Page 12 of Dragon Daddy's Second Chance

“Which will be a very short conversation; my life is pretty boring. I go to work and come home every day, that’s about it,” he said. “I have a few friends that I hang out with occasionally, but they’re all married and have kids now, so it doesn’t happen that often.”

“That sounds lonely, Blake,” Wren said. “Don’t you have someone special in your life?”

“No, I haven’t tried dating in a long time, it never worked out, and the woman always ended up hurt,” he said. “I decided it was better to be single until…well, I got over you, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Blake, I told you…” she started to say, but he interrupted her.

“Wren, I’m not putting any pressure on you, I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “Maybe if we get all this past stuff out of the way, we can be done with it and move on.”

She studied him for a second. “You mean like ripping off a bandage?” she finally asked. “Just get it over all at once so it’s out of the way.”

“Something like that,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe we’ll both get some closure, or maybe we’ll be able to get past it. I don’t know, it might be a bad idea.”

Wren was silent for a second, then seemed to come to a decision and looked over at him. “Did you look for me?” she asked. “Did you ever try to find me?”

He nodded, “No one would tell me where you went. I knocked on every door I could think of, most of them twice. I begged and pleaded with your parents. I spent an entire night camped out in front of the house, hoping that would work,” he said. “They still wouldn’t tell me anything. They acted like I was a criminal or something. I was just gettingready to start looking for you in the next village when my parents showed up.”

“Your mother talked you into going home, didn’t she?” Wren asked, her face full of sadness. “She told me she was taking you home, and I’d never see you again. I guess she was right.”

“Only because you let her,” he said, a spark of anger igniting inside him. “I didn’t know she’d come to see you; I didn’t know about the terrible things she said to you; you didn’t give me a choice, Wren. You just disappeared, and no one would tell me where you were. I was heartbroken, I had no idea what went wrong. One night, we were planning our life together, and then the next morning, you were gone. Maybe I should have stayed and looked for you, maybe I gave in too easily, and maybe I would have made a different decision if I’d known what was wrong.”

***Wren***

Wren was surprised by Blake’s anger at first, but then realized that he was right. She’d been so caught up in protecting Theo that she’d forgotten about her part in everything back then. “I’m sorry, Blake, I guess you did the best you could,” she said. “And you’re right, I should have come and talked to you, but I was just a stupid kid back then. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was scared of your mother, scared that she’d follow through with her threats and cut you off and that someday you’d come to hate me for that. You should have told me about her, you should have warned me. I was so unprepared to handle a woman like her that I just did what she said and ran away from you. I guess I could have fought harder, but I wasn’t sure what I was fighting for. I felt like I didn’t know you after discovering the truth.”

Blake let out a long sigh. “I guess we both made mistakes. I should have told you about my parents, but I didn’t want people treating me differently just because I was rich,” he said. “That’s happened to me my entire life. That summer I just wanted to be me, I wanted to stand on my own two feet without my family’s money or social standing propping me up. But that’s no excuse. I should have told you, I should have trusted you of all people with the truth. I knew it wouldn’t make any difference to you, I just never…”

“I didn’t trust you enough either,” she said when his words trailed off. “I should have come to you, we should have talked it out, though. Things might have turned out differently.”

“Let’s start over, Wren,” Blake said, taking her hand. “We can take it slow if you want, and I promise my mother isn’t going to be a problem this time; I am done with her meddling in my life to get what she wants.”

She wanted to believe him, wanted to sink into his arms and feel his lips on hers again as the warmth of their love spread through her, but she held back, Theo as always at the back of her mind. It was quickly approaching the point where she had to tell him about his son or risk the new and fragile bond they were creating. The problem was that she wasn’t sure it was what she wanted.

Blake was both the love of her life and the man she couldn’t live without. She’d been completely vulnerable with him once before, and she wasn’t sure she could risk that kind of devotion again. If it was just her, if it was only her heart she was risking, she’d take the leap, but there was Theo to think about. The last thing she wanted was him getting hurt if things went badly, and that was something she just couldn’t risk.

But looking into Blake’s eyes, she felt the pull he’d always had over her as warmth spread through her, and she let out along sigh. “Maybe if we take it slow it might be all right,” she finally said. “Don’t forget, we both have lives waiting for us when we leave the island. Life has taken us in different directions, Blake; we can’t ignore that.”

“We have these two weeks, Wren,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking for right now. We can worry about what’s waiting for us out there later. Right now, I just want to enjoy having you back in my life. I know we’re not in a fairy tale, but fate was kind enough to give us a second chance, let’s not waste it.”

When he put his arm around her, Wren leaned into him, deciding that for the rest of the trip, she wouldn’t worry about Theo, home, or any of the other million things that always filled her mind. She’d give herself this time with Blake, two weeks of what could have been, and pushed telling him about their son to the back of her mind. She’d know when the time was right, when he was ready to find out that he was a father.

“Let’s do something together tomorrow, I know you have a sailing lesson, but maybe after that,” Blake said, breaking into her thoughts. “You could invite Susan, I know she doesn’t like me very much, but…”

“If it wasn’t for Susan, I wouldn’t be here,” she said, looking up at him. “She pushed me to have breakfast with you the other day. She wouldn’t let me say no.”

“Really?” Blake asked. “I was under the impression that she thought I ruined your life. She basically said so the first time I saw her.”

“I guess she changed her mind,” Wren said, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe you should ask her yourself.”

“I think I will; after all, I need all the help I can get,” he said, grinning down at her. “Have you ever been snorkeling?”

She shook her head. “No, we try to stay out of the water in Ireland,” she said. “It’s a bit frigid even in the summer for something like that.”

“I’ve only been a couple of times. It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I bet the water around here is perfect, and I saw a sign-up sheet for a class tomorrow in the village. What do you think?”

“Sounds like fun to me, and I’m sure Susan will want to go,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t involve getting up early in the morning, she’s boycotting them while we’re here.”

Blake laughed. “Well, isn’t that what vacations are for?” he said. “It’s getting late, so I guess I should walk you back to your cabin.”

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