The Biker Who Married Me Without Asking novel · Chapter 39 of 48

Chapter 39: Open Hands

I knew where he would be.

I drove up the coast road with the window down and the dog on the seat, fast, and not once did I let myself think about what I would find.

The pullout was empty except for Cade's truck.

He sat on the tailgate with the coffee can in his hands.

It was the small red kind, with the label gone and a dent in the lid.

I got out and walked across the gravel, and he heard me and did not turn.

"I thought I'd find you here," I said.

"I thought you'd be at work."

"I left," I said.

"Willa."

"Yes?"

"I need to tell you something." His voice was very low. "And I'd like you to let me finish."

I sat down on the tailgate next to him.

I did not touch him.

I put both my hands in my lap where he could see them.

He told it all.

It took a quarter of an hour.

The card game, and the truck on the headland road, and the vest on the rocks and a man in it who had no name.

Travis in a bar in Coos Bay, the thirty-one thousand that went to the Tide, a bail paid in cash.

A week, he had given.

He had given his brother seven days, and told no one, and gone home and lain on a couch.

I listened and did not say a word.

When he was done he sat with his head down.

"I covered the page," he said. "I did it on purpose. I stood in that garage and thought, she's carrying my child, I can't give her this. I did exactly what I swore I'd never do again."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know."

"I'd like to say why," he said.

"Say it."

"Because I wanted him to be what he said." His voice broke. "You told me in Ginny's kitchen. You looked at me, and you said, I believe he's your brother and I don't believe the story. And I said I know. I want it anyway. I wanted it more than I wanted to hear you."

He looked at the can.

"That's the real wound. Not the page. That I chose a hope over your read of a man, in front of your face. I can't forgive that."

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