Page 44 of The Forever Christmas Tree

Then they both burst out laughing.

“Well, now that we have that out of the way,” Wendy said with a calmness that surprised her because inside her emotions were roiling.

What would he do if I put my hand to his face and traced the red finger marks I raised? Would he turn his mouth against my palm the way he used to? Would the tip of his tongue tickle the skin and raise goose bumps on other parts of my body?

Or maybe he would trace my lips which he’d just kissed so hard, in anger. Then softer, in apology? Then hard again?

His emotions must be conflicted, too.

“Can we start over?” Ethan inquired, smiling sadly.

She flashed back to the present with his words. Surely, he didn’t mean . . .

Without waiting for a reply, he said, “Forget that bad start there. I’m glad you came, Wendy.”

Oh, so that’s what he meant. Not that I would want him to mean it any other way.

“I know this isn’t an ideal meeting place, especially with the chill factor, but I didn’t want the gawkers-turned-gossipers to have a field day. Damn, I’m rambling like an idiot, aren’t I?”

She nodded her understanding, of both the need for privacy and of his nervousness, and motioned for them to walk, in the opposite direction from the lighthouse. The brief dart of his gaze toward the old structure told her loud and clear that he remembered as well as she did what had happened there. On the other hand, he was a guy, and guys weren’t sentimental about such things.

Although the view off the barrier islands was spectacular, there were no nice beaches on Bell Cove, and this section was no different. Some sand and sea grass and occasional scrub pines, but mostly rocks. Luckily, they both wore flat-heeled boots and were able to manage the uneven terrain. It was cold so close to the water with the wind biting the bare skin of her face, but her mother’s coat was warm, and, frankly, she felt a bit overheated with nervousness. Ethan was dressed for the weather, too, in a drab green parka over an ivory, cable-knit sweater and jeans. Whether he was overheated or not didn’t bear thinking about.

“You first,” Wendy said. “You’ve implied that I deserted you twelve years ago without giving you a chance to plead your case.”

“I’m not sure that ‘pleading my case’ is the right term. There was no excuse for what I did, but it’s what happened afterward that knocked me flat. Call it an eighteen-year-old’s delusion, but when I confessed my sin, I thought you and I, together, would be able to weather the storm.”

“Are you mocking me when you use the word sin, like it was no big deal?”

“Huh? I said sin and I meant sin. Not in the church sense, but in a wrong I did you. Hell, Wendy, don’t get your feathers all ruffled over semantics or we’ll never move forward.”

Her feathers got further ruffled at his mentioning her feathers, but she managed to tamp her temper down. “You expected me to stay in the same town where a woman—a girl, really—was growing bigger and bigger with your child?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just that all my life, till then, it had been you and me. A couple. I foolishly thought our love could weather any storm.” He stumbled over the word love as if he wasn’t sure it was the right one to describe their teenage emotion. “I sound like a friggin’ Hallmark card.”

Yeah, he does. In an adorable way. But no, no, no. I will not let him distract me. “Ethan! Beth Anne had already moved into your house. That was more than a storm. That was a tsunami.”

“She moved into our house because she had nowhere else to go. Her parents kicked her out when they learned of her pregnancy. You remember how religious the Collins family were and how strict they were with their kids?”

Actually, she didn’t remember the Collins family, at all, and she’d barely known Beth Anne in high school. In those days, all of Wendy’s attention was focused on Ethan, or her swimming, or her best friend, Laura. That was it.

“I don’t mean to be callous, but why couldn’t she have gone to one of those agencies that help pregnant teens?”

He raised his chin defiantly. “It was my baby, Wendy. I had an obligation.”

She shrugged. In truth, she wouldn’t have expected any less of the boy she had loved back then. And, yes, she had loved him, no matter how he tried to color it now. “So, our parting was predestined from the moment you got the news from Beth Anne.”

“No! Not at all! My family would have helped Beth Anne through the pregnancy. We didn’t have to marry. I could have still gone to the university to begin my studies. I know, I know, it sounds naïve now, but I truly believed you and I, together, could make it work with . . .” He let his words trails off.

“With love?” she jeered. More Hallmark wish-wash, in her opinion. “So, how soon after I left did you marry Beth Anne?”

He rubbed a hand over his face for a moment before looking at her, directly, and admitted, “One month.”

She gasped, never expecting it had been so soon. And, for a guy who claimed marriage wouldn’t have been necessary, why had he done it at all?

“At Beth Anne’s first prenatal visit, it was discovered that she had the beginning stages of MS. Some forms of the disease are more virulent than others, and one thing that can trigger acceleration is stress. Even pregnancy itself can be a stress factor. The doctors recommended abortion, but Beth Anne was adamant about having the baby. She figured it might be her only chance. As a result, she spent most of the pregnancy in bed or in the hospital.”

“And that’s why you never went to college?”