The Good Father

“The tenser I got, the more chance there was that the tension would get the better of me someday,” Brett was saying.

“If you’d talked about it, we might have been able to work through it. Loving’s not easy.”

“No, and it’s not a guarantee of happy-ever-after, either.”

Had he just said what she thought he had? That he did love her? At least that he had?

Was it possible that someplace, locked away in that heart of his, he’d loved her the way that she’d once believed he had?

He’d asked her why she’d stuck with him through college.

A better question might have been why had she married him?

She knew the answer to that.

Ella had tied her life to Brett’s because his life was the only one that felt as though it was the other half of hers. She’d married him because she’d believed he loved her as much as she loved him.

It had taken years to crush that belief. Even after his initial rejection of their child. He’d been unprepared when he’d come home from work one day as usual to find her there, gushing happy tears, holding a home pregnancy kit result out to him. He’d seen her tears, not understanding they were happy tears at first, and then, in the confusion of her explanation, had been unable to mask the look of horror on his face. Still, she’d told herself that it was just the shock. That it was normal for a man to be nervous about being a father. It wasn’t until he’d told her he’d seen a divorce attorney, that he’d lost her.

Up until then, she’d believed that, deep down, her injured warrior needed her to believe in him.

You’d have thought that moment, the one when her husband had so backhandedly told her he wanted a divorce, would have been the one to sever all her faith in him.

But no, it had taken another couple years for that to happen.

She’d lost too many years of her life to this man. She couldn’t afford to go back. To care if he’d ever loved her.

She couldn’t afford to lose her heart to him ever again. He was who he was. A product of his childhood, just as he said. She was listening to him now. Believing him. Oh, not that he’d ever lift a hand to her, or would have to their child, but believing that he’d been irrevocably scarred by his father. Emotionally scarred. She might have continued trying to work on him the first time, if he’d given her a chance, but not now. Because she was older, wiser and knew that there were some battles she couldn’t win.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HE WASN’T GOING to sleep. And didn’t much want to spend the night sitting on the porch.

“Let’s take her out,” he said, standing.

“Take who out?”

Brett was already at the front of the boat, reaching for the key they’d left in the ignition.

“The boat?” Ella asked, joining him up front. “Are you kidding? It’s almost midnight. We’d wake up the neighborhood.”

He heard one thing. She hadn’t said no.

“It’s not the speed boat, El. It’s not going to be any louder than a car starting. We’re far enough away from the cabin that the noise won’t carry, and who else is in the neighborhood besides us? In case you hadn’t noticed this afternoon, most of the places around here are closed up.”

“It’s dark. We can’t go out on the ocean this late. Who knows what’s out there? And no one would know where to look for us if something went wrong.”

When had she become so cautious? The Ella he’d known had had a wild streak that he’d found captivating.

He suspected he was in large part to blame for its loss.

Which made it vitally important all of a sudden that he get her to agree to do something slightly crazy.

That and the fact that it seemed clear to him that neither of them was going to sleep, and the cabin was way too small for them to pretend the other wasn’t close by. Taking the

boat out seemed the safest option.

“We’ll stay in the lagoon.”