Page 33 of Roaring Fork Rooker (Roaring Fork Ranch #4)
ECHO
I raced out of the ranch house, my feet barely touching the wooden porch steps as I fled toward my car. I knew they all had questions, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t turn around.
My hands shook so violently that I could barely get the key in the ignition.
When the engine finally turned over, I pressed the accelerator harder than I should have, gravel spraying behind me as I tore down the ranch’s long driveway.
Through panicked sobs that blurred my vision, I managed to navigate the winding mountain roads back to town, my entire body trembling with the magnitude of what had just happened.
The secret I’d carried for nearly thirty years had just walked through the door, calling me Aunt Echo in front of the man I was supposed to marry tomorrow. The daughter I’d given birth to but could never claim. The child I’d watched from a distance, knowing she was mine but never able to tell her.
And JW had seen it. The recognition in his eyes when he’d looked at Gisela—he’d seen his own features reflected in her just as clearly as I saw them every day since she was born. There was no hiding it now. No pretending.
I barely remembered parking in my driveway or fumbling with my house keys. Once inside, I collapsed on my sofa and wept harder than I had since the day I’d placed my newborn daughter in Dawn’s care. I’d known it was for the best, but that I’d never hear her call me Mommy tore at my heart.
How could I have been so naive? How could I have thought I could marry JW without him ever knowing about Gisela? That I could build a life with him on a foundation of subterfuge? The weight of my lies of omission came crashing down on me, and I felt like I was drowning.
I thought about the wedding dress hanging in my closet, the flowers Flynn had arranged, the cake that would feed fifty guests tomorrow afternoon. I thought about the vows I’d written, promising to share my life honestly with the man I cherished. What a joke that was. What a terrible, cruel joke.
The knock at my door came sooner than I’d expected, but I knew it would come. I’d known JW wouldn’t let me run without a fight, not after what he’d just witnessed.
“Echo, please let me in.”
I stared at the door, knowing he had a key.
I’d given it to him when we decided we wanted to share our lives completely.
But I understood why he wasn’t using it—he wanted me to let him in metaphorically as much as literally.
He was giving me the choice, the control I’d lost the moment Gisela walked into that room.
For a long moment, I considered not answering. Considered letting him think I wasn’t home, that I’d fled somewhere he couldn’t find me. But where would I go? And what would be the point? The truth was out now, whether I wanted to face it or not.
I pulled the door open with trembling hands, not knowing what to expect. My appearance was disheveled, my carefully applied makeup completely destroyed. I was still shaking, unable to speak through the sobs that wouldn’t stop.
What shocked me was that JW immediately drew me close. No questions, no demands for explanation, no anger or accusation. Just his strong embrace wrapping around me, holding me against his chest as if he could shield me from the storm tearing through me.
I struggled against him at first, trying to push him away. I didn’t deserve his comfort. I didn’t deserve his kindness. I’d lied to him, built our entire relationship on a foundation of deception. But he held me tighter, one hand stroking my hair, the other rubbing soothing circles on my back.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my hair, his own voice thick with pain. “I’m so sorry I left you.”
His words broke something open inside me, and I collapsed against him completely, letting him support my weight as fresh waves of grief shook my body.
He lifted me in his arms and carried me down the hall to the bedroom, rested my body on the bed gently, then lay beside me, pulling me as close as he could.
He didn’t immediately ask for an explanation, but I knew I owed him one. Like when he’d confessed to me why he left all those years ago, baring his soul and sharing his deepest pain, I owed him the same courtesy. The truth, all of it, no matter how much it hurt to say the words out loud.
I leaned back and looked into his eyes. “You need to know the truth.”
“Eventually, I’d like to, but it doesn’t have to be now.”
“It does.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Like I said at the ranch,” I began, my voice breaking with every word, “a few days after you left, I discovered I was pregnant.”
JW’s hold on me tightened, but he didn’t speak. He just held me, letting me find the strength to continue.
“I was nineteen years old and lost. I had no idea what to do, no one to turn to. You were gone without a trace, and I had no idea how to find you.” The memories came flooding back with painful clarity, as vivid as if they’d happened yesterday.
“I stayed in my room for two days after taking that pregnancy test, too terrified to tell anyone. But my mother knew something was wrong. She’d always been able to read me, and she kept pressing me until I couldn’t hide it anymore.”
I pulled back slightly to look at JW’s expression, needing to see his reaction. “I came out of my room with the test still in my hand, and she was waiting for me in the hallway. The moment she saw my appearance, she knew.”
“What did she say?”
“She was furious. Started yelling about how I’d ruined my life, how I’d destroyed any chance of a decent future. She said my father would never accept this disgrace, that our family’s reputation would be destroyed.”
I took a shaky breath before continuing. “Then she told me that before my father found out, I had to terminate the pregnancy. That it was the only way to fix what I’d done.”
I felt JW stiffen against me, and I knew he was thinking about the similarities—this was exactly the situation that had forced him, his mother, and Patricia to flee East Aurora all those years ago. History almost repeating itself in the most painful way possible.
“We argued for what felt like hours,” I continued. “I kept telling her I couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it. That I couldn’t end my baby’s life, your baby’s life, no matter what the consequences were. That’s when my father walked in.”
JW’s hand found mine, squeezing gently. “He heard everything?”
“He heard me say I was pregnant and that I refused to get an abortion. I’ll never forget the way his mouth fell open, then his features twisted with revulsion.
Like I was something filthy he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.
” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“He didn’t say a word at first. Just stared at me.
Then he told me to pack my things and get out of his house. Said I was no daughter of his.”
“Echo,” JW whispered, anguish evident in his tone.
“I threw whatever I could fit into a suitcase and drove to where my sister, Dawn, lived with her husband, Mark, about an hour away. I could barely get the words out to explain what had happened.”
The memory of that night was still crystal clear. Dawn opening the door to find me sobbing on her doorstep, pregnant and homeless and alone. The way she’d immediately pulled me inside, made me tea, and held me while I cried.
“Dawn and Mark didn’t hesitate. They said I could stay with them as long as I needed to. They’d support me and take care of me through the pregnancy. They understood that I couldn’t terminate it and would never pressure me to.”
“They saved you.”
“They saved both of us—me and the baby. For the first few months, I thought maybe I could do it. Maybe I could raise the baby on my own with their help. I got a job at a local diner, started saving money, and began planning for the future.”
I paused, gathering courage for the hardest part of the story.
“But as my pregnancy progressed, reality set in. I was nineteen years old, with no education beyond high school, no real job prospects, and no family support except for Dawn and Mark. How could I provide for a child? How could I give her the life she deserved?”
“You started considering adoption.”
I nodded. “It tore at my heart to even think about it, but I knew it might be the right thing to do. I started looking into agencies, meeting with counselors, trying to figure out the best option for the baby.”
“What happened then?”
“Dawn came to me.” A small smile crossed my lips despite everything.
“She and Mark had been trying to have a baby for years without success. They’d been through fertility treatments, miscarriages, and adoptions that fell through.
When Dawn saw how torn up I was about giving the baby to strangers, she made a suggestion that changed everything. ”
I could see JW already piecing together where this was going.
“She and Mark offered to adopt the baby. They said, that way, I could still be part of her life, watch her grow up, be involved in raising her even if I couldn’t be her mother officially.
No one would need to know I’d been pregnant—as far as anyone was concerned, Dawn and Mark had finally been granted a child. ”
“And you agreed?”
“Not right away. I agonized over it. Part of me still wanted to keep her, to find a way to make it work on my own. But the rational part of me knew my sister and her husband could give her stability, security, and a nurturing two-parent home with financial resources I couldn’t provide.”
The next part was the most painful to remember, and I had to take several deep breaths before I could continue.