Even when my father was alive, I didn’t allow him to talk about Lake. When he died, I had nobody to ask even if I wanted to know. It would have felt like torture. One that was worse than the elements I had endured while away and with the things I’d seen.
I felt like a dick for not being there for her. I wondered why she didn’t have anyone else. But if she didn’t have anyone then maybe there was no man in her life. God, I was an ass thinking of it that way but it slid through my mind anyway.
“What about your parents?” Hesitating, I swallowed. When she didn’t reply, I continued. “Or Stormi’s dad?”
Her gaze left where she was following her daughter and snapped to mine. I was transfixed by her big, caramel-colored eyes. I remembered when we were younger and she’d look at me with a sweet, inviting look that could melt my heart in a second.
It still can and you know it.
That was how I wanted her to look at me now, but she turned away causing disappointment to settle into my soul. Those beauties were spitting fire from them now.
My hand fell from her arm but I tried to coax her to talk. “Lake, you must have someone else.”
Turning, her face full of fury as tears spilled down her cheeks, she let me have it.
“If you were around or stayed in touch, then you would know that my parents died in a car accident when I was eighteen and pregnant with Stormi.”
I sucked in a breath thinking of her so young, pregnant, and not having them. And the guilt chewed at my insides even more. But she wasn’t done by far and kept on.
“They didn’t get to meet her and they would have loved her like they had loved me.” She swiped at the tears falling like rain down her cheeks. “If you must know, not that it’s any of your damn business, I made a drunken error in judgment. I didn’t know the father of my child and he didn’t stick around.”
A protective look full of love blazed in her eyes.
“But it wasn’t a mistake because I have her.” She pointed to where Stormi followed the other kids, laughing with joy. “I have that beautiful, smart, caring, precious girl right there and she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She’smineand that’s all I need.”
My gut tightened and I wasn’t sure what to say. Nothing I could say would be enough but I had to try. “Lake, I—”
She cut me off. “Don’t!”
I didn’t need to look behind me to know all my friends were probably watching the scene unfold.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I don’t need it anymore. And I certainly don’t need you.”
Her words were like a knife slicing my heart into pieces.
Once again she swiped at the tears.
“I used to dream of you coming back for me but that didn’t happen. I pulled my life together without you. Withoutanyone.” Her body vibrated with anger but something else too.
I looked deep into her eyes.
“I taught my daughter to forgive but some things just aren’t forgivable so let me say this again.Id-don’t n-needyou.”
With that she stormed off toward the other women, her shoulders back and her spine straight.
She was magnificent and so fucking strong.
So many fucking things were running through me, but it was hope that flared once again. Lake had stumbled over her words at the end when she said she didn’t need me. And her eyes told me something else. Lake was lying. I knew Lake better than I knew anyone else and I knew when she wasn’t telling the truth. Maybe she didn’t even know it, but she was not only lying to me but to herself.
I would protect her, I would be there for her, and I was determined to change her thinking.
Lake needed me as much as I needed her.
Chapter Three
LAKE
I was a damn liar.
