In Too Deep by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page B

to the places he worked. He was a lonely man. He missed his family.”
    Cara stared at Rod, amazed by the statement. What he said was impossible. Surely he couldn’t be referring to the man who’d glided in and out her life with nary a backward glance.
    â€œYou must be mistaken,” she replied stiffly. “He chose to stay away.”
    â€œMaybe so. Maybe he felt he was the one who wasn’t wanted. All I know for certain is that he missed you. Frankly, it didn’t make a damn bit of sense to me. I’d have written the two of you off years before, but not Scottie. He’d read those skimpy letters you wrote with tears in his eyes. He’d read them over and over. The latest one was always tucked in his pocket and the latest picture of you was always up on the bulletin board in his office. No matter where we were, it was the first thing to go up.”
    His gaze pierced her. “Why the hell didn’t you ever come?”
    She trembled with outrage at that accusing look. How dare he question her relationship with Scottie? She’d been a child, subject to the whims of two adults, each of whom had apparently been determined to have their own way.
    â€œDammit, I was a little girl. Was I supposed to hop on a plane and take off to be with a man I didn’t even know wanted me? It was his choice that we stay behind and make a home for him. Not that he was ever there,” she said bitterly. “I can’t tell you the birthdays he missed or how many Christmas mornings all I had to remind me of my father was a gift under the tree.” She gave him a penetrating look. “Why does this matter so much to you? Scottie was just your boss.”
    â€œNo,” he said softly. “He was the father I never had. Oh, I know he wasn’t really old enough to be my father, but he was far, far wiser than the green kid I was. My own father could never spare me the time of day. Scottie talked to me by the hour. We sat around bars together, just passing the time. Hell, we even went fishing together. He was gentle and kind and patient. I hated sitting by and watching what the two of you were doing to him. He didn’t deserve it. He had a right to your loyalty and love.”
    There was so much anguish in his voice that Cara couldn’t doubt his sincerity. That pain was hauntingly familiar. It was a reflection of her own. How odd that a man who’d never seemed much of a father to her until she was fifteen had provided exactly that sort of loving guidance for Rod. It did nothing to ease the instinctive jealousy she’d felt for Rod even before they met.
    Now, though, a million unanswered questions raged through her mind. What Rod was telling her cast her entire childhood—and her mother’s air of martyrdom—in an entirely new light. She and Scottie had made a life for themselves in the dozen years since he’d come home. At first, struggling with her mother’s death, she’d been so grateful for his presence she’d avoided asking him why he hadn’t come years earlier. Lately it hadn’t seemed to matter. She was only just beginning to realize that it had mattered desperately all along, that she hadn’t broached the subject because she feared the answers.
    â€œI did love Scottie. As for what you’re telling me now, I don’t know whose fault it was that things were the way they were between my parents,” she said softly, filled with sorrow and an odd sense of relief. With the relief came joy. Rod had given her that. He had given her back an image of her father she’d wanted to believe in. Her father had cared after all. Even then, when he’d been so far away.
    â€œMaybe it was my mother’s choice to stay behind,” she said finally. “She never said, and neither has Scottie. There was that much loyalty, at least. There were no accusations, no attempts to make me choose sides.”
    â€œIt must have been a hell