Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(80)

She was just walking back to get more of the leftover food, which Aiyana was covering and putting in the fridge, when she caught Eli studying her with an appraising look. She gave him a tentative smile, and he smiled back when he realized that she’d noticed his attention.

“Thanks for inviting me to the party,” she told him. She was carrying the last of the food but had curved around the pool to get close enough to speak to him. “I had a lot of fun. So did the kids.”

He bent to retrieve a floating raft from the water. “I’m glad,” he said as he let the air out of it. “I’m sorry Gavin had to leave so early.”

She cleared her throat. “Maybe he had a few things he had to get done.”

“Maybe,” he responded, but the way he was grinning when he said it gave her the impression he found something about Gavin’s sudden departure more amusing than it should’ve been.

*

Gavin sat on the couch, facing Heather. She’d returned from Vegas sooner than she’d originally planned, hadn’t wanted to leave Silver Springs in the first place. And he knew he was the reason. She could sense that he wasn’t in the emotional space she wanted or needed him to occupy and that scared her. With a baby coming, he could see why. It worried him, too, but he was beginning to realize that he couldn’t get back with her. Not right now. He wasn’t feeling what he should be feeling, and he couldn’t live a lie.

“So what are you saying?” she asked, her voice trembling.

She’d texted him while he was at the barbecue to see where he was. That was part of the reason he’d left early. He hated feeling as though simply attending that barbecue made him somehow less than loyal. His encounter with Savanna in his old bedroom had simply underscored the fact that he needed to let Heather know he was struggling, so it wouldn’t come as a nasty surprise later.

“I care about you,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to support you during the pregnancy and after. I want what’s best for you and the baby, whether the baby’s mine or not.” He kept emphasizing that he wouldn’t abandon her, but it didn’t seem to help. She looked stricken.

The tears he’d anticipated, given the pitch of her voice and how rapidly she was blinking, began to roll down her cheeks. “But you can’t love me...”

“I’m not saying I can’t.” He didn’t want to make her feel there was anything wrong with her. There wasn’t. But he had to be honest. “It’s just... I’ve met someone else.”

“Your new neighbor.”

He tucked his hair behind his ears. After Savanna had taken the tie out of it, he hadn’t bothered to pull it back again. “Yes.”

“But you don’t even know her.”

“I’m getting to know her.”

“She’s only been here two weeks!”

“What does that matter? I’m attracted to her, and I can’t seem to change that.”

She laughed humorlessly. “I can’t believe this. When I ran into her that day while she was getting her mail, she told me she wasn’t interested in meeting anyone.”

“She wasn’t. I can vouch for that. The attraction has taken us both by surprise.”

Heather’s expression hardened as she lifted her chin. “Attraction? Have you already slept with her?”

Gavin didn’t answer. He didn’t consider the details of his physical involvement with Savanna to be any of Heather’s business. But he wasn’t going to deny that his relationship with Savanna had gone that far. He was trying to be as up front as possible. In his mind, that was the only decent way to be.

“Oh, my God!” She covered her face as if the truth was just too terrible. “I’m going to have your baby in seven months, and you’re fucking someone else!”

He felt terrible, knew she was in an untenable position and hated that he couldn’t solve the problem so no one would be hurt. “It’s not like that. There’s no guarantee we’ll wind up together. The relationship could fizzle in a few weeks or months, so please, don’t overreact.”

Her voice climbed even higher. “Overreact? I’m pregnant! That means I’ll have a baby in a few months. Your baby.”

Or Scott’s baby... That was what made this thing so difficult. “What I have going with Savanna is completely new—unexplained and uncategorized—which is why I haven’t said anything until now. It could turn out to be nothing.”

“Or you could wind up marrying her instead of me. What you have going with her has to be something, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

He lifted his hands to indicate he didn’t know what more to say, because he didn’t. He felt sick that there didn’t seem to be a solution he could live with. He didn’t want to let Heather down, didn’t want to let his child down, either. That more than anything. And yet it felt wrong to quash that special thing he and Savanna seemed to have when they were together. He’d never felt anything like it before.

“You slept with her this weekend, while I was gone, didn’t you?”

“If I did, I did. Don’t try to call it cheating, because you know we’re not committed to each other right now.”

“That’s a yes,” she said, ignoring everything else. “That’s what’s causing this. If I hadn’t gone to my sister’s stupid birthday party, it never would’ve happened.”