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Bryson loved and appreciated the fact that they’d accepted him so readily.Made his life what it was, even though it obviously wasn’t up to Cheryl Dummit’s standards.
“Who is this woman?What does she want showing up after all of this time?”
Bryson pondered the questions for a long moment.“She doesn’t seem to want anything except to get to know me.She has a family.I have some half sisters, I guess.”
Bryson looked up in time to see his father smiling gently.
“That’s good.Never sat well with me that you’d be alone after I go.”
“Dad—”
“No, no, you know what I’m saying.I know you and Tish couldn’t conceive, but after she died, I’ve often wondered how you’d fare alone.”
“I’m not alone.You’re going to be around for a long time,” Bryson said to his father.
John smiled weakly but shook his head.
“We don’t live forever, Bryson.And truth be told, I don’t want to.I’m ready to see your mother again whenever the Good Lord says it’s time.”
Bryson pictured Hadley in his mind.Her smile, the way her hair curled over her shoulders in gentle waves.The fullness of her lips and how good she tasted, and the softness and kindness she’d shown his father and Hershey and everyone in her circle of friends.
“This got to you, didn’t it?”his father asked.“What does Hadley think of it?Did she have something to say?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”He inhaled and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared at his clasped hands.“Her kids and ex-husband are in town.They’re staying with her.”
“I see.They gettin’ back together, her and the ex?”
Bryson drew back and shoved himself upright, stalking across the room toward the window.“She says she didn’t know about it.That his appearance was a surprise to her.”
“Maybe it was.Kids can be sneaky at times.And I’d say most any man would have some regrets letting one like her go.”
“He’s a doctor,” Bryson said.“A plastic surgeon.”
“So?I’ll bet you can do a far sight more than he can when it comes to real life things.Don’t let some letters behind his name get you down, son.Hadley’s already chosen to get rid of him.”
True.But he’d be crazy to think Hadley wasn’t under a lot of pressure to stick to the status quo.Kyle, the kids.Her mother.
“How well does Hadley know you?Your financial state,” his father clarified.
“If that’s all that matters to her, I want no part of it.”
“Well, then, you just answered your own question, didn’t you?I don’t think Hadley’s like that, son, but obviously you need some convincing.”
“It’s not Hadley so much as her…upper-class family—her mother in particular.”
“Ah.Well, son, it boils down to trust, just like it always does.If Hadley’s the one for you, you have to trust that it’ll happen.And if she’s not, well, life goes on, as we both know.”
Yeah, it did.Life moved on.He’d suffered a horrific loss before, just like his father, but seeing as how his biological mother was one of Hadley’s “aunts,” he wondered if he’d ever recover if he lost Hadley to her ex yet had to see them together should he get to know his new family.If he let it be known he was Mary Elizabeth’s son, he became part of that group, however unwelcome.
What would Hadley do when she found out?
The following day,Hadley strolled the beach between the public access points when she spotted the point of a whelk in about three inches of water.
She splashed over and nudged the shell with her toe, and when it barely budged, she bent down to try again, uncaring of the waves.
The whelk was buried wide end up, and Hadley felt a surge of excitement as she continued to carefully dig out the treasure.Finally she got it free and pulled it from the water only to see that the almost-perfect shell had a hole where a point should be.
She checked it for occupants and, seeing it was free, bent and rinsed the sand from it.
