“I thought so. We seem to have gotten there. Aren’t we?”
Ember let the silence flood around her once more, and then she sucked in a breath. “I was seventeen when my mother died, and I didn’t know how to grieve. I was stuck being angry—I was so mad that my mother had left me. It wasn’t her fault, but I wasn’t ready to be alone without her yet...” Ember’s voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “So instead of feeling it all, I tried to avoid it. While she was dying, I was busy running away from the heartbreak I wasn’t ready to feel. I drank. I partied. I did whatever I could to numb the pain.”
“And your father?” Casey prodded.
“My father told me that if I didn’t straighten up, I’d never see another penny from him. I don’t blame him. Obviously, I was out of control.” Ember looked down at the slumbering infant, then smoothed his hair with her fingertips. “So I pulled myself together enough to pass muster. I started college—my dad got me in—and I tried to just put my childhood behind me. I actually thought that was possible! I’d kept up the partying through college, and one night... I don’t remember anything from the party, but the next morning, I was pretty sure I did some things I regretted. Some friends took pictures, and I was—” She looked away, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, even after all this time. “It doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say, while I didn’t know it yet, I’d conceived my son that night, and I had no idea who the father was.”
“How old were you?” he asked.
“Twenty. Old enough to know better,” she said, then shook her head. “I had to tell my father, and he suggested—rather strongly—that I give the baby up for adoption. I wasn’t in any position to be properly supporting myself, much less a child. I had no idea who the father was, so I couldn’t get help from him. I was halfway through my first degree, and if I dropped out and raised my son on my own, I’d have been a poor, single mom, just like my own mother. I was scared, and I thought that if I could only adjust my thinking and know from the start that I was giving the baby up that I wouldn’t get attached.”
“Did it work?” he asked softly.
“I thought so... I chose a family—a pastor and his wife who were childless. They were good people, and I knew they’d love him and raise him well. I brought them to doctor’s appointments and everything. But then when he was born, it felt different,” she said, and the memory of her little boy’s squished, red face rose up in her heart so forcefully that it felt like a punch. “His adoptive mother talked to me a little bit. She said they were naming him Steven. And that name was all wrong...my son wasn’t a Steven, but I had no say. I forced myself to sign the papers, thinking that if I just got over that hurdle, it wouldn’t hurt so badly. Then she asked if she could hold him. I tried to be strong, and I said yes. She took him from my arms.” Ember closed her eyes, steadying her breath. “I’ll never forget that cry... I dream of it still.”
She felt Casey’s hand close over hers, and she looked over at him to find his eyes misted with tears.
“They say it’ll get easier, that you’ll go on with your life... Except it never got easier for me.” She shook her head faintly. “I can’t call my son Steven. I still haven’t named him in my heart, but he isn’t a Steven. He’s just my baby.”
And her heart still ached for him, as did her arms. She wouldn’t be complete again, because he was gone, and he was no longer a baby, either. Time had swept him away along with that adoptive family.
“I’m sorry,” Casey murmured, and his grip on her hand tightened. It was comforting, and she was glad for the contact with him, rooting her to the present.
“Ironically, I thought that searching out this property would be a welcome distraction from it all.” She smiled bitterly.
“And then I show up with the twins.” He finished the thought for her.
She didn’t answer, but they both knew it was true.
“Is this why you don’t want children of your own?” Casey asked.
“Yes.” She nodded, her control coming back. “I didn’t pray about it—not in earnest—before I gave my son up. I just closed my eyes and did it, and it was the biggest mistake of my life, trying to please a father who never really loved me in order to keep my financial security. Adoption is a good and right decision for so many people, but not for me.”
Ember looked over at the big cowboy, wondering what he was thinking just then, but he didn’t say anything, just looked down at her hand in his.
“You don’t stop being a mother when you give your child away,” she went on, hoping he could understand this. “I carry him in my heart, and I pray for him constantly. He has a birth mother who loves him more than he’ll ever know.”
“You should forgive yourself,” Casey said quietly.
“Have you given up a child?” she asked, meeting his gaze painfully.
“No.” He swallowed.
“It isn’t about forgiving myself,” she said softly. “It’s about living with myself. Two different things.”
“Is it?” Casey shook his head. “It might feel different to you, but I’m pretty sure they’re the same thing.”
“You can’t understand,” she said.
“I can try.” He released her hand and put his arm up across the couch, his rough hand close to her face, and she wished she could lean into him, feel his calloused palm against her cheek. Comfort... But longing for physical comfort could be a dangerous thing, and she’d learned that lesson young.
“When I gave up
