But, I’m not all that surprised that Jonathan kept tabs on her. I just never wanted to know. I spent a long time kind of pushing all of that to the back of my mind. I spent a long time making you the bad guy because it was easy. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m kind of confronting things. And I want to keep doing it.”
Something shifted inside him when she said that. He supposed forgiveness meant he wasn’t the villain anymore. And that was even harder to wrap his head around. “Go on.”
“If you aren’t busy today... I want to drive down to Coos Bay and see my mom.”
“Are you going to...call first?”
She shook her head, her dark hair swirling around her face. “No. I just thought I would go. But, I want you to come with me.”
She was willing to drive a couple of hours south to go and see her mother, and he hadn’t even physically gone to see his father since coming into Copper Ridge. Hadn’t seen his mother. It galled him. And, something else that she said scraped against something inside of him that he was trying to ignore. The fact that he was throwing a whole bunch of things in front of issues he didn’t want to deal with either.
“I can go down with you. Is the shop closed today?”
“I have a couple of teenagers that come and run it for me a few days a week. I asked one of them to fill in today. I just don’t want to wait. I want to do this, or I’m going to lose my nerve.”
“What are you going to... Say to her?”
“I’m going to ask her why she left.”
She was bright eyed and hopeful, looking at him just then. It killed him to see her like that. At least that sharp-eyed, angry Rebecca he’d met when he arrived in Copper Ridge was insulated against hurt. This one? She was opening herself up to it. It made him want to grab her, shake her, ask if she was crazy. “Rebecca, you might not want the answer to that question.”
“I know I don’t. Because there isn’t a good one. There just isn’t. There isn’t an excuse for leaving your children like that. But I need to know. I just need to do this. I’m spring cleaning my soul.”
“It’s December,” he pointed out.
“It’s metaphorical.”
“And you think this is the best way to what... To change things? To heal things?”
“I can never heal the scars on the outside. But it may not be too late for the ones inside.”
He looked down at her, at the hope in her eyes, and he hoped like hell that what she was saying was true. For her. Because he knew it was too late for him. Knew that it was too late to do any real redemption. Maybe that’s what was bothering him. He had her forgiveness, and while it mattered, while it meant something, it didn’t come with the fix that he had always hoped it might.
It was just one more piece of evidence that Gage West was damaged beyond repair.
He should walk away from her. Hell, he never should have walked into her life in the first place. Now, for some perverse reason, he agreed with the Rebecca he’d first met, who felt like he had no right to be in her life shaking things up.
But if he could fix this for her, if he had any part in doing something good for her, then he supposed it was worth it.
She was a better woman, a better person than he would ever be. And if he had never damaged her, he wondered what she might’ve become. Where she would be now.
She doesn’t blame you, so maybe it’s time you stopped blaming yourself.
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like it at all.
Maybe that was the other problem with accepting her forgiveness. He would have to give some to himself. And God knew where that might lead.
“Okay, I’ll go with you. Do you want me to drive?”
“Please,” she said. “I’m too nervous.”
“I can hardly imagine you being nervous.”
“The man who took my virginity while I trembled can’t imagine me being nervous?”
Her words were like a direct kick from a horse, straight to the gut. “We both know you were only trembling because you wanted me so much.”
That made her smile, and it resonated inside of him. Another bit of warmth, an unexpected bit of happiness. Another cut on his soul. “Okay, it