They’d wanted a child so badly that they’d taken her. The bottom of the adoption barrel. Or at least close to the bottom. Certainly not the cute baby or adorable toddler they must have once dreamed about. Instead, they’d gotten a petulant, moody nine-year-old with abandonment issues.
Harper put her tablet aside, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. There was an ache in herchest from missing them. Her dad had passed way too soon after a heart attack. And dementia had taken her mother years ago.
In her heart, Harper felt like meeting Shar had been a betrayal. Harper didn’t want or need that woman in her life. She’d had parents. Amazing ones.
If she was going to meet her biological father, he was going to have to understand that she wasn’t looking for a dad. She’d had one of those and no man was ever going to replace him. Not even one related by blood.
But she couldn’t help her curiosity.
If Buck McCandless really was out there, it was only fair to see what he had to say about what had happened to her and Frankie. How things had gone so wrong.
Harper heaved out a sigh. She also really wanted to know why he thought Sharlene had told them he was dead.
Chapter Two
Her workday done, Joyce sat in the small living room of her home, the guest house on her employer’s property. Mitchell Ripley, beloved author and grieving husband. He was a good man with a kind heart. Even if the last few years since his dear Jeanie’s passing had been dark ones.
The telly flickered, but she had it on more for company than anything else. She opened the notebook she’d taken from her bedside table and picked up her pen.
She couldn’t believe he’d offered to fly Beryl over. Joyce hadn’t seen her sister in years. Her heart was so full at the thought of their impending reunion. Mitch’s generosity and kindness toward her these last few days was just remarkable.
Meeting Harper had done wonders for Mitch. The change in him over such a short span of time was wonderful to see. For that, Joyce was infinitely grateful. Nothing she’d ever attempted had gone very far toward helping him. After a while, she’d given up and let him be. She wasn’t bothered. Grief was different for everyone, the one constant being that dealing with it took time.
How much time was up to the person. She knew that. She wasn’t about to push Mitch to get over Jeanie.
He couldn’t. Not really. Jeanie had been too much a part of his life. He would carry the loss of her for the remainder of his days. As he should. The kind of love they’d shared marked a person. It changed them. Jeanie had done that to him, so it was no wonder her death had torn him apart.
He and Jeanie had been like chalk and cheese, but somehow, they’d worked. Beautifully. Her constant smile and positive attitude had balanced out his often bleak and matter-of-fact view of life.
Together, each had been exactly what the other had needed. He’d kept her from floating away from reality. She’d kept him from sinking into the morass of it.
So it was no surprise that her death, which had been heart-wrenching for all who knew Jeanie, had caused him to lose his grip on happiness.
It was bad enough that she’d died, but the way the cancer had ravaged her, turning her into a frail shell…
Joyce sniffed and shook her head. Jeanie hadn’t deserved that kind of passing. She’d been such a kind, dear soul filled with light and love and the joy of life. She’d fought so hard for so long, but in the end, the cancer had won.
The lines on the blank notebook in Joyce’s lap blurred, her grip on the pen between her fingers tightening.
For a while, Joyce had thought she’d lose Mitch, too. That the cancer would claim his life as well, because he’d seemed unable to go on.
She didn’t even like tothinkthe word suicide, but she’d watched him carefully day after day, looking for signs that he might be at the end of his endurance. Always wondering what she’d find when she entered the house in the morning. Holding her breath until she knewhewas all right. If the worst had happened, she wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been utterly despondent. A broken wreck of a man.
She wasn’t sure he’d have eaten anything the first month, surviving on the small amounts of food she’d been able to force on him and coffee.
To say he’d gotten better wasn’t accurate. He’d worn his grief like a dark shroud, shuffling through the house with all the presence of a shadow, moving through the day with a kind of robotic bearing. He’d gotten so thin. His eyes had sunken into his face, the dark hollows beneath them like bruises.
But that made sense, didn’t it? Life had certainly given him a beating.
Some days, he’d stay in bed. Others, he’d do nothing but sit in his office, staring at his computer. Not typing. He rarely bothered to turn it on. Just stared at the blank, black screen, shoulders slumped.
Thinking, she knew. He’d been lost in his head. In his memories. The poor lamb.
Joyce had shed as many tears for him as she had for Jeanie. Not in front of him, of course. Here in her own private space. In front of him, she’d been as cheerful and upbeat as she could manage.
She’d done what she thought Jeanie would have wanted her to. Put on the kind of brave face that Jeanie would have.
But now? Things had changed. What was that saying the Yanks liked? There was light at the end of the tunnel. The end might still be a long ways off, but she’d take even the small glimpse of sun that seemed to be peeking through.
