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Two
Felicity’s heart thudded at a sickening pace. “I’m a stranger, Wynn. That baby has never set eyes on me.”
His brows narrowed. “True. But you’re not a stranger. You knew Shandy. You know me. And you’re a child of Falcon’s Notch.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Values. History. Roots.”
She shook her head slowly. “You and I hated this place. We couldn’t wait to get away from here.”
“Maybe we told ourselves that. It’s hard to escape the intangible things that make up a childhood. Neither of us had a great upbringing, but the mountains were a steady constant. We loved hiking. Even when day-to-day life was wretched, all we had to do was look up and see the vast expanse of time.”
Well, heck. If he was going to get all philosophical on her, she was a goner. That was one thing she had fallen in love with all those years ago. The boy who grew up with nothing but had a wealth of knowledge and imagination and a deep vein of wisdom.
Now here he sat wearing expensive, hand-tailored clothing and carrying himself with all the confident masculinity of a man who knew he had conquered demons.
She searched for the right words to shut this down. Wynn was dangerous to her peace of mind. He couldn’t drag her into his orbit. She wouldn’t allow it.
“First of all,” she said, her voice curt, “you had no right to talk to my boss, even obliquely. Secondly, I like my job, and I’m good at it.”
Wynn’s gaze narrowed. “And third?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know anything about caring for a baby.”
“Ayla isn’t technically a baby. She’s ten months old. And though it broke my heart to see this, my dying sister made up an effing binder with all the details about eating and sleeping and doctor visits...” He trailed off. His throat worked. His eyes were visibly damp.
“Oh, Wynn...” It hurt her to see him suffering.
“This is probably my only chance to be a father,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want to screw it up.”
Felicity frowned. “You’re thirty-three years old. Surely, you’ve had relationships with women in New York.”
“Women, yes. Relationships, no.”
She couldn’t stand it any longer. Without touching him at all, she got to her feet and escaped the little tête-à-tête. “It’s impossible,” she said, keeping all emotion out of her statement. “You know it is. Maybe this is your way of tormenting me for sport.”
He stood and tracked her movements, not allowing more than a few feet of distance between them. “I want to be a good father to Ayla. I need you to make that happen.” He paused. “It’s the least you can do, Fliss.”
Tiny spots danced in front of her eyes. He might as well have punched her in the stomach. “That’s not fair,” she whispered, barely able to speak past the lump in her throat. “You know I didn’t do anything wrong.”
In that moment, the pain was shockingly fresh and raw. Fifteen years ago, she’d had a miscarriage. A baby she hadn’t even known she was carrying. The trauma and heartache had ended her relationship with Wynn, though not immediately.
Both of them had been too immature to handle the grief. She had been focused on her own loss and hadn’t been able to understand Wynn’s feelings. He had been furious and hurt with no one to blame.
For half a heartbeat, he even questioned whether she had known about the pregnancy and hadn’t told him.
She assured him she had no clue, but she understood his knee-jerk doubt. His parents had been habitual liars. Felicity couldn’t count how many times they had broken promises to their children.
To say Wynn had trust issues was an understatement.
After the first week of struggling to cope with the reality of the miscarriage, Wynn had asked her to marry him. Even now, she wasn’t sure why. Had he thought a wedding ring would soften the pain of losing what had never been theirs to begin with?
At any other moment in their relationship, she would have been over the moon. She loved Wynn. But her body and her heart were still healing. She turned him down.
It was the wrong thing to do. Wynn had become a frozen shell of himself. Felt rejected. Lashed out. He had sworn he would never ask her again.
And then he left town, left Felicity behind, and joined the navy.
