Page 46 of Sutton and the CEO's Baby

She nodded. “Yes, but most people call me Maggie. Are you Sutton?”

I reached a hand out to welcome her inside. “I promise you, things are not always this crazy. Please come in.”

Natalie bade her goodbyes and Brian offered to take Maggie’s luggage to her room. When Candice and I sat down, I took a good look at the woman who, as far as I knew, was my only living family.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” I began softly, and then immediately regretted the words when her eyes filled with tears.

But she smiled tremulously. “Thank you. My father was a good man. He spent many years looking for Aunt Judith.”

“Did you know my mother?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Maggie shook her head. “No, I only know the story of why she left.”

“Could you share it with me?” I didn’t mean to come across as pleading, but there were so many missing holes in the puzzle that was my mother.

Maggie nodded... “My father said that Aunt Judith and Grandfather used to get into terrible fights. He said that his father had a nasty temper and would scream and yell all kinds of threats. But after he cooled down, he never meant them.

“I guess that when she started dating Forrest, Grandfather told her that she had to pick between Forrest and her family. If she chose him, she would be dead to the Landry’s. Of course, a young girl of eighteen wouldn’t want to abide by this stricture and ran off with Forrest. Grandfather felt horrible about what he had done and tried to get into contact with her, but Forrest stopped every attempt.

“My father suspected that something wasn’t right in the marriage when Judith didn’t contact them; months had gone by and it wasn’t like her. He tried to reach Forrest and was told that Aunt Judith had disowned her family and wanted nothing to do with them.

“The next time he tried to contact her, she was gone. Forrest accused our family of hiding her but realized rather quickly by the alarm in Justin and Grandfather that they had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

I closed my eyes, little things from the past popping up. When I was very young, my mother used to sing songs to me in French. I had forgotten about that until this moment. What young girl growing up in rural farmland learns to be fluent in French?

And later when she was drugged out of her mind she would talk about the amazing places that she had seen and wanted to take me with her. I had shoved off the notion that it could be real.

“Do the Landrys speak French?” I asked in a hesitant voice.

“My father and Aunt Judith did; their mother, Lauren, was French. She passed when they were teenagers, but my father sang me some of the songs when I was a child.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. “My mother used to sing them to me.”

My hand slipped around my waist to cuddle the little one resting inside. I didn’t know if I could remember the words to the songs, but maybe with Maggie’s help I could pass this little piece of my mother and grandmother onto my child.

“How did your father find out she was in Otterville Falls?” Candice asked. “After all of those years, how did the trail bring him here?”

Maggie sighed. “That is the strangest bit of all. My father had given up on finding his sister. I know that sounds terrible, but there had been more than twenty years of fruitless searching. My mother had just been diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, and when they did the surgery, they found it had spread throughout her body. I think when mom died, the hopes of finding his sister died with her. Dad just seemed to exist but not really participate in life, if that makes any sense at all.

“And then one day he was calling me at school. Dad was so excited that someone had information about Judith. He needed to go to a place called Otterville Falls and there he would find her.”

“And you have no idea who called him or how he got the number?” Candice asked.

Maggie bit her lip, trying to think. “I wish I did. I got the impression that it was a man; dad, Dad said that he was going to meet with someone. And then the next thing I knew, Sheriff Bridges was calling...”

She trailed off as a tear escaped her luminous eyes.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Maggie shook her head. “No, it isn’t you. Honestly, I think my dad would be glad to know that we finally were able to meet. He adored Judith and hated the rift that Grandfather had put between the family.”

“I am thankful you traveled down here, Maggie, and agreed to stay for a while so that we could get to know each other. I hope that it isn’t disturbing your studies too much.”

Maggie flushed and averted her eyes. “I haven’t been doing very well in school. The stress of it all, plus Dad’s passing, it was just too much. I was able to withdraw from my classes this term and have taken a short leave of absence.”

I felt a surge of sympathy for my cousin. She was only a few years younger than me, and it seemed that she, too, knew a great deal about loss. Candice was still moping about Knox and Natalie, and I felt like shit about Max. It seemed that the only thing to do was to pull out the blender.

Granted, my drinks would be virgin ones and not nearly as fun, but at least we could drown our troubles in empty calories and they could have the alcohol.

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