Текст книги "Daring Dylan "

Автор книги: Jacie Floyd

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“When do we leave?”

“As soon as it’s dark. I don’t want to be seen again here in East Bufu.”

“Then tell me about Lana Harris while we wait.” With his head swimming, he listed to the side and took advantage of the position to rest his pounding temple on the hardwood floor. “What did you have against her?”

“That bitch! She was about to get everything I wanted.” The harsh lines of her face attested to burning emotions undimmed by the passage of time. “It wasn’t enough that she had Matt’s child and was pregnant again, but he was thinking about giving up his family and everything he’d worked for to be with her.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She sent Matt the positive results of a pregnancy test. I saw them on his desk and started digging around. He’d bought property for her out west and made travel arrangements to go with her.” Karen’s face contorted. Dylan flinched when she slammed the hand with the gun into her other palm. “I couldn’t let him throw himself away on that trashy nobody and ruin his career and mine along with it.”

The fruitcake’s intensity fueled Dylan’s fear. If only one of them could think clearly, it would have to be him. Unfortunately, his synapses weren’t firing on all cylinders. Little of what she said made sense. “You were having an affair with Uncle Arthur, too?”

“Arthur?” she scoffed. “That pale, wimpy imitation of Matthew? Never. Matt was the man for me from Day One. I’d never have settled for less.”

“My father?” He jerked up his head only to be tortured with another shaft of nauseating pain. Hanging onto the edge of consciousness by his fingernails, he forced out his next question through gritted teeth. “You thought my father was having an affair with Lana and had fathered her children?”

She gave him a look of pity. “Everyone knew it.”

“Everyone knew wrong.” He fought to focus but having three of her pacing around the room increased his wooziness. “Clay and the unborn child were Arthur’s.”

“No! He was just covering for Matt the way he always did.”

“My father had a vasectomy years before Lana disappeared. Her second child couldn’t have been his.”

“He didn’t have a vasectomy!” She pulled back as if he’d slapped her. “He would have told me.”

“Why would he?”

She sneered. “Your parents had nothing between them. Matthew was just waiting for the right time to leave that ice princess he was married to.”

Dylan would never believe that. “Do you think the right time would have ever come? It would have been political suicide.”

“He loved me! I know he did.”

Chapter Thirty

“Did you have an affair with him?” With her thinking so warped, would Karen know or tell the truth after all of this time?

“Nothing so tawdry. He bought a condo for me in LA. We agreed we couldn’t be together any place close to home, and I admired him for his caution. He said he didn’t want any gossip to circulate about us, but then the rumors sprang up about Lana. When I found out he was serious about that tramp, I intercepted the message about a meeting between them and came here to warn her away. She wasn’t ruining my chances to be presidential press secretary.”

“But something went wrong.”

“She laughed at me. She said I didn’t know what I was talking about. We struggled, and I killed her, but I didn’t mean to.”

“That’s what they all say,” Dylan murmured to himself, finding it ever more difficult to concentrate.

“Arthur came in after it happened, and I hid in here. He panicked, the fool, and took the body away with him. No one would have known about me if it hadn’t been for the damned security camera. Henry began blackmailing me almost immediately. When you started poking around, I’d had enough.”

God, Dylan wished she’d stop pacing.

“Henry and I met last night, and I paid him his hush money for the last time. When he left, I went to pass him on the road, and somehow the old geezer went over the bluff. Such a tragic accident. But I’m afraid someone saw us together. And Henry always said he’d leave the photos someplace where they’d be recovered if anything ever happened to him. I’m not waiting around for those to surface, so I’m off to warmer climates. With a little help from my friends, of course.”

Dylan decided to play along. “I’m always happy to help a true humanitarian. Getting rid of Henry Stillberg was a service to the world.”

“What was your beef with Henry?”

“He tried to blackmail me, too. It seems he had various versions of the story, wringing money out of anyone who’d pay.” Dylan grimaced, only partially an act. His head pounded beneath a sizable lump as his attention faded in and out. He’d rubbed his wrists raw with his attempts to free his hands, to no good result.

She’d have to release him at some point—to fly the plane if not sooner. He didn’t have much doubt he could overpower her, as long as there was only one of her, instead of the psychotic triplets he saw now. Sleep, maybe, would help. He’d try to rest before they went wherever she wanted to go.

He leaned his head against the wall, pulling on the cord around his hands one last time for good measure. He hurried to cover his surprise when they broke apart. He looked at Karen, still walking and talking, so proud of her story that she probably couldn’t turn it off now if ten FBI agents barged into the room. If only they would.

The sound of her voice droned on, and Dylan’s vision and consciousness wavered. He figured that must be the case or he wouldn’t have such a clear image of Gracie standing outside the door. Brave, beautiful Gracie. No telling what she’d do to rescue him if she really were here.

She’d probably want him to create a diversion so she could rush Lana. Yes, the Gracie in his vision wanted exactly that. He leaned to the side and groaned in acute pain, more real than fake. Karen drew nearer, but not near enough. Suspicious, that was Karen. He couldn’t blame her.

He groaned again, louder.

Karen took another step forward. As Gracie tiptoed up behind her, Dylan had a blinding flash of clarity.

She was real!

With a renewed sense of purpose, he kicked his legs out, and tripped Karen. Gracie rushed in and clunked her on the head with a two-by-four from the other room. Gripping Karen’s wrist, she banged it against the floor until the handgun came loose. Gracie grabbed it and focused it on Karen.

“My God, are you all right?” she asked Dylan.

“I think so.” He pulled his bloody hand from behind his back and rubbed the bump on his head. “Maybe a concussion.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning. “And look at your poor wrist. Is the other one like that, too?”

He pulled it forward and nodded, but the nod sent him adrift on waves of vertigo. He clutched his head to halt the dizzying rotation.

Sirens wailed outside, sending the top of Dylan’s head through the ceiling. “How—?”

“I went into town after I got home from the hospital. Marvin Gardens said he’d been riding out this way and saw your car in the factory parking lot. When you didn’t come home, I got worried. After I got here and saw the trouble you were in, I called the police chief.”

With Fleming and a deputy bursting through the door, Gracie abandoned her position guarding Karen and rushed to Dylan’s side. She peeled his lids back and stared into his eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

He blinked and frowned at the fourteen or so digits she held in front of him. He could see them, count them as requested, but they blocked all of her face from his view except for her beautiful eyes.

“How many?” she demanded.

“Too many.” He took a stab at folding them into the palm of her hand just before he slid back into darkness. “I can’t see nearly enough of you.”

The next morning, Gracie waited outside Dylan’s room wrestling with a tangle of emotions. After regaining consciousness the night before, he had settled into a dark funk someplace deep inside himself where she couldn’t reach him. Where he didn’t want to be reached. He’d insisted that she go home and leave him alone.

She hadn’t overheard everything Karen Hammonds had said, but enough to know the woman was fixated on the long dead Matthew Bradford. How much was truth and how much she’d invented was a task for Chief Fleming and a state psychiatrist to tackle.

Gracie gripped a bag containing Dylan’s clean clothes. She desperately wanted to see him and reassure herself that he was all right, but she also wanted to put that off as long as possible. He’d already told her he planned to leave for New York as soon as the doctor released him. Not much left to say after that.

Preparing to greet the patient, she pasted a big fake smile on her face. At the sound of her name, she stopped and turned, gulping back her surprise.

“I’d like to see Dylan if I may,” Senator Bradford said, more humbly than she’d come to expect from him. Anxiety accentuated new lines etched into his face. He looked closer to his true age now, where just two days ago his polished, youthful appearance had seemed to defy time.

“That’s up to Dylan, Senator.”

He nodded and pushed the door open, gesturing for her to enter ahead of him, but she hesitated. “Maybe you should speak to him alone.”

“Oh, I doubt if we have any secrets from you. And maybe he’ll be a little more receptive with you at my side.”

Gracie doubted that, but she acquiesced.

As they entered the room, her heart went out to the man lying as still as a corpse in the hospital bed, gazing out the window. He didn’t bother to turn his head and acknowledge their presence. Gracie hovered near the door, but the senator moved to Dylan’s side.

The brilliant blue eyes that had been listless beneath the swath of white bandage, blazed to life. “You’re not in jail.”

“No.” The words “Not yet” hung in the air unspoken.

Chief Fleming had explained that charges would be brought, and a hearing seemed inevitable. The general public would gobble up all the scandal the senator had tried so desperately to avoid as it aired on Court TV, non-stop network news, and made the cover of newspapers and magazines from coast to coast.

But admitting his sins to the other members of his family would be the worst punishment any Bradford could face. The thing Arthur had sought most strenuously to preserve was the one thing that would be lost to him forever. He’d made his own choices, wrong, illegal, irrational though they might have been. She understood about loss, but could dredge up little sympathy for him.

Only for Dylan, who looked as if his heart had broken. And for Clay, and David, and Lana, and even Matthew, all of the innocent victims of this one man’s selfish acts.

Arthur reached out tentatively, but Dylan shrugged his hand away and looked at Gracie. “Why is he here? Did you bring him?” His voice and eyes were as cold and distant as a glacier.

She advanced toward him, lifting her chin, determined not to let him see how deeply his withdrawal hurt. “It took courage for him to come see you. If you don’t listen to him now, you’ll always wonder what he had to say.”

He gave a snort of disgust and turned his head away. “I’ve heard more than enough from him already.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “I know my actions are indefensible and unpardonable, and I’m sorry. In light of family ties and our past relationship, I hope you can forgive me.

Dylan’s facial muscles flexed, biting back a boatload of emotions Gracie could only guess. All she knew for sure was that he’d taken a bone-crushing grip on her hand. “I’m not the one who needs to forgive you. You hurt many others more severely than me. You might begin with Aunt Delia. And your sons. Both of them.”

As if on cue, the door swung open and Clay stepped in. It startled Gracie to see the three men together, their features so similar, each expression stonier than the last—Clay’s flushed. Dylan’s pale beneath his bandages. The color leeched from the senator’s face.

“Perfect timing,” Dylan said. “Arthur, I don’t believe you’ve met Clayton Harris.”

If any more color could drain from the senator’s face, it did. She’d never seen anyone so ghostly white remain standing.

He squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he told Clay. “I owe you an apology and an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Clay snarled. “All I ever wanted was to know who my father was, and now I know. I don’t want anything else from you. Ever.”

The senator accepted the rejection with a tight-lipped nod. “Ever is a long time. If you change your mind in the future, my door will always be open to you.”

“Too little.” Clay turned on his heel. “And a damn sight too late.” He stopped before exiting. “David’s asking to see you, Gracie.”

“I’ll be right there,” she told him, trapped for the moment in the coil of tension that spooled between Dylan and his uncle.

“I’ll leave.” The senator turned slowly toward the door. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?” he asked his nephew.

“Tell me one thing,” Dylan said, reluctantly.

“Anything.” A few quick steps returned Arthur to his side.

“How much of Karen’s story was true?” With his expression hard and flinty, his fingers tightened around Gracie’s. “Did my father have an affair with her?”

The senator winced. “It’s best to let some things go, Dylan.”

“I asked you a question.” His voice lashed across the room like a bullwhip. “I’d appreciate an honest answer. Did my father have an affair with Karen Hammonds or not?”

“Not an affair.” The senator licked his lips and looked away. “Not really.”

Pain clouded the depths of Dylan’s eyes. “But he slept with her.”

“Once or twice. And to my knowledge, those were the only times he was unfaithful to your mother during their marriage. Karen was a relentless piranha. She pursued him until he gave in. And he regretted it.”

“Is a feeling of regret all it takes to make infidelity acceptable by Bradford standards? I’m sure that was a great consolation to my mother. And will be to Aunt Delia.” Dylan turned his head on the pillow, dismissing his uncle, but the old man persevered.

“Matt loved your mother, and he did the best he could. That’s all any of us can do.” Arthur ran his perfectly manicured hand through his professionally styled hair and turned on the heel of his expensive shoe. “I’m sorry that’s not good enough for you.”

Dylan flicked a look of disgust toward his uncle. “The best most people can do is damned better than the Bradfords’ best, isn’t it?”

Gracie watched the senator struggle for a semblance of dignity. “I sincerely hope so.” He bowed his head and exited the room.

Gracie’s heart broke during the seemingly endless ride to Liberty House with Dylan slumped in the passenger seat of the truck. Try as she might, she could not draw him into conversation about his uncle, his father, his sister, his health, Karen Hammonds, the weather, the NBA playoffs, or anything else. After a while, she let him be.

It might take him a long time to accept and deal with the information they’d uncovered. Dylan’s wounds were still too raw to be touched or examined. Experience had taught her that each person healed at his or her own pace.

He accompanied her up the stairs and into the apartment. He gave MacDuff a half-hearted greeting then headed to the bedroom to gather his luggage. Gracie thought of asking him not to go. But under the circumstances, she couldn’t see any reason for him to stay. There was no way their lives would fit together.

She was a bossy small-town girl with too many people depending on her. And a medical practice she’d be returning to shortly.

He was something else altogether, a lot of things she didn’t even like. Rich and famous party animal… daredevil… fun-seeker… risk-taker.

Wounded… despondent.

But she shook her head. She knew how to set broken bones, treat pneumonia, and cure diaper rash, not how to heal a disillusioned spirit.

Cautiously, they drifted around each other in a disjointed dance of indecision then headed downstairs.

“You can call me, you know, whenever you’re ready to deal with what’s between us,” she blurted after he’d closed the tailgate of the Navigator. She crossed her arms to keep from reaching for him.

He stayed several feet away from her. She hoped he was fighting the same impulse to close the gap. “I’d like to say that I will, that it will be soon, but I don’t know, Gracie, and I don’t want to lie to you.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t want that either.”

He stuffed his hands in his pocket. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Nobody ever does.” She tried for an ironic smile, but it trembled and faded on her lips. It wasn’t like she hadn’t prepared herself for his departure.

“I’ll say good-bye to your grandparents.”

“They’ll like that.”

Gracie took a seat on the back steps and began a listless game of fetch with MacDuff. If she weren’t a glutton for punishment, she’d go up to her apartment. Or into town. Anywhere rather than watch him climb into his car.

But she’d stick it out to the last.

If these were the last moments she’d ever have with him, she wouldn’t turn away before they were over.

As she waited for Dylan to come back out, a pulled up the drive. She blinked and rubbed her eyes before staring at the silver BMW. Oh, no, not now. What in the world did he want?

Her former fiancé bounded from his expensive vehicle with his usual panache, like a favored son on his way to play polo, perform brain surgery, have an audience with the pope, or some other exalted activity too rarefied for the common folk.

He looked the same as always, but Gracie’s vision had changed. The once handsome face now appeared weak and fatuous in the stark sunlight. Pompous and arrogant. Snooty and deceitful. She could go on, but what would be the point? He represented a closed chapter in her life.

“Gracie, darling,” he said, strolling toward her.

MacDuff ran over to Baxter, sniffed the expensive loafers, and barked a warning. The jerk scooted him away with a disdainful toe.

Baxter wasn’t a “dog person,” as he always said. As if that excused his dislike of Gracie’s pet. He wasn’t much of a people person either, except when it suited him to be. She’d overlooked both annoying habits for too long.

“Hello, Baxter.” She ducked and evaded the embrace he tried to bestow upon her.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Have you now?” she asked, confused by both his comment and presence. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.” He gave her his most-winning smile, the one that expected a smile in return at the least, sex in return at the most. When she didn’t respond in either of the preferred methods, he frowned, took out his handkerchief, brushed off the step, and sat down beside her.

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I thought I made it clear that I never wanted to see you again.”

“Now, Gracie.” His patronizing tone bugged the hell out of her. “You’re not still angry with me, are you?”

“Not really. Frankly, I’ve been too busy to give you much thought.”

“Now that I’m here, we can resolve our problems.”

She looked at him and blinked. “What problems?”

“My life is a mess without you. I can’t find anything in the townhouse. I never have clean laundry. There’s nothing decent to eat in the refrigerator. I want you back, Gracie.”

She shook her head. Just like Baxter to equate the loss of the physical comforts she had provided with the loss of her. “It’s nothing a competent personal assistant couldn’t remedy.”

“That’s not what I want, Gracie.” He draped his arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

“That would be a novel experience.”

Chapter Thirty-one

In a rare display of discomfiture, Baxter brushed his hand through his hair, disturbing its normal perfection, before he remembered himself and patted it back into place. “I hate it that you’re not there when I come home at night. I miss those little notes you used to leave on my mirror in the morning. I want to wake up and have breakfast in bed with you on Sunday mornings.” He took her hand in his and squeezed until she met his gaze. “I’m sorry about Jillian.”

She fixed him with a searching look. “Just Jillian?”

“The others, too.” He pulled the cold, impersonal two-carat diamond ring he’d chosen for her the year before from his pocket and held it out. “Take it back, please,” he said, almost strangling over the unfamiliar word.

She knew Baxter and his moods. This one seemed sincere and repentant, but for how long? She could only envision them repeating the same mistakes in the future. And deep down she had to share the blame for the problems that had come between them. In her heart of hearts, she had never really loved him. Not the way she loved Dylan. “I’m sorry, but I—”

He talked over her refusal. “I see no reason we can’t move up the wedding to early fall or late summer.”

Gracie’s jaw dropped. What parallel universe did he live in? The one where everything she said was indecipherable static while his wants and desires were received with unqualified acceptance? Not in this lifetime. Not again.

“Not gonna happen, Baxter.”

“Then where are you planning on living?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you aren’t coming back, you should make arrangements to have your things removed from my apartment.”

She should have seen that one coming. His way of reminding her that if she wasn’t going to be useful to him, he wanted her out of his life. And she sure wouldn’t be able to afford a place as nice as his on her own. She wished she’d never moved in with him. “Of course, I’ll take care of it as soon as I return.”

The screen door slapped shut, and a throat cleared behind her. “Ahem.” And with the sound, for just a moment, she perked up. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Gracie stood, tripped on her shoestring, and tumbled. Dylan caught her, brushed her off, and slid his arm around her waist.

“There you go again, Grace. Tripping over your own feet.” Baxter’s condescension filled her with the urge to slap him. “Although graceless is closer to the truth.”

His perceived irony of her name had been one of his little jokes that she had never found amusing.

“I like her name,” Dylan said. “It’s perfect for her.”

“What?” She glanced at him in pleased surprise.

“Well.” Baxter narrowed his eyes on the hold Dylan kept on her arm. “Dylan Bradford,” he observed. “What are you doing here?”

“Baxter Delacort,” Dylan said in the same over-bred stick-up-his-butt tone Baxter had used. “I’ve been staying here.”

“You’re a guest at Liberty House?” Baxter sniffed. “Unless you brought someone to party with, it doesn’t seem up to your usual style.”

Dylan’s arms encircled Gracie’s waist and drew her back against him. “Everything about it suits me just fine.”

Gracie swiveled her head between them. “You two know each other, I take it.”

“Of course,” Baxter said.

“How?”

“We were at prep school at the same time,” Dylan explained.

“Small world,” Gracie drawled. “Baxter, I’ll be right back. I was just seeing Dylan off.” She started to pull him down the steps behind her, but he dug in his heels. “Come on.”

“I’ve decided to stay.”

Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “No you haven’t.”

“You might need me.”

Prickles of irritation crept up her skin. “For what?”

He looked meaningfully at Baxter. “This or that.”

“I can handle this or that myself, and I don’t want you staying out of some misguided sense of loyalty, jealousy, responsibility, or whatever it is you feel.“

“I’ll stay if I want to,” he said.

“That’s just it. You don’t want to stay. You want to go. And you should. Now.” She shooed him away with her hands like a pesky fly. “Go now.”

Gran pushed open the screen door. “Oh, good, Dylan. You’re still here. You left your phone on the table. It started beeping.”

“Thanks, I’ll need that.” He took the phone and glanced at his texts, and then did a double-take. “My sister’s having her baby. It’s not time yet.” He pushed his hands through his hair and left it standing on end. “I’ll call Linc on the way to the airport.” He bounded down the stairs, stopped and returned to Gracie. “Now I really do have to go.”

“Everything will be fine.” She let him take her by the hand and pull her away from the porch. “But you should go. Immediately.”

“I’m sorry,” he said when they were out of earshot of the porch. “I don’t want to leave you here with that asshole.” He stopped beside his car and crossed his arms. “You said it was over between you. From what I overheard, he doesn’t believe it.”

“So he says.” Gracie stared in fascination as the tips of Dylan’s ears turned red. “But what’s it to you? You were planning on leaving anyway.”

His face creased in concern. “You aren’t going to marry him are you?”

No way in hell would she marry Baxter. But some little devil inside her urged her to keep Dylan guessing. “I’ll have to listen to what he has to say.”

He took her hand. “Gracie, don’t do it. He’s not good enough for you.”

She would have liked to let him stew about it a bit longer, but the idea of marriage to Baxter was too repulsive to even joke about, and Dylan had too many other things on his mind to see the humor in anything. “You seem to have this mistaken idea that I’m better than other mortals, but I’m not. I don’t deserve any more than any other woman, and it’s my business to make sure I don’t settle for less than I want. Believe me, Dylan, I won’t.”

“Good for you.” He smiled a sad smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hope you get whatever that is.”

“So do I.” She met his gaze straight up until his filled with such anguish she had to look away.

He rubbed the nape of his neck and took a step back. “I think I love you,” he said, although the admission made him look green around the edges. “But love wasn’t enough for my father. Or Uncle Arthur. I’m not sure it would be enough for me either, but I know I couldn’t live with myself if I caused the people I cared about this kind of pain.”

“Nothing worthwhile comes with a written guarantee.”

He shook his head, and she knew he’d have to discover the truth on his own. She hoped she wasn’t too old to enjoy it, if, and when, he did.

They could stand there tossing what ifs back and forth for hours and never come to a satisfactory resolution. But she couldn’t take the anguish a moment longer, and he had someone else who needed him.

“You need to go,” she said, ready to deal with the parts of her own life that required tending. “But think about this. I do love you, and I’m absolutely sure about it.”

Before she stepped out of reach, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the living daylights out of her. She read into the kiss the certainty of all the emotions he seemed uncertain about and tucked the memory away to examine more closely later. Her head reeled when he finally released her. He threw Baxter a mocking salute and climbed into the car.

“Take care,” Gracie whispered. “Fly safely.”

She closed her eyes as he drove away. The last thing she needed was to watch one more person she loved leaving her behind.

A week later, Dylan sat beside his sister’s bed and watched her cradle his niece in the crook of her arm. After an emergency C-section, a nerve-wracking delivery that scared him half to death, both mother and child were doing well.

“Do you mind that I named her Margaret after Mother?” Natalie ran a gentle finger over the baby’s duck fluff hair.

“I hoped you would.”

“Linc and Josh are already calling her Maggie, though, which doesn’t sound so stuffy for an infant.”

“Linc’s been flying high, every time I see him.” Dylan chuckled at the memory of his brother-in-law, grinning like a clown, laden with armloads of flowers, toys, and balloons.

“I know.” She blessed him with one of her Madonna-with-Child smiles. “You don’t know this yet, but the very best days of your life are the days your children are born.”

“Don’t know it and am unlikely to find out.” Unless Gracie is pregnant.

Would she know by now? Probably not.

Would she contact him if she were pregnant? Probably not.

He’d called to tell her that Natalie had delivered a little girl and all was well, but he’d gotten her voicemail. He’d called Liberty House and left the same message with Nora who said she’d pass the news along. He hadn’t heard a word from Gracie.

He was itching to call and talk to her in person. But a phone call was so much less then he wanted from her and so much more than he wanted to risk.

“Oh, Dylan, no,” Natalie protested. “Why not?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He was too depressed to deny the truth. “The Bradford men are not good husband and father material.”

She huffed her displeasure. “You are if you want to be. Nothing in your supposed ‘genes’ say otherwise. You can’t use other people’s mistakes to justify your own chicken behavior.”

“Chicken behavior! Who are you calling chicken? I’ve had more death-defying adventures in the past six months than you’ve had in the past ten years.”

“Mountain climbing, race car driving, skydiving? So what? You don’t do anything that tests your heart.”

“You’re right about that. My heart would fail the test.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she insisted. “I know you. I knew our father, too. He was wonderful with both of us, and I’m just as certain that he loved our mother.”

“But that wasn’t enough.”

“Enough for whom? It may not have been enough for you, for your suddenly exalted standards, and it may not have been perfect, but it was more than enough for Mom and Dad.”

God, he hoped so. He hated thinking of his mother concealing her pain to maintain her marriage. “Do you think Mother knew about Dad and Karen?” He asked the questions that had been eating at him and all week. “Do you think there were others?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Married couples make mistakes, and they make their peace in their own way. I think Mother would have weighed the good with the bad and found more to the good. But it was her choice. And one thing I know for sure is that neither one of them would have wanted either one of us to let their experiences affect us in a negative way.”

What she said made sense, but then, in his heart, he wanted to be persuaded. “And what about Uncle Arthur and Aunt Delia?”

“Oh, dear, it’s so sad about them. They’re both taking it hard that Frank is moving to California. Aunt Delia’s talking divorce, but Uncle Arthur’s trying to win her back. I don’t know what would be best.” She sighed and moved the baby to her shoulder.