Sweet on Peggy

by Stella MacLean

  “I had great parents, too. I really loved my dad. Mom and I were devastated when he died in a plane crash in Chile.”

  His look of concern encouraged her to continue. “He’d gone on a business trip. We were living in Alaska at the time, but Mom was already certain we’d be moving to Chile. My dad and I argued before he left. I didn’t want to be sent to boarding school. I wanted to move with them. I never got a chance to say I was sorry.”

  He smiled, a sad, reflective smile. “It’s so easy to look back and wish you could change something in your past.”

  “Isn’t it strange how easy it is to let the moment pass?”

  He shrugged. “Been there. Done that.”

  She sighed. “It wouldn’t have mattered where my dad ended up working. My mom never once considered not going with him. They were never apart for very long.”

  “It sounds like a wonderful love story. It must have been so hard for your mother to lose him.”

  “It was. For me, too. Maybe that’s why discovering the lie she told about Marcus being my birth father hurt so much.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I had to have surgery, and they tested me to find out my blood type. When I learned I had a different blood type from either of my parents, I insisted on the DNA test being done to determine whether or not they were my parents. Even when my mom realized that I seriously wanted to know about my background, she still didn’t tell me the truth. It wasn’t until the results came back that I learned that Marcus wasn’t my birth father.”

  “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It was. Now that I know who my dad is, my mom wants to see me.” She stared at her hands in frustration. “After all this time, all the hurt she inflicted by not telling me, she wants to come back into my life as if nothing happened.”

  “But she’d have to realize that coming back into your life wasn’t possible without some sort of explanation. That you would both need time.”

  “You’d think she would.” In truth she wasn’t being completely fair. Her mom had said she’d wait to hear from her.

  “Do you want your mother in your life?”

  “Who knows?” She sighed as she gazed into his mesmerizing blue eyes. “What would be the point? If I couldn’t trust her to tell me the truth, how could I trust her back in my life?”

  “How would you feel if she were ill? Would you still feel this way? I remember how I felt when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I couldn’t have stayed away no matter what.”

  “But your mom didn’t lie to you, did she? I don’t believe you can know how you’d behave in my situation.”

  His eyes moved over her face, his expression one of watchfulness. “Why not talk to Coach Cassidy? He loved your mother. He may be able to give you a different perspective on her.”

  This man was determined to convince her to forgive her mother. Did Rory believe that forgiveness was that easy? Was it for him? He seemed genuine in his concern, and she was encouraged by his support and caring. Could she give it a try? See if talking with her mother might change anything? “Maybe so.”

  “Have you talked about getting together with him?”

  She suddenly felt overcome by everything that had changed in her life these past few days. She needed time to decompress, to get her head together. “No, but I might after I figure out a few other things going on in my life.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Not really. I need time, that’s all.”

  “Can I make dinner for you? Take you out for something to eat?”

  She met his gaze and saw the sincerity there. More than anything, she wanted to go out with him. She’d never felt closer to him than she did right now. Why was that? What was so different about Rory?

  But for now she had things only she could take care of. Having him around would be too big a distraction. “I really appreciate the offer, but it’s been a difficult week, to say the least. And you’re right, I have to face my mother. Facing my mother means getting in touch with my father. I was kind of rude with him. After he told me his news I asked him to leave. I’m sure I hurt his feelings. I need to tell him I’m sorry.”

  “You do what you need to do. I’ll be around.”

  Did he really mean that? Was he willing to wait for her to sort out her life? She hoped so. “Having you around is really nice.”

  He kissed her lightly on the cheek, making her skin tingle. “Stick with me. It will get better.”

  He took her hand, pulled her to her feet. “Call me and let me know what you’ve decided. If I can help...” He smiled as he took her face in his calloused hands and kissed her again. She felt suspended, unable to move, suffused with happiness.

  Walking with him to his truck, she watched him go down the driveway, wishing she dared to call him back. She sighed in resignation. She had things to do.

  She headed back to the house, dug out the piece of paper with Bill Cassidy’s phone number on it and called him. He answered on the first ring. “I’d like to talk to you sometime,” she said.

  “Anytime you’d like. Anytime at all,” he said, his breathing audible.

  “What about this Saturday morning around ten at the Bobby’s Bistro?”

  “Sure. And, Peggy, thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. This isn’t about you being my father. I have questions for you about your life and my mom’s relationship with you.”

  “I’m ready to answer anything.”

  * * *

  WHEN SATURDAY ARRIVED Peggy’s tummy was doing a flip-flop that threatened to toss her hastily eaten breakfast. She’d been awake half the night thinking about what she wanted to say to her dad. The closer she got to ten o’clock the less certain she felt. What had worried her last night was how he had found out about her.

  She entered the bistro, closing the solid wooden door behind her and shutting out all the sound from the street. It was so comforting in here with the scent of cinnamon hanging in the air and the aroma of fresh coffee. She searched the wide-open room, finding Bill Cassidy in a booth along the back wall. She strode toward him, forming the question that was uppermost in her mind.

  “Hi, there,” he said as she slid into the booth across from him.

  “Hi. I hope I’m not late,” she said, instantly anxious about whether she’d feel better about their meeting when it was over.

  “No. Not at all,” he said, and she could tell by the way he flexed his hands and kept looking at her, then looking away, that he was probably as anxious as she was. Odd as it seemed, his anxiety helped to quell hers.

  She clasped her hands in front of her, trying to think of something to say, every thought having flown from her mind. The waitress arrived, took their orders for coffee, returned with two large mugs and two croissants with butter.

  Bill didn’t touch the coffee or the croissants. Instead, he reached across the table. “I’m so glad you wanted to meet me. It feels almost surreal to be sitting across from you like this.”

  She saw the anguish in his eyes and touched his hand. “I didn’t know about you until the year before I moved here. Mom wouldn’t tell me who you were. Do you know why?”

  “No, I’m sorry I don’t. When I came home from my summer job in Portsmouth, your mother was gone. She didn’t say where, and she left me no forwarding address.”

  “But you and Mom were involved, sleeping together?”

  “Yes. We were in love. We planned to marry, or so I thought.”

  “What changed her mind?”

  “At the time I had no idea. When I spoke with her the other day, she said she couldn’t marry me and settle down in Eden Harbor. She said I didn’t offer her a choice.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would she do this to me? To us?” Peggy asked in frustration.

  “Does it matter anymore? We’ve found each other now, and we have a chance to share our lives.”

  It mattered a great deal to her. To lose her dad was one thing
. To lose her mother because she couldn’t tell the truth was every bit as painful. “How did you figure out that I was your daughter?”

  “When you asked about Ellen that day, I wondered why. Then when you joined the volleyball team and I saw the birthmark on your shoulder.” He shrugged.

  Wasn’t that just a little creepy? “My birthmark?” She wanted to reach up and touch her shoulder but thought better of it.

  “Yeah. At first I didn’t think very much about it, then I looked types of birthmarks up on the internet, talked to my family doctor and became interested in the idea that you might be related to me.”

  “Why would you think I was related to you?”

  “Your smile is your mother’s. Your brown eyes...and a feeling that I knew you.” He picked up his coffee cup and cradled it in his hands. “Call me crazy, but I played a hunch, found a private detective, gave him all the information I had. He found your mother in about a week, little more. You saw the file he did up.”

  “It was that easy to find Mom and me?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  “Then why didn’t you search for me sooner?” she asked, both anxious and annoyed that her life could have been so different had she known about him earlier.

  “I only knew for certain that I had a child a few weeks ago. Even then I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  She nodded.

  “What was the likelihood that you were my daughter? You’d come here from Seattle. When I learned that you were my daughter, I wondered why you hadn’t contacted me, then I realized that you didn’t know about me. You were living near me, playing on the volleyball team I coached, and you had no idea who I was. I saw it in your eyes the other night at the pub. That’s why I decided to contact you.”

  “I’m so happy you did.” She was surprised to realize that was true. “We should have been told about our relationship.”

  “You’re right.” He leaned back in the booth and gave her an assessing smile. “You realize that you do look a lot like your mother. You have my hair, or the color it once was, but you have your mother’s eyes and easy smile.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking in all aspects of this man, her father, who sat across from her. He was tall, athletic despite his age. His eyes were direct and clear and he had an easy grace about him. His navy sports jacket, cream shirt and blue-patterned tie showed good taste in clothes. She liked him, she suddenly realized. She liked him a lot. “You’re the reason why I love sports, right? I mean, Mom wouldn’t go to any sporting events. That was always my dad and me. He loved baseball the most,” she said, remembering all the good times with him.

  “Tell me about your dad,” Bill said.

  “He was a petroleum engineer. Because of his job, we lived all over the place. I have been to every major country in the world but Australia and Russia. My mom was devoted to him. They were inseparable. Sometimes I felt like an outsider around them.”

  “Wish I could have been there for you,” he said, his voice sincere.

  “I wish you could have been, too.” Curious about him, she asked, “Do I have uncles and aunts?”

  “You did have once. My sister passed away a few years ago. She had a daughter, Martha Singer.”

  “Martha Singer? I think I’ve taken her blood before. I remember thinking the name was different. Does she live here?”

  “Out along the coast highway, between here and Camden.”

  “That’s amazing. I know her father-in-law. He’s been in for blood work...diabetes, I believe.”

  “That’s right.”

  She clutched her cup of coffee as she realized what it meant to have family living near her. “We should hold a family get together sometime. Maybe at Christmas? I’d like to get to know my relatives. What about my grandparents?”

  He shifted in the seat. “Your mother’s parents are both deceased. Buried in the cemetery by the Episcopalian church.”

  “Yes. And your parents?

  “My dad still lives here. He’s at the nursing home out on Cranberry Point.”

  Her dad’s father was still alive, her only chance to connect with her birth father’s past, her family. After moving all over the world, having a chance to find her father’s family would be exciting. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “You will.”

  She felt strange, as if she’d entered someone else’s life. “There’s so much I want to ask you.”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’m a bit of a genealogy buff. So if I start rambling on about your ancestors, feel free to stop me.”

  She glanced around, aware of the curious looks, wondering what people were thinking about seeing the local coach with her. Considering the speed at which news traveled in Eden Harbor, she was pretty sure people had already heard something. “Did you tell anyone about me being your daughter?”

  He looked a little sheepish. “I suspect my cleaning lady overheard my call to your mother...at least part of it. Hopefully not the part where I raised my voice.”

  “I can understand raising your voice at Mom. I did it just before I moved here.”

  “Did you feel sorry later?”

  Peggy offered a half smile. “A little bit, but I’m still angry. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t.”

  “You miss your mom?”

  “Maybe. Why didn’t you go after my mom, make her explain why she left?”

  He rubbed his hands together. “When she hadn’t bothered to tell me she was leaving, I was sure she’d fallen in love with another man. I figured that if she couldn’t wait around long enough to tell me what was going on, there was no reason for me to try to chase her down for the answers.” He scrubbed his face and looked at the wall. “I let my pride stand in the way of finding your mother.” He reached for her hand, holding it gently. “If I had known she was expecting you, I would have followed her anywhere. I’m so sorry that I behaved the way I did. My behavior caused me to miss out on you, of being part of your life.”

  She met his sad gaze, her heart beating hard in her chest. “We’ve both lost out. But you need to know that I had a great dad. I loved him very much.”

  “That could have been me,” he said, his tone wistful.

  “We can’t dwell on the past. We can’t change Mom’s behavior.” She squeezed his fingers. “But you and I can enjoy getting to know each other. I need a dad. I really do. I’ve had a lot to think about these past weeks, but now I have you to talk things over with.”

  He smiled. “Catching up with each other, getting to know each other. Those words are music to my ears.”

  “We’re reconnecting,” she said, happy to be having this conversation.

  “Is that what you young people call this?”

  “No, Bill. That’s my word for it. I work with kids, and sometimes I like to give them a new word to work with, learn the meaning of. Reconnect is this week’s word.”

  “My daughter’s a word buff. You know your grandmother Cassidy was a schoolteacher.”

  “Really? Words run in the family, do they?”

  “Something like that.” A look of contrition crossed his face. “There’s something else I need to say to you. And I’m not very comfortable saying this.”

  “Go ahead,” she said, seeing his expression change. Was he ill? Did he have something in his past that had stopped him from following her mother when she left Eden Harbor?

  “I’m the one who cleaned your tack room.”

  She gasped in surprise. “You’re kidding. Why would you do that? Do you know how much what you did worried me?” she asked, feeling a little weird, and sorry that she’d accused Rory of doing it.

  “I didn’t really mean to worry you. I know how dumb this sounds, but when the private investigator told me that my suspicions were true, I had to go out to your place. I needed to meet you. I guess I wasn’t thinking very clearly.” He smiled and smoothed his hair. “It’s not every day you discover a daughter you’ve never known lives just minutes from you. I arrived at your place
. You weren’t home. I got out of my car and went to look around. The horses were there, and I thought maybe you had treats for them. When I went into the tack room and saw that it needed a good cleaning, I forgot that you hadn’t given me permission to do it.” He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “You can tell me I’m weird and I creeped you out.”

  “You are weird and you did creep me out. Why would you do that and not at least leave me a note to say you’d been there?”

  “I should have, only I couldn’t explain right then why I was doing it. I don’t know if I could explain it now.”

  “I’ve asked Nate Garrison to look into it.”

  “Yeah, I know. He came to see me. That’s when I decided I couldn’t be skulking around your life. I had to talk to you. I didn’t realize that what I had to say took more courage than I anticipated. Please forgive me for trespassing.”

  Could she? “I have your word you won’t do anything like that again? That you won’t come to my place without calling first? I may be your daughter, but I’ve lived my life on my own for years.”

  “Absolutely. I will call you before I visit. And if you need me to do anything, anything at all, you’ll call me, right?”

  “That’s very kind of you, but we’ll see.”

  He studied his hands resting on the table before looking over at her. “I wasn’t only trying to being kind. It was also about wanting to be your father.”

  “You forget that I had a father that I loved.” She saw the hurt and regret in his eyes and was immediately sorry. “I didn’t mean that to be hurtful, really.”

  “It’s okay. We have a lot to learn about each other. If you’d rather I didn’t become involved in your life...”

  She looked into his face, felt his love, his caring. Tears dampened her eyes. “We’ve already lived with enough lies, spent too much time not knowing each other. Let’s start fresh from today.”

  He took a deep breath, stared up at the ceiling. When his glance returned to her, his eyes were red. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”

  After a few minutes he got up from the booth, his movements hesitant. She rose and stood beside him. There was an awkward moment when she was certain he wanted to hug her, but was hanging back, waiting for her to make the first move. She eased toward him, and his arms went out to her. Ever so gently he folded her into his embrace. She clung to him, wanting the connection with such a powerful force it frightened her.