The Good Father

“I was having nightmares, El. Every night. I’d close my eyes and there they’d be, waiting for me...”

He swallowed. Couldn’t meet her gaze.

“What kind of nightmares?” The softness of her voice reached him as surely as if she’d reached out a hand and stroked his cheek.

“I’d dream about things that had really happened. About times my dad had come at me. But in mid-dream his face would change to mine. And the boy in the dream would be my son, and I’d be lifting my hand to hit him. I’d see the fear on his face. And in those eyes, the love he still felt for me. I’d want to stop my hand from coming down, but I just couldn’t. Not ever. Not one single, damned night...”

He looked straight at her as he fell silent. Needing her to know the truth behind his words. The tears in Ella’s eyes weren’t a surprise to him.

“Didn’t you ever have a good dream about him? Something about us together? A family? You said you had good years with your dad.”

“Not one good dream, El.”

She nodded, dislodging the tears that filled her eyes. They dropped to her cheeks. “So...the fear...it was greater than the joy? Greater than the idea of you and me making a baby together?”

She was reaching for her future. He had to help her let go of her past.

“You want the truth?” he asked, knowing that now was the time to give it to her.

“Yes.”

“When I found out you’d lost the baby...my first conscious feeling was...relief. I’d been saved from what I saw as my fate—finding out too late that I was like my father.”

There. Now she knew his dirtiest secret. His darkest shame. He’d felt saved when his child had died before ever being born.

Now she could leave him, the phantom in the cellar.

Brett wasn’t surprised at the horrified pain on Ella’s face. The fresh spate of tears in her eyes. He wasn’t surprised when she stood and left him sitting there, in his beautiful garden, alone.

The only thing that surprised him were her parting words.

“I love you, Brett Ackerman.”

Sad truth was he loved her, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ELLA RAN FOR her car. Got around the block before she pulled over and gushed a river.

For herself. For Brett. And for the precious little child who was just beginning to form in her womb and would never know his or her father.

She’d gone to Brett’s to tell him about the baby.

Chloe was going to know soon. She’d probably think it was Jason’s.

And she’d be happy for Ella.

She couldn’t tell Chloe, or anyone else, the truth without Brett knowing.

She had to tell him. She just hadn’t been able to stay with him another minute.

She’d been sitting there, wishing she belonged. And knowing she never would. Not with Brett.

No one would.

She cried until her stomach cramped and her tongue was dry. Cried for the baby she’d lost. For the life and dreams she’d lost.

And then, when her stomach cramped, she stopped.