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Once he hit the city limits, he followed his written directions to a little suburb with houses in neat little rows and perfectly manicured front lawns. The Moores’ was a understated gray with sharp white trim that fit them perfectly. He turned off his truck and stepped out, the heat of the late morning making his shirt stick to his back. Or maybe that was just nerves.
It didn’t hit him until he was knocking on the front door that maybe he should have called first. Gary Moore had always worked, and though he was closing in on retirement age, Daniel kind of doubted he’d have stepped out voluntarily. He knocked before he could talk himself out of it and was rewarded a few seconds later by footsteps on the other side of the door.
Lisa Moore opened it a crack and stared at him. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t sound particularly angry, but calling her tone welcoming would be a stretch of the truth to the point of lying.
He took off his hat. “I came to talk, ma’am. I figure we’re due.”
“You’re about thirteen years too late and more than a dollar short.” She took a step back and opened the door wider. “But since my daughter isn’t returning my phone calls, I suppose this is going to have to do.”
Not the most promising start, but he followed her deeper into the house. She led him to a small living room off the main hallway that, judging from the pristine whiteness of every piece of furniture in it, didn’t see much use. Talking in the kitchen would have been a better sign, but he’d take what he could get. Daniel perched on the edge of one of the chairs, half concerned that he’d leave a dust imprint when he stood. “I love your daughter.”
Lisa waved that away. “You want to have sex with my daughter. That wasn’t love when she was eighteen, and it’s surely not love now.”
Daniel jerked back. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve spent considerable time wondering what I’d say to you if we ever had the misfortune of being in the same room again. After John—” Her breath caught, but she soldiered on. “After my son died, it went quite a bit differently in my head than it will go today. I blamed you, and I’m not particularly proud of that. You were all just kids, and it was easier to have a target for my grief.” She sighed. “That kind of pain never quite goes away, but it fades a little, and I’ve worked through the worst of it. We all have.”
That was better than he could have dreamed. Too good. He wasn’t fortunate enough to show up here and find arms opened in welcome. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have reacted so poorly to finding out Hope was pregnant with his baby.
He tensed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She didn’t make him wait long. “You weren’t responsible for killing my son, regardless of what my feelings were at the time.” He didn’t have time to process the full meaning of her words before she verbally kicked him in the face. “However, you did fail my daughter when she needed you the most.”
Daniel flinched. “I thought it would be better if I made myself scarce.”
“You were a coward.” She said the words softly, without any anger. “Do you know how many nights Hope spent crying because you never returned her calls? No? I can tell you. Three hundred and seventy-two. She mourned her brother just like the rest of us, but John’s loss wasn’t what kept her up at night when the pain of her leg got too much. She never blamed you for the car crash—and even went so far as to tell me how out of line my anger at you was. For three hundred and seventy-two days she held on to hope that you would come to your senses and come for her. But you never did.”
Daniel didn’t know what to say. He knew there wasn’t a single thing he could do to make this better. Hell, he’d known it was bad, but somehow hearing it from Lisa’s mouth made it so much worse. He sank back into the chair, the sheer enormity of what he’d done washing over him. “She’s fine.”
“She tries very hard to be fine,” Lisa corrected. “Most days, it’s even true. She worked to get past you, but the scars never faded. Hope doesn’t lean on anyone—she hasn’t since she went to lean on you and you weren’t there.”
If words could physically wound, he’d be bleeding out on the floor. “I love her.”
“Maybe you do now. Maybe you loved her then. It didn’t make a difference when you were twenty-one, and forgive me if I doubt it’ll make a difference now.” She pinned him with a look, her dark eyes so similar to her daughter’s. “From what I understand, you never sought her out. You never chased her down. You never even tried to make things right. If you had, maybe I’d feel differently, but I suspect it was a moment of weakness on my daughter’s part that resulted in this pregnancy, and I simply cannot support it.” She held up her hand when he would have spoken. “Let me rephrase—I support her. I support any choice she makes for herself and her baby. What I can’t support now and never will is her being with you.”
