“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“What?”
I gulped. “I have to tell my parents.”
“I know. I’ll go with you.”
“We can’t get married next weekend, Brad. I have to go home. Tell them.”
“You’re right. I should meet them.”
“This is crazy. They’re going to think we’re both crazy.”
“It is a little crazy, but you didn’t get pregnant on purpose. We used protection. It just happened.”
It just happened. That was what I’d tell my parents. It just happened.
After all they’d been through with me, how could I say something just happened?
“What if they won’t let me marry you?”
“Daphne, you’re eighteen years old. You don’t need their permission.”
He was right. I knew he was right. But eighteen wasn’t that much different from seventeen. I didn’t feel like an adult a lot of the time.
You were adult enough to have sex.
The words in my mind made me chuckle out loud.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“I was just thinking how I don’t feel eighteen. I don’t feel like an adult at all sometimes, but I felt ready to have sex with you. That’s pretty adult.”
“I suppose. Although a lot of teenagers have sex.”
“I just don’t know how to tell them, Brad. They had such high hopes for me, after…well, you know.”
“Marrying me isn’t exactly slumming.”
“Come on. You know I didn’t mean it like that. They want me to go to college. There was a time they didn’t think I’d be able to do it.”
“Daphne”—he met my gaze, his own laced with seriousness—“just how ill were you?”
That question—the question I couldn’t answer because I didn’t actually know. I didn’t actually remember a lot of stuff.
“Severe anxiety and depression,” I said. “I told you.”
“I understand it can be debilitating,” he said, “but you’re healthy now. Right?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t lying. Not really. I was healthy. I was at college.
At college…and pregnant.
“We’ll visit your parents this weekend. I’ll meet them. They’ll see I’m a good guy with a lot to offer.”
I nodded.
“Then the weekend after next, we’ll go to the ranch and tell my parents.”
“They’ll hate me,” I said.
“Why would they hate you?”
“Because I’m ruining your life.”
“Baby, you’re not ruining my life. I knew the first time I saw you that my life would be with you. Yeah, it’s a little sooner than I expected, but my life is with you. Now and always.”
His words warmed me.
“Besides,” he continued, “I took you home the first week I met you. My dad knows I’m serious about you. And my mom will love you.”
His mom. The mom who took care of the beautiful greenhouse on the ranch—the place where blooms abounded and new life occurred daily. The greenhouse was like a metaphor for a happy life. A life of sunrises and yellow tulips.
The pale-green tulip popped into my mind.
It had been a sad bloom, as if the fairies who visited the garden had forgotten to give it color.
It reminded me of my year away.
Those are my mom’s favorites, Brad had said.
Why would her favorite be such a sad bloom?
I erased the thought from my mind.
My life would be the bright yellow tulip.
The tulip of a sunny day.
I’d marry Brad Steel. Have his child. Live a wonderful life with a wonderful man.
Never again would I be a colorless flower.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Brad
My father wouldn’t be pleased. Neither would my mother, but for different reasons.
Then there was Wendy.
But Wendy was no longer an issue.
It was happening today. My father had offered Wendy’s parents a nice chunk of money, and finally they’d agreed to speak to the psychologist. Their testimony plus Murph’s had been enough for the psychologist. The paperwork had been filed, and I knew exactly when the deed would be done this morning.
I cut classes so I could see it happen. I had to make sure she was going away. The psychologist had promised my father she’d be hospitalized for at least a year.
Perfect. For now, at least. Time for me to marry Daphne. Time for our baby to be born. Time for me to deal with the remaining Future Lawmakers without Wendy’s influence, to get them back on track so they could all lead successful lives.
Time for me to make up for mistakes I’d made years ago. Mistakes I could finally undo.
I drove to the condo Wendy rented in Denver, parked a few doors down, and waited.
Wendy’s car sat in the driveway. Good. She was home. Shouldn’t be long now before the psychologist came accompanied by the police. She wouldn’t go quietly.
Time passed slowly, and thoughts of my past with Wendy formed in my mind in vivid color.
The day I’d met her… She was a cute cheerleader with a killer body. Who could resist? Not a seventeen-year-old horny high school guy. We were inseparable that first month, and when we finally had sex, she’d screamed like a banshee the first time. She’d bled too.
My mind soared to Daphne. Yeah, much better. My first time with her had been everything the time with Wendy wasn’t. No screaming. No pain. Pure perfection, as if we were meant to be together, to create another life. Granted, we hadn’t meant to do the latter, but I couldn’t bring myself to be overly upset about it. It was fate.