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She bit her lower lip, squared her shoulders and raised her chin "Goodbye, Wyatt"

Then she was gone She told him she loved him and she’d left anyway They all left, so he was used to it But this was the first tined

"I proed her "I’ll be back for your surgery""I want to hear your ed Nicole "Are you sure you’re going to be all right by yourself? I worry about you"

"I’ land-speed records onback to here I can terrorize one"

But there were tears in Nicole’s eyes as she spoke Probably like the tears Claire could feel burning in her own

"I hate this," she one long"

"I won’t I love you"

"I love you ue," Nicole sniffed "I’ain "I love you"

Aned that she loved Claire

"This is crazy," Claireto be puffy We have to stop"

"You have to go Call "

"I don’t care Call ot into her rental car and started the engine Still fighting tears, she headed for the freeway, then the airport She was catching a late-evening flight to New York Back ho her heart in Seattle, so how could anywhere else ever be home?

WYATT PUT DOWN his empty beer bottle "I don’t knohat to do"

"Don’t ask me," Drew told him from across the table in the bar "I know shit about women I lost Nicole""That was your own damn fault"

"And this isn’t yours?"

Wyatt didn’t like that his stepbrother was actuallysense It was his fault that Claire had asked hihts Why would she think he would care about their baby? He’d done nothing but accuse her of trying to trap hinancy was

"I needed ’s going to change"

Heanother child He had A to hi, he reminded himself In his heart, he knew he could love another kid Maybe o there because he hadn’t believed it could ever work out His relationships oenetics at play

He looked at Drew "How’d you get someone like Nicole to fall for you?"

"I don’t have a clue"

"Why’d you cheat on her?"

Drew shrugged "Jesse was always there, prancing around in her little clothes"

"I don’t believe it"

Drew took another long drink of his beer "I couldn’t be what Nic wanteddisappoint, but it was there I couldn’t stand it"

"So you decided to disappoint heryou what I was thinking when I tried to screw Jesse"

Wyatt wanted to dis about He’d seen the same disappointment in Claire’s eyes when he hadn’t been happy about the baby

"She told me it can be like it never happened," Wyatt said

"The baby? So that’s good"

"I can’t walk away from my kid"

"Then you have a problem"

Worse, he wasn’t sure he could walk away from Claire

"I could alnaled for another beer "That proposal will make her heart beat faster"

"You knohat I mean I’ve never been able to see ? It’ll never happen"

"That’s bullshit and you know it," Drew told him "It’s an excuse not to try No one else in this family has ever been able to hold a job for reat kid Do you really believe you can’t have a decentinsightful again?"

"Yeah, don’t tell anyone It doesn’t happen all that often Look, Wyatt, you’ve stood by iven me a job and you didn’t kill me when I cheated on Nicole I don’t have what you have I lost her I know that But you still have a chance Don’t be an idiot"

"Words to live by," Wyatt otta ht and pulled out his cell phone

"It’s me," he said when Nicole answered "I need to talk to Claire and don’t tell ree, but you still can’t talk to her She’s not here She left a couple of hours ago"

He went very still "For where"

"New York"