Savior Complex: A Small Town Love Triangle Romance

“Dad, please don’t.”

“No, you need to hear this. Betty was my high school flame before I met your mom. Everyone thought we’d end up together. But the summer before our senior year, she broke up with me for a college guy. That girl shattered me, and I was certain I’d never meet someone like her. I was right, because when I met your mom, she was very different from Betty and much better suited for me. I was so sure about your mom that I asked her to marry me before I graduated high school, and we planned our wedding for the following spring. But somewhere between fall and winter, I got scared. It was all too much, too fast, and I started second guessing the whole relationship. It didn’t help that Betty and that guy broke up, and she started calling me on the side.”

“Dad, I don’t want to—”

“I’m not done. I finally agreed to meet Betty one night, and one thing led to another. I realized it was a mistake while it was happening, but I couldn’t stop what was already in motion. I figured it would be a secret that would go with me to the grave, but people talk. Betty talked. The week wasn’t even over before your mom was throwing her ring at me and calling the wedding off.”

“You cheated on mom?” I ask. I did not want to know this. My dad nods.

“It was the worst mistake of my life, and your mom didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve me.”

“So how did you convince her to take you back.”

“A lot of groveling,” he says. “I not only had to make it up to her, but also to her parents. You remember your grandfather, right?”

It’s been years since Grandpa Cordy has been alive, but even at his frailest, his voice was strong and abrupt.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad your grandfather is not the gun toting type, because he’d have shoved that barrel up my ass.” He chuckles now, but I can also sense the deep remorse he has. “The point is, you’re ruining a good thing all because you think you’re not ready for this next step.”

I take deep breath. He doesn’t know me at all. Has he forgotten the role he played in this whole sham of an engagement? The promise I made him from his hospital bed, and then later when she lost the baby?

“I’m not scared to get married.” I watch the floor, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m scared of marrying the wrong girl.”

“What are you talking about? The two of you have been planning this wedding for five years now.”

“No, Dad.” This time, I do look at him. “We’ve been engaged for five years. There’s been no planning.” I scoff. “Well, until this weekend when Jordy decided to speed things along.”

“I know,” he says.

“You what?”

“She had us put the date on the calendar.”

“And no one even thought to tell me about it?”

“She asked us to keep it secret. She wanted to surprise you.”

“This is just rich.” I get up from the chair and pace the floor before I plant my feet and face my dad. “My whole life has been planned for me, and I don’t even get a say in it.”

“This is the date of your wedding, not your whole life.”

“It’s absolutely been my whole life!” I repeat. “From taking on the ranch to asking Jordy to marry me, none of it was my decision.”

“If you don’t want this ranch, I can find someone else that would be more than happy to take your place.”

“I want the ranch, Dad, but I never got the choice. With Jordy, I fulfilled whatever obligation you said I had to fill. Why, because I got her pregnant?”

Then the math hits me. The reason my dad was so insistent that we get married.

My parents weren’t married in spring like he said they’d planned, but in winter—and I was born eight months later.

It suddenly makes all the sense in the world.

“Was Mom pregnant with me when you two got married?”

My dad looks out the window, and my mouth drops.

“You only married her because she was pregnant. Otherwise, you’d probably still be with Betty.”