Shock pierced Libby’s face. “How do you know that?”
Dammit! He hadn’t meant to sound like a stalker. Then he remembered bloody Briggs.
“Briggs mentioned it. Remember when he recited your background in the police chief’s office?”
“And the policeman asked me about him,” she added, palpable pain coating her words. “I wasn’t sure if you caught that—or remembered it.”
“Yeah, I caught it. I got the feeling you knew him even though you told the cop you didn’t. I didn’t know he was your father until Briggs mentioned his name. I could tell whatever it was between you and your dad—it was strained.”
“Strained is one way of putting it, but he wasn’t always a train wreck of a father,” Libby offered with a heavy sigh. “He didn’t handle my mom’s illness well. And after she died, it got worse. He stopped working and started having run-ins with the police. Nothing major. He drinks too much at bars to numb the pain because he’s usually bet everything he’s got on…”
“Sports,” he supplied, putting two and two together. When Briggs had mentioned the enormity of online gambling for his fight, he’d felt her demeanor change.
“Yes, he’s got a gambling addiction.”
“And that’s why you’re the one caring for your brothers, helping them pay for uni?”
“I’m the oldest. I promised my mother I’d watch out for the twins, and it’s my sankalpa.”
“What’s that?”
“Sankalpa is like a sacred promise or intention you make to yourself. Mine is to be there for my brothers.”
“Your dad’s not so good at that?”
She huffed a humorless bite of a laugh. “If making and breaking promises was a contest, my dad would win first place. He’d promise me and my brothers that after one more big win, he’d stop gambling. But one win became two, then three. Something always came up—some setback. Then he’d move the goalposts, and the cycle of broken promises would continue. Winning at gambling was more important to the man than his kids, and I learned at an early age that Connolly Lamb wasn’t a man I could rely on.”
“So, you stopped relying on men completely?”
Her no-strings approach to dating made a hell of a lot of sense now.
“Yes, it’s the best choice for me.” Her bottom lip trembled as she spoke. It was a slight movement, but he caught it.
“Do you see him much?”
Libby sighed. “Any time he comes around now, he has a big story about a great sports tip or this guy who knows a guy who might be able to pull a few strings to get him a job. There’s always some tale that leads to him on the cusp of wealth and greatness if he only had a little more cash to get in on the scheme.”
Raz nodded, anger thrumming through his veins. Sure, he was no saint of a father, but he wasn’t a burden either.
“What did he do before your mum passed? Does he have a profession?”
“He’s a facilities manager. He makes sure buildings run correctly. Heating, cooling, plumbing, electric—that type of thing. It’s good work, but it’s not the sort of job you can flake out on. He’d go on a bender, gambling and drinking, and those traits do not make for a reliable employee. But his behavior helped me find yoga.”
He frowned. “I’m not following. I thought it was your mum?”
She sat back and gazed at her bracelet. “I guess they both played a part in pointing me in that direction. After my mom passed and my dad started going out almost every evening, I’d wait up for him to come home. Sometimes, I’d wait all night—and even into the early morning. I’d keep the television on for the background noise.”
She paused, but he didn’t say a word. There was more, and he wanted to hear it, wanted to know as much as he could.
“At five in the morning,” she continued, “after the infomercials, this lady would come on the public TV station. She looked the part of the sage, elder yogi. She had this wild flowing hair with a flower tucked next to her ear, and she stood on a beach next to a yoga mat.” Libby paused as a gentle serenity returned to her expression. “There was a swing hanging from a tree next to her with the ocean in the background. Her name was Shandra, and she was on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i. That’s what it said in the credits. The entire program was hypnotic. Her rich, peaceful voice, the swing swaying in the breeze, and the rhythm of the ocean left me captivated. And even though I hadn’t slept, it left me feeling renewed.”
He nodded, giving her space to keep going.
“To me,” she continued, “the practice of yoga, of moving with breath and intention, was like entering a dream world. Shandra’s little island seemed so far away—a place of calm and joy. But it was more than that to me. For an hour, Shandra offered me an escape from my worries. And then, one day, I stopped sitting there watching her, and I started doing the moves along with her. From that minute on, I learned how to cope. The show went off the air, but I never stopped doing yoga.” She paused again, then pressed her hands together in a prayer position. “At the end of each class, Shandra would look into the camera and say, be the light, and always remember, love is stronger than any force holding you back.” Libby rested her hands on her lap. “It must sound corny to you, but—”
“It’s not corny,” he said, emotion coating his words.
She held his gaze. “That was probably more than you wanted to hear, but yoga gave me a way to cope with my dad’s choices, and it makes me feel closer to my mom.”
“Boxing makes me feel closer to Meredith,” he said, barely able to believe the words had tumbled from his lips.
“Sebastian talks about Meredith quite a bit,” she replied.
“What does he say?” He’d never talked to his son about Meredith. He’d left that to Granny Fin, Calliope, and Callista—a choice that, for the first time, he regretted.
“He told me she liked mint chocolate chip ice cream, drawing in notebooks, twirling in the rain, and swinging as high as she could on the playground,” Libby replied.
“The lad’s right.” He pictured Mere in the garden with a little Sebastian on her lap as they glided through the air, swinging and laughing as the chains on the swing set emitted a jovial creak with each pass.
Libby pinned him with her amber gaze. “Was Meredith the reason you started boxing?”
He chuckled. “No, my granny Fin is responsible for that. I was falling in with a bad crowd after my parents passed away, and she was done putting up with my teenage nonsense.”
“Your parents died at the same time?” Libby asked.
He pictured his mum and dad. Kind and generous, John and Isabelle Cress had loved him and his sisters.
“They’d gone to the sea on holiday for their anniversary. My mum got caught in a riptide, and my dad swam out and tried to save her. That’s what the other people on the beach said. Somebody called for help, but it didn’t arrive in time.”
“I’m so sorry, Raz. That had to be difficult.”
“It was a shock, and it wrecked me to the bloody core, but my granny is the hallmark of keep calm and carry on. And that’s what she did. She kept us going. Callista and Calliope were only toddlers when my parents passed, so she didn’t have time to have a delinquent grandson on her hands. After the first call from the headmaster for skipping school, she signed me up at Aug’s gym.”