to kidnap him? Is that what was going on at the Christmas festival?”
Tina looked at her, shocked. “What? Of course not! I told you what happened. He had a stomachache.”
“Well, excuse me if your words fall flat for me. It isn’t exactly like you’ve been honest with us from the beginning.”
Tina took in a breath and then blew it out slowly. “Look, I didn’t come here to interfere. I wasn’t going to tell Dylan that I was his mother…”
“I am his mother.”
Tina nodded. “In every way that counts, you’re his mother. But I wasn’t going to tell him that I gave birth to him. I never intended to hurt anyone. I just wanted to see that he was happy, and I can easily see that.”
“We invited you here because we thought you were just some random person down on her luck. We didn’t want you to spend the holidays alone. And this is how you repay us?”
“Dylan’s father was a very abusive man. As far as I know, he wasn’t abusive with Dylan, but he was very violent with me. We had only been dating about three months when I got pregnant. He regularly hit me, pushed me down the stairs. One time, I thought I’d lost Dylan. I knew I could never raise him in that environment.”
“And yet you left him there.”
“In the end, I did. And I regret it every day of my life. I was young and stupid and scared. I had no family really to go to, and I had my own problems. I turned to drugs and alcohol after I gave birth because I couldn’t handle living with a violent man.”
“How in the world could you choose drugs over your child? And then leave him with a supposed abuser?”
“Look, I know you don’t understand because you’ve never lived through anything like that. But my mind wasn’t right at that time. And he threatened me. He told me if I took Dylan with me, he would find us both and he would hurt me. And I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have any way to get an attorney.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me all of this.”
“Because I want you to understand why I never went back for Dylan. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it out alive. I had no idea that my ex had gotten into drugs as well. But when I heard through the grapevine that he died, I came looking for my son. And then I learned that he’d been adopted.”
“And how did you find us?”
“I guess maybe it’s one of the detriments of being a small town. I just did some asking around about foster care opportunities. Before I knew it, I was able to find out about the camp you held, and then someone told me that the people who run the camp adopted one of the kids. It wasn’t an accident that I walked into the bookstore that day.“
“I can’t believe what a liar you are. You really had us fooled. What do you want us to do now?”
“Nothing. I never wanted anything but to see that my son was okay because I have worried about him every day of my life. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me or make me a member of your family, but I want you to know that I am going to thank God every day for giving him you and Dawson as parents.”
“Have you told Dylan who you are?”
She shook her head. “No. And I don’t think we should. It would only confuse him and make him feel pulled between two mothers. He already has the best mother, and I don’t want to ever take that away from him.”
“So now what?”
“Now, I leave. I spent Christmas with my son,” she said, smiling. “There’s nothing that could ever top that.”
She started walking toward the inn.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my things. I think it’s time for me to go.”
Julie sighed. “Tina?”
“Yeah?”
Julie had calmed down, although she was still pretty angry. She could feel that Tina’s words were coming from a good place, that she had been worried about her son for years, and this had been her only way of checking on him. What would she have done in a similar situation? Would she have lied to get close to her child, even if for just a little while? Probably.
“What are you going to do with your life now?”
“I don’t know. But I feel a weight has been lifted from me that has been there for a long time. I’m not sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do, but I will carry this Christmas with me forever.”
“I’d like to give you a little money to get you started in a new life.”
Tina stared at her. “Why would you want to do that? After everything I’ve done?”
Julie walked toward her. “Because my son would want me to do that.”
* * *
As Tina pulled away in her little beat-up car, Dawson put his arm around Julie. They stood on the front porch of their home, Dylan happily playing on the floor in the living room behind them.
“I have to say you’re very forgiving,” Dawson said.
“Oh, forgiveness will take me a while. But I can’t blame her. I might’ve done the same thing if I were in her circumstances.”
“Well, I hope she takes that money and starts a better life for herself.”
“Me too.”
They turned around and looked through the open front door at Dylan building some kind of superhero play set.
“No matter what happened, I think this has been our best Christmas yet.”
Julie looked up at him. “And we have so many more wonderful Christmases to come.”
Ready to pre-order the next book in this series? CLICK HERE to reserve your copy!
Have you read my Sweet Tea B&B series? If not, get started by clicking HERE.
I also have another beach series called January Cove. That series has over TEN books! Start at book 1 by clicking HERE!
Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Hanna
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.