Sea Glass Island (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,54
children. We were both content with it.”
“You didn’t feel as if she’d tied your hands, kept you away from making huge breakthroughs that might have come if you’d been working with researchers at Sloan-Kettering or Johns Hopkins or Harvard?”
“Teamwork?” He gave her a wry look. “I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m not so good at dealing with people.”
“But you run a major biomedical research company.”
He laughed. “Other people run it. I’m smart enough to let them. My name may be on the big office, but mostly I stick with what I do best—research.”
“But Mom was such a people person,” she remembered. “You must have driven her crazy.”
“At times,” he agreed readily. “Especially when I’d miss a party because I was caught up in something at work. How your mother managed to look beyond all those times I let her down and love me anyway is a mystery. I’m thankful every day of my life that she did, though. Not many women would have put up with me, no question about it. I keep hoping that I’ll figure out how to get it right with you girls after all this time, too.”
“You’ve made a great start,” Samantha acknowledged. “Stepping up to pay for Emily’s wedding, at least pretending to be interested in the details.”
He gave her a wry look. “Never knew I could fake anything the way I have listening to her and your grandmother go on and on about flowers and food, though.”
“It’s been an admirable performance, all right. And the way you stood by Gabi when you found out she was pregnant,” she added. “You were a great dad then.”
He gave her a long, sad look. “Haven’t done so well by you, though, have I?”
“I haven’t hit any major roadblocks, thank goodness.”
“Not even with your career?” he asked carefully. “Isn’t that why you were asking me about whether I’d ever had doubts about mine?”
She regarded him with surprise. “Who knew you were so insightful? I never expected you to get that.”
“My goal is to keep surprising all of you,” he said, a rare teasing note in his voice. “So, is everything going the way you want it to? I have a clipping service, you know. They send me any items about you that appear in the New York papers. Seems as if there haven’t been too many recently.”
“You hired a clipping service?” she asked, stunned.
“Your mom kept up with any reviews or mentions, but after she died, it seemed like the best way to see for myself what you were up to. I probably haven’t said it nearly often enough, but I’m proud of you, Samantha.”
He’d nearly left her speechless. “Thank you,” she murmured, fighting tears.
“So, how are things?”
“Not so great, as a matter of fact. I just can’t figure out if it’s time to throw in the towel.”
“The time to quit anything is when you no longer feel the same passion for it,” he said. “There are people who work because they know they need the money, and there are people whose very soul depends on doing the kind of work they’ve chosen.”
“That’s how I felt about acting,” Samantha said.
“Past tense,” he noted.
She drew in a deep breath, then nodded. “Past tense. I want more. I just don’t know exactly what.”
“You’ll figure it out,” he said with confidence. “You know how I know that? Because of the way you made the decision to go to New York. Everyone thinks that Gabi and Emily are the orderly, focused, ambitious ones in the family, but you set the example.”
“I did?”
“You bet. When your mother and I challenged how you were going to make it in such a risky profession, especially since you were determined to choose it in lieu of college, you organized facts and figures. You came to us with a plan, a timetable, financial prospects. You left us without a single doubt that you’d be okay if we’d just back you for one year.”
Samantha had forgotten how sure she’d been of herself back then. She’d known she was talented. She’d believed she’d make it, despite all the odds stacked against her in a tough, competitive world. Now she no longer had that faith or that drive. It was time, she concluded, to quit.
Could she come back here, though, without an equally solid plan? She couldn’t base such a decision on things working out with Ethan. They might not. This decision had to be about her, what she wanted for her future.