Cane shrugged. “I agree.”
“All of this—is something that I can’t give him.”
“What do you mean? Of course you can.”
I took a deep breath. “When I was a little girl...” The words caught in my throat. I took a deep breath and started again, summoning the courage to hear the words out loud. “When I was a little girl, I had an operation. It wasn’t anything serious, really, but there were a few complications. One of them was excessive scar tissue.”
Cane watched me intently, his blue eyes tender.
“I had to have another surgery when I was a teenager. Alice stayed with me in the hospital because Dad didn’t know what to do,” Ilaughed sadly. “Anyway, to make a long story short and to avoid telling my brother-in-law details I’m not comfortable sharing about my anatomy, I was told that I most likely wouldn’t be able to have kids.”
The realization shone in Cane’s eyes and he put his head in his hands briefly. He pulled his head up and his eyes back to me. “Fuck, Kari. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. How could you have? But here’s the thing—I got pregnant by a miracle a few years ago and I lost the baby.”
Tears welled hot in my eyes and I didn’t even fight them. They spilled down my cheeks and onto the blanket.
“There’s a good chance that if I did want to try having a baby, I couldn’t carry it. And feeling that pain of losing a child...” I hicupped through the tears, trying to keep my voice down so I didn’t wake Jada. “I can’t do it again, Cane. I can’t. It’s the most painful thing in the entire world. It’s enough that I don’t even want to try.”
I pressed my face into the blanket and tried to get control of myself. Cane sat next to me and pulled me into his chest. He rocked me back and forth and just held me. I cried enough tears to fill a hole, but not one as deep as the crater in my heart.
Finally, I pulled away and wiped the hair stuck to my face out of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “I’m just not used to talking about this.”
“Why?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never admitted this out loud to anyone except Max the other night—not even Jada. So please, don’t say anything. I’ll tell her, but not until later. Until she’s feeling better. It won’t do any good now, anyway.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I don’t want to sort through all of that, okay?”
He released a breath. “I’m glad you told Max.”
“Yeah, thanks to Sam. She somehow started dating my ex and brought him to dinner a couple of nights ago.”
Cane stood and walked back in front of the fireplace, his jaw working back and forth. “Do you think that’s acoincidence?”
“How could it not be?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“It’s Samantha. I put nothing past her. Where’s Max now?”
“Home, I guess.”
We watched the flames dance in the fireplace for a while. “If Jada told me she couldn’t have a baby, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to look at me. “I love your sister. And yeah, the fact that we are having a baby—a human half me and half her—is beyond unbelievable. But really it’s just icing on the cake. Because with or without a baby, it’s Jada that I want to spend my life with. I can’t live without her.”
“I’m so glad you found each other.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he laughed. “But the point is this, this...condition of yours, or whatever you want to call it, it isn’t a deal breaker. I see why you would feel like you are holding Max back. I get it. But looking at it from his perspective, it’s his call, Kari. And I know Max better than Max knows Max and he doesn’t give a shit.”
“You think?” My breath caught in my throat at the tiny bit of hope creeping into my chest.
“I know. I’m always right, you know,” he winked.
“Sure you are.” I leaned back against the couch, mulling over Cane’s words. “You really think I’m not being selfish by being involved with him, knowing what you know now?”
