Crave (The Gibson Boys 3)

I wish I could help him understand this from my point of view. But I know if I get too close right now, he’ll push me away.

Finally, he stops moving. “I’m sorry for doing that to you. I’ll never forgive myself for putting you in a position to have to give up the baby.”

“I didn’t have to do anything. But it was the right choice at the time, and I don’t regret it,” I say. Guilt rears its ugly head because, despite knowing it was absolutely the right choice, a part of me will always feel like I failed her. “It’s not easy to say that, but I don’t. I’ll never forgot the look in those people’s eyes when they came into that room to get her …”

My head bows as the tears come again. They don’t roll down and hit my shirt. They roll down and hit Machlan’s.

I’m pressed to him again, my cheek against his chest. My arms around his waist and his around mine. I don’t sob this time. It’s a quiet cry that comes from a different place inside my heart.

“Do you think she’ll find us one day?” I ask.

“Do you hope she does?” He rests his chin on the top of my head as I burrow into him deeper. “Sometimes I do. I want to see her face and hear her voice and see if she laughs like you or me.”

“Sometimes you don’t?” My brow pulls together.

“That’s a trick question.”

“How do you figure?”

He adjusts his arms around me. “That was the hardest day of my life.” His voice cracks, but he forces on. “As a man, as a father,” he says, tripping over the word, “I failed. I had this little version of the two of us in my arms and the best way I could protect her was to put her in another man’s …”

The tremble doesn’t come from me this time. He sniffles, clutching me for dear life.

Making it a point not to look at him, to give him space, I just hold him. “That’s how she’ll know we loved her,” I tell him quietly. “We loved her so much we made the hardest choice anyone can ever make.”

Tears run down my face. Machlan lets go with one hand to wipe his eyes.

“You didn’t walk away from me when I told you I was having a baby,” I say softly. “You didn’t pressure me to do one thing or the other.” I pull him tighter to me. “You held me when I needed held and pushed me when I needed pushed. You did the best you could, and that’s all anyone can do, Mach.”

“Sometimes I think about saying fuck it,” he says, sniffling again. “I think about saying to hell with it all and just selling everything and being done.”

“Why?” Leaning back, my fists still wrapped in his flannel, I take in his puffy eyes. “Why would you do that?”

He smiles sadly. “Because my chance is over.”

“It’s not. How can you say that?”

“What am I supposed to do, Had? Live some great life and have our daughter come back someday and be like, ‘Oh, glad you missed me’?”

“You think she expects us to have shitty lives because we couldn’t take care of her? She might be half you and as hardheaded as an ox, but she’s half me too, so she’s logical.”

The flicker at the sides of his lips raises my spirits some.

“I write her letters sometimes,” I tell him. “I tell her about how much we love her and how we’ve tried to build our lives, and we think about her all the time.”

“You tell her about me?”

“Of course.” I grin against his chest as he pulls me back into him again. “I pretend she’s an adult, and I’m giving her a peek into our life as the years go by. Maybe it’ll help her understand if she ever does come find us.”

“How do you explain us?”

“Well,” I say, clearing my throat of the emotion rising again. “I tell her the truth, without adding in how much of an asshole you can be.”

He laughs. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” I want to pull away, to see his face, but there’s no way I can remove myself from his arms. “I tell her what I know—that you’re running a business. That you’re the silent force behind your family.”

“I’m the what?” He chuckles. “Silent force?”

“You are. You check on Nana. You keep Walker and Lance straight. You send Blaire flowers on every holiday because you know your father would’ve and you don’t want her to miss out.” My voice breaks. “As much as you hate to admit it, you’re there for Peck. You always have my brother’s back.”

I look up. All I can see is his profile as he gazes into the tree line. A soft smile he doesn’t know I can see plays on his lips.