“The Museum of Glass is just down the road,” Roy reminded her.
In other circumstances Maggie would have enjoyed viewing the famous museum and visiting the gift shop, but not now. Her hesitation told Roy all he needed to know.
“You want to go back to the inn.”
She hated to put a damper on their weekend, but she really was sick. “Maybe that would be for the best.”
“Then you aren’t feeling as well as you claim.”
“I’m just a bit under the weather,” she said, once more brushing off his concern.
He started the car and without much of a problem returned to the freeway. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were pregnant,” he said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he went completely still.
For one wild second Maggie was afraid he was about to pull off to the side of the road.
Neither said anything for several heart-stopping moments.
“You’re taking birth-control pills, right?” Roy asked, his words tight and strange. He hardly sounded like himself.
“Of course I am,” she assured him, hoping to sound calm and confident.
“Every single day?” he pressed.
“I might have missed a few times,” she confessed. Actually, Maggie had all but abandoned the pill. It hadn’t been a conscious decision. At first she’d simply forgotten, and really, what was the point? They’d made love only twice in the last month … it’d been his lack of sexual appetite that had alerted Maggie that there was something wrong with their marriage. That something turned out to be someone, and that someone turned out to be Katherine.
“Maggie.” Roy whispered her name almost as if he had trouble speaking. “I notice you didn’t immediately assure me you aren’t pregnant.”
“I didn’t?” she asked, stalling.
“Are you or aren’t you?” he demanded.
Tension pounded like a gong between them.
“Are you?” he asked again, louder this time.
Hanging her head, Maggie found she couldn’t answer him. It might have gone better if she’d told him as soon as her suspicions were confirmed, but she doubted it.
Roy pressed his foot against the gas pedal and the car jerked forward. “I guess that answers that. I’m also guessing you don’t have a clue who the father of this baby is.”
Chapter 23
“I’m sorry, Ellie. None of this worked out the way I thought it would,” Tom said, hurrying after her as she left the deli. Apparently, he refused to accept that she wanted nothing more to do with him. It was hard because she so badly wanted to trust him, but she couldn’t allow herself to give in when it was clear he’d used her for his own purposes. She might be able to look past all that if he’d told her beforehand, if he’d confided in her instead of springing it on her without even a hint of a warning.
The conversation with her father had gone better than she’d expected, although there remained a lot of unanswered questions. She hoped they’d be able to talk more over dinner. It was clear there was no love lost between him and her grandparents, but Ellie didn’t know what role her mother had played in the breakup of the marriage.
“Ellie,” Tom said, keeping his steps in tune with hers. “Say something.”
She glanced at him, hardly knowing how to communicate her feelings, which remained mixed. She was terribly confused.
“What did you expect would happen?” Ellie asked, gesturing with her hands. A lot of her anger remained. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, dismiss his subterfuge lightly. He’d misled her in more ways than the obvious. She’d trusted Tom, and he’d abused that trust.
“I felt terrible after you left the waterfront,” Tom said.
“Not any more than I did,” she returned stiffly. “How could you use me like this, Tom? How could you?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“You should have thought of that long before now.” She couldn’t imagine what he’d been thinking. Nor had he considered how she’d react once she discovered what he’d done. Clearly, he hadn’t thought matters through. It seemed to her that after he’d introduced her to Scott he intended to melt into the background. His role was finished, and so he was done with her as well.
“The look in your eyes broke my heart. I can’t leave matters as they are, I just can’t.”
Ellie had nothing to say to that.
“I wanted to tell you before you met Scott,” he continued. “I fully intended to explain everything Friday night, and found I couldn’t, not so soon. You were so beautiful and you’d taken this big leap toward independence and I didn’t have the heart to destroy your faith in me so soon. I was wrong, Ellie. I’m so sorry.”
“You should have told me rather than springing it on me unexpectedly like this.” Ellie wasn’t sure how she would have dealt with the news, but she would have at least had a chance to process it. In some ways it would have been easier to deal with on Friday than it was now. If he’d told her when he’d first come to the inn, it would have been a shock, yes, but she would have known then. But to hit her with it after their dinner date and sailing, after they’d kissed and looked into each other’s eyes … the wound cut deeper, and made his betrayal feel more intense.
“I couldn’t be more sorry, but we met and it felt so good to be with you and to kiss you,” he whispered. “I was afraid that if you found out what I’d done you wouldn’t want anything more to do with me … I wanted that extra time with you. I hoped that after we were together you’d be willing to … hell, I don’t know what I thought would happen when you met your father. I did this for him, but then later I realized it was for myself. I fell for you, Ellie. I’m not exaggerating or making excuses or anything else. All I want is another chance with you. I’m in love with you. If you believe nothing else, believe that. I love you.”
Ellie shook her head as though to shake off his words. She needed more time. Her emotions felt like golf ball–size bits of hail pounding down on her from all sides. She’d met her father. Her father. This was the man she’d never had the chance to know. She’d met Scott through Tom, the man she loved, only to discover that Tom had manipulated her, and now he was saying he loved her. It was too much to absorb all at once. She needed to sort everything out in her head before she could deal with Tom.
He started to speak again, but Ellie raised her hand, stopping him. “Give me time.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know …”
“You’ll talk to me, though, right? Sometime … soon.”
She agreed with a simple nod and then held out her hand silently asking him to back away, letting him know she wanted to continue back to the inn on her own. Tom reluctantly slowed his pace and eventually dropped back, letting her go on without him. When she reached the top of the hill she glanced over her shoulder and found Tom standing on the sidewalk with his shoulders slouched, looking as if the world had come crashing down on him.
Ellie continued on toward the inn, her head and her heart in turmoil. Her temple pounded with the beginning of a headache. As soon as she was back in her room, she swallowed two aspirin and lay down to close her eyes. Just as the shock and tension were starting to leave her body and she was beginning to relax, her phone rang. Because she had half expected something like this would happen, Ellie had kept her cell on the bed next to her. A quick glance told her it was her mother.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Ellie?” Her mother didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “You’re actually going to talk to me?”
“Yes …”
Right away her mother sensed something had happened. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Oh Mom …”
“Tell me. I can hear it in your voice. It’s something bad, isn’t it? You know you can tell me anything. Oh sweet heaven, this is exactly what I feared would happen. You know—”
“Mom, stop,” Ellie demanded, abruptly cutting her off. She sat up on the mattress, her back against the headboard, and pressed her f
ingertips against her throbbing temple.
Her mother sucked in her breath, which seemed to vibrate over the phone. “Tell me, just tell me.”
Ellie’s soft intake echoed that of her mother. “I met my father.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
“Mom, did you hear me?”
“Yes.” Virginia’s voice was barely above a whisper. “How did that happen?”
Ellie hardly knew where to start, so she gave the short version. “Tom is my father’s stepson.” Right away, she could sense her mother’s indignation, which matched her own.
“They tricked you.”
“Yes, Tom tricked me.” It’d been a shock, to say the least, but now Ellie had had time to absorb part of it. Yes, she was badly shaken, but she could deal with that; it was everything that had happened since that upset her most. Despite what Tom claimed, it was obvious her so-called father hadn’t tried nearly hard enough to connect with her as a child, or even later as an adult.
“Come home,” Virginia insisted. “Pack your suitcase and leave for home right away. I can’t believe this has happened … of all the low, underhanded schemes.”
“Mom, there’s more …”
“More?” Once again, it seemed her mother was shocked into silence.
“I talked to him.”
“You actually talked to your father?”
“Yes, and I’m meeting him later for dinner.”
“Eleanor … no. Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.” Her mother’s voice trembled, but it wasn’t with anger. It was a tone Ellie didn’t recognize, a plea more than a demand. Was it fear she heard? Regret? It sounded almost identical to what she’d heard in her father’s voice when speaking about her mother.
“Why should I scurry back to Oregon?” Ellie asked.
“Ellie, you can’t seriously consider staying the rest of the weekend. Not after this. Tom didn’t tell you he was Scott’s stepson. He misled you, and it only makes sense that Scott was part of this underhanded scheme, too. The only sensible response is to walk out now, before either man hurts you further.”
“Mom, I’ve already agreed to meet my father for dinner.”
“But—”
“I have questions only my father can answer.”
A noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob echoed through the phone. “Oh Ellie, I’m afraid you’re setting yourself up for more heartache.”
“You could very well be right.”
The same noise repeated itself, and now Ellie was convinced her mother was weeping.
“I loved him, you know,” Virginia whispered, “loved him more than life itself. We were both so young and proud. How did he look, Ellie? Is he well?”
The questions took Ellie by surprise. She’d expected a diatribe or some form of denunciation instead of an inquiry. “He looked … fine.” Ellie found it interesting that her father had asked about her mother first thing, too.
“I didn’t recognize him,” Ellie added, reminding her mother that no pictures of Scott remained in the house. Well, none that she knew of. The only one she could ever remember seeing of her father had been in her early childhood. His image had long ago disappeared from her memory.
“When are you meeting him?”
“Mom,” Ellie said, doing her best to be patient. “What does it matter where or when?”
“It matters to me.” The words pitched back and forth on an emotional wobble.
Ellie could hear the tears in her mother’s voice, and it shocked her. “Mom, why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying … I’m shook up is all … your father and I … that was a lot of years ago.”
Ellie wasn’t sure what to make of her mother’s reaction. Her father’s name hadn’t been mentioned in years. The last thing she expected was for her mother to get emotional.
“When you meet him, will you … can you tell him something for me?” her mother asked.
“Of course.”
“No,” her mother said, abruptly changing her mind. “Don’t say anything about me, okay?”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, say absolutely nothing about me. Wait … tell him … no, don’t say anything.”
“Mom …”
“Call me after your dinner,” her mother instructed, and it sounded more like a plea than a request.
Ellie found she couldn’t speak.
“Ellie?” Her mother whispered her name. “Are you still there?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. When Ellie was in grade school, she fell and broke her arm. While waiting in the nurse’s office for her mother to arrive to take her to the hospital, she gently rocked back and forth, holding her throbbing arm close to her side. The pain had been horrific. All she could think about was that she wanted her mother. Everything would be better once her mother was with her. Ellie felt much the same way now. “I should have listened to you … I should never have come to Cedar Cove. This is all one huge mistake. I’m ready to leave.”
“No, don’t,” Virginia whispered.
“Don’t … but you just told me I should.”
“I was wrong. You told your father you would have dinner with him, and for both your sakes, I think it would be a good thing. If you leave now you’ll always wonder, always regret the fact that you let this opportunity go. You deserve answers. Don’t let my negative experience taint your relationship with your father, Ellie.”
This didn’t sound like her mother. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ll come to you.”
“Mom, that’s generous, but there aren’t that many flights out of Bend, and for you to drive would take a good five to six hours.”
The line went suspiciously quiet. “Actually, it won’t take that long.”
“It won’t?”
“I’m here already.”
She bolted to her feet. “You’re here? In Cedar Cove?” Ellie pressed her hand against her forehead with disbelief.
Virginia made a small, almost indecipherable sound before she said, “If you must know, I spent the night in Tacoma.”
“You did what?”
“I never intended for you to know. I was terribly worried that something would happen to you. I know you’re probably upset with me, and I can’t say that I blame you, but think of it from my point of view. You knew next to nothing about this man you met over the Internet, and I was afraid for you. I didn’t dare tell you I intended to be close by, for fear you’d get upset.”
Ellie was upset, but not for the reasons her mother assumed.
“You followed me?” Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Not followed … exactly.” Her mother seemed eager to defend herself and show that she had only Ellie’s best interests at heart. “I wanted to be close by in case something happened, and it has, hasn’t it? Please don’t be angry with me.”
Ellie should be, but at the moment she could only be grateful. “How soon can you get here?” she asked.
“I won’t be long,” Virginia promised. “Give me an hour.”
Ellie used the next sixty minutes to lie down and rest her eyes, not that she was able to relax, let alone fall asleep. By the time her mother arrived, she stood by the window overlooking the inn’s driveway, watching and waiting, eager to talk over the events of the day with her mother.
When Virginia arrived, Ellie hurried down the front steps and the two gripped hold of each other and hugged each other close. She touched Ellie’s head but didn’t mention the new hairstyle.
Her mother looked pointedly toward the inn. “Can we sit down and talk? As you can imagine, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Worrying about me, no doubt,” Ellie murmured, well aware that her mother had stayed up past midnight, waiting to hear from her. Right away she felt guilty for the way she’d treated her mother. They were close and had always been that way.
“I had one of my headaches,” her mother confessed, “but that’s neither here nor there.”
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Ellie led the way to the inn, up the porch steps to the two chairs set up on the wraparound deck. The water view was amazing, but she didn’t comment, and neither did her mother. Ellie didn’t say anything until they were both seated. “Okay, Mom, do your worst.”
“My worst?” Virginia repeated indignantly.
“You’re about to list all the reasons why it was a bad idea for me to come to Cedar Cove to meet Tom.” In retrospect, she wondered if it’d been the right thing, seeing all that had happened since.
“I wasn’t,” her mother argued. “All I wanted to do was protect you. I’m grateful I was close by.”
“I am, too,” Ellie said, although it was hard to admit.
“Your … father,” Virginia said after a brief hesitation, “broke my heart. I loved him …”
“And he abandoned you,” Ellie finished for her, having heard it dozens of times through the years.
“He abandoned us,” Virginia corrected. “He knew what Tom was up to, didn’t he?”
“I don’t think so.” The shocked look of dismay she read in Scott couldn’t be easily fabricated. Her father had looked as bewildered as she’d been when Tom introduced her. “Tom sprang it on him this morning. Our meeting seemed to be as much a shock to Scott as it was to me.”
A perplexed look came over Virginia. “You mean to say Tom didn’t tell Scott who you were?”
“No. As far as my father knew, I was someone Tom met online and that was it. Both Scott … my dad and I were left in the dark.”
Something else came to mind. It wasn’t until Ellie saw her father that she understood the worried look Tom had had when he’d mentioned his “surprise.” If her father wasn’t in on this, then she wasn’t the only one Tom had misled.
It all started to add up in her mind, and the result didn’t make her feel any better. While Tom’s intentions had been good, he’d used her gullibility and trust to trick her. Once he’d convinced her to visit Cedar Cove, he had what he wanted. She couldn’t deal with her feelings for Tom now, though.
“Don’t make the same mistake I did, Ellie. Don’t trust Tom. He misled you once, and there’s nothing to say he wouldn’t again. I’m frightened that if you continue in this relationship you’ll end up badly hurt.”
Love Letters: A Rose Harbor Novel Page 20
