He sighed heavily. “From about fourteen on. The last three years of Dad holding down a job was on The King’s Land. And then your dad let us stay while I worked for him. And I lived here as long as I could make it work between us.”
But I could see the cost of it on his face. The cost of making it work. I stood up and went over to hug him. He started at first and held himself stiff in my arms.
“You’ve never been hugged in this house, have you?”
“You don’t need to make it sound so dramatic,” he said, stiff and angry.
“Okay,” I said peaceably, still holding him in my arms. My head against his chest where I could hear the pound of his heart. Slowly, so slowly, he relaxed and put his arms around me.
“Thank you,” he whispered into my hair.
I choose you, I thought. Even though Dale can’t and your father never did.
I. Choose. You.
The thump and slide of the walker was returning down the hallway and I stepped away from Clayton and sat back down. Dale got up to the table and pulled a worn and faded burgundy box from a small linen pouch he had attached to the handle of his walker.
A ring box.
Clayton and I looked at each other and then at Dale.
“You gonna gawk at me or open the thing?” Dale asked, settling himself back down in his chair with a heavy sigh.
Inside the box, on tattered cream satin, was a pearl ring surrounded by small diamonds.
“It ain’t much,” Dale said.
“It’s beautiful.” Somehow I managed to get the words out. My breath was clogged in my throat behind a ball of tears. “But I can’t accept this.”
“Sure you can.”
“Dale,” Clayton said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It was your mother’s,” he said.
It was as if a bomb had gone off in the room. I was blown back in my chair and I heard Clayton’s hard gasp.
“Nina wore it every day for twenty years until we put her in the ground,” Dale said. “She wanted you to have it.”
“Dad?” Clayton said, and I put my hand against his hip. Holding back or pushing him forward, I wasn’t sure. Just being there, maybe, in this moment. Letting him know for the first time in this house he wasn’t alone dealing with his father.
“She’d be so happy. I wish she was here…” Dale shook his head and looked around. He was crying. The moment was gone. “I don’t know what…where’s Nina?”
“Dale!” Steve said, rushing to our rescue because Clayton and I were in ruins. “Let’s take a little walk, huh?” He got Dale up on his feet and walking toward the back room. I heard him asking Dale if he thought it might rain.
The ring sat on the table in front of us, the pearl so lovely in the sunlight.
“You don’t have to take it,” Clayton said.
“Of course I’m taking it,” I said, fierce and fast, but then I considered the situation. “Unless you think Dale will miss it.”
Clayton shook his head. “It’s been six years since he knew who I am. Since he remembered having a son. And that that son had a mother who’d loved him—” Clayton stopped. Just stopped, and I could feel his grief.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed and put my head to his shoulder. “I’m so sorry it hurts so much.”
“Thank you.” He kissed my head. My hair. “Thank you for coming here with me.”
And I knew, but didn’t say—couldn’t, really—that I would go anywhere with him. That’s how deep I was.
I took the ring and I took the man and I took them both home.
23
VERONICA
Three days later I was back at the ranch. Sabrina was on some kind of wild baking spree and the house smelled more like a home than it ever had when we all lived there. I wondered if she ate the stuff she baked, my diet-driven and health-conscious sister. The idea of her putting away a loaf of banana bread filled me with happiness.
I needed to ask her to bake our wedding cake. I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t volunteered. The cupcakes she’d made today (I’d just eaten two of them) were amazing. Chocolate with raspberry stuff in them and the frosting was all light and fluffy. Perfect. I just needed that in a cake form.
But she was out tonight. Something about seeing Garrett Pine in town.
Clayton had cancelled our date tonight to stay late at the office and I was taking the opportunity to hang out with my sister, finish up some stuff for the foundation, and handle a few wedding details.
I sat back from the computer with a happy sigh. A general lightness around my whole body. My whole self. I felt like I was made out of bubbles half the time. Bubbles and anticipation and sex. That’s what I was made of.