She quickly averted her face so he wouldn’t see her tears. She didn’t want him to know how much he had hurt her ten years ago. She didn’t want him to see that the scars hadn’t healed; she doubted they ever would.
“Shelly?”
The tone that called her name was soft, gentle and tender. So tender that she glanced up at him, finding it difficult to meet his dark, piercing gaze, though she met it anyway. She fought the tremble in her voice when she said, “What?”
“That night, I never said I didn’t love you,” he said, his voice low, a near-whisper. “How could you have possibly thought that?”
She shook her head sadly and turned more fully toward him, not believing he had asked the question. “How could I not think it, Dare?”
Her response made him raise a thick eyebrow. Yes, how could she not think it? He had broken off with her that night, never thinking she would assume that he had never loved her or that she hadn’t meant everything to him. Now he could see how she could have felt that way.
He inhaled deeply and rubbed a hand over his face, wondering how he could explain things to her when he really didn’t understand himself. He knew he had to try anyway. “It seems I handled things very poorly that night,” he said.
Shelly chuckled softly and shrugged her shoulders. “It depends on what you mean by poorly. I think that you accomplished what you set out to do, Dare. You got rid of a girlfriend who stood between you and your career plans.”
“That wasn’t it, Shelly.”
“Then tell me what was it,” she said, trying to hold on to the anger she was beginning to feel all over again.
For a few moments he didn’t say anything, then he spoke. “I loved you, Shelly, and the magnitude of what I felt for you began to frighten me because I knew what you and everyone else expected of me. But a part of me knew that although I loved you, I wasn’t ready to take the big step and settle down with the responsibility of a wife. I also knew there was no way I could ask you to wait for me any longer. We had already dated six years and everyone—my family, your family and this whole damn town—expected us to get married. It was time. We had both finished college and I had served a sufficient amount of time in the marines, and you were about to embark on a career in nursing. There was no way I could ask you to wait around and twiddle your thumbs while I worked as an agent. It wouldn’t have been fair. You deserved more. You deserved better. So I thought the best thing to do was to give you your freedom.”
Shelly dipped her chin, no longer able to look into his eyes. Moments later she lifted her gaze to meet his. “So, I’m not the only one who made a decision about us that night.”
Dare inhaled deeply, realizing she was right. Just as she’d done, he had made a decision about them. A few moments later he said. “I wish I had handled things differently, Shelly. Although I loved you, I wasn’t ready to become the husband I knew you wanted.”
“Yet you want me to believe you would have been ready to become a father?” she asked softly, trying to make him see reason. “All I knew after that night was that the man I loved no longer wanted me, and that his dream wasn’t a future with me but one in law enforcement. And I loved him enough to step aside to let him fulfill that dream. That’s the reason I left without telling you about the baby, Dare. That’s the only reason.”
He nodded. “Had I known you were pregnant, my dreams would not have mattered at that point.”
“Yes, I knew that better than anyone.”
Dare finally understood the point she’d been trying to make and sighed at how things had turned out for them. Ten years ago he’d thought that becoming a FBI agent was the ultimate. It had taken seven years of moving from place to place, getting burnt-out from undercover operations, waking each morning cloaked in danger and not knowing if his next assignment would be his last, to finally make him realize the career that had once been his dream had turned into a living nightmare. Resigning from the Bureau, he had returned home to open up a security firm about the same time Sheriff Dean Whitlow, who’d been in office since Dare was in his early teens, had decided to retire. It was Sheriff Whitlow who had talked him into running for the position he was about to vacate, saying that with Dare’s experience, he was the best man for the job. Now, after three years at it, Dare had forged a special bond with the town he’d always loved and the people he’d known all of his life. And compared to what he had done as an FBI agent, being sheriff was a gravy train.
He glanced out of the window and didn’t say anything for the longest time as he watched AJ. Then he spoke. “I take it that he doesn’t know anything about me.”
Shelly shook her head. “No. Years ago I told him that his father was a guy I had loved and thought I would marry, but that things didn’t work out and we broke up. I told him I moved away before I had a chance to tell him I was pregnant.”
Dare stared at her. “That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it. He was fairly young at the time, but occasionally as he got older, he would ask if I knew how to reach you if I ever wanted to, and I told him yes and that if he ever wanted me to contact you I would. All he had to do was ask, but he never has.”
Dare nodded. “I want him to know I’m his father, Shelly.”
“I want him to know you’re his father, too, Dare, but we need to approach this lightly with him,” she whispered softly “He’s going through enough changes right now, and I don’t want to get him any more upset than he already is. I have an idea as to how and when we can tell him, and I hope after hearing me out that you’ll agree.”
Dare went back to his desk. “All right, so what do you suggest?”
Shelly nodded and took a seat across from his desk. She held her breath, suddenly feeling uncomfortable telling him what she thought was the best way to handle AJ. She knew her son’s emotional state better than anyone. Right now he was mad at the world in general and her in particular, because she had taken him out of an environment he’d grown comfortable with, although that environment as far as she was concerned, had not been a healthy one for a ten-year-old. His failing grades and the trouble he’d gotten into had proven that.
“What do you suggest, Shelly?” Dare asked again, sitting down and breaking into her thoughts.
Shelly cleared her throat. “I know how anxious you are to have AJ meet you, but I think it would be best, considering everything, if he were to get to know you as a friend before knowing you as his father.”
Dare frowned, not liking the way her suggestion sounded. “But I am his father, Shelly, not his friend.”
“Yes, and that’s the point. More than anything, AJ needs a friend right now, Dare, someone he can trust and connect with. He has a hard time making friends, which is why he began hanging out with the wrong type of kids at the school he attended in California. They readily accepted him for all the wrong reasons. I’ve talked to a few of his teachers since moving here and he’s having the same problems. He’s just not outgoing.”
Dare nodded. Of the five Westmoreland brothers, he was the least outgoing, if you didn’t count Thorn who was known to be a pain in the butt at times. Growing up, Dare had felt that his brothers were all the playmates he had needed, and because of that, he never worried about making friends or being accepted. His brothers were his friends—his best friends—and as far as he’d been concerned they were enough. It was only after he got older and his brothers began seeking other interests that he began getting out more, playing sports, meeting people and making new friends.
So if AJ wasn’t as outgoing as most ten-year-old kids, he had definitely inherited that characteristic from him. “So how do you