Guarding Hearts (Living Again #3) (31 page)

“Of course, my parents were horrified. My dad had all these plans for me, none of which included becoming a teenage mom. Gage was supportive, and there for me no matter what I chose, but he was terrified. I refused to get rid of the baby, even though my father drove me to an appointment and tried to force me to do it.”

Ellis sucked in a breath. How dare her father do that to her? “So what did you do?”

“I walked out of the appointment and went to stay with Lacey for a few weeks, trying to decide what in the world I was going to do. While I was gone, my dad and Gage’s dad had arranged for me to give my baby away for adoption.”

“They
what?
” Ellis clenched his fists. Why was it that all of these people thought they had to run Sam’s life all the time?

She nodded. “When my mom finally convinced me to come home from Lacey’s, they all sat Gage and I down and told us that they had gotten the paperwork from the adoption agency. They laid it all out there like it was something to be so proud of. I remember looking at Gage and feeling so scared, so alone. I never wanted to give up my baby, but what choice did I have? I was an eighteen year old girl that still lived at home and had dreams of being a country singer. My parents convinced me that I had too many goals to be a mom at that point in my life, and that I’d never get to do what I wanted if I kept the baby.”

“They manipulated you,” Ellis said. “You having a child might’ve made your dreams a little more challenging, but it wouldn’t have been impossible. So you did it? You gave your baby away?”

She nodded, a tear slipping out of her eye and falling onto his bare chest. He stroked her back, knowing this had to be the hardest thing she had ever told anyone. “I never even saw her, Ellis. I gave birth to her and they took her away from me. I have no idea if she looked like me, or Gage, what color hair she had, or eyes. I never got to hold her body against mine and tell her that I loved her, but I couldn’t keep her. The couple that adopted my baby didn’t know my name, and it’s a closed adoption. My parents handled everything, and that was the end of it.”

Anger coursed through his veins for the young woman she had been, and what she had lost. “You don’t even know her name?”

“No. I know absolutely nothing about her, other than she was a girl.”

“Sammi, I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. How did the press not get a hold of this?”

“The agency doesn’t want to say anything. They have legal documentation that binds them from ever leaking that out. And the press tried hard to get Gage to give them some dirt on me, but he’s not that way. No matter what they might promise him, he’d never go there with them. It destroyed him as much as it did me. He was there with me the day she was born, and after I left the hospital, I hadn’t talked to or seen him until before the concert in Baton Rouge when he emailed me out of the blue. But it was good to talk to him, to see him. It made things kind of final between us, put things to rest.”

Ellis put his hand in between their bodies and splayed his hand over her flat stomach. He hadn’t been the only one that lost a child. “When I lost Mason, it felt like my life was over,” he admitted. “So believe me when I say that I can empathize. I’m so sad for you that you were manipulated into giving away your daughter. You would’ve been a fantastic mother, even if you were young. How did your relationship with your parents fare after that?”

“Well, things were tense with us for a long time. You know that they have the tendency to take control as far as I’m concerned anyway, so it wasn’t anything unusual, but on a much bigger scale, of course. I’m not sure that I’ll ever truly be over what they did, but I’ve come to terms with it. She’s better off where she is.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Ellis said. “But I’m glad you’ve come to terms with it. That’s all we can do when we have no other choice.”

“I know what the press found out about you, but can I hear the story from you? I don’t want to say that I know information about my boyfriend from paparazzi.” She ran her hands through his hair, raking her nails across his scalp. It was an intoxicating feeling.

He sighed. “I’ve never known my father,” he started. “I honestly only know that his last name was the same as mine and he was originally from California. He was in Florida on Spring Break when he met my mother, supposedly. They had a fling, and he left, back to California. When my mother found out she was pregnant, she didn’t know how to contact him, but who knows if she really tried. I have no idea why she chose to keep me, but she did. She swore it wasn’t to get him to come back, but I think that might’ve been part of it. For as long as I can remember, she hated me. She would call me vile names and say I looked just like my father, which infuriated her. I don’t ever, not once in my life, remember her saying she loved me or touching me in any way. No hugs, no notes in my lunch box, nothing. I had no idea what love even was. I don’t remember what she did for work before I was about five, but at that point I started figuring out that something bad was happening at my house while I was at school. I would come home on the bus and walk home by myself. There were always a lot of people in my house, mainly men, and my mom always was acting funny. She made me get a snack and go into my room myself. This was my life. I was lucky if I had any food to eat at all when I was home, and I had to listen to the constant parade of men that came to ‘visit’ her. There were many times I would walk into the house after school to see her bent over the kitchen table, being pounded by one guy while she was doing something else to another. That’s how I grew up, Sam. She was high on something, and when she wasn’t, she was having sex with guys to get money to get high.

Providing for me was never her priority. I was one of those dirty kids, the kind that teachers had to provide school supplies, backpacks, and someone’s hand-me-down shoes to. As I got older, I just wouldn’t go home. I would walk the streets for as long as I possibly could. Some nights, I wouldn’t even go home, preferring to sleep outside somewhere or crash on a friend’s couch.

It was only a matter of time before I was rebelling, getting in trouble. No one cared about me, so why should I care about anything? I got in fights at school, stole, drank, and tried drugs. Why not, right? My mom was a junkie that didn’t even care about her own kid, so it must be worth it, right? I met Mandy when I was fourteen, and we started hanging out every day. Her home life wasn’t much better. Being the teenage boy that I was, we started sleeping together, but no one had ever taught me what happened if you didn’t use protection. It was amazing it took as long as it did for her to get pregnant. I was actually excited, thinking that I could start my own family and escape my mom. I was naïve. Once Mason was born, my mom all of a sudden wanted me to bring him and Mandy around. I thought it was amazing that she wanted to be my mom, and a grandmother to Mason. One night, I had Mason and my mom wanted to hold him. The next thing I knew, she was dangling him over the balcony of our apartment. She had been high as a kite and I didn’t even notice. Mandy came in and started screaming, the police were called, and that was the end of me having Mason at her house. After that, I got arrested for stealing a car, stealing money from a convenience store, beating up the manager at the store, and I had some drugs on me. The worst part of all of that was that I had Mason with me.

That’s when Mandy’s parents decided that I shouldn’t be in Mason’s life, and got a judge to agree. They took away my parental rights, and I stayed in juvenile detention until I was eighteen. I met Carl when I was in there. I was very quiet, never really got to know anyone, but he never gave up on me. My mom killed herself, overdosed when I was seventeen, so when I got out, I had nowhere to go. I was an adult, and the state couldn’t care less about me, but Carl did. He took me in. I had to do community service, and he went with me. I was shy, and didn’t want to put myself out there for anyone.”

Sam climbed up on top of him and put her lips to his. He could taste the salt of her tears. Gripping her face, he kissed her with all the emotion he had never understood before. “You’re so amazing,” she breathed, opening her eyes so they were looking directly at each other. “Your life is a miracle. Look at what you’ve accomplished despite your circumstances.”

“It’s all because of Carl and a little boy I met named Jaden. He was a little boy at the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters program that I was required to do community service for. He had a rough home life, which was why he was there for after care. He was the cutest little boy, with dark hair and blue eyes.” Ellis reached over to the bedside table and pulled a tattered picture out of his wallet. “This is him.”

Sam took the photo, smiling as she saw the little boy with the toothless grin. “He’s so cute. You still carry his picture? Do you still keep in touch with him?”

A look of pain crossed his face. “I really connected with him. I thought of him like I did Mason. He was killed one day in a drive by shooting in his neighborhood. His parents weren’t even home.”

Sam gasped. “Oh my god.” He nodded, a lump forming in his throat again, even after all these years. “So these are all the reasons you have been shut down for so many years. Love to you meant hurt and devastation. No one ever showed you that love could be a good thing.”

“Carl did, but I didn’t know how to accept it. He has called me his son for over ten years, but I can’t deal with the fact that he wants to be a father to me.”

“But you trust him, you care for him,” she observed.

“Yes. But I still have a hard time believing why he cares so much about me.”

“Oh Ellis,” she said. “I’m so sorry for the little boy you were, how much you lost. What’s happened since your ex started talking in the press? Is there any chance of getting to have your son back? I mean, look at you now. How were you able to become to be a cop?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” Ellis said, smiling. “First, Carl hired an attorney that got my juvenile record expunged. He probably sang a song and dance about how pitiful my life had been or something. If I had to guess, I would say that he promised to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow. After Jaden died, Carl helped me get my GED and go to the police academy. As far as Mason, I’ve contacted an attorney about reinstating my parental rights, but it’s a tricky situation since he lives in New York. Mandy is a mess and is obviously no better than my own mother was, and it makes me sick that my son has had to grow up the exact same way I did. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure he knows that I love him, and I’m here for him if he ever needs me.”

“Thank you,” Sam said.

“For what?”

“For trusting me enough to tell me all of that. I’m sure the amount of people that know that story you can count on one hand.”

He nodded. “It wasn’t until all of this started coming out that Devin even knew anything. When I mean that I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t. I’ve always been good at pretending, putting on a front that everyone sees me as this funny, no-strings attached, player kind of guy. But really, I haven’t even been that. I wasn’t one of those guys that slept my way through each city. Since Mandy, I’ve only been with a few women, and those were few and far between. I was always terrified to be that intimate with someone again, and even the ones I was with, I couldn’t make myself connect with. Until I met you, I didn’t know what an instant connection felt like. I never knew that your heart could beat fast, that you could stay awake hours at night thinking of one person, or that being away from someone could be physically painful. I didn’t handle things the right way with you, and for that I’ll always be sorry.”

“You have
nothing
to be sorry about, Ellis,” Sam said, her voice cracking. “I’m so proud of not only the things you have overcome to be where you are today, but the way you shared what you’ve never shared before with me tonight. I’m honored that you trust me enough to tell me all of that.”

“I don’t just trust you,” Ellis said. “I love you so completely, so desperately, I’m not sure how to do anything without you anymore. I’ve lived my life so alone inside, and when I’m with you, I just feel different. I feel like I’m worthy of being loved. When you look at me, I can see what you see in me
through
you. You’ve not only made me believe in love, Sammi, you’ve made me believe in myself again.”

She watched as a single tear escaped from his eye, and she scooted up, kissing both of his eyes. “That was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. I want to make that into a song someday. I love you, Ellis. Hey, what’s your middle name?”

“I don’t have one,” Ellis said. “I guess my mom named me after her grandfather, whose name was Ellis, though I never knew any of them. My last name is my dad’s, though that’s all I know about him. What’s yours?”

“Ann,” she wrinkled her nose. “After my grandmother.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he laughed.

“Such a true southern name,” she said. “Samantha Ann.” He loved the way she talked, with her southern twang. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life hearing that voice.

“Are you hungry?” Ellis was content lying in bed with her naked, but his stomach was rumbling. He looked at the clock and realized it was after one in the morning.

“Starving,” she giggled. “Though I wonder if I could just get filled up on you.”

“I’m going to feed you, because you have to have energy for round 2,” he teased. He grabbed the 24 hour room service menu. “What would you like?”

“Hmm, whatever,” she said, her eyes closed. He got momentarily distracted by watching her face before his stomach reminded him what he was supposed to be doing.

He ordered them a sandwich, fruit, and cheesecake to share, then turned back to her, in awe that she was his. She still lay there, completely comfortable without a stitch of clothes on.

“Are you really okay, after this whole thing with Sean?”

She blinked open her eyes and nodded. “He freaked me out, yes. But I also knew that once you knew something had happened to me, you’d come.”

“You knew that I would come? Even after I ignored you for weeks? God, I’m such an ass.”