I wanted him in. But none of that matters. He volunteered to go on a mission, and my guess is that he would have volunteered to go even if you had been there, because that’s who he was. He’s the same as my father—it just took me years to see it. If you want to blame someone, you blame the men who pulled the trigger, because that’s the only blame worth placing.”
He dropped his head. I turned, took his beard-rough cheeks in my hands, and lifted his face to meet my eyes. “Sometimes bad things happen. And there’s no blame to be placed. You can’t reason with the universe, no matter how sound your logic is. If everything made sense, then Maisie wouldn’t have cancer, and my parents would be alive, Ryan would be here. You never would have grown up the way you did. We are imperfect people made that way by an imperfect world, and we don’t always get a say in what shapes us. I do not blame you for Ryan. The only person who does, is you. And if you don’t let that pain go, it’s going to shape the rest of your life. You have that choice.”
“I love you. You know that, right? No matter what’s happened, or how badly I screwed this up, I love you.”
I dropped my hands, swallowed the lump in my throat, and nodded. “I know. And I wish that love and trust went hand in hand with us, but somewhere they got separated, and I don’t know if they can ever find their way back. I have to be able to believe the things you tell me, and that’s broken. Maybe if Maisie weren’t sick, and I was a little stronger…but I just can’t. Not right now, at least. And I know that you love the kids, and they love you. And I was wrong to cut you off from them. I was hurt and made some lame excuses in my head. But the truth is that I could always trust you with them. I mean, you’re their father.” I gave him a side nudge.
“On paper.”
“In reality.” Something clicked in my head. “This is why you didn’t press me to tell them about the adoption, isn’t it? You knew the truth would come out.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t want them in that position.”
“Yes.”
I stood and began pacing again. “Do you want a role in their lives?”
“God, yes. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”
He’d said those same words after the first time we’d been together. He’d lived them since he arrived in Telluride, always given me the choice on how far I’d let him in. He’d never pushed his way in, never demanded anything more than I wanted to allow.
It didn’t matter how badly he’d hurt me, Beckett was still the same guy I’d fallen in love with. The same man my kids loved and needed. The only thing that had changed was my perception of him—of us.
“Okay, then here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll just act like we’re divorced.”
“We were never married.”
“A minor detail. What I mean is that people who have one-night stands manage to share kids. You and I love each—loved each other. We can figure it out. If you’re serious about staying—”
“I built a house, Ella. What more do you want?”
“Are you still in the military?” I knew the answer, of course. He couldn’t get out, not while we needed the coverage for Maisie. But I also knew that once she was well he wouldn’t be able to handle settling in one place now that we weren’t together anymore, when all that kept him here was the kids. His nomadic soul would itch to move on.
“That’s not fair.”
“Yeah. I know.” I sighed. “Okay, if you’re sticking around…for now, then the kids can come over whenever they want. If you want to keep up the soccer stuff with Colt, we’ll work that out. If you want to hang with Maisie on the weekends, or whatever, we’ll see what works for everyone. You can have access to them, and them to you. We’re adults, and they’re kids. So we need to act more adultier than the kids. You need to speak up for your rights, and I need to give them to you. And I don’t want to hide the adoption from the kids, so maybe once Maisie is out of the woods, if you’re still here and everything, we should tell them that you’re really their dad.