“I can’t stand this part.” Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and stood beside the sofa.
“Yeah.” She ran her thumb over Devin’s blond brow. “You and I were going to have houses next door to each other, remember?”
He gave her a sad smile, his eyes shining more than before. “Maybe someday.” He leaned down and wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, Ashley.”
“Love you too, Luke.” She held on to him. “Maybe we’ll come see you in New York.”
“Okay.” He pulled back and sniffed, brushing quickly at his eyes so she wouldn’t see his tears. “Tell Landon bye for us.”
“I will.”
Her brother waved one last time, turned, and walked out of the room.
And just like that, the house was quiet. Kari had the kids in the kitchen for a snack, and only she and Devin remained in the living room. It would be easy to give in to her tears, to cry and grieve the fact that life had taken them away from the days when being together was something they took for granted. But instead, Ashley smiled at her newborn, at all that lay ahead of them. Life was full of seasons. In this one—where she and her siblings lived in different states—she wouldn’t be sad for what she was missing but grateful for the time they had together.
Even if a week was never quite long enough.
John’s eyes were dry as he drove home from the airport. Brooke had left a few minutes before him—in a hurry to get back to her office. But John wanted to take his time. The weather was clear and warm. It was hard to imagine how terrible the storm had been until he saw the evidence of destruction that still remained.
In all, it had been the worst tornado outbreak the area had ever seen. Not since 1925 had a series of tornadoes caused so much damage to Indiana, and tornado season had just begun. Experts were on the news every day talking about the tragedy, the efforts that had already begun to rebuild the areas of devastation, and how amazing it was that so few people had been killed or injured.
A newspaper story in this morning’s paper explained how the CKT families were donating all door receipts from their upcoming show to help the Reed family rebuild their house. Bloomington had pulled together, and as always with a town like theirs, what hadn’t killed them would make them stronger.
Luke was right. They would never forget their time together, huddling in the basement while Ashley was in labor, praying for a break in the storm, praying for Ashley to breathe, praying for the baby. God had answered all their prayers and given them days of laughter as they had repaired the broken windows and a couple areas on the roof.
Good-byes were always hard, but this time John felt somewhat relieved. The storm had given him a reason to dodge the thing he’d dreaded most—the meeting with his kids, the one where he would’ve told them about their older brother. Now that moment would have to wait—maybe a year. And in the process, he could only pray that Dayne would change his mind.
He was halfway home, anxious to spend an afternoon with Ashley and Devin. The newborn was so precious. John agreed with his kids—the baby looked just like Cole had as an infant.
John was about to turn on the radio when the phone on the console between the two front seats began to vibrate. He picked it up and read the message in the window. Three new messages.
“Crazy phone.” He shook his head. He’d had the thing with him the whole morning and all of yesterday. How could he have missed a call? Maybe it was time for a new phone, because this had happened before. He’d get no messages for several days and then—as if some switching station just realized he had messages waiting—several would be thrown his way at once.
He sighed and punched in the numbers for his voice mail. He entered his code and pressed the phone to his ear. The first message was from Elaine, congratulating him on the birth of his latest grandchild. He smiled. He’d call her as soon as he was finished with the messages.
The second was from one of the doctors at the office, calling to check on Ashley and the baby.
There was a beep, and the third message kicked in. “Uh . . . this is Dayne. I received your letter today from Mitch Henry.”
John’s heart dropped to the floor of the van. Dayne Matthews? His son? He kept his hand steady on the wheel and listened.
There was a coughing sound and then Dayne’s voice again. “Chris Kane, my agent, gave you some bad information, John. I’d like very much to meet you. I’ll be on a plane first thing in the morning.” He paused. “Arriving in Indianapolis around one o’clock. I’ll rent a car and drive to Bloomington.”
John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Dayne was coming to Bloomington? When had he left the message? He used all his concentration to hear the rest.
“I’ll be at the . . . at the park. The one by the downtown theater. You can call me on my cell, but I’ll be there. I’ll try you again tomorrow afternoon.” Dayne hesitated, and his voice seemed to grow softer. “Thanks for the letter. It meant . . . more than you know.”
John couldn’t concentrate on the road. He took the next exit and pulled into a gas station. He checked the date and time of the message. Dayne had left it yesterday, even though he hadn’t gotten notification of it until now. He worked his jaw, frustrated. So Dayne was maybe on this very freeway headed for Bloomington? Could that be possible? He was flying in today, possibly passing his sister and brother at the gate or on the concourse without ever knowing it?
John ran back through the message again and exhaled. Dayne hadn’t left a number. He checked the list of missed calls, but the one that must’ve come when Dayne would’ve called said Restricted.
If the private investigator had been able to get Dayne’s private cell number, John would’ve called it a long time ago. That meant he had just one choice. He looked at his watch. It was after two o’clock. If Dayne had followed through with his plans, then he might be waiting at the park now.
John turned the ringer on loud, closed his phone, and stuck it back on the console. He spent the next thirty minutes driving and praying that the meeting might actually happen.
When he pulled into the parking lot at the old downtown park, the place looked empty. It was too early for the farmers’ market, and other than a few kids playing baseball on one of the diamonds and a few couples strolling the tree-lined walkways, he didn’t see anyone.
But then, just as he was getting out of the van, he saw him.
There at the other side of the park, sitting alone on a park bench, was a guy who had to be Dayne. His size and build were familiar, not because John was a moviegoer so much as because it was the build of Luke. The build he himself had. As he stared, as he wondered if it really could be him, the young man stood and shaded his eyes. In that moment, John had no doubt. The thing he had prayed about since Elizabeth gave birth was finally happening.
He was about to meet his firstborn son.
Dayne saw a van pull into the parking lot.
He’d been sitting on the same bench for nearly an hour, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, his baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. A few people had passed by, but no one looked twice at him. The paparazzi hadn’t followed him, and there was no reason for anyone to suspect that a movie star might be sitting alone on a park bench in downtown Bloomington.
He had his photo album with him.
By now he’d looked through it a dozen times, studied the faces of Brooke and Peter and Maddie and Hayley, smiled at the way Kari and Ryan and Jessie and Ryan Jr. looked like they belonged together. He had gotten familiar with Erin’s and Sam’s pictures and the photos of their four daughters, Chloe, Clarisse, Amy, and Heidi. Of course he recognized Luke’s picture—the one with Reagan and Tommy and their daughter, Malin.
But it was Ashley’s photo that tugged at his heart the most.
Ashley and Landon and Cole.
In the photo, Ashley was pregnant, and every time Dayne looked at it, he remembered taking Ashley home and wishing with every fiber of his being that he could go inside and meet her family. He had come
so close. . . .
Every time he looked at the pictures he was struck by one overwhelming thought: the Baxters were huge supporters of adoption. Erin and Sam had adopted their four daughters—John had written as much on the back of their photo—and Luke and Reagan had adopted Malin from China. Little Cole was adopted too—by Landon, the guy in the photograph. And Ryan had adopted Jessie. Dayne’s PI had told him those details.
Even though adoption had been a painful thing for John and Elizabeth, their children had turned it into something beautiful. That hour in the park, as he’d looked at their faces, Dayne had come to understand that his birth parents really hadn’t had a choice. And that his adoptive parents had only been acting in love when they chose him. By their standards, they saw nothing wrong with taking a four-year-old to Indonesia and placing him in a boarding school.
Every so often, he would look up and search the parking lot, and finally—this time—he saw a man step out of a van and scan the grounds. Dayne narrowed his eyes, but he knew almost immediately. The man was John Baxter, his biological father. The man who would’ve been his dad if Elizabeth’s parents had given them a chance.
Dayne stood, slipped the photo album into his pocket, and tossed his baseball cap on the bench behind him. He shaded his eyes.
John seemed to notice him. He began walking toward him. All the while Dayne couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink. John Baxter walked just like he did, the way Dayne would walk when he was in his sixties. John was tall and strong with broad shoulders, but the closer he came the more Dayne could see something else.
John Baxter was broken.
Dayne took a few steps in his direction. As the distance between them closed, he could see that John was crying. Not weeping, not anything that could be mistaken for weakness. But quiet tears that simply streamed down his cheeks and told Dayne more than the man’s words ever could.
As John came closer, his steps slowed. Dayne felt almost as if he were seeing a ghost, someone who had only existed in his imagination. His birth father. He wondered if he had avoided this meeting so much because of the paparazzi or because he was afraid of being rejected, afraid John wouldn’t love him the way he clearly loved his other children.
John stopped a few feet away. His lips quivered, and he put his hands in his pockets and shrugged, apologizing without words for his inability to speak. For a while he struggled, trying to find control. When he did, he said simply, “Dayne.”
“Yes.” Their eyes held, and a lifetime of regret and sorrow passed between them. For every time Dayne had wondered about this man, he could see in that instant that John had wondered about him too. He could think of a hundred things to say, and at the same time no words seemed big enough.
Then, at the same time, they did what they must’ve both wanted to do—the only thing that made any sense. They held out their arms and came together in an embrace that erased the decades. John held him so hard, so tight that Dayne could barely breathe.
Dayne imagined what it would’ve been like having someone love him this much all his life. What would it have been like to play catch with John Baxter? to have him in the front row at his drama performances? or to have late-night talks with him when he was making decisions about his life? John appeared to be a solid man, a man of character and conviction.
Dayne knew something in that instant. The years he’d lost with John Baxter—with the entire Baxter family—would forever be the greatest loss he would face. Right up there with the tragedy of losing his own unborn child.
When John finally pulled back, he kept his hands on Dayne’s shoulders. He was still struggling to speak, still fighting a lifetime of emotion. But he managed to speak anyway. He searched Dayne’s eyes. “I can’t believe . . . I found you.”
Dayne’s heart raced the way it did when he sprinted on Malibu Beach. His throat was tight, and he fought to find the words. “It’s . . . been a long time.”
“Yes. Too long.” John sniffed and shook his head, desperate for control. He stared at Dayne, looked deep into his heart, to the place where the little boy inside him still lived. A place only a father’s eyes could find. “I’m sorry, Son.” John’s voice broke, and he hung his head. When he looked up, there were fresh tears on his cheeks. “I’ve asked God all my life for the chance to say that.”
“I’m sorry too.” Dayne blinked back his own tears. His heart was racing ahead of his words. He pressed his fist to his mouth, waiting for control. “My agent lied to you. I never . . . never once knew you called.”
John studied him. A sound of disbelief came from him, and it broke the ice. “I had a feeling.” He narrowed his eyes. “You look exactly like Luke.”
“Yeah.” Dayne grinned. “I’ve been told that a time or two.”
“So . . . you’ve been here before.” John’s eyes held what must’ve been painful questions. “Can you tell me about that?”
“Yes.” This was bound to be the hard part. Okay, so they’d met. That didn’t mean anything had changed in Dayne’s life. So where exactly did that leave them? Where did it leave his relationship with any of the Baxters? He nodded to the bench, the one where he’d been waiting. “Can we sit?”
“Please.” John led the way to the bench.
Dayne was dizzy with the feel of John beside him. Never mind that they’d never met before. This meeting—the closeness he was feeling from John—was exactly what he’d always hoped for. Now if they could only find a way to hold on to it.
John sat a foot from Dayne, facing him. “Talk to me, Dayne.”
Suddenly his argument sounded crazy. So what if he was famous? Who cared if the paparazzi figured out he was adopted or that he’d made contact with his birth family? He looked at the damp ground, at the new grass poking its way to daylight. If he was ever going to make sense of the situation, he needed to share it with John. “It all started with Luke.”
“Luke?” John put his arm over the back of the bench. “You mean at the law firm?”
“Yes.” Dayne looked at the sky, at the sun filtering through the branches of an oak tree. “I was sitting in his office, and he had this picture on his desk.” He took the photo album from his pocket and turned to the first page. “This picture.”
Dayne could feel the wonder of it, see it playing in John’s reaction. Only God could’ve led to such a meeting; he had no doubt. “People at the office kept saying we looked like brothers, so I took the picture.”
“You took it?” John’s eyes were gentle, without an ounce of judgment.
“I thought it looked like a picture I had in my storage unit. A picture of my birth mother. When I compared the two, I knew Luke was my brother.” He stopped and let the breeze brush against his face. A mother and four children were playing at the swings a ways away. Their laughter carried on the wind.
Dayne breathed in slowly. “That’s when I hired the private investigator.”
“So you found out about us, right about the time Elizabeth was getting sicker.”
“Exactly.” Dayne explained about the call from the investigator and the message that his birth mother was terminally ill. “I knew I didn’t have much time.”
Pain burned in John’s eyes, a pain so strong it seemed to force him to look away. “It was her dying prayer that she might meet you. I only wish . . . you would’ve gone in to see her.”
Dayne leaned closer, his eyes locked on his father’s. “My agent lied about that too.”
John blinked. He slid to the edge of the bench. “Meaning what?”
“I went in. I did. I spent an hour talking to her.” Dayne’s voice was softer than before, touched by the memory of sweet Elizabeth. “I thought she’d tell you.”
This time, John let his body fall against the back of the park bench. He looked straight up and whispered, “Thank You, God . . .” After a while, he shook his head. “She did tell me. But she was so sick, and with all the drugs they were giving her . . . I didn’t think it was true. I figured she was . . . hallucinating. Especial
ly when she mentioned your name. See . . . Luke had just told us about having met you, working with you. He told us people thought you looked alike.” Peace came over John. It seemed to soothe the lines on his forehead and lighten his eyes. “God answered her prayer, Dayne. She begged Him for the chance to meet you before she died.”
A shiver ran down Dayne’s spine. It was one more sign, one more bit of proof that God had been there all along, working in their lives. “That’s what she told me.”
Gradually, John’s expression changed, as if the memory of that time was replaying in his mind. “But you didn’t stay. And then . . . then you came back here to film your movie but still nothing. No connection with us.”
It was time to get to the point of the matter. “I needed all my strength to stay away from you—from all of you. But believe me, I did it for one reason.” He hesitated, praying that John Baxter would understand. “I did it to protect you.”
“Protect us?” John didn’t doubt him; that much was clear in his tone. But he didn’t understand either.
“Okay.” Dayne anchored his elbows on his knees, ran his fingers through his hair, and tried to find a way that would help John know what he was talking about. He decided to do what Bob Asher had done with him. He turned enough so he could see his father’s eyes. “Let me tell you a story.”
John waited, never once looking away.
Dayne began without waiting another minute. He told John about flying to Indianapolis and renting a car, about coming to the hospital and parking in the back row. Just as he was getting out of his car, he saw a family leaving the front entrance, heading to the parking lot.
“Luke was one of the people, so I knew it was you. The Baxters. My birth family.” He smiled, remembering the joy he had felt, the elation at the chance of finally meeting them. “I was going to walk up and pull you aside, tell you who I was. I figured maybe it would be a time when we could all meet—assuming the others knew about me.”
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