Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(81)

“I didn’t sleep with her while you were gone. You were right to go to your sister’s party. It didn’t cost you anything.”

“But you saw Savanna...”

“It’s not as though I took her out behind your back! I helped her get a stove, and I saw her and her kids today at my mother’s barbecue.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “And how’d she get invited to that?”

She obviously thought she had him there, but he hadn’t invited Savanna. Eli had done it, not that Gavin was going to get that specific. “You know my mother. She learned I had a new neighbor and wanted to make her feel welcome.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have left.”

“This would’ve happened regardless.”

She wrung her hands. “But you said we were going to try again.”

He had tried, as hard as he could, but maybe something would change... “There’s still hope. Who knows what the future holds.”

“We’re having a baby together. I think I deserve something a little more certain than that.”

“The pregnancy came out of nowhere, and not while we were together. That changes things.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

Gavin blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about? You were dating someone else. You don’t even know which one of us is the father. Anyway, like I said, I can’t say if my relationship with Savanna will go anywhere.” After what Gordon had done, Savanna might not be able to trust again, not so soon. But Gavin wanted—needed—the chance to pursue what he felt. He’d been denied the close relationships most children had when they were young, so feeling as he did when he was around Savanna meant even more to him. What if he’d finally found what Eli had with Cora?

He’d begun to doubt that would ever happen for him.

“You want to be with her, even though I’m the one who’s having your baby...”

He almost said, You can’t even tell me it’s mine! but he’d already made that point, and she was only reacting to the hurt she felt. He couldn’t let himself get as emotional as she was or this would go even worse. “I want to be fair to both of you,” he reiterated.

“How can you be unfair to her? You don’t owe her anything!”

“She’s new here, could use a friend.”

“There are plenty of men in town who’d be happy to befriend her.”

“Heather...”

She stood. “And if I go back to Scott?”

He recalled Scott’s parting words the day he’d come to Gavin’s house—I don’t want your filthy bastard growing up in my house—and felt his muscles tighten. Was he essentially abandoning his child to the fate of having a bad stepparent? Someone who was unkind or unloving—like what he’d known growing up? Scott claimed he wouldn’t take Heather back, but that could have been said in the heat of the moment. Scott had always been there for her before.

Gavin couldn’t help wondering if he should’ve persevered, even though it was becoming so clear that he’d fail in the end. “Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Maybe I will!”

He caught her by the wrist. “Please don’t do anything rash, okay? If we play this by ear, take each day as it comes, maybe things will work out for us. I’m not ruling that out. I just... I wish we could be friends, for the moment, and see if more grows from that.”

“You mean you want me to be patient and wait around while you decide if you’d rather have the pretty redhead next door!”

He raised his voice for the first time, simply because she didn’t seem to be listening. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with Savanna!”

“And yet you want her more than you want your own child.”

“I need the time and space to figure out how I really feel.”

“You’re no better than Scott or anyone else!” She tried to hit him, but he caught her hand before she could land the blow.

“Heather—”

“I’ve been such a fool,” she said on a sob. “You don’t deserve the love I’ve offered you. All you’ve ever done is break my heart.”

He tried to stop her from leaving. She needed to calm down before she got behind the wheel, but she wouldn’t listen. She stormed out and nearly hit the fence with her SUV as she tore out of his drive.

“So much for trying to be honest,” he muttered, and let himself drop back on the couch.





23

Savanna had spotted Heather’s Pathfinder sitting in Gavin’s drive almost the first moment she turned down the narrow road that led to both their houses. As she drove past, she’d told herself to ignore it, that she shouldn’t have expected anything less, but the sight made her feel so low that when her brother called, she didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she had the mental energy to pull off a conversation with Reese, not without him figuring out that something was wrong. And she was tired of constantly putting him in the position of having to encourage and console her. She wanted to return to her usual role as the big sister, and she felt confident she would’ve been on that path again at last if she hadn’t gotten involved with Gavin.

What made her sleep with someone she’d just met? She had one neighbor. Just one. And she’d had to take him to bed.