I giggle at his discomfort. It’s a relief to finally tell Hudson, even if it is hard for him to hear it.
“Not funny.” He sits up with his head still in his hands. “Also, condoms have expiration dates?”
“Yup.”
His expression is half disbelief and half horror, which makes me laugh even more. “You got a package in your bedside table you need to go home and check?”
He runs a hand through his hair, and if I know my brother, that’s exactly what he’ll do.
“Lighten up. It’s a low statistical chance, and we just got lucky.”
“Lucky? You got knocked up.”
I glance at Noah, who’s busy making tracks in the sand. It felt like the end of the world when I realized I was pregnant, but Noah has become my world. “That’s not how I see it.”
He follows my gaze. “Okay, so Noah is the happy result. But are you sure it’s Ryan? Were there… others…?”
He can’t look me in the eye when he says it, and it makes me grin even more.
“You mean was I picking up men for sex regularly?” I stick my chin out, daring him to say something about a woman wanting to take care of her needs.
He swallows. “Were you?”
He’s apprehensive, and damn, I wish I had been, just to see my brother squirm under his outdated notions of how women should behave. But this is a time for truth.
“No.” I shake my head. “Mom had just died. It was a one off thing for me.”
His expression softens at the mention of Mom, and his hand comes to rest on my shoulder. “Those were tough times.”
“They still are.” A dull ache throbs in my chest. My mother wasn’t there when I needed her the most, which reminds me of something Ryan said.
“Why did you leave the Navy?”
Hudson frowns at the change of subject. “I tore my ACL, and they discharged me.” He shifts in the chair, and his eyes dart sideways.
He’s lying. But if I’ve just spilled the truth to him, then it’s time he did the same for me.
“Ryan said you left because of me. Because you didn’t want me to have the baby on my own.”
Hudson sits back and takes a deep breath. “He said that.”
“Is it true?” My voice is a whisper. I hate the idea that Hudson gave up the military for me.
Hudson scratches his jaw, stalling. Finally, he sighs. “I couldn’t be out there on missions knowing you were struggling here on your own. With Mom gone, Avery away at college, and the father a no show, it was clear that my duty was here with my family.”
“But I’m fine on my own. Noah and I are doing fine.”
He didn’t need to give up anything for me. Mom raised both of us on her own. As much as I appreciate and love him even more for it, I don’t need a man around, not even my brother, and certainly not at the expense of something he loves.
He shakes his head slowly. “However tough you think you are Paige, you can’t do everything on your own.”
Tears sting my eyes. “You loved being a SEAL. You didn’t need to give it up for me.”
He puts his hand back on my shoulder. “Family first, Paige. It was the right thing to do.”
Damn these SEALs and their senses of honor. It was Ryan acting with integrity at that bar all those years ago that attracted me to him. Maybe he’s not so different from my brother.
I swipe at my tears as the realization of what Hudson gave up hits me. But that’s my brother, always doing the right thing. There’s no gray area with Hudson. Something’s wrong, or it’s right. And leaving his sister pregnant and on her own wasn’t right in his eyes.
