Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,116

the dad. We’re not married. Not even together. And still … How could any man do that?”

“You didn’t even want it to happen,” she guessed, “and yet you still feel protective.”

“Well, yeah.” He took his hands down and sighed. “I can’t imagine any other way a guy could feel. I don’t get it.”

“Because you’re a good man,” she said. “And you get that from your mother. You could think about that. She isn’t here anymore, but she gave you such a gift. And I’ll bet she’d be so happy to know it.”

Her hand was on his, trying to let him know. Trying to show him. His deep-blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, and when he hauled in a breath, it was ragged. “But, Harlan,” she went on, urgent with the need to say this. “You don’t know that was what happened. Much more likely that she just told him she wanted out, don’t you think? That’s what I’d have done. I’d have said, ‘I want out. I can’t do this anymore.’ It just doesn’t sound to me like a baby would make your mom leave. It seems like a baby would make her stay.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “I wonder about Annabelle. I wonder if she’d have left earlier, if not for Annabelle. And maybe, Annabelle being five … maybe she thought, ‘They’re all in school now. Time to have my own life.’ That’s how it is, when you’re a mom.”

“What?” he said. “They’re in school, so you want to leave them?”

“No. Don’t you see?” She had her hand on his arm now. “She wouldn’t leave. She’d ask him to leave. She’d tell him she wanted him to move out. She was the mom. She’d stay in the house. That’s how it works. He wasn’t getting any better, from what you’ve said, and she’d think, ‘I don’t want to raise another daughter in this house with him. I don’t want to teach her that this is OK. It’s time to change, no matter how hard it is.’ And maybe, seeing you go off to college … maybe she thought, ‘There’s more life for me. All I have to do is make the move.’”

“Do you think?”

“Yes.” That she wasn’t pregnant, he meant. Did she think that was true? She hoped so, at least. She hoped so with all her heart. And she couldn’t stand—she couldn’t stand—to watch him tear himself apart over this. Not if he’d never know one way or the other.

Wait a minute. She said, “You know—if she was pregnant, they can find out. She’d have gone to a doctor, or she’d have told somebody. Somebody at her work, maybe. She’d have confided. And the pregnancy idea doesn’t fit, Harlan. Why would he fight with her, choke her, because she was pregnant?”

“He wouldn’t,” Harlan said. ‘He liked when she was pregnant. I think it …” He blew out a breath. “It made him feel like you said. Like she’d stay.”

“So why did he say it at all?” she said. “Why was it on his mind? Did that happen before?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “With me. Sad story of his life.”

“Ah.” She sat back and started to eat her stew again. “It’s not that I’m not emotionally invested in your story,” she told him. “It’s just that I’m really hungry.”

He smiled himself, just briefly, but he started to eat again, too. She said, “Let me guess. He felt trapped.”

“You got it. He played football in college, but when my mom got pregnant with me, they got married. His folks made a big deal of it. Insisted. They’re the hard-line type. Ultra-religious, in that really cheerless way. And he couldn’t keep up with school and a job and football. So he quit the team. He was sure he had a shot to go big. Blamed her forever.”

“Her,” Jennifer said, “and you. You’re his big second chance, obviously. Did he even see you? I mean, who you were?”

Harlan stopped eating and said, “I never thought about it.”

She’d bet she knew the answer. She asked, “Did he have a shot?”

“Hell, no,” Harlan said. “Do you know how many college players make it to the NFL? One-point-six percent, that’s how many. And even if you’re drafted, unless you’re taken in the first round, the odds aren’t great from there, either. Anywhere from ten to forty percent of those guys make it five years. A whole lot of them don’t make it two years.”

“And he wasn’t one of them.”

“This game takes more than