01 - The Heartbreaker (23 page)

Small-town hospitality
, Sloane thought, warmth filling her. But she shook her head. “Thanks anyway.” Sloane wouldn’t know which room belonged to her mother. “I really just want to see the tree house out back. I’d love to see that, if you don’t mind.”

Grace laughed and tucked her hair behind one ear. “Of course not. My kids spend a lot of time there. Come, I’ll show you.” She led Sloane through the house, to the kitchen, and out a sliding-glass door leading to a patio area in the back.

The yard spread expansively before her and she could imagine her mother playing as a child. Or maybe not, considering the repressed upbringing and strict rules employed by her grandfather. But there was no denying the fact that there were two teenage girls now—giggling, laughing, and probably talking about boys.

Just as Jacqueline and Raina had discussed the man Jacqueline loved. The man named Samson. Her father.

“Girls, it’s time for Hannah to go home,” Grace called.

“Can’t I stay, Grace, please? I’ll call Kendall and she’ll say it’s okay. She can’t cook for beans anyway and I’d much rather eat here.” A pretty blond-haired girl with a face full of makeup came skidding to a halt.

From the names tossed around in conversation, Sloane knew she was seeing Kendall’s sister, Hannah. Her nonstop motion reminded Sloane of her twin sisters’ actions and she held back a laugh.

An equally pretty brunette came up by Hannah’s side. “Come on, Mom. There’s enough food for one more.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “And you know this because . . . ? You helped cook?” she asked sarcastically.

“Because you always make a lot, and besides, Hannah doesn’t eat much, do you, Hannah?”

“Nope. Honest.” Kendall’s sister held one hand in the air.

“It just so happens we’re meeting your father at Norman’s for dinner and Hannah’s welcome to join us. Kendall can pick you up from there or I can drop you off on the way home. Just call and make sure it’s okay with her.”

“Cool, Mom, thanks!”

“Thanks, Grace.”

The girls took off before Sloane could introduce herself.

“Sorry. I wish I could say they’re usually better mannered, but they’re teenagers and completely self-absorbed.” A blush on her cheeks, Grace let out a self-conscious laugh.

“Not a problem. I have twin sisters so I really do understand.”

Grace nodded. “Thank you for that. Anyway, there’s the tree house.” She pointed to the end of the property and the large tree in the corner. “Take your time, okay? It was nice meeting you.”

Sloane smiled, liking the woman a lot. “Same here.”

“I didn’t think to ask where you’re living, but I’m sure I’ll see you around.” Grace turned and headed back for the house, leaving Sloane to question why she hadn’t bothered to correct the other woman’s misconception that Sloane resided in Yorkshire Falls.

Delving too deeply into that question could only cause Sloane pain, and with an unknown father in her future, she had a hunch she was already in store for enough. She approached the tree house and was about to attempt the rickety ladder leading up the trunk when she heard a rustling sound from the bushes. Someone appeared to have been lurking. She glanced back toward the house, but Grace had gone inside.

Alone, Sloane’s heart pounded hard in her chest. Feeling silly for being afraid in this typically friendly town, she called out in a forced but friendly voice. “Hello?”

She heard the rustling again and caught sight of a man who rose and obviously planned to run away. “No, wait.” Something compelled her to stop the stranger before he could retreat.

The figure paused, then turned back to Sloane. Eerily familiar golden eyes stared back at her from an unshaven, weathered masculine face. “Samson?” she guessed.

“You look like your mother,” he said—no preamble, formality, or warmth.

“Can I take that as a compliment?” She swallowed hard, shock rippling through her. After all her searching, her real father stood in front of her. That easily.

“Take it any way you please.” His gaze held hers for an awkward moment; then he abruptly turned to leave.

Panicked, she called him back. “Don’t go. Please.”

He paused but didn’t look over his shoulder.

“Why did you come here?” she asked, wondering if the same
feeling
that had brought her in search of the old tree house had also brought him. Wondering if fate did work in such mystifyingly simple ways.

He shrugged. “It’s not like I have anyplace else to go.”

“Your house. I’m sorry about the fire.”

“Unless you lit the match, you got nothing to be sorry about.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists. Obviously, somebody who worried or cared was a foreign emotion, one she chose not to delve into just yet. She hoped they’d have more time. “But why come
here
? Why now?”

“I got tired of ducking the cops.”

“Excuse me?” She tamped down on the urge to step closer, afraid he’d run away.

“I couldn’t go anyplace public and so I came here. I do that sometimes. When those kids are in school.”

“Because the tree house holds memories?” she asked.

He merely grunted.

She took the reply as a yes. It wasn’t enough that he was alone, he also retreated into the past. His story got sadder and sadder, Sloane thought, and though she was grateful to meet him now, she gained a new understanding and perspective on her own life. The chances Michael Carlisle had given her were chances Samson hadn’t had.

“I have to go.”

“But I want to know you.” She grasped for anything to keep him standing in front of her. “And I heard you want to know me.”

He scowled at her. “What I wanted was to see you up close. To be sure. Now I can go.”

Sloane had heard about his gruff exterior. She’d heard he was antisocial, but she never imagined he’d turn that harshness her way.
What were you expecting, Sloane, a warm, fuzzy family reunion?
she asked herself. She wouldn’t be getting one. Samson wasn’t a Chandler nor was he a Carlisle, and she had no right to put those expectations onto him. After all, she’d been warned going in.

But he was part of the blood that ran in her veins and she wouldn’t go quietly out of his life. Her disappointment was hers to deal with later, but she wasn’t ready to give up now.

“You wanted to be sure of what? That I was your daughter?” she asked, pushing her limits.

“Yeah.” He started to reach out, as if to touch her, then dropped his hand. “You’ve got your mother’s hair and my mother’s eyes. I’m sure you’re mine. Who told you the almighty senator wasn’t your father?” he asked with no tact.

Samson’s tone told her he was angry with the senator and didn’t trust him. He was wary and she understood that. But Michael wasn’t to blame and she needed Samson to understand that.

Especially if they wanted to call off Michael’s men. “My
father . . . I mean Senator Michael Carlisle admitted I wasn’t his,” she said, attempting to put a realistic spin on the truth.

Samson’s head jerked up and he met her gaze. “A few weeks ago, I went to D.C. Talked to the senator. He told me the same thing.”

That news shocked Sloane. “He told you what exactly?”

“He said he’d tell you the truth ’bout me. That you were old enough to handle it. I believed him, damn fool that I am.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Michael doesn’t lie,” she assured Samson. And she believed the senator
would
have enlightened her. Madeline had told her the same thing.

“Then why did his goons threaten me if I didn’t disappear? And why’d my house blow up right after?”

Sloane blinked as more facets of the situation became clear. “Those things happened without Michael’s knowledge.”

“Speak English, girlie. Who didn’t know what?” Samson kicked a worn sneaker into the dirt on the ground.

He’d dropped his gaze again, though remained facing her, something she considered progress. “Michael’s men acted alone, without consulting him. He had no idea you’d been turned away or threatened. I’m sure of it.”

“Why are you so certain? ’Cuz he’s been such a paragon of virtue telling you the truth all along?”

Sloane flinched, accepting the verbal slap. He had a point, but she still felt compelled to defend the man who’d raised her. “Michael has always acted in my best interest. Or what he thought was my best interest,” she explained. “He may have kept the truth from me but he’s a man of his word. If he said he was going to tell me, he was. It’s his men who took things into their own hands. I’d stake my life on it.”

“And was it a good one?” Samson asked, his tone shocking Sloane, and she sucked in a startled breath. For a moment, the surly old man was gone, replaced by a concerned, caring one. “Was your life a good one?”

Unexpected tears formed in her eyes. “Yes, it was a very good life.”

The wrinkles around his eyes eased. “I figured that. Saw it for myself when I went back to check on your mother. She’d married someone else.” Without warning, he sat down in the grass, as if the weight of telling the story was too much for him to bear.

Sloane knelt, then settled herself Indian-style beside him. “You went back for Jacqueline?” Sloane plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers, finding it easier to concentrate on the mundane than the painful history between her parents.

“In a manner of speaking.” Samson squinted and looked into the sun. “I made sure she was living good. But her father said unless I stayed away from his daughter, he’d make sure the loan sharks my old man borrowed from came after him, among other threats. Your grandfather said Jacqueline was only eighteen and I couldn’t support us and my family. If I agreed to his terms, he said he’d make the debts go away.”

“So you took him up on it.”

He nodded. “I put my family first. Before what I wanted. I had no choice.”

Just like Chase
, Sloane thought, drawing the unexpected parallel. Two men willing to give her up for the good of family. She realized she was being irrational—Samson hadn’t known Jacqueline was carrying his child any more than Chase had turned away from her. Yet.

“You didn’t know Jacqueline was pregnant, did you?” Sloane asked to make sure.

“No. But she was married to someone who had money and could give her a better, healthier life than I could have done.”

Sloane tried unsuccessfully to hold back tears. “How did you find out about me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Pictures. When this presidential campaign started, I saw you on television with the senator. Your red hair blowing in the wind.
I went to the library and looked up when you were born and put two and two together.” He coughed and ended up laughing. “Bet you didn’t know your old man even knew what a library was, but I was smart once. Before life got in the way.”

Sloane lifted a hand, then feeling useless, let it fall to her side. For once, words wouldn’t come.

“Once I realized the truth, I went to the high-and-mighty senator. He said he’d tell you and we could meet. A week later, a man shows up at my door and sez the senator changed his mind. He wasn’t going to risk his career for the likes of me. I would threaten the campaign.” He smacked his hand against the green grass. “But all I wanted wuz to meet you once. See you, talk to you, know you’re mine, then leave.” He rose again, intending to just walk away.

“Samson, wait.” She jumped up to stop him, but at the same moment, Grace’s voice called out to her.

“I’m not in the mood for people.” He stepped toward the bushes.

Sloane’s mouth went dry. She didn’t want to part ways yet. Not when she didn’t know how to reach him again.

“Sloane?” the other woman called from the deck of the house.

Sloane glanced her way. “One minute.” When she turned back around, Samson had disappeared.

She let her hands drop to her sides, disappointment welling inside her at the opportunity that she’d lost.

Thinking about Samson, she made her way back to the house. She’d met her father, something she hadn’t counted on happening so fast. Crossing the lawn where her mother had grown up, she shivered at the odd sense of belonging she felt in this town, at the odder connection she had for the eccentric man who’d bolted at the first sign of another person.

“I just wanted to let you know that we were leaving,” Grace said as Sloane walked up the deck stairs. “The girls are in the car and I’m taking the teenagers for dinner.” She feigned a shiver at
the prospect. “You’re welcome to hang out for as long as you’d like.”

“Thanks, Grace. You’ve been very gracious.”

“No problem. I saw you with someone. Were you talking to the neighbors?”

“You could say that.” Sloane shrugged, not wanting to give Samson’s hideout away. “Listen, I think I’m going to leave too.”

“But you never went up into the tree house.” Grace gestured in the distance. “You’d really be amazed at that place.”

Sloane smiled. “Then I’ll have to come back, if that’s okay with you.”

The other woman nodded. “Of course it is. Come. I’ll walk you out.”

As they headed for the driveway, Grace made small talk until they reached the cars. Sloane’s rental blocked Grace’s minivan. “You see? I’d have to move my car anyway so you could get out.”

Grace reached for the handle on the car, then paused. “Hannah said she thought you were Chase’s new girlfriend.”

Sloane chuckled. “I don’t know what’s worse, the small-town grapevine or a teenager’s perspective on life.”

“You mean Hannah exaggerated?” Grace placed a hand on her heart and donned a shocked expression. “Do tell,” she said, laughing.

Sloane rolled her eyes. “Let’s say she’s got the bare bones, not the whole story.”

Grace’s eyes lit with curiosity as she rubbed her hands together. “Sounds like an interesting tale.”

“One that’s just not worth telling,” Sloane said, trying in vain to hide her disappointment at the turn her relationship with Chase had taken.

She said good-bye to Grace, then waved to the girls before climbing into her own car and pulling out of the driveway.

She fought the tide of emotion, attempting to keep any thoughts or feelings of Samson at bay. She needed time to think
back on their conversation, to understand the events that had shaped the man he’d become. But not dwelling on Samson meant focusing on Chase. And that prospect wasn’t any more uplifting.