According to Google, Gloucester was an old seaport with cozy shops and restaurants, fishing boats and scenic piers. The thought of sipping hot chocolate in a snug café, listening to the rain and the waves—having a genuine conversation—how could she give that up?
“What time is the rain supposed to start?” Jack said.
“I don’t know.” Chloe would stop at a mall on her way north and buy an umbrella and rain boots. A big enough storm to bring Rob Jones’s boat into harbor could drench her.
How ironic—how typical—that Jack showed up here already prepared for stormy weather.
“They said it would be snowy up north. We need to keep an eye on that.”
Maybe she’d pick up some stormy-weather clothing—lined coats for herself and Destiny. All three of them were unaccustomed to icy rain. Boots, even gloves. Julia would need a good cape, of course. Hopefully this weather front wasn’t making her broken fingers ache.
Chloe fixed her gaze on the mist hanging over the buildings. Jack had come up behind her. He radiated heat. She could feel him on the side of her face.
“Why did you come when I asked you not to?”
He slipped his arms around her waist and pressed his face to the back of her hair. “I don’t want you here alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
He gently pulled back her hair and kissed her ear. “I was.”
Chloe felt a stirring in her throat. Just one tender kiss was all it took to make her lean back against him and hope for more. She hated that she yielded so easily.
Was marriage intended to fulfill her primal longings or protect her from herself? If God had designed His children for both, why couldn’t she find a balance?
Destiny—playing shrink—might say that Chloe projected neediness so she could be cared for. Coddled by Mother, managed by husband, lauded by professors, guarded on all sides by lawyers and trusts.
Just call me Velcro.
“Chloe. What are we doing here?” Jack’s breath was hot on her cheek. He was safe, his steadfastness as securely buttoned-down as his collar.
“Your seminar is this evening,” she said. “If you catch a flight by noon, you could make it.”
“I don’t want you here alone. Or wherever you’re going. Mrs. Whittaker didn’t tell you who your father was, did she? That should be a watch-out for you.”
“He’s . . . someone we’ll recognize, she told me. So she wanted to talk it through with me after she gets through with Destiny’s meeting. As for myself, I still haven’t decided if I even want to meet him.”
“Julia is playing you. Can’t you see that? She’s desperate and you’re so easy to manipulate that—”
Chloe pulled away from him. “So I’m her tool too?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You’re smothering me, Jack. How you can smother me and keep me at arm’s length at the same time—I don’t know. But that’s what you do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not yourself.”
“That’s for sure.”
“This little . . . journey won’t tell you who you are. These women are strangers. A blood tie that was severed the instant you left Julia’s arms. Whatever you’re looking for—it’s not with them.”
She stiffened. “What am I looking for?”
“I honestly wish I knew.” Jack dragged his fingers through his hair, making his cowlick stand up. “Please. Just come home.”
“Ah, there’s the truth, Jack. First you say you want to do this with me. But it doesn’t take long to get to your bottom line. Be a good girl, Chloe. Come home, Chloe. As if Hope McCord never existed.”
Jack stretched out his hands. “You were only that girl for a day. One day, and then you were a Middlebrooks, and then a Deschene. We love you so much.” His voice cracked. “I’ll give you . . . space, is that it? Is that what you need? I’ll give you whatever is missing. Just come home.”
Tears burned her cheeks. “All I’m asking for is a couple of days. Can’t you just give me that?”
“Okay, yes. If that’s what you need. I’ll book a room somewhere else. The Ritz is across the Boston Common. I’ll head that way and when you’re ready . . .”
“No. Absolutely not. Go home. Go back to your classes. Let me be . . . me.”
“That is such a cliché.”
“Fine. Let me be a cliché. But let me be. If you love me—just let me be.”
Jack closed his eyes, pressed his hand to his heart. “I promised your mother I would bring you home. She’s worried.”
“She’ll be okay.”
“You said it yourself yesterday morning, remember? She’s brittle.”
“Don’t, Jack. Don’t use her as a crowbar to get me to come home.”
“Think of what you’re doing. Jetting around the country with people you don’t know, about to ruin some man’s life—”
“Ruin? RUIN! How can you say that?”
“The history is clear by his absence. He hasn’t posted on any of those birth-parent or adopted-child sites. Twenty-two years of silence, for both him and Julia. Now that she needs something she has absolutely no right to ask you for, she decides she wants a relationship.”
“You’re afraid I’ll say yes to the donation.”
His face tightened.
She poked his arm. “Answer me.”
“I don’t know what you’ll do. And that . . . worries me.”
“Do you understand, Jackson Deschene, how absolutely insulting that is?” Chloe dug her fingers into his arms, on the verge of shaking him. This was what she was running from. Not boredom or obligation but a tightly held anger that all her choices had been made for her: prep school, university, career, family. Even her God was chosen for her.
“Leave. Please,” she said.
“Fine. Have your little . . .” He shook his head. “I’ll text you when I check in somewhere.”
“Durham. Go back to the condo, back to your seminars.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said—”
“Now. Or I swear, Jack. I swear I will not come home. Not ever.”
Color drained from his face. “Are you giving me an ultimatum?”
Chloe smiled. Surprising how good an ultimatum could feel. “Yes, I am. Now go. I’ll call you and let you know when I’ll be back.”
“Soon. Please.”
“When I’m ready, Jack. Now go.”
Tuesday, 10:12 a.m.
Tom hustled them into a conference room with floor-to-ceiling glass that looked down on Boston Harbor. The ocean was a musky green, the sky a steel gray. “A storm coming in,” the weatherman had said on the morning news. Then he furrowed his brow to show his deep concern.
Destiny smiled to think that the storm was here and Thomas Bryant was totally unprepared. He stared at her with gray eyes, a muscle jumping in his cheek. She stared back at him, strangely calm because she knew his story and he didn’t have a clue about hers.
Julia stood to the side, breathing through her mouth and almost REM-blinking. This is something she thought she’d never see, Destiny realized.
“So,” Tom said. “I don’t know if I should hug you or have you arrested for assault.”
“The latter would be the safer option.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on here? To say this is a surprise . . .”
“For me too,” Destiny said. “Two days ago I was in Los Angeles, minding my own business, when she showed up in my driveway.”
“I don’t even know your name.” Tom held up his hands. “And this time the words will suffice.”
“Destiny Connors. I am twenty-four-years old—”
“Wow, Jules—are we really that old?”
“Hey,” Destiny said sharply. “This is my time. Unless you’re billing us by the quarter hour.”
“No. Of course not,” Tom said. “I’m just trying to slow the room from spinning. What can I do for you, Destiny? Do you . . . need some help with something?�
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“No.”
“Then I’m not really sure what’s going on here.”
Stupid, Destiny thought. After all these years, it had been stupid to think her birth father would dance a jig if they ever were reunited.
Julia took his hand. “I need help.”
They stared at each other. She could feel the heat coming off Julia’s face, see Tom’s hand tighten on hers.
“What do you need?”
“My son.” Her voice cracked. “My son is dying.”
Tom pulled her in to him. She cried silently into his suit jacket. “Shush, it’s okay.”
“She wants my liver.” Destiny hated the juvenile tone of her own voice. “Her son needs a liver transplant, and she’s gone looking for a donor from one of her daughters.”
“Daughters?” He put his hands on Julia’s shoulders so he could look her in the face. “How many daughters did you . . .”
“There’re two of us,” Destiny said. “She got caught twice before she began choosing more wisely.”
Tom turned to her, eyes tight on her face as if he finally realized he and Julia weren’t the only ones in the room. “And where do I come in?”
“Are you thick, dude? I said I’d think about it but I wanted to meet you first.”
“It’s urgent,” Julia said.
Tom grasped her elbow and said, “I’m going to lawyer up on you here. This isn’t the kind of thing you just jump into. And if you expect me to help you with this decision . . . how could I? It just speaks of impulse, and that’s no way to face something like major surgery.”
“Is that what you think?” Destiny said. “That for twenty-four years I didn’t give you a thought and now I’m playing Where’s Waldo with you?”
“Fine. So you caught me. What do you need to know?”
“Why.”
“What?”
Julia stepped to Destiny’s side. Another shift that she could feel, a scent on the sweeter side of sweaty. “She wants to know why you left us.”
“She wants to know, Julia? Or you want to know?”
“I want to know that we made the right decision, Tom.”
“We can’t rehash it, not all over again.” He stepped back. “Not after all these years.”
Destiny grabbed his arm. “It’s not after all these years. Not for me.”
His lips tightened. This is his game face, the one he wears in boardrooms and court. He exudes goodwill and friendliness, is ridiculously good-looking but behind that was something hard. Maybe not a bad hard—she had the same spine, the will to stand for herself.
“Okay.” Tom stretched out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. His eyes were icy gray. “I should be asking for some proof of paternity here.”
“We don’t have time,” Julia said.
“I can see she’s yours. But how do I know she’s mine?”
Destiny swore, then said, “She wouldn’t pull a stunt on you. And how can you . . .” Destiny chewed the side of her tongue to stop the words from coming out.
How can you not know me?
Tuesday, 11:12 a.m.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Julia said.
“You don’t like my home office?” Matt said. “Macaroni and tuna fish are chic these days.”
Dillon must see through these trips to the kitchen, iPad in hand. A bridal emergency, they had said, to explain why she had to fly out directly after surgery. Their son knew he had half-sisters, had never really shown interest. Or maybe he had deliberately withheld his interest.
“How’re the numbers?” Julia asked.
“I’ll tell you if there’s something you need to know.”
“I need to know if . . .” She couldn’t say time was short. She could, however, say, “If Dillon needs me.”
“We always need you. He hates my cooking, so we’re doing lots of takeout. Hopefully Aunt Pottsie will help with that when she arrives. Otherwise . . .” Matt smiled, the lines on his forehead so pronounced that she knew he was forcing it. “We’ll see Dr. Annie tomorrow. Just for a checkup.”
“Have you asked her where he is on the list?”
“Would it change anything, sweets?”
“I should be there.”
“You need to be there. So what did Destiny think of her bio-dad?”
Julia cringed. “After she punched him in the gut?”
Matt laughed. “She’s your girl, all right. So . . . did he have her arrested? Or threaten to sue?”
“He invited her to lunch in Cambridge. With him and his family.”
“Interesting. And Chloe? What did she think?”
“She didn’t come.” He won’t ask, so she’d have to say it. “It was strange, seeing him.”
Matt waited, a warm smile on his face. His eyes betrayed him, that flicker of doubt he rarely displayed because generally, the world added up for him. He knew how deeply she had loved Tom Bryant, and that was okay because he was a variable long solved. And now Julia was less than an hour removed from having been in Tom’s arms again.
“I forgave him,” she said.
“You forgave him years ago.”
“I forgave what he did. This morning I hugged him, Matt. Hugged him hard, for a long time. I whispered that I forgave him. And—after we yelled at each other for twenty minutes because there were still things to be said—he forgave me for popping out of nowhere with Destiny. And then we . . . let each other go.”
“Good.”
“Mattie,” she said, caressing the screen. “After Destiny took possession of Tom, I stepped back and smiled because . . . , Matt?”
“I’m here. You stepped back because . . . ?”
“Because I heard God’s voice.”
“Saying?”
“Saying I chose wrong. But He chose right. He chose you for me.”
“I know,” he said, blinking back tears.
“And I’m so thankful that God saw fit to give me something—someone—far better than I chose for myself. Better than I deserved. I am so lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one, Julia. I’m the lucky one.”
Tuesday, 11:12 a.m.
“You forgive awfully fast,” Destiny said.
“It’s not like you threw a wicked punch.” Tom Bryant swerved his car into the left lane, invoking a horn blast from the driver he had just cut off.
“And you drive like you’re from LA.”
He laughed. “We were here first. So if there’s any taking after to do, it’s you on the left coast taking after us.”
“She told me that, you know.”
“What, that Boston drivers rule?”
“That I take after you.”
“Did Julia think that was a bad thing or a good thing?”
Destiny shrugged. “Just its own thing.”
“Do you think you take after me?”
“How would I know? We just met.”
Tom swerved into the right lane, passed a line of cars waiting at the stoplight. Destiny had been invited to lunch at his home and—of all crazy things—to meet his wife and their two daughters. Crazier still, she accepted.
The sky was ashen, though it wasn’t even noon. Rain coming, the news had said. Los Angeles was sunny and brisk today. This trip with Julia had been an impulse—in a strange way, a creative choice.
Creating something new? Or just marking time, waiting for Luke to come to his senses?
“We’re about to cross the Mass. Ave. bridge, over the Charles,” he said. “Across the river, on your right, is MIT. Keep going straight and you eventually end up in Harvard Yard.”
“I didn’t agree to have lunch with you so I could have a geography lesson,” Destiny said.
“I know. It’s just . . . so weird after all these years.” He glanced at her. “Weird in a good way.”
“You never expected to see me, did you?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Did you think about me?”
“Of course. Every Thanksgiving.
I would think . . . the baby is about to turn two, I wonder if she’s a terror like Mum said I was. And then a couple more years would pass, and I’d think Devon must be in kindergarten.”
“Devon?”
“That’s the name I knew you by. Julia always said she wanted that name for her eldest daughter. And it stuck in my head.”
“She named me Destiny.”
He slammed on the brakes because the car ahead of him suddenly stopped. “Where Jules came up with Destiny, I have no clue.”
“When did you know?”
“That Julia was pregnant?”
“That you were going to walk.”
“You really don’t pull any punches.”
“Blame yourself, dear Father.”
Tom hunched over the steering wheel. “About the time Julia was seven months along and I had started working. I’ve always worked, been good with my hands and fast with the mouth. But being a first-year in a law firm, it’s like serfdom. And you’ve got to be on your toes all day long because otherwise someone was going to climb up your back. Days stretched into nights and I’d still be there when the sun came up. On those days, it was like . . . nothing outside the walls of my cubicle existed. I’d finally catch a few hours of sleep, see Julia and she was so beautiful. Like ripe fruit, those eyes—like yours—and red cheeks because it was getting chilly. And I’d realize I couldn’t see how this could happen.
“And then your grandmother called me.”
“Grandmother. You mean, Julia’s mother?”
“Yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard the song-and-dance about this being the best thing for the baby.”
“Did Julia know that?”
“No. I became more absent. Because Mrs. McCord’s wisdom had become gospel truth—that we couldn’t take care of ourselves, so how would we ever manage a baby?”
“People do.”
“Not well. And it’s the child who suffers. The statistics are not good, and for a couple weeks I thought, I can beat those statistics. And now I’m further down the road—now that I’ve seen things in our practice—families torn apart because people just won’t listen.”
Destiny pressed her forehead against the window. The glass was cold, hard. She needed that. “When did you put it all behind you?”
To Know You (9781401688684) Page 14