Page 65 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

“And then I came back, and not only was half my family dead, but you were gone. Every morning I woke up without you felt like being stabbed in the gut. But grief has a way of moving time in strange ways. Makes things hazy as a fever dream. Somehow, a month passed, two months . . . I realized I hadn’t had a period in a while.

Figured it was the stress of it all.” Ford’s mouth opens slightly, understanding making him still as a statue.

“But then I just knew—the way a mother does, I guess—I was pregnant. Two months already on that hike, four when I found out.”

At Ford’s shocked expression, I glance out the window; Merritt sees me and waves. I do the same.

“Your mom saw me in the grocery store once. She told me at Orchard Fest she never told you. My belly was so big there was no denying I was pregnant. She just stared at me and she knew. You were gone and I couldn’t raise a kid on my own.

Wouldn’t put a kid through the disaster of my life.

I had no degree, only just started working at the crematorium, and you made your decision when you left.

I put the baby up for adoption with three conditions: I’d pick the family, the name, and always know where he lived. ”

Emotion fills my voice as I look back to Ford.

“I had a baby, Ford. A boy. And when he came out and I held him for those first few minutes, he looked just like you.” The shock on Ford’s face morphs to something heavier—sadder.

His eyes dart back to the window, tracking Blue.

His son. “I wanted to keep him but knew if I did, I’d miss you every day for the rest of my life.

I’d miss you so much I’d never get out of bed.

He deserved better than that. Better than anything I could have given him. ”

I sniff. Ford stares. Silence fills the Bronco.

“I named him Blue Callahan—his last name is Billings. That’s him.” I point to the house. Merritt’s gone; Blue’s outside on his phone laughing as he talks and paces around the driveway, oblivious to us. He’s smiling a lot; I wonder if it’s a girl. “Pieces of us all grown up.”

“Ours,” Ford finally says. One word meaning a million.

“He’s nineteen,” I fill in. “Played sports in high school. I went to some of his games. He got good grades. Goes to community college now. I know the parents but have never met him. Not sure I’d know what to say.”

Ford’s eyes stay on Blue.

I clear my throat. “Anyway, after I got the infection, the doctors told me there was too much damage to ever carry another baby. Which was fine, I never wanted to have another one. Seemed poetic.” I remember the doctor telling me the prognosis like it was yesterday; I didn’t even react.

I simply said, okay . “I had one baby with the only man I’d ever love. ”

I wonder if Ford notices that Blue walks like him or has my hair. If he can hear his laugh and recognizes it as his own .

When Ford’s eyes find mine, I brace myself for what comes next. Ford will end it, he has to, and I will let him. I’ll let him—because he and Wren deserve better than anything I can give—then I’ll fall apart, pick myself back up, and figure out what comes next.

“I hate that you went through this alone,” he says, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap. “Hate that I didn’t know. But . . .” I suck in a breath. “I wouldn’t change it.”

My breath releases in a stunned gush. “You what ?”

His eyes swing between Blue and I. “I hate in our story I left. Hate that we missed him and each other. But even if I came back, we were in no condition to raise a baby, Scotty.” There’s no arguing with him, he’s right.

“I might not have seen it then, but I sure as hell do now. And if life would’ve turned out any differently, I wouldn’t have Wren.

Things happen the way they’re supposed to, you know? ”

At his calm perspective, I am utterly gobsmacked.

“You aren’t mad?”

He laughs through a puff of air. “At who?”

“ At who ?” I almost yell. “At me!”

Ford chuckles and reaches his hand to my face, dragging his knuckles down my cheek. My arm. Finding my hand and kissing my thumb.

“God, no. I’m a million things but definitely not mad. I’m shocked. I’m . . . I don’t know, a little hurt I didn’t help make the decision, but I’m also the one that ran away first. Plus—” He pauses, watching Blue a few seconds. “He looks happy. I guess that makes me a little . . . okay. ”

“Okay ?!”

This is . . . unexpected.

“I had a baby, Ford,” I snap. “Yours.”

His lips roll inward between his teeth before he exhales and drops his head back on the headrest. “I know.”

“You know?” I repeat.

His brows pinch. “You just told me.”

Jokes?

I scoff. Pick my fingernails more aggressively.

“What do you expect me to say?” he asks through an almost laugh. “It was twenty years ago. A lot happened. You made a choice. Probably the right one. We weren’t ready. He looks happy.”

“Wren show you the cuts?” I demand.

“She did.”

“I knew about them,” I bite out. “And didn’t tell you.”

“Mm,” he says, considering. “I didn’t love that, but Wren explained everything. I get it. You did what I asked you to do. She said you were checking her every day.”

Irritation starts grating my skin away. He isn’t yelling. He’s . . . what the hell is he? Fine?

“She hates me.” I’m fully pissed.

He’s calm. “She doesn’t.”

“She does,” I argue. “She all but said those exact words.”

“She doesn’t. My mom told us what happened at Orchard Fest.” He raises his eyebrows, lips fighting a smile. “And exactly what you said to the Letts girl.”

Charlene—full of surprises .

I don’t dwell on that.

“And my flying fists of fury at Liberty Tap?”

A smile tugs at his lips. “Guess we won’t know the fallout until Monday. I told Jessica if she didn’t press charges, I wouldn’t go to the school and get her daughter expelled for what she did to Wren.”

He’s making this impossible.

“You’re a cop.”

At this, he laughs. “And?”

“And we can’t be together!” I shout, punctuating each word with a smack of the steering wheel. “I meant it when I told you we were done. We are.”

“Ahhh,” he says, grotesquely calm. “I thought that’s what this was.”

“What what was?”

“Scotty.” He pushes one hand across my face and into my hair.

“You and Wren got in a fight. She used her tongue as a teenage weapon of mass destruction—which reminds me of someone else I know.” A smile whispers across his lips “You told me you never want to see me again. After you told me you loved me. Which you confirmed to everyone at the LL meeting.” I open my mouth, but this moron doesn’t stop talking.

“You take me out here and tell me about Blue—which I have a lot of big feelings about—but I wonder if you were thinking I couldn’t take it. ”

Damn him.

“And it won’t work. ”

“Why?” I huff. “Have you not been paying attention to how at the drop of a hat I turn into a human wrecking ball that chews out kids and punches their mothers?”

“I like that about you.”

“You don’t,” I snap.

“And if I say no? If I say you don’t get to push me away? That I’m going to be the one to show up, no matter what?”

My gaze cuts to him. “You can’t say no, that’s not how this works.”

“It is. We actually specifically said, ‘ no pushing away .’”

We did say that.

“But I’m giving you an out,” I argue. “And Wren.”

He laughs. “We don’t want an out. We love you.”

I suck in a sharp breath; this makes no sense.

“I still might sell the house,” I persevere.

“And move to the desert. And I ruined Wren’s Homecoming.

I got drunk and acted like some kind of wannabe superhero trying to clean up the streets of Gotham.

And I had a kid. By you. That I never told you about!

” My blood is boiling now. He’s making this harder than it needs to be.

Impossible even. Blind to the fact that this kind of crazy is just who I am.

“Just let this go. Let me go. Let us go.”

His mouth tugs to one side. “No can do, Scotty.”

“No can do?” I echo with a groan, struggling to get the key in the ignition. Not sure when or why I took it out to begin with. “It’s not an option.”

“I’m not going to let you do this.” He relaxes back into his seat like the decision has been made. “Go ahead. Throw a tantrum. Let the viper come out to play. But it won’t work. I left once because I was scared. I’m not letting you go now because you’re feeling the same thing.”

I glare at him as I peel onto the highway with a squeal of the tires. Fuck him for making this so hard. If he wants to prove some kind of point with a game he’ll most certainly lose, I’ll play. “Fine. Try. You won’t win this.”

I ignore the very very small part of me hoping he does.

“And when I convince you that you’re wrong, you’ll propose to me.”

“I’ll what?!” I slam on the brakes, jerking us both forward. He doesn’t react.

“That’s what you just told me you wanted to do twenty years ago—why not now?”

Asshole.

“Fine,” I grit out, accelerating again.

Over my dead body.

I have gone from loving this man to hating him in the span of fifteen minutes.

At a stop sign, I glare at Ford, who smiles smugly, then punch the gas—purposefully driving over the speed limit.

The entire time, I’m seething.

“Ooh!” he says, angling his head to see out the windshield as I drive. “Think that was a pileated woodpecker.”

He smiles, his face all warm eyes and smile lines that makes me want to shove him right out into the road and run over him .

By the time we get to the church parking lot, I’m a powder keg ready to explode.

He unbuckles his seatbelt, leans across the center console, and kisses me on the mouth. Then, cooler than the November breeze blowing outside, he pulls away, winks, and says, “Thank you for telling me about Blue. We did good. You did.” In my silence he adds, “Tell me something real.”

“We’re over,” I bark. “How’s that for real?”

He chuckles, gets out of the Bronco and into his truck—like I didn’t just tell him he had a son he never knew about—and drives away.

I must still be drunk.

At my window, a tap makes me jump .

“Jesus, Mel.” I gasp, bringing a hand to my chest as I roll the window down. “You almost scared me to death.”

“Failed again,” she says with a slight lift of her lips as she taps a cigarette out of the box and sticks it in her mouth without lighting it. “What are you still doing here?”

“Well, I was just showing Ford his bastard child and telling him to pound sand, but that asshole is too stupid for his own good.”

She looks at me, unlit cigarette still hanging out of her mouth.

“That’s a lot to unpack.”

I frown.

“Now what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Life!” she cries, making the cigarette bobble on her lips. “Love! All of it! ”

“Why would I do anything?”

“Scotty.” She plucks the cigarette from her mouth. “Your skull must be the thickest matter on earth. Didn’t you hear yourself today?”

My eyes narrow.

“You just told a whole room that you wished people would have showed up for you.”

“So . . . ?”

She barks out a laugh and looks at Ford’s truck pulling out of the lot.

“So let them show up for you for God’s sake.

Just because your parents never did doesn’t mean people can’t do it now.

You’d be a special kind of stupid not to be with Ford because you’re on some mission to be miserable.

He knows what you are. You’re so damn loud, we all do. ”

Her point knocks me sideways. I think of June throwing my own advice back in my face. Be me with them.

“I don’t think—”

“What you think,” she says over me, “and what is are two entirely different things.” She puts the cigarette back into the box. “I’m trying to quit,” she mutters when she catches me watching. “Read an article just putting the damn things in your mouth helps.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, slight smile pulling at her lips. “Does you telling Ford you don’t want to be with him make you love him any less?”

Bitch.