He felt as if he was in a boardroom. Selling what he believed in. “The baby’s mine, too, El,” he said, calming now. He’d found a solution to the problem of what he could do to participate. To help her. “Let me give you what you want. Let me make you happy. Let me provide for my child.”

He had a way to make her happy. To give her the beauty she needed in her life.

Like Jeff, he was bringing his small family home.

“Where will you live?”

“In your apartment until I can find another place. I’m gone most of the time anyway.” He was making things up as he went, but it all made sense.

He was giving up his space. His lifeline.

To her. Their child.

And it was right.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ON MONDAY, ELLA’S day off, she was in a big-box store, buying moving boxes. In their conversation the night before, Brett had indicated that she could move as soon as she was ready, and so she was getting ready. She didn’t want to leave the unpacking for when the baby was bigger.

It had all made sense to her when she’d gotten up with a smile on her face that morning.

But as she was going to load her boxes in her cart, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. In a baggy shirt and jeans, she didn’t look like herself at all. She looked like a pregnant housewife. Someone she’d once been.

Someone she desperately wanted to be.

And she stopped.

What in the hell was she doing? Moving into Brett’s house? How would that work if she ever managed to fall out of love with him and meet someone else?

Was she, by moving into his home, resigning herself to a life without a mate? A life without romantic love?

When she started to shake, she knew that she was in over her head. She had to talk to someone.

And the only people she felt she could comfortably confide in were at The Lemonade Stand.

Leaving her empty cart for the next customer, Ella left the store. It was her turn to admit she needed help.

* * *

BRETT TRIED TO call Ella on his lunch break in Seattle. When she didn’t pick up he left a message for her that the paperwork to transfer his house over to her would be complete by the end of the week. If she wanted to move in prior to that, she was simply to let him know, and he’d accommodate her.

She was welcome to whatever furniture of his she wanted. What she didn’t want, he’d either move to the apartment or have put in storage until he found another place.

He wasn’t in a hurry.

The house, the yard—they’d all be ready and waiting for her.

And when he hung up, he wasn’t feeling nervous about the plan at all. He wasn’t worried about finding another perfect house for him to live in. He just wasn’t fueled by a need to do so. He had nothing to prove to himself.

To prove to himself? Was that what his life had become? A series of accomplishments that were all designed to prove...what?

That he could control his life and thereby control himself?

He texted Ella as he finished lunch, just to tell her he’d left a voice mail.

There was no response.

During the afternoon break he called Ella’s cell phone. Monday was her day off. And she always responded to him, at least with a text. When she didn’t answer, he tried his mother. If there’d been an emergency with the High Risk team, she’d know.

At the same time, he texted Jeff, just to ask how things were.

Jeff texted back immediately. He and Chloe and Cody were spending the afternoon at a carnival that was in town.

If there’d been an emergency, Jeff and Chloe would have known about it. They were listed as her next of kin. She’d already told him that.

And Brett forced himself to calm down. Ella was fine. Brett just wasn’t a priority in her life.

Because that was the way he’d wanted it.

* * *

“I THOUGHT I was over him.” It was late afternoon. Ella sat with Lila in her little apartment at The Lemonade Stand. She’d already spent an hour talking with Sara, telling the other woman her life story, or at least the parts that pertained to Brett.

Neither Sara nor Lila knew, of course, that the man she was talking about was the founder of The Lemonade Stand. She couldn’t betray Brett, even now.

“I went through all the counseling,” she said again now. Repeating herself because no matter how many times she explained things, she couldn’t find the road that would take her out of the past.

Lila had been sitting, mostly silent, for the past hour.

“It’s not like I don’t want to say no to him,” she said. “I do in my mind. But my feelings don’t follow my head. I want to move into his house. I want to live there. I want him in my life.”

“Because you love him.”

“Yes, but it’s destructive. Because he’s right. I wasn’t happy with him. I needed more. I could have done more, too. I see that now. I didn’t accept him for who he was, but for who I thought he could be—in terms of our relationship. But even if I had accepted him for him, I still would have been incredibly lonely. Because I need more than he can give.”

“Can or will?”

“What?”

“You need more than he can give. Or will give?”

“I think with him that’s one and the same. He can’t let himself open up because he’s afraid of experiencing the full strength of his emotions. So the will is the choice not to let himself, but the fear makes it so he can’t.”

“But this...you being here...it’s not really about him. Is it?”

Ella shook her head.

“I’m ashamed,” she said.

“Of what?”

“I’m so busy thinking of my own life, of how hurt I’ve been and how to prevent being hurt again, and in doing so, I’m hurting him.”

“Sometimes pain is inevitable.”

“Yes, but I was so certain when I came here that I was strong enough to move on with my life. But the truth is, I’m not strong enough to stop loving him. I say I will, but I don’t. We’ve been apart all these years and here I am, pregnant with his child and ready to move into his house. Just accepting what he decides he can give in spite of the fact that I know it won’t be enough.”

She stopped. Her words hanging in the room. Scaring her more than she’d thought possible.

“I’m weak where he’s concerned,” she said. “It’s like my feelings for him have some kind of power over me and I let them manipulate me. And not only do I get hurt, but he does, too.”

The pattern was slowly showing itself to her. The books she’d read. The things she’d told Chloe. The loneliness she was trying to run from.

“And then how do you hurt him?”

“Because I need what I need. Want what I want. I tell him how much I love him, but I don’t accept him for who he is.” He’d said she’d been so busy telling him what she saw in him, she’d quit listening to what he saw. Who he was inside. So he’d quit talking to her about it. “I set standards he can’t possibly meet.”

“Maybe so. But your needs and wants are a natural part of you and speaking about them, asking for them, is healthy.”

“I didn’t come to Santa Raquel for my new job, did I?”

“Why did you come here?”

“Because I knew he lived in town. I came here to be close to him. I’m like a pathetic groupie. I don’t get mad at him, I just hang around and let him make us both miserable. I just can’t believe it took me so long to figure it all out.”

“Our minds have a way of presenting things to us when we’re ready to accept them,” Lila said. “It’s called getting clarity, my dear.”

Her mind went blank.

And then started racing.

“Growing up in an abusive home, not having stability or security even in the simplest of things, instilled in him the need to be in control above all else. And he and I both suffer because of it.”

It was all so clear.

So frighteningly, horrifyingly clear.

“And because I love him, I put up with his inability to open up, to love and share a life with me. I know he can’t help it, so I hang around. But I feel helpless. And eventually hopeless.”