She nodded.
“What other appetizer should we get?” he asked.
“The sautéed mushrooms sound good.”
“Very nice,” the waiter said as he took note. “I’ll be back shortly.”
He liked that she hadn’t hesitated to add the mushrooms. And that she’d opted for a glass of wine. He watched as she lifted her glass, closed her eyes to inhale it, and then took a sip.
“Ah,” she said. “That’s really good.”
Burke grinned. “I’m glad. So I better get the rundown on you if I’m going to convince Wilfred that we’re in love.”Whoa.The wordsin lovehad not been planned in the least. What he’d pictured saying was engaged. Sure, the love part should accompany an engagement, but it sure made his face warm to say it.
“You seem to be very close to your granddad,” he started. “Have you two always been that way?”
She nodded. “He raised me, so yeah.”
Raised her?“You’re kidding,” he said. “And your grandmother too?”
“Yeah, once they were married, anyway.” Justine set down her wineglass and straightened up in her seat. She surprised him then by resting both forearms on the table to lean across it. Closer to him.
Burke followed suit as she continued.
“So myactualgrandmother was killed during delivery when she had my mom. And it was even more tragic since it took them fifteen years to have a successful pregnancy. But on the flipside, itgavethem fifteen years together, you know? If she was destined to die in childbirth—and who knows if she was—at least they had those years together first.”
He nodded. “True.”
“So Wilfred raised her on his own until Gretchen, my grandma, came along. That’s when my mom was about ten. My granddad says Gretchen tried to be the perfect mother to her, but my mom was just…” She paused there, the first spark of emotion showing in her eyes as she glanced at the hanging lights for a blink.
Burke leaned in even more as she fixed her eyes back on him.
“She was probably bitter, you know? Her real mom died. And so she’s getting raised by her dad and it’s just the two of them, until suddenly some lady steps into the picture and takes time away from her and tries to replace her mom.”
He couldn’t help but admire the way she’d made sense of it. Being generous to both sides. “I could see that,” he said.
Justine reached beyond the wineglass and secured her iced water this time. She took a few sips before setting it back into place. “Anyway, she acted out. Gave them hell, apparently. She experimented with alcohol, got into drugs, and when she was just sixteen, she gave birth to me.”
“That’s…a lot younger than my mom was,” Burke said. And it was, by half, actually; his mother had been in her thirties when he was born.
A sigh slipped through Justine’s lips as she ran the tips of her fingers along the outside of her glass. Drops trickled to the base and seeped onto the coaster.
“I guess there was a lot of talk over whether they should keep me or give me up for adoption since my bio father refused to be in the picture, but my mom didn’t want to give me up, so my grandparents agreed to help her out and told her they’d, you know, make it work, I guess.”
She sighed. “Long story short, my mom’s behavior never changed. She came and went as she pleased. Started leaving for longer periods of time and, eventually, just stopped coming by altogether.”
An achy knot rose in Burke’s throat. “You’ve been through a lot,” he said. Heck, it was hard enough growing up without a dad. At least his mother had been there to raise him. “When was the last time you remember seeing your mom?”
“I saw her briefly at Gretchen’s funeral. She sat in the back with some guy, came up to the front while the final hymn played, and gave Wilfred a sideways hug before taking off.”
Burke tried to hide the shock on his face. “She didn’t even acknowledge you?”
Justine shook her head. “Nope. I could tell—when she leaned in to give my granddad a hug—that she was avoiding eye contact with me. Unnaturally so. It wasn’t like she didn’t notice me. She knew I was sitting right next to him, and she kept her eyes aimed on the other side of the chapel.
“I’m sorry. That would have been rough.” Burke could see it in his mind—Justine, there to mourn the loss of the woman who raised her, and getting rejected yet again by the woman who refused to play the role.
“It’s stupid, too, because I’d made up my mind to not let her hurt me anymore, you know? For years I thought she’d come back and play a significant role in my life. That she’d somehow just…realize what she was missing and want to be a part of it.” She lifted her gaze to meet his eye. Burke pulled in a shallow breath, sensing the urge to comfort her somehow.
“That whole issue with my mom makes this fiancé situation all the more complex. The mean girl I told you about?”
