26
Hayley
2018
Istand outside the shop, my bag slung on my shoulder. Some things needed to be said. Then we could go our separate ways. I walk into the store, which has rows upon rows of fishing gear, tackle, and odds and ends. It looked like something Wyatt would own. I walked through the narrow aisles, a sense of calm coming over me. He belongs here. Why did it take another woman to make him see that?
“Can I help you, miss?” His voice sends the same shivers down my spine.
I turn around, and his mouth twists into a scowl. “Here to deliver flowers?”
I roll my eyes. The nerve of this asshole.
“Can we talk?”
He sighs and nods. “Follow me.”
We walk out of the store, and I follow him behind it. He leads me to a bench under a tree overlooking the small lake.
I sit, and he follows suit.
“I’m all ears.” He stares down at me. His glare is scrutinizing, and I don't like it.
“I went to see your mom the other day.”
“Oh?” The look on his face is of surprise. “I haven't seen my mom in a while.” I’m buying time.
“Look, Hayley, I know you’re not here to make small talk. If this is about the other day, I’m sorry. Those flowers just bugged me out, and I wanted them to stop.”
“It isn’t about that.” I close my eyes and lean my shoulders on my knees.
“Then what is it about?”
You know that moment of reckoning you feel when you’re about to confess something that has been on your soul for centuries? It’s what I think looking into Wyatt’s eyes.
“It’s about your daughter.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“It’s about London.”
“Is this some kind of fucking joke, because I am not getting it.” His face reddens.
I let out a breath. “London is your daughter, not Logan's.”
I dig in my bag and hand him the results of Logan’s paternity test. We hadn’t done one for him, but there was no doubt she was his. I hadn’t been with anyone else at that time.
He looks at the paper like it was some kind of weapon.
“This doesn’t prove she’s mine.”
“Well, she is!” I spill.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You had so much to say in those angry letters of yours, but you failed to tell me the most important thing it seems.”
“You never fucking called, you never wrote, you never responded to any of my letters. You disappeared after your father died. You never came back.” The tears threaten to fall. I have to bite them back. He will not get that.
“Hayley—”
