“It’s okay, son,” he says, and then he lets go of me. “You always hurt the ones you love first. You know why?” he asks. “It’s because the ones you love will forgive you.”
“I don’t know if I deserve your forgiveness,” I say honestly. “But I’m going to prove to you that I’m sorry.”
“This,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “Coming here, being here, shows me how sorry you are.” He wipes his tears. “Are you staying?”
“I asked Emily to marry me this morning,” I say. “I want to marry her here. I want to build a family here.”
“Then there is only one more thing to say.” He smiles at me. “Welcome home, son!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emily
“Are you okay?” I ask when he walks back into the house with Jacob beside him. Both of them look like they went through the war zone.
“I am,” he says, smiling, and I see his eyes are red from crying. “It’s going to be okay.” He wraps his arms around the top of my chest, and then Jacob goes over to Kallie and kisses her neck.
“Do you want to go fishing tomorrow?” Jacob looks over at Ethan, who just looks at me, and I try to hide the smile that is filling my face.
“Yeah,” Ethan says. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Well, get ready because we leave at seven,” Jacob says to Ethan, and we spend the rest of the day with Kallie and Jacob, and when we leave, neither of us says anything. When we walk into the house, he takes me in his arms.
“Are you happy?” I ask when he buries his face in my neck while we lie in the hammock, watching the stars.
“I am,” he says. “It was rough with my dad.” He starts to say, “He gave up everything to love me, and I threw it away as if it was nothing. When, in reality, it was everything.”
“It was,” I say, and that night when he makes love to me, it’s slow, and he holds me all night long. When the sun rises the next day, we are sitting on the back stoop while he waits for Jacob to pick him up.
“Have fun,” I say, kissing him goodbye and then waving to him. I slip back into bed, but I toss and turn and finally give up.
I’m making myself some tea when there is a knock on the door. Walking down the hallway to the front door, I see Savannah standing there, looking out. “Hey,” I say to her, and she turns around and smiles at me.
“Sorry for dropping by.” She turns and wipes a tear away. “I didn’t think coming here would make me cry.”
I smile at her. “You don’t ever have to be sorry about stopping by. Come in.” I move aside, and she walks into the house. “This is a nice surprise. I was going to call Jenna to come over and have tea with me, but this might be better.” She smiles at me, and we walk down the hallway. “Would you like some cold tea or coffee?”
“Um, do you have whiskey?” she asks, and my eyes get big. “I need the encouragement.”
“Why does that scare me?” I ask. Walking over, I grab the whiskey and a glass, bringing it to her.
She takes the top off and pours herself a shot and then looks at me, wincing, “Horrible.”
“Not for the faint of heart, I’m told.” I stand here in front of her.
She leans over and grabs her purse, taking out a paper. “Before you say anything, hear me out.” She looks down, tapping the paper in front of her that is folded out. “I got pregnant by accident of course,” she tells me, and I just look at her as she pours another shot, and this time, the wince is less. “Smoother the second time.” She laughs, wiping her mouth. “Ethan’s father is an asshole. I should have seen it then, but I was too swept up in being loved by someone to even notice I was being played.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, wanting to reach out and hold her.
“After I found out I was pregnant, I was beside myself. I was eighteen, living alone, my mother, at her best day, was barely around. I had no one, and Liam didn’t want anything to do with me, so I went to his father, and, well, that was even worse.” She takes another shot. “He threw two hundred dollars at me and told me to take out the trash.” She wipes the tears from her eyes, and I can’t help the tears that fall out of my eyes. “I was always known as that kid. The one who was not good enough for anyone or anything. No matter how successful I was in school, no one let me forget I was trash.”
“That’s so wrong,” I say, not even imagining how it was.
“So I played a game with the devil,” she says, looking down. “I went to his office and blackmailed him.” She takes another shot. “Fuck, this is harder than I thought.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“I want to,” she tells me. “I blackmailed him, and with that money, I bought my bar and this house.” She smiles now. “For once, I had a home. A real home. Not just for me but also for Ethan. I was determined for him to have a home. For him to know that he was loved, for him to know that he had a home where he was always going to be safe.” She looks around. “This is his,” she tells me. “It was always supposed to be his. Let me give this to you guys.”
“But I bought it from you,” I say, and she smiles and looks down. “What did you do?”
“I never signed the papers,” she says, and I open my mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so
