A Father's Secret

“This isn’t really about the dog anyway,” Georgia reminded her softly, “and we both know it.”

Laura’s gaze flicked to her sister’s, and she braced herself. She didn’t want to talk about this.

But Georgia was too stubborn to let it go.

“You can’t blame him for something he didn’t even know about.”

“I’m not blaming him,” Laura countered, though a part of her did, as ridiculous as that sounded. “I’m really not. Ronan’s in the past, that’s all. That affair of ours had an expiration date stamped on it. I knew that going in.”

“Doesn’t have to be over,” her sister suggested.

“I’m not the one who ended it, remember?”

When Georgia would have argued, Laura spoke up fast. “He’s not here forever, Georgia. He’s going back to Ireland and we both know it. Well, I live here. And besides all of that, we want different things. Move in different worlds. It’s just…doomed.”

“And you’re not going to tell him what’s behind all of this? Don’t you think he’s got a right to know?”

“Maybe he does.” Laura shifted her gaze to the trees outside and watched the last few yellowing leaves flutter in the wind before snapping free of the branches and flying off in a twisting dance. Rain pelted from the sky in a burst and tapped at the windowpanes like impatient fingertips against a table.

Funny, their mother had always hated fall and winter. She’d actually called autumn the Death of Hope season because it would be so long until summer again. Funny that she’d chosen to move to such a rainy place. Laura hadn’t thought of that in years. Now, it seemed unerringly apt.

Because in this Death of Hope season, she was finally accepting that what she had had with Ronan was over. Finished. Hope was ridiculous when there was absolutely no reason for it.

Turning her gaze back to her sister’s, Laura said, “What point is there in telling him that I miscarried his baby?”

“You said it yourself,” her sister pointed out gently. “It was his baby. Maybe that’s point enough.”

But it wouldn’t change anything, Laura thought. And what if she told him and he didn’t care? She didn’t think she wanted to find out what Ronan’s reaction would have been to almost being a father.