“I was learnin’ about things you’ve never told me.”

He takes a long swig of bourbon while keeping his eyes on me.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” Now I’m pissed. He doesn’t show last night, has me worried, and he’s drunk.

He laughs. “Like you keep a lot of secrets. But I’m figuring them all out.”

My heart stops. “What did you say?” He couldn’t know anything. I’ve told him about Todd and the money. I’ve told him everything but . . .

“Yup.” he moves forward. “Imagine my surprise. But what else are you keeping from me?”

“You need to sober up.”

“Stop lying to me!” Zach yells.

I push him back inside the barn so he doesn’t wake everyone. “I’m not talking to you about anything when you’re belligerent. You want to have this conversation?” He looks away. “Then sober up.”

Zach runs his hands through his hair, and I see the sadness in his eyes. “I loved you. I loved you so fucking much. But you . . . you don’t even tell me the truth!”

I want to cry. How the hell would he have found out? This doesn’t make any sense. It can’t be about the baby. I’m going to tell him about it anyway. Plus, we were fine a few hours ago. “Sleep, please. I’ll talk to you in a few hours. Just get some sleep.”

In the one stall we always keep blankets in, I lie out a makeshift bed for him. He tosses the bottle and stalks toward me. Zach’s hand grips the back of my neck before his lips slam down on mine, holding me still. The instant our lips touch, I can feel it. Something is wrong. He’s angry, hurt, and something has changed. This is a completely different kiss than any other we’ve shared.

Zach pulls back and stares me in the eyes. “You’ve ruined me, Cowgirl.”

Words fail me as does my heart. I stand, fear freezing me in place. He doesn’t say another word before he lies down and passes out before I can thaw out.

He knows something, and what comes next isn’t going to be good.

W HILE ZACH SLEEPS IN THE barn, I go back inside to get ready for the day. I feel that growing pit in my stomach festering and eating me alive. I was wrong for not telling him about the baby, but I was eighteen. I wanted to tell him. So many times, but it seemed irrelevant. I didn’t know if we would last, and it was something that was so painful to remember, I couldn’t say the words. Each time I’d remember what it was like when he left, I focused on that. Not the baby.

I head out to the barn, but he’s not here. How could he leave like this? We need to talk.

I look around, but he’s definitely gone.

No, he’s not going to do this to me.

“Looking for me?” his deep voice calls from behind me.

“Zach.” I turn to face him.

He moves toward me with purpose. “You lied to me.”

He knows.

Zach challenges me with his eyes to deny it.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way. I was going to tell you.”

“When?” he bellows. “When were you planning to tell me we had a baby?”

Neither of us moves. I want to tell him everything, but how do I explain this? I was young, dumb, broken, and then I was completely wrecked. “I-I . . . it was a long time ago.”

He takes a step back. He doesn’t really look at me. His eyes dart around. “I can’t.” Zach turns and heads past me.

I grab his arm. “Please. I was going to tell you so many times. Then . . . I didn’t want to. I know that makes me a bitch, but you have to understand just thinking about it made me hurt. I was hurting so much already.”

Telling him this is futile. I was wrong to keep this from him, but I had my reasons. Loss has surrounded me for the last year. All I do is lose people, things, jobs, children, life. I want to gain for once. Bringing up that baby is only reminding me of another painful checked off box.

Zach faces me. “You had a baby. We had a baby.”

“No.” I look down and this time there’s a flood of tears. “I lost him.”

“Him?” he chokes.

“I found out I was pregnant two weeks after you left. I carried him for seventeen weeks, and then I miscarried.”

His eyes bore into mine as he breaks down. “You couldn’t tell me? You didn’t think I deserved to know?” I’ve broken his heart. “Fuck, Presley! How could you keep this from me? How could you look at me after all these years and not fucking tell me?”

I lost myself when that happened. The anger, sadness, feeling of complete failure loomed over me for months. Each night I would wake up crying, clutching my stomach, and begging for Zach to come back. My life was so dark and ugly at that time.

“I couldn’t tell you. When you left, part of me died. A big, huge, aching hole was punched through me. Then I found out I was pregnant. I was so mad. I hated you for leaving,” I explain.

“You should’ve fucking told me! I would’ve come back!”

This is exactly why I didn’t tell him. “Not for me!”

My tears fall as my pain from seventeen years ago surfaces again. I’ve buried it, but it’s back with a vengeance.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that I wasn’t enough for you! I needed you. And you left. So what? Because we had a baby that would’ve altered things? I lost that baby, and I lost you. What do you think I was feeling?”

“I don’t know! You didn’t give me a chance to find out!” He grunts and slams his hand against the barn door. “I can’t believe you, Presley.”

“I wasn’t perfect. I was eighteen! Eighteen, Zach. I was alone in a strange new place, pregnant, with no family, and a boy who just wrecked my world. Was I wrong? Yes. But dammit, I was so scared.”

This was handled wrong, and quite honestly, I was so angry I didn’t care about him. I felt completely alone. I couldn’t think straight, and when he got on that bus, he broke me. Everything that I thought made sense, no longer was what I thought. It was as if the shift in my universe was so severe, I was walking upside-down.

“But you had no problem blaming me for leaving?” He takes a step forward. “How easy for you to say it was my fault. I would’ve come back if I knew you were pregnant. I would’ve stood by your side, finished college, gotten married, and seen where the world took us.”

There’s a part of me that wants to laugh. “So a baby would’ve changed your dreams?”

“No.” He pushes back from me. “I still would’ve—”

“You would’ve, what?” I ask, agitated. “Huh? I told you when you left I wanted a family, and you said you didn’t even want to think about that. You would’ve given up your dream?”

As much as Zachary knows me, I know him just as well. He had two passions, baseball and me. I saw what happened when he had to choose before, I don’t think that baby would’ve made a difference.

My anger mirrors in his eyes. “We don’t get to know that because you kept it from me!”

“Here’s what would’ve happened,” I say, stepping toward him. “You would’ve kept on playing ball just like you already were. Nothing about our situation would be any different. You’d have taken that job, and I would have stayed in school. Were we wrong?” I pause. “Maybe. But it was the choice we made. I didn’t know about the baby before you left. Maybe then it would’ve gone a different route, but I wanted to be reason enough for you to stay, not because you knocked me up.”