Page 120 of The VIP Doubles Down
“But I went away to college,” Gavin said, still not quite able to grasp her motive. “I wasn’t home.”
“You came home for summers and holidays. Busy times at the store. You owed him that.”
And he’d hated every minute he’d spent in the store under the critical eye of his father. Whatever way he stacked the feed bags, it could have been done better. If he took an order on the phone, he should have known the customer wanted alfalfa, not timothy hay. His father always justified it by saying, “I’m telling you so you can do it properly the next time.”
Odelia turned her face back to him. “He shouldn’t have let you go away to college, but your father said he’d promised your mother, and he couldn’t go back on his word. So he worked himself to death, like I knew he would.”
“I sent him money so he could hire help,” Gavin said. “When he refused it, I sent it to Ruth, and she got Tobias to use it.”
“He didn’t need money. He needed his son to do his duty.”
Gavin felt a sudden buoyancy, as though he’d dodged a bullet he hadn’t known was aimed at him. For all the darkness he carried inside him, at least he’d escaped Odelia and his father’s vision of his future and made his own life—and a damned successful one at that.
While he watched, Odelia seemed to shrivel up and turn into a bitter old woman, but one who no longer held any power over him.
“I wouldn’t have stayed with you, no matter what you did,” Gavin said. “New York was always my goal.”
“None of us understood how much you wanted that until you up and left.”
“I was the cuckoo’s egg in the sparrow’s nest.” Gavin tucked the letter back into his pocket. It was good to know his father’s integrity had held firm. The idea of his father breaking a promise had unsettled him more than he realized.
His anger transmuted into a sense of triumph. Somehow his younger self had found the strength to stand against the pressures of his parents and gotten him to the right place. Maybe the difficulty of the journey made the destination that much more satisfying. Gavin stood up. “You won’t care, but I forgive you, Odelia.”
It was a gift he was giving himself. For Allie’s sake.
His stepmother shot up as though she’d been hit with a cattle prod. “I’ve got nothing to be sorry for, so don’t go acting like I do.”
Gavin turned on his heel and walked out of the parlor, out of the front door, and out of his miserable childhood into his future.
Chapter 31
His mother’s neighborhood in Casa Grande, Arizona, was a weird patchwork of well-irrigated green lawns and arid cactus gardens. As they neared her address, he tried to guess which style Susannah would prefer. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and stroked his fingers over the soft velvet of the locket’s case, trying to draw some reassurance about his mother’s welcome from her last gift to him.
He should have had Allie with him. But he’d lost the one person he could have counted on to understand how he felt. The one person who wanted him to be whole. This would be the test of whether he was capable of being the man Allie needed. He’d better not screw it up.
“This is it, Mr.Miller,” the driver said as the limo glided to a stop by the curb.
Gavin peered out the window. Maybe he should have given his mother some warning instead of appearing on her doorstep after more than twenty years.
While he gathered his courage, he let his gaze roam over the stucco house with its red-tiled roof, noting the huge saguaro cactus that dominated the front yard, catching the flashes of vivid color from the flowers in the large clay urns on either side of the front door. His mother had chosen native plants and patterns of rocks rather than a water-gulping green lawn. An intriguing entrance with an angled roof over a blue-and-white-tiled porch added eye-catching style while still working within the context of the houses around it.
His mother had always stood out in Bluffwoods without being flashy. He’d been proud to walk in town with her, knowing that she looked different in a beautiful way. Her house gave the same impression.
Gavin touched the jewel case once more before he swung open the car door. The brilliant sunshine made him blink as he strode up the concrete walk. Passing into the cool dimness of the porch was a relief.
He squared his shoulders and pressed the doorbell, hearing the chimes’ muffled echo. After a few seconds, the weathered wooden door swung open. “Hello?”
Gavin tried to absorb every detail about the woman who stood in front of him as fast as he could. He didn’t know how long she would let him look at her. Her dark hair was cut short in a soft style that feathered around her face, a few silver threads gleaming in the light coming from behind her. The dramatic bones of her face showed more clearly than the blur of his memory because the roundness of youth had been honed away, and a few fine lines were etched around her lips and gray-green eyes. His eyes.
She wore navy trousers, a white blouse, and dangling turquoise-and-silver earrings, while a large, multicolored scarf was draped around her neck and shoulders. Her narrow feet were bare, the toenails painted bright orange.
Her expression went from polite inquiry to furrowed puzzlement to flashing joy. “Gavin? Gavin, it’s you! Oh dear God, it’s you!”
Guilt and regret tore at him as tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks, but her smile never wavered. She reached out to brush his shoulder with just her fingertips. “I thought you might be a hallucination, but you’re real.” She hesitated. “May I hug you?”
The feeling of suspension crumbled at her words. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him, even as he thought how fragile her shoulder bones felt under his palms. Fear crawled through him. She could die in her sleep tonight ... and he would never get the chance to know her.
“Mom,” he whispered against her hair.
