by Maisey Yates
“You have a history of making irresponsible decisions,” her mom said. “And you haven’t got a long enough track record of doing the right thing for me to just assume—”
“Vanessa is one of the most responsible people I know,” Jacob cut her off. “We wouldn’t have hired her to work on the ranch if that weren’t true. The way that she is with those kids... I’ve never seen anything like it. She doesn’t deserve to have her sobriety called into question.”
“You don’t get to have an opinion,” Cole said. “Not now that you’ve gotten my daughter in trouble and are refusing to marry her.”
Rage prickled Vanessa’s scalp. “I refused to marry him,” Vanessa said. “I’m not just going to get married to a man I’m not in love with and compound the issues we already have.”
“You want us to believe that you make responsible choices, and then you go and admit that,” her dad said, anger his default reaction to any high-stakes moment.
“I happen to think it’s responsible to make sure you marry the right person,” Vanessa said.
“Excuse me,” Jacob said, cutting into the discussion. “This isn’t my family. But what I know is that no one here is a teenager who’s gotten in trouble. Vanessa and I are adults, and we are committed to doing whatever we have to do to make our child’s life as good as possible. My parents might be unconventional, but they were happy to know they were having a grandchild. It’s unfortunate that you don’t feel the same.”
The way he spoke, his tone even and cool, authoritative. And on her side.
It made her heart pound harder, made her hands shake.
“I didn’t say that,” Tamara said.
“It’s apparent,” he said. “Your low opinion of your own daughter keeps you from being happy for her.”
Her mother looked like she’d been struck. “It’s not a low opinion,” she said. “But you tell me how you would react if you spent years not knowing where your child was. Sometimes not knowing if she was alive or dead. Tell me how I should trust her word when she lied every day she lived in this house as a teenager. When she hid bottles of pills and alcohol and sneaked out at night.”
It was true. And that was the worst part. Sitting here, feeling angry—and in many ways rightly so—didn’t seem entirely fair when what her mother said was true.
“She isn’t a teenager anymore,” Jacob said. “And her entire track record, as far back as I can see, is a good one. And I trust that she’ll keep being the woman that I’ve gotten to know. A woman that I am damn proud to have a baby with.”
“Jacob,” Vanessa said. “There’s no point. I can only ever be one thing to them.”
Because she’d been one thing for years. Because she’d withdrawn. Because she’d hidden from the judgment. Some of which she’d earned, and now she was in a tangle of pain she couldn’t seem to get out of.
But someday it had to stop. Because she’d paid so much already, and she couldn’t pay forever.
She swallowed hard. “This is why I’ve been avoiding you. And I did it until I couldn’t anymore. Because you can’t let me be different. You can’t let me move on. It’s too important to you that you hang on to all the pain that you feel over me disappointing you, to ever let me have a chance to do something other than upset you.”
“It’s not that simple,” her father said. “We have to learn to trust you again.”
Anger welled up inside her. Because her dad specifically...he had been so easy to disappoint. His trust an easy thing to lose, and once lost...apparently gone forever.
“Dad, I lost your trust the first time I ever did anything wrong. There was never any chance to come back from it with you.”
“I don’t need anything upsetting Vanessa,” Jacob said, fury lacing every word. “She’s been through enough. If you want to have any contact with her in the future, then I suggest you be prepared to treat her in the way she deserves. I won’t allow you to come near her otherwise.”
“I’m her father,” Cole said. “You’re not her husband, not her fiancé.”
“I’m the man who aims to protect her with everything I am. If you need a label for that, that’s too damn bad.”
He took her by the arm and the two of them turned to leave the dining room. To walk out of the house.
A few moments later, she heard footsteps behind them, and when they got out onto the porch, Olivia followed them through the door.
“Vanessa...”
“Don’t,” Vanessa said, snapping immediately. “Don’t start with your sanctimonious bullshit, Olivia. I can’t stand it.”
Olivia’s eyes went round with pain, and Vanessa felt a kick of guilt.
Old patterns. Old habits.
The Logan family was lousy with both.
“They shouldn’t have reacted that way,” Olivia said. “It was wrong of them.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Vanessa lifted her chin in defiance. “But you don’t treat me any differently.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “Everyone is angry and they don’t know what to do.”
“I’m angry,” Vanessa said.
“Let’s go,” Jacob said, putting his hand on her lower back.
“I doubt Mom and Dad expected you to come to dinner to announce your pregnancy,” Olivia said.
“How did you tell Mom and Dad you were pregnant out of wedlock, Olivia? Because I know that’s the one blight on your otherwise prudish record.”
Olivia’s face turned red. “I married Luke. And they knew that I was going to.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Just like they know that I’m a screwup. Forever. And there’s nothing I can do or change or be to make it right for them. Or for you. Is there?”
“I’m sorry!” Olivia said, tearful. “I don’t want things to be like this forever. I don’t want to have you back and still not have you back.”
“I’m not going to let my baby be around this,” Vanessa said. “It’s what made me lose it. The disapproval. Constantly. You don’t know what it’s like, Olivia, because everything you did was always perfect. Everything I did has been wrong. Even when I do basically the same thing as you, it’s seen as wrong.”
“It makes them more nervous,” Olivia said. “Because of...”
“My past. But I wasn’t born with a past. They never could deal with the way that I was. Neither could you.”
“You didn’t want me around, Vanessa,” Olivia said, her voice thick with emotion. “You thought I was sanctimonious then too. Yeah, I did some of the wrong things. I know I did. When we were teenagers and I got you and your friends in trouble for skinny-dipping, you said you didn’t want me to speak to you ever again. You told me you hated me. Don’t act like I just walked out of your life on a whim. You didn’t want me.”
“You don’t even know how much trouble I got in,” Vanessa said. “Mom didn’t speak to me for days. And then when Dad did, I wished he wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well Mom got angry with me too,” Olivia said. “She said she expected better from me. Like somehow it was my job to stop you. And that’s how it always was, Vanessa. It was my job to be the things that you couldn’t be.”
“And you still think the problem is me? Did it ever occur to you it’s messed up Mom and Dad can’t just let us be...us. You chose their side. Not mine. A long time ago.”
“What did you want me to do?” Olivia asked. “Did you want me to just let you hurt yourself? Because I know that I... I know I ruined your social life, and I know I made things difficult for you with Mom and Dad sometimes, but you were the one doing all those things. And I was afraid for you.”
“But you never talked to me,” Vanessa said. “You never asked me what was going on.”
“What was going on?” Olivia asked.
Her breath caught, and she was tempted to say. But she couldn’t add that to tonight. She didn’t have the strength. “It doesn’t matter now. What it amounts to is that they always assumed that I was doing wrong, and at a certain point I thought I might as well
.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Olivia said. “I was trying to help you. And then after that...when I couldn’t help anymore...I thought I had to be so perfect. To make up for the fact that you weren’t. And the only time I wasn’t was with Luke. My whole life I spent trying to make up for that. For you.”
“I spent my whole life running from me,” Vanessa said. “Because Mom and Dad made me feel like I had to.”
Silence settled between them, a thick blanket of tension.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “I’m just sorry.”
“I’m done being sorry,” Vanessa said. “I have to be done being sorry.”
Jacob put his arm around her, and the two of them walked down the stairs.
“Wait!” Olivia said.
“We need to leave,” Jacob said.
“Congratulations,” Olivia said. “I don’t know how to fix the past. I really don’t. But I want to be in your life now. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t care if you guys get married. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Just be... Just be happy. Because that’s what I learned I had to be. Not perfect. Happy. The life that Luke has given me is amazing. Happy. Messy. And with a lot of things that Mom would never have approved of. We took really different roads over the past ten years. But I feel like right now we’re kind of meeting at a middle one. And maybe it’s going to take us a long time to untangle why we’re on those different roads. But in the meantime, can we just...meet here?”
She looked at her sister, at the pain on her face. Pain she’d caused. So much of this pain she’d caused. Including her own.
“I want to,” Vanessa said. “I want to fix this. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the hurt I caused everyone. For the worry. For the pain. But at some point Mom and Dad have to quit asking me to pay for it.”
“They’re afraid,” Olivia said. “They’re afraid to hope.”
“I need someone to hope with me,” Vanessa said.
“I will.”
Vanessa put her hand on her chest and tried to stanch the flow of pain radiating from there. “Thank you.”
* * *
JACOB’S HEART WAS pounding from what had just happened. From the rage that was pouring through his veins. Yes, maybe Vanessa’s family had a past history with her that meant they questioned her and her sobriety, but it wasn’t up to him to feel sympathy.
Not when his job was to stand by her. No matter what.
Whatever she was to him, she was the mother of his child, and that mattered.
He opened the door for her and then got inside. Once the door was closed Vanessa put her hands on her face. “I’m sorry. That’s what I was trying to spare you from.”
“No, I wanted to be there. Because I wanted to make sure that you had someone there to protect you.”
“Why do you want to protect me? We aren’t...anything. Nothing but... We’re having a baby.”
“I could never say you were nothing to me, Vanessa,” he said, his gut tightening.
Nothing. How could she be nothing to him when being near her like this made his skin feel electric?
The fact of the matter was, being near her was a particular kind of sensual torture. He missed touching her. He missed kissing her.
Both of the times they’d been together had been hot and frantic, and he wished more than anything that he could stretch her out in the bed and spend hours exploring her body.
He also understood why that wasn’t the best idea.
“We should think about getting married,” he said.
“I really can’t do that,” Vanessa said.
“Why not?” In his mind, marriage would solve a hell of a lot of things. At first, it had seemed like a bad idea. But...now...
“I don’t want to get married to satisfy them.”
“Is that the only reason you don’t want to get married?”
“I don’t want my children growing up in a weird, toxic home environment either.”
“We are not them,” he said, gesturing back toward the house. “And I’m not my parents either.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said abruptly. “Let’s go to the saloon.”
“The saloon that you’ve been avoiding?”
“I want a soda,” she said. “And maybe chicken wings. That sounds good.”
“All right,” he said. “Bar food it is.”
They drove in silence back into town, down the main street, past the quaint brick buildings that made up the small gold-rush town. They stopped in front of the Gold Valley Saloon, which miraculously had a parking space up against the curb right by the door. The neon sign outlined a gold miner, kneeling down and looking at sparkling pieces of the rock in his pan. Jacob came here all the time, but usually just to meet his brothers. Sometimes to hook up.
But never with a woman.
They would be making a statement, and it was only going to confirm what he was beginning to think was inevitable.
That they needed to make it official.
The inside of the bar was packed full of people. Some playing darts on boards against the scarred back wall, a couple playing pool. Some girls who looked like they might be packing fake IDs were at the jukebox and chose pop music that overrode the Tim McGraw that had been on a moment before.
That wasn’t going to bode well with the locals.
He and Vanessa walked up to the bar, and Laz, the owner of the Gold Valley Saloon, came over, smiling broadly. “Beer?”
“I’ll just take a Diet Coke.”
“I’ll have a Coke too,” Jacob said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Vanessa said.
“I’m not doing it because you’re sober,” he said. “I’m doing it because you’re pregnant.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Vanessa said.
“Yes, it does. Men do that all the time. Because their partner is pregnant.”
“Well, I’m not your partner, and I don’t drink whether I’m pregnant or not,” she pointed out.
“Still want a Coke?” Laz asked, looking between the two of them.
“Yes,” Jacob returned.
“Congratulations,” Laz added.
He didn’t sound overly surprised, but then Jacob had a feeling that as a bartender, Laz was pretty difficult to surprise.
He got the rundown on everyone all the time. Whether he wanted it or not.
“Thanks,” Jacob said.
And that was it from Laz, who didn’t feel the need to interrogate them at all. Which was something of a relief.
The two of them looked over the menu on the bar top in front of them and decided to order french fries, chicken wings and potato skins.
They put in the order, and when Laz came back with their Cokes, they found a table to sit down at. No sooner had Vanessa taken a sip than a booming voice pronounced her name. “Vanessa Logan?” The man walked over to them, about their age, his hair thinning slightly, his stomach round with evidence from how much he enjoyed the beer here. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Where the hell have you been?”
Vanessa froze, looking white-faced. “Jared,” she said. “I...did not expect to see you.”
“You should’ve let me know you were back in town.”
She blinked. “Why...would I have ever wanted to see you?”
“Are you still mad about us having a fight when we were in high school?”
“I—I need to go.”
She pushed back from the table and walked out of the bar, and Jacob went after her. “Vanessa,” he said. But she was already halfway in the truck. “Vanessa!”
“Who the hell is that?”
“He—he’s the man who got me pregnant. The first time.”
“What happened?”
She looked over at him, her face white like a ghost, her eyes full of tears. “I don’t know. Because I don’t remember. I don’t remember having sex with him.”
“What?”
“We took, like, a grab bag of pills at a party plus alcohol. I passe
d out, I think. Or maybe I was in a blackout and I was conscious and talking. Maybe I told him I wanted to have sex. He said I wanted it. But I don’t remember. And I wasn’t totally sure what happened... But I was afraid. I was so afraid and then my period didn’t come. And it just didn’t come. And I knew... I knew that he... I can’t even remember my first time.”
“I will be right back,” Jacob said. He stormed back toward the bar.
Vanessa stumbled out of the truck behind him. “What are you going to do?”
“What needs to be done.”
He went back into the bar, and that Jared guy was standing there with his friends, talking and laughing, and Jacob saw red. He moved straight over to where the guy was standing and threw the hardest damn punch of his life, cracking him right in the jaw and sending him straight down to the ground.
“If you ever come near her again, I’ll kill you. My dad owns a lot of land. They wouldn’t find your body. And if they did, they’d find it one piece at a time. Do you fucking understand what I’m saying to you?”
“What?” the guy asked, sounding dazed.
Jacob bent down and grabbed Jared by the shirt, lifting him up off the ground. “If you come near Vanessa Logan again it’ll be the last thing you do. She doesn’t want to talk to you. You’re disgusting. You’re an animal, and you better pray that I don’t see your face when I’m in a mean mood some night. This bar is not for you. This town is not for you.”
“What the hell, Dalton?” one of Jared’s friends asked.
“The hell is that your buddy here likes to take advantage of women when they’re passed out. And then make it seem like they owe him an apology when they’re not happy to see him. I don’t take kindly to that. And I don’t let anyone hurt what’s mine. Vanessa Logan is mine. And you’ll do well to remember it.”
He straightened, leaving Jared flat on the floor.
Laz was standing at the bar, observing the whole thing. “Normally I would say don’t get blood on my bar floor, but in this instance, I think I’ll allow it,” he said.
“Make sure that jackass isn’t welcome in here again.”
“He’s not,” Laz said, his mouth set into a grim line, his black eyes filled with anger. “Count on it. You want that order to go?”
