Sugar on the Edge (38 page)

“You can’t make things right with her. It’s done, and you need to leave.”

“I love her,” I tell him simply.

Brody snorts and throws his hands out to the side. “Oh, well gee… that just makes everything better, doesn’t it?”

“Look, mate,” I try to reason with him. “You can beat me to a pulp, but I’m still going to see Savannah, and she is going to listen to me. I’m not going to let up until she forgives me and lets me back in. So, if I have to take an ass-whooping from you to get to Savannah, so be it.” I hold my arms out and to the side. “Take your best shot.”

“With pleasure,” Brody snarls, and then lunges at me.

“Enough,” Savannah says from behind me, and Brody immediately stops his forward progress. I turn and there she is.

My Sweet.

Looking like she wants to murder me as much as Brody wants to.

Sighing… because this looks to be a long day, I say, “Hey, Sweet. What does a gent have to do to get a few moments alone with you?”

Oh, God.

He’s here.

He actually came after me.

The realization of what that could possibly mean almost knocks me over. Did he come after the peanut or me? Both?

Gavin walks past Brody, eyeing him warily, and approaches me. Then he’s there… in my space, inches away from me and staring down with unfathomably beautiful and tortured eyes.

“We need to talk,” he says quietly.

I feel the pull of him… I’m in danger of being mesmerized, and my broken heart is afraid of getting crushed. “There’s nothing to talk about anymore. That time is gone. It expired twelve weeks ago when you walked out.”

“Don’t say that,” he rasps out. “Don’t fucking say that.”

“Well, what do you want me to say, Filthy? Welcome back. Glad you could spare me some time?”

His lips curve upward slightly, and he looks amused. “You called me Filthy?”

“So what?” I grumble.

“That’s an endearment. You should be calling me any number of vile names, but you chose not to. You gave me an endearment. I think you’re still sweet on me.”

I want to slap that look off his face, and I want to kick myself in the ass for that slip of the tongue, because Gavin sees me a little too well. He always has.

Reaching down, he takes my hand softly in his. “Let’s go to our house. Let’s talk.”

Not missing the way he says “our house,” which causes all kinds of weird feelings to stir up inside of me, I start to pull away, but his hand tightens.

“Gavin… I don’t want to.”

Gone is the amusement and his look goes hard. He turns and starts walking back to his car, pulling me along behind him. “And I don’t really give a fuck, Sweet. Give me the damn courtesy of an hour of your time.”

We walk past Brody, who is leaning back against his truck, his arms crossed over his chest as he intently watches this play out. He pins Gavin with a deadly stare and then lifts one hand to point at him. “You and me, boy. We’re going to finish this later.”

Gavin gives him a curt nod, and I wholly surprise myself when I snap at Brody. “Oh, knock it off, Brody. You’re the one that wanted him to come back, you dumbass.”

Stopping dead in his tracks, Gavin turns to look at Brody in surprise. Brody just throws his head back and laughs, then looks back at Gavin. “I almost pity you, dude.”

The entire drive to Gavin’s house is in silence. I sit hunched in the passenger seat, my arms hugging my chest, and my gaze out the window. My mind swirls with the potential of all the things that Gavin may end up saying to me, and I try to harden my heart against them. I don’t want to hear those things. I’ve made my peace, done my healing. I did the phases of grief… denial, anger, bargaining, depression… a little more anger thrown in for good measure, then acceptance.

It’s done.

I’m done.

Except, I’m completely overwhelmed just sitting next to Gavin. My heart pounds, my hands sweat, and butterflies flutter in my stomach. Or is that indigestion? Could be both.

When Gavin turns into his driveway, he slows the car to a halt and looks at the broken realty sign still laying on the ground. Clearly, no one has noticed my vandalism and fixed it.

His head swivels, and he pins me with a direct stare. “Your handiwork?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I flippantly respond, “I have no clue what you mean.”

Gavin snorts in response and continues up the driveway. “Right.”

Because there’s no escaping the inevitable, I dutifully follow Gavin up the stairs and into his house. His house.
Not ours
, I affirm to myself.

Throwing his keys on the kitchen counter, he walks into the living room and comes to a dead stop. His shoulders stiffen and his hands clench. “Where are the horses?”

I don’t respond. Not going to make this easy on him.

He turns to me, and his eyes are sad. “What did you do with the photographs of the horses you gave me?”

I glance over at the southern wall of the living room where I had hung them over the fireplace. It’s starkly blank, almost mocking Gavin that everything I ever gave him I took back. “Probably the county landfill, I expect,” I say coldly.

“You threw them away?” he asks in astonishment.

“It was this whole anger thing I went through. That came right in between ‘denial’ and ‘bargaining.’ But I didn’t just throw them away… I pulled them off the wall, put them on the back deck, and destroyed them with a hammer. Then I took the little itty bits of wood, glass, and paper, and threw them away. You know what it’s like, right? To throw something away?”

“I know a little something about it,” Gavin says softly, his eyes even sadder and shit… now I’m feeling sorry for him.

“Don’t even give me that ‘poor me’ look, Gavin. You have no right.”

Sighing, he grabs my hand and walks to the far side of the living room, pulling me along. When he reaches the big, overstuffed chair that sits in the corner, he releases my hand and lowers himself down. I stand there, two feet from him, and watch as he leans back and plants his feet on the floor, legs slightly apart. He props his elbow on the chair casually. Lowering his chin into the palm of his hand, he looks at me with determined eyes and says, “Okay… let’s have it.”

I blink at him. “Let’s have what?”

“Well, you’re obviously pissed at me. You need the chance to get it off your chest… lay into me. So let’s have it.”

Standing there with my arms wrapped around my stomach, I look down at him primly and say, “No thanks. I’ve made my peace with what happened between us.”

“Bollocks, you have,” Gavin says calmly. “In case you haven’t forgotten, let me remind you. You told me you were pregnant. I was a complete arse and blamed you entirely. I think I even called you stupid for doing so. I never once gave you the benefit of the doubt, I left you under the pretense of needing time to think, and I drove away from you. Straight to the airport without a backward glance, boarded a plane, and flew to England.”

“Stop it,” I say softly, because I don’t need the recap.

He ignores me. “I left you high and dry, alone while you were pregnant. I stayed away for twelve long weeks and never contacted you once to see if you were okay.”

“Enough, Gavin,” I say with a little more force, dropping my arms and curling my hands into balls.

“I left you, and you were scared… alone… unsure of what to do. You were heartbroken, angry, and sad.”

Digging my nails into the palm of my hands, I glare at him.

“You cried and broke things,” he says, his voice hard and menacing. “You cursed me and then cried some more. Come on, Sweet… let me have it, because I sure as hell made it clear to you, by my actions, that neither you nor our daughter were important to me.”

“She is not your daughter!”
I scream at him, my chest rising and falling with anger and bitterness. My eyes fill with wetness, puddle deep, and then spill over. I take a deep breath and let it out, and then do it again, until I feel more in control.

My voice is a bit more rational when I repeat, “She’s not your daughter. You didn’t want her, and now you have no right to her.”

Gavin stares me… his eyes wide, skin pale. Pain takes hold of his face… crumbling it right before me into a million pieces, and my heart lurches. I open my mouth to take back those cruel words, because no matter what… I didn’t mean that. I never meant that.

With lightning-fast speed, Gavin lurches forward in the chair and grabs me around my waist. My hands fly to his shoulders for balance as he pulls me in between his legs while he moves forward to sit on the edge of the cushion. His hands are fast… going to the hem of my sweatshirt, yanking it upward to the bottom of my breasts, exposing my stomach, which is swollen in the lower portion. He stares at my belly, his eyes filled with remorse.

Leaning forward, he kisses my stomach so softly that I barely feel it. Turning his head, he lays his cheek against my skin and wraps his arms around my waist to hold me tight to him. I squeeze my eyes shut against the hauntingly beautiful image of the man before me, humbled against my womb as he hugs his baby and me.

“She is my daughter,” he murmurs. “I always wanted her. I may have been scared, but I always wanted her.”

Hesitantly, I move my hands from his shoulders to his head, slipping my fingers in his cool, dark hair. I press against his head… pushing him into my stomach a little harder, and he gives a stuttering breath.

“I am so sorry, Savannah,” he says with so much anguish that I don’t think I can take it. I feel wetness on my stomach, and I know it’s tears from his eyes.

“Oh, God,” I croak, gripping his head tighter.

“So sorry,” he murmurs, turning to kiss my belly again. “So sorry. So very fucking sorry.”

My own tears start again, and I let them freely fall. I let them fall… let them pour out all of my past anger and hurt…I let them slide down my cheeks and beg them to take away the bitter betrayal I’ve been feeling.

Gavin lifts his head and tilts his head back to look at me. His eyes are wet… tortured. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. A man can never do worse than abandoning his love when she needs him most. I did that, and I don’t deserve a drop of your kind heart. I don’t deserve for you to put your hands on my cheeks and tell me it will be all right. I have no right to ask for assurances or for a place in your life. I don’t have a single thing I’m entitled to right now, and yet… I’m begging you, Savannah. I am begging you with everything in my soul to please tell me it’s okay. To please forgive me, and let me back in. I will do anything you ask and, I swear, I will never let you down again.”

Gavin pushes off the chair and drops to his knees, his face pressing into my stomach again as he kisses my skin, wetting it with more tears.

He presses the words into me… straight through the skin and muscle that protects our little peanut. “Please forgive me, daughter. Please forgive your father for his weakness. I swear I’ll never leave you again. Please ask your mommy to forgive a man for being scared and weak. For having too many demons in his closet. I’m begging you… please.”

“Stop it,” I cry out and grab him by the hair again, pulling his face away. He sits backward on his haunches, and I drop to my knees with a straight spine so we’re face to face. “Please stop.”

Gavin blinks at me, sending a fresh wave of tears down his tortured face. I bring my hands up and wipe them away, giving him a sad smile laced with the very forgiveness he is begging for. “It’s okay, Filthy. It will be okay. It’s going to be fine. I promise.”