right with me.”
His eyes squeezed shut as he let out a long breath.
“It would have broken your heart. I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Is this why you married Joel? So I couldn’t try to make it right?” Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the ground and scuffed his boot over loose rocks.
She bit her lip. “It was the reason at first. But he makes me happy. He’s good to my daughters. Our daughter.” She gestured between them, not wanting to skirt around the sensitive topic.
“Our daughter…” he repeated in a somber tone. “All that time in the Pits, and I never knew. I hate that. It hurts too much.”
After a moment, they began walking again. A heaviness pressed down on her shoulders. Pain. Heartache. Sympathy. Poor Calle. She wanted to take his pain away. But she couldn’t. However, perhaps she could ease some of it.
“I need to know what you want to do about Maisy.” She glanced back toward the house to find her eldest daughter with her nose pressed against the glass of a window, shamelessly watching them. Despite the nerve-wracking conversation, she couldn’t help but smile. But it quickly disappeared when she turned back to Calle. “My reputation is already tarnished beyond repair. But yours is not. Will you claim an illegitimate child? Or will Maisy grow up in ignorance?”
A long, frosty breath blew out of his mouth. “I spoke to Skaja at length about this last night. I realize it’s not fair for me to take her from you, no matter how much I want her in my life every single day. What happened to us is unfortunate. But I want my daughter and I don’t care who knows about it or what they think.”
“Calle, we’re moving back to Ebriel.”
She clutched her hands together, waiting for his reaction. But he only nodded.
“I suspected as much. Joel wouldn’t leave his family to fend for themselves. I thought we could meet with Skaja and Joel to figure out good times for visits and how long. I want this to work.”
She sighed in relief. “I do as well.”
“Maybe we can tell Maisy the truth over hot cocoa? And I would love it if the four of you came to the wedding.”
Moisture collected in her eyes, and she blinked it back. Joel had been right. This was Calle and not Liam. He was being kind and fair without straining anyone’s relationship.
He turned to her and held his arms open. “May I hug you?”
After a moment of indecision, she nodded. And then he folded his arms around her and held her in a tight embrace. The past and the future. The end and the beginning.
The moisture in her eyes overflowed and trailed down her cheeks. The heaviness in her chest fizzled away to nothing. When she sniffed, he pulled away. “You all right?”
“Yes.” She swiped the tears away. “I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. It’s wonderful.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
****
Joel finished sweeping up the last of the broken plate and glanced out the window. Warmth burned in his chest, and he smiled to find Nyana and Calle in an embrace. “Good,” he murmured. “She needed that.”
Skaja followed his gaze from where she stood closer to the window than him, her arms crossed. She gestured to the other two, now slowly venturing back toward the house. “Doesn’t that worry you? Make you uncomfortable?”
“No. Because I know how she feels about me.”
“But they will see each other more often due to Maisy.”
