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“It’s hard to be angry with a fifteen-year-old kid.Her parents, on the other hand… But I wouldn’t want to grow up where I wasn’t wanted, and she would’ve been hard-pressed to raise me on her own.Plus, if what she says is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, she was told I died.No, it was better the way it went down.I couldn’t have asked for better parents.It all worked out like it should’ve, I think.”
Hadley’s mind whirled and she stared down at the shell in her hand and then held it up for Bryson to see.“Did Nan ever tell you her philosophy on life?”
Bryson pursed his lips and shook his head again.“If she did, I don’t recall.What is it?”
“Well, Nan always told us it was the broken shells that were the most beautiful.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because that’s where the light gets in.Your adopted parents were your light, just like you were theirs.”
Bryson lowered himself to the sand and looped his hands over his raised knees, staring out at the ocean.“They were definitely that.”
Hadley dropped down beside him, the mix of sandalwood and spice from his cologne or soap teasing her senses.She liked it.A lot.“So what happens now?With you and Mary Elizabeth?I guess Adam knows, right?”
Adam, the keeper of secrets.Poor man.Yes, it was part of his job as an attorney, but Hadley wondered how he was dealing with this new revelation.It couldn’t have been easy for him.
Had Mary Elizabeth told him about the baby she lost, or was that also a secret newly revealed?It boggled the mind.
“I think so.She mentioned not telling her daughters until I gave her the go-ahead, though.She said they’d track me down.”
“Oh, they definitely would, especially Izzy.Bryson, you have threesisters.Isn’t that wonderful?”
He gave her a wry smile and Hadley’s heart pinched a bit.Yeah, she imagined Bryson was a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of an instant family, but since she knew them and loved them, Hadley felt confident he’d get used to the idea in time.
“Guess I have a lot of people I should get to know.”
“The girls are great.They each haveverydifferent personalities, but they’re smart and fun and… Oh, and you’re an uncle, too.Allie has kids of her own.But there’s plenty of time to meet them,” she added hastily, sensing his growing unease.
Bryson turned his head toward her, his bright green eyes holding her gaze.“What?”she asked.
“Just wondering what’s going on with you,” he said, tilting his head toward the homes in the distance behind them.“You couldn’t wait for them to get here; now you’re down here alone.Is your ex giving you a hard time?”
Hadley faltered, unsure about everything.Especially what to say to him.“My mother wants me to give Kyle a second chance.”
“That’s hardly surprising.”
“I suppose not,” she said, running her fingertips over the knobs and ridges of the whelk, the smooth surface inside.“But the reason she wants me to give him another chance is because…my father gaveheranother chance many years ago, when I was a baby.”
She felt Bryson’s gaze sharpen on her but didn’t lift her lashes from the shell.Round and round she swirled her fingertip over the shell, aged and colored by sand and saltwater and broken by the life it had lived.
“I see.”
“Please don’t repeat that to anyone,” she said, her fingertip coasting over the jagged edge of the missing point.The break hadn’t been easy, the shell’s layers peeled back, with a hairline fracture that ran nearly the entire length of it.
Scarred for life.
“You have my word, Hadley.”
She wet her lips and focused on the fact that the shell, while damaged, was still intact, beautiful, with its deep blue and gray coloring giving it a richness, not to mention being near perfect in every other way.
“I was shocked, needless to say,” she murmured.“But it explains so many things.My mother has spent all of these years creating this picture-perfect life, but the reality is she’s trying to make up for what she did, as though doing so would fix the past.For the first time, I saw her not as my mom so much as—”
“A broken shell?”
A huff left her and she nodded as she pulled her finger from the open point.“Exactly.”
And her mother’s light, Hadley realized with a heart-stopping jolt, was the forgiveness her father had offered.But did that meanshehad to do the same?Try again with Kyle?
