“Don’t,” he said, so quietly it was almost a plea.
I stopped.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked up at the porch lights as if searching for guidance. “I spent every day since thinking about that night. Wondering if I made it up. Wondering if you were better off without—” He stopped himself, jaw snapping shut.
“You didn’t make it up,” I said, and the words felt like a kind of surrender.
He nodded. “I know.”
The cool air pressed in around us, dense with the kind of silence that makes you hear your own heartbeat.
I was the first to crack.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” I said. “I had a plan.” I laughed, sharp. “It was a good one, too. Sell off the Hargrove place, take the cash, disappear. New country, new name, maybe learn Portuguese. I’d already lined up a goat farm on the coast.”
He stared at me, brow furrowed. “You bought the Hargrove land? Why?”
“Not for the view,” I said. “Though, honestly, the satellite images don’t do it justice.”
His lips twitched. “Always thought you were the smartest in the family.”
I snorted. “The bar’s in hell.”
He looked back at the field, then down at his hands. He flexed them, opening and closing his fists, as if weighing something he couldn’t name. “Why’d you want to disappear?”
I traced the porch’s grain with the toe of my boot. “You know my father. You know what he’d do if he found out I was having a kid. Especially… this kind of kid.” I gestured at my stomach, at the parts of myself I’d never had the nerve to say out loud. “He’d try to buy it away. Or worse.”
He nodded, the movement tight and angry.
“I figured if I left before anyone noticed, I could at least keep some of it safe. Even if it meant…” I swallowed. “Even if it meant never seeing you again.”
He exhaled slow, like he was blowing out a fuse.
For a second, I let myself imagine it: the cottage in Portugal, the ocean, the goats, the little person with my DNA and maybe his eyes. I let myself want it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I almost missed it.
“What?”
He finally looked at me, full-on, no walls left. “I’m sorry. For leaving. For not being braver. For letting you think I didn’t want this.”
The words hung in the space between us, raw and true. I felt them settle somewhere under my sternum, tight and hot.
He let go of the railing, but his hand shook so bad he stuffed it in his pocket. “You know why I left, don’t you?”
I stared at him, not trusting myself to speak.
He pressed his lips together, the muscle in his jaw pulsing. “I was scared of Rawley. Not of what he’d do, but of what he’d think of me. I’ve never had a brother. Or a family. And when I found it, I didn’t want to risk losing it.”
I swallowed. “So you cut me loose.”
He nodded, jaw tight.
“That’s not the kind of family I wanted,” I said. “I wanted the kind that keeps you, even when you mess up.”
He reached for me, then stopped. His hand hovered between us, fingers trembling. “Do you want this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I want you to want it. Even if it’s just for tonight.”
