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“Brynnie?” The name was familiar, but Bliss couldn’t place it. “But Mom just passed away—”
“That’s the hard part.” His gaze found hers and she saw the secret lingering in the blue depths—the truth that he’d been in love with another woman for years.
Bliss’s heart twisted painfully. “No.” Though she had known her parents’ marriage had been far from perfect, Bliss had told herself they had loved each other in their own special—if unconventional—way. After all, they had celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary just this past year. There hadn’t been tension or arguments in the house; just a general sense of apathy and drifting apart as they’d aged. “Who is she?” Bliss asked, cringing inside and feeling suddenly cold as death. “Who is this Brynnie?”
A twinkle lighted her father’s faded blue eyes and his lips turned up in a semblance of a smile. Even the skin on his face, paler than his usual tan, seemed to grow a little rosy. Bliss thought she might be sick. He looked like a love-struck teenager. Shifting in the bed, he pulled on the IV again and winced when the tape tugged on the back of his hand. “Brynnie Perez… Well, her name’s changed a few times over the years. She’s been married more than once, but…” He stared at his daughter and reached forward, taking her hand in his again. The cool plastic tubing of his IV brushed her arm. He hesitated, as if unsure of his next words.
“What, Dad?”
His gaze slid away for a second and he squared his shoulders. “This isn’t easy for me to admit, Blissie, but I’ve loved Brynnie most of my life—well, since I met her twenty-six—no, twenty-seven years ago.”
“You what?” Bliss whispered, feeling as if a thunderbolt had shot through her. “Most of your life?” And all of mine!
“Adult life.”
“But—” All the underpinnings of Bliss’s life were suddenly shifting, causing her to lose her sense of balance, her security, her knowledge of who she was. “Wait a minute. I don’t believe—”
“It’s true, Bliss.”
“No—” Had John Cawthorne been living a lie for years? Bliss’s stomach tightened into a hard knot. It was one thing to think that this infatuation had been recent, but to admit to years—years—of loving someone other than his wife. This was too much to take. Way too much.
Her father’s bony fingers tightened over hers. “I’ve loved her forever. Still do.”
“But Mom…”
A sadness stole over his thin features—the same sadness she’d witnessed a dozen times before but had never understood. “Your mom and I, we cared about each other, but it was a different feeling…hard to explain. She was a good woman, that’s for sure. A real good woman.”
“Of course she was.” Bliss felt a jab of indignity for the proud woman who had borne her father’s name for most of her life. “Mom…Mom was the greatest.” Tears threatened her eyes and she had to swallow hard.
“No doubt about it.”
“But you loved someone else.” Despair flooded her insides and she stared at the fragrant white blooms of a gardenia someone had sent him. “Oh, Dad, how could you?”
“I just fell in love, honey. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have, but…well, there it is. Your mother, she knew about Brynnie, but we thought it would be best for you if we stuck it out together and gave you some kind of normal family—”
“Normal family? You call this normal? Living a lie?” The room seemed to spin for an instant and there was a loud rush in her ears, like the sound of the ocean pounding the shore.
“People do it all the time.”
“Do they?” She pulled her hand out from his grip. Repulsed and stunned, she shrank into a corner of the chair. She loved and hated him in one second, even though she herself knew about love gone wrong. Wasn’t that what had happened with Mason? Hadn’t he been involved with two women? Oh, Lord, she felt as if she might throw up. She stared at her father and tried to understand. “So why tell me now?”
“I said I was gonna get married. Soon.”
Her laugh was brittle and forced. “Don’t tell me you expect me to come to the wedding?” When he didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes and felt the hot moisture that had collected beneath her eyelids. “Oh, Dad…please don’t even ask. I…I can’t believe this is happening.”
He glanced away, ran his tongue around his teeth and seemed to weigh his next words carefully. “Listen, honey, there’s more.”
“More?” she whispered, feeling a sense of doom sneak through her insides. What “more” could there possibly be? She didn’t want to hazard a guess.
He sniffed, ran a hand under his nose and sighed. “It’s not just me and Brynnie.”
Bliss bit her lip.
He hesitated, searching for the right words. “There’s a girl—well, a woman now—”
“I—I don’t know if I want to hear this,” Bliss interrupted, rubbing her hands together to ease the intense cold that had permeated her bones.
“You have to, honey. Because, you see, you have a half sister.”
