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‘Is it because of your own father? And the fact that you never knew him?’ she said, going there without any help from him. ‘Is that it?’
He shook his head. Damn, he’d have to tell her the truth about that too, now. ‘I did know him. I guess I lied about that.’
‘Oh.’ She looked surprised, but not wary. Or not wary yet. ‘Why did you lie?’ she asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘Because I didn’t exactly know him,’ he clarified, trying to explain to her something he’d never understood. ‘I knew of him. And he knew about me.’
‘I don’t...’ she said, obviously struggling to figure it out.
‘I grew up in a small place in Indiana called Garysville,’ he said, reciting a story he’d denied for so long, he felt as if he were talking about some other kid’s life. ‘Towns like that, everyone knows everyone else’s business. My old man was the police chief. A big deal with a reputation to protect, who liked to play away from home. Everyone knew I was his kid, because I looked a lot like him. And my mom didn’t exactly keep it a secret.’
‘But surely you must have talked to him? If it was such a small town.’
And you were his son.
He could hear her thinking it. And remembered all the times he’d tortured himself with the same question as a boy.
‘Why would I?’ The old bitterness surprised him a little. ‘He was just some guy who came over to screw my mother from time to time. She told him I was his. He didn’t want to know.’
‘He never spoke to you?’ She looked horrified. ‘But that’s hideous—how could he not want to know you?’
Like father, like son, he thought grimly. Wasn’t that what he had thought about doing to his own kid? When he’d figured money would be enough to free him of any responsibility for his child.
‘Actually, that’s not true, I did speak to him once. Six words...’ He forced the humiliating memory to the surface, to punish himself. ‘You want to know what they were?’
* * *
Ella’s heart clutched as Coop’s face took on a cold, distant expression, the tight smile nothing like the warm, witty man she knew. She nodded, although she wasn’t sure she did want to know. He seemed so unhappy.
‘Do you want fries with that?’ The brittle half-laugh held no amusement. ‘Pretty tragic, isn’t it?’
Her heart ached at the flatness of his tone. ‘Oh, Coop,’ she said, the sharp pain in her chest like a punch. No wonder he was so reluctant to talk about the baby. It wasn’t fear of the responsibility; it was simply a lack of confidence.
‘I worked nights at a drive-thru in town when I was in high school,’ he continued, still talking in that flat, even tone that she was sure now was used to mask his emotions. ‘My mom was finding it hard to stay in a job, she had...’ he paused. ‘...these moods.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyhow we needed the money. He drove in one night with his family, about a month after I’d got the job. He ordered two chilli dogs, two chocolate malts and a side order of onion rings for his kids. Delia and Jack Jnr.’
She wondered if he realised how significant it was that he’d remembered the order exactly. ‘You knew them?’
‘Sure, we went to the same high school. Not that we moved in the same circles. Delia was the valedictorian, Jack Junior the star quarterback. And I hated their guts, because I was so damn jealous of the money they had, the choices.’ He huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘And the Beemer convertible Jack Jnr got for his sixteenth birthday.’
And the fact that they had a father, your father, and you didn’t, she thought, her heart aching for him.
‘He looked me right in the eye and said no, they didn’t need fries, then he paid and drove on. He never came to my window again.’
She heard the yearning in his voice and the punch of pain twisted.
No wonder he’d worked so hard to get away from there, to make something out of his life. Rejection always hurt. It had nearly destroyed her when Randall had rejected her, but at least she’d been an adult. Or adult enough. She couldn’t imagine suffering that kind of knock-back as a child. Every single day. To have it thrown in your face that you weren’t good enough, and never knowing why.
The casual cruelty of the man who had fathered him, but had never had the guts to acknowledge him, disgusted her. But his bravery in rising above it, in overcoming it—surely that was what mattered. Why couldn’t he see that?
‘But you’ve got to understand, Ella. I’m not sure I’m a good bet as a father. Because I’m a selfish bastard, just like he was.’
She wanted to tell him that he was wrong. That he wasn’t selfish, he was only self-sufficient, because he’d had to be. And that she admired him so much for having the courage to rise above the rejection. But she knew it wasn’t only admiration that was making her heart pound frantically in her chest.
She touched his cheek, felt the rasp of the five o’clock shadow already beginning to grow at two in the afternoon. ‘Do you really think you’re the only one of us who’s scared, Coop? The only one who thinks they won’t measure up?’
He stared at her. ‘Get real, Ella. You’ve loved this kid from the get-go. You’ve made it your number one priority from the start.’ His gaze roamed over her face. ‘How would you feel if I told you I’m pretty sure I only invited you here because I wanted you. Not the kid?’ The desire in his heavy-lidded eyes made the heat pulse low in her abdomen. ‘If that doesn’t tell you what kind of father I’d be, I don’t know what the hell does.’
She smiled, utterly touched by the admission. ‘Actually I’m flattered. And rather turned on.’
