LITMIR.BIZ

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I’m not a father and the next I’ve got a five-year-old son whose been literally dropped on my doorstop. I’ll admit I was reeling from it, not handling it as well as I should. Is that why you stayed away from me, why you didn’t even let me know where you were? Is it because I had to spend so much time with Tyler when you were facing so many problems? Did I hurt you, Fallon? Because I never meant to.”

      “You didn’t hurt me,” she said. “I told you at the time that I understood how much Tyler needed you, that I was fine by myself.”

      But there were also things that she hadn’t told James…A few weeks before the plane crash she’d discovered she was pregnant. She’d been excited, because they’d even talked about having a family, even though they hadn’t dated for long. And after they’d met when she’d been transferring a patient to the hospital in Salt Lake City where James worked, their relationship had developed quickly. But, still, the pregnancy had felt very soon. So Fallon had waited for the right moment to tell him the news. But the stress level of his job had been on the rise, and he had been working so many hours, had been tired, grumpy…So she’d kept it to herself, waiting for the right moment when things had calmed down for him.

      Then the plane crash as she’d been returning home to White Elk, the surgeries, the anesthesia, the doctor’s discouraging prognosis of her pregnancy, and…Tyler. To add to James’s stress, he’d found out he was a father to a five-year-old he’d never known about. Everything had felt so confusing, and she had been in such bad shape. In his defense, James had been too. She had seen it. Felt how he’d been so torn between wanting to be with her and needing to be with his son, a child who desperately needed a good father. So she’d kept her secret, and never told James that she’d carried his son for six months and delivered him stillborn. And now it was too late.

      Through those awful months, she’d kept telling herself she couldn’t add to James’s burden. Kept telling herself that she was doing the right thing by him and Tyler. Because if he’d known what she was going through, he wouldn’t have left her side. But Tyler had needed him, too. Needed him more.

      “No, you didn’t hurt me, James. You’d never do that. But Tyler had to be your priority. If we’d stayed together, you’d have torn yourself up trying to divide your time between Tyler and me, and it had to be about Tyler. There wasn’t any other choice you could make.” That was something she had come to understand more than anything else about that time. James had to be a father first and if she’d stayed with him, that couldn’t have happened. He’d have been too divided.

      “But you couldn’t have told me how you were feeling, how you were afraid I’d spend too much time with you and not enough with Tyler? We couldn’t have talked about it?”

      She shook her head, couldn’t tell him that what she would have needed from him would have been too great. She’d survived the plane crash, but in so many little pieces. James would have wanted to be the one to put those pieces back together again, and the timing…it couldn’t be helped. He’d just met Tyler. And only just learned how it truly felt to love a child so desperately.

      And she’d lost hers…theirs. Lost her baby before James ever knew he existed. And not telling James, not letting him be part of those few months she carried their baby, was the unpardonable sin. Not letting him be there at the delivery of their son, and hold him the way she’d been allowed to for those brief moments…It was all too late now. What was done was done. She couldn’t go back and change it, and she refused to go forward and hurt James. He didn’t deserve that. And she…she didn’t deserve a man as good as James. “I disappeared because I had issues to resolve, and physical problems to work out.”

      “Without me,” he said. “Even after what we’d been to each other, you wanted to do it without me?”

      “Our relationship was still new, James. A few weekends. Good weekends, and that unbelievable week together, lots of long phone calls in between. Plans, expectations and excitement. But it was so much, and so fast. After the crash I had time to think about it, to realize that…”

      “That you didn’t love me? Because you’d said you did.”

      “Maybe we were confusing our emotions.” She hated this, hated saying something that wasn’t true because she’d known quickly into their relationship that James was the one. But she’d gone so far beyond that now, and there was no way back. “Maybe what we thought we had wasn’t real.”

      “I don’t believe that, Fallon,” he snapped. “Not a word of it. But if that’s the way you want to do this between us…”

      “Not us, James. Not any more. But since you’re in White Elk now, we can still be friends…”

      “And you think that’s enough?”

      “I think it’s all there is.” Not all she wanted, but all she could have.

      “You’re wrong, Fallon. I can see it in your eyes. Something you’re not saying. Something you want to say to me, but won’t.”

      She shut her eyes. Drew in a steadying breath, and pushed herself away from the table. “You’re the one who’s wrong. I’ve said everything I want to say. And now there’s nothing else.”

      Drawing back from her, he studied her for a moment. “That first time I saw you in Salt Lake City, when you were transferring a patient to the hospital, I knew, Fallon. Knew that if I were the marrying kind, you’d be the kind I’d want to marry. Then you turned me into the marrying kind. I didn’t change my life and my entire outlook on a whim. I changed because I knew you, even in a short time I knew you, and knew you were the one worth making those changes for. You were so amazing and open and honest, and you went after life in such a big way. And I don’t believe you’ve changed. Maybe you believe you have, but you’re not the one standing here, looking at the same woman I saw back then. I am looking at her, though, and what I’m seeing more than anything else is…confusion. Pain.”

      The most open, honest woman…well, not any more. But to be honest would be to wound him in so many ways and, no matter what he said, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She just couldn’t. So she stood and left the restaurant without another word. Without looking back. Without letting him see the tears.

      Chapter Two

      “OK, HE lives here now,” she reasoned as she stepped out of her front door for her morning walk. “A lot of people live here that I never see, and just because he’s working here it doesn’t mean that I’ll have to run into him.” In fact, knowing he was here was good because she could go out of her way to avoid him. Catie’s Overlook was out now because, apparently, he lunched there. Of course, returning to White Elk Hospital wasn’t going to happen now, no matter how much Eric and Neil wanted her back, as that’s where James worked. But Gabby had offered her a permanent job at Three Sisters Women’s Clinic and Hospital, and in time she might be able to face nursing duty there. Someday, when she wasn’t so sensitive to mothers with new babies.

      The good thing was, James should rarely have reason to be there. “It could work,” she concluded. Then, in time, after she’d avoided him enough, the habit would sink in. Yes, that’s the way it would be. Or else she couldn’t stay in White Elk. And the thought of leaving was more than she could bear. But, realistically, it was a choice she might have to make.

      It was a brisk morning. Just a few weeks away from Christmas, snow was beginning to pile up higher in the mountains, and it wouldn’t be long before it found its way down to the lower elevations in more than just sprinkles and showers. She loved crisp mornings like this, when her breath was visible in white puffs, when the glistening of frost on the trees looked like diamonds. Heavy sweaters, snow boots, mittens and hot chocolate…her favorite things of the season, and she was glad she was well enough to be part of it. For a time she hadn’t been sure that would happen, hadn’t been sure she’d ever see anything outside the gray cement block walls of the rehab hospital. Those had been bleak days, days full of so much pain and so little hope. But finally coming home, especially at this time of year…

      “How

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