Page 62 of Hard Rain Coming
“Jack.”
She nodded and whispered, “Of course.”
Dallas didn’t know what the right thing to say or do was, but he figured getting to the point sooner rather than later was the best route, and the only way to do that was to jump in.
“Can we talk about today?” He wasn’t sure she heard him, but then she sighed and pulled away. She slipped from his arms, got to her feet, and grabbed a glass of sweet tea from the table, which she drank in its entirety before turning back to him. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and her skin was patchy pink. She looked so damn forlorn, he wanted to crush the pain she couldn’t hide.
“I met with our daughter’s mother.”
Our daughter. Christ.
Vivian’s voice was strained, and she sniffled, wiping her nose as a fresh batch of tears shimmered into appearance. “She’s so lovely, Dallas. Perfect, really. The kind of mom every child wishes for.”
Vivian stared down and gave a small shrug. “Her name is Alicia. We had a nice chat. She was going to talk to…” She cleared her throat. “She said she’d get back to me if a meeting is possible.” Vivian raised her head. “She calls her Summer, and she’s beautiful. She reached out three years ago, but I wasn’t ready, and now that I—” Her voice caught, and she gasped, wringing her hands in front of her, Vivian’s misery wide open and ugly. “Now that I am, I think I might have screwed up. It’s been hours, and I haven’t heard back. I don’t think she wants anything to do with me.”
Dallas got to his feet but kept his distance, knowing Vivian needed some space. “She’s a teenager, Viv. She’s busy. Maybe her mom hasn’t been able to connect with her yet.”
Again, Vivian gave a small shrug. “I don’t know that I deserve her absolution anyway.”
“Is it absolution you’re looking for?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he said, closing the distance between them. He kept his voice gentle. “You deserve the world, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give it to you fifteen years ago. But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere. You don’t need to do this alone.”
“Have you forgiven me?” She looked up, and her expression damn near broke him.
“You don’t need my forgiveness.”
The shadows that clung to her eyes were heartbreaking. Dallas held her face between his hands, and when she would have looked away, he gave her no option because he wanted her to see his penance. His pain. His regret.
“Jade said something to me a few days ago, and it’s something I can’t shake.”
“What’s that?” Vivian’s voice was low.
“She thinks I’m alone because I don’t want to be in a relationship or because the only woman I wanted didn’t want me back. The way I see it, she’s got a few things wrong.”
“I’d like to be there when you tell that to Jade.”
He smiled at that and stepped closer. “I’m not against being in a relationship. I just never chose to expend the energy on one because I knew they weren’t going anywhere.”
God, had her eyes always been so huge and shiny?
“You ruined any other woman I met because the day you left, I gave up on that kind of thing. At the time, I was pissed off, and I handled things badly. I acted like I didn’t care and made no effort to find you. No effort to find out why you’d left. I made a choice to forget about the good things, like swimming naked at the jumping rock. The way you look when you’re asleep. Or how you sound when I’m inside you.” He took a breath. Had to get this right. “I forgot them because it hurt to remember. I wish that we’d been old enough, mature enough to be truthful with one another.”
“Summer,” Vivian whispered, leaning into his palm. “I should have told you, but I was afraid.”
“I know.” Dallas nodded. “I want to think I would have been there for you the way you needed, but I’m not so sure nineteen-year-old me would have been man enough. And for that, I’m sorry. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not afraid to say the things I wanted to say back then but couldn’t.” He bent his head. “I’m not afraid to say that I love you.”
Vivian made a noise, a soft sigh, or something like it, and he couldn’t help himself. He lowered his mouth and claimed hers in a kiss that went deep. It was slow and meaningful. It was filled with sorrow for things lost, and hope for a future not yet claimed. He kissed her until she trembled. Until he tasted the salt of her tears. Until he let go of not only his regret and guilt, but of hers.
And when the kiss ended, the two of them stood together in the gathering twilight and said nothing. She clung to him, and he held her as if she were a precious doll that could break at any moment.
But Vivian Bridgestone was not breakable. He knew her strength. And he envied her for it. “What you did would have broken me if our positions were reversed.”
Vivian pulled back, and he felt the truth that lived in her eyes. “I’ve loved you since the summer I was fourteen, when you went to the Founder’s Cabin with Melody Lynn Weathers. The way you looked at me. The way you made me feel. I wanted to scratch out her eyes.” Her voice dropped. “I don’t think I knew it then, just how strong my feelings were.” She glanced up at him. “I do now, but I’m scared. We got so much wrong back then.”
“We did,” he acknowledged. “But I think you get things wrong until you learn enough. Sometimes, that takes months. Sometimes, it takes years. Decades even. I also think we need to take a step back and remember that we were both young and dumb, and what we had together was years ahead of what we could handle.”