Seaview Inn (23 page)

All three women stared at him in shock. Hannah felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her.

“You have? Why?” Kelsey asked.

“Luke came to me right before he left and asked if I’d do an online search. He never said who the person was.
He just gave me a name. I found this Clayton Dixon in Clearwater Beach.”

“So close,” Hannah murmured, “My God, all these years and he’s been right under my nose.”

“And yet he never came looking for you,” her grandmother said quietly. “Maybe before you cast blame on me or your mother, you should ask yourself about that. Other than that pitiful handful of letters right there, what effort did your father make to settle things with you?”

“He probably thought I’d never forgiven him because…” Her voice faltered when she realized he’d never given her a phone number to call or an address where she might find him. Maybe Gran was right. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to be found, hadn’t wanted anything more than to be able to tell himself that he’d tried to keep in touch. Perhaps that had been enough to absolve him of guilt in his own eyes, if not Hannah’s.

“Hannah, I’m sorry,” Gran said. “It was complicated. Sometimes even your mother and I had a hard time making sense of it.”

“Making sense of what?” Hannah asked. “Why did he leave?”

“That’s not for me to say,” her grandmother told her.

“But you know?”

She nodded.

“Then tell me,” she pleaded.

“I think if Jeff has located him and he’s so nearby, then you should see him for yourself. Let him tell you his side of it. That way you’ll never question whether I’ve told you the whole truth or some version of it that suits me.”

Hannah could see the sense of that, but she wanted to know now. Suddenly the importance of something that Jeff had said struck her. “Why was Luke looking for
him? Had you told him about my father?” she asked her grandmother.

“No. Luke never mentioned him. Not to me.”

Hannah turned to Jeff. “Did he tell you why he wanted to find him?”

“Not a word, just that it was important,” Jeff replied.

“And you told Luke that you’d located my father before he left for Atlanta?”

Jeff nodded.

Hannah wondered if that had anything to do with Luke’s decision to leave earlier that Friday morning than he’d originally planned. Had he gone to see her father en route to Atlanta? If so, why?

“I need to speak to Luke,” she said, leaving them to go in search of her cell phone. It was ironic that something that had always been within reach was now missing when she needed it the most. She found it tossed in the drawer of her nightstand, but when she called Luke’s number, it went straight to voice mail.

“Luke, call me when you get this, please,” she said. “It’s important. No, it’s urgent!”

She tossed the phone back on the bed and paced around the perimeter of the room. The sensible side of her nature told her to wait for that call, not to do anything rash. If Luke had found her father, she needed to know what he’d learned before blundering into a situation she might not understand.

The need-to-know-now side of her overruled the sensible part.

Grabbing the cell phone and her car keys, she ran back down the steps.

“I’m going out,” she called out to anyone in the vicinity.

“Hannah, wait!” her grandmother commanded. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t stop me,” she said.

“Fine, go,” her grandmother said dryly. “You won’t get far. The last ferry left an hour ago.”

“Well, damn and hell,” Hannah muttered in frustration.

“Watch your language,” Gran said automatically.

“Sorry.”

“I thought you were going to talk to Luke, anyway,” Gran said.

“I couldn’t reach him.”

“Well, he’ll check in before the night’s out, I imagine. In the meantime, why don’t we go inside and fix dinner for the two of us? All the guests are settled down for the evening. Kelsey and Jeff left a few minutes ago to walk into town. They probably won’t be back for hours. They said something about going to play bingo at the Catholic Church, just the way we used to do when you were little.” She smiled hesitantly. “Do you remember that?”

Hannah had forgotten that half the town played bingo at the church or at the fire department or wherever else it was being played on any given evening of the week. These were Seaview social events as much as fund-raisers for various organizations. She’d won a few prizes, including a treasured doll which was still in her room.

“I remember,” she said at last. “Maybe we should go with Jeff and Kelsey.” The last thing she wanted to do was sit across the kitchen table from her grandmother and be forced to bite back all the questions on the tip of her tongue. Gran had already made it plain that she was through talking about Hannah’s father, and that was the only thing Hannah wanted to discuss.

Disappointment spread across her grandmother’s face. “You go if you want to. I’m not up to going out tonight.”

The rare admission forced Hannah to drag herself out
of her own misery to take a good look at Grandma Jenny. She did seem paler than usual. Instantly guilty, she said, “I’ll stay here, but why don’t I go in and fix something? You’ve been on your feet most of the day. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Gran looked skeptical. “You’re going to cook?”

“I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m totally incompetent in the kitchen. Kelsey and I never starved.”

“The way I hear it, she taught herself to cook, and before that the two of you survived on takeout.”

“It was not that bad. Actually, I fix a fairly edible omelet and I think there are some of Merilee’s biscuits left. How does that sound?”

“Filling,” Gran responded with a smile. “And it’s hard to talk with a mouthful of biscuit.”

Hannah smiled back at her. “My thought exactly.”

Somehow she’d manage to hold off asking all those questions about her father until she was with someone who might actually be willing to answer them.

Luke had two urgent messages from Seaview. The first was from a highly agitated Hannah, but it was the second one from Jeff that was most disturbing. Jeff admitted he’d told Hannah about finding her father for Luke. That explained Hannah’s message that had come in not two minutes earlier. He turned off his cell phone and tried to decide what to do. He could call Jeff and try to find out what was going on down there, or he could just call Hannah and face the music. She hadn’t sounded happy.

There was also a third choice, of course. He could ignore both calls and deal with the whole situation when he got back to Seaview. By then, perhaps he would have more news. His attempt to speak to Clayton Dixon on
Friday had been fruitless. No one had been home at the address Jeff had given him. A neighbor said the Dixons were away for a few days but expected back on Sunday. With luck they would be there when Luke drove back from Atlanta on Monday morning. Yep, he liked that option the best. He’d already had his fill of messy confrontations since arriving in Atlanta.

Brad had been home when he’d arrived late Friday afternoon to pick up Gracie and Nate. This time he refused to back down when Luke told him to get out of his face.

“We need to have this out,” Brad said. “Not for me or you or even for Lisa, but for the kids. This house can’t be a battleground every time you turn up.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Luke told him. “You just need to clear out when I’m expected. I’ll be civil to Lisa, because she’s the mother of my children, but I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

“But we were—”

“Don’t say it,” Luke said. “Maybe we were friends at one time, but that didn’t stop you from hooking up with my wife while I was in Iraq. Maybe I can even understand that from her point of view. She was furious with me. You were handy. Who better to have an affair with and then throw it in my face? But what had I ever done to you, Brad?”

Brad paled. “Nothing,” he admitted. “There’s no excuse for what happened. And, honestly, I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know, but it’s too late to turn back. I love her. And I’ll be good to her and to Nate and Gracie.”

“Just as long as you remember that I’m their father,” Luke said tersely. “That will never change, no matter where I’m living.”

Brad regarded him with surprise. “You’re not staying
in Atlanta? I thought since you rented an apartment that meant you intended to come back here.”

“No, that apartment is so Nate and Gracie have a place to stay with me whenever I come to town. I’m going to be living in Seaview and going into practice there.”

“And
our
practice? What do you intend to do about that?”

“My attorney knows my intentions. He’ll be in touch.”

“I’ll be more than fair,” Brad said. “I owe you that.”

“And a hell of a lot more, when it comes down to it,” Luke said. Rather than belaboring the conversation another second, he shouted upstairs. “Nate, Gracie, let’s go.”

The kids had thundered down the stairs so quickly, he couldn’t help wondering if they’d been eavesdropping, but neither of them mentioned anything about the confrontation as they drove away. Gracie had been a little quieter than usual during dinner, but Nate had filled the silences with nonstop chatter about school and signing up for baseball.

Now, as Luke sat in front of the TV with the sound on mute, Gracie came into the living room and crawled onto the sofa beside him.

“Can I ask you something?” Her expression was worried.

“You can always ask me anything,” he told her.

“If you’re living in Seaview, will you forget about us?”

“Never,” he said at once. “Not in a hundred million years!”

“Do you promise?”

“Of course I promise. You and Nate will be coming down there every chance you get and I’ll be up here at least once a month.”

“Mom says you’ll get busy like you did before and we’ll never see you.”

“Well, Mom is wrong about that,” he assured her,
tamping down his annoyance with Lisa for planting this latest fear in Gracie’s mind. “I know that I used to spend a lot of time at work before I went away, but that’s all changed now. I have my priorities in order.”

Gracie’s brow knit in a frown. “What does that mean?”

“It means that nothing is more important to me than spending time with you and your brother. Nothing!”

“Then why can’t you live here?” she asked wistfully. “Like before.”

Luke tried to think of a way to explain it that Gracie could understand. “Do you remember what you used to tell me about going to the library?”

She frowned. “That I liked it because it was so quiet and peaceful?”

“Exactly,” Luke said. “That’s how I feel in Seaview. It was my home for a long, long time, and I feel better there, like it’s where I belong. And Doc is getting older, so he needs someone to help him at the clinic.”

“But Nate and me need you here,” Gracie protested. “You said we were important, not Doc.”

“And you
are
important. If you ever need me—really, really need me—I will be here in a heartbeat. As it is, I’ll be here so much, you’ll probably get sick of me.” He nudged her gently in the ribs. “You’ll have to give me your undivided attention, even when you’d rather be hanging out with your friends, even when you’re old enough to date and would rather be with a boy.”

She giggled then. “Daddy, it’s going to be years and years before I’m old enough to date.”

Luke grinned at her. “I’m thinking thirty would be a good age.”

To his relief, she giggled again. “You’re being silly,” she accused.

“I am,” he agreed. “But I am serious about one thing. I love you, Gracie, and that will never, ever change. Okay? Don’t ever let anything or anyone convince you otherwise.”

She held his gaze for a long time, then nodded. “Okay. Do I have to go back to bed or can I stay here with you for a while?”

“You can stay here,” he said. “Close your eyes, though. It’s way past your bedtime.”

She yawned widely and leaned against him. She’d taken a bath using some kind of strawberry-scented soap. It brought back a hundred memories of getting soaked from head to toe as she splashed in the tub pretending to swim. At four and beyond, she’d always had half a dozen toys in the water with her, including a swim ring that he’d bought her on a trip to the beach. She’d come out of the water with her cheeks rosy, her skin shiny with moisture, and he’d wrap her in a towel. As a toddler she’d invariably pulled free and run through the house, naked as a jaybird until he or Lisa caught up with her.

There had been such an innocent joy about her then. He wanted that for her again, but maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe, like too many children of divorce, she’d been forced to grow up too soon, to try to understand things that were too complicated for a ten-year-old.

That made him think about Hannah and how she must have felt all those years ago. At least Gracie and Nate still had him in their lives, but she’d been abandoned with very little explanation. Maybe it was years too late for those explanations, but he wanted them for her. And Monday, he intended to get them.

Until then, he wasn’t ready to have the conversation
that he knew from her messages she wanted to have. He wanted to give her answers when they spoke, not to have an argument about his interference in her life.

I
n the commotion stirred up by the discovery that her father was living nearby, Hannah had forgotten all about her test results. When the call came in from Dr. Blake’s office, it was a shock. As she waited for him to come on the line, her palms began to sweat. She clutched the phone in a death grip, and a familiar knot formed in her stomach.

“Good news,” he said as soon as he picked up. “Everything’s clear, Hannah. None of the tests showed any trace of cancer.”

Relief made her knees weak. She sank onto a chair at the kitchen table, aware of the concerned glances from Gran and Kelsey.

“You’re sure?”

“A hundred percent sure,” he told her. “I’ll want to see you again in three months, though. No postponing again, okay? Will you be back in New York by then?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure about that, to be honest. Things here are a bit more complicated than I’d expected, but I will come there for the tests. I promise you that.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” he said. “Congratulations, Hannah! Enjoy yourself.”

He sounded as if three months were a worry-free
eternity, when in truth she would have a few days, maybe a few weeks before anxiety would start nagging at her again. Still, days or weeks were better than nothing. She needed to find a way to enjoy that time—to live each day to the fullest—and shove cancer out of her mind.

“Thanks, Dr. Blake. I’ll see you in three months.”

Slowly, she put the receiver back on the hook.

“You’re okay?” Kelsey asked, studying her with concern.

Hannah forced a smile. “For now,” she confirmed.

“Oh, Mom, that’s wonderful,” Kelsey said, smothering her with a hug.

“It’s great news,” Gran said. “We should celebrate. When Luke gets back tonight, let’s have dinner at The Fish Tale.”

“Sounds good,” Hannah agreed. “And I hear that Lesley Ann finally had the baby last week and has been bringing him in every evening for a few minutes to show him off. We should run out and buy a present.”

Kelsey’s eyes lit up. “Absolutely. Let’s do that now, Mom.”

Hannah regarded her curiously. “It won’t bother you to be looking at baby things?”

“No, it’ll be fun,” Kelsey said, as if the thought of giving her own baby up for adoption had never once crossed her mind.

“Did I miss something? Are you and Jeff going to keep your baby?” she asked.

Kelsey flushed but nodded. “We saw the baby on a sonogram last week and I knew then that adoption was out of the question. There was this whole little person that Jeff and I created right there inside me. It was awesome. I think I would have made the decision to keep the baby right then even if Jeff hadn’t practically passed out with
excitement.” She hesitated, then added, “It’s a girl.” She literally glowed when she told them. “She’s still so tiny, but she’s perfect, at least that’s what the doctor said.” Her hand rested protectively on her stomach as she spoke.

Gran clapped her hands together. “Another Matthews girl! Won’t that be wonderful?”

Hannah’s eyes filled with tears. “It will be, won’t it?” She wanted to ask if it would, indeed, be a Matthews girl or if it would be a Hampton, but she managed to silence the question. One step at a time, she told herself. Kelsey and Jeff were on the same page about keeping their daughter and that was huge. For now, it would have to be enough. The question of marriage could wait for a while longer.

“I think I’ll call Jack and tell him to hold a table for us,” Gran said. “What time do you think Luke will get here?”

“I imagine he’s going to try to make the five o’clock ferry,” Hannah said. At least if he wasn’t held up trying to make contact with her dad. She was still annoyed that he hadn’t returned her call. She’d had to content herself with knowing that he’d be back today and that she’d have her answers then.

“I’ll make the reservation for seven, so he’ll have time to rest a little,” Gran said, then gave her a pointed look. “And so you can ask him all those questions that are plaguing you.”

“Thanks, Gran.”

“I just hope he has answers you want to hear,” Gran added direly. “I don’t want to see your heart broken all over again.”

Hannah bristled, even though she had the same concern herself. “I’m ready to handle just about anything.”

She said it emphatically, but down deep she couldn’t help wondering if it was true. She wanted a happy
ending and, as life had already taught her, sometimes those were few and far between.

On Monday, Luke pulled his rental car into the driveway behind a ten-year-old car with fading paint and a dented back fender. The house was modest, but well kept with a small patch of carefully tended lawn.

As he rang the doorbell, Luke wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but when the door was opened by a slim, fit-looking man in his mid-to-late thirties, wearing shorts and a golf shirt, it took him aback.

“Mr. Dixon? Clayton Dixon?”

“I’m Clay Dixon,” the man said. “My Dad’s Clayton.”

Of course, Luke thought. This was the child he’d had with the other woman. This was Hannah’s half brother. He thought he could see a bit of a resemblance around the eyes and in the color of the hair. He couldn’t help wondering whether Hannah would be shocked by that or pleased.

“Can I help you?” Clay asked, regarding him with friendly curiosity.

“Sorry for staring,” Luke said. “You remind me of someone. Does your father live here?”

“He does. He went to the store for groceries. We’ve been away for a few days.”

“I’m Luke Stevens, from Seaview Key.”

The man’s eyes brightened perceptibly. “Really? Did you know my dad when he lived there? He talks about it all the time, but for some reason we’ve never managed to make the trip over there. Mentioning Seaview upsets my mother,” he confided.

Luke wondered how much this man knew about his father’s past. It wasn’t up to him to reveal it, though, so he settled for asking, “Any idea why that might be?”

“Something about a relationship from Dad’s past,” he said with a shrug. “You know how women can be. My own wife got all weird when we went to my high school reunion and ran into a couple of my old girlfriends. Hadn’t seen them in years, but that didn’t matter to her. Needless to say, it was the only reunion we ever attended.”

Luke regarded him sympathetically. “I can imagine. Would you mind if I waited for your father?”

“No, of course not. Come on in. Like I said, he should be here any minute.”

“What about your mother? Is she around?”

“No, we dropped her off at church. She has a ladies group that meets every Monday morning. I’m just waiting for Dad to get back with the groceries and my car. I don’t like him driving that old rattletrap of his any more than he needs to. I had a few chores to do for them here, so I told him to take mine. You want a glass of tea or something? Mom always keeps a pitcher in the fridge.”

“Sure,” Luke said.

“Follow me. We might as well sit on the patio and wait. Around here it pays to enjoy the outdoors when you can. The humidity and heat will get oppressive soon enough.”

“Don’t let me keep you from your chores,” Luke told him.

“No problem. I finished a while ago.” Clay settled onto a chair beside the small pool and set his tea on an old aluminum table with peeling paint. “So, tell me about Seaview. You must like it there. Dad says in his time there most young people didn’t stick around.”

“He’s right about that. Actually I’m just in the process of moving back. I grew up there, then went off to college, married, you know how it goes. Now I’m getting divorced and suddenly discovered that my roots really are in
Seaview.” He barely kept himself from uttering an invitation to visit. That was going to be up to Hannah’s father.

“Hey, Clay, whose car is that in the driveway?” a man yelled, just as a door slammed. “There are more bags of groceries in the car. Can you give me a hand?”

“That’s Dad,” Clay said unnecessarily. “I’ll send him out here.”

“Thanks.”

A few minutes later, a man emerged, his expression wary. His gray hair was still thick, and like his son, he was slim and fit.

“Clay tells me you’re Luke Stevens,” he said as he crossed the patio and held out his hand. “I know that name.”

“I grew up on Seaview,” Luke said quietly. “I’m a friend of Hannah’s.”

The color drained out of the man’s face, leaving his complexion ashen. He sat down hard. “I see.” Eventually he met Luke’s gaze. “How is she?”

“She’d be a whole lot better if you’d kept in touch, maybe let her know that you still care about her,” Luke said harshly.

“I
did
keep in touch,” Clayton said defensively, then sighed. “I wrote a few times over the years, just so she’d know I was thinking of her.”

“You couldn’t have called?” Luke asked, unable to keep the judgmental, condemning note out of his voice. “Or stopped by? You’re not living on the other side of the country, you know. It’s going to come as a shock to her that you’ve been this close all along.”

“It was better this way,” the older man said. “You don’t know how it was.”

“Tell me,” Luke suggested, just as Clay called out from the kitchen.

“Dad, I’m taking off now.”

“Okay, son.” He looked at Luke. “Does Hannah know you’re here?”

Luke thought she might, but he couldn’t say that with certainty, so he shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m not even sure if she knows you’re still alive. She certainly doesn’t know about this other family of yours. I gather Clay doesn’t know he has a half sister, either.”

“No,” he admitted. “Believe me, I know how that sounds, but it was for the best. My wife, Clay’s mother, is not an easy woman. Years ago, when she got pregnant, she made threats. She wanted me or money. She figured I had plenty because the inn was successful. She’s…” He hesitated, then said, “She’s not stable. For years now she’s struggled with depression. I was afraid for our child and what she might do to destroy my family.”

Luke couldn’t help drawing comparisons with how blasé Brad had been about destroying Luke’s family. “So you decided to split the difference and just let her destroy your family,” he said scathingly.

“Something like that,” Clayton Dixon agreed solemnly. “Hannah’s mother and I talked about it. We considered fighting her, but I knew how important the inn was to her and to Jenny, and I couldn’t ask them to risk it to borrow the money to pay this woman off. I was the one who’d created the whole mess, so it was up to me to solve it. And there was the baby to consider. Lucy simply wasn’t up to raising a child. I suppose I could have fought for custody and probably won, but I couldn’t ask Maggie to raise another woman’s child. I’d already asked too much of her. I’d begged her for forgiveness one too many times. We divorced and I remarried.”

“And forgot all about the broken-hearted child you’d
left behind,” Luke accused. “How did Hannah fit into this scenario? Or did you consider her at all?”

“Of course we did. The inn was her legacy. Do you think it was easy for me to walk away, trade one child for another? Believe me, it wasn’t. There’s a hole in my heart where that child belongs. I thought about her on every birthday, every Christmas, on her graduation day.”

“But you did nothing to get in touch. How do you think that made her feel?”

“It was better than the hell she would have gone through if my wife had discovered we were having any contact. Lucy’s a hard woman. She had a tough life before we met. I guess when she got pregnant, she saw her chance for something better and she took it. She saw the inn as her ticket to a better future. It was worth a fortune, even back then.”

“Didn’t she know it wasn’t yours?”

“I told her,” Clayton said. “But like I said, she wasn’t rational. In the end, I saw how messy it was going to get and I couldn’t put my family through the humiliation. They had to go on living in that town and it would have been years before anyone in Seaview let them forget about the scandal. Maggie made me see that when she showed me the door.”

“So, this was all altruistic on your part?”

“Hardly,” he admitted. “This was Maggie’s decision as much as mine. She’d had enough and I could hardly blame her.”

“What about now? Do you still think walking away was your only choice, or would you do things differently?”

“I’ve thought about that through the years,” Clayton said. “But honestly, I don’t see that I could have.”

“And Hannah? Haven’t you wanted to see her, to know how she is, to know what’s going on in her life?”

“I haven’t earned the right to any of that,” he said with what sounded like genuine sorrow.

“What if she wants to see you? Will you allow her to come? Or meet her elsewhere? What if she wants to know her half brother?”

Clayton closed his eyes, his expression weary. “I would sell my soul for that,” he said. “I would, but I don’t think it would have the happy ending she probably wants. Clay, he might be okay with it. He’s a friendly, easygoing guy. His wife’s the same way. But
my
wife? She’d make it hell on all of us. She’s better now, takes her medications the way she’s supposed to, and to tell you the truth we’ve made a decent life for ourselves, better than I had any right to expect, given how it started. That doesn’t mean she can handle the upset of having my daughter come into our lives.”

Luke tried to muster an ounce of sympathy for him, but couldn’t. “I know Hannah,” he said slowly. “She’s not going to let that stop her. You should probably prepare yourself and your son—even your wife, for that matter—for the fallout.”

Despite Luke’s warning and his own obvious misgivings, Clayton nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Maybe he was happy about the likelihood that the decision would be taken out of his hands, just as Maggie had taken the final choice about their divorce away from him.

“You’ll tell me ahead of time if she’s coming?” he asked.

“I will if I know about it,” Luke promised. “Hannah tends to be independent. There’s no telling what she might do or when. I’ll do my best, though.”

“Thanks. I’ll walk you out.”

“It’s okay. I can find my own way.”

Outside, he drew in a deep, cleansing breath. In one
way he didn’t envy Clayton Dixon the potential disaster that lay ahead. In another, he thought the man would only be getting what was coming to him.