At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(101)

“Maybe this is too forward…. Hell, I know it’s too forward. But I’m willing to do anything to put a smile back on my girl’s face.” His lips press to mine, slowly turning into a smile that I can’t help but mimic. His soft laughter fills my mouth, my lungs, my heart. “Okay, turns out that was easier than I thought. But you’re already a great mom, and I’d love a kid someday, so I was going to say…we can.”

We can?

I spring backward. “Colt…”

“I know I said it’s too forward. I was just—”

“I can’t have more kids.”

The truth hangs suspended in the warm, humid air. A door slamming shut between him and me, snapping the invisible strings that he seemed to believe were tethering our souls.

“Well…” His brows pull together with confusion.

“After Jonas was born, I hemorrhaged…. I lost so much blood so quickly, I don’t really remember much. Um…they were giving me transfusions and trying to stop it, but…” A shiver carries along my spine at the memory of the weeks following the emergency procedure. “But I woke up missing a uterus. They did emergency surgery to save my life. And I’m so, so grateful they did…but I can’t get pregnant. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Rare silence from the man who always has a quippy response in his pocket.

I sniffle, swiping my fingers along my teary waterlines and refusing to look anywhere but at the floor. “It took a long time to grapple with having that choice taken from me. And for the most part, I’m at peace with Jonas being my only kid. Sometimes it…it fucking sucks, ya know? It…it really hit me in a sore spot hearing that Alex gets to carry on and have another baby. After everything. Why him and not me?”

Hearing that thought finally spoken is akin to stabbing myself in the gut. And letting Colt down will be a twist of the blade.

Why him and not me?

Why not me?

For fucking once I want it to be me who gets a win. I can’t even be worthy enough for whatever fucking higher power exists to do me a solid.

Colt blows a huff of air from his nose, and he speaks so softly I find myself tilting an ear toward him to catch it. “Wasn’t…didn’t you say he wasn’t at the hospital when Jonas was born? Even with all that?”

“Yeah.”

Technically he brought food a few times, but that’s nothing worthy of defending.

His knuckles crack.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair that he can’t be bothered to be a dad to the kid he currently has, yet he can go knock up some girl he’s known for a few months. And when Fern realizes what a piece of shit Alex is, it’s going to be really un-fucking-fair to Jonas to not have that sibling around.” Shit, here come the tears again. I give up trying to contain them, letting rivers flow to the tip of my chin, where droplets swell until they fall and splatter on my legs like heavy rain. “And it’s really goddamn unfair that I met somebody as great as you, and we were doomed from day one.”

“Wait. Why are we doomed?”

“Colt…I can’t get pregnant, and you’ve mentioned your future kids more than once. You’ll be such an amazing dad, and you deserve to get that experience. Y-you…you can meet somebody new and have everything you want. The things I’ll never be able to give you.”

“We could adopt if we wanted to.”

I want to excitedly tell him we can adopt all the babies, as if that’s not something I’ve ever considered before. I’d love to reignite the spark of hope quickly fading from his face.

“Yeah…” I give him a flat smile. “I doubt it’s something we could ever afford, but—”

“Okay, so I won’t have kids.” He shrugs, as if this isn’t something that completely derails the future he saw for himself. As if it’s just that simple to shrug and give up on something you’ve dreamt about. If that were the case, my eyes wouldn’t be burning and my chest sore from heaving sobs over the news that my ex-boyfriend is the one giving my son a sibling, instead of me.

“But you want kids—”

“I want you,” he says with a huskiness to his voice that commands me to look up at him.

When I meet his big, sad eyes, my stomach twists. He’s nurtured my heart since the day he walked up to my front door in his stupid cut-off T-shirt. Taken the time to repair the breaks and build trust, promising things he didn’t know he had no business promising.

“You won’t. One day when all your friends have kids, and you feel that biological clock ticking, you won’t want me.”

“You don’t know that.” He blinks, sniffing.

“I can’t spend each day braced for impact. Maybe a more secure woman could ignore the live explosive in the room, but…but I’m forever going to be hovering around the detonator, hoping I’m fast enough to see you reaching for it so I can beat you to the punch.”

So…boom.

Explode it now, while it’s still small and the impact is contained to me and him.

“Whit…” Tears well in his eyes.

“It’s okay to want kids, Colt. It’s understandable. I don’t blame you for wanting them. I wish…I would love it if things were different.” I rub the space between my eyebrows, squeezing my eyes so hard, they hurt. Or maybe they hurt from all the tears pouring out of them. “But this is better. Or…it will be…. You’ll leave and—”