Joe kissed and stroked my hair as I finally exhausted all my sobs, releasing a shuddering breath into his chest. Bill had taken Don out on deck, in part to see what his letter from Anne said, and in part to get him away from me for a while. He kept trying to apologize, but it was the last thing that I wanted to hear right now. I knew the kind of man that Don was, and I knew what it meant if she was pregnant. So did she which is why she took the time to send me the note.
"Kaylee, it's going to be okay. I promise," Joe tried to reassure me.
"It's not, Joe. He's gonna marry her. Whether he really wants to or not, he's gonna marry her. No matter what happened between us… no matter what I gave up… it's over. Over before it even started. I'm such an idiot."
"What? You are not an idiot! Why would you say that?"
"I knew she'd find a way to win. I knew it, and I let that happen anyway. I gave him all that I had, and I should have known that he couldn't do the same because she already had it all."
"He loves you, Katie-Lynn. No matter what happens, you can't forget that," he said quietly, pulling me closer.
"But I want to, Joe. I want to forget it ever happened. I don't want to remember what it felt like when he said he loved me. I don't want to remember his kiss or his touch. I don't want to remember how much I love a man that I will never have."
Joe didn't say anything else. He knew me well enough to know that all I needed right now was to be held, and that's exactly what he did. He held me against him so that I could hear the steady beat of his heart, and he ran his fingers through my hair until I finally fell asleep in his arms.
** JOE'S POV **
I saw Bill and Don coming back, still loudly carrying on whatever intense discussion they'd been having on deck, and I motioned to Bill to lower his voice.
"She's finally cried herself to sleep," I told him. He nodded, elbowing Don, who was still at top volume.
"Shhh, she's asleep!"
Don looked up at my bunk and saw her curled snugly against my chest. You couldn't miss the red puffiness around her eyes, or her tear-stained cheeks. It was obvious to anyone that she'd been crying. He saw it, and I could tell that it hurt him.
"Bet you're pretty happy right now, aren't you?" he snarked at me.
"Excuse me? No, as a matter of fact, I'm not. I want her to be happy, and I've spent the last two hours with her bawling her eyes out in my arms because you're an idiot! So, if you must know, no. I'm not happy at all."
"Yeah, well…" seemed to be the best he could come up with in response, but my anger had already kicked in.
"Well nothing! You should've handled that little lap dog of yours BEFORE you went off and drug her into this. She might've already been hurting thinking that you were married to that spiteful bitch, but at least she hadn't gotten in completely over her head! What the hell were you thinking?"
"I don't know, Joe. I love her. I do. But…"
"But nothing! I don't want to hear your damned excuses, Malarkey. She was doing fine without you. She was trying to move forward, and to let you do the same. But no! You're so selfish. You got scared that she was getting over you, didn't you? You saw her getting closer to other guys. You heard us talking about San Francisco or Philadelphia after the war. You heard what George said about me proposing, and you finally realized that she might actually be gone by the time you finally pulled your head out of your ass. So, instead of doing the right thing and making sure things were good and done with Anne, you just went right ahead and ripped this poor woman's heart out. Now she feels like she's an idiot, because she says she should have known that Anne would have the last word. She's blaming herself for every last bit of what happened, because she thinks she should have known better. And you know what, maybe she should have. I admire her taking responsibility. But you better believe that I'm not going to forget the huge part of the blame that falls squarely on you."
Bill was trying to talk me down now, and Don was just staring at me, wide-eyed at the brutal force of my words. When they sunk in, he looked almost ready to fight.
"You son of a bitch! You know I wouldn't do anything to purposely hurt her. I had no idea that Anne was pregnant, and I certainly didn't know she'd send that note. I know I handled things badly, and I should have ended things with her first. But I didn't. I screwed up. I admit that. You're right. The idea of her going home with you or Bill… the idea of you touching her or kissing her… or marrying her… it was more than I could handle. She was mine. Still is mine. I'll be damned if I let her go without a fight."
At this, Bill interrupted, "What the hell are you gonna do, Malarkey? You can't marry them both!"
"Maybe not, but I'm not gonna stand by while she marries Joe, or anybody else. Maybe once the kid is grown…" he trailed off.
"Would you listen to yourself? You want her to wait around for 18 years because you got another woman pregnant? That's bullshit. Have you even thought about what you'd do if Kaylee wound up pregnant too? You know as well as I do what would happen."
"Yeah, Bill. I know. There's no way Anne would let me raise a child with her. Maybe we could keep it a secret. Or say it was someone else's, and he died… or left her…"
He was talking out of his mind now, and I knew that. Desperate words from a desperate man. But his cavalier comments about whom she belonged to, who she could marry, and all of that nonsense had my blood boiling. I couldn't keep quiet any longer.
"Don't worry, Don. You go marry that little broad you knocked up. When we get home, you go have a million more at whatever house her daddy picks out for you to live in up there in Astoria. Meanwhile, down in San Francisco, Katie-Lynn, and the baby you may or may not have created today, will be just fine. It may take a while, but I'm gonna make sure of it if it takes the rest of my life."