“Does he have other children?”
“No.”
She said nothing for a moment, and then, “And apparently never wanted any.”
“Willa—”
“I don’t know what could possibly be said to rationalize any of this.”
“Maybe that’s not the point,” he said softly.
“What is the point then?”
“Resolution?”
“Twenty-four hours ago, the only thing I knew about my father was that I was probably better off that he never hung around. My mom painted a pretty clear picture of him. Not a favorable one.”
He shot her a glance, one elbow on his window-sill, the other on the steering wheel. “I’m not making excuses for Charles, but maybe there’s something to be gained in hearing his side of the story.”
She folded her arms across her chest and stared out the window. “When I was a little girl,” she said in a barely audible voice, “I used to imagine what it would be like to have a daddy. We’d be at the park, and I’d see these fathers playing piggyback with their daughters. Those girls, they just had this look, this deep happiness on their faces, like something I’d never felt before.”
A tractor trailer passed them on the other side of the road, throwing up a whoosh of rain from an early morning shower.
Owen put a hand over hers, squeezing hard. “I wish this could have happened sooner for you both.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But it didn’t.”
CHAPTER SIX
AT BARELY 7:00 A.M., the hospital was hushed and quiet, doctors and nurses arriving and departing in a shift change. Willa and Owen took the elevator to the fourth floor, stepped out in front of the check-in station. The antiseptic smell tilted Willa’s stomach, made her blink against a sudden wave of dizziness.
She steadied herself with a hand to the wall.
Owen turned and put an arm around her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I…yes.”
He told the nurse at the front desk which room they were looking for, and she pointed them to the right.
Owen kept his arm in place all the way down the hall, and Willa could not deny being grateful for his quiet strength.
They stopped in front of room 405. He knocked softly. A tall woman with a thin, angular face stepped out, her eyes red-rimmed and weary. Despite her obvious fatigue, she still managed to look completely put together, flawless French manicure, her white sweater and navy pants free of wrinkle or crease.
Owen pulled her against him, folded her up in his arms, kissed the side of her head. She sobbed softly, as if she had been holding it in for a long time. Willa glanced away.
They stood that way for a couple of minutes, Owen rubbing the woman’s shoulder, offering soft words of comfort.
She stepped back, reached in the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a tissue, wiping her eyes.
“Natalie, this is Willa Addison.”
“Hello,” Willa said, sticking out her hand.
The woman put her hands in her pockets, her gaze cooling several degrees. “I know who you are.”
Willa dropped her hand, feeling the sudden scorch of rejection. “I’m sorry,” she began and then stopped, not sure what she was apologizing for.
Natalie Hartmore looked at Owen. “Did Charles send you to find her?”
Owen put a hand to her elbow. “Natalie—”
“Just tell me,” she said, her mouth drawn tight.
“Yes,” Owen said. “He did.”
Willa took a step back. “I should go.”
The older woman drew in a deep breath, placed two fingers to her lips as if trying to hold back another onslaught of tears. “I’m going downstairs for a cup of coffee. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She turned then and walked down the hall. Once she’d reached the corner in the corridor, Owen looked at Willa and said, “Please don’t take any of that personally.”
Willa shook her head. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes,” he interrupted, a hand on her arm. “You absolutely should be. Go inside and see him. I’ll wait out here.”
She felt light-headed with a sudden sense of panic. This was wrong. Natalie Hartmore’s reaction was proof of that. “I don’t think I can,” she said, one hand to her chest.
Owen reached out, tipped her chin toward him. “He would very much want you to. Shouldn’t that be what matters now?”
They looked at each other, his eyes dark with compassion. In that moment, she glimpsed something in Owen Miller she had not yet seen.
“Regret is one thing we can’t fix,” he said. “I know Charles regrets not having you in his life. If you can’t do this for him, then do it for you. So you don’t have anything to regret.”
True enough that this opportunity might never present itself again. A half-dozen emotions swirled like a kaleidoscope inside her. Prominent among them, a sudden need to put a face to the word father, fill in the blank space in her thoughts when she wondered about him.
She owed him nothing, but she would do this for herself. She pushed open the door and stepped inside the room.
* * *
OWEN STOOD BY A WINDOW, looking out across the small park to one side of the hospital, thinking about that subject of regrets. He had a backlog of his own where his father was concerned. And yet what could he have done to change any of it, make it turn out differently?
What he had wanted from his father, Harrison Miller had never been able to give. It hadn’t been in him to do so.
“Hey.”
Owen turned from the window. Pamela Lawrence stood at the edge of the carpeted floor, looking uncharacteristically uncertain of her welcome. Confidence was as much a part of her genetics as the Austrian ancestry responsible for her high cheekbones and blue eyes. “I was on the way to a league meeting,” she said, running a hand across the black-and-white skirt of her designer suit. “I called Natalie earlier. She told me you were coming by.”
“Yeah.” Owen said, his shoulders suddenly tense.
She stepped forward then, leaned in and kissed him. She touched the tip of a manicured finger to his mouth, then turned away, tucking her straight blond hair behind her ear. “I’m really sorry about all this. I know how fond you are of Charles.”
“Thanks.” Owen felt the strain between them, knew he was responsible for it, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to address it. He glanced at the door of Charles’s room, thought of Willa alone in there and wished, suddenly, that he had gone in with her.
“I wanted to apologize about that phone call,” Pamela said. She looked down and then met his gaze. “I’m not trying to pressure you, Owen.”
“I haven’t been exactly fair to you,” he said.
She shrugged, her expression not one of disagreement. “I care about you.”
Natalie returned just then with a cup of coffee, which she handed to Owen.
“Thank you,” he said.
Natalie looked at Pamela. “I would have brought you some had I realized you were here.”
“I already had a cup,” Pamela said, waving away the offer. “I’m so sorry about Charles.”
Natalie nodded, sat down in a chair close to the window and stared straight ahead, her hands clasped around the paper cup.
Pamela looked at Owen. “Call me later?”
“Yeah,” Owen said.
She touched his arm, then left. He drank his coffee, relieved.
* * *
WILLA STOOD BY THE HOSPITAL BED, her gaze locked on the man lying too still against the white sheets.
Her heart knocked hard in her chest, and her hands felt clammy. She laced them together, sat down in the chair beside the bed, suddenly unsure her legs would support her.
Machines surrounded him, the intermittent beeps startling in the quiet. His eyes were closed, and at first Willa was afraid to look at him. Afraid of what she might see. Or that he would awaken and find her staring.
But he was still, his breathing a shall
ow rise and fall. She looked at him then, saw a tired man with white hair and heavy, dark eyebrows. He had a strong jaw, a straight nose, and he looked as if he might have been imposing in the prime of his life.
He opened his eyes, silent for several moments, as if he were trying to bring her into focus. She saw the recognition the second it hit his face.
“You’re Willa, aren’t you?” His voice was low and strained.
She glanced down, then met his searching gaze. “I, yes.”
“Ah,” he said, reaching for her hand. “You look so much like her. Beautiful.”
If she had entered this room with doubts about the truth behind his request to see her, they instantly dissolved beneath the sincerity in his voice.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re very kind to come here…like this.” His voice was weak, as if each word required an inordinate amount of strength.
“Maybe you should rest,” she said, starting to stand. “I can come back in a little while.”
“Dear child, no,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “There’s nothing left that I must do, other than this. Please, stay.”
Willa sat back down, pressed her lips together against an unexpected rush of emotion. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“A small sip of water would be nice.”
She reached for the yellow pitcher on the bedside tray, poured a cup and handed it to him. His hand shook, and he nearly dropped it.
“Let me help,” she said, steadying the cup and then holding it to his lips.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The politeness of the exchange reminded her that they were strangers, that she knew nothing about this man who claimed to be her father.
He tried to sit up, dropped back against the pillows, visibly weakened by the effort. “You must want an explanation.”
“I can’t deny that. But not now.”
“If not now—” He broke off there, his gaze fixed on some point outside the window, far away.
Willa sat on the edge of her chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She wanted to hear, and yet not. There was safety in remaining oblivious. But it was too late for that. The box had been opened. She wanted to know.
“Your mother and I…we met one weekend when I was on the way back from Virginia,” he said, his voice distant with memory. “I had gone up to see some horses in Middleburg, Virginia, and stopped on the way back at your mother’s diner for dinner. We started talking, and I don’t know, we just hit it off. I was quite a bit older than she was. Tanya was…a captivating woman.”
Willa let the words sink in, seeing her mother through his eyes, remembering her young: thick blond hair, green eyes, pretty. “Then why—”
“Didn’t something more come of it?”
She nodded.
Several moments passed before he said, “I was engaged to Natalie.”
A sharp shaft of disappointment sliced through her. She wasn’t sure if it was for herself or for her mother. “That makes it all pretty terrible, doesn’t it?”
He looked at her then, his eyes clouded with emotion, primary among them, guilt and grief. “I know there’s no possible way you could understand. I don’t expect you to. It’s just that sometimes we make choices that end up hurting others when that was never our intention. When your mother told me she was pregnant, I panicked. If there’s a checklist of wrong responses, I’m sure I made every one of them.”
“So what happened?” Willa asked, her voice little more than a whisper now.
“I married Natalie. And by the time I came back to offer your mother help with you, she didn’t want anything to do with me.”
The admission surprised her. Her mother had struggled, and there had been months when the bills far outweighed the balance in her bank account. Willa stood, went to the window, her back to the bed.
“You have every right to be angry, Willa.”
“It seems a little late for any of that,” she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice. “I don’t understand how you could go all those years knowing about me and—”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry.”
The words were heartfelt, and she had no doubt that he meant them now. Willa turned to look at him. “That doesn’t really change anything though, does it?”
Something like pain flashed across his face, and for a moment she regretted the sharpness of her words. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
She folded her arms across her chest, suddenly cold. “Maybe we should leave it at that.”
“Willa—”
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” she said and walked quickly from the room.
* * *
WILLA FOUND OWEN SITTING in the waiting room with Natalie Hartmore.
At the sight of her, they both stood.
The older woman stared at her for a long moment, her eyes dark with emotion. She looked away then and headed across the hall to her husband’s room.
“Hey,” Owen said, touching a hand to Willa’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I understand why she hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s just…she’s had a hard time accepting—”
“Who could blame her?” Willa interrupted.
Owen was quiet for a moment, and then said “You look like you could use some coffee. There’s a Starbucks just down the street.”
“Coffee would be great,” she said.
They walked the short distance without talking, ordered, then sat at a table by the window, sipping, the silence between them now growing heavy with awkwardness.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Owen asked, setting his cup on the table.
Willa released a sigh. “It’s crazy. After all this time, why couldn’t he just let things be? Why would a man wait until he’s near the end of his life to drop this on his wife? Or to find a daughter he obviously cared nothing about?”
Owen held her gaze for several moments, as if searching for an answer that would settle more softly. “Maybe because deep down, we think there’s always tomorrow. That we can count on another day. Maybe that’s how we get by with putting off the hard stuff.”
She took a sip of her coffee, met his gaze over the rim of her cup, weighed the words. They had certainly been true of her own life. Of the future she had given up.
“If I were you, I’d be mad as hell,” Owen said.
She set the cup down. “So what if I am? What good does it do?”
“Gets you to the next emotion?”
“And what’s that supposed to be?”
“I guess that’s for you to decide.” He reached across the table, put his hand over hers. Her fingers warmed beneath his, the touch welcome. “People make mistakes. I know it was never his deliberate intention to hurt anyone.”
“But he did.”
“Yeah. He did.”
She was quiet for a moment, and then said, “He’s not going to get better, is he?”
Owen squeezed her hand once, his expression somber. “I don’t know.”
She sat for a few moments, then pulled her hand away and reached for her purse. “Let’s go back,” she said.
* * *
THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE the bedroom Katie had been given was wide enough to drive a tractor trailer through. The walls had been done in some kind of muted Italian-looking finish, and there were lights with shades on them spaced every twelve feet or so.
She tiptoed across the dark wood floor, reached the top of the steps, and then descended to the open foyer, flip-flops flapping. A very big man with salt-and-pepper hair sat in a ladder-back chair just short of the door, reading a newspaper. His face held the lines of a life lived outdoors, his hands against the newsprint strong and capable. He lowered the paper, looked at her and said, “You must be Katie.”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“Jake. Austin.”
“You always read your paper by the front door?”
He smiled, obviously ignoring the sarcasm beneath her question. “Only when I’m asked to watch out for wayward teenagers trying to leave the premises.”
“A comedian, too.”
His grin widened, his expression agreeable. “Now, listen, miss. The way I see it, this isn’t such a bad place to hang out. I don’t care to get in the middle of whatever you did, but I am going to make sure you’re still here when Owen and your sister get back. So go on now, and make yourself at home. Kitchen’s that way,” he said, pointing. “Louisa’ll fix you up somethin’ good.”
Katie considered arguing. She was really pretty adept at it. But something told her he probably wasn’t the one she ought to try to get around. So she smiled her sweetest smile and said, “That sounds good. I think I will.”
She walked through the foyer toward the kitchen. She could have found it with her nose. The delicious smell of baking bread filled the house and made her mouth water. An enormous living room sat to her left. The room had three sofas and a half dozen leather chairs angled in between. A stone fireplace took up one end of the room. Family pictures, mostly people with horses, decorated the walls.
Just ahead on the right was another room. The door was open. She stuck her head inside. A young guy, somewhere close to her age—maybe a little older—sat behind a big wooden desk, a computer in front of him. She half raised a hand and said, “Sorry.”
“Hey, no problem.” He waved her forward. “Come on in.”
She tipped her head to the side. “I was looking for the kitchen.”
“Nearly there. You have to tell me your name first, though.”
He had laughing eyes. Blue as she’d ever seen. He reminded her of a young—what was that actor’s name—Matthew McConaughey? His shoulders were wide, muscles apparent beneath a light blue shirt. She finally found her voice and said, “Katie Addison.”
“So you’re the prisoner Jake told me about.”
“Hardly,” she said, a blush heating her cheeks.
“Detainee, then.”
“Temporary. And you are?”
“Cline Miller. Owen’s brother.”
“You look alike. Except your hair is lighter.”
“And I’m better looking.”
The Lost Daughter of Pigeon Hollow Page 6
