Love Letters: A Rose Harbor Novel (27 page)

“Hi, Mom.”

“Ellie?” Her mother didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “You’re actually going to talk to me?”

“Yes …”

Right away her mother sensed something had happened. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Oh Mom …”

“Tell me. I can hear it in your voice. It’s something bad, isn’t it? You know you can tell me anything. Oh sweet heaven, this is exactly what I feared would happen. You know—”

“Mom, stop,” Ellie demanded, abruptly cutting her off. She sat up on the mattress, her back against the headboard, and pressed her fingertips against her throbbing temple.

Her mother sucked in her breath, which seemed to vibrate over the phone. “Tell me, just tell me.”

Ellie’s soft intake echoed that of her mother. “I met my father.”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

“Mom, did you hear me?”

“Yes.” Virginia’s voice was barely above a whisper. “How did that happen?”

Ellie hardly knew where to start, so she gave the short version. “Tom is my father’s stepson.” Right away, she could sense her mother’s indignation, which matched her own.

“They tricked you.”

“Yes, Tom tricked me.” It’d been a shock, to say the least, but now Ellie had had time to absorb part of it. Yes, she was badly
shaken, but she could deal with that; it was everything that had happened since that upset her most. Despite what Tom claimed, it was obvious her so-called father hadn’t tried nearly hard enough to connect with her as a child, or even later as an adult.

“Come home,” Virginia insisted. “Pack your suitcase and leave for home right away. I can’t believe this has happened … of all the low, underhanded schemes.”

“Mom, there’s more …”

“More?” Once again, it seemed her mother was shocked into silence.

“I talked to him.”

“You actually talked to your father?”

“Yes, and I’m meeting him later for dinner.”

“Eleanor … no. Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.” Her mother’s voice trembled, but it wasn’t with anger. It was a tone Ellie didn’t recognize, a plea more than a demand. Was it fear she heard? Regret? It sounded almost identical to what she’d heard in her father’s voice when speaking about her mother.

“Why should I scurry back to Oregon?” Ellie asked.

“Ellie, you can’t seriously consider staying the rest of the weekend. Not after this. Tom didn’t tell you he was Scott’s stepson. He misled you, and it only makes sense that Scott was part of this underhanded scheme, too. The only sensible response is to walk out now, before either man hurts you further.”

“Mom, I’ve already agreed to meet my father for dinner.”

“But—”

“I have questions only my father can answer.”

A noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob echoed through the phone. “Oh Ellie, I’m afraid you’re setting yourself up for more heartache.”

“You could very well be right.”

The same noise repeated itself, and now Ellie was convinced her mother was weeping.

“I loved him, you know,” Virginia whispered, “loved him more
than life itself. We were both so young and proud. How did he look, Ellie? Is he well?”

The questions took Ellie by surprise. She’d expected a diatribe or some form of denunciation instead of an inquiry. “He looked … fine.” Ellie found it interesting that her father had asked about her mother first thing, too.

“I didn’t recognize him,” Ellie added, reminding her mother that no pictures of Scott remained in the house. Well, none that she knew of. The only one she could ever remember seeing of her father had been in her early childhood. His image had long ago disappeared from her memory.

“When are you meeting him?”

“Mom,” Ellie said, doing her best to be patient. “What does it matter where or when?”

“It matters to me.” The words pitched back and forth on an emotional wobble.

Ellie could hear the tears in her mother’s voice, and it shocked her. “Mom, why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying … I’m shook up is all … your father and I … that was a lot of years ago.”

Ellie wasn’t sure what to make of her mother’s reaction. Her father’s name hadn’t been mentioned in years. The last thing she expected was for her mother to get emotional.

“When you meet him, will you … can you tell him something for me?” her mother asked.

“Of course.”

“No,” her mother said, abruptly changing her mind. “Don’t say anything about me, okay?”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, say absolutely nothing about me. Wait … tell him … no, don’t say anything.”

“Mom …”

“Call me after your dinner,” her mother instructed, and it sounded more like a plea than a request.

Ellie found she couldn’t speak.

“Ellie?” Her mother whispered her name. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” she whispered back. When Ellie was in grade school, she fell and broke her arm. While waiting in the nurse’s office for her mother to arrive to take her to the hospital, she gently rocked back and forth, holding her throbbing arm close to her side. The pain had been horrific. All she could think about was that she wanted her mother. Everything would be better once her mother was with her. Ellie felt much the same way now. “I should have listened to you … I should never have come to Cedar Cove. This is all one huge mistake. I’m ready to leave.”

“No, don’t,” Virginia whispered.

“Don’t … but you just told me I should.”

“I was wrong. You told your father you would have dinner with him, and for both your sakes, I think it would be a good thing. If you leave now you’ll always wonder, always regret the fact that you let this opportunity go. You deserve answers. Don’t let my negative experience taint your relationship with your father, Ellie.”

This didn’t sound like her mother. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll come to you.”

“Mom, that’s generous, but there aren’t that many flights out of Bend, and for you to drive would take a good five to six hours.”

The line went suspiciously quiet. “Actually, it won’t take that long.”

“It won’t?”

“I’m here already.”

She bolted to her feet. “You’re here? In Cedar Cove?” Ellie pressed her hand against her forehead with disbelief.

Virginia made a small, almost indecipherable sound before she said, “If you must know, I spent the night in Tacoma.”

“You did what?”

“I never intended for you to know. I was terribly worried that something would happen to you. I know you’re probably upset
with me, and I can’t say that I blame you, but think of it from my point of view. You knew next to nothing about this man you met over the Internet, and I was afraid for you. I didn’t dare tell you I intended to be close by, for fear you’d get upset.”

Ellie
was
upset, but not for the reasons her mother assumed.

“You followed me?” Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Not followed … exactly.” Her mother seemed eager to defend herself and show that she had only Ellie’s best interests at heart. “I wanted to be close by in case something happened, and it has, hasn’t it? Please don’t be angry with me.”

Ellie should be, but at the moment she could only be grateful. “How soon can you get here?” she asked.

“I won’t be long,” Virginia promised. “Give me an hour.”

Ellie used the next sixty minutes to lie down and rest her eyes, not that she was able to relax, let alone fall asleep. By the time her mother arrived, she stood by the window overlooking the inn’s driveway, watching and waiting, eager to talk over the events of the day with her mother.

When Virginia arrived, Ellie hurried down the front steps and the two gripped hold of each other and hugged each other close. She touched Ellie’s head but didn’t mention the new hairstyle.

Her mother looked pointedly toward the inn. “Can we sit down and talk? As you can imagine, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Worrying about me, no doubt,” Ellie murmured, well aware that her mother had stayed up past midnight, waiting to hear from her. Right away she felt guilty for the way she’d treated her mother. They were close and had always been that way.

“I had one of my headaches,” her mother confessed, “but that’s neither here nor there.”

Ellie led the way to the inn, up the porch steps to the two chairs set up on the wraparound deck. The water view was amazing, but she didn’t comment, and neither did her mother. Ellie didn’t say anything until they were both seated. “Okay, Mom, do your worst.”

“My worst?” Virginia repeated indignantly.

“You’re about to list all the reasons why it was a bad idea for me to come to Cedar Cove to meet Tom.” In retrospect, she wondered if it’d been the right thing, seeing all that had happened since.

“I wasn’t,” her mother argued. “All I wanted to do was protect you. I’m grateful I was close by.”

“I am, too,” Ellie said, although it was hard to admit.

“Your … father,” Virginia said after a brief hesitation, “broke my heart. I loved him …”

“And he abandoned you,” Ellie finished for her, having heard it dozens of times through the years.

“He abandoned
us
,” Virginia corrected. “He knew what Tom was up to, didn’t he?”

“I don’t think so.” The shocked look of dismay she read in Scott couldn’t be easily fabricated. Her father had looked as bewildered as she’d been when Tom introduced her. “Tom sprang it on him this morning. Our meeting seemed to be as much a shock to Scott as it was to me.”

A perplexed look came over Virginia. “You mean to say Tom didn’t tell Scott who you were?”

“No. As far as my father knew, I was someone Tom met online and that was it. Both Scott … my dad and I were left in the dark.”

Something else came to mind. It wasn’t until Ellie saw her father that she understood the worried look Tom had had when he’d mentioned his “surprise.” If her father wasn’t in on this, then she wasn’t the only one Tom had misled.

It all started to add up in her mind, and the result didn’t make her feel any better. While Tom’s intentions had been good, he’d used her gullibility and trust to trick her. Once he’d convinced her to visit Cedar Cove, he had what he wanted. She couldn’t deal with her feelings for Tom now, though.

“Don’t make the same mistake I did, Ellie. Don’t trust Tom. He misled you once, and there’s nothing to say he wouldn’t again. I’m
frightened that if you continue in this relationship you’ll end up badly hurt.”

“Mom, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. Trust me, will you?”

“I trusted your father.”

“Mom …”

Virginia straightened, her shoulders tight and square. “It’s not fair that he should stroll back into your life at this late date. He doesn’t have the right.”

Ellie heard the pain in her mother and wished that she was able to ease it, and at the same time realized she had to make up her own mind when it came to her father, and basically he’d already done that for her.

Her mother had a faraway look come over her. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never shared with anyone.” Her voice dipped to a whisper and trembled slightly. “I wrote your father shortly after he moved out, before the divorce was final. A friend got his address for me, and without my parents knowing what I was doing, I wrote him.” Her voice pitched back and forth like a small boat in a storm. She paused briefly to regain control of her emotions before she continued. “I told him I was wrong, and I asked him for your sake and for mine, too, if he would reconsider and give our marriage a second chance. I was willing to do whatever was necessary to be the wife he wanted.”

Ellie was shocked. For nearly her entire life all Ellie had heard regarding her father were disparaging words. All along her mother had claimed they were well rid of Scott Reynolds. He’d been a poor provider, shiftless, and on top of everything else, he possessed a weak character. For her mother to have swallowed her pride and reached out to him was huge.

“You never said anything about this before.” This revelation took courage, and her mother’s honesty surprised her, although it wasn’t enough to change Ellie’s mind.

“Not even my parents knew,” Virginia told her. “My family
would have been dead set against us getting back together, and I knew that, but I loved Scott and I didn’t want the divorce.”

“What happened?” Ellie asked, needing to know.

Her mother looked out over the cove for several moments before she spoke. “He never answered.”

A list of possible reasons immediately came to mind. “Maybe he didn’t get the letter; maybe he’d moved and it wasn’t forwarded. Do you think Grandma and Grandpa found the letter? And really, Mom, if you wanted to reach Dad, why didn’t you just call him?” Then she could be sure that he knew her heart and that Virginia wanted their marriage to work.

“I would have phoned him if I’d had a number,” her mother explained. “Things were different back then. There weren’t cells or the Internet. My parents were urging me to file for a divorce. We fought and he left and I didn’t see him again.”

Ellie read the pain in her mother and felt a prick of discomfort herself. When she met Scott she would ask him why he hadn’t responded to the letter. She feared it was because he’d fallen out of love with her mother and wanted nothing more to do with either of them. Even if that was the case, she needed to know. Tom seemed to imply that wasn’t the way it was. According to him, Scott, too, lived with regrets … as well he should.

“Later …” Her mother paused and seemed to need a few minutes to compose herself. “I tried again later.”

“When?”

“You were five and started asking questions about your dad.”

Ellie remembered that vividly. “That was when I wanted that doll for my birthday, wasn’t it?”

Her mother nodded. “My parents didn’t know, but I couldn’t bear to have you asking about your father. It took some doing, but I found him.”

“Did he pay child support?”

Her mother lowered her head, refusing to meet Ellie’s eyes. “Yes … faithfully.”

“That isn’t what you told me.”

“I … was hurt and I didn’t want you to—”

“In other words, you misled me.” Ellie thought about all the things she’d heard about her father not caring about her welfare. Scott had mentioned that he hadn’t been given any parental rights and couldn’t afford to hire an attorney to fight for them.