Good Enough (Meet Me in Montana #3) - Kelly Elliott Page 0,128
kept going. “That was how it was with Lynn, my wife. I knew the moment I saw her I was going to marry her. I wasn’t even looking for someone to be in a relationship with. There was something so wonderful about her. I see the same thing in Timberlynn, so I’m not surprised you fell like you did.”
“She’s pretty amazing.”
He nodded and stared straight ahead before he spoke again. “She reminds me so much of her mother. Looks just like her. After her mother died, I got so lost in myself. I tried so hard to be there for Timberlynn. I kept her close to me right after the accident. Then one day she was on a swing, and she fell and got hurt. I remember standing there, looking at the blood coming from her knee, and I was transported back to the day her mother died.”
He turned and faced me, a look of sadness etched on his face that made my own chest hurt for him. “Everything changed that day, and by the time I realized I had pushed my own daughter away, it was too late. I didn’t know how to reach out to her.”
“I don’t think it is too late. She loves you, and I know she desperately wants you in her life. I honestly don’t think either one of you know how to have a relationship with each other.”
He cleared his throat and looked at me. “I’m certainly not earning any bonus points lately. Did she tell you I bought the property she wanted and then sold it?”
“Yes, she was pretty angry about it.”
“Don’t blame her,” he said with a sigh. “It was a pretty dick move on my part. I panicked when I found out she had left Atlanta. I haven’t been there for her a whole lot since we lost her mother. I thought by keeping her at a safe distance, I was saving us both from any potential hurt. Then the day after she turned twenty-four, I was in a meeting with some doctors and lawyers from a pharmaceutical company, and I glanced down at the date. I’d forgotten my only daughter’s birthday. Forgotten it. Then I got the notice she’d gotten her trust and found out she was buying that property the Covey family had for sale. In a span of thirty minutes I found out my daughter had quit her job and left the state. I was so pissed off that I didn’t dare call or text her. Then one day turned into a week, then two, and then I wasn’t even sure what to say to her. Looking back now, of course, I know it was the wrong thing to do.”
“With all due respect, I don’t think it was.”
Frank looked at me with a confused look. “You don’t?”
“No,” I said with a smile. “If you hadn’t bought it out from under her, then I wouldn’t have bought the lake house from my parents, and Timberlynn wouldn’t be living with me. She wouldn’t be working with a rescue horse right now, and I wouldn’t be working alongside her.”
Frank nodded. “I like you, Tanner. I like your family as well. I see why Timberlynn has fallen in love with Montana. I feel…different here. More at ease, and it’s the first time that I don’t feel guilty for feeling happy.”
“Why on Earth would you feel guilty for being happy?”
The horses walked on as Frank and I rode in silence. I could see he was working through some emotions, so I waited for him to speak when he was ready.
“Timberlynn doesn’t know this, but she was a bit of a miracle child. Lynn, my wife, was told she couldn’t have kids. When we ended up getting pregnant with Timberlynn, I had never seen her so happy. She loved that little girl so much. Prayed for years for her, and cried so much when she found out she was pregnant. When she died, I couldn’t understand why God would do something like that. My wife should have been there for every moment of Timberlynn’s life. The guilt I felt was, at times, almost too much for me to handle.”
“Is that part of the reason you stayed away from her? She told me you never came to any of her events, no school functions. Nothing.”
He cleared his throat and quickly wiped a tear away. “Yes, that is part of the reason. And because of the guilt. I caused the accident.”