The corner of his mouth tipped up. “He wasn’t good enough for you.”

“Yeah, you’ve always said that.”

“I told him he was holding you back.”

I frowned. “When?”

He gave a small shrug as if it didn’t mean anything to him. “Before you went to school.”

“Why would you do that?”

“You were headed to college. He could offer you nothing.”

He’d given me his love. His protection. His promises that he’d keep me safe. Keep me happy.

“He’s not nothing, Dad. He’s the chief of police! I’d say he’s made a man of himself.”

“He had a baby with another woman right after he dumped you.”

I knew the truth of that now. He hadn’t. Huck was right, people in this town were going to judge no matter what had actually happened, and I had no intention of setting my dad straight.

“I’m not talking about then. I’m talking before I left for school. He came and said he was breaking up with me because of school. Because he was bad for me. Why would he all of a sudden say that?”

“Because I told him the truth.”

My dad had talked to Huck. “What did you say?” My throat ached, trying to ask the question.

Dad shrugged. “That he needed to leave you alone or I’d step in.”

“That wasn’t stepping in?” I shouted. I pushed at his chest, and he stepped back, more out of surprise than because of my strength. “You drove him away!”

“I did it for you.”

“I know Huck. We were in love. He would have fought for me. He’d have taken me away.”

He didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t bending in his thoughts toward Huck Manning.

“You threatened him.” He was stone-faced. “Oh my God. What did you do?”

“I told him I wasn’t going to put you through college. That I’d take all the money away.”

I’d had a scholarship, but it had been a partial one. My dad had told me he’d pay for the rest of tuition and room and board, and I’d been thankful for that. Maybe that was why I’d stuck around all these years helping him, as if I owed him or felt indebted.

But it had all been a lie.

“I did it for you, pumpkin.”

“You didn’t do it for me. You did it because you hate Huck Manning. I have no idea what he did or why, but he’s not what you think. He never was.” Tears slid down my cheeks.

I turned away, felt sick. Six years. Six years and I never knew the truth. “All this time, I thought he hated me. That I wasn’t special enough. Good enough. That what we’d shared had been a lie.”

That he’d taken my virginity as a feat to achieve instead of something special. A beginning for us.

I thought of the baby we’d made that night. When I’d learned I was pregnant, I was already at school. Huck had been gone. The baby was a culmination of our love, but it hadn’t been real. For a bit I’d hated the baby I’d carried because it was a reminder of the lie of our relationship.