Page 41 of Forever His This Christmas

“Stop it!” Lisa said shaking her head as she stepped between him and Abby. “Don’t raise your voice tomydaughter. I don’t care how angry you are, she has nothing to do with the choices I made, choices that I would make all over again. If you really have to ask why I kept her from you then you obviously don’t see how differently you’ve always treated me versus the boys. They could back mouth, yell, curse, and ignore you and your orders all they wanted, and you never once cared—but if I went against anything I was grounded or yelled at to show respect. If I had told you I was pregnant back then, you wouldn’t have let mekeep her. You wouldn’t have wanted to face the town and let them know that your daughter got knocked up at fifteen.”

“That’s enough Lisa,” he stated.

“No, it’s not—admit it, you wouldn’t have wanted me to have her or raise her, would you?” she demanded. “Come on Dad tell the truth—that’s what this is all about.”

“No, we wouldn’t have let you keep her. That is the biggest mistake of your life, and you’ve had plenty of them, haven’t you?” her father stated showing her exactly why she’d kept Abby from them.

“The biggest mistake of my life is thinking myparentswould support me. Having my daughter, letting Diane watch over her while I was forced to live here, was the smartest choice I ever made because it kept her from having to live with you all. This was a mistake—to come here thinking it would change anything. Come near my daughter, try and hurt her inany way, and you will never see either of us again,” she told him pulling Abby back into her hold, putting herself between Abby and the room, as she started to walk them to the door.

“Lisa Gracelyn Branson, stop right there,” her mother stated, and she paused to look back at her.

“No, I won’t sit here and listen to him, and the guys treat my daughter the way they’ve treated me. I won’t do it,” she replied letting Diane move over to Abby and wait at the door for her. “Every day of my life, you acted as though you had no right to say anything, to make any type of a choice and you honestly wonder why I left here—why I refuse to listen to anything anyone here says? Look around us Mother, no family that actually cared about their daughter would have been unaware that she had a daughter at sixteen—had been living with her except for four and a half years of her life. You do what Dad says and that’s it. I’m sorry I have a mind of my own. I’m sorry my choices don’t fall in line with your perfect ideal version of who I should be, but Iwon’t stick around here and let them do what they did to me tomydaughter. I loved her enough to protect her from this—what can you say you did for me?”

“I loved you no matter what you did, what others said, or how you treated me,” her mother replied lifting her hand up to her cheek. “I was not a perfect mother, but I will not lose you. I will not let you walk away from me. You are the only daughter I have, and I love you. I wish you had come to me when it happened, when you knew you were having a baby, because there are some things only a mother can help her daughter with—some things a man can never understand. Once you have discovered a tiny little life growing inside you, things change. The first time you see their form on an ultrasound, hear their heartbeat, feel them move your heart becomes bigger, fuller, and there is nothing that can take that feeling away from you. You may think I would have sided with your father on this, but you are wrong. I would never,neverturn away my child or grandchild. She would never have been sent away, given up or gotten rid of—not as long as there was breath in my body,” she added surprising her entirely.

Lisa’s heart stalled seeing the look in her mother’s eyes, the unconditional love she gave Abby staring straight into her.

“No matter what you do, no matter what you say or feel, I love you. I have always loved you and I will always love you. Perfection is impossible to achieve—happiness isn’t, and love certainly isn’t. You are not going anywhere my girl, not like this. Not upset and angry, not when there are two people here who want nothing more than to love you, anyway you are, because you are always in my heart. I push because you do, and I refuse to lose you from my life entirely. I will never give up on you. I will never stop trying with you. You don’t see that I love you completely because you refuse to let yourself love you completely. You stepped between Abby and your father, thesame way I stepped between you and nosy biddies in this town, but you never saw it. See it now, Lisa, see how much I love you—the way you love your daughter,” her mom pleaded, and Lisa felt the tears slip down her cheeks.

She gave in, letting her mom pull her in for a hug that tore down the first wall she had surrounding her. Her mom stepped back and lifted her hands to wipe away her tears before sliding a hand onto her back as she looked at Abby and Diane.

“Come here sweetie…you are so much like your mother,” Elaine said as Abby reached them after her nod, “so beautiful and strong and scared to open up too much. Diane thank you for caring for my girls.”

“They’ve brought nothing but light and joy to me. I will always be here for them, no matter what.”

“I’m sorry but this is insane,” Ashton stated interrupting them. “Who keeps a kid from the rest of their family for thirteen years?”

“Someone who’s scared of being hurt,” Corey replied seeing beneath Lisa’s bravado and strength. “I missed what was right in front of me, didn’t I?” he asked, moving over to her. “The times when you were working late at the office—why you wouldn’t just bring the work home, you were talking with Abby, weren’t you? You weren’t really at the office still, you were at your place, talking to her.”

Lisa nodded, drying her eyes more, turning to face him. “Yeah, we’d call or Skype. I’d be checking her Facebook page making sure she was okay…”

“Why didn’t you just bring her to New York with you?”

“The hours I was working—she’d be with a babysitter more than me. If she came with me, she’d be leaving all of her friends behind, changing schools in the middle of the year. In California she had stability, she had Diane and her friends…”

“What part of that changed because she was in Chicago with you, wasn’t she?” he asked. “That’s why you said you were so busy with work.”

“I missed her too much. I didn’t want to be without her anymore.”

“And when did that notion come around? When you heard about your father’s heart scare?”

Lisa glanced away for a moment and shook her head meeting Abby’s gaze.

“No,” she admitted before turning back to him. “The call that came at three a.m. that day wasn’t about my dad…it was from Diane telling me that she couldn’t find Abby. My heart…I thought I was going to lose it. I went back to my apartment to log in to her Facebook page—see if there was anything there that would explain what was going on, but when I got there, Abby was there. She had a key to my apartment and had taken the bus from California to New York.”

“You what?” her mom said, looking at Abby in shock.

“Mom grounded me for a month and made me promise to never do it again,” Abby said looking a little sheepish. “But if I were back in that place, I would do it again even with the grounding.”

“I realized that I couldn’t do what I wanted to—pretend that my life was normal because it wasn’t, and I couldn’t put Abby on the backburner. She has been the most important part of my life since she came into it. I would do anything for her…to protect her.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me about her? Do you think I care that you had a baby when you were sixteen?” he asked lifting her chin to meet her gaze. “I love you. The morning after we met, I knew I would do anything to find you and get you back. I knew you were meant to be mine and I tried to get you to see that too. I didn’t want to make the choice for you, just for you to see thatit’s the only choice that will make us happy, baby. Abby doesn’t change that. She’s part of you—part of your heart and that’s all I need to know. You can tell me anything and I won’t care.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she said softly lowering her chin. She closed her eyes as he dropped a kiss onto her forehead and lifted her face back to his. “I didn’t tell you because I was scared. I didn’t want things to change between us and I knew they would because I knew you’d find out the truth.”

“What truth—that you have a daughter and didn’t tell your family? You’re forgetting I’d already seen you with them in this town baby. I would have understood.”

“I didn’t want to risk it so I broke up with you, tried to be as cruel as possible so you’d stay away from me, and nothing would ever come out.”

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