Summer Secrets - Barbara Freethy [146]
"I didn't set out to hurt anyone," he said.
"You never do, but somehow people always seem to get hurt."
"You most of all."
"Yes," she agreed. "The worst time was when you took my baby out of my arms and gave her away to that doctor. You ripped my heart in two that day. I wasn't sure I'd ever feel whole again."
"Hardest thing I ever did. I should have let you keep her. Nora must have turned over in her grave when she saw me give our grandchild away." He shook his head. "But I was barely keeping us afloat. I didn't think we could manage a baby, too. And you were just a kid yourself."
"It wasn't about that. It was about the race. You didn't want to stop, and if I'd kept the baby, we would have had to stop. It took me a long time to realize that was the real reason I had to give her up." She paused. "It's over. Tyler knows everything, and Sean, too. By morning the rest of the world will be talking."
"You all should have let me drown out there tonight."
"That would have been too easy," she said sharply.
His gaze flew to hers. "Now, you listen, young lady --"
"No, you're going to listen to me for a change. You made some huge mistakes in your life, and it looks like you'll have to pay for some of them, just like I've had to pay for giving up my child, and Kate for losing Jeremy, and Ashley for having to lie to Sean. You don't get to drink yourself into oblivion anymore. You have to face the consequences of what happened. Maybe that means we give back the trophy and pay back the money. Hopefully, that's all it means. But we need to move on, and we can't be worrying about you every second, especially Kate. She's in love with Tyler, and she deserves a chance to start over. So you're going to have to pull yourself together and fast." She looked him straight in the eye. "We need a father, and you're it. Starting tomorrow, you're going to start acting like a father."
"I don't know if I can."
"You can and you will. But tonight you get to sleep."
Caroline smiled as her father's eyes drifted shut. He probably wouldn't remember their conversation, but she would. She'd meant every word -- words she should have said a long time ago. Now the dam had burst. Little did her sisters and father know that from here on out, she probably wouldn't shut up.
No more going along with the family. She was standing up for herself. She would stop drinking, keep working, and find a way to be proud of herself and hope that someday her daughter, Amelia, might be proud of her, too.
Ashley walked down the damp, dark streets of Castleton wondering if this would be the last time she spoke to Sean, or if she would even have the chance to speak to him. Would he send her away without a word? Would there be only anger and hatred in his eyes? She deserved nothing more than that. She just wanted a chance to say she was sorry.
Doubting that he would have gone home to his parents' house just yet, she went back to the marina, hoping he'd be on the boat. He would need time to think about how to tell his parents what had really happened to Jeremy. Besides that, it was past midnight; his mom and dad were probably asleep.
As she walked down the dock, she thought how odd it was that everything was quiet now. No more wind, no more rain. The storm had passed. Just like that.
Ashley climbed onto the Ambersons' motorboat without a second thought for the water below. That fear had been well and truly vanquished. She realized now that it was never really the water she'd been afraid of, but all the things buried beneath it, like Jeremy's death and Caroline's baby, her father's lies, their cover-up. She'd been terrified all the secrets would come up and hurt them all, so she'd stayed away from the water. Now the secrets were out, and the water was just water.
She walked down the stairs to the cabin and found Sean sitting on the couch, a bottle of beer in one hand. He'd changed into