Page 238 of Small Town Firsts
“Ally didn’t fail, and who tests someone you love?”
You did. You were probably playing Hamilton games without even realizing it.
“I wouldn’t do something like that to someone I love. I won’t do it again,” I amended, though the situations were vastly different.
“You don’t love Alison.”
“How the hell do you know? Because you didn’t love Mom? Because I didn’t love Marjorie the way I should have?”
“I loved your mother. You will never understand.”
“Then tell me. Explain it to me. I’m begging you.” I spread my arms wide. “I’m standing right here, waiting. Listening.”
“She wasn’t faithful to me,” he said in a nearly inaudible voice.
Laughter ripped from my chest. “So? You weren’t faithful to her either. That’s why we have that damn camp that you refuse to go near any longer. Which mistress lived there, Dad?”
He didn’t look at me, just cracked his knuckles. “It doesn’t matter. Your mother was unfaithful first. She bore another man’s child.” He forged ahead before I could finish processing what he’d said.
Did he mean the daughter she’d had with her new husband? Or…worse?
“Do you even know if Laurie is yours? Did you ever ask for proof?” he demanded.
Though I knew the question was just his version of lashing out, it hit me square in the gut just the same. I started to respond, but he cut me off, his low voice as brutal as a whip.
“Or did she use her as a bargaining chip as your mother used you and your brother?”
I gripped the back of my neck. “Laurie looks like me. She’s mine. But you know what? Even if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter.”
Deep down, it was true. I couldn’t deny it would hurt like a bitch to find out she wasn’t my child biologically. But I’d get over it. Because she was mine in every way that counted, and I didn’t need a useless slip of paper to prove it.
Every time she called me Daddy, I knew the truth all over again. She was mine and I was hers. Against all odds, we’d made a family.
And now with Ally, hopefully our family would expand.
“Sure, it wouldn’t.” My father laughed mirthlessly. “How much of your savings did you use to buy her safety from her mother?”
“She wasn’t in danger from Marj. Not physically. But neglect is just as hurtful. I would’ve emptied my bank account to ensure my baby didn’t have to deal with a parent who didn’t want her.”
He lifted his head. “So would I.”
I exhaled and moved around my desk, dropping into my chair. “She didn’t sign it. Ally. She wouldn’t. Even when she said she had, it wasn’t legal. She didn’t want a contract between us. If I’d been thinking straight—hell, if I’d been less of a coward—I never would have either.”
When my father didn’t speak, I leaned forward and braced my forearms on the desk. “I don’t know why you don’t like her, but I hope to God it’s not for the reason I think. Because all theseyears, I’ve told myself there’s some good in you, some decency. If you’ve let your feelings about her bank account color your attitude toward her all these years…” I trailed off before I said something I probably wouldn’t regret.
Defending Ally came before everything else except protecting my daughter.
“You would see it that way,” he said tiredly, and I jerked up my head, shocked to hear the fatigue in his tone.
My father was a bull of a man. Strong, healthy, larger than life in every way. Years had passed since I’d really looked at him and seen him as anything but a force of nature.
Until now. Now the lines on his face seemed like a roadmap, where most of the best days of his life were behind him.
I swallowed hard. “Then explain it to me. Please.”
“She has the power to break you.”
“You just insinuated I don’t love her, and now you’re saying she could break me?”
