Rush Too Far - Rosemary Beach #4 - Abbi Glines Page 0,1
Nan’s life. The man who didn’t come to see her. The man whose blood ran through her veins yet didn’t love her enough even to send a birthday card. He had his own family now. Nan had been to see them once.
She had forced Mom to take her to his house. She wanted to talk to him. See his face. She just knew he would love her. I think, deep down, she thought Mom hadn’t told him about her. She had this fairy tale in her head that her father would realize she existed and swoop in and save her. Give her the love she so desperately sought.
His house had been smaller than ours. Much smaller. It was seven hours away in a small country town in Alabama. Nan had said it was perfect. Mom had called it pathetic. It hadn’t been the house, though, that haunted Nan. Not the small white picket fence that she described to me in detail. Or the basketball hoop outside and the bicycles leaning against the garage door.
It had been the girl who opened the door. She’d had long blond hair, almost white. She had reminded Nan of a princess. Except that she’d been wearing tennis shoes with dirt on them. Nan had never owned a pair of tennis shoes or been near dirt. The girl had smiled at her, and Nan had been momentarily enchanted. Then she’d seen the pictures on the wall behind the girl. Pictures of this girl and another girl just like this one. And a man holding both their hands. He was smiling and laughing.
He was their father.
This was one of the two daughters he loved. It had been obvious, even to Nan’s young eyes, that he was happy in those photos. He wasn’t missing the child he had left behind. The one her mother kept telling her he knew about.
All those things our mother had tried to tell her over the years that she had refused to believe suddenly fell into place. She had been telling the truth. Nan’s father hadn’t wanted her, because he had this life. These two beautiful, angelic daughters and a wife who looked so much like them.
Those photos on the wall had tortured Nan for years afterward. Again, I wanted to hate my mother for taking her there. For shoving the truth in her face. At least when Nan had lived in her fairy tale, she had been happier, but her innocence was lost that day. And my hate for her father and his family began to grow inside me.
They had taken from my little sister the life she deserved, a father who could love her. Those girls didn’t deserve him more than Nan did. That woman he was married to used her beauty and those girls to keep him from Nan. I hated them all.
I eventually acted on that hate, but the story really starts the night Blaire Wynn walked into my house with a nervous frown and the fucking face of an angel. My worst nightmare . . .
I had told Nan I didn’t want people over that night, but she’d invited them anyway. My little sister didn’t take no for an answer ever. Leaning back on the couch, I stretched my legs out in front of me and took a drink of my beer. I needed to hang around here long enough to make sure things weren’t going to get out of hand. Nan’s friends were younger than mine. They got a little rowdy sometimes. But I put up with it because it made her happy.
Mom running off to fucking Paris with her new husband, Nan’s still-inattentive father, hadn’t helped Nan’s mood lately. This was all I could think of to cheer her up. For once in her life, I wished my mother would think of someone other than herself.
“Rush, meet Blaire. I believe she might belong to you. I found her outside looking a little lost.” Grant’s voice broke into my thoughts. I looked up at my stepbrother and then at the girl standing beside him. I’d seen that face before. It was older, but I recognized it.
Shit.
She was one of them. I hadn’t known their names, but I’d remembered there were two of them. This one was . . . Blaire. I cut my eyes toward Nan to see her standing not too far away with a scowl on her face. This wasn’t going to be good. Did Grant not realize who this girl was?