We were heading back to the pool when Malinda stopped us as we crossed the lobby. “Hi, Becky, honey.” She touched my hand, still beaming at Becky. “Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I’m so happy for you and Adam.” She looked at me. “Sam, can I have a minute with you?”
“Uh, sure.”
Becky hugged Malinda before she went back outside, and my stepmother pulled me in the opposite direction Becky and I had just come from.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer, just increased her pace. She wound back outside, but we took a hidden path behind the pool. Palm trees and shrubbery blocked us from view. I heard raised voices, but couldn’t place them until we rounded a corner.
Standing in a small group outside an entrance to the country club’s tennis courts, with a bunch of golf carts behind them, were James Kade, Steven Quinn, Adam, and Mason. There was no sign of Matteo or Nate.
I leaned forward. “What’s going on?”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and whispered. “Your father is coming to help with the situation, but I thought it was a good idea to have a woman present. I can’t stay. I have to get back to the party or someone will start wondering if something’s wrong.” And on that note, she pressed a kiss to my forehead, then hurried back.
I approached, hearing Mr. Quinn yell, “It’s my son’s engagement party. I can enter if I want to.”
Oh, goodness. He was drunk. He flung an arm in the air and would’ve hit Mason if he hadn’t ducked. Instead, Mason caught it, twisting it around Adam’s dad’s back and pulling it tight.
Ignoring Mr. Quinn’s yelp of pain, he said quietly, “All of Adam’s friends are celebrating over there, and yes, it’s your son’s party, but you’re drunk, sir. I don’t think you want their memory of Adam’s party to be about your drunken antics. Or do you?”
He bucked against Mason’s hold. “You’re just jealous. Your future’s been mapped out since before you were born, and you can’t stand how happy Adam is.”
I didn’t move closer. I wasn’t sure if I was the best female presence for this job.
Mason shot Adam, who looked exasperated, a dubious look.
“Dad.” Adam reached out, touching his dad’s shoulder. “That’s not the case, and you know it. Yes, I’m very happy with Becky, but Mason’s happy with Samantha.”
“Samantha.” Mr. Quinn gurgled out my name. “That’s the girl, Adam. You should’ve been with her. I like your little Becky, but she doesn’t have the breeding Sam Strattan does.”
I wasn’t hearing this. There was no way.
“Dad!” Adam barked out.
Mason’s eyes took on a murderous glint, but he didn’t say anything. He continued to hold Mr. Quinn’s arm behind his back.
“Steven,” James waded in. “You had too much whiskey playing golf. Let your son call a car for you and go home. Sleep this off.”
“Oh, yes. Breeding.” Mr. Quinn’s smile turned into a leer. “You know what I’m talking about, James. I bet she’s like Analise in the sack—”
No. No. No.
I was rooted in place. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t even lift my hand to cover my ears. So I closed my eyes.
“Steven!” James yelled.
“Dad!” Adam screamed at the same time.
“Hot…writhing…” Quinn’s tone was warm, gushing, and I felt sick again. He kept going. “She can buck you like a wild mustang, if you know what I me—”
My eyes flew open as I heard a punch.
Quinn would’ve fallen if Mason hadn’t been holding him up. After a second punch from James, Mason let go. Adam grabbed his father, and Mason moved to shove his own father back.
“Dad,” he said. “Stop.”
“When did you sleep with her?” James strained against Mason’s hold. “When?!”
Quinn looked oddly calm. He wiped his mouth and looked at the blood on his hand. Then he laughed. “Wow. I can’t believe—James, you punched me.”
“When did you sleep with Analise?”
Adam held his dad back, but he didn’t need to. Steven Quinn wasn’t moving. Adam looked over his shoulder, his eyes closed in pain at James’ question.
“Not when she was with you,” Quinn said.
I heard another set of footsteps behind me. I knew those steps. I’d been listening to them all my life, and I reached out when the man who raised me drew near.
“Dad,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper. “Don’t.”
“It was when she was with Strattan,” Steven continued. “She was with almost all of us. You had to have known, James.”
James was shaking. If Mason hadn’t been holding him back, he would’ve been on Adam’s dad again. Adam and Mason looked strained and tense, alert for any other attacks. No one was paying my dad or me any attention.
“I don’t care if it was when she was with David. You don’t talk about her like that!” James yelled.
My dad turned and left, as silently as he’d come.
I looked back, and Mason met my gaze. When he saw David’s retreating back, he nodded. That was all the permission I needed. I hightailed it out of there, hurrying after my dad. I ran across Nate on my way, and ignoring what he started to say, I pointed to where I’d come from.
“Mason needs your help. I gotta handle something of my own.”
“But—”
I was already gone.
I found my dad in the parking lot, weaving through the vehicles to find his. He wasn’t even waiting for the valet. “Dad! Wait.”
He was close to his truck when he turned around, keys in his hand. “Honey, I’m okay.”
I searched his face, unsure if that was true or not. I saw some strain, but for the most part, he looked like his usual loving self.
I swallowed a knot in my throat. “Are you sure?”
“I made my peace with what your mother did long ago. I left because that fight isn’t mine anymore. Whatever Analise did in the past, it’s in the past. I have you, and I have Malinda. That’s all I need.”
“And Mark.”
“And Mark.” He nodded. “You’re right. I’m proud to have him as a son.”
David Strattan wasn’t my biological father, but he was my dad in every other sense of the word. I realized now that neither of his children was biological.
I frowned. “Dad…” Could I ask what I wanted to ask? Was it even my business?
“Sam?”
“Can Malinda still have children?”
“Oh, Sam.” He pulled me in for a hug. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t need children of my own. Your stepmom and I have talked about children, but if we decided to have them, we wouldn’t go the biological route. We’d adopt. She went through menopause early. She can’t have any more children.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “It’s not for you to worry about. It’s not even for you to think about. There was a time I wanted my own child, but I had you, and those were the days when I worried whether Analise would even let me keep you as a daughter. You were enough for me. Then I was lucky and got Malinda and Mark, too. I have a daughter and a son, and two more stepchildren with Mason and Logan—four if you count Nate and Matteo. I’m very blessed.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.” He hugged me again. “You should go make sure Mason’s okay. Steven’s a nasty drunk. I have no doubt he’ll start ribbing Mason about you. That’s what he does. He searches for a person’s weakness and pushes on it. He already knows Mason and James’ weaknesses: the women they love. That was another reason I left. If Quinn had started in about you, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“Oh.” Well, fuck. New alarms sounded in me. “Yeah, I should head back then.”
But when I got there, the two fathers were gone. Adam and Mason remained, and Nate right next to them.
I approached, unsure if I was still needed. “Everything okay now?”
“Sam.” Adam’s chest rose with his head. The regret in his eyes mixed with anger. “I’m sorry for what my dad said. I didn’t know you heard any of that until Nate came out, but he was drunk. No. That’s no excuse. He… I know you think I was coming at you guys earlier, but I wasn’t.”
“Jeff said you’re going into politics,” I said.
“I’m hoping, but with my dad how he is…” He motioned in the direction Steven Quinn must’ve gone. “I don’t know if that’s a possibility. I’m getting ready to take over the family company if he doesn’t stop drinking, and you never know. Maybe he’ll end up going to rehab, too.” His eyebrows pushed together. “Where’s the one your mom went to again? We might need a good referral.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Hmmm?” His head tilted. With his hands in his pockets, his body half-turned away from me, it came off like he was distracted.
Was he? Was that why he was asking for the wrong information?
“My mom wasn’t a drunk. Is that what you think?”
“I’m sorry. What?” He turned to face me, his hands still in his pockets.
Adam knew my mom wasn’t a drunk. I said, “You just asked where my mom went to rehab, like your father would go there for his drinking.” I waited. Would he realize his mistake? “You were there, Adam. I talked to you about her. I confided in you.”
And I waited.
Then I saw it. Realization filtered over his face, followed by regret, and then sympathy. “Sam, I’m so—”
I waved that off, shaking my head. “Sorry. I know. I heard you. My mom wasn’t a drunk and a junkie. She wasn’t an addict at all. She has a mental disorder, and she went to intensive therapy for it. I could tell you where she went, but I don’t think that’s where you’d want to send your dad, if you’re actually going to send him somewhere.”
I’d had enough. Things were fine here. Adam was off in his own head, plotting or planning something. I wasn’t sure why Mason and Nate were still here, but I didn’t care. I started to head back. I needed to hug Becky one more time, and then I was ready to leave.
“I wasn’t lying about my dad.”
Adam’s voice stopped me. I turned around again.
“And I do remember your mom,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m distracted right now because I do want to go to law school and into politics. I don’t want to stay here and take over my dad’s company, so right now when I asked about the wrong type of rehab, I was wondering if somehow my mom could take over instead. Or one of my sisters. Would that be fair to even ask that? Molly is the next oldest, but she’s just graduating high school. I don’t think that’s a fair burden to place on her shoulders. And then I wondered if that would affect Becky’s decision to marry me. If she’d be okay if we stayed in Fallen Crest for the rest of our lives, if she truly said yes to me because she loves me.”
Stark pain looked back at me.
“So please take my apology because I do mean it,” he finished.
I jerked my head in a stiff nod. I didn’t trust him regarding Becky, but I could recognize another child in pain over a parent. “Becky agreed to marry you. She doesn’t care what you end up doing. Believe that.”
“Thank you, Sam. I will.”
As I turned to go, I heard a voice I hadn’t heard for almost two weeks.
“Uh, yeah…”
I was already starting to smile.
Logan came around the back entrance, hand in hand with Taylor. He pointed behind him. “Just saw Dad helping this asshole’s pops into the car, and they both reeked of booze.” He dropped Taylor’s hand and held up his arms. “Come to me, my big brother. The better-looking Kade is back in town!”
My family was back together again.