“I actually didn’t come here to see her. I was about to grab breakfast when I saw you.”
She places both hands on the counter, far apart, and lifts her chin. “Let me just cut to the chase so you don’t go wasting your breath. I am not going to dish out anything to you. I owe you exactly nothing, and you’re lucky I don’t drop kick your ass back to your motherland. If you want to know something, then you’re going to need to talk to Sawyer. Not me.”
“I can’t talk to her. Not this early, it’s just…too fresh. I know about Noah.” I shift my focus to a framed photo of Owen, Sloane, Sawyer, and Noah that rests on a shelf behind her. Her gaze follows mine and then her head drops.
“The resemblance…is unreal. We always knew with his darker features he looked more like you. But, now that I’ve seen you again, it’s very apparent. I can’t imagine how it must have felt. For you to find out about him like this.”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe not. But I do know what it was like for her. I was with her the day she found out she was pregnant. I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew not only that she was going to keep Noah, but she was going to be an amazing mother.”
“There was thought of her not keeping the baby?”
“Like I said, this isn’t my story to tell.” She drops her gaze and begins taking items out from the box.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to meet my son.”
Sloane exhales, hands falling from the counter in defeat. “She’s going to kill me.”
The photo of my son does not do him justice. The raw emotions I felt when the truth came crashing down is nothing compared to how I feel staring at him. Watching him walk and laugh and talk. Ten feet away from the very dirt I stand on.
Ten feet separate me from a new chapter in my life. I had no obligations to stay here after I found out about Noah. I could have easily left again. Everyone seemed to be doing just fine without me all these years, it’s not like they would have anything to gain from me staying. Not like they have expectations of me.
But I do.
I know what kind of man I want to be, and one that walks away from his child is not it. If I would have known about him sooner, I would have fought harder. Done something.
Looking at him, I’m certain of that. I’m 100 percent positive nothing will ever stand between me and my boy again.
Owen notices me first walking toward them. He turns swiftly and says something to his sister. Although I can’t hear his words, I know their meaning. All at once, Sawyer sees me as Owen’s hand snakes out for Noah’s, pulling him to his side. I’ve never been a parent before, hell, I’ve never even been around kids, but I suddenly understand the desperate need to protect every hair on that boy’s head, no matter what. Owen will never let me in Noah’s life if he feels I’m the slightest danger to him. And Sawyer, her eyes are pinned to mine and I notice the tremble of her fingers.
She’s scared, and I don’t know what she’s more afraid for; her heart or her son.
Sawyer crouches down to Noah for a moment then stands straight and walks my way, leaving the petting zoo attraction to meet me. “What are you doing here? How’d you even know where we were?”
Goddamn it if she doesn’t look ridiculously gorgeous in black denim shorts and an X Ambassadors T-shirt. She’s always held a natural, dead sexy appeal to her and the way she moves. She’s been utterly blind to how stunning she really is, inside and out, and it made her so much more desirable. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and it sends me falling into a whirlwind of memories. The heat of her body closer to mine, rain pelting down on the tin roof of the gazebo where we would lay for hours, the escapes we made from Woodsview so we could have a day to ourselves without inhibitions. Her warm lips on my cold neck. Whispers of her need for me.
Memories of Sawyer and me were all I held onto for so long that the real thing feels like a very extensive, but very vivid, dream.
“Hi. I umm…I heard you might be here. Can we talk for a minute?”
She glances to Owen and Noah, who are feeding carrot sticks to a baby goat, then she motions toward a bench.
Once we’ve sat, she removes the aviator sunglasses from her face and places them in her tangled hair, the bands on her wrist clinking with movement. More memories.
“Sloane.” Is all she says, and it’s not a question.
“Don’t be mad at her. She didn’t want to talk to me at all. I was a little afraid of her actually.”
“Part of me thought I wouldn’t see you after last night.”
I turn to face her, draping my arm over the back of the bench. “I’m sorry I ran out before I got to explain myself and everything that’s happened since I last saw you. I had no clue what I was coming back to. None.”
She looks away then casts her eyes down.
“That was a fairly large bomb that exploded with no warning. When I was kept away, I tried to contact you. When I couldn’t reach you by phone, I got so desperate I asked my uncle to find you. A few weeks later, he told me you left town. God Sawyer, I even reached out to Nathan Cain to see if he could tell me anything about you or where you could have gone. It was a colorful conversation. My point is I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t able to return to the United States right away like I thought I could. Those reasons were way beyond my control.”
In hindsight, maybe there was more I could have done. At the time, after losing my last living parent, after hearing the terms and conditions of the inheritance, after lengthy discussions with numerous lawyers, I believed I had exhausted all of my options.
Sawyer stares into the space next to me. Not fully looking at me, but not looking away either. It’s terribly confusing, and I have no clue where I stand with her anymore.
“Talk to me,” I plead. I’m not opposed to getting down on my knees and begging her to tell me what she’s thinking.
Her eyes finally flicker to life and meet mine. She shrugs timidly, which is one adjective I never thought I would use in a sentence to describe Sawyer. Timid. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me to fuck off, or that you forgive me, or you still care enough to sit on this bench and listen to me.”
Knowing I would never stop looking for her, never give up on what we struggled to build in those few short weeks together, was always at the forefront of my mind. No matter what happened, I would always come back to the possibility of being with her again. Now that I know where her life is, and that her life includes a part of me still, I can’t give up. I’m unable to walk away, and I won’t rest until Sawyer is mine again. Every part of me needs every part of her, and, up until yesterday, I forgot just how much.
I take a chance, a very risky one, and reach out for her hand. Her head immediately lowers to the sight, and I wait for her to pull back. She doesn’t, so I squeeze slightly and whisper my plea once more, praying my words don’t fall on deaf ears. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say, Lachlan? I can’t tell you to fuck off. I can’t forgive you for those missing years. I can’t allow myself to care. This isn’t about me or you anymore. My heart doesn’t matter.”
“Yours matters the most. It matters because it’s linked to the rest of ours. It’s always been about us, Sawyer, and our son is an added bonus to our us. Tell me what happened.”
A tiny laugh escapes, her and she shakes her head. “You don’t want to know that part of the past.”
My body grows numb. Her face, those words—they’re telling me she went through something horrible in my absence. Because of my absence. I need to know what it was, I need to know everything. From the beginning. “Yes, I do. I should have been there from the beginning. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you. So tell me, try to make me understand what happened.”
She drops my hand and shifts away from me casually enough that I’m not sure if she recognizes her actions. She clears her throat and crosses her arms, leaning
back. “All right, I’ll tell you the truth about everything, but remember you asked to hear this. The night you left me standing alone at that fucking gazebo, I overdosed on sleeping pills and vodka.”
Shit, maybe she was right. I don’t think I can listen to this. I want to stop her, I can’t handle being responsible for all her pain. I want to cover my ears and close my eyes, but I’m frozen, unable to move while she beats me to death with her words.
“I was pregnant, and you were gone, and the most immediate parts of me were screaming you wouldn’t be back. Owen found me lying on my bedroom floor, foaming at the mouth. The hospital doctor told me I must have a guardian angel because there’s no way I should have lived having consumed as much poison as I did. They also told my family I was going to be a mother, but only if my pregnancy made it full-term. I was considered a high-risk pregnancy because of the drugs and alcohol, and I was ordered to rest after being discharged from the hospital. My mother kicked me out, and Owen left with me. We stayed with Sloane’s parents for bit. My mother actually told us we let her down in more ways than she could have imagined, and we told her the same. She died last year. Cancer. Owen went back to Woodsview to take care of everything. We never had a funeral for her. She was cremated then Owen and Sloane scattered her ashes in the ocean. She never even made an attempt to contact us or meet Noah.”
She shrugs and sniffles as she rubs her nose. She’s not crying, though. I can tell the memories make her more angry than sad.
“She was never family to me. But, Owen and Sloane…. They saved my life through the pregnancy. Every day I wanted to die. Every day until the morning I met him. After fifteen hours of torture, he was placed on my stomach; puffy and crying.
“He stole my heart at first sight. Nothing else mattered. After he was born, nothing I did was for me. I never touched another prescription pill. Not even an aspirin. It was so hard for me to get off those pills after taking them daily for so long. Especially during the pregnancy. I was so terrified and was finally feeling the weight of everything in my life. But I was determined to do it, so I got help and dedicated every second of my life to my baby boy. It hasn’t been easy since you left, but I didn’t have time to think about life any other way. So, that about does it for the highlights anyway.”
I always knew Sawyer was the strongest person I’ve ever met. And she just proved it. “I can’t believe you went through all of that. The drugs and alcohol. I didn’t even know you had a problem back then. Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry for what I put you through. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when I should have been. I never wanted to leave, and if I would have known….”
Sawyer takes the sunglasses off her head and places them back over her eyes. She’s shutting down. I’ve seen it before, and I know what’s coming next. I won’t let her, though, just like I fought for her before, I’ll do it again. This time, I’ll fight with everything I have. I’ll fight for both of them.
“Sawyer, I want to meet our son.”
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Sawyer
I have no right to keep them apart. He has a legal right to meet his son. To know him and even love him. Noah has never felt a fatherly absence in his life because Owen was always there for him. For whatever he needed. And while I’ve always been thankful, Owen is his uncle, not his father. There is nothing that compares to having your biological father in our life—I know this from my own personal experience with absent parents.
For so long, I’ve thought of how this day would play out. I thought of every detail, every word, and every possible reaction. I ran through each scenario in my head endless times, but nothing could prepare me for the real thing.
No amount of rehearsals could ready a mother for the day she introduces her son to his biological father.
Lachlan rises with me, and it’s obvious his defense is up. His instinct is to fight and it always has been. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him so quickly. He’ll fight for what he wants, what he loves, what’s right, and he’ll do it with every breath he has. Which is another reason why I need to know how come he was gone for so long. And another reason why I don’t want to know.
“Please, let me just meet him today. I need to see him, to talk to him. He doesn’t have to know who I am to him. I don’t want to pressure you into something that makes you uncomfortable or anything, but I’m not going anywhere until I meet him. I just…. Please, Sawyer.”
His eyes leave mine and flicker to Noah, still in the petting zoo innocently feeding baby goats, not knowing his entire world will never be the same after today.
I nod, knowing this is going to happen whether I approve of it or not. My motherly instincts plead to throw one arm around my son and stop Lachlan with the other to protect any more hearts from breaking. My woman instincts are waving a white flag, ready to have any piece of this man back in my life. The woman part of me is clearly still a shattered seventeen-year-old.
“Of course you can meet him. You’re right, though. We shouldn’t tell Noah who exactly you are. Not today, I just don’t want to confuse him. He doesn’t know anything about you.”
“You mean, he doesn’t know he has a father somewhere?”
“He’s never asked before, and I never found the right time to bring it up. He just started school and hasn’t noticed the men around his friends are dads, not uncles.”
Lachlan nods in understanding, so I take in a deep breath and lead the way, heart pounding harder and faster with each step I take. My limbs tremble as Lachlan’s hand slips into mine briefly, squeezes, and then releases. The touch calms my anxiety instantly as we approach the gate.
Lachlan unlatches it, and we slip inside quickly to not free animals waiting for their escape.
Noah’s head pops up as the gate latches, and when he sees me, he comes barreling my way at full speed holding an empty paper cup in the air like it’s a trophy.
“Momma! I fed all my carrots to the babies. Look! My cup is all done!”
Taking the cup as I bend down, I stroke his chubby cheek. “Good job, buddy. I’m sure they’re nice and full.”
Owen stands behind Noah, eyes locked on Lachlan. “What’s going on, Sawyer?”
“I want to introduce my friend to Noah. Nothing to make a big deal over.” I quietly stress the last part for Owen’s benefit. While the protection of his nephew is admirable, the testosterone wafting off him is choking me.
Owen clears his throat and shuffles his shoes in the dirt. I take Noah’s hands in mine so I have his attention. “Noah, this is momma’s friend, Lachlan. Would it be okay if he walked around for a bit with us?”
Lachlan crouches beside me and extends his hand as one would another man. “It’s nice to meet you, Noah.”
Noah tilts his head to me, and I smile reassuringly at him, proud he doesn’t just accept a stranger.
Face squinting from the bright sun, he puts his tiny hand in Lachlan’s, and my heart swells as Lachlan’s breathing halts.
“Hi. You can walk whiff us I guess. We’re going to see the cheetahs next.”
“What lucky timing. Cheetahs are my favorite.”
Knowing I fell in love with Noah from the first second I laid eyes on his red and puffy face, I wonder if Lachlan feels the instant bond with him. Or if Noah can sense there’s something more to mommy’s friend.
The glisten in Lachlan’s eyes and the way Noah is studying him makes me nauseated over the missing years between them. If Lachlan hadn’t gone to the gazebo and saw my address, this day would have never come. I used to believe it would be okay if they never met. One day, I would have had to tell Noah about his father, and all the gory details that came along with the events that unraveled during my last year of high school and the years to follow. He might have hated me for the choices I made, although those choices were always made with best intentions.
Now I can see how foolish it was to ever think these two people didn’t need each other.
Noah scratches his nose. “Why do you sound funn
y?”
Oh my God. I’m dying of laughter on the inside, while trying to maintain a cool front on the outside—a skilled mom trait. It’s surprisingly difficult to hold in laughter when a five year old repeats phrases spoken in rush-hour traffic. I have to suck in my lips to keep from giggling as Lachlan looks to me, eyebrows raised, with an expression that reads Noah definitely belongs to me.
Clearing my throat, I attempt to regain my composure and teach the appropriate behavior. “Noah, that wasn’t very nice. Lachlan doesn’t sound funny, just different. He comes from a different country.”
Noah crosses his arms, glaring at Lachlan. “What kinda country?”
“Umm, the country of Australia.” He says this very unconvincingly, and it sounds more like a question than a statement. I probably should have warned him Noah is a brutally honest, charming, and hilarious little man.
“Is this far away? Does everyone there talk that way?”
“Very far away, and, for the most part, we all sound the same.”
“Do you have cwookies there?” Noah asks this as if it’s the deciding factor on whether or not he will approve of the country, and Lachlan in general.
“The biggest, most chocolaty cookies you’ll ever see.”
“Let’s go!” he shouts, jumping up and down with wide eyes, startling the goats.
Lachlan and I rise at the same time, and his glossy eyes catch mine. He blinks the emotion away, but it was there long enough for me to notice.
“You okay?” I whisper, low enough so Noah won’t hear me.
“I’m okay.”
I take a chance and glance at Owen cracking his fingers with his thumb. His eyes meet mine, sensing my glare. I shake my head, silently telling him not to make a scene or say anything that will upset Noah.
We never had a conversation about Lachlan returning or what would happen when, or if, this day came. We didn’t discuss any of this because we never really thought this would happen. Neither Sloane nor Owen spoke much of Lachlan after we left Woodsview. Now that I think about it, his name wasn’t mentioned at all—except for the few updates I shared about the details of Noah after he was born. But even those costly updates never contained his actual name. Lachlan was supposed to be cut out of the equation altogether. That was the deal I accepted. I’m thankful I stopped the arrangement prior to Lachlan showing up on my doorstep. I don’t know how this would have gone a year ago. Or two years.
Six Years Gone (Gone #1) Page 17
