come back to the lodge tonight?”
“I told you, to answer your questions. I know you have to have some,” she said honestly. Why else would she put herself through this?
“Okay.” Donovan nodded, watching her closely as if she might try to steal something. “I’ll ask the big question first.”
Hope braced herself. “Fire away.”
“How could you keep this from me?” His voice cracked. “Keep Ella from me?”
Hope sighed heavily. “I assure you, it wasn’t deliberate. When I realized I was pregnant, it took a while for it all to sink in.” Izzie was gone. Beau was gone. You were gone.
“But after it sank in?”
“I was in shock over losing Izzie and Beau. My heart was broken and I felt lost. You had been clear that we were through. You told me never to contact you again.” Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t ever do anything for me again. You’ve done enough. She’d been one hundred percent certain he didn’t want to be saddled with her baby. She could still see the hate in his eyes at Beau’s funeral when he looked in her direction.
“Oh, come on, Hope! That’s bull! You can’t honestly think that I wouldn’t want to know that we were going to have a child?”
She hung her head. “I was a mess . . . for a long time. Not thinking clearly, as I am now.” She was too embarrassed to tell him that she’d barely been functioning back then and didn’t know how to begin to explain that dark time to him now. And then the shame that followed. He’d gotten away from Sweet Home and made something of himself. She turned into a subpar version of the girl he’d known. She couldn’t tell him that her own mother had shunned her. How her parents divorced. How Piney had taken her in and nursed her somewhat back to life. Or at least woke her up and forced her to smell the coffee. That her former life was no more. No more Izzie, no more Beau. No more parents. No more stability. No more future. No more you! All of her energy had gone into surviving. Not trying to fix the past. She gave up hope of rising above like he had done.
He slammed his hand on the desk. “Why didn’t anyone from Sweet Home reach out to me?” He clutched a stone paperweight and she was certain he was going to hurl it against the far wall. “I would’ve wanted to know!”
Hope was startled by his transformation. And only now was she starting to comprehend what she’d done to him. The time she’d stolen away from him to get to know his daughter. And the damage she’d done to Ella by not telling the truth. She wasn’t going to make excuses anymore. Wasn’t going to point out that she’d only been a scared kid. It didn’t matter that she’d been sure then that he would’ve hated her for being pregnant. That was nothing compared to the hurt in his eyes now.
What in the world could she say to him? Okay, she would just give the facts and try to keep her crushed emotions out of it. Finally, she spoke. “I just found out tonight, from Aberdeen, why no one hunted you down and told you. It seems, back then, that Piney threatened to shut down the Hungry Bear if anyone gossiped about me being pregnant. No one was allowed to speculate about who the father was.” Hope watched him. “I wasn’t talking. I never told anyone that you were the father. Not even Piney or Sparkle.”
“Fine, you didn’t want me to know Ella. But why did you come up with this fictional father?” he ground out.
“Mom sent me away to Aunt Betsy in the Yukon.” The evenness of her tone didn’t betray the pain of the blow, when Mom had said Hope was to go with Aunt Betsy after Izzie’s funeral and not come back. Hope had begged not to be sent away. Dad had begged, too. At least he’d convinced Mom that Hope could return after several weeks—not back home, but to Sweet Home. “I got back to Sweet Home just a day before your grandmother died.” Hope hadn’t even gotten to tell Elsie how sorry she was for what she’d done to Beau. “I’m not sure if you want the details . . .”
“I do.”
“Well, when you came back for Elsie’s funeral I had just missed my period and knew nothing for sure. I did think about