Page 61 of When You Are Mine

“Don’t complain until I ask you to come along.”

“How does your mother feel about this trip to Haiti?” Martin didn’t look up from his steak.

“Mom?” Walsh frowned, still disconcerted when his father asked him about his mother after years of stoic silence. “She thinks it’s great.”

They continued eating for a few moments, each occupied with their own thoughts.

“And she’s doing well?” Martin finally asked.

“Who?” Walsh sipped his cabernet sauvignon, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“Your mother, Walsh. For God’s sake, keep up.”

“She’s okay. I haven’t been back much lately.”

“I noticed. Nothing’s ever kept you from Rivermont in the past. Something you avoiding down there?”

“Avoiding?” Walsh’s voice was sharp enough to slice through his succulent steak. “I’ve been working hard on Merrist, Dad. There’s nothing to avoid in Rivermont, but now that you mention it, I’m actually concerned about Mom.”

“Why? Something wrong?” Martin went still and glanced up from his plate.

“She’s lost some weight. Tired. Not feeling her best.”

And Jo hadn’t given up any information on the ride to the airport, though he’d sensed she’d wanted to.

“What’d the doctor say?”

“She hasn’t been to see her doctor,” Walsh said, his mouth an exasperated line. “Jo and I have been trying to get her to go.”

His father threw his napkin over his plate and drummed his fingers on the linen-covered table.

“That woman never took care of herself.”

“Maybe you should have,” Walsh said, as shocked to hear the words aloud as his father obviously was.

“What did you say?”

Walsh forged ahead, never one to back down from a challenge like the one he saw in his father’s eyes. “I said maybe you should have taken care of her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know the whole story. You never did.”

“Why did you marry her, Dad?” Walsh asked the question he’d held all these years. “Was she your meal ticket?”

Something violent flared unmistakably in his father’s eyes, firing a warning shot across the table.

“I loved your mother.” The words barely passed through his father’s clenched teeth. “Don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever question it. It’s actually none of your damned business.”

“You’re right.”

Walsh softened his tone, prepared to abandon the topic, even though he wanted to dig deeper and excavate answers to the questions that had plagued his mind since he was thirteen years old.

Martin’s phone vibrated on the table, drawing his attention and a subsequent scowl.

“I have to take this. Call Pierce and ask him to bring the car around so we can get back to the office.”

He sounded like he actually regretted having to cut the conversation short.

Chapter Twenty-Two

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