by Jenna Sutton
“T, this is really hard for m-m-m-me to talk about. Marshall said some things . . .” he trailed off, struggling to find the words.
Stepping away from her, he took several deep breaths and paced around the room. She took a seat on the sofa, watching him with wide eyes.
“He told me I w-w-w-wasn’t good enough for you. He t-t-t-told me you wanted a husband and kids. I thought you w-w-w-would be better off with someone else. So I left.”
Dropping down into the chair, he placed his elbows on his knees before resting his head on his hands. He had made so many mistakes, and he wondered if he had made too many for Teagan to forgive him.
“It almost killed me to w-w-w-walk away from you,” he admitted.
They sat silently until he could talk again. “I’m sorry,” he squeezed out. “I’m sorry for b-b-b-being a coward . . . for being stupid.”
“What happened to change your mind?” she asked.
“You know about m-m-m-my car accident? The one I had in Nashville?”
“I heard about it, but I purposely didn’t listen to any of the news reports or read any of the stories.” She swallowed noisily. “I wanted to be there with you, but I thought you didn’t want me.”
He had wanted her. He still wanted her. More than anything.
“I almost d-d-d-died in that car accident.”
All the color drained from her face, and he rushed to fill the silence. “I almost died, but God gave me a second chance,” he continued. “And I w-w-w-wanted that second chance to be w-w-w-with you.”
“You told me you didn’t believe in God,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“I didn’t believe in love or m-m-m-marriage, either,” he said, staring into her eyes. “But I do now.”
Looking down, she hugged herself. Her body language made anxiety shoot through him. Something was wrong.
“Did I explain enough?”
She didn’t respond, and panic welled in his chest again. Somehow he had to make her understand. He had to make her forgive him.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say.
Teagan raised her head, and the look on her face made his stomach clench. This was going to be bad, he could feel it.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
She looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly before abruptly lurching to her feet and pacing around the room. He eyed her with trepidation, concerned because he had never seen her so freaked out.
“God!” she exclaimed harshly. “I don’t even know how to say this!”
He rose and quickly made his way across the room to where she stood. Stopping in front of her, he slid his hands into her hair and tilted her face to his.
“Just tell me, T.”
“I left you all those messages because I was pregnant.”
What?
She searched his eyes, and his heart started to pound in a hard rhythm. Adrenaline pumped through his body, making it impossible for him to speak.
“I was pregnant. And I hated you because I thought you had ignored my messages. I hated you because I never got a chance to tell you about the baby.”
Teagan had been pregnant. Their amazing night together had created a baby. Their baby. His and Teagan’s.
He dropped his hands, his breath coming in shallow pants and his ears roaring from the blood racing through his body. Words were trapped in his throat.
What had happened to their baby?
He was desperate to know the answer, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work to ask the question. Squeezing his eyes shut, he began to recite the Gettysburg Address. He mouthed the words over and over, trying to focus on shaping the letters and sounds.
“Nick?”
He held up a hand, and finally he felt a click inside him. Opening his eyes, he met her gaze.
“What happened?” he rasped.
He saw her mouth move, and words buzzed through his head.
Cramps. ER.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
Lost.
“I hated you for abandoning me.”
He stared into her eyes, which glistened wetly. She blinked, and tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“I miscarried a few days after Marshall stopped by my condo. If you hadn’t run into him, if you had ignored him, you would have been with me. I needed you.”
With wobbly knees, he stumbled to the sofa and collapsed onto the cushions. The backs of his eyes burned with tears, and he leaned forward, dropping his face into his hands.
Painful waves of emotion drowned him. Sorrow, regret, shame, guilt.
They buffeted him, sucking him down into a dark abyss. Because of his fear, his stupidity, Teagan had been forced to deal with the shock of an unplanned pregnancy and the anguish of a miscarriage alone.
His heart ached when he thought about how scared she must have been when she’d found out she was pregnant and the emotional and physical pain she must have experienced when she’d lost the baby. He should have been with her. He should have been there to soothe her fears and ease her pain.
Before Teagan had told him about her pregnancy, he had wondered if she could forgive him. He hadn’t known the full extent of what he’d done to her, but now he knew. He understood why Teagan didn’t want to love him, why she hadn’t wanted to hear his explanations.
His actions were unforgivable.
* * *
Using her fingertips, Teagan wiped the tears away from her eyes. She took several deep breaths, trying to gain some control over herself. She was relieved to finally have answers, but she also was stunned by everything Nick had disclosed.
His meltdown. The trip to Colorado. The conversation with Marshall. The car accident.
He hadn’t ignored her messages. He had come back. He had loved her.
That knowledge made the pain she had carried around for years evaporate like raindrops on a hot sidewalk. At the same time, she still didn’t understand why he had walked away from her and what they could have had together.
“Nick, why did you believe what Marshall said?”
She studied him closely, taking in the way his broad shoulders drooped forward over his knees and his big hands cupped his face. Obviously, the news of her pregnancy and miscarriage had stunned him.
He didn’t acknowledge her question for a long time, but finally he looked up and met her gaze. His eyes were shiny and wet.
“I didn’t believe I could be enough for you. I thought my stuttering made it impossible to be a good husband and father.”
She digested his answer. At one time, she would have scoffed at his explanation because it was hard to imagine he had any insecurities. On the surface, he had everything. Looks, money, fame, and amazing athletic talent.
She had always viewed him as supremely confident, a textbook alpha male. But now that she knew about his stuttering and his belief that it ruined relationships, his behavior made a lot more sense.
She wanted to hunt down Nick’s father and beat him to a pulp for making his son feel less of a person because of his speech impediment. And then she wanted to find Marshall and slap his face for the role he had played in keeping her and Nick apart.
For years, she had wanted Nick to know how much pain he had caused her by not being there for her. She had wanted him to feel guilty. She had wanted to hurt him like he had hurt her.
But now she thought Nick had suffered enough. He had wanted to be with her, but he had walked away because he had believed it was the best thing for her.
He had been wrong, though. He was the best thing for her. He always had been, and he always would be.
She slowly walked over to Nick and dropped down to her knees in front of him. Placing her hands on his jeans-clad thighs, she stared into his eyes.
“Nick,” she said, tears clogging her voi
ce, “you would have been enough. Until I got pregnant, you were all I wanted. And then I wanted you and our baby. I wanted us to be a family.”
He dropped his head back into his hands. He said something, but she couldn’t discern the words. She moved closer so she could hear him.
“What?”
He raised his head. “I wanted you, too. And I would have wanted our baby.”
They sat there silently for a long, long time with her kneeling at his feet. Finally, he cleared his throat roughly, and she held her breath, waiting to hear what he was going to say.
“Do you still want those things, T?”
She looked into his eyes, which were shadowed with regret. She could feel the self-loathing roll off him in waves, and she knew he expected her to reject him. Even so, he wanted her badly enough to risk it. Just as she had wanted him badly enough to risk their friendship so many years ago.
“Yes, I still want those things.”
She placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back until he fell against the cushions. Leaning over him, she popped open the button on his Rileys and reached for the tab of his zipper.
As she began to pull it down, she said, “And you know I always find a way to get exactly what I want.”
Rising in front of him, she hiked up her dress just enough to shimmy out of her panties and straddle his lap. She gazed into his gorgeous face, the face she planned to see every day for the rest of her life. His expression was full of surprise, hope, and most of all, love. She leaned forward until their lips almost touched.
“Are you going to give me what I want, Nick?”
Her question was an echo of what she had asked him on their first night together. His eyes glowed with the memory, and he smiled slowly as he settled his big hands on her hips. She had no doubt this night would end very differently.
“Always.”
Epilogue
Five Years Later
Teagan sighed loudly as she fell back against the leather sofa. Nick draped a cream-colored blanket over her and passed her the TV remote before dropping a quick kiss on her lips. He pointed to her legs, and she pulled them up as far as her belly would allow so he could drop down next to her.
Once he was settled, he pulled her swollen feet over his lap. Just like always, he tweaked her big toe before beginning to massage her arch.
“Oooh,” she moaned. “Foot massages are so much better than sex.”
Nick slanted an amused glance toward her. “That’s not what you said a few months ago.”
She laughed, pressing her toes into his hard stomach. “They’re only better than sex when I’m nine months pregnant and look like an ugly elephant.”
He chuckled. “Not an ugly elephant. A pretty elephant.”
“Jerk,” she growled. “It’s your fault I’m like this.”
“I know,” he said solemnly, but his eyes glinted with a wicked light. “But I didn’t ask Letty to make the lemon icebox pie. You did.”
Oh, yeah, I did.
Nick switched his attention to her lower leg, and she shifted to give him better access. Apparently, the baby didn’t like the new position because he kicked her hard in the ribs.
“Oomph,” she exclaimed loudly, rubbing her big belly.
Nick’s hands froze on her leg, his eyes shooting to her face. “Contraction?”
“No. Just a big kick. Your son might end up playing professional football as a kicker.”
She was due in two weeks, so the baby could come anytime. She and Nick were a lot less nervous with this pregnancy than they had been with her second one.
Since she had miscarried her first pregnancy, they both had been apprehensive at the beginning of the second one. Their anxiety had grown exponentially after her first prenatal appointment when the doctor had told them they were having twins, but their girls had been delivered healthy at thirty-seven weeks.
As a new parent, she had wondered how they would handle identical twins without losing their minds, but Nick had told her not to worry. He’d said the babies were a special blessing because of her earlier miscarriage and all the heartache they had suffered.
Studying her gorgeous husband, she took in his thick blond hair and bright green eyes. The girls looked just like their daddy, and she wondered if the new baby was going to take after her or Nick. She knew one thing for sure: their son was going to be spoiled rotten by his father, just like his big sisters.
The girls were named after Grandma Violet and Nick’s mother, Audrey. Their names hadn’t required much discussion, but she and Nick were having a hard time deciding what to call the new baby.
“What about Dexter? Dexter Priest. We could call him Dex.”
Pursing his lips, he said the name a few times. They had to be cognizant of his stutter when they named the kids since he needed to be able to yell their names without hesitation.
For her part, she still didn’t hear Nick’s stutter. She heard him, in her head and in her heart.
“Maybe,” he said finally. “I still prefer Patrick.”
During the research and planning for Grandma Vi’s museum, Nick had come to know Grandpa Patrick posthumously. He was fascinated with him, especially the time the O’Brien ancestor had spent in Europe during World War II.
“Patrick Priest. I still don’t like the alliteration.”
Nick frowned, and she quickly changed the subject. He really wanted to name the baby Patrick, and she was way too close to giving in, especially since his warm hands were stroking higher on her leg.
“How’s the planning for the new exhibit going?” she asked.
The Violet O’Brien Gold Rush History Museum had opened three years ago. Since then, it had been recognized as one of the best history museums in the nation, and it had welcomed millions of visitors from near and far.
Ava Grace had come up with the idea for the new exhibit, which would feature popular music and songs from the Gold Rush Era. Nick was working with a music historian to determine the pieces of the exhibit.
“Good. Might showcase some old instruments.”
“Oh, that would be so cool.” She wiggled her toes against his stomach. “I still think Bebe had a good idea for an exhibit.”
“Diseases common in mining towns in the mid-nineteenth century?” Nick laughed. “Not an exhibit I’d pay to see.”
She frowned, offended on Bebe’s behalf. As he shifted his ministrations to her other foot, he tilted his head toward the remote.
“Thought you wanted to watch Groundhog Day.”
Her favorite movie had grown on Nick, and he no longer made rude comments throughout it. And she no longer had to bribe him with kisses to get him to agree to watch it with her, either.
Teagan rubbed her finger over the Play button. She glanced over at him, catching his gaze.
“Do you remember when I had the flu back in Boston and you took care of me? We watched Groundhog Day, and I asked if there were any days you wanted to relive.”
“Yeah.”
“You said there weren’t any. Not even the good ones.”
He nodded. “I remember.”
“Is that still true?”
Nick stared at her for a moment before smiling slowly. “T, every day I spend with you is one I want to relive.” He lightly squeezed her foot. “They’re all good.”
Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next Riley O’Brien & Co. novel,
Hanging by a Thread
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
Chaste. Untouched. Maiden. Pure. Innocent. The words that described virgin might sound pretty, but the truth was downright ugly, at least in Bebe Banerjee’s opinion. She was convinced her virginity was the reason her heart raced, her breath seized, and her palms sweated whenever she was near Cal O’Brien.
Bebe surreptitiously studied Cal, trying to ignore the wave of lust
that surged over her. If she had some experience between the sheets, she was sure she’d be able to handle the way he made her feel.
If she had gotten naked with a few guys, maybe she wouldn’t obsess about his glacier-blue eyes and his thick, dark hair. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the way his jeans clung to his tight behind and long legs. Maybe she wouldn’t fantasize about his lips, his smile, his big hands . . . .
Bebe desperately wished she could just avoid him, but his little sister, Teagan, was her best friend. If she wanted to spend time with Teagan, she had to put up with Cal. She said no to a lot of Teagan’s invitations to hang out because of him, and she had to be very careful not to offend her best friend.
That was why the object of her X-rated fantasies stood next to her in a club-level suite at PacBell Park. The San Francisco Giants were in the playoffs, battling against the Atlanta Braves to win the National League pennant, and Teagan had invited her to attend the game in the Riley O’Brien & Co. suite.
Founded by Teagan’s great-great grandfather, Riley O’Brien & Co. was the nation’s oldest designer and manufacturer of blue jeans. Americans had worn Rileys for nearly two centuries. In fact, Bebe was wearing a pair right now.
Beside her, Cal shifted slightly and took a pull on his Shiner Bock. He was close enough to touch, and she clenched her hands into fists just in case her fingers suddenly decided to act out her secret fantasies. He didn’t even look her way, and he probably wouldn’t unless he felt the need to toss an insult at her.
“How was Antigua?” Cal asked, directing the question to his sister and her new husband, Nick Priest.
“It was the most amazing place I’ve ever been,” Teagan said, her blue eyes shining and her glossy lips turned up in a smile.
Teagan and Nick had just returned from their three-week honeymoon to the Caribbean island. Both of them were glowing from their tans and their newlywed status.
“We were lucky we had our own private beach because Nick is an exhibitionist,” Teagan added with a lustful gleam in her eyes.
Nick was a former professional football player, and he had been voted as one of the “Sexiest Men Alive” by People. With his blond hair and bright green eyes, he was gorgeous, no doubt about it. But in Bebe’s opinion, he wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as Cal.
