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Devlin’s pebble skidded over the water's surface before sinking. “Yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard about my father. He’s been absent most of my life. And when he did show up every now and then, I did my best to please him, you know? Washed the asshole’s car. Picked up the man’s paper from the lawn. All because I didn’t want to give him a reason to leave us again and make my mom sad.”
She palmed his cheek. “I’m sorry, Dev. I’ve seen him on a few occasions when he still lived with the Ryan sisters. From what I’ve heard from your half sisters, I believe the man’s a total narcissist.”
Devlin snorted. “Yeah.”
He remembered she’d mentioned her first kiss. He wondered if that lucky bastard also was the first to be inside of her. “Who was the guy?”
She furrowed her brows for a moment. “Oh, you mean Joseph?”
“That’s his name? Joseph?”
Devlin had to suppress the urge to laugh. Nothing wrong with the name, for sure. But would someone named ‘Joseph’ finger fuck her in the middle of his strip club? Would a ‘Joseph’ spank her ass before he would fuck her hard on top of his desk?
He waited a beat, and she filled in the silence. “We were together for a few weeks when things heated between us. I don’t even know how things had gotten so out of hand, but we ended up—eh, you know…”
Hold on. Was she telling him what he thought she was? He tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible and asked, “Did you have sex with him?”
“Once. It was horrible. We both had no clue. Maybe that’s why we figured that if he pulled out, we would be in the clear.”
Oh, shit. He didn’t like where this was headed.
She stood from her spot and walked over to the riverbank. He followed her lead and engulfed her from behind with his arms. She patted his upper arm in acknowledgement while staring at the water.
“Is that the reason your brother went a little overboard earlier?”
Devlin felt the back of her head move against his sternum in a nod. “Yeah. He was the one who found me.”
He cocked his head. “Found you?”
Damn. He didn’t know what he’d do if he would find one of his sisters in bed with some dickwad.
“Not like that.” She took a deep breath before she said, “After the summer, Joseph went back to his mom in Houston. It was months later that Ryan found me unconscious and bleeding in one of the outer fields.”
He turned her around and palmed her cheeks. “What happened?”
The inner turmoil behind her eyes almost made him drop it, since it obviously pained her to talk about it.
“It turned out I was pregnant. And I never knew. I was so stupid, Dev. I rode horses, jumped fences, and I ate everything from raw cheese to sushi.”
“You lost the baby?”
Her bottom lip trembled as she tried to keep in her sob.
“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. Pregnancies can go wrong without a clear reason. And you didn’t know, Little Bird.” He pulled her in for a bear hug as she cried against his chest.
“You were just a child, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.”
She shook her head against his chest. “I should have known…”
“Have you talked to someone about this? It must have been rough on you. I’ve seen up close how losing a child almost destroyed my mother. And she was a grown woman at the time. Not a child.”
“She lost a baby?”
He stroked her back as he said, “Yeah. Between Kieran and the twins. I was still in high school.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. He wanted to kiss her for being so sweet, thinking about his feelings while she was in the midst of telling him about her own trauma. He kissed her nose and said, “I’m sorry, too. No one should have to deal with losing a child. And certainly not at fourteen.”
She pulled a shoulder.
