Although she liked seeing him happy, she dreaded the difficult conversation she planned to have. When he’d found her, she’d experienced a host of emotions—shock, wonder, excitement, curiosity. But then had come the anger. She understood that her mom had blocked him from being in their lives after he chose college and his future over them. But he could have still fought to know her. Admittedly, her mother was formidable. But when you loved someone, you could practically move mountains. Yet, he hadn’t moved a mountain to know her.
Upon their arrival at the restaurant, she helped him get seated. Tasha filled both their plates from the buffet line and returned to the table. Vincent was like a child with a new toy. His face glowed. It was obvious he didn’t get out of the assisted-living facility much. They ate their food and made small talk.
When Vincent finished, pleasure blanketed his face. He eyed his remaining piece of lemon meringue pie. “I just want to admire it for a while,” he said. He licked his lips. “Makes eating it much more enjoyable.”
Tasha wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Vincent, I need to discuss something with you.” She still hadn’t been able to call him Dad or Father yet.
His eyebrows arched. “Yes, Love Nugget?”
Her heart pinged. “I don’t know how to say this.” Heartburn bubbled in her throat. “I need to know why you didn’t fight for me.”
Surprise replaced his happy expression, and he fidgeted in his seat. He pushed the pie away. “Did you ply me with my favorite food to butter me up?”
“No,” she said softly. “I simply wanted to bless you.”
He smirked. “Why would you want to bless someone you don’t trust?” Hurt flashed in his eyes.
“I didn’t say I don’t trust you. You must see this from my side. I didn’t know about you, but you knew about me. I am your flesh and blood. Yet, you didn’t fight to have a relationship with me. Was I not worth it?” Pain constricted her throat, so that her final words came out in an almost whisper.
Rather than looking at her, Vincent picked up his fork. He scooted the small amount of leftover food around on his plate. Then he ran the fork around the rim of the pie and poked the airy white meringue peaks. “Your mother was the love of my life. I’d loved her since we were six years old, when she first arrived in Miss McCutchen’s class with her black rope of braids, bright lunch pail and shy smile.”
Shocked, Tasha controlled her mouth from hanging open.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Vincent continued. “I loved my wife. But she wasn’t my first choice. Bless her, she accepted second place. Just like I longed for Violet, your mother yearned for the love of her life—which wasn’t me.”
He sighed. “Broke my heart. When I offered to marry her after college, she made it clear she didn’t want or need me in your lives. I guess my initial selfish choices cut too deep. To be honest, I was afraid every time I’d see you, I’d be reminded of her and what would never be mine. I was also afraid she’d probably turned you against me, too.”
He shook his head several times. Crystal tears spilled down his brown-sugar-colored cheeks. “Tasha—the thought of being rejected all over again. I could not bear it.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
“Oh, Love Nugget, not true. Not true. You were part of me. It would have been like cutting off my own arm to say I didn’t want you. But my heart had been shattered once. I didn’t know if I had the strength to survive it being broken again.”
“If you were so afraid of that, what made you finally find me?”
He didn’t answer right away, just nibbled on a small piece of his pie. “I heard your mom died. I had some years and a life between our relationship and the past. I guess I felt stronger. When you get to a certain age, you get bolder, I think. You know you have less time. You know yourself better and what you want. You’re often more willing to take a risk.”
Tasha blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I think I’m just now realizing something. All my life I’ve tried to get guys to love me—shamelessly begged them to, to the point of making a fool of myself. The wild thing is, it always backfired. I don’t know. Maybe deep down inside I didn’t feel I was worth loving, because the one man who should have wanted me didn’t. The one man who should have wanted me abandoned me. Maybe I was trying to right the wrong of your rejection, but because I didn’t love myself and feel worthy, I was drawing men to me that were all versions of you. Like a cruel vicious cycle.”
Vincent observed her for a long moment before massaging his temples. “Tasha, we can’t change the past. But what you can do is decide to change your future. Which you’ve started to do. Look at God’s goodness. In the end, you got Zed. I can tell he’s a good man.”
She bit her lip so hard, she tasted blood. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin.
“Are you okay, honey?”
She stared into brown eyes that matched her own. She wanted to put on a front. But she simply couldn’t. He’d been honest with her, and she needed to do the same. “No, I’m not. But I will be.” She raised her chin high, in stubborn determination to fulfill her declaration.
“Trouble in paradise?”
She nodded. “The trouble is that I ever believed in paradise in the first place.” Tasha admitted the truth about her and Zed’s three-month arrangement and Zed’s reluctance to marry due to his strained relationship with his dad and the choices his father had made.
After her confession, Vincent said nothing. But his brown hand reached across the table and clutched her fingers.
She had mixed feelings. Vincent’s explanation had somewhat assuaged her emotions, but the hard ball of anger still rested, like an iron ball, in her gut. At the heart of it, her father had still rejected her. She was ashamed to admit that a part of her still wanted him to pay for it. It was an ugly part that she had to acknowledge.
God, help me.
God had chosen to forgive His rebellious children and made Himself vulnerable to them. Guilt rolled through her at the thought. God would require the same from her, as His child. Tasha thought of all the heartache she’d gone through with a long string of men that hurt her—crushed her spirit, even. If her father had fought for her and been in her life, would things have been different? Would she have had a healthier view of men because she’d been loved so well by her own father?
God, can we talk? To be honest, I’m not just mad at Vincent. I’m mad at You. I only say this because You already know it and You tell us to pour out our hearts to You. I see everybody around me blessed with love, except me. Like my client Shayla, who was barely in her twenties—almost half my age—when she found an amazing love and now is pregnant! Yet, I’ve waited almost double her lifetime, and the only thing I’ve gotten is a repeatedly broken heart and a sham marriage.
God, I’m weary. That’s why I gave up hope of love. Because that way, I wouldn’t be disappointed. And then You bring a man like Zed into my life. He’s so amazing, but yet again, unattainable. Am I being disciplined? Do You have it in for me? Why, Lord?
She took even, deep breaths and let the warm tears flow as Vincent squeezed her hand.
Chapter Fifteen
Zed swiped the key fob to his university office and the door clicked open. He tossed his keys and laptop on the leather couch. Early-morning frost coated his office windows.
He collapsed on the couch. There was no way he could have stayed at the Victorian to clear his head and decide what he knew he must do.
Zed peered heavenward. “I’m sorry, Aunt Zora. I have to let the house go. Regardless of how much I love it.” Zed cupped his head in his hands. While Gigi had made it a house filled with love, that was now the past. He’d failed Aunt Zora’s test, and the place was more a facade—a shell of what it had been. Though he’d always thought his main reason for never marrying was to not be like h
is dad, a deeper fear curled the edges of his brain. Maybe he didn’t have the capacity to love. Maybe he had a heart of stone.
He’d still pay Tasha for her time and would have done so even if not legally bound. It was time to let go of the past and accept his future.
His cell phone pinged. Vincent’s number gleamed on the screen.
Zed answered. “Hey, Mr. Taliferro.”
“Is this a bad time, son?”
“No—you’re fine.”
“I need to talk to you about Tasha. I’ve made bad decisions that affected her life. From what Tasha’s told me, your dad made some similar choices. I’ll make this short and sweet—please make me and your dad liars.”
Surprised, Zed absorbed the man’s words. “I’m sorry. I’m not tracking with you.”
Vincent laughed. “I guess I’m being as clear as mud. What I mean is, your dad and I made decisions that made you and Tasha both think less of yourselves, that silently communicated that you weren’t worthy of love. Make us liars by breaking the cycle, son. I’m not saying it will be easy and there won’t be risks. That’s just the nature of love.”
Zed bit his lip. Emotions gurgled in his stomach. Anger shot through him from zero to sixty. There was a deep layer of unforgiveness still in his heart.
“I’ve laid a lot on you. I just ask you to think about it.”
Zed tried to hold it together. “Thank you for calling, sir.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. His intuition told him Vincent was unhappy with his response and might be struggling to say more on the matter. Vincent finally sighed. “Goodbye, son.”
Zed slammed his cell on the couch. Rapid-fire scenes of his childhood sped by in the movie screen of his mind—his mother’s depression and bitter tears, the lonely nights after his dad would leave for his trips, and the constant ache in his heart at unfulfilled yearning for his father’s attention.
A sudden image flashed through his mind of himself feverishly working, sometimes nonstop, trying to ignore the gnawing anger and pain that haunted him and using work as a balm.
Tasha’s words came back to him, when she’d asked if he’d forgiven his father. “God, I don’t know if I can forgive him—I feel like my heart is stone.” Another revelation hit him: he also needed to forgive himself for not being able to make his mother happy, which spawned a fear he couldn’t make anyone else happy, either.
Heated tears gushed from his eyes. He dropped to his knees. “God, I can’t do this on my own. I need Your help!”
He grabbed his phone from the couch and tapped Anton’s number.
“Hey, Zed.” It was Maya. He inwardly groaned.
“Hi, Maya. Is Anton around?”
“He’s at the gym. He forgot his cell.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Zed, are you alright? You sound funny.”
He wanted to hang up. His manly pride didn’t want him weeping and being so broken in front of her. His best bud was who he needed.
“Zed, talk to me.”
An involuntary sob escaped his lips uncensored.
“Zed! What’s going on?”
Like pent-up water bursting from a dam, he spilled out everything about the call with Tasha’s dad, along with his fears and the one thing he’d never admitted to anyone.
“Maya, I love Tasha.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Then he heard sniffles.
“Now you’re crying?” He wiped away tears, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all.
“Sorry. It’s just that this is what I’ve been praying for.”
“For me to be a wreck?” he cried.
She laughed and blew her nose. “No. From the first time you told us about the marriage agreement to save the house, I sensed there was more. That maybe God was putting two hurt people together that had no other way to find each other unless they were forced to do so. And maybe this was His way of helping you both find love.”
He half laughed and sobbed. “I’m a mess.”
“Zed, God’s in the cleanup business.”
“I don’t know if I can forgive my father.”
“You can’t,” Maya said.
“What?”
“Jesus said that we can’t do anything without our Heavenly Father. Ask for His strength and help to forgive your dad. Just remember how much He’s forgiven you.”
Zed took a deep breath and absorbed Maya’s words. “Here’s the other thing—what if I’ve blown it with Tasha? What if she won’t give me another chance?”
“Zed, I’m guessing she loves you, too. I mean, how can she not?”
He gave a weak chuckle, before his doubt resurfaced. “I don’t know about that. She’s been hurt badly by men. And just when she thought I was different and she made herself vulnerable, I took a wrecking ball to her heart. Maya, if you saw the way she looked when I let her know things would definitely be over when the contract ended. She was devastated.”
Maya sighed. “Here’s my question to you, Zed.” She paused as if for added effect. “Is she worth taking the risk of your heart being broken?”
* * *
The next morning, as Tasha grabbed milk for her cereal, she looked at the calendar on the refrigerator door. Had it really been three weeks since Valentine’s Day? The marriage agreement was just about up. And now she’d be able to go back to her life and try to rebuild it.
She couldn’t deny deep grief and sorrow for what could have been. And for the spark of hope her relationship with Zed had reignited in her, causing her to ride a wave of euphoria and joy she’d never known. Until she crashed and burned. As much as she’d been hurt in the past, she’d finally thought she’d found real love—only to have her heart crushed yet again.
Just as she got cereal from the cabinet, her cell phone pinged. She looked at it.
It was a text from Zed, who’d left for work earlier.
Meet me at Union Station. Noon.
She attempted to quell her irritation. The terse message felt more like an order than an invitation. She guessed the reason he wanted to meet. Their three-month obligation was just about up. He probably wanted to discuss next steps. Since they’d started everything at Union Station, maybe he wanted to wind things up there, as well as meet her in a public place, just in case things went south. She knew the drill. When guys dumped her, all their earlier declarations of affection and civility dissolved.
Even so, it still hurt that he could treat her like nothing more than a business transaction. A means to an end. But that was what she’d agreed to. Now he had what he wanted, his beloved home. She couldn’t totally fault him since she’d also have money for her business.
Tasha waited for the normal feelings of rejection to overtake her. Instead, her chest rose with a new sense of resolve. I’m a good person—a great person. I deserve to be loved and I would be a wonderful gift to somebody. Even if treasure is never discovered, that doesn’t mean it’s not treasure and valuable.
She decided to girl up and just deal. She owed herself that, and she was done with letting any man define her value. God loved her and said she was special. That was all she needed to know. Even if nobody else loved her, she could and would love herself.
She texted Zed back, confirming she’d be there, then changed out of her dowdy beige T-shirt and faded jeans. After putting on a fuchsia sweater, pink-and-navy-blue plaid pants and navy blue loafers, she tied her sandy-brown curls back with a pink ribbon and added diamond post earrings that had belonged to her mother. Before she walked out the door, she threw on her favorite short aqua winter coat and her pink sunglasses.
When she arrived at Union Station, she immediately spotted Zed sitting on one of the vintage benches. He rose when she approached.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“How are you doing?” His eyes sear
ched hers.
“Oh, I’m just peachy keen,” she said, repeating a phrase her mother had often used. “The world is my oyster,” she replied. “Not.”
“We need to talk,” Zed said.
“I thought that was what we were doing.” She’d meant to be funny, but heard the edge in her tone.
He gave her an odd look and then took her hand. “Follow me.”
He led her to Snooze, where there was an empty table waiting for them.
“How did you get a table so fast?”
“I made reservations.”
“Go you,” she quipped.
When they sat, he immediately took an envelope from his crisp black jacket. He laid it between them but kept his hand on it. “First, I want to thank you for your assistance.”
My assistance? Something about his words stung. Even though she knew their arrangement had been nothing more than a business deal, it hurt that he could be so matter-of-fact about it all.
“I guess we both got what we wanted,” she said.
“Yes and no,” he said.
“What does that mean?” She wasn’t in the mood for verbal gymnastics or riddles. She’d had enough unanswered questions in her life. Now she just wanted the truth. Plain and clear.
* * *
His heart pounded like a jackhammer. The look of defiance and hurt on Tasha’s face nearly slayed him. Was she beyond the point of no return, in terms of their relationship? Had he made a mistake meeting her here? Was he about to be humiliated? Maya’s question about whether Tasha was worth the risk, which sounded noble and courageous at the time, now didn’t pack as powerful a punch. He decided to push ahead, all the while quaking in his boots.
“First, you were wrong about your mother and my dad,” he said.
He wanted to take her hand, but decided against it, afraid she would recoil. “Your mom didn’t have a relationship with my dad.” He told her what Mrs. Talmadge had revealed to him.
He could tell she was trying to contain herself. “That’s good to know,” she replied, her voice shaky. “I had a hard time believing she could have been a home-wrecker. It makes me sad about her lost love, though.”
Claiming His Christmas Inheritance Page 18