“Thanks,” Willa said. “I never thought I’d get more grandparents. My dad’s parents are kind of… out of the picture since the divorce. I mean, they send cards for holidays and birthdays, but I think they feel guilty about what my dad did to my mom, so…” She shrugged. “It’s just weird.”
Buck’s eyes gleamed with a protective light. “Did he hurt you, Frankie?”
“Not physically. Just the usual mental trauma.”
“And the attorney cost a fortune,” Willa added, brows raised in emphasis.
“Willa,” Frankie said softly. “We don’t need to share everything.” She didn’t like talking about finances. And she really didn’t want Buck to think she was angling for help. She smiled at him and Glenda. “It’s fine. Everything’s being managed.”
The server arrived with the rest of the food, giving Frankie an easy way to change the subject. “This looks great. Probably shouldn’t be eating all this fried stuff, but it’s kind of a special occasion, right?”
“Definitely,” Buck said.
Frankie picked up a shrimp. “Did you ever have any other children?”
“No,” Buck answered. “I know I missed out on a lot, but it never felt right to me. I knew I had two little girls out there somewhere…I just couldn’t. And Glenda has two boys from her first marriage.”
Glenda stopped eating for a moment. “My first husband had cancer, may he rest in peace. My boys were already young adults by the time I met Buck, but since they’ve married and had kids of their own, Buck’s done a great job as a grandpa.”
Buck smiled. “I like kids. Always have. I even taught the little boys Sunday school class for a while, but they have too much energy for me now.” He laughed.
Harper cut her eyes at Frankie as if to comment on what else she might have missed. Frankie gave her a little shrug and left it at that. She could explain on the way home.
“You work on a charter fishing boat, though,” Harper said. “That has to take a lot of energy.”
“It does,” Buck said. “Which is why I’m tapering off. But I love being out on the water. As long as the captain will have me in some capacity, I’ll go. Being out there is like nothing else. There’s something about the vastness of the ocean that puts you in your place. Makes you mindful of everything you have and how grateful you should be for it.”
He touched Glenda’s arm, still looking at Frankie, Harper, and Willa. “I am grateful for my life, despite all my mistakes. Just being here with you three right now is proof that things can change. I prayed so hard that I’d get to meet you someday and now, here you are.” He grinned. “And I have a granddaughter! A grandson, too, I think you said. Life is good, isn’t it?”
Frankie could only nod. Her reservations about meeting this man hadn’t been without reason, but they were nearly gone now. They had a long way to go to get to know one another, but he was so different from Sharlene. So sincere and open. “Lifeisgood,” she said.
She meant it, too. Their biological father was a decent man, despite what Sharlene had led them to believe.
She looked at Harper and smiled, then at her daughter. “I’m so glad you searched for Buck.”
Willa grinned. “So am I.”
“You know,” Frankie said to Buck and Glenda. “Without Willa, we’d have believed what we were told. Sharlene informed us that her parents said you’d been killed in a car accident. But as you know, Willa found you and wrote to you.”
Buck’s eyes narrowed. “Sharlene’s parents probably did tell her that. Not that she didn’t make up enough stories to have invented that one, but they were never fond of me.”
“Why not?” Harper asked.
He snorted. “Because I didn’t have any money and they thought she should marry someone who could take care of herandthem.”
“Wow.” Harper breathed the word out. “They were all looking for the next big thing, huh?”
“Lot of people are,” Buck said. “They want the easy way. Hard work takes guts and fortitude. So do hard times. Not everyone’s cut out for it. But looking for the next big thing just means you spend a lot of time looking and not a whole lot of time doing. Doing is what gets you to the next step. Doing is how you move forward in life. Prison was full of grifters. Guys who thought the next score was the one that would set them up.”
Scowling, he shook his head. “Prison was hard, but it taught me that I had to make something of myself, or I’d end up right back there. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“I’m proud of you,” Frankie said quietly. She meant it, too.
He looked at her. “Thank you.” A few seconds of silence passed, then he leaned forward. “When I said I had some money set aside for you girls, I meant it. If I can help in anyway, I would be happy to.”
Glenda nodded. “He puts a little away every paycheck.”
“That’s kind of you, but we don’t need it,” Frankie said.
