“I don't see any wildflowers.”

“What the hell do wildflowers have to do with anything?”

“I already asked you for everything,” she yelled. “And you already said no. So don't you dare tell me you love me now and expect me to believe you.”

Her chest was falling and rising and her face was flushed. Visibly working to calm down, she said, “This doesn't have to change anything. You'll be going back to California soon. We can figure something out that makes sense. I know this is your child, too, and I'll make sure you get plenty of time with him or her.”

“Like hell this doesn't change anything. Everything is different now. You're going to have a child. My child.

And no kid of mine is growing up without a father.”

“If you say the M word I'll deck you.”

“You're right, marriage doesn't necessarily make sense. But what if my wanting to marry you has nothing to do with having a child? What if I want to marry you because I can't imagine a life without you?”

Her mouth opened in a small “o” of surprise a split-second before irritation took over.

“I don't have amnesia. Four days ago you were stepping aside,” she put the words in air quotes, “giving me thechance to find Mr. Right. Now you're trying to step inside his shoes.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “They're my shoes, damn it!”

How had it come to this? The two of them standing here on the beach yelling at each other? He worked like hell to calm down.

“How many times am I going to have to tell you I love you before you believe it?”

“I don't know, Connor. I just don't know.” She put a hand over her stomach. “This is all too much for me today.

All of it. I need some time to think things through.”

“How much time?”

And how the hell was he going to keep it together until she decided?

“I don't know. All I know is that I can't talk to you right now.”

Their positions had just reversed. This time he was the one asking for everything… and she was the one leaving him without it.

Josh waited until he heard his mom leave the house to call his father. “Hey Josh,” his father said, “didn't expect to hear from you. Especially not this early.”

He looked at the clock, realized it was only 7:30 am. But he'd waited as long as he could.

“I want to come live with you.”

There was silence on the line. “You mean you want to come out for a visit again?”

“No. I want to live with you full-time.”

“Have you talked to your mother about this?”

“No, but she'll probably be happy to have me out of the way so that she and that guy can finish what they were doing on the hood of that car.”

“There's a guy? On the hood of a car?”

“She was making out with some dickhead she said she used to be in love with.”

“Andrew.”

“Yeah,” Josh said, getting more and more frustrated with this conversation. Why wasn't his father telling him to pack his bags already? “So it's cool for me to move in, right?”

“Hey kid, you know I'd love to have you but I'm going to be in Asia most of next month.”

“I can hang on my own,” Josh said, but just then he heard a girl's voice and then his father answering, “It's just my son, honey. I'll be right back.”

Just his son.

The message couldn't have come in clearer. Both of his parents were too busy f**king around to give a rat's ass about him.

“Forget it,” Josh said right before slamming down the phone.

Isabel had just walked into the diner when Scott handed her the phone. “It's Brian.”

It just got better and better. First Andrew. Then Josh. Now Brian. All the men in her life ganging up on her.

“What's up?”

“I knew he'd come back for you.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“I just got off the phone with our son. He told me Andrew's back.”

How was it that after ten years, whenever the subject of Andrew came up, her ex still managed to sound wounded by it?

And she still managed to feel guilty.

But Andrew was none of Brian's business. “Why did Josh call?”

“He wants to move in with me. Full-time.”

“No.”

“Don't worry,” he said quickly, “I already told him it wouldn't work.”

“Jesus, Brian. Is that how you said it? Did you give one second's thought to how that would make him feel?”

“How about you? When you were on the hood of the car with long-lost Andrew, were you thinking about your son then?”

Fuck you warred with touchй on the tip of her tongue.

“Thanks for the warning,” was what she finally managed. “I'll have a talk with Josh this afternoon.”

She hung up the phone, her heart heavy for Josh, for how hard fifteen was treating him.

At the same time, though, her heart was heavy for herself.

It didn't matter if she ever got beyond forgiveness with Andrew, if she ever learned to trust him again. Because there was no way her son would ever accept him.

Maybe if Josh hadn't seen them in the parking lot, maybe if she hadn't admitted to him that Andrew was one of the big reasons her marriage hadn't worked, then things could be different.

But they weren't different.

And never would be.

* * *

Josh fingered the half-empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He'd swiped them from the new dishwasher's stash a few days ago, told himself the guy wouldn't miss the last few in the box. It had been a long time since he'd stolen anything, when he was five years old and had pocketed the water pistol his mother wouldn't buy him at the grocery store. He hadn't gotten caught, but just as he had then, he felt guilty.

Pushing out the back door of his house, he headed through the trees, to the wood pile between his property and Poplar Cove.

The house that f**khead who'd been boning his mom grew up in.

Josh hated feeling guilty for stealing the cigarettes. Just as much as he hated feeling like nothing he did was right anymore, that no matter where he was, he didn't fit in.

He'd tried to call Hannah but she kept letting it go through to voice mail. And the worst part of it was, he knew it was his fault, that she had been disgusted by the way he blew up at his mom.