She set the car seat down on the couch and unbuckled it, lifting Riley into her arms and heading toward the stairs.
“We didn’t have anything when I was growing up,” he said, his tone flat and strange.
Danielle swallowed hard, lifting her hand to cradle Riley’s soft head. “I’m sorry. But unless you were homeless or were left alone while one of your parents went to work all day—and I mean alone, not with siblings—then we might have different definitions of nothing.”
“Fine,” he said. “We weren’t that poor. But we didn’t have anything extra, and there was definitely nothing to do around here but get into trouble when you didn’t have money.”
She blinked. “What kind of trouble?”
“The usual kind. Go out to the woods, get messed up, have sex.”
“Last I checked, condoms and drugs cost money.” She held on to Riley a little bit tighter. “Pretty sure you could have bought a movie ticket.”
He lifted his shoulder. “Look, we pooled our money. We did what we did. Didn’t worry about the future, didn’t worry about anything.”
“What changed?” Because obviously something had. He hadn’t stayed here. He hadn’t stayed aimless.
“One day I looked up and realized this was all I would ever have unless I changed something. Let me tell you, that’s pretty sobering. A future of farming, barely making it, barely scraping by? That’s what my dad had. And I hated it. I drank in the woods every night with my friends to avoid that reality. I didn’t want to have my dad’s life. So I made some changes. Not really soon enough to improve my grades or get myself a full scholarship, but I ended up moving to Seattle and getting myself an entry-level job with a PR firm.”
“You just moved? You didn’t know anybody?”
“No. I didn’t know anyone. But I met people. And, it turned out, I was good at meeting people. Which was interesting because you don’t meet very many new people in a small town that you’ve lived in your entire life. But in Seattle, no one knew me. No one knew who my father was, and no one had expectations for me. I was judged entirely on my own merit, and I could completely rewrite who I was. Not just some small-town deadbeat, but a young, bright kid who had a future in front of him.”
The way he told that story, the very idea of it, was tantalizing to Danielle. The idea of starting over. Having a clean slate. Of course, with a baby in tow, a change like that would be much more difficult. But her association with Joshua would allow her to make it happen.
It was...shocking to realize he’d had to start over once. Incredibly encouraging, even though she was feeling annoyed with him at the moment.
She leaned forward and absently pressed a kiss to Riley’s head. “That must’ve been incredible. And scary.”
“The only scary thing was the idea of going back to where I came from without changing anything. So I didn’t allow that to happen. I worked harder than everybody else. I set goals and I met them. And then I met Shannon.”
Something ugly twisted inside of Danielle’s stomach the moment he said the other woman’s name. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. She felt...curious. But in a desperate way. Like she needed to know everything about this other person. This person who had once shared Joshua’s life. This person who had undoubtedly made him the man standing in front of her. If she didn’t know about this woman, then she would never understand him.
“What, then? Who was Shannon?” Her desperation was evident in her words, and she didn’t bother hiding it.
“She was my girlfriend. For four years, while I was getting established in Seattle. We lived together. I was going to ask her to marry me.”
He looked away from her then, something in his blue eyes turning distant. “Then she found out she was pregnant, and I figured I could skip the elaborate proposal and move straight to the wedding.”
She knew him well enough to know this story wasn’t headed toward a happy ending. He didn’t have a wife. He didn’t have a child. In fact, she was willing to bet he’d never had a child. Based on the way he interacted with Riley. Or rather, the very practiced way he avoided interacting with Riley.
“That didn’t happen,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say, and part of her wanted to spare him having to tell the rest of the story. But, also, part of her needed to know.
“She wanted to plan the wedding. She wanted to wait until after the baby was born. You know, wedding dress sizes and stuff like that. So I agreed. She miscarried late, Danielle. Almost five months. It was...the most physically harrowing thing I’ve ever watched anyone go through. But the recovery was worse. And I didn’t know what to do. So I went back to work. We had a nice apartment, we had a view of the city, and if I worked, she didn’t have to. I could support her, I could buy her things. I could do my best to make her happy, keep her focused on the wedding.”
He had moved so quickly through the devastating, painful revelation of his lost baby that she barely had time to process it. But she also realized he had to tell the story this way. There was no point lingering on the details. It was simple fact. He had been with a woman he loved very much. He had intended to marry her, had been expecting a child with her. And they had lost the baby.
She held on a little bit more tightly to Riley.
“She kept getting worse. Emotionally. She moved into
