Page 100 of Deacon

“I left,” he said.

There it was. Two words carrying years of rage.

His gaze dropped briefly. “I didn’t know you were pregnant, baby. God…” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “If I’d known…”

“I could have gone with you.”

His eyes snapped to mine, and he closed both hands around mine. “And take you away from your family?” he asked quietly. “I couldn’t do that to you.”

“You didn’t get to decide that.”

“I know.”

“No.” I pulled one hand free. “No, I don’t think you do. You don’t get to stand here now and tell me you made some noble sacrifice for me when what you actually did was take my choice away.”

His expression tightened, but he took it.

“You loved your family,” he said. “You needed them. Your mama was your best friend. They were your whole world.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Jackson got to his feet, discomfort flashing across his face before frustration buried it. “It means I couldn’t put a wedge between you and them,” he said. “Couldn’t make you choose between me and your family. So I didn’t make you choose. I left.”

I surged up from the couch hard enough to bump the coffee table. “You didn’t have the right to take that choice away from me.” My voice shook with seventeen years of living inside the decision he had made for me. “That was my choice to make. Mine alone. You had no right.”

My fists struck his chest before sense caught up, once and then again. Jackson caught my wrists against him, firm enough to stop me without hurting me.

“If I hadn’t taken that choice away,” he said, voice rough now, “you wouldn’t have had those last years with your mama.”

Everything inside me went still.

His hold loosened. “You would’ve been gone somewhere on some base,” he said. “In hiding. No contact with your family. And then Rose would’ve died, and you wouldn’t have been there. She wouldn’t have gotten to know our daughter.”

The words found the one wound I could never defend against.

I hated him for saying it. Worse, I could see the life he meant: Mom dying while I was somewhere I couldn’t reach her, Jade growing up without those years with the grandmother who had adored her. Maybe Jackson had been right about what leaving with him would have cost.

That still didn’t make the choice his.

My hands slipped free of his as I backed away. “That’s not fair, Jacks,” I whispered. “That’s cruel and not fair.”

“It might not be fair, Princess,” he said. “But it’s true.” His voice roughened. “I hate it. I hate that I didn’t get all those years with our girl. I hate that I wasn’t here to help you through what your mama was goin’ through. I hate that I wasn’t here for Rose.”

Tears blurred the boxes and bare walls around me.

“But I am damn happy Rose got to know Jade,” he continued. “For the time she had with her. I loved that woman. She had a heart of gold. She took me in, saw somethin’ in me nobody else did. And I miss her every damn day.”

The grief in his voice stripped away whatever answer I might have had. Mom had loved Jackson too. She had fed him, defended him, and made room for him in our family long before either of us understood what we would become.

“I saw it too,” I whispered.

Jackson came up behind me and drew me against his chest. I should have resisted. Instead, exhaustion won for one aching moment, and I let myself remember how safe those arms once felt.

“I know you did, baby,” he murmured into my hair. “’Cause you’re just like your mama.”

That nearly broke me.

I pulled away before grief could blur into forgiveness. Understanding why he had left changed the shape of the wound, but it didn’t erase what he had done. He had protected me by taking my future out of my hands, then carried the reason alone while I lived with the consequences. Even now, more remained hidden. I could see it whenever his answers reached the edge of whatever secret he still guarded.