by Kym Roberts
“If it wasn’t an accident, than what exactly was it?”
“It was part of my job.”
“What in Sam Hill does being the mayor of Hazel Rock have to do with knowing my family secrets?”
“Not mayor. Attorney. Last year I updated the Judge’s and Isla’s will for them. Beyond that, I can’t tell you anything more. It’s protected by attorney-client privilege.”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
He ruffled his curls again. “Princess, I shouldn’t have told you that much.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that everyone in Hazel Rock knows you prepared the Judge’s will.”
“Probably, but that doesn’t mean I could confirm it if somebody asked.”
“You’ve known since I came back and said nothing.”
Cade got off the highway and turned onto Main Street. “I found out right before the election.”
“The election? You mean the election that you won? The election that I waited patiently to be over? The election that was the reason why you were too busy to have dinner with me?”
“I was having a hard time seeing you and knowing that I was part of the deception.”
Finally, a confession I could believe for those weeks of avoidance after the election when we were supposed to have a date. A date that never happened and the reason I moved on.
I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes as Cade parked in front of the Barn. He left the engine running, and I could tell he was looking for a reaction from me. Forgiveness for knowing what I didn’t about my own stupid life. Understanding for why he’d avoided going out on a date with me.
He’d been put between a rock and a hard place with only a pair of deck shoes to kick his way out. I understood his dilemma in my head, but my heart felt bruised. It’d taken one heck of a beatin’ and I wasn’t sure it was ready to heal.
I turned toward Cade and asked the question I deserved an answer to. “What’s up with the new look?”
He searched my face, but I don’t think he found what he was looking for. “I’m being groomed to run for the senate. The party wanted to know if I could blend in with the power players on the East Coast.”
“Did you pull it off?”
“I’m not sure, but if you have to ask, probably not.”
It was interesting to see Cade uncertain. There were very few times in our history that I could remember him being insecure. “I have no doubt you pulled the wool right over their eyes. You certainly did mine.”
I got out of the car and walked past the front of the Barn. The Closed sign was flipped and the lights were out. Daddy was gone for the day, which was probably a good thing. I headed toward the alley and through the gate with the sign hanging above it proclaiming it to be Eve’s Gate. I’d always believed it held the spirit of my mom—conking Cade on the head as he got fresh when we were teens, dropping on the head of an overly persistent reporter, and crashing into Mike Thompson’s nose when he demanded money he didn’t deserve. This evening as the sign groaned in the wind, I could hear a whisper of an apology: We should have told you.
“You’re darn tootin’ you should have told me.” I stomped up the stairs to my apartment where I was greeted by the only innocent person I knew. “Princess!”
My little pet scurried around my feet; her toenails clicking across the floor in a happy dance. It was almost enough to wash away my feelings of betrayal. Unfortunately, almost didn’t quite cut it.
Chapter Twenty-two
I rolled out of bed with puffy eyes and the smell of armadillo on my arm and chest. Princess had recognized my need for comfort and had jumped up on the bed and curled in the crook of my arm. Last night I didn’t mind how her scent enveloped me. She was home. This morning, she just plain stank.
“I love you, Princess. But snuggling seems to agree a little too much with you.”
Princess struggled to keep her eyes open and lost the battle as she huffed and then tucked her head back under her tail. I would have loved to join her.
I took a shower and made my way to the store in twenty-five minutes—just in time to receive the new shipment of children’s books we’d ordered for the drive. It was to be the Barn’s personal contribution to the event.
I fed and watered Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum, then began sorting the donations we’d received over the weekend by age group. Some of the books brought back memories of my own childhood of settling into an old chair in the loft and reading for hours. The only thing that would bring me out of the imaginary worlds created by Laura Ingalls Wilder or the authors who wrote as Carolyn Keene, would be a call from my mom telling me it was closing time. Then the three of us would head out the side door of the Barn, go through the gate and up the stairs to our apartment. Those were the best days of my life . . . and they were a lie.
I was still having trouble wrapping my brain around that and trying to figure out what could possibly keep my parents from telling me that the Sperrys were my paternal grandparents. They had a different last name, for Pete’s sake!
The side door to the tearoom opened and closed, and I knew it was my daddy. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face him.
I looked up as he walked into the main sales floor of the Barn. “Good morning, Princess.”
His greeting wasn’t any different than any other morning, but I could see the caution in his eyes.
“He told you.”
Daddy nodded.
“Funny how everyone tells everyone else the important details of my life, but I get left out in the dark.” I sounded spoiled, pouty, and about five years old.
“Let’s talk.”
I turned away. “It’s almost time to open the store. Let’s not.”
“We’re opening late today. This is more important. You’re more important.”
I might have cried, except I’d done too much of that the night before. Today the anger had taken over. “Fine.” I brushed by him, got myself a glass of sweet tea, and sat down in the tearoom. Daddy walked over and started his coffee, something I normally did for him, but the five-year old in me was throwing a tantrum, so the coffee was purposely forgotten.
Before sitting down at the table, he put a box of cookies in front of me. “I thought these would be the perfect breakfast today.”
No-bake chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies were my favorite, and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The treat was too scrumptious to pass up. Forgiveness had nothing to do with my acceptance of the cookies.
I took a bite and savored the goodness.
“I’m sorry,” Daddy said.
I looked at him across the table and waited.
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“A thirty-year-old secret isn’t something that comes easy to anyone.”
Daddy took a deep breath and blew it out. “You’re right. Where should I begin?”
“Start at the beginning. Who brought you into this world?”
“Isla Warren.”
That made me pause. It explained the difference in the name and gave me hope. The Judge wasn’t my grandfather. “Who’s your father?”
“Jacob Sperry.”
Fuzz buckets.
“They weren’t married when you were born?”
Daddy shook his head. “My father wasn’t in my life until I was thirteen years old.”
“Thirteen?”
The coffeemaker finished, and Daddy walked over and got a cup of his coffee. He probably needed the fortitude to finish his story. When he turned around, he dove right back in. “My father never knew my mom was pregnant. He went into the military and she moved away to live with relatives. Unwed mothers weren’t exactly viewed as acceptable back then.”
I remembered how hard single parenthood had been on my daddy when I was ten. I couldn’t imagine how hard it�
��d been on Isla in the early sixties. “Did you grow up in Fort Worth . . . or was that a lie as well?”
“I lived in Fort Worth my whole life, until I married your mother.”
“You told me your parents died before you got married. Why?”
“Let me get to that.” Daddy chose not to sit down this time. Instead he leaned against the counter and crossed his ankles, his coffee mug gripped in both of his hands. “My father showed up when I was thirteen, and I wanted no part of him. My entire life I’d watched my mom work two, sometimes three jobs to support us. I’d delivered newspapers before school and mowed lawns after school. Then one day he showed up and wanted us to be a family. Needless to say, I wasn’t on board when he wanted me to take his name.”
“Why wasn’t he there when you were born?”
“He was on leave from the military when my mom got pregnant, but he left and my mom couldn’t find him. She knew he wanted a career with the Marines, and she wasn’t about to go to his commanders and tell them she was pregnant. It would have put a blemish on his record. So she disappeared. He had no idea where she went, and couldn’t find her. After that, they both went on with their lives.”
“How did he find out about you?”
“He went into a convenience store in Fort Worth where Isla was working and saw her.”
I could understand my daddy not wanting to take the Judge’s name. A man like the Judge would be the last person I would choose to have as a father, but . . . “Why did you lie to me?”
“When I met your mother, I fell in love with her before I even knew what hit me. My dad was a police officer at the time working the beat in Fort Worth. He was against me marrying your mom. He said our kids would be ostracized, unable to fit in the black or the white community, and we had no right to do that to any child. I told him where he could stick it, and your mom and I ran off to Austin.”
“And Isla?” I asked. Did she feel the same way about my biracial heritage?
Daddy turned away and looked out the side window above the countertop. “Isla chose to stand by Jacob. I disowned the two of them the day we left.”
I could feel his pain across the room. I wanted to comfort him, yet I didn’t know how. I wasn’t sure that was my role in this scenario, or if he should be comforting me.
Daddy continued talking to the window. “When your mother got sick, she called Isla. As it turned out, the two of them had remained in contact with each other throughout the years. Between the two of them, they worked up a scheme for your mother and me to buy the Barn in the very town where my father had become sheriff. I didn’t know anything about it until after the sale went through.”
“But I never knew they were my grandparents.”
“No. Despite your mom’s attempt to reunite us, I resisted it all. Denied you an extended family and denied your mother . . . peace of mind before her death.”
This whole thing went deeper than I’d expected and held a heck of a lot more pain than I could even imagine for my daddy. I got up and hugged him from behind.
“I’m sure Mom understood your feelings.”
“She was the best person I’ve ever known. How she could forgive, when I couldn’t, is beyond me.”
“I’ll have to agree on that. Mom was something special.”
“When she died, Isla tried to be part of your life, but I refused. I was angry that Eve had been taken from me. Angry that she was taken from you. No one was going to fill her shoes.”
“No one could have.”
Daddy laughed at that. “You’re right there.”
“How did you become close with Isla again?”
“When you left, she was the only one who really understood my pain. She knew what it was like to make mistakes that you couldn’t take back. Cade helped bring me back to the Barn and focus on the business, but it was Isla who helped me find me.”
There was still one question I had to ask. “Why didn’t you tell me when I came home?”
Daddy turned around with a sad smile on his face. “I was afraid I’d lose you all over again. Can you forgive me?”
That was the question of the hour. Could I forgive him for his mistakes—again?
Chapter Twenty-three
The sound of pounding on the side door of the Barn saved me from having to answer my daddy’s question. I walked to the door and found Joan from Oak Grove Manor staring me in the face. She appeared none too happy to see me. Or maybe she was irritated that the Barn hadn’t opened yet.
I opened the door. “Sorry, Joan. We’re opening a little late today.”
“She’s your grandmother!” Joan shouted in my face.
Even though I knew who she was talking about, having someone say Isla was my grandmother sounded as foreign as someone saying good morning to me in Mandarin. Neither language registered with my brain.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked you if you were related to Isla and you denied her. That sweet little old lady who needs her family more than ever right now, and you denied her!”
Daddy interrupted Joan’s verbal assault. “Joan, I think you best go.”
“And you! You’re her son! You people make me sick. You act like you care, but you really don’t. You appease your conscience by stopping by to see her irregularly while she wastes away, just wanting to be with her family during every last moment she can still remember you.”
Joan was shaking with anger. I appreciated someone who cared so much about Isla that she would risk everything by coming by and giving me a piece of her mind. But she also didn’t understand the delicate dynamics at play in our relationships either.
Daddy voiced our feelings perfectly. “Joan, we appreciate how much you care about Isla and the rest of the residents. But I’ll kindly have to ask you to leave unless there’s a book I can help you with.”
Joan made a noise that was similar to a growl, but it was higher pitched and girly as she clenched her fists at her sides and stomped her right foot. When Dad and I just looked at her, she turned around and marched straight out the door I’d let her in.
“Can I go back to bed?” I asked.
Daddy grinned. “No. We’re in the middle of a book drive, and we have boxes upon boxes to sort. I just wish Ava could see how much everyone loved her.”
“What was your relationship to Ava, Daddy?”
His brow smoothed as he remembered the woman we had both thought so highly of. “At first, I despised her,” he admitted. “We came to Hazel Rock, and I couldn’t understand how Jacob could take her under his wing and turn his nose up at my wife. Then your mother told me that Jacob had watched out for Ava since she was abused in the foster care system in Fort Worth. He couldn’t change the system, but he stayed in contact and made sure she was okay. She aged out of the program at about the time Jacob become sheriff in Hazel Rock, and he gave her a job. She was the daughter, or granddaughter you should have been, and I resented her. Then I got to know her through the store, and I understood Jacob helping her. She was soft spoken and lacked self-confidence. She needed a support system. He gave that to her. I couldn’t resent him doing that for her after I left, especially when she was the reason he didn’t want your mother and I to have children.”
“Ava?”
Dad nodded and picked up his empty coffee cup. This was the longest talk we’d had about the past since I first came back to Hazel Rock. I was glad we’d had it, but it didn’t really make me feel good. It made me feel like egos had gotten in the way of what was really important.
Family.
We heard someone tapping on the glass of the front door and decided we’d hashed out enough for one day. I took charge of this intrusion and let my daddy get his second cup of coffee. As I made my way to the front of the store, Princess hopped down the steps.
“You finally decided to join us, huh?”
Princess yawned and sat do
wn in front of the register. She was the perfect store mascot. Smart, cute, and full of spunk, or least the potential for spunk once she had her breakfast.
As I approached the door, I observed two young kids I didn’t know, along with three women—Scarlet, Shirley Rishard from Department of Family and Protective Services, and a pretty young woman I didn’t recognize—until she turned and said something to the little girl holding her hand—Lily.
If a family could be transformed over a weekend, this family had been, and it wasn’t just the clothing. Lily’s hair was cut in a bob at chin length and curved around her long, angular face. She had on a pair of capris with a Disney Princess shirt and little tennis shoes that weren’t new but looked adorable. Her little brother Jimmy, Jr.’s hair looked the same, but his clean face showed off a devil-may-care attitude rather than the beaten-down look he’d had the last time I’d seen him looking to his sister for guidance. He had on a plaid shirt and the littlest pair of Wranglers I’d ever seen. He wasn’t sporting boots, yet I could imagine the teen he’d turn into wearing them every day. Naomi was the biggest shock of all, and I think I may have stared a bit too long. Her hair was cut into layers that blew in the wind and still looked good. She had chunky highlights weaving through her natural color that looked anything but drab. She wore a light amount of makeup that almost hid the bruising on her face, and her new mani-pedi brought out the pink flowers in her maternity dress. She was a very pretty young woman.
I unlocked the door and smiled at the group that greeted me. The kids ran past me heading straight for Princess, who waited patiently for them to slide to a stop in front of her. Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum began chirping behind the register as if their feelings were hurt that the children hadn’t noticed them first. Lily was the first to make her way over to the birds.
“It’s not dangerous, is it?” Naomi asked as Jimmy Jr. hugged my armadillo.
“Princess loves kids,” I told her, even though I was pretty sure Princess only tolerated them. They tended to knock on her shell like it was a glass fish tank, pull her tail, and tweak her ears like she was some imaginary Yoda creature. Once Naomi’s kids got their fill, Princess would skedaddle.