Chapter Eighteen
Sienna looked up from the suitcase she was packing the next morning, shocked to see her father standing in the doorway of her room in the inn.
“You were discharged?” she asked, pressing a hand to her chest.
Declan shrugged. “AMA.”
Sienna felt her mouth drop open. “Against medical advice? Dad, you can’t do that. You have to go back. Let me take you back.”
He inclined his head toward the window at the front of the house. “I’m paying the cabbie to wait. Johnny and me have been friends forever. He cleaned up his act a few years before me, but he understands what I’m trying to do here.”
“Which is?” she asked slowly.
“Make things right,” he answered, flashing one of his self-deprecating grins. The years might have been hard on her father but she could see the handsome man he must have been twenty years ago. It was no wonder her mother had found him irresistible. “Can I come in?”
“You need to be in the hospital.”
“They were going to release me eventually.” He lifted a brow. “This won’t take long, baby girl, but you have every right to send me away if that’s what you need to do. Lord knows I deserve it.”
Sienna closed her eyes for a moment. A part of her wanted to refuse to hear him out. She had a flight booked to Chicago that afternoon, even though she didn’t recognize the life she was returning to. Her mother had left Crimson last night. She’d tried to convince Sienna she’d sent the monthly checks for Jase’s benefit and not to bribe Declan to stay out of Sienna’s life. Sienna didn’t believe it, but where else did she have to go at this point?
At least she had a history in Chicago. A job and friends...although the connections she’d made during her short time in Crimson felt just as strong as the relationships she’d had for years.
“I’ve got five minutes,” she said, meeting her father’s slate blue gaze.
“I only need four,” he promised and stepped into the room.
He took a thick envelope from his back pocket and shoved it toward her. “Johnny ran me by the house before we came here,” he explained. “This is for you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want your money.”
“Darlin’, I don’t have any money,” he said, then laughed. “Just open the envelope. Please.”
She took it, and they both ignored her trembling fingers.
“Why?” she whispered, glancing between her father and the thick stack of checks in the envelope. They were made out to Declan, written in her mother’s precise script. Each one was dated for the first of the month, and they went back over ten years.
“Your mother sent them even after Jase graduated high school.” He lifted one shoulder, let it drop like the weight on it was too much to sustain. “I was in pretty bad shape at that point, and she knew it. She sent a note—it was the first communication other than the checks I’d had with her since she left with you.”
Despite Sienna’s anger, the pain in her dad’s voice tore at her heart. Was it any wonder she was so messed up in her own life when she had the parents she did? Declan and Dana made dysfunction anything but fun. “You don’t have to share this with me.” She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to feel anything for this man.
“She told me to use the money to get my act together,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. Sienna got the impression he was saying the words as much for his own benefit as hers. “Because if you ever came looking for me, she wanted me to be around to deserve a second chance with you.”
Sienna shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe it.” The checks felt like a flame in her hand. It burned through her skin, but she kept her fingers tight on the edge of the stack. She couldn’t let go just yet. “She didn’t want me to see you. She hated when I came here.”
“Can you blame her?” he asked. “I don’t. Of course your mom didn’t want you anywhere near me, but she still wanted what was best for you.”
“So why didn’t you cash the checks?” She held up the envelope. “What’s the point of saving them?”
“That note was a wake-up call.” He scratched at the stubble that covered his jaw and smiled again. “Not that I was ready to wake up just then, but it resonated with me. I didn’t want to owe getting clean to your mom. I wanted to earn my way back into your life on my own.”
“But you never contacted me,” she countered. “Even after you got sober.”
“Letting you go was my greatest regret,” he said quietly. “Don’t think I didn’t realize what kind of a father it made me, even if I could rationalize it at the time. I still don’t deserve to be a part of your life, Sienna.”
“Why did you let Jase stay?” It was the question that still plagued her. Why was her brother important enough to keep when she could be so easily discarded?
“He was different.” Declan shrugged. “It’s not logical, but the Crenshaws had been a family of boys for generations. Bad boys that turned into lousy men. I figured Jase could handle anything that came down the pike because it was in his blood. But you...” He sighed, his eyes drifting closed. “You were different. You were this bright, shiny thing in the cesspool of my life. A girl. The first one with the name Crenshaw in three generations. The thought of what could happen to you in this town...” He threw up his hands. “Your mom was right to take you away.”
