and directly at her. “Hello, Lizbeth.”
Madi could tell the instant Lizbeth realized who he was.
“Conner?” Lizbeth whispered. “What are you doing here?”
Wyatt couldn’t keep looking at Lizbeth, not when she’d gone white as a sheet. “It’s actually Wyatt,” he told her. “I use Conner sometimes when I don’t want someone to know who I am.”
“Who are you?” Robert had gone to his wife’s side, leaning against the chair and wrapping an arm around her as best he could.
“Wyatt Conner Carson. I’m a professional baseball player in the States. I don’t get much anonymity at home.”
“I see.” Lizbeth looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Madi spoke up. “I knew when you told me earlier about your history that it was highly likely you were talking about Wyatt. Once I told him, we wanted to make sure he didn’t startle you or stress you out, though I suppose that plan is out the porthole.”
“I’ve always wanted to apologize to you,” Wyatt went on. “I was drunk that night, but that’s no excuse for a one-night stand.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?” Lizbeth asked. “I asked Marie to give you my number.”
“When I woke up and you were gone, I packed up and left. I never saw her.” He stared at his clasped fingers. “Can you forgive me?”
Lizbeth took a deep breath, which made Wyatt look up to see her eyes brimming with tears. “If you can forgive me. We were both impaired that night. We both did things we wouldn’t normally have under other circumstances.”
The weight he’d felt lift when he told Madi the whole truth didn’t compare to the weight he felt lift now. “Done. A long time ago.” He thought that was true. He prayed that was true.
She took another breath and glanced up at her husband who squeezed her shoulder. “Then you know what the result of that night was?”
Wyatt nodded. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I don’t know all of the details, obviously, but I’m glad you didn’t have to go through it alone.”
“Robert and I have talked about it a number of times over the years. That baby is the reason we married when we did, which allowed us to fight back against my father when we needed to.”
Robert took over as Lizbeth reached up to grasp his hand. “We can’t say for sure what we would have done if Lizbeth had been able to carry the baby to term, but we’d like to think we would have tracked you down at some point before the baby was born and let you know. We hadn’t gotten that far when the miscarriage occurred.”
He tried to put himself in their shoes. “It couldn’t have been an easy position to be in. It’s easy to sit here now and say I would have understood regardless of what you decided, but I honestly don’t know.”
Lizbeth sat up straighter. “It’s okay to grieve. We certainly did. Your life would be very different if the baby had lived. You never knew he or she existed, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel the loss.” She looked from Wyatt to Madi who stood behind him somewhere. “Both of you.”
The loss had hit him like a ton of bricks an hour earlier, but being given permission to grieve felt freeing. Likely he would later, in private, perhaps in his quiet time with God, perhaps with Madi. Maybe. Depending on how she reacted to all of this.
Silence stretched out for several minutes.
Yvette finally broke it. “Why don’t we all retire to our own quarters for a while to regroup? We can meet in the dining room for dinner. I think it will be too cold outside.”
Wyatt and Lizbeth stood. Robert put his arm around Lizbeth to support her as they walked towards the door. Wyatt didn’t know where Madi was, but he felt as alone as he ever had when the door shut behind the other two couples.
“That could have gone a lot worse,” she said as she started toward the hall to the bedroom.
He trudged along behind her grateful when she went out to the deck behind their room and sat in one of the chairs. The outdoor heater had been turned on, though they didn’t really need it at the moment. She took one of the single chairs rather than the double one that would have invited him to sit with her.
He took the one next to her. “How do you think she took it?”
“I think she was surprised, but I don’t think