River's Return (River's End Series, #3) (28 page)

“Maybe.”

He nodded. “Okay. You assume the worst; I’ll assume the best. And hopefully the future will lie somewhere between.”

She wanted to know what else he had to say about his family. She never heard him open up before, not like this. “Everyone else mentions your dad like he was such a great guy.” Allison heard of Henry Rydell quite frequently. He was spitting image of Jack. Almost a legend, he single-handedly steered the Rydell River Ranch onto the path of profit when most small family farms and ranches were going under. Henry Rydell expanded and improved their operations with unparalleled success. He left his sons a huge legacy that made them almost royalty around there. It was surprising to hear what one of his sons felt about his share of the legacy. Being anything but positive, Shane thought he was just lucky.

“He was. We never saw eye-to-eye on anything. From the time I was a little kid, something about me rubbed him the wrong way. So everyone else saw him differently than I did. But I didn’t want him to die. I regretted for most in my life that we could never find some kind of middle ground or compromise. Never any resolution between us.” He threw another rock that landed midway out in the river with a distant
thunk.

“Then again, maybe we never would have gotten along. It isn’t like he’d want a son who looks like this.” Shane swiped his hand over his inked body. “Or spent the last ten years the way I have. But then again, when I look at you, I think he’d finally tell me I’d gotten something right. Maybe if someone like you could love me, he might believe there was something in me that came out right.”

“You don’t need me to prove what is right in you,” she exclaimed. “Shane, you’re an amazing man. How could you not know that?” She wanted to shriek her annoyance. How could any father not love this man?

He tilted his head at her. “Then maybe you could try and not hate the idea of me as the father of your baby.”

She jerked back and her mouth popped open. “Y—you think I hate the idea? No. God, no. I’m so freaking selfish. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s what happened before.” She started shaking her head in frantic denial. When she spoke, her tone hinted at her exhaustion in trying to cope with another seven months of pregnancy. “It’s that I’m so fucking scared to do this all over again. But most of all, to lose another baby.”

He turned and replied, “Maybe if you care so much about losing it, you really do want it. And you’re not selfish. You’re just scared. I get that. I know how deep that fear runs for you. So give it to me. All of it. Give it over to me. Let me do all the worrying. Let me be the one who gets you through this. Call me, be with me, and just let me love you through this.”

“I don’t know how to do that. It’s my body that has to experience it.”

“My body will hold up yours. Marry me, Allison. Baby or not. You’re all I want in life. You made me belong although I never wanted to; but actually, it turned out to be all I wanted. I just didn’t know how to live and abide by everyone else’s rules and conventions. But for some reason, with you, it’s all okay. I fit in. I finally discovered my place in life.”

“But I represent the very definition of all those rules and conventions.”

He shrugged. “You want me to tell you the logical explanation for why we love whom we love? I can’t do that. I can just tell you that I’m here. Forever. Marry me, baby. Come on. You said you loved me.”

She closed her eyes and he brought her against his chest. “I do,” she admitted.

“So… let me get you through this. I can do that, baby. I can be what you need.”

She drew in a sharp breath. Allison never had anyone need her like that. And maybe, she never needed anyone like that either. But his certainty of her, and of them, including the baby, was a comfort she couldn’t deny. He was so sure, and seemed to have enough confidence to bolster hers.

It was insane. She didn’t do things like that. She didn’t even believe in it. You should date for years. Only fools rush in. You don’t know about real life, or lifelong love until you are together long enough to be sure.

But then again, look how well that went for her and Patrick. They were the epitome of cautious. Dating all through college, abiding by the traditional plans and rules with plenty of thought and care. And still, life fucked them over. She opened her eyes and found Shane staring right at her. There were no answers, only giant leaps. She’d never been willing to take a giant leap based on faith. She didn’t know how to, but Shane did. She knew in her gut that he embraced life in ways she never could. But his exuberant confidence and powers of belief were intoxicating and contagious.

“Allison? Please, marry me. Now. Today, if you want. I don’t need to wait. I already know. I’ve known for a long while. I just knew you needed longer before you knew. So maybe this happened for that reason. You might never have taken a chance with me, so life took it for you. And I’m here. I can do this with you. Just let me.”

Let me
. She started nodding as fresh tears rolled down her face. “Okay. I’ll let you. I’ll marry you. But you can’t… leave me. You can’t bail on me. I don’t have the strength to do this alone. I need yours.”

He drew her to his chest and calmly, quietly tucked her head close as his arms surrounded her. She expected a loud whooping for joy. Instead, he kissed the top of her head. “Okay. You got it. Forever.”

Something about his calm surety quelled her anxiety and panic. For the first time, she laid her hand flat on her stomach, and said, “I think it’s still alive.”

She felt his mouth on her cheek as his hand covered hers, pressing his fingertips gently on her skin. “I think so too.”

She closed her eyes. He didn’t mock her or get shocked by her crass words. He seemed to understand denying it was the only way she could stand to let it exist. “I don’t want to talk about it. The pregnancy, I mean. I don’t want to decorate a nursery, or buy anything. We don’t do anything until this is over. Okay?”

“Okay, when he or she is born, then we’ll do everything.”

She smiled at his eager compliance. “I don’t want to sit around discussing it either, or how I feel. I will go to the doctor and do the proper prenatal care. I’ll take care of myself. I promise you. But I don’t want to talk about it. I want to just live. Do our usual days and pretend like nothing is different.”

“Okay.”

She twisted around and looked into his eyes. She was humbled by the tender expression she saw there when his eyes softened at seeing her. The love she saw there was
for her
. “You don’t really mean that. Not talking. Not being excited. You—”

“I can take care of me. There’s no trauma for me. But there is for you. I can be however you ask me to be about this, and do whatever you need.”

“What if you start to think I’m a heartless bitch who doesn’t care about my own baby? It’s just… I did all of that once. And it was in the very last weeks that my own body killed my baby.”

He was quiet for a long, meaningful moment. The sun felt warm on their skin. The place was strangely quiet, with only the hum of a tractor in the orchard, and the soft twitters of birds. It was so peaceful. Like nothing bad could possibly happen in the world. She started to wonder if maybe living in this spot would make her feel like that, and she began to see why Shane liked it and found it so special.

Then he kissed the side of her face. “You didn’t kill your baby. It just happened. Sad things happen.”

She let his words stand, but her heart didn’t believe them. Her gut twisted as she pictured the moment all over again, fresh with the horror. “I felt it.” She finally admitted something she had never told anyone. Not even Patrick.

“What, honey?”

“I think I felt the moment she died.” Allison almost bit her tongue. It was such an ugly image, so sad and gross and awful; and it happened right inside her.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I was standing in front of my classroom, explaining something to my second grade class and I suddenly stopped and had to bend over. I felt this strong flurry of activity in my stomach. I noticed it, and made note of it; it was that strong. And then… nothing. It stopped. I went back to the reading group I was facilitating. After that, I—I didn’t feel her move again. But I refused to acknowledge it for over a day. Maybe I was just in denial. Maybe somewhere in me I knew, I just knew, what happened. I finally went to the doctor and they couldn’t find a heartbeat… well, you know the rest. I don’t like to rehash it.”

“I know the rest,” he replied.

“So you see? You don’t really know how bad it can get. Most people never do. But my daughter died inside of me and then I carried her around like some kind of organic, breathing coffin… now, do you understand? You can’t really eradicate all the stress of this for me.”

He leaned his face into her neck and she jumped when she felt how wet it was. She turned and saw the tears filling his eyes. They were for her and what she had suffered. She could see the depths of his heartache for her. He heard her. She let out a breath. Rarely did people, besides Patrick of course, hear how bad it really was. There was a reason why she could not get over it, or let it go. It was the most horrifying experience of her life. And one of the most horrible she’d ever heard of.

“No, I don’t really know. But I refuse to accept that your life is over, Allison. Or that the same thing will happen again. I have to believe that this time will end differently. I have enough faith in that for both of us. And I can do whatever you need from me to make this more bearable for you. If I could undo it, believe me, I would. I would never ask you to go through it. Just so we’re clear? I already accepted that we would never have kids. I was okay with that. I was going to marry you regardless,
no matter what.
Just so you understand what I’m doing here. We were happening, as far as I was concerned. But this happened too. I can’t undo it and neither can you. So we’ll go through it, and do the best we can. With no judgment on however that turns out. We’ll get through the next seven months, hell, we’ll get through the rest of our lives, together.”

Oh, those pretty, naive words. She and Patrick used to speak like that, as if they had any control over it. Or guarantees. But Shane’s certainty, and his belief seemed so genuine, she didn’t have the heart to argue the cruel reality of life and the best laid plans of even the greatest relationships. Neither could she resist his optimism. Or how sincerely he wanted to be there for her.

“Okay.”

He spun her around. His lips tilted up into the smallest smile and his heart was tripping. His mouth came down on hers and the kiss he started made her stomach tug in desire and pleasure. He leaned her back on the ground, and with the world spread out before them, made ardent love to Allison as if she were the most treasured gift of his life.

Chapter Eighteen

“I HAVE TO TELL you, man, I really never expected it to be you, doing
this
, here.”

Shane grinned at Jack. Ian was standing to the left of them and nodded in agreement. They stood, all three of them, dressed in suits that they usually reserved for church. They’d always gone all out for a lot of the major holidays, but today was special. They stood before a white trellis, which they spent the last weekend erecting on the bank above the river. They set it right on the spot where Shane proposed to Allison and then made love to her to seal the deal. But no one needed to know the particulars of that. That insane, unbelievable day when he managed to pull off what he never dreamed he could: getting Allison to marry him and have his baby.

The trellis belonged to their mom and had previously stood at the entrance of the Rydells’ private cemetery. They carefully removed it and put it on one of the small trailers behind the tractor before dragging it up there. Erin spent many hours embellishing it with fresh flowers that she wove in a blinding rainbow of colors. The wonderful scent imbued the air with a natural perfume that was exquisite. The pastor who married Shane’s parents, as well as Jack and Lily, and later, Jack and Erin, stood under it. Shane and all his brothers stood in a line at his left, looking back towards the aisle they had made from nothing. It was pretty spectacular what his family managed to make happen.

He and Allison left the same spot that day and went to her house. Days passed before she could even tell anyone. It was an odd line Shane walked. He was getting everything he wanted and every dream from his whole life was coming true; while Allison’s heart was nearly breaking all over again at the thought of enduring another pregnancy. He held her a lot and she cried a lot. She napped a lot too, which seemed to soothe her nerves. She also napped often because she was plain, old fashioned
pregnant.

They finally told his family they intended to marry in two weeks. The ensuing shock that rippled through the ranks was almost comical. Jack and Erin’s mouths dropped open and all words failed them. Allison was too embarrassed and let Shane do the talking while she gripped his hand in a claw-like grasp. He sensed how hard each moment was for her; but still, for him, she was willing to do it. His pride in her nearly made his heart burst.

There were many nights when she could not sleep. On the nights when she could sleep, he sometimes just watched her. It was the only time she looked at peace, and utterly content. He often studied her features while thinking about the things she had confided to him. The pain of what happened
inside
her body. He couldn’t disagree with her that it was the most horrific fucking thing he ever heard. He was stunned and ached for her. He meant what he said about not expecting Allison to endure another pregnancy again. Not after her body betrayed her and the precious casualty that she lost as a result.

And now, here they were. She was pregnant with his baby by nothing less than a miracle. They religiously used birth control because of her history. Shane was truly incredulous when that happened. He didn’t voice it to Allison, knowing she could not handle his belief, but he felt sure there was something higher at work here. He didn’t know why the first baby died; but he knew the second was a miracle for her, and consequently for him too, one he would cherish forever. He loved the baby now, more than his own life. More than even Allison. So he finally did get the pain Allison described. He finally knew how all-encompassing it was to love a child. It started already. The spark of life was his miracle.

He believed it would become Allison’s too. She just needed more proof. A viable pregnancy, and imminent birth of a healthy baby.

They told Jack and Erin most of Allison’s story as well as their own. He waited for Jack’s banalities:
it was all too soon, they should wait, Shane should have been more careful.
Instead, much to Shane’s surprise, Jack walked forward and shook his hand while placing his other hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need it, I know, but as your much older brother, I have to admit I’m really proud of you. And happy. I can’t tell you how happy I am about this.”

“You don’t think it’s too soon? Or for the wrong reasons?” he asked Jack quietly so Allison didn’t hear. Shane was still unconvinced that Jack would agree with his choices.

“What better reason is there than love? And a baby on the way? You’ll make sure she is okay. I can’t imagine, after what she’s been through…. Shit. It’s a cruel world. But the way you’re handling this? Stepping up? And the way you love her? I could not have advised you any better.”

Shane never felt like he had Jack’s approval, and used to think he disdained it, and didn’t want it anyway. Jack was so much like his father that Shane subconsciously projected all of those unresolved issues he had with his father onto Jack. A strange thing happened, however, when Shane heard Jack’s words. His entire body relaxed, and a sense of peace filled his heart. “Thank you, Jack. That means a lot to me.” Somehow, Shane felt they had finally solved a lifelong problem that plagued them incessantly in the past, and kept them from being as close as they should have been.

“I always thought it would be you and Ian running this place. Not…”

“You and me? But it is.” Jack slapped his shoulder. Shane and he had been running it for the last few months. “And I really like it, Shane. I never thought I could count on working with you so well. And I’m not sure how I’d manage now without you.”

Shane’s heart burst. He practically felt it. Heat filled his cheeks and undeniable happiness brightened his face and eyes at earning his grown brother’s approval. He nodded. “I’m here now, Jack. And for good.”

Jack nodded back and something deep and private passed between them. There was no need for words; it just was.

Allison witnessed it as she came to Shane’s side. She held his hand and kissed the back of his neck, releasing the tension in his shoulders. He had never felt such a moment of love, and acceptance, and belonging. He was home.

Jack practically moved mountains for him to make the wedding happen as soon as it did. Right there, in the same place that would soon become Shane and Allison’s backyard. It was exquisite in its simplicity, yet breathtaking in its beauty.

For today, however, it was their holy cathedral.

His brothers stood up for him. Kailynn’s two brothers, whom he’d grown up with and were still his best friends, attended the wedding as well. Erin and Kailynn stood up for Allison. Charlie and Ben were there, front and center, although there were only a handful of guests: Allison’s parents, a few colleagues from River’s End, and Patrick and his pregnant wife, Sandy. Shane had already shaken his hand and politely inquired how Sandy’s health was after meeting her. It wasn’t even awkward for him. Shane marveled at Patrick and Allison’s relationship as exes. Perhaps their shared tragedy was why they harbored no hatred, tension, or animosity. Maybe Sandy felt as heartsick for them as Shane did. That would have explained why she was so okay with Patrick and Allison’s ongoing communication and unashamed concern for each other.

Allison was driven to the wedding venue in an SUV with tinted windows. Music came from a portable iPod and speaker. It worked better than expected. The wedding march started and the small congregation turned back to look towards Allison. She wore a knee-length, white dress with some kind of lacy sheath that covered it. Her red hair stood out, bold and brash, against it. Half of the thick mass was pulled back, and the rest hung in long, spiral curls. A perfect white rose was clipped to the side of her head. Her curves looked luscious and lovely in the form-fitted dress, and Shane was pretty sure his grin might actually have split his face in half.

His bride.

Never. There was never a moment before he met Allison when he felt the urge to get married. He never knew then, however, that women like Allison existed. She was the first woman with whom he could have an honest, direct, and sincere relationship. Having that made it so there was simply nowhere else he’d rather be.

Her eyes were only on his and her face was serious and pale. The freckles stood out and the makeup she wore added drama to her features. As soon as she was close enough, he stepped forward and took her arms. She did not want to be walked down the aisle again. Shane had trouble coaxing her this far. No wedding dress. No huge crowd. Just close, intimate family and best friends. She had already done all of that… It was the same argument she used with everything.

Still, he convinced her right there, at their spot now, that this was the place to make it legal. And a few family members deserved to see him married. She didn’t want him to feel that she denied him the right to be a first time groom.

When her hands touched his, her face melted into a smile. He stepped closer to her and ignored all conventions. Touching his knuckles to the side of her face, he kissed her lips in a soft, lingering kiss. He wanted his kiss to reassure her of his love and attraction, and remind her why she was doing this with him. She nodded and a small smile crossed her trembling lips. She was so scared yet, he knew she wanted it too, simply because she was there standing beside him.

They turned while holding hands and faced the pastor, who started with a small prayer. Bowing their heads, they both glanced over at each other discreetly. At the same moment, they squeezed each other’s hands.

As they listened to the pastor’s words of love and commitment, they stared out over the ranch. For all his life, the ranch had been Shane’s home, and yet, he never felt like he had any place that he belonged. Standing there, with Allison’s hand in his, their child growing inside her, for now, safe, Shane finally felt like he fit in somewhere and it was a place that he liked. He was home. He was here.

These were the most perfect moments of his life to date. For Allison, he knew it was a whole lot more complicated. She had memories of her first love and marriage to compare it to. She knew all the pretty words could go wrong, and the most terrible kicker: that it could happen with neither of them being at fault. It could be fate, destiny, God… whatever one wanted to call it, but tragedy could tear people apart, no matter how ideally they started out.

The magnitude of that and what he could now lose suddenly tightened Shane’s stomach with nerves. He was no longer solely living for his own goals and enjoyment. The thought was sobering and he gripped her hand tighter. A hell of a lot more was riding on his decisions than ever before in his life. She glanced at him when she felt his panicked squeeze. Nearly reading his thoughts, a tremulous smile crossed her lips. For now. Today. That’s all anyone could live for.

Doing stupid shit was no longer okay. He realized that the instant he made the formal commitment to Allison and their unborn child. He could no longer just take off on his bike with no thought to possibly bashing his brains on the cement. No longer could he take the attitude of
oh well, I am living as I choose to live
, or going out in a blaze of glory. Not anymore.

He had a family now.

The moment they were proclaimed husband and wife, Shane stood taller as he stiffened his spine. Allison seemed to notice the subtle adjustment. She leaned her shoulder towards him and her gesture made him believe she finally accepted that they were together forever.