“She was beautiful, don’t you think?”
Startled, Honey turned and spied John standing a few feet from her. The old man winked. “But then you know that already, don’t you?”
“I do?” She found her voice, which was a miracle because it felt as if her vocal cords were frozen.
He frowned. “Yes. I showed you her picture in Hudson’s office.”
Right.
“I love all the pictures,” Honey replied, turning to gaze at them again. “It’s like a history of your family.”
“The thing about photos is that a person has the power to display the ones that reflect the memories that person wishes the world to see. So all of this”—he waved at the wall behind her—“is what I like to remember. In many ways, it’s an accurate portrayal of my life. But in others…well, there are dark moments a person would never want documented, and that’s a sad thing, really. This wall of memories isn’t complete. It’s like a book that’s only been half read, and you skip to the end without ingesting the meaty part. A lot of times, those are the parts that matter the most, because those are the parts that make a person look inside at the imperfections that make him human. Even if those imperfections hurt.”
John looked embarrassed. “Listen to me. An old fool boring a young woman he barely knows. I think it’s a by-product of getting to a point in your life where you only see the end. It gets harder to see the past. To remember the past when the one big event left in your existence is death.”
Honey stared at him, uncertain and more than a little overwhelmed by the heaviness of their conversation.
“Bah. Don’t mind me. I’ve been macabre of late. I don’t mean to traumatize a beautiful young girl like you.”
“Do you have regrets?” she asked, not realizing she’d vocalized the question until his eyebrow shot up and he leaned on one of the deep-brown leather chairs for support.
“There’s not a soul alive who doesn’t have regrets. Sadly, I have more than my fair share. More than most, if you want the truth. And some of them, well, it’s too late to make amends, and that is my cross to bear.”
“What’s your biggest regret?” she found herself asking.
John was silent for a time as if considering his words. “My biggest regret is a selfish one if you want to know the truth. I wish with all my heart I’d taken my Angel for lunch the day she died. We’d argued the night before, you see, and I was to take her lunch to make up for my boorish behavior.” He sighed, a great big down-from-his-toes kind of sigh. “I had a meeting that ran late, and my life was forever changed. The lives of my boys were changed because of me.”
Honey saw his pain, because the old man did nothing to hide it. In that moment, he looked old and tired and sad. In spite of herself, she wanted to comfort him. This man who’d changed more lives than he knew.
“Are you close with your family?” he asked, surprising her with his directness.
“Oh.” She stumbled over her words. “I don’t…”
Tell him! Do it now!
Her mind screamed, and she tried like hell to keep it together. “My mom passed away last year.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” John said, taking a step toward her. “Truly sorry. Do you have siblings?”
Yes.
“No. It’s just me.”
“What about your father?” John asked.
Honey stared at the man so long, her vision blurred. Eyes that looked so much like the man standing a few feet away. Couldn’t he see what was in front of him?
“I…never met him.”
John stared at her in silence, and she shuffled her feet, suddenly uncomfortable and afraid and confused as hell.
“I was wondering where you were.” Hudson walked into the room and turned to Honey. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. The man’s demeanor changed—and not for the better. “What are you doing in my father’s office?”
“I was just…” God, her tongue was like cotton, and she could barely catch her breath. “We, that is…”
John frowned and gave his son a look of reproach. “Honey and I were just about to leave. We were discussing the finer points of fly fishing.”
“Fly fishing.” Hudson looked at them both before settling his gaze on Honey. “That’s not a subject you hear every day. You ever been?” His tone was smooth, his eyes anything but.