Sharon exhaled loudly, breaking the silence. “Okay fine, I get the message. We won’t talk about Derek today. So here’s the plan. I need to stop by the library and pick up my cell phone first, since I left it there last night. Afterward, I thought we’d go shopping. There’s a new mall you’ll love. What do you think?”
Gabrielle nodded. “Sounds good.”
Anything that changed the subject, Gabrielle thought.
She’d become an expert at that. Whenever Sharon tried to impart gossip about Derek, Gabrielle deliberately asked about something else. But that hadn’t stopped Sharon from letting some pertinent facts slip over the years, from Derek’s early marriage to his more recent divorce. Hearing about him only reopened old wounds, but Gabrielle had recently been forced to accept that those wounds had never really healed.
She may have tried to move on with her life, but even all these years later, she hadn’t been successful. It was time she confronted the past. She had no choice. Derek had left her incapable of moving on.
CHAPTER TWO
DEREK AND HOLLY MADE A STOP at the library to return a few books and take out some new ones before hitting the mall. Derek dropped her off at the library while he went to get gas and pick up lightbulbs at the hardware store.
Half an hour later, they were on their way. Holly’s mother had called her on her cell phone, and the two spoke for the duration of the ride to the mall. Marlene was loving her trip and had to buy an extra suitcase for all the goodies she’d bought for Holly. After twenty minutes of listening to Holly regale him with stories her mother had told her, getting to the mall almost seemed like a relief.
Which was ironic considering shopping was his least-favorite activity. Normally he prefer
red to get in and out of stores as quickly as possible. But today, he enjoyed his time with his daughter, hitting shops he’d never been in before, from Limited Too to Abercrombie, and now Bloomingdale’s. His daughter, he realized, had her mother’s genes. She gravitated from store to store, “oohing” and “aahing” over each item, but unlike her mother, she didn’t ask for everything she saw. Although she let him replace the Abercrombie flip-flops Fred had chewed up, she didn’t request anything else.
That puzzled him.
They ended up in Bloomingdale’s. The escalator down to the girls’ department let them off in bedding, where a huge sign proclaimed Summer White Sale. He suddenly remembered what he was missing at home. “I need some new towels. Mind if we take a detour?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
They weaved through the displays of sheets and duvets toward the towels, when he realized Holly had stopped in front of a bed made up with a bold pink-purple-and-white pattern.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Check these out!” Her blue eyes lit up as she pointed to the bed display and matching throw pillows. “My best friend, Robin, has something like this at home. It’s so cool, don’t you think?”
“I sure do. For a girl.” He ruffled the top of her head.
As he spoke, Derek realized that from the day Holly had come to stay with him, she’d used old linen from his father’s house without complaint. It had never dawned on Derek that she might like something new, or to make the room she was living in her own.
“Would you like these for your room here?” he asked.
She turned toward him, her eyes huge. “Really? I can have them?”
He nodded, wanting her to be happy. This bedding seemed to do the trick.
“You’re sure? I mean, we don’t know how long I’m going to be here. And Mom will never let me use them at home since they don’t match my room.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s probably a lot of money.” She trailed off, obviously disappointed in the conclusion she’d reached.
She was probably right. He hadn’t looked at the price, but whatever the cost, for Holly he’d suck it up. “What’s that sign say?” He pointed to the billboard in the center of the department.
She tucked her long blond hair behind her ear, squinted and read the words. “Sale. But…”
“But nothing. If you’re worried about me spending money, I can afford these. I promise.” Derek wasn’t broke.
He’d just lost a lot in the stock market and had given up most of his assets in the divorce, wanting to spare his daughter the pain of more fighting.
If he’d split his money with his ex, he might never have given the curse a second thought. But he’d willingly given her more than she deserved because he felt responsible for things not working out. Then he’d invested a chunk of his money in a company that was supposed to be a sure thing. Instead, he’d lost nearly everything, depleted the bulk of his assets and decided then and there that the curse was in full force. Even if he hadn’t married Holly’s mother for love.
He’d married Marlene for the little blond reason standing in front of him now. He’d gotten his ex-wife pregnant their second year in college. Like father, like son, Hank had told him, lecturing him over not learning from the past. His father had a point. He’d been careless. But Derek thought it would go differently. His father had been desperately in love with Derek’s mother. Derek didn’t feel that way about Marlene.
It hadn’t mattered. Marlene didn’t believe in abortion, not that he’d have asked it of her. So Derek had stepped up and done the right thing. His father had tried to do the same thing with Vivian, Derek’s mother, but her family had intervened. They’d sent her to a home for unwed mothers, intending to make her give the baby up for adoption. Hank and his brothers had confronted them, paid them a hefty amount of money and taken Derek home. Vivian’s family moved away and to this day, Derek’s mother refused to acknowledge him as her son.
He could never do that to his child. So he’d married Marlene. It made sense, he’d thought at the time. They had fun together and he cared for her. Once he realized she carried his child, he came to see logic in their union. In Marlene, he saw a way to circumvent the curse. They could share a life, a family and a future without risk, because he wasn’t head over heels in love with her.