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After having a stilted dinner with my mother and her gentleman caller, Roger, I’d taken up residence on the back porch to read my mother’s journal until Maddox got here. I hadn’t had much time to read after being on set all day. Plus, I’d been putting off reading past that first summer with my mom and her tangled love triangle with my dad and Edward. I was worried about what I’d find, and it was honestly worse than I’d imagined.
I was supposed to stay the night with my dad tonight. How was I going to face him after reading this?
I stomped inside. I found my mother seated on a divan in the living room. Roger was shaking drinks together in the kitchen.
“You just gave me up,” I snapped.
Rebecca Charlotte Montgomery hardly looked fazed. “What’s that, dear?”
I tossed the precious journal onto the divan next to her. “I don’t want to read any more.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“How are you so calm?”
She took a sip of her drink. “I lived that life. I told you I had nothing to hide.”
Tears pricked my eyes, and I forced them back down. “You chose Edward over Dad and gave up custody of me. You didn’t even seem sad about it in the journal.”
“I got you every summer.”
“I hated that deal,” I snarled at her.
“I know, but it was the best that I could do.”
“You had this huge house and millions of dollars. How in the hell was that the best that you could do?”
“My reasons are in the journal.”
“I read it. You had no reasons in there. It was just bullshit about how you were protecting me.”
My mother nodded and set her drink down. She slowly came to her feet and took a step toward me. “That’s right.”
“Protecting me from what?”
And for the first time, my mother looked distant, as if remembering a long-ago pain. “Not what … who.”
I balked at that response. “Who?”
“Honey, everything all right?” Roger asked, stepping tentatively into the bedroom.
That look evaporated from her face, and she preened at the first sight of him. “Absolutely. Just having a chat with my daughter.”
“Mother,” I said. “Who were you protecting me from?”
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my forehead. “I’m proud of how you were raised, dear. Your father did a wonderful job. Isn’t that what matters?”
And then she swept past me and toward Roger, never answering my question. It didn’t make sense. She and Edward had been happy. Despite the circumstances of how they’d ended up together, I’d never seen a rift between them. Granted, I hadn’t seen much of Edward. He had been gone nearly every summer that I was here. But still, I would have been able to tell if she was unhappy, right?
The doorbell rang a moment later. I snatched the journal back up before answering it.
Maddox lifted his Ray-Bans as he took me in. “Everything all right?”
I shook my head. “Just … my mother.”
“Ah,” he said, not needing more explanation.
“Maddox Nelson,” my mother said behind me.
I rolled my eyes skyward.
Maddox just smiled. “Hello, Mrs. Montgomery.”
“Rebecca, please. Do take care of my daughter this weekend.”
“I certainly intend to.”
My mother’s gaze shifted back to me. She looked torn for a whole second before a smile hit her features again. “Read the rest of the journal, Josephine.”
I waved it at her. “Yeah, I guess I will.”
Then, I grabbed my suitcase, shouldered my purse, and followed Maddox out to his Jeep.
“So, what’s going on with you two now?” he asked as he pulled out of Savannah and headed north, toward Atlanta.
I huffed. “This damn journal. I thought it would bring us together, but all it does is make me furious with her.”
“What happened now?”
“She chose Edward and gave me up. She didn’t even have remorse. She said she did it to protect me from someone but won’t say who.”
“Edward?”
I shrugged. “I mean, that’s what the gossipers would have me believe. She murdered him,” I said, waggling my fingers at him. “Easier to think she did something horrible like that than to believe he overdosed.”
“But you don’t believe it anymore?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” I answered honestly.
“So, why did she choose Edward? Did you find that out?”
I sighed and slumped forward. It felt too close to reality to say the words out loud. “Uh, Dad wouldn’t take her back.”
Maddox cleared his throat. “I see.”
“Yeah. So … so she married Edward and gave up custody of me.” I met his gaze. “If she couldn’t have the man she loved, then she could at least try to be happy.”
“Ah.”
“I might have more in common with my mother than I knew. After all, I married Martin, right?”
“I wasn’t going to say that, Jos. That was a long time ago.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I still regret how it all happened.”
