A Hickory Ridge Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

were doing fine. Just fine. Now you’ve messed all of that up. We’ll never be the same.”
    â€œCome on, Hannah. We have a lot to talk about.”
    â€œI don’t think so. You’ve got your answer now, so go.”
    â€œI can’t leave now that you’ve told me this.”
    â€œPlease go.” Her eyes filled again.
    Her plea tore at his heart. Clearly, they had more to say to each other, but maybe now wasn’t the best time. He was still too shocked, too confused to make any decisions that would affect their lives. Three lives.
    â€œI won’t stay gone, you know. I’m living in Milford now, and I’m sticking around this time.”
    Either she didn’t hear him or she refused to answer, but Hannah hurried him toward the door andclosed it behind him. As the cold enfolded him, this time seeping to his very core rather than only touching his extremities, Todd realized that Hannah was right about one thing: None of them would ever be the same.
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    It wasn’t until Todd was back at his Commerce Road town house and eating chicken noodle soup that refused to warm his chilled insides that he realized he’d never apologized to Hannah. After traveling from the other side of the world in miles and in years of effort, he hadn’t even managed to do the most important thing he’d come to town to accomplish.
    â€œYou were too busy trying not to swallow your tongue to remember anything else,” he said to the stacked boxes around him.
    Sitting at the new glass dinette in the kitchen, he stared down into the soup bowl and stirred the noodles into a whirlpool. His thoughts traveled in a similar circular pattern, but unlike the liquid, they wouldn’t stop spinning.
    A child. His child. Of course, he should have considered the possibility that Hannah could have become pregnant. He knew the textbook mechanics of reproduction and the potential consequences of unprotected sex, but he’d never once considered that they might have made a child together. He and Hannah had only made love that one time. Apparently, it only took once.
    The returned letters and unanswered calls made sense now. Not only had he left her alone with herguilt over what had happened between them, but he’d also left her alone with his child.
    Alone. He felt that way now as he sat with only the bare walls and the truth to keep him company. He suddenly felt a stronger need to connect with his parents than he had at any time since he’d hugged them goodbye in Kranji a week earlier. But what would he say to them if he called? He could just imagine how that conversation would go: “Hello, Mom and Dad. Or should I say Grandma and Grandpa? I have just the best news.”
    He shook his head. No, that conversation would have to wait for another day when he was prepared to hear disappointment of that magnitude over international phone lines. He wasn’t ready for that when he hadn’t digested it himself yet.
    But there was one call he could make now. He pulled out the phone book, looked up the name and dialed. He didn’t even identify himself when the man answered on the second ring.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?” Todd said simply.
    Andrew Westin sighed loudly into the line. “Todd. I had an idea I would be hearing from you.”
    â€œYou could have saved yourself the call by telling me before.”
    â€œYou make it sound so easy.”
    His jaw was so tightly clenched in frustration that it took Todd a few seconds to be able to answer at all and a few seconds more to answer civilly. “It was easy. The first time I called the church, you couldhave said, ‘Hey, Todd, it’s good to hear from you. Just thought you should know, you’re a dad.’”
    â€œSure, I could have done that.”
    â€œThen why didn’t you?”
    â€œIt wasn’t my place. Then or now.”
    Todd stalked over to the tan striped couch, dropped onto it and