Her pulse thundered in her ears, blocking any other sound. She’d been so sure this was the right move.
He whirled around. “You loved me too.” He aimed the words at her like some kind of accusation.
She nodded. “Yes,” she croaked. His temper cracked like a whip. She’d never seen him so angry. Seven years ago, it had all been light and fun, the future nothing more than sweet potential. No hardships or challenges to their feelings or their plans.
Until she learned she was pregnant and chose to handle it on her own.
“No,” he countered. “You were too young. I see it now. Real love wouldn’t have done anything like this.”
That ignited her own temper. “Stop. You know better.” She wouldn’t let him twist the narrative on her life. “I loved you, truly. My whole heart.” She plowed right over his immediate objection. “I loved you enough to let you go. Your dream job, Cooper. The offer came through and you couldn’t think of anything else.”
“You were on board.”
“Of course I was.” It had been so easy to dream with him. “I intended to follow through.” Those uncertain days flooded back, the mood swings and internal debates.
“Until?” he prompted.
She sighed, moving to sit on the porch steps. “I wanted to tell you, but you were so excited. Finding a place to live, getting acclimated to the area, moving into your office on campus. I didn’t want morning sickness and obligations raining on your parade. You were so happy.” She smiled, remembering.
“I had a right to know.”
“That’s true. And I had a right to have the baby my way. I adjusted my own career plans to provide for her. I wrote a dozen letters to you.” She laughed bitterly. That was the foolish project of her youthful heart. “I couldn’t bring myself to send them.”
“You could’ve been with me.” He seemed to collapse, all that temper gone in favor of sorrow. “We would’ve been a family. Together.”
“I wasn’t so sure. And moving across the country to have a child?” She shook her head. “Overwhelming. More upheaval than morning sickness.”
“What about after she was born?”
“We’d lost touch at that point.” She’d stopped all contact with him somewhere in her second trimester. “I didn’t want to be the reason you left the job you’d been so excited about.”
“The other side of the country isn’t that far. Not like I’d moved to Australia or something.”
“No. You’re right.” And yet here he was. “I knew the variables here. I understood the system and how to create what we needed.”
He grunted and she looked away. Her gaze drifted to the oak tree nearby, dripping with Spanish moss. Countless times she’d sat out here reading or playing or having a picnic with Cora, wondering what Cooper might be doing.
“Be honest,” she began, ignoring the tumult in her gut. “If I had told you, how would it have played out?”
“Are you kidding? I would have come back,” he replied. “Been with you here. Delayed for a semester. Walked away if they didn’t agree. I would have given you any and every support.”
“And that’s exactly why I couldn’t say a word!” Scarlett’s voice cracked. “You were thirty-three, Cooper. You finally had the tenure-track position you’d been chasing. You deserved to live your dream.” She caught herself, managing to hold still instead of scoot closer to him.
“We can theorize all we want, but I was twenty-two, a student with no money and a positive pregnancy test. If I’d told you, you would have stayed out of obligation and resented me for it. Or you would’ve convinced me to follow you and I would’ve floundered to find support I could trust and resented you. At some point you would’ve looked at me as the monkey wrench that obliterated your career.”
“Never,” he denied. “We could’ve had everything.”
She let him have his fantasy. They would never know for sure. She’d had years to accept the consequences of her choices.Years to wallow in the what-ifs of going through it alone on bad days and regret that she couldn’t share the joys with her daughter’s father.
“You made a choice for me—that wasn’t your right,” he said, his tone grim.
“I chose to keep our daughter. I chose an independent study and finished my degree online while she was napping. I built a life for us where she is safe and loved and doesn’t have a father only out of guilt.”
“Guilt?” Cooper scowled. “I loved you. I wanted a life with you. Your choices stole six years of her life from me.”
“I know,” she whispered, her anger suddenly deserting her, leaving only exhaustion. “I know it’s unfair. But she is my entire world, Cooper. And I won’t let you just waltz in here and disrupt it because you’re having some sort of mid-life vacation crisis.”
He scooped a hand through his hair. “I deserve to know my own child. Has she ever asked about me?”
