by Linda Seed
“I’m kind of hung up on somebody.”
Colin’s eyebrows shot up, and he smacked Drew on the back. “Really? That’s great. Who is she? And most importantly, is she hung up on you, too? I need another scotch. Let me buy you a scotch.” Colin signaled to the bartender, who poured a finger of twelve-year-old scotch for each of them. Somebody behind Drew at the bar jostled him, and his drink sloshed in the glass as he picked it up.
“I think she might be,” Drew said. “Hung up on me, I mean. Maybe. At least, I hope she is.”
“Well, good! Out with it. Who is she?” Colin didn’t seem like he was going to let it go, so Drew was almost relieved when Liam came up to the bar and clapped a hand on Colin’s shoulder.
“Pool tournament. Come on,” he told Colin. Then he shot a glance at Drew. “You too, shithead. Come play pool.”
The shithead part made sense, but the thought that Liam wanted to include him in the tournament did not.
“You want me to play pool with you?” It might have been the fact that Drew was a little bit drunk, but he needed clarification.
“We’re playing for cash, so hell yeah,” Liam said. “I’m going to clean your goddamned clock.”
Drew didn’t especially want his clock cleaned, but it seemed unmanly to say so.
“I’d like to see you try,” he said instead.
The first game in the tournament was between Liam and Colin. It became apparent halfway through that Liam hadn’t brought Drew over here to take his money. He’d brought him over here to assert his claim over Megan.
“So, I’ve pretty much decided I’m going to do it,” he said as he leaned over the table and lined up a shot. “I’m going to ask her.” He shot a side-eyed look at Drew as he said it.
“Yeah?” Colin was leaning against the wall, his cue propped up in front of him. “Well, that’s great, man. Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck. Why do you think I need luck? You think she’s going to say no?”
Colin shrugged. “I didn’t say that. It’s customary to wish people luck at times such as these, since you don’t seem to be familiar with the etiquette.”
Liam scowled and took his shot. The nine ball bounced off the far side of the table and missed the corner pocket.
Drew listened to all of this and knew it was for his benefit. He wondered if Liam had seen him kiss Megan the day before, but he knew that wasn’t possible. If Liam had seen him, then Drew would be nursing a broken nose right about now and planning for the replacement of his missing teeth.
The territorial nature of it all was starting to piss him off. Megan wasn’t a possession, she wasn’t a trophy he could put on his mantel or a blue ribbon he could wear on his shirt. She was a living, breathing human being, and marriage was a serious endeavor. The idea that Liam would ask her to marry him just to keep her in line and assert his dominance over Drew was enough to make Drew want to break a pool cue over the guy’s head.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Drew said, before he’d even known he was going to say it.
“What do you mean?” Liam narrowed his eyes at Drew.
“I mean, are you sure she wants to marry you?”
Liam stood up straight from where he’d been bent over the pool table. “Why? You know something I don’t?”
“No. I’m just saying, it would be pretty embarrassing if you propose at the reception, in front of all those people, and she says no.”
“She’s not going to say no. What makes you think she’s going to say no?” Liam was up in Drew’s face now, chest to chest with him in an effort to intimidate him. It was working. Drew had to fight the natural instinct to back away.
“Because it’s what I would say if a dick like you—”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Colin shoved himself in between the two men, one hand flat on Drew’s chest, the other on Liam’s as he shoved the two of them apart. “As much as I think it would make a good story if a bar fight broke out at my bachelor party, I think you two should calm down.”
“Right.” Drew put up his hands in surrender. “Right. Sorry.”
“He called me a dick,” Liam pointed out.
“Yeah, and you called him a shithead over there at the bar,” Colin reminded him.
“Well.”
“Look. I’ll just go over there and talk to Mike,” Drew said, gesturing toward the far end of the room.
Liam nodded toward the pool table, where he’d dominated the play so far. “Like hell you will. I’m winning.”
Drew went back to the hotel that night feeling mostly like shit. Part of it was the alcohol, no question. But part of it was everything that had happened with Liam.
He’d had some time to reflect on the bus ride back into town, and part of what he thought about was that, in his head, he’d accused Liam of using Megan like an object instead of thinking of her as a person. But Drew was doing the same thing, wasn’t he? When he thought about taking Megan away from Liam, wasn’t it at least partly about winning? About taking Liam’s arrogant, bullshit attitude down a notch and proving that Drew was worthy of respect?
He wasn’t feeling too worthy of respect at the moment. Megan deserved better than this. He wanted her, yes, and that was real and had nothing to do with Liam. But it was all tangled up with his feelings about his family, and nothing good was likely to come of that.
Drew checked on Eddie, fed him, and cleaned his litter box. The cat looked okay. He still wasn’t himself, but he’d made a bit of a comeback since his time with Megan. Drew stroked Eddie’s head and his sleek back, and said, “She’s pretty great, isn’t she?”
He stripped off his clothes, fell into bed, and turned out the light.
A man needed to be clear about his motives, and a man needed to be able to fall asleep at night feeling good about his choices.
He went to sleep promising himself that he wasn’t going to kiss her again, or have lunch with her again, or make up reasons to see her again until she was through with Liam.
What if Liam proposed and she said yes?
He tried to tell himself that wasn’t possible, but he knew it was.
If she did—if she said yes and threw her arms around Liam at the reception in front of Drew and everyone else at the wedding—he was going to feel something inside of him die. Some essential kernel of hope that love was possible for him, and that it might be possible with Megan.
And if that happened, he was going to shake Liam’s hand and offer his congratulations.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, because he couldn’t get her out of his head. The kisses, yes, but also the part when they’d just been together quietly, when they’d just talked.
He hadn’t felt comfortable talking to anyone in a long time. After learning about Redmond, and then with his divorce, he’d been so closed up with his grief and his hurt and his sense of betrayal that he’d built up walls of pain and resentment keeping everyone out.
Problem was, they also kept him in.
Just get through the wedding, he told himself.
Chapter Thirteen
When Drew had kissed Megan at Hearst Castle, she hadn’t known how to react. Her senses had been so overloaded with lust and surprise and fear that they would get caught that she’d kind of blown a circuit and had been unable to do or say much of anything.
But now, as she lay in bed thinking about the day and everything that had happened, a number of thoughts competed with each other.
One, where did Drew get the nerve to kiss her like that out in public, where anyone could have seen them? Two, she couldn’t wait—really couldn’t wait—for him to do it again. And three, she seriously had to break up with Liam.
Was Liam really planning to propose at the wedding? God, she hoped not. There was no way that would end well. She would have two choices: Say no with two hundred people watching, which would humiliate Liam, or say yes, endure the happy congratulations of everyone in the room, and then say no later, leaving Liam the task of explaining to everyone what
, exactly, had gone wrong.
There was only one solution: He couldn’t propose. She either had to break up with him before then, or she had to stop him from going through with it.
If she broke up with him before the wedding, he wouldn’t take it well, and Colin and Julia’s big day would be marred by the tension and anger and hurt feelings left in the wake of a breakup like roadkill behind a big rig.
“I never should have let it go this long,” she said to Bobby as he snuggled up against her on the bed.
She should have cut Liam loose as soon as she realized things between them weren’t going anywhere. But there had been so many reasons not to. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. She had thought maybe they could work things out. And she hadn’t wanted to be alone.
“I’m a wuss,” she said.
Bobby licked her arm.
The next day on the Wedding Week schedule was kayaking at San Simeon Cove. Drew usually enjoyed kayaking; he was generally enthusiastic about anything that involved some kind of vehicle that went on water.
But he couldn’t bear the idea of kayaking side by side with Liam, with Megan somewhere nearby wearing a bikini.
He didn’t even bother to beg off on the phone with Julia or Isabelle, because they would lay guilt on him and would probably talk him into going. Instead, he got up in the morning, checked on Eddie—who looked to be somewhat improved—fed the cat, and then had a muffin and coffee in the hotel’s breakfast room.
Then he decided it was time to address something that had been on his mind for quite a while now.
There was no way Sandra was going kayaking—he couldn’t picture it—so he waited until everyone who was going to San Simeon would already be out there. Then he drove to the Delaney Ranch hoping to speak to her privately.
If he was ever going to make peace with the Delaneys or his biological father, or his newfound wealth, he needed some answers, and he was hoping she could give them to him.
The day was bright and clear, with a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. As Drew got out of the rental car and headed up the front walk toward the house, the sycamore branches that arced gracefully over the farmhouse swayed and whispered their secrets.
Usually when he visited the ranch, his own feelings about his circumstances blocked everything else out. But now he cleared his head and took a moment to take in the place. If he’d seen it under any other conditions—as a tourist, maybe, or as someone visiting a friend—he would have been dumbstruck by its beauty. Rolling hills clothed in golden grass; Monterey pines, sycamores, and oak trees dotting the landscape and providing shade; the ocean, blue and calm on the horizon; the barn, picturesque in the distance; and the house, looking serene and welcoming, as though it had been there, exactly where it belonged, since the dawn of man.
It struck him again as bizarre and improbable that he was part owner of this place. That had been a portion of his inheritance from Redmond: ten percent ownership in the property. Redmond had owned a half share, and he’d split that evenly among Drew and Orin’s four children. This place was Drew’s as much as it was anyone else’s—as much as it was Liam’s. But Drew felt like an intruder here, and he thought he probably always would.
He walked up onto the front porch and knocked on the front door. From somewhere inside, he heard Sandra holler, “Come in!”
He went into the house and found her in the kitchen, where she so often was, sitting at the big wooden table in the center of the room, drinking from a mug of coffee and doing a puzzle from a Sudoku book.
She looked up when he came into the room and raised her eyebrows in question.
“Well, boy, it don’t look like you’re kayaking, now does it?”
“Well … no.”
“Playing hooky again, are you?” She let out a soft grunt. “Your mother’s not going to be happy about that. Or your sister, I’ll bet.” She turned her attention back to the puzzle and entered a number into a square in pencil.
Drew sat down at the table across from her. “I just … I wondered if I could talk to you a little. About Redmond.”
She pushed the puzzle aside and focused on him over the tops of her reading glasses. “Well, now, it’s about time.”
“It’s been on my mind since I got here, and … well. Longer than that.” In truth, the subject had been gnawing at him constantly since he’d learned the truth of his parentage.
“What is it you want to know?”
“Well … What was he like? What kind of man was he?” And what kind of man denies his son’s existence? He didn’t say the last part out loud, but the question was there between them, nonetheless.
Sandra focused her usual scowl on him. “You’ve known about Redmond for years now. And you’re just now getting around to asking?” There was no judgment in her voice, just curiosity.
“I guess … before, I told myself I didn’t want to know. I told myself that if he didn’t want me”—emotion swelled in his throat, and he paused to force it down—“then I didn’t care to know about him.” Telling someone, finally, the truth about his feelings made him feel something loosen inside his chest.
“I guess I get that. But what’s changed?”
He shrugged. “Time, I guess. I’ve had time to think. Time for all of it to sink in.”
“Hmph.” She nodded in understanding. “Well, Redmond was something of a closed book, I can tell you that. Lived with him for decades, and I think the number of words he spoke in this house could fit on the back of a damned napkin. Why, when the news about you came out … Well. Let’s just say not one of us ever saw that coming.”
Of course Redmond hadn’t told anyone.
When Drew had first learned the truth, he’d been enraged at the Delaneys for failing to make contact with him, for letting him live his entire life never knowing where he came from. They’d told him then that they hadn’t known until after Redmond’s death, but that hadn’t mattered. Drew had been angry, confused, and unwilling to accept what they were telling him.
Now, having had some time to let it all soak in, and having gotten to know the Delaneys a little, he could come to terms with what she was saying. They hadn’t known. They hadn’t found him, because they never knew he was there to be found.
“So I guess you can’t give me any insight, then?” If he’d taken the initiative to seek out Redmond when he first found out, then Drew would have been able to speak to the man. Would have gotten some answers, maybe. But he’d waited until it was too late, and now, it seemed, he would never know any more than he did right now—which was damned little.
“Didn’t say that.” Sandra nodded in answer to a question only she knew. “Follow me.”
Sandra got up from the kitchen table, went out into the main room of the house, and began climbing the stairs, with Drew trailing behind. Upstairs, she made a left down a long hallway and opened the door to the room Drew knew had been Redmond’s. She didn’t go inside.
“Haven’t changed a thing in there since the day he died,” she told Drew. “Oh, I clean it every week. Dust, run the vacuum cleaner and whatnot. But I haven’t taken anything out of there. I figure it’s all pretty much the way he kept it.”
Drew just stood there, frozen.
“But … why? Why didn’t you pack it all up?”
She scowled. “Well, we’re not keeping it as some kind of shrine, if that’s what you’re thinking. I left it for you.” She nodded decisively. “Figured you’d want to take a look someday, maybe find some kind of memento to keep for yourself. I don’t claim a man’s belongings can give you all the answers to what the hell he was thinking, but if you’re looking for clues, this’d be a place to start.”
Drew’s throat felt thick, not only at the idea of going through Redmond’s things, but at the kindness. She’d saved everything for him, all this time.
“I … don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t see as how you need to say anything. Just go on in, and see whatever there is to see.”
Drew stepp
ed into the room and looked around, and Sandra closed the door behind him, leaving him alone.
He didn't know much about what kind of man Redmond was.
He knew that Redmond was the kind of person who could spend most of his life sleeping in the same bedroom without ever moving on, without ever feeling that it wasn’t enough. He knew that Redmond had kept to himself, because how else could he have kept his son a secret for so long?
But that was pretty much all he knew, and the questions far outweighed the answers. How was it that Redmond had spent most of his life without a woman in it? Why hadn’t he met someone else? Why hadn’t he gotten married, had children he could claim as his own?
Drew didn’t know what he hoped to find in Redmond’s room. Maybe nothing. But the way a man lived could tell a person a lot about him. The things a man kept close to him had to offer some kind of clues.
The room wasn’t large. It was quite a bit smaller, in fact, than the room Drew himself was using at the hotel. The walls were covered in dark wood paneling, and the floor was rough oak planks covered in a simple braided rug.
Redmond had slept in a full-size bed with an iron headboard and footboard. A red plaid blanket was neatly spread over the mattress, and the pillows looked to have been recently arranged and fluffed. Probably Sandra’s doing.
A small side table held a lamp and several framed pictures. Drew sat on the side of the bed and picked up the pictures, one by one. Orin and Sandra on their wedding day, Sandra looking impossibly young and pretty. Orin holding up a trout he’d just caught. The Delaney children standing in front of a Christmas tree, with Ryan, the oldest, looking to be about twelve years old.
And then there was a separate one of Liam, about five or so, smiling a gap-toothed grin.
One thing Drew knew from this room—Redmond had cared about his family. That made it hurt all the more that he hadn’t cared enough about Drew to even meet him.
Drew went to the simple maple dresser that stood to one side of the room and opened each drawer. Redmond seemed to have few items of clothing, all of them practical and neatly stored. Levi’s 501s. Plaid flannel shirts. Wool socks. White Hanes T-shirts, the kind you bought three to a package.