“You don’t owe any of them anything.”
“How could you know you have a child for nearly forty years and do nothing about it? Do both of them think they can just fit into my life like they were always there?” I pounded the steering wheel with my fist.
“I’m not even close to over my sister confirming my worst fears that our mother left because of me and then this happens. I can’t go back to New York. I know my dad needs me, but I can’t be there. Not knowing my real parents are there.”
“They aren’t your real parents,” she said, her voice quiet.
“Dad showed us unconditional love. He taught us that’s what parents do.”
“Not all of them.” Her face crumpled in pain. “Sometimes there are most definitely conditions.”
I had no idea what she’d been through and wished we would’ve gotten to a place where she was comfortable sharing her past. Even if I couldn’t help her, at least she could get it out.
“What happened?” I asked, being selfish again, unloading on her.
“When I was at my lowest, they left me on my own.” She clutched the edge of the seat. “I don’t blame them. But I needed them, and they weren’t there.”
She was the kindest, most giving person I’d ever met. Knowing she’d carried so much on her own was a testament to her strength. How could anyone abandon her? Well, you are too, asshole. I wanted to apologize and tell her I was just like her parents, but I hoped she wouldn't see me that way. And even if she did, no doubt she’d get back up on her feet and prosper again.
“You make it look easy.”
Her smile was sad as she whimpered, “It’s not.”
I slid my arm around her shoulders and drew her against me, her head on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry things aren’t different, Easy.” I kissed her hair. “If they were, I’d give you everything. I wish so bad I could.”
“I thought you couldn’t stay here?”
I wasn’t sure I could, but going back to the city was out of the question. Not when my mother was there. Not when Baker would be so close and I couldn’t have her.
“I don’t know if I can. I might try to get a transfer to Yosemite or somewhere. I just know I can’t go back to New York.”
“What about your garage?”
“Maybe I’ll lease the building. Sell it. You can still use it if you need to while I decide. I can’t think about it now.”
Disappointment over letting that dream go slithered through me. It had been so real with Baker. And it wasn’t just me losing out. I’d taken it from her too. That was worse than letting my own plans fall by the wayside.
“You’re hurting. And you have every right to be. But don’t let your dad leave without talking to him. He needs you.”
“I won’t.” I pressed my lips to her hair again. “I’m gonna miss you, Easy.”
She gave me a watery smile. “You’ll be so busy with your new life, you’ll forget all about me.”
“Impossible.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Baker
Everything hurt.
The feeling only intensified as the day progressed. Trish and Andrew considered putting off the wedding, but decided not to give his mother that kind of power.
Everyone tried to put on a happy front, but the air had somberness to it. They deserved better than that, but in the real world, even the fairy tale became spoiled.
“If you aren’t going to get on with the first dance, Baker and I are going to get out there and tear it up.” Patrick stood and offered me his hand.
Somehow, he’d managed to make me laugh. I followed him to the small space cleared near the long table we’d dined at. He took me in his arms and dipped me.
“Patrick.”
“We’ve gotta turn this doom and gloom to a party. You in?”
He spun us over toward the band, who was playing a slow tune, and signaled to the singer to pick it up. They immediately transitioned into “She Loves You.”
Andrew stood and led Trish to the dance floor as we twirled by.
“I can’t believe our first dance is to The Beatles,” he said as we passed.
Trish laughed, the first real smile I’d seen from her all day. “It’s perfect.”
The rest of the party sat almost stoically around the table.
“I think we’re about to have to go Dirty Dancing style,” Patrick said against my ear.
“What?” I tried to put some distance between us.
“Like how the staff pulled the guests out of their seats to dance at the end.” He waggled his brows. “Or we could do what you had in mind.”
I slapped at his chest. “You take Mrs. Quinn. I’ll take Mr. Dixon.”
“Then we’ll get them together. Can you handle a spin with Holt?”
“Can you handle Marlow?” I challenged.
“She’s putty in my hands.”
I cast my gaze to where she sat, sulking. “Looks like it.”
“My hands are on you at the moment.”
I groaned and grabbed his hand. “Come on.”
“Mrs. Quinn, I can’t dance with this one any longer. Would you do me the honor? That is, if you don’t mind, Mr. Dixon.” Patrick bowed gallantly.
Mrs. Quinn cracked a smile. “I’d be thrilled.”
“Mr. Dixon, save me please.”
He stood and offered me his arm. “My pleasure.”
Effortlessly, he led me around the small space.
“I had no idea you were quite the dancer.”
Crinkles formed around his eyes. “My children think I sit around at home all day, but I know how to have a good time.”
“Bet there are a lot of broken hearts now that you’re off the market.”
He glanced wistfully over to Mrs. Quinn. “I’m worried I’ll mess it all up. Again. I seem to excel at driving women away.”
“We don’t know how capable we are at forgiveness until we try.”
“You’re a smart young lady.” He grinned. “But I already knew that.”
I blushed and glanced away.
“What about patience? Are you any good at that?”
“I—” I rubbed my temples. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I think so.”
“Can you try to be? With my son? He’s—” His eyes got misty as he choked on his words.
“Got a lot to process.”
“Not just everything that happened last night.” He sighed. “He doesn’t talk about it, but he lost his best friend.”
“I found the newspaper article about it.”
“Did he tell you he was there?”
“Yeah.”
“He lost his friend and Celia all at once. He puts up a good front, but it’s all compounding.”
“What about you? Is it all compounding?” It was deflection at its finest. I couldn’t stand to hear anything about the woman Holt might still love.
“May I cut in?”
“Certainly.” Mr. Dixon patted Holt’s shoulder. “I’d better go save Audrey.”
The music was still upbeat, but Holt enveloped me in his arms and gently swayed.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” he confessed against my hair.
“How about that you love him? That seems like a good place to start.”
“Anyone ever tell you how smart you are?”
“I’ve heard it recently.”
Holt tightened his arms around my back. “This dress new?”
“Hayden gave it to me.”
“You look beautiful.”
I buried my head against his chest and inhaled his forest scent. “I saw you dancing with Marlow.”
He stiffened. “I can hardly look at her.”
I completely understood. He handled her much better than I would.
“You’re trying. For Trish and Andrew.”
“She insists she didn’t have anything to do with her showing up.”
“Do you believe her?”
He was quiet a minute. We barely moved little mor
e than a sway.
“I don’t know.”
“She seemed pretty shaken.”
“I can’t trust her.”
How could he? She’d betrayed them all.
“She’s not on my list of favorite people. If she did do this . . .”
“I don’t think I can forgive her.” The words escaped him in a rush.
“Give it some time.”
He jerked back, his eyes searching mine. “Do you think I should?”
“If it’s the right thing for you, yes. If not, no. Just don’t make a decision now.”
“Sounds like you’re on her side.”
“Definitely not. I’m on yours, but you know that.”
He ran a finger down my cheek. “When are you headed back to the city?”
“Sunday.”
“Think you’ll find a new roommate?” The contrived brightness in his tone clawed at my heart.
“I’m going to leave it open. I can’t share a bathroom with just anyone.”
“That sorry SOB you lived with before never fixed the bathroom, did he?”
“Nope. The way I look at it, he owes me that.”
“I don’t think he’s gonna get around to it.”
Pain from the truth of his word nearly took me down, but I managed to shove it down. Mr. Dixon had asked me if I could forgive his son, and although I still didn’t really know what had happened to break him, if he wanted me to forgive him, asked me to wait for him, I knew in my heart I would. Deep down, I loved the man, but until things were cleared, I wouldn’t give him those words. That sting of rejection would be hard to recover from. But he needed to know that not only was he wanted, but that his happiness mattered too. That I wanted to be part of that happiness.
I cupped his face. “Take the time you need. You have a lot of things to make up your mind about, including where you want to be. Only you can figure out what’s best and stop waffling. When you do, come back to me, Grease Monkey.”
His eyes dimmed. “I’m sorry, Easy. But I can’t do it. Not even for you.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Holt
“Son.”
Dad caught up to me as I crossed the lobby.
“Good wedding, wasn’t it?”
“Have a drink with me?” He gestured toward the bar.
“Sure.”
We settled in at a table away from the other patrons and ordered whiskey. Dad toyed with the napkin the server left on the table.
“I’m sorry she did this,” I said.
“You’re sorry? I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. That was a hell of a bomb she dropped on you.”
It still made me dizzy with hurt and anger and confusion.
“That’s putting it mildly.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “I love you, Dad.”
His eyes glassed over and he patted my hand. “I don’t give a damn what DNA or biology or God or anybody says. You are my son.”
I swallowed around the knot in my throat. Everything I’d longed for had been right in front of me all along. “I couldn’t have asked for a better father. I still can’t grasp the magnitude of raising three kids completely on your own. But you did it without complaint, with infinite patience.”
“I wasn’t perfect. But I love you all more than anything. I tried to be both parents, though I fell short. When I realized I could only be me, I think I did better.”
He did love the three of us more than anything. He’d done nothing but show it over and over.
“You were the best. You wouldn’t talk about her, so I never considered how much it hurt you when she walked out. Not until I was older, when I felt my own pain over it.”
He cupped his glass, but didn’t take a drink. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t deal with it well at all. I tried to shield you from that.”
“You did.”
His shoulders sagged as if I’d lifted a weight off of them.
“It seems like a betrayal to you that all this time I wanted her too,” I said. “At first, I thought I just needed an explanation. Then it grew to wanting more. Except in my deluded fantasies, the relationship would be like ours.”
Desperation. That’s what I’d felt all these years. Maybe I hadn’t known how to find her though somehow she’d seemed closed enough to touch, but just out of reach.
“I don’t fault you for needing your mother. I’d been a pawn in her manipulations and still had a difficult time seeing her for what she was. And if you want a relationship with her, you have my full support.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at him in disbelief. This man . . . how did I ever get lucky enough to have him as a role model, a best friend, and most important, a father?
“Will you tell me what happened? Back then?”
He took a long sip of his whiskey. “Did you ever get the feeling something was off, but you didn’t realize it until you looked back?”
“Yeah. With Celia.”
His mouth turned down. “I was blissfully ignorant. Smitten with my wife, two kids, and the baby on the way. We weren’t wealthy, but we weren’t struggling either. I considered myself the luckiest guy on the planet.”
“You’ve always been like that.”
“Because I had the three of you.” He cleared his throat. “Five days after you were born, I came home from work. She was waiting for me in the kitchen. Said she couldn’t be a mother. Didn’t want to be my wife. She was tired of pretending.”
He scrubbed his hand behind his neck. “Back then, we knew about pregnancy hormones, but not the effects they can have on women. I thought it was the stress of a newborn, even though you were the best baby out of the three. Slept through the night. Hardly cried.”
“You think she had postpartum depression?”
“If I’d known what it was at the time, I’d have probably thought so. Now? No. I don’t think that’s it at all.”
“So that was it? She left?”
It seemed impossible she could just walk out on all of us.
“Yeah. And I was so stunned, I let her go.”
I remembered that feeling so well. “It’s like a sucker punch with a delayed reaction.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what it’s like.” He got a faraway look as if he remembered the feeling as well as he did the day it happened. “I found the divorce papers on my pillow. But I kept thinking she’d come back.”
“What?” The more I found out about the woman I’d been so desperate to know, the less I liked her.
“I was on auto-pilot. I worked. I took care of you kids. I didn’t even contest the divorce. Everything happened so damn fast.”
“Why haven’t you ever told us any of this?”
“Because what happened between us didn’t have anything to do with you. If the time ever came for you to choose between us, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d have poisoned your mind with my bitterness.”
“Dad—”
He held up his hand. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions now.”
“How did you find out about the other man?”
He toyed with his glass. “Right after the divorce was final and she’d gotten her half of everything, she told me if I hadn’t changed, she wouldn’t have been forced into another man’s arms.”
“She came by?”
“No. I mean literally. We were outside the mediation room, the ink not even dry. The lawyers were still inside socializing.”
How could she do that to Dad? He was such a great man and deserved so much better.
“I don’t understand how you ever fell in love with someone like that to begin with.”
“I haven’t ever figured out if she was always this way or she changed. Or maybe she was telling the truth, that I made her leave.”
“No. You see what she did. If she gave a shit about me or Andrew or even Marlow, she wouldn’t have shown up here.”
“That wasn’t her final parting shot.”
“What else could there be?” Guilt
crept up his face. “She told you about me.”
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Told me you weren’t mine, but if I didn’t want you, she’d give you away.”
My chest seized. She didn’t want me. That wasn’t news. Why does is still hurt so much?
“I didn’t believe her. Not that you weren’t mine.”
I stared at him. “Why didn’t you have a test?”
“Because it didn’t matter what it said.” He swallowed hard. “If you want one now. Or later. Whenever. I’ll do whatever you need.”
Selfless. Dad was the most selfless person I’d ever known. I prayed one day I could be half the man he was.
“I can’t even think about it.”
He nodded. “When the dust settles.” He pushed his drink away. “You can talk to me about him or them. If you need to. And if you want to pursue a relationship with them, I’m behind you.”
“Right now? I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“You might change your mind.”
“Are they still together?” I asked.
“I think so. When she visited me, she said she’d leave him. Had missed me. Regretted our time apart.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It was everything I’d wanted to hear, even after all she’d done. Stupid, right?”
“No.” I folded the drink napkin into a triangle, unfolded it, and did it again. “Celia asked me to take her back.”
“And?”
“I don’t want to. But there’s a part of me that remembers what it was like before. How happy we were.” I flicked the napkin across the table. “But she’d been cheating on me with Cameron. He’d planned to ask her to marry him, even though he knew she was cheating on me with him. So, no, I wouldn’t take her back, especially since I found out Roman’s been keeping her bed warm.” That wasn't love. That wasn't the sacrificial love I’d had given to me all my life by the man before me.
Had she ever loved me? Even after everything she’d put me through, I wouldn’t have considered being with one of her friends, let alone two. Was there something about me that the women I cared for wouldn’t stick around?
“I wish you’d never had to experience that. And I know it won’t help, but if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t have Baker.”
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