Forgotten Angel

Chapter 1-3

“Let me ask you something else. If that job with the Forest Service hadn’t opened, would you still have decided to come home?”

“Yes,” Shane responded without hesitation.

“I’ll be damned. Maybe I should’ve gotten cancer sooner.”

“Dad…” he groaned.

“What? It’s about time you pulled your head out of your a*s. Northstar is where you belong, Shane, and if it took me getting cancer to make you see it… well, I’m glad it happened.”

Shane glanced at his father, and the smug expression on Austin’s face made him laugh a little harder. Shaking his head, he said, “I haven’t said it enough in my life—especially not in the last ten years—but I love you, Dad. Sorry I’ve been such an a*s for so long.”

There was more he wanted to say, but old habits were hard to break, and they fell into companionable silence. Thoughts of the relationships he wanted to repair occupied him all the way into Devyn, and before he knew it, he was parking his truck in the hospital’s lot. Austin undoubtedly knew how awkward this was going to be for Shane, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He was out of the truck and striding toward the door of the hospital before Shane had even gathered the brainpower to pull his key out of the ignition. He had to hurry to catch up with his father. They stopped only briefly to check in with the nurse and to ask for specific directions to Ryan’s room.

This was the first real test of his decision to move home to Northstar, and he hesitated in the hallway outside the hospital room where the woman who had nearly become the mother of his child was ensconced with his former best friend and their hours-old baby. He found himself once again on the outside of two people he loved, and the fact that it was all his own doing did not make it any less unsettling to face them.

Memories assaulted him, bringing with them a torrent of agonizing emotions, and try as he might, he couldn’t help but think that it was in this very hospital that Ryan had lost her first child. His child, he thought, though he had no more claim on that tiny girl than he had on her mother. Angel Rose, Ryan had called her. The image of Ryan going through that alone and terrified threatened to overwhelm him. Two years ago, when she and Luke got together, she had said she needed to forgive him, and he believed she had or was at least in the process, but he knew it would be much longer before he forgave himself, if he ever did.

“You coming?” Austin asked him.

Shane swallowed the memories and took a hesitant step toward the open door of the room and another until he could see inside. Ryan was sitting up with a tiny baby girl snuggled lovingly in her arms while Luke perched on the side of the bed beside his wife, talking on the phone and absently stroking Ryan’s hair with his gaze frequently shifting between his wife and daughter. Shane’s first thought was that things really had turned out for the best for them both. They were entirely in tune and relaxed with each other in a way he and Ryan had never been. He shut the second thought down the moment he felt the first tickle of it; he’d never be able to get through this if he allowed it to gain even a tentative foothold.

“If you do make it up this way,” Luke was saying, “try not to be too hard on Shane, all right? He is trying.”

Becky, Shane knew without needing confirmation. There was only one person currently residing outside of Northstar whom Luke would need to ask to be nice to him. Just thinking her name brought an entirely different kind of heartache because it was inescapably entwined with longing and desire. One night of awkward and fumbling but exquisite passion after three years together was all they’d had, but nine years could not make him forget the feel of her silken skin against his or the way the fragrances of their home melded with the warm, natural scent of her. Not even Ryan had been able to make him forget Becky, and they’d been together as long.

“Are you going to come in or are you going to just stand there in the doorway staring with that stupid look on your face?” Austin asked with an unsettling combination of concern and laughter in his voice. A heartbeat later, the latter won out, and he grinned. “Get your a*s in here.”

Austin’s adoration for Ryan had not dimmed in the least, Shane noted, and for that reason alone, he knew it was good that he had taken that first step toward earning her forgiveness. With her married to Luke, living at least part-time in Northstar, and maintaining her friendship with his father, she would always be a part of his life.

Finally, Shane strode into the room. Ryan and Luke met his gaze with broad grins, and he breathed a little easier.

“I’m glad you came, Shane,” Ryan said softly.

Shane stepped over to the bed to peer down at the baby in Ryan’s arms. “What’s her name?”

“Guess you’re going to have to come to the party on Monday,” Luke replied. “We’ve picked a name—picked it right after we found out Ryan was pregnant—but we’re not telling anyone until Monday.”

“Let’s just see how this goes first, all right?” Shane said. “Where are Alex and your parents?”

“Out getting something a little more palatable than hospital food for lunch.”

“Can’t say as I blame them.” Shane shifted his weight.

“Want to hold her?” Luke asked.

“Uh….”

Before he could say it wasn’t a good idea, Luke took his daughter from Ryan and with a tenderness that seemed impossible for a man of his size, settled her in Shane’s arms. Shane tensed when his old friend returned to his wife’s side with a surprisingly assured smile.

Not so bad, he thought. I can do this.

He hazarded a glance at the bundle now tucked against him, and his breath caught in his throat. Though she was only hours old, he saw her parents’ beauty in the delicate features of her face. She was a perfect blend of them, and Shane felt a spark of amusement at the trouble Luke—and probably Alex, too, as her older if adopted brother—was going to have chasing the boys away when she was a teenager. When her eyes opened, he had only a moment to wonder if they would stay blue like Luke’s or change to a silvery green like Ryan’s. As those big, gorgeous eyes met his, it felt like someone punched him in the chest, and all at once, he understood with a precision that had previously eluded him just what he had lost the day Ryan had miscarried.

“I’m sorry,” he said, hastily but carefully handing the baby to Austin. “I can’t….”

Overcome by the urge to flee, he strode from the room, and by the time he found a chair just down the hall and sank into it, he was gulping for breath. He hunched over his legs and curled his arms around his head, fighting against the panic and the raging sense of loss. He knew in his heart that if he hadn’t walked away from Ryan, she wouldn’t have taken the job in Devyn and wouldn’t have fallen down the stairs of her rented house, which had caused the total placental abruption that had ended her first pregnancy in a heartbreaking miscarriage. He had thought of that lost child so many times over the years and mourned her, but until this moment, he had never let himself consider that he’d actually wanted her.

He had just begun to get hold of himself when he sensed he was no longer alone. Someone sat beside him but said nothing, and he figured it was his father. He couldn’t yet bring himself to look up to see, so he said, “Just give me a few minutes, Dad. Please.”

“Well, I’m someone’s father now, but considering the fact that you’re older than me, it’s biologically impossible that I’m yours.”

Shane lifted his head and glanced to his left to see Luke sitting in the chair next to him. Despite the bitterness and self-loathing pulsing through him, he found the energy to offer his companion a weak smile.

“Smart a*s,” he muttered fondly, grateful for Luke’s lighthearted teasing. “My dad’s still in the room with Ryan?”

Luke nodded. “And making a fool of himself over my daughter.”

Shane wanted to ask Luke what it felt like to be a father now, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, so they sat silently for several minutes.

“I get the feeling that losing Angel grieves you more than you knew,” Luke said quietly.

He was every bit as insightful as Shane recalled, and as uncannily intuitive as June. Since there was no point in trying to lie and because he was unable to give voice to the renewed ache of loss, he simply nodded.

“Then why did you walk away?”

Shane couldn’t answer that. He wasn’t sure how Luke would react to the knowledge that he’d left because Ryan’s pregnancy had forced him to admit that he would never stop loving Becky. It didn’t matter that he might never get another chance with her; he couldn’t do that to Ryan. But I could walk away from her and leave her to raise our child alone… or mourn her, as it turned out. “When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m judging you, Shane. To be honest, once I got past the anger that you’d hurt someone else I’d come to love, I was selfishly grateful you and Ryan didn’t make it. When she came into my life, I finally began to heal—truly heal—and now I have everything I was beginning to think I never would.”

They fell into silence again, and Shane knew Luke was right. Even if he and Ryan had lasted a little longer, he believed in his heart that they would have eventually grown apart. Ryan deserved so much more than that. So did Luke, and for those reasons, Shane had done the right thing even if he’d done it in the worst possible way.

After several minutes, Shane noticed that they hadn’t said another word to each other and admitted that he’d missed Luke’s quiet, unassuming friendship all these years. The animosity that had torn them apart was gone, and without it hanging over them, the old camaraderie was returning. Just like old times when he’d been pissed at who knew what, simply sitting with his friend and knowing Luke understood him helped ease the grief. Though his friend hadn’t said it, Shane sensed that Luke cared about him. Even after every stupid thing he’d done.

“You’re a better friend than I’ve ever been,” he said. “I wish I’d realized it sooner. I wish I’d realized a lot of things sooner.”

Luke gripped his shoulder for a minute, then grinned. “Better late than never. If you’re up for it, come back in.”

Shane watched Luke walk away. He took a few minutes to gather the shreds of his courage before he followed his friend. For a moment, he leaned in the doorway and watched his father—as Luke had said—make a fool of himself over the new baby and recalled that it wasn’t only how Shane had left Ryan that had nearly destroyed his relationship with his father but also how deeply Angel’s premature birth and death had broken Austin’s heart.

Abruptly, he pushed off the doorjamb and entered the room. “I’m sorry for a minute ago,” he said. “Old feelings caught me off guard.”

“Not one of us in this room is a stranger to old feelings,” Ryan remarked. She glanced at her daughter cradled so tenderly in Austin’s arms and smiled. “Well, one of us is a stranger to them.”

“Let’s hope she stays a stranger to them,” Shane murmured.

“That’s probably too much to hope for,” Luke said. “And at any rate, it’s the pain in life that gives you the deepest appreciation for the good things.”

“I’m going to have to take your word for that.” Shane’s lips curved. “But this little girl right here…. I’d say she’s pretty good proof of it. She’s so beautiful.”

The conversation turned, as it should, to Luke and Ryan’s daughter, and though Shane was able to subvert the lingering ache of grief and the surprising twinge of envy enough to laugh with his companions, he was glad no one asked him to hold the baby again. Those feelings were too close to the surface, and he didn’t think he could handle another breach. Regardless, it was good to talk and laugh with Luke and Ryan, and in this moment, he felt like they had put the past where it belonged.

Dad’s right, Shane thought. This is where I belong. Maybe I’m not such an outsider after all.