He glanced back at the TV before turning to face them once again. “I’m afraid it can’t, darlin’. I really need to speak to Will about…about somethin’ important.”
Willow sat up, glancing at her momma who shrugged in response to Willow’s unasked question as she pressed pause on the movie. “What is it, Daddy?”
“Well, see… I…” He cleared his throat, rubbed his hands together. “What happened was…”
Her momma huffed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Richard, would you just spit it out already?”
“Now just hold on. It’s gonna take me a minute to get this out. Just…just bear with me for a bit.” He turned to Willow, his expression more sincere than she’d ever seen. “Will, I just want you to know before I tell you this I…well, when I did this, I thought I was doin’ the right thing. For you.”
Well, now he was just scaring her. She’d never, not once in all her twenty-eight years, seen her daddy behave this way. So nervous and unsure. So…desperate, almost. He’d already told her about the money, and he’d barely blinked at that. If this was worse than paying her boyfriend off to leave her, well, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.
He cleared his throat. “You, ah, you remember when Finn left all those years ago?”
Her stomach squeezed, clenching in painful memory—both from what had happened back then as well as what had happened just last week. She slid a glance to her momma. It was an unspoken rule in the Haven household that they didn’t really speak of that time in her life. An unspoken rule she’d been quite happy to partake in, because it saved her the humility and hurt of reliving it.
Looked like it just wasn’t her week.
“Yes.”
“Well, he…um, he may have been…coercedto leave like he did. Without word or contact to you.”
Willow blinked at her daddy for a handful of seconds before she managed, “Excuse me?”
Her momma, however, was much more eloquent. She narrowed her eyes at her husband. “Does this have somethin’ to do with the money Willow mentioned?”
“She told you?” he asked, shock evident in his tone.
Momma pointed a finger in his direction, her jaw tight with anger. “You better start talkin’ real fast, Richard James Haven, because I amthis closeto losin’ my patience with you.”
“You have to understand,” he said, hands held up like he was trying to calm a rabid animal, “I thought I was doin’ what was best.”
“Spit. It. Out.” Momma stood, arms crossed, toe tapping on the floor, glaring Daddy down.
He looked at them both, inhaled sharply, then said in one breath, “Finn may have been blackmailed to leave town based on a threat of false charges.”
Willow sucked in a breath at the same time her momma gasped.
Then, in the scary-calm voice that’d always spelled trouble during Willow’s childhood, her momma asked, “Mayhave been blackmailed? By whom, exactly?”
Though he didn’t say anything, the look in his eyes spoke volumes, and Willow’s heart cracked open. “Now, I didn’t send him packin’ empty-handed. I wrote him a check. To…to help them get settled. Elsewhere.”
“And you somehow think that’sbetter?” Her momma stomped over to her father, hissing under her breath at him, but Willow couldn’t pay attention.
Her stomach roiled, a hornet’s nest kicked over, and her pulse pounded like a racehorse. The mix of emotions was almost too much to bear. There was overwhelming anger at her daddy, though the shocking part was she…wasn’t shocked. This was exactly like something he’d do—take it upon himself to set things just so, especially when he wasn’t satisfied with the alternative. Especially when his precious Haven reputation was at stake. But more than the anger, there was relief warring with disbelief over the fact that Finn hadn’t left because he’d stopped loving her. Hadn’t, in fact, wanted to leave at all.
What would’ve become of them if he’d had the chance to stay?
“Will…” Her daddy sat next to her on the sofa, his features blurring through a sheen of her tears. “If you’ll just give me a chance to explain…”
She blinked back the tears, though one slipped out, and tried to swallow down the anger she felt for him. Did it pain him so much for her to behappy? Not once, but twice he’d taken it from her. Taken away something so perfect that’d made her the happiest she’d ever been. Had seen to the demise of something wonderful and beautiful, simply because he didn’t like it. “I’m not really sure how you can explain this away, Daddy.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with our daughter, Richard. I’m so disappointed in you right now. I can’t believe you did this.”
“I understand you’re both angry with me. And you have every right to be. But I… I know you may find this hard to believe, but I thought I was doin’ it for your own good. I just want what’s best for you and your sisters.”
“Your best might not be ours, Daddy.”
“I—” He cleared his throat and seemed to bite his tongue and take a moment to really think about what he was going to say. First time for everything. “I realize that now. I just have so much faith in your potential, and I don’t want to see you throw it away.”
