Jesus Christ. Talk about selfish.
“Is that what the problem was? Be honest with me. I might not be around tomorrow. I might not wake up from this surgery and you know it. Let’s clear the air.”
Nothing like a close to death experience for his grandfather to want to make amends. He wanted to argue but then asked himself if he would regret not having this conversation if his grandfather didn’t make it.
He didn’t want to find out.
Not when he was experiencing true love in his life.
Maybe it was making him a better person.
“No. I could have done it. I could have been better than you.”
His grandfather laughed. “I know that. That’s why I pushed you.”
“But I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want that life. Was some of it the responsibility of holding someone’s life in my hand? Maybe. Or maybe I just didn’t think I could be as cold as you.”
“You have to be detached to do this line of work. I’ve lost a lot of patients in my career. Not always on the table, but sometimes just a few years later.”
“So, is that why you stopped practicing?” he asked. Wouldn’t that be a kicker if it were true?
“No. It got old for me. The thrill was gone.”
“You used to love to talk about how it felt to have your hands in the chest of a patient. To be holding their life, literally, in your palm. The thrill of it. The excitement. How does that ever go away?”
“It just did. I decided I could make more money and have more control with the medical device end. You know as well as I did I worked endlessly to develop everything I could. It wasn’t just one device but consulting on many others.”
He’d heard the stories enough in his life. The royalty checks would never stop coming in, even after his grandfather’s death, whenever that may be.
“So that control was the deciding factor?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” his grandfather’s voice rasped. Not as strong as he remembered it years ago. “It doesn’t matter at this point. I always said you were the most like me and I wanted to see that through. I saw myself in you and wanted to make sure you reached your potential.”
He snorted. “If we are so much alike then it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that we butted heads like we did. You don’t like to fall in line any more than I do.”
His grandfather’s lips twitched toward a grin. Almost, but not quite. “It took me a lot of years to figure that out.”
“So you want to make amends now?” he asked, not sure it would be so easy in his eyes. “It’s bad enough to do what you did to me, but my son? You don’t know him. You’ve never met him. You’ve never asked about him.”
“We don’t talk for me to do those things,” his grandfather said. “I’m not asking your mother. I don’t go through other people. You know that. You walked away from me, Dean. Not the other way around.”
Those words hit harder in his chest than he thought they would.
Hehadbeen the one to walk away.
And he knew his grandfather would never give in to anyone. And hadn’t.
So without Dean reaching out, D.T. Easton wouldn’t either.
But yet his grandfather did. Went through his mother knowing his mother would get him to come.
“Are you saying you want to know about my son? Now? Of all times?”
“I’d like to know you at least understood where I was coming from. Your sister, your cousins, your parents and aunt and uncle, they’re all weak.”
He shook his head. “They did what they were told so they could keep the cash flowing. It’s not like they all sit around doing nothing.”
Of course his mother and aunt didn’t work, and Willow was still figuring things out. But his cousins had jobs—careers his grandfather “guided” them on. His father was a doctor himself. Dean was sure his grandfather steered his own daughter into that relationship too.
