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“No, thank you. I won’t be staying long.”
I also did my best not to sound like the world’s biggest bitch, but my emotions were all over the place. Mama Bear sat poised and ready in one corner of the proverbial ring, and the woman who’d raised a sweet young man and who’d spent the past fourteen years teaching him to be someone others looked up to and not to judge stood in the other corner. Both emotions were justified, except at that moment, I couldn’t suppress the protective side, rationalizing why I needed to stand my ground.
Cash nodded and raked his hand through his hair. “I know you’re upset and disappointed, but Hannah, you know me. We were best friends once ... more even.”
“Iknewyou, Cash, and that was a lifetime ago. Or at least it feels that way.”
“Doesn’t make it less true.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
“Which is why I don’t understand why you would keep our son from me.”
And ... there it was. The detonator I knew would set me off. Blame. No way would I take that on the chin. Thanks to that pin being pulled, there was little to do to rein in my resolve.
“Me?Ikept our son from you? No,youdid that. I honestly don’t understand why you’re acting as though you didn’t know. Is it because you’re back here and you’re afraid that people will realize that you never acknowledged your son? God forbid it ends up as a headline.” I tossed my hands in the air, mimicking bright lights. “Star baseball player finally acknowledges son after fourteen years. Not that it wouldn’t be justified.Youdid this. Not the other way around.”
His long legs ate up the distance between us. I took a step back and tilted my head to look up at him.
I couldn’t help noticing the way his Adam’s apple dipped in his throat. How his chest rose and fell in controlled breaths. “You said something similar at your house. It didn’t make sense then and doesn’t now. I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything.” He rested his hand on the back of his neck, drawing my eyes to the ink on his flexed biceps. Averting my gaze, I brought my attention back to his face. “Can we please sit down and talk about this?”
Even though I didn’t want to, I decided it would be the best way to put distance between us. I moved across the living room and sat in the armchair next to the sofa, where he took a seat.
“Now tell me why you’re blaming me for not knowing about Jimmy and why you’d think I would have abandoned you both.” Before I could utter a word, he added, “Start from the beginning.”
Even though he knew that part of the story, I reminded him of what happened all those years ago. “That July, fifteen years ago, you needed to leave for Utah, and we decided to take a break or whatever.” God, I hated that term. It never worked out. Usually, someone in the equation never wanted a break at all. In our case, that person would be me. Except I knew it was the right thing for both of us, so I did it—it broke my heart, but I did it. “And we had sex for the last time.”
“We made love. We never had sex, Hannah.”
All I could do was blink. Warmth rushed through my body, forcing me to cross my legs to stave off the pull I felt toward him. Rather than acknowledge his statement, I continued, “In September, I started feeling off. I was always tired, and certain foods and smells made me queasy. I went to the campus clinic, and I found out I was pregnant. I was completely shocked, Cash. And scared. I’d just started school and didn’t have many friends yet. As soon as I walked out of that doctor’s office, I called you and called you. Each time I left voice mails asking you to call me. I waited and waited, but you never responded.”
Thinking back to that young version of myself who trembled when her phone rang, only to have her heart break each time it wasn’t Cash, brought more tears to my eyes. It didn’t take much to still feel the deep-rooted disappointment I felt that day.
“I never got your messages, Hannah.”
“You know, even then, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Technology wasn’t perfect, right?” He nodded at what I posed as a rhetorical question. “And that was why I called your parents. I knew that you’d talk to them, so I told your dad to tell you to call me.”
Cash’s brows furrowed.
“Did you tell him why?”
A tad put off that I needed a reason, I shook my head. “No, not then. But I did a month later when you still hadn’t responded to anything. I’d been so desperate to tell you that I wrote a letter and sent an email telling you I was pregnant.”
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “I didn’t know. I can’t believe my father would do that, and I swear I never got any indication that you were trying to get hold of me.”
“Look, I did everything humanly possible. Even going as far as going to your parents’ house. Again, I told your dad everything. And he said that you were happy and to leave you alone. That trying to slap a paternity claim on you was the oldest trick in the book.”
Cash’s eyes darkened as I spoke about his father ... his hero. Except everything I recalled had been the truth. “Regardless of him, and for the sake of our child, I needed to try once more. Rather than leave it to chance or in someone else’s hands, I got on a plane and flew to Utah. Not knowing where you lived, I went to a game. That was when I saw you withher. Speaking of which, does Jimmy have a half brother or sister? They’d be around the same age.”
Cash’s eyes flew wide. “Saw me with who? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t have any other kids.”
“I don’t know who she was. You were standing next to a very pretty pregnant blonde. The ends of her hair were pink. I remember thinking that maybe she was having a girl, and that was why they were that way. You looked at her with love in your eyes. I should know. I used to see it every day.”
Silence stretched between us. I didn’t know how long neither of us spoke, but it started to become uncomfortable.
Pushing myself up, I looked down at him. “If you want a paternity test, I’ll get you one, but it isn’t needed. You’re the only man I’ve been with.”
At that admission, Cash stood. His head cocked to the side, probably wondering how someone could go without sex for so long. No way he did or could. But he wasn’t raising a kid on his own while having a full-time job. He wasn’t dead tired for the first few years of his son’s life. Time flew by because all I did was blink, and suddenly Jimmy was in high school.
