The Nurse's Baby Secret

“You aren’t responsible for me.”

“But I am responsible for our baby.”

“I’ve not asked you for anything,” she reminded him. “You don’t have to be any more responsible than you want to be.”

“That’s just it,” he admitted. “I want to be responsible in every way. For our baby and for you, Savannah. That’s what the stakes are. I want you and our baby. I want you to give me a chance to make things right.”

Her blue gaze lifted to his, seeking answers to the questions he saw in her eyes.

“That isn’t a game, Charlie. You can’t just win those things.”

He closed his eyes, then opened them, stared into hers. “No, I know I can’t win those things. Not really. But playing a card game with you seemed like as good a place as any to start trying to win you back into my life.”

“I wasn’t the one who left,” she reminded him, her chin lifting a little higher.

“Words aren’t my strong suit and I’m obviously failing miserably at telling you what I’m trying to say. Let me try again.” He took her hand back into his, kissed her fingertips. “Savannah, you are my dream. The only one that really matters. You and our baby. I don’t want to ever hurt you or make you miserable or have you look at me with anything other than happiness in your eyes. Until tonight, I never let myself consider that it wasn’t me who’d made my parents miserable, but that they’d done that to themselves.”

“You were an innocent child, Charlie. Of course it wasn’t your fault.?

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“But I didn’t see that, Savannah. Not until you showed me the truth. Forgive me, Savannah,” he continued. “Forgive me for not seeing what was right in front of my eyes.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she refused to look directly at him. “It’s not my forgiveness you need, Charlie.”

Was she unable to give him a second chance? He’d known it was possible, but he’d hoped otherwise.

“You need to forgive yourself,” she continued, her words cutting deep into his chest.

Forgive himself?

“You feel guilty that you were born, that your parents had to raise you, that you tried to protect your mother from your horrible father. Charlie, how would you feel if that was our child?”

“That’s what I don’t want to happen.”

“It never would,” she said so confidently that he stared at her in wonder. “You would never hit me, Charlie.”

He grimaced at the thought of physically hurting her. He couldn’t imagine any circumstance where he ever would.

“Nor would you ever mentally and emotionally abuse our child into believing he or she was to blame for your own miserable life. Your father was an ill man, Charlie. I didn’t know him, but he obviously needed help.”

“Probably.”

“Definitely,” she corrected. “As for your mother—” she let out a long breath “—I don’t know why she stayed, but she was no better than he was. It was her job to protect you, Charlie—” she stressed her words “—not the other way around. She should have removed you from that situation before your dad ever had the chance to get inside your head, before you were ever put in the position of having to step in to stop her from being physically abused, and she sure shouldn’t have said the things she said to you on the night she died.”

He closed his eyes. “Logically, I know you’re right, but how do I know I won’t turn out just like them?”

“That one’s easy.” She took his hand and pressed a kiss to it, looked up at him with her tear-filled blue eyes. “Because you didn’t.”

He started to deny her claim, but stopped. She was right. He wasn’t like his father. He wasn’t like his mother either.

His heart surged with emotion. “I love you, you know.”

Tears now spilled over onto her cheeks.

“I’ve never said those words out loud as an adult, not to anyone, but they’re true. I love you, Savannah, and I need you in my life. Now and always. I was afraid I would do to you what my father did to my mother, what I thought I’d done to her. But I was wrong.”

Leaning over to wrap her arms around him as best she could, she buried her face against his neck. “I can’t believe you’re really here, that you’re really saying these things to me.”