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“No, you weren’t.” His brows drew down, like somehow he’d never noticed?
“Chubby. I was chubby.”
“I don’t care. I never paid attention to that.”
“It didn’t feel like it. It felt like...like there were cheerleaders who caught your eye.”
“And you waited for me to get some sense. I wasn’t perfect.”
“I didn’t expect you to be.”
“I didn’t see you like that for a while. You were a lot younger. But...you were faithful. Faithful in a way that no one else in my life has ever been. Maybe that’s what drew my attention to you to begin with, but I fell in love with you at some point, and I’ve never fallen back out. Ever.” He pressed his lips together and blew the breath out of his nose as he lifted his eyes and looked over her shoulder as though deciding whether or not to say more. “I’ve been faithful to you since that day in the barn. The day that I wanted to kiss you, but didn’t and walked away instead.”
She blinked. Trying to process what he was saying. She... She wondered over the years. Maybe he’d left because he had girlfriends. Maybe he hadn’t stayed because he changed his mind. Maybe she was just friendship material while there were other girls that were...more.
He didn’t need to say this now. Didn’t need to tell her everything, didn’t need to discuss the time that elapsed between them. If he wanted to, he could just pick up from today.
But he wanted her to know that he’d been faithful. To her.
“I wondered what you’ve been doing. All the times you were away. But we didn’t talk about it for a long time. You never mentioned anyone, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people, women.”
“No. Occasionally I had to take a date to a business party or lunch or something, and Ford usually found someone for me. I think he tried to find people who would never be interested in a skinny kid, since my dates always seemed to be older women who were interested in someone else.”
“I’ll have to thank him,” Ellen murmured. Not sure what direction Travis was going with this conversation, but the fact that he was touching her, telling her he was faithful to her, talking about the time he almost kissed her, and didn’t. He’d said he loved her, but maybe he was talking about as a friend.
“Yeah. I have a lot of things to thank Ford for.” He bent down, kissed her forehead, just a gentle touch of his lips on her skin, and she closed her eyes as he stayed there, like he just wanted to be close enough to touch her, to catch her scent, to feel her heat.
She remembered the little boy he’d been and how he longed for his mother’s touch, and maybe he just needed that closeness. Or maybe it was something more.
“It was a lonely ten years, and I never asked you to wait for me. I didn’t want you to not be with someone, just because you promised. It took a lot of faith, but I wanted you to want me enough to wait. Without me asking. I thought to myself that if that happened, then when I got home... Maybe it meant you felt for me exactly what I felt for you.”
“You know I’ve been faithful. If I hadn’t been, everyone in town would be talking about it.” He snorted a little at her words. “And the fact that a baby shows up, and everyone assumes that if it was yours, it was mine.”
“I guess that was all I needed to know.”
“But I hate those assumptions. After the struggle to do right, to be what the Lord wanted, that everyone would just assume that we hadn’t, it’s frustrating.”
“It’s good for the baby. And it was good for my heart. I shouldn’t admit that, and I know that it shouldn’t feel as good as what it did, but the last ten days as I listened to the rumors, every time I hear that people think it’s yours, and they think I’m the father, it just makes me smile. There’s never been another name associated with you, and...that just really makes me feel good.”
“It wasn’t on purpose. It was just, there just wasn’t anyone else who compared. Ever. For anything.”
“That’s hard for me to believe. I’m not that great of a person.”
“You are to me. You’ve grown into a better one since the boy I knew walked away.”
There was silence for a bit, and she thought maybe he was just enjoying the closeness. She brought her other hand up and slid her hands around his back. He let out a groan but didn’t move. Almost like he was afraid to.
“Do you think you could love the man I’ve become?” There was a bit of anguish in his voice that broke her heart.
“I do! I love the boy you were, and I love even more the man you are now.” How could she tell him how her heart turned over when she saw him holding Alice? She lifted her head, and he pulled back a bit to give her room. She took one finger and traced the bruise that was fading from his eye, the scab that had healed up on the edge of his jaw, where the edges were red and painful looking.
“You didn’t have to come back and have a fistfight for me. I would have gone willingly.”
He grinned a little, and maybe she shouldn’t have tried to lighten the air at all, but she didn’t like the anguish she’d heard, like telling her what he felt was painful.
But she also understood that he hadn’t had a whole lot of love in his life. That having feelings for someone almost always involved pain for him and weren’t usually returned.
That loving her was a risk for him. No matter how rich or successful he had become, a person’s childhood never really faded completely away, and the idea that she might reject him probably loomed large in his head.
