by Susan Ward
Click.
Chapter Fifty-One
Two days later, I wake alone early in my bed after a restless night in absolute misery, then mentally kick myself from every direction.
Fuck, how could I have left our phone call where I did? It seemed romantic at the time, but Linda not showing is a dismal signal I overplayed my hand.
I run my fingers through my silver-blond mix of hair and clutch tightly as I stare up at the ceiling. Crap, I didn’t just overplay with Linda, I did it with nonsense.
Fuck, I’m seventy-four.
Shouldn’t I be better in the big moments by now?
Nope, just like my daughter.
Chrissie—that apple definitely doesn’t fall far from the tree—overthinking, underspeaking, yep, she gets that from me.
I shower, dress, and head out to watch the dawn. After that I go for my morning walk, keeping it short without reason to, and then climb up the stairs built into the cliffs.
My foot lands on the grass and there’s Linda, coming across the yard to me.
She stops in front of me. “I’m Linda Cray—again—and I’m in love with you.”
I grin. “You stole my line.”
She smiles. “It worked well. At least it did on me.”
I cover my face with a hand and breath out the emotion slowly, trying to steady me.
“Aha. Don’t you have anything to say? I drove one hundred fucking miles to be here. You better have something to say, Jack.”
I laugh into my palm, then look at her. “I’m Jackson Parker, I’m in love with you, and you are going to stay here forever.”
She nods.
Efficiently.
“Great, now what do we do?”
We both laugh as I step in to her for a kiss. Between kisses, I say, “I don’t have a clue, baby. I’m too happy you’re here to think of anything more than that.”
I look around the yard.
Empty.
Did she come alone?
Not a bad variation, but—
“Where’s Madison?” I ask.
“She’s in the house with Maria. I thought it best we do the first round solo.”
I nod, jutting my chin. “Smart move, but we didn’t have to. No knockout. No hitting. Fast round. Still on my feet.” I study her. “Am I still on my feet?”
She laughs, her head falling into my shoulder as we walk. “For now. But I can’t guarantee that once Madison’s asleep. It’s been a long time, old man. I hope you have a blue pill.”
“I don’t need one. Well, at least I think I don’t. Like I said, I missed you. And I’m too old to change. One-woman kind of man. Remember? That’s how I’ve lived even after you walked away.”
Her eyes flash. “I didn’t walk away—”
I silence her words with my mouth and flatten her against me. “I love you. Shut up. Just let me enjoy this.”
She shakes her head, aggravated.
“Fine. Whatever you say.”
I stop her before we enter the house. “I think round two I’ve got to do alone. Why don’t you go put your things in our room and our daughter’s in hers while I spend a little private time with our girl?”
She arches a brow. “I don’t have anything to unpack. I travel light these days. Remember?”
Oh fuck—what the hell did that one mean? I thought the scene in the yard meant she’d decided to stay here with me. Both of them staying here with me.
“Nothing? No bags? I thought I made it clear that that’s what I wanted when I called you. That you two move in with me.”
Her brows lift as her head tilts. “You don’t make anything clear, Jack, but I figured that out on my own. I didn’t bring anything because I didn’t need to. I have movers do shit like that for me now. Bringing Madison home, getting her in the car was enough work for the day.”
In the car—the way she said that didn’t sound good.
“Are you telling me she didn’t want to come? She doesn’t want to see me?”
“No,” she says in a slow frustrated way. “Wrong daughter being the problem. It was your other daughter who was the pain in the ass and made it hard to get away. Yap, yap, yap by phone. Like I need her advice on anything. Chrissie, not Madison. Maddy adores you. She loves her visits with you. She was thrilled to come up here for a while and that I was coming too this time. And, yes, I told her it was a visit. I figured you could explain everything else since I had to deal with Chrissie today.”
I laugh and give her a loud, smacking kiss. I can feel my eyes are shimmering when I ease back to look at her. “I adore you, Linda.”
“Aha. Good thing, since you’re stuck with me.”
Inside the house she goes one way and I go the other.
All right, Madison, where are you holed up this time?
Jeez, I hope she’s not on her phone. I hear a sound and cut through the living room. Always the kitchen. Why does everyone like to hang in the kitchen or on their phone these days?
I pause in the doorway to drink in the sight of Madison as she sits on her knees on a stool watching Maria cook and chatting away in Spanish with her.
My heart jumps into my throat.
God, our daughter is lovely.
Long blond hair. Bright blue eyes. With Linda’s spunk—unfortunately at times her sassy mouth, too—and my…fuck, I’m not sure what she gets from me other than her looks.
Probably nothing.
Probably for the best.
“Hey, kid, why don’t you come over here and give your old man a hug?”
Her face snaps up and she smiles. “Hi, Dad. That was fast. I thought you and Mom would argue longer.”
Blunt Linda honesty. A replica of her mother. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
I give her a firm, wiggly hug. “We weren’t arguing.”
“Good. Mom seemed kind of happy today.”
I scrunch up my mouth. “Let’s keep it that way, OK?”
She nods.
“Do you want to go walk with me for a while?” I ask her. “Down on the beach?”
In her eyes rises suspicion. “Beach? You want to have one of your talks with me. That’s why you’re both here. What did Mom say I did wrong now?”
I laugh and kiss her on her golden head. “Nothing. I just want to walk. Talk. Spend some time alone with my girl.” I point at the cell phone in her hand. “No phone. Leave it with Maria. You can collect it when we come back.”
She gives a look and reluctantly sets down her cell.
We walk across the yard, down the stairs to the beach, me studying her and her studying me as we make our way down the shoreline.
“We going to Hendry’s?” she asks. “Can we eat there? Mom’s all about that vegan junk these days.”
“We can eat if you want to, later.”
I watch her kick the surf, chase a dog, and then fall back in beside me.
“Hey, Maddy, what do you know?”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
“About me being your dad?”
One side of her lip and nose raise. “Everything. Mom doesn’t do bullshit.”
My face heats even as I fight back a laugh.
Yep, gotta work on that mouth of hers.
I sit down in the sand and wait for her to join me.
“That’s not what I mean. You’ve always known I’m your dad, but I want to know how much of the rest of it your mother told you.”
“Aha.” Her eyes widen. Comprehension in her. Dread in me. “Everything. With Bobby being adopted, I pretty much figured out the details before she had ‘the talk’ with me when I was nine. It really stunk, too. She’s so direct about everything. Told me all about you and her. Me. Then she kept me there for an extra hour, filling me in on everything I never wanted to know about how my body works, like I didn’t get enough of that at school, and I’m pretty sure it ended with a safe sex talk. I’m not sure about that part. Bobby said that’s what it was and to be ready for more sex talks.”
Sudden embarra
ssed laughter pushes upward inside me, but I choke it back. What is up with kids these days? This isn’t going at all like I expected.
“But how did your mom explain our unique family arrangement?”
“Well, not that different than what I already knew. People gossip so much. Especially Chrissie. I thought Mom was going to tell me she’d had an affair with you and I was a mistake.”
I clutch her to me and hold her tight. “Oh, baby girl, you are not a mistake. You’re a miracle.”
Her eyes peek up at me. “Really?”
“Yep. Absolute miracle.”
“Once Mom started talking I went, oh great, I’m a donor baby.”
My stomach knots. “Donor?”
Her eyes widen. “A donor baby is—”
“You don’t need to explain it,” I say, cutting that off quickly. “You are not a donor baby.”
She shrugs. “I know. Mom explained. You love each other and were happy you made me, but sometimes the best things don’t work out the way you want them to. And that I was a child of love.”
I stare out at the water.
Lovely Linda.
I shouldn’t have expected anything but loving words from her to our daughter.
I decide how I want to move into the next round of this. “Do you want to know how I want things to work out from here?”
She nods.
“I want you to live here with me full time, both you and your mother. Do you think that might work for you?”
Her eyes go wide.
I can’t read her reaction.
“So that’s what Mom was arguing about with Chrissie this morning?”
“They were arguing?”
Madison nods vigorously. Fuck, I thought Chrissie was just being annoying, not getting all up in my and Linda’s shit again.
Damn it.
“It was so ridiculous. I thought Mom was going to explode because Chrissie wouldn’t shut up and let her hang up the phone and leave like she wanted to. I didn’t have clue what she was saying. I could tell Mom didn’t either. Neither of us ever understand my sister when she talks and I had to sit there wait and listen to it all. Over and over again, Chrissie saying, ‘Why does everyone always think everything is going to upset me? I’m forty years old, Linda. Isn’t it time to get over it?’”
Madison gives me the heavy stare girls get when they love tattling on each other. I should probably stop this. Instead I say, “Your sister is forty-five.”
“I know. It’s on Wikipedia. She’s not fooling anyone. Anyway, right when I think Mom has had enough and is going to let Chrissie have it, Chrissie says, ‘Maddy, everything is going to be fine. You are moving in with Dad and that’s the end of it. Change is what we go through to get to where we’re going.’ And then she hangs up quickly.”
Oh fuck, Chrissie stole my line.
I fall back into the sand, laughing so hard I can’t breathe.
When I open my eyes I find Madison trying to figure me out. Her golden brows crinkle. “I know,” she says seriously. “She never makes sense. I don’t understand how Chrissie can write such great songs.”
I turn onto my side with my head on my palm. “Your sister is a very wise woman. Change is what we go through to get to where we’re going.”
Madison gets to her feet. “Whatever. I’m hungry, Dad. Can we go eat? One good meal with real food before Mom has her talk with me about us living here. Mom didn’t fool me with that lame stunt of not packing bags.”
Oh, so that’s why Linda didn’t bring luggage.
I take her hand. “Sure, we can eat.”
We’re almost to the restaurant on the rocks when I stop. “Oh fu—” I start to say the word but check it. I look down at Madison. “I don’t have my wallet. Tell me you’ve got money.”
She rolls her eyes. “Credit card, in my pocket like always, Dad. Mom calls it my better safe than embarrassed insurance.”
I shake my head at her. “Don’t give me that look, Maddy. It’s my credit card you carry so it’s not like my forgetting my wallet is me making you pay.”
As we wait for the hostess to seat us, Madison studies the menu. “What are we eating? Breakfast or lunch? Let’s have big messy burgers and not tell Mom.”
“No, if you eat a burger you’ve got to tell your mom.”
We sit down at our table.
“How come you don’t have to eat vegan?” Madison asks.
“Because I don’t.” But when the waitress comes, I order a vegan wrap like my daughter.
I smile as I watch Madison play with paper from her straw. “Do you want to go home right after we’re done with lunch?”
She nods. “Sure. You made me leave my phone there.”
I ignore the phone comment.
I smile instead. “Good. I don’t want to be away from your mother, not one extra second. Not anymore.”
Epilogue
Linda and I marry, after thirty-six years, on the cliffs above the ocean. When the ceremony ends a gust of wind shoots up from the shores as it often does.
Nope, not a ghost. Not Lena. Not anymore. I finally did as Lena had asked me on the cliffs before she died: I let go.
I think the out-of-nowhere gust is just nature’s way of reminding me that all things in life can change at a moment’s notice. That whatever was will not forever be and not to squander a single moment before it is lost.
A gust of wind.
A sign of change.
A reminder.
Love with all your heart before the day you can’t love anything.
I watch my daughter, Madison, run along the cliffs, but in my head I see many girls. Lena. Chrissie. Linda. Kaley. On this spot because of Lena.
I hear Lena’s voice in my head:
I don’t want anyone to love me.
I don’t want anyone to miss me.
I don’t want anyone to care.
I don’t want anyone to remember me.
I stare at the ocean and remember my response. I grab my daughter’s hand, and as my fingers tighten around Madison’s, I amend my reply in my head:
Those are the wants of a narcissistic man.
A man who knows nothing of love.
And no matter what people write about me—I’m sure there will be more wrong than right—even the most unperceptive among us would never think to write that Jackson Parker didn’t love.
The End
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Or Continue the Parker Saga with The Half Shell Series(The story of Alan and Chrissie) and the Sand & Fog Series:
The Girl on the Half Shell
The Girl of Tokens and Tears
The Girl of Diamonds and Rust
The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet
Or read the Parker Saga in its entirety starting with The Half Shell Series(The story of Alan and Chrissie), the Affair without End Series, and the Sand & Fog Series:
The Girl on the Half Shell
The Girl of Tokens and Tears
The Girl of Diamonds and Rust
The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet
Broken Crown
The Girl of Sand & Fog
The Girl in the Mirror(Releasing Spring 2016)
Ethan(Releasing Spring 2016)
One Last Kiss
One More Kiss
One Long Kiss
One Forever Kiss(Releasing 2016)
The Locked & Loaded Series:
Dillon Warrick Books:
Pistol Whipped(Releasing April 26, 2016)
Take Down(Releasing Summer 2016)
Graham Carson Books:
The Manny
His Man(Releasing Summer 2016)
For the Love of Ella(Releasing Fall 2016)
Skyler Mathews:
No is the New Yes(Releasing Summer 2016)
Releasing 2017: Madison Rowan in The Girl of Sun and Sand(Sun & Sand Series Book 1)
EXCERPT
Chrissie Parker and Alan Manzone
The Girl on the Half Shell
The Half Shell Series Book One:
The room is so quiet it is deafening.
I find Alan on his bed, casually reclined against a stack of pillows, dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms, and reading—of all things—the Wall Street Journal. There is a fire lit, the silver candlesticks flicker with flame, the bedcovers invitingly turned down as if in preparation for some sort of romantic scene. But he is focused on the Journal.
He doesn’t look at me and I feel stupid hovering by his door, so I start to wander around the bedroom, trying to still my frantic pulse. It’s a good thing that it’s an interesting room, otherwise my deliberate study would seem silly.
Even Alan’s bedroom is something I find weird and demands a certain amount of mental analysis. It looks like something from a nineteenth century English manor, elegant to the point of being almost a touch prissy. There’s an antique mahogany king-sized bed facing the fireplace; floral wingback chairs with pillows positioned before the hearth; and high-tech conveniences camouflaged in antique furniture. There’s a Monet on the wall; tall, polished sterling silver candlesticks; crystal; and fine, leather-bound, first edition books of classic literature. I sink down before a small, mahogany table where I find a stack of newspaper: Barons; the New York Times; the Washington Post; and the Daily Telegraph.
The warmth of the fire surrounds me like a caress, but I am quaking like a leaf. I wasn’t sure what Alan expected after he walked out of the kitchen. It would have been logical to assume that I would leave. But he knew I’d follow him. I don’t know why he’s ignoring me now. I look at the lit candlesticks—he wanted me to follow him.