“But there was a reason.” Phinny sounded insistent. “Marriage mattered to you. He could’ve given you that.”
“And by using the same logic, I could’ve let it go. If I had, I’d have been with him until the very end. I would’ve been a lot happier without that piece of paper.”
“Well, I mean, he was a very stubborn man. Look what he did to my mum, making her live out here all alone with a baby. She begged him to let her stay in Boston with him, but he was single-minded in his idea of raising his family on this god—” Her jaw snapped shut. She went quiet. And then, she said, “On his family’s land.”
Glori’s back straightened. “Is that what your mother told you?”
With an uneasy expression, Phinny nodded. Obviously, trotting out that well-worn narrative in a new environment hadn’t landed well.
“That’s not the story I heard,” Glori said.
“What did you hear?”
“Well, to be clear, Kurt never spoke ill of your mother. And anything he did say was delivered as fact, not as a complaint.”
“If you wouldn’t mind telling me, I’d love to hear what happened. I want to see him through the eyes of someone other than his ex-wife.”
“I didn’t know him at that time, of course, so I can only tell you what Kurt told me.” Glori sipped her tea. “As for Boston, he said they lived in a nice brownstone, but she was unhappy because the other wives didn’t include her. By the time you were three, she’d given him an ultimatum.”
“Wait. I was living in Boston when I was three?”
“That is my recollection of what Kurt told me.”
“I thought he dumped us here after I was born.” Phinny glanced at Declan as if he had answers.
He wished he did. “Check with your mom.” It was a strange feeling, the way the world seemed to fall away, like the two of them were alone in bed, face to face, heart to heart. He knew she felt it, too, because she didn’t look away. In that moment, he was her lifeline.
“I will.” She said it softly, intimately, before giving him a little smile. And then she turned her attention back to Glori. “What kind of ultimatum?”
“If he didn’t spend more time with her, she was going to leave. He didn’t know what to do about that because hockey paid the bills. Your mom had tastes that a high school coach couldn’t satisfy. Not to mention, his performance on the ice just kept getting better and better. His career was exploding.”
“So, he didn’t know what to do with her and shipped her off to Calamity?”
“No. Not at all.” Glori set her glass down hard enough to slosh tea over the rim. “He was going to quit hockey for her. He was going to give it all up to coach at the university here. That’s why they moved back to Calamity. But when they got the offer letter and she saw the salary, she didn’t want him to quit.”
“Are you serious? I never heard about that.” Phinny angled herself away. The color rushing up her neck and spreading across her cheeks made him think her mom’s behavior embarrassed her.
“Look, I don’t want to badmouth your mother.” Glori had to have noticed, too. “But you asked for information, and I’m sharing what I have.”
“Did he…I mean, he must’ve hated her?”
“I never once heard him say he hated her. I know he was hurt and frustrated—”
“He was hurt?”
“Oh, yes. Very much so. From his perspective, he’d tried to make her happy, and she still wound up taking his daughter away.” Glori reached for Phinny, stroking her hair. “The one thing I know with absolute certainty is that your father loved you very, very much. He talked about you all the time.”
She might never get the words she needed from Kurt, but maybe hearing them from his ex-girlfriend would be enough.
“Then, why did he give up on me?” Tears glittered in her eyes, and she looked desperate.
For the first time, Glori didn’t seem so sure of herself. “I think you should talk to your mother about that.”
Phinny tensed. “What do you mean? Did she do something?”
Glori looked like she wanted to say something but hesitated.
“Please, tell me what you know. Because after that summer, he never talked to me again. He gave up his custodial rights. I thought…I was sure he’d given up on me.”
“Sweetheart, no. It wasn’t like that. I know how much Kurt loved you, and I know he was devastated to lose you.”
“Then why? He didn’t have to lose me. That was his choice.”
“That was the summer your mother remarried, right?” Glori asked.
“That’s right. Apparently, I pitched a fit about having to visit Kurt while my parents got to go on their honeymoon. I was so upset, they had to cancel their trip. They took me to Disneyland instead.”
“That’s…” Glori pressed her lips together.
“It’s okay,” Phinny said. “You can say it. I want to know.”
“The way I understood it, your mother offered to take you to Disneyland, but it would have to be the same dates as your scheduled visit with your father. It was the only time your stepfather could take time off from his job.”
Maybe if Glori hadn’t known specific details, it might have been easier for Phinny to discount what she said. But her cheeks glistened with tears, and her features pinched. “I must have misunderstood. I was so young.” She tried to look dignified, tried to smile…but her bottom lip wobbled—and he just couldn’t take it anymore.
Stepping in front of their host, he pulled Phinny into his arms and swallowed her slender body up in his arms. “He loved you. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Her only response was to burrow her face into his pec and tighten her hold on him.
He swore to God, he would burn the world for this woman.
Phinny couldn’t quiet the noises in her head.
With her bedroom at the back of the house, she opened her window, hoping to hear horses nickering or cowboys talking around a campfire. Anything to stop her from thinking.
On one level, she’d always known her mum had wanted Andrew to complete the circle of their family. She’d never wanted the nuisance of Kurt, the disruption to holidays that came with an ex-husband.
But would she have gone so far as to lie to her own daughter?
Maybe it was less about lying, though, than wanting something so badly her mum had come to believe it herself.
She wished she could talk to Declan. Ridiculous, she knew that. She’d just met the guy. But that didn’t matter because somehow, in such a short time, he’d come to know more about her than anyone else. Sure, it was an extreme situation, but it was also because he cared. She knew he did. She felt it.
Knowing he was just down the hall made it a thousand times worse. She was too aware of him. There was just something so solid, so real…so capable about him. She wanted to sleep in the circle of his arms. God. Every brush of the sheet or whisper of a breeze made her skin tingle.
I miss him. I want him.
But I can’t have him. She hadn’t asked directly, but she had the impression he didn’t do relationships. He was a loner. But one thing she did know, he was the type of man who went after what he wanted. And if he wanted her, he’d be in her bed right now.