Penny lowers herself to the ground beside me. “Your sister called me. She said you’re having a baby too.”
Bile churns while my heart thrashes in my chest like a caged beast. “No. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
Penny’s hand rubs circles on my back. “Yes, Cole. A baby. This is good. You can be a father again. The father you’ve always wanted to be. The father you deserve to be.”
A baby.
A baby.
A baby.
Mine.
Mine and Callie’s.
My sweet angel.
I bury my face in my hands as another sob strangles me.
“Cole, I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I was broken and just trying to feel something other than the crippling pain. I know it doesn’t justify what I did, but I am sorry. You are a good man. You deserve to find happiness again. And it seems like you already have. You just need to let yourself accept it.”
Then she smiles that smile I used to love so much. “I know you’re a Cali guy now, but you’ll always be a New Yorker at heart. And New Yorkers rebuild. We take the past with us as we move forward, and it makes us stronger. Smarter. You can do this, Cole. Don’t let that woman go through this without you.”
I squeeze my forehead with my fingertips. “I fucking left her, Penny. I yelled at her, and then I left her.”
Stupid and selfish.
“She’ll forgive you. She’ll understand. Help her understand.” She winks. “And thank your sister for calling me to come help your stubborn ass.”
I gaze down at Mia’s name etched onto the stone and trace it with my index finger. “I miss her so much.”
Penny presses her fingertips to her lips and then places them onto the top of the headstone. “Me too. But our baby girl was loved.”
Yes, she was loved.
Callie doesn’t answer any of my calls.
I’ve called and texted to let her know that I’m on my way home.
That I’m coming for her.
That I’m sorry I left.
That I love her.
It was a bitch getting a flight out with Thanksgiving only a few days away, but I didn’t care. I would’ve done it if I had to fly the damn plane myself.
I need to make this right.
My sister and her husband are watching TV with the boys when I get to her house. Not one of them looks up at me when I walk into the living room.
“Is she here?”
Brandon crosses his arms, and Miles follows suit.
I smirk. The little shits are taking her side.
“Come on, Josie. Is she here?”
“No, asshole,” she spits.
I look at Dan for help, but he knows better than to talk to me when his wife is pissed.
“I screwed up.” I lift my hands and then let them smack against my legs. “I freaked out, and I ran.”
“Ran like a little bitch,” Josie mutters under her breath.
Fine, I deserve that.
“But luckily, my incredible sister helped me out. Josie, I’m so thankful for you and for all you’ve done for me. You opened your home to me when we weren’t on the best of terms, you let me stay here for free, and you never gave up on me.”
“Even when you were being a total dick,” she adds.
I smile. “Yes. Even when I was being a total dick.”
Josie rises from the couch and comes to stand in front of me. “I know things haven’t been perfect between us in our adult years. But you’re still my brother, and I still love the shit out of you. It kills me to see you so broken. It kills me to watch you push Callie away like she isn’t the best damn thing that’s ever happened to you.”
She is.
“Help me make things right,” I say. “Where is she? At Gertie’s?”
Josie huffs out a sigh. “She’s in the pool house.”
My eyebrows collapse. “She’s at my place?”
She nods. “She wanted to be there for you when you got back. She knew this would be difficult for you.”
My angel.
Always worried about everyone else.
“Hey, Uncle Cole?”
“Yeah, Brandon?”
His lips flatten into a hard line. “Don’t break her heart.”
Pride swells in my chest. “I won’t, kid. Promise.”
And I bolt through the house, out the back door, and sprint across the lawn.
Callie startles when I burst into the pool house. She winces, clutching her ribs. “Ow.”
I cringe. “Shit, sorry.”
She’s in my bed, propped up by pillows, with a bandage sitting just above her left eye. The memory of her tiny body rolling over the hood of that car flashes through my mind.
Everything could’ve been gone in an instant.
Callie … and the life I didn’t even know was inside her.
My world.
“You’re back.” Her voice is soft, but her expressive eyes are wide, so much confusion and worry swirling around inside.
“Came back for you.”
She nods. “I got your texts.”
“Meant every word.”
She nods again.
I edge onto the bed beside her, careful to not upset her injuries. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugs. “Better now that you’re home.”
I take her face into my hands, resting my forehead against hers, inhaling her sweet scent. “I’m so sorry I left you. I’m sorry I said the things I said. I didn’t mean any of them.”
“I know,” she whispers.
I lean back just enough to look into her eyes. “Callie, I love you so much. I want this baby. I want us to be a family. I’m just so damn afraid. Scared to feel excited. Scared to feel hopeful. I don’t know how to do this. But I want to.”
A tear trickles down her cheek, and I sweep it away with my thumb.
“I know you’re scared,” she says. “I am too. I keep wondering if I’m going to lose this baby like all the rest. But it feels different this time, and I know that’s because of you. Everything is different.
“I was hurt when you left, but I knew you’d come back. I knew you had to figure it out on your own, just like I figured my life out on my own. You were patient with me, and you were there when I needed you most.” She glances around the pool house. “That’s why I waited here for you. Not because I’m weak or a doormat for abuse. But because I know you’ve going through something horrific, and you need time. I want to be here for you, Cole. I just wish you’d let me.”
I lift her hand to my lips, placing a kiss onto her soft skin, and I prepare to give Callie what she needs. What she deserves.
To be let in, all the way.
“I had a daughter. Mia. She was beautiful. Perfect in every way. I hadn’t felt love like that before. An all-consuming kind of love when you know you’re changed forever. That’s what it felt like. When I held her, and I looked down into those big, innocent eyes, I felt the happiest I’d ever been. I saw my future in her eyes. I saw myself doing everything with her, teaching her, helping her.”
I huff out a laugh. “I even imagined what it’d be like when she grew up and wore an outfit I didn’t approve of. What our first fight would be like. If she’d be sassy like her mother, or if she’d be stubborn like me. For two months, I held her and planned out how our lives would be.”