Ryder muttered, his own fisting inside his pockets. “You know, being neither blind nor gay, I was pretty aware of Mel’s … assets, too. Assets she didn’t flaunt any more than any other girl her age. Less, in fact, than most. That bathing suit—sure, it showed off her curves, but we’re not talking a string bikini, for heaven’s sake.” Ryder glowered at his mother. “Yeah, I know Jeremy. But I would’ve thought …”
His mother stood. “You can’t lay this whole thing at his feet, Ryder. Even though I know you’d love to do that. I never did understand why the two of you never got along, which is one reason we decided it was better to keep this from you. Because I knew how much it would hurt you, that Mel …” At Ryder’s glare, Lorraine pressed her lips together, shaking her head.
“However, I refused to let one mistake derail Jeremy’s plans. Not after he’d had to work so hard to get into Columbia. So we struck a deal—one Maureen agreed to, by the way—that in exchange for our financial support they’d leave St. Mary’s for good and we’d never speak of any of this again.”
As livid as he was, Ryder felt his eyes narrow. Something was off. Not so much what his mother was saying but how she was saying it. But right now he just wanted the facts.
“So it never occurred to you to make Jeremy own up to his part in this?”
“At eighteen? What on earth was he supposed to do?”
“And Mel was sixteen. Something tells me she definitely got the short end of the stick—”
“I tried to make her see reason!” his mother said, and he caught the flash of desperation in her eyes. “To explore her … options, but she was having none of it. She insisted on having, and keeping, the baby, although for the life of me I never understood why. That was her choice, Ryder. Our choice—”
“Was to let my brother off the hook by sweeping the whole thing under the rug?”
“There’s a trust fund for the child. And we sent enough money through the years so they were never in any danger of starving. We honored our obligations, believe me. In the way we best saw fit. Your sister-in-law has no idea, by the way. And we’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her. It could ruin their marriage. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want that on your conscience.”
Ryder smirked: although the news had gobsmacked him, nothing coming out of his mother’s mouth now surprised him in the least. To say Lorraine Caldwell was a control freak didn’t even begin to cover it. As far back as Ryder could remember his mother had ruled the household—in her childhood home, the estate having belonged to her surgeon father, her D.C.-socialite mother, long before she’d married the gentle GP who’d stolen her heart, as lore would have it, that summer when she was nineteen. As far as Ryder could tell she’d been Daddy’s spoiled little princess who’d seen no reason to change her modus operandi—as in, always getting her way—when she grew up. That she still seemed to have his father, as she’d had her own, so tightly wound around her little finger was a mystery he doubted he’d ever solve.
Except Ryder now looked to his father, seeing for the first time in David’s chagrined, embarrassed expression the older man’s constant acquiescence to his mother’s whims for what it was—weakness, pure and simple. For God’s sake, grow a pair! he wanted to shout, even as his heart cracked a little more, that the man he’d so wanted to believe in, look up to, apparently didn’t really exist. For his dedication to his work, his patients, Ryder would always admire him. But respect him as a man? As someone he could count on to do the right thing?
Not so much.
Disheartened, he thought back to that silent promise he’d made to that chubby, bald, two-day-old baby, to look out for her. Protect her. Only he’d no idea at the time it would be his own family he’d have to protect her from. Or at the very least, try to undo ten years’ worth of damage.
“No,” he said to his mother. “I swear I won’t breathe a word to Caroline. That’s not my place, it’s Jeremy’s. Whose conscience, frankly, could use a good swift kick in the ass. But whatever. However, now that I know I have a niece, you better believe she’s going to know at least one member of this family gives a damn about her.”
“And what if Mel isn’t on board with that idea?”
He looked from one to the other. “That’s between Mel and me. Because you two officially have nothing more to say about it.”
Chapter Two
All that food in the house, and Mel and Quinn both decided they’d rather have stir-fry. Go figure. But at least by the time they finished shopping at the only decent supermarket in town, she’d stopped looking over her shoulder, convinced Ryder—or worse, one of his parents—was going to appear at the end of every aisle. She’d driven by the clinic, seen his name beside his father’s; a quick Google search on her phone revealed that Jeremy was a junior partner at some hot-shot law firm in New York.
“Hey, Virginia plates,” Quinn said as Mel’s headlights stabbed at the weather-and-time ravaged house, as well as the late model Lexus parked in the driveway. The rain had finally let up, although it had turned bone-chillingly cold. Welcome to early fall on the Eastern Shore. “Whose car is that?”
“I’m gonna guess April’s,” Mel said, all bittersweet ache at the prospect of seeing her cousin again after more than a decade. She and April had chatted briefly the day before, but only long enough to coordinate their schedules. And unleash a boatload of memories.
And laughter.
We were happy here, Mel thought on a smile, even as the backs of her sinuses twinged. She’d been happy here, during those summers when Amelia called enough of a truce with Mel’s mother to allow Mel to hang out in the rambling old house with her close-in-age cousins. Summer sisters, they’d called themselves—
“Ohmigosh! There you are!”
In a flippy little plaid skirt and coordinating cardigan, April—still tiny and bubbly and strawberry blonde—burst out of the front door and down the steps before they’d even climbed out of the Honda, where she grabbed Mel in a hug hard enough to do damage, then let go to fan her now tear-streaked face.
“Honest to Pete,” Mel said, laughing, digging in her gargantuan purse for a pack of tissues which she handed to her cousin. “Still?”
“I know, I know, I’m terrible!” Gal always had cried at the drop of a hat. “But I can’t help it, it’s just so good to see you … wait,” she said, her soggy gaze turning to Quinn, standing off to one side. “Oh, my word—is that your little girl?”
“Little girl?” Mel said, pretending to look shocked. “What little girl? For heaven’s sake, she must’ve crawled in the backseat while I was at the store—”
“Mo-om, geez,” Quinn said. Rolling her eyes. Then she extended her hand to April. “I’m Quinn. The sane one—”
“Don’t you go giving me your hand—come here, sugar,” April said, hauling Quinn into her arms, and Mel’s own eyes watered. Yes, April had cried more than ten girls put together, but this was what Mel remembered most about her cousin, that she loved more than any human being she’d ever known. That her tenderheartedness was only surpassed by an unfeigned generosity that put most people to shame.
Then
