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“It’s about my parents, right?”
“That’s personal.”
“But you want to know,” she said.
“I can guess,” he said. “And you said some of it. Your father felt he was holding your mother back.”
“That’s it. He didn’t want her to take care of him. He still loves her. She loves him.”
“But she’s remarried,” he said.
“My father and Stewart are friends. They get along well. I think Stewart is one of the best men out there to accept my mother with the baggage she has. I’ve got it too.”
“Not like you think,” he said. “And we’ve all got baggage.”
“I know. But this is different. Stewart lived with my mother in the house on the property.”
“Geez. That had to be uncomfortable.”
“He did what my mother wanted because he loves her. My father loves me and loves my mother. My mother always wanted a lot of children. She could have had them with Stewart still.”
“Why didn’t she?” he asked.
“Because she didn’t want to hurt my father that way. At least that is my guess.”
“Jesus,” he said. “That is complex.”
He couldn’t imagine loving someone so much you had to let them go but then neither of them could fully move on.
“She really wanted to stay with him,” she said. “I think, looking back, he realizes the mistake he made, but he’d never admit it.”
“I think your father’s pride took a big enough hit,” he said.
“That you can understand that and my father’s dynamic is why I fell in love with you. Other men I’ve dated, I’ve explained these things to and they were stunned and judged. They criticized. They made not so nice comments about it being crazy and stupid and no one hangs on like that. As if they can’t believe in a love that strong.”
“It’s because they weren’t born into the legend of this island,” he said, laughing.
He was joking, but then part of him wondered if that was the case or not.
If he was actually dead serious because he could almost see himself doing the same thing as Caleb did and it scared the shit out of him that he might be going down that damn history-repeating road again.
23
MEET HER PARENTS
“Carson,” his father said a few days later. “What brings you by?”
He knew his father was on the island scheduled for a few surgeries today and thought he’d stop in quickly to chat. It was better in person in his eyes than on the phone.
“Got a minute?”
“I do,” his father said.
“Do you know Caleb Connors?”
His father frowned. “The name sounds familiar. I’m going to assume it’s Laine’s father?”
He told his father who Caleb was. “Oh,” his father said. “Yes, I’ve met him once. Years ago. I didn’t put the two together.”
