Thatcher

She shivered and he told her he was sorry. “It’s fine. Good for you on the promotion. I don’t have a pedigree. I don’t have much of an education. Not now, anyway. My father is in prison, as are two of my brothers. The third one is on his way back there if what I’ve read about him is true. Not that I give two cents about where he is so long as he leaves me alone. My mother is dead. Dear Dad killed her one night when I was running around in the yard as a cat to entertain the little handicapped boy next door.”

“They’re not cats, either of them.” She shook her head. “Just so you know, the woman doesn’t carry the gene for cats. The father does. So if he thought you mom had stepped out on him, she didn’t. I’m sorry about your loss.”

She only shrugged at him. “I was never what you might think of as part of their family anyway. So, what do you want now? To be given my permission to run? Go. I don’t care.” Morgan stood up and she turned her face away from him. “Everyone does sooner or later, I guess.”

Pulling her face around to him, he looked her in the eyes. They were a deep green, almost black with the color. Leaning to her slowly, he nibbled first at her lower lip, careful of her wounds, then the upper. She was moaning when he deepened it. Before it got too much more out of hand, Morgan pulled away and sat down.

“I’m not going anywhere, Anna. I have your scent now, and I’m going to protect you with my life from now on.” She didn’t say anything, but he could tell she was upset.

Morgan hadn’t told anyone that she was his mate but Rogen. And she had promised not to tell even Thatcher. So, while he sat there, her face soft from the meds she’d been brought, Morgan told her everything about his family and some things that he probably shouldn’t have about himself. But he was happy, and to him, that was all he needed. For now.

The letter

My darling daughter, Rogen. I feel I can call you that because you aren’t here to tell me I can’t. I’ve been thinking about you a great deal lately, ever since your mom and I started this hairbrained idea to come and see you and Jamie.

I won’t make it. I know that now. I’m sicker every day, and it’s getting harder and harder to hide it from your mom. She’s become quite the nurse for me too. And she can drive well enough to do so on her own. So long as someone sets up the GPS for her.

We were terrible parents. The worst kind, I think. I’m not going to ask you for your forgiveness because frankly, I don’t feel as if I deserve it. I was, as I said, a terrible person. But I would like to ask that you take care of your mom for me. She will be a friend to you—perhaps not a best one, but someone that you can talk to. And I’d like for you and Jamie to do so. For me.

Again, I know that I have no right to ask anything of you, of either of you, but I would hope, in this, you would do this for me. She will be the only woman I ever loved, and the only one that I ever wanted.

I’ve been thinking about you as a child. My goodness, you were brilliant. It never occurred to me that you were as smart as you have become until you were gone. As I have heard before, you never appreciate anything until it’s gone from you.

I do wish there were words I could say that would make you believe how much I’m sorry for the way that we treated you and Jamie. A way that I could make it up to you for all the years that we spent apart. There are none. And if I could think of them, just for you, I’d tell them to you every day of your life. but as you will soon know, my life is at its end.

I write this to you today knowing that in the morning your mom will find me, dead in my bed. And hopefully she’ll find me with you at her side. I know that today is the last day of my life. I’m sorry for that as well.

Not that I don’t think I deserve to die, Rogen. I do more than most. But I cannot see your face again, not see any grandchild that you might carry and bring into this world. I won’t get to touch your cheeks, kiss you when you leave the house, and will never meet the man that you’ve fallen in love with. I will miss so much more than I ever thought possible now that it’s too late for me to make up for all the cruelty and meanness that I bestowed upon you.

Someday, I’d like for you to think of me fondly. And if it’s not in your heart to do so, then you thank me for fathering you so that you can hold your own child. Give a son or daughter as wonderful as you and Jamie turned out to be—no thanks to us—to your husband.

You, of all people in the world, would be the best parent in the universe. Because you will take the things we did to you, said to you, and kept from you as a lesson on how not to raise your own children. You will have a legacy to pass on to them, something profoundly your own that I never had anything to do with.

I’m sorry, Rogen, for everything. There are so many things that I could talk about, but my time here on this earth is growing to a close. I will shed my last tear with my love for you, and my last breath will have your name upon my lips.

With all the love that I should have given you, your father, Dad.