Chapter Twenty-One

Fiona

I sat in bed and stared at my laptop screen, looking at Shane’s handsome face giving an interview. It wasn’t live. Someone had uploaded this clip, and a lot of the news websites had linked to it. The articles had explained Perkins Enterprises’ new charitable foundation but I had to see Shane announce it for myself.

I turned up the volume as high as it would go when he brought up The Ruth Hall Foundation for Brain Cancer Research. I sat stunned at the name, and my heart pounded in my chest. Not only had he started a charity for cancer research, but he’d named it in honor of my mother.

Tears poured down my cheeks as all this struck home. It was an amazing tribute to an amazing woman, but I never expected anything like this to happen, especially from Shane. Just when I thought I had him figured out, at least a little bit, he threw me another curve ball.

My sobs drowned out the rest of the interview. I kept replaying the clip over and over, but every time I did, the waterworks started again, and I had to go back to the beginning.

Finally, I was able to get through the announcement without crying but the rest of the interview surprised me just as much as the first part. Shane went on to publicly denounce his father’s business practices. My jaw dropped to the floor when he said that.

I leaned back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to process everything Shane had said. He was clearly determined to atone for the company’s past mistakes after learning what happened to my father’s business and my family.

And he obviously cared about me. He wouldn’t make a grand gesture like this without having at least some feelings for me. But then why did the rest of his actions seem so confusing?

He left, for crying out loud. Phone sex couldn’t exactly keep us going long-term, and the more I thought about it, the more I was starting to realize that. To add icing to the already deflating cake, he was Shane freaking Perkins.

I’d forgiven him for lying, sure. But I harbored lingering feelings of guilt for getting to know Shane when my father hated him for who his father was.

On that note, I decided it was time to talk to my dad. I trusted his opinion, and I wanted to get his take on what to make of the foundation.

I called ahead but my father didn’t answer. I burst into his house like a bat out of hell and found him lounging on his sofa, watching the game.

He looked mildly surprised to see me, carefully surveying how wild I must have looked, and he hit the mute button on the television before rising to pull me into a tight hug.

“Sweetheart, what brings you here?”

I buried my face in the crook of his neck and let his familiar scent comfort me. After a few deep breaths, I was still feeling amped up but I’d calmed down enough to talk. Not enough to sit down, though.

Instead, I paced the length of my father’s living room, and he quietly waited for me to vent.

“Did you hear about the foundation that Shane started?”

He looked at me, a little stunned and shook his head.

“He started a foundation for cancer research in Mom’s name,” I began. “Then he personally donated ten million dollars to it. Can you believe that?”

To my great and everlasting surprise, he nodded but didn’t say anything just yet.

“I have no idea what to think about this, Daddy. I mean, he’s a Perkins. His family ran you out of business, and now he’s running around, opening charities in our family name and throwing money at them?”

It was a rhetorical question, and he clearly knew it because he let me keep venting without saying a word. He simply nodded every now and then and followed my every move with his keen eyes.

“I’ve forgiven him for lying to us about who he was, and I’m over that. I understand why he did it now, but I still can’t get over who he is. Where would our family have been if it wasn’t for his? Would we even have been in Mystic? Would we still have been in Texas?”

I kept on ranting. “The Perkins family completely and irrevocably altered the course of our lives. How could I get involved with one of them?” I moaned and covered my eyes with the heels of my hands, finally standing still. “Why did I get involved with him in the first place? You hate him, even if it is by association. I can’t believe that I did that to you.”

My dad hesitated, then walked up to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading me to the sofa. “Sit down, baby.”

I did as he asked, still too embarrassed and confused to sit completely still. I drummed my fingers on my thighs and bounced my right leg. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I should never have done this to you.”

My father dropped down to his haunches in front of me, gently taking my hands in his. “You didn’t do anything to me, Fiona.”

“That’s not true.”

A rueful smile played on my dad’s lips, stopping me from continuing.

“You know, I’ve never seen you quite so passionate about anything,” he remarked, heaving himself onto his side of the sofa since I’d stopped bouncing.

“What?” I asked. I’d been thinking that I couldn’t possibly feel more confused. I’d been wrong.

A faraway look appeared in my father’s eyes, and they became slightly glassy. I wasn’t sure if it was from memories or from tears that were threatening to spill. “You remind me so much of your mother sometimes.”

Tears and memories, then. It made tears jump to my eyes, too. My voice cracked with emotion. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“When she was younger, your mother used to do the exact same thing when she was passionate about something. She would rant and rave and vent for hours on end. Watching you just now was exactly like watching her, though I never watched her do it over another man.” He winked playfully at me as he said the last sentence.

“I’d hope so,” I breathed.

He released a genuine chuckle, a fond smile lighting up his face as he remembered. “Yeah, I sat through her vents on just about everything else, though. It was because of her that I became passionate about sustainable energy and why I passed that passion on to you.”

He’d never told me that. A tear escaped from the corner of my eye as he continued, “She was a hell of a woman, your mom. I loved her with everything that I had in me. I still do.”

I hadn’t seen my dad looking that wistful in forever, if ever. He turned his eyes back to me. “Did she ever tell you that she claimed to have known that she was going to marry me the second that she laid eyes on me?”

I shook my head, my eyes wide as I waited for him to gather his thoughts. I hated sometimes that there was so much that I’d never learned from my mother, that so much of who she was had to be learned from my father’s memories. I was lucky that he had the memory of an elephant when it came to her.

“She believed that something clicked into place when you met your soulmate, like the universe would pull you toward that person, no matter what, and that as soon as you met—” He snapped his fingers. “—click.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is… I wonder if Shane isn’t that person for you. The way you’re raving, it certainly looks that way.” My dad didn’t look angry or resentful. If anything, he looked at peace as he said the words I never thought that I’d hear him say.

I could do nothing but gape at him for several long seconds. “Are you serious right now?”

He nodded as if he was deep in thought, then met my eyes again. “I am. I think you’re in love with him. Are you?”

I felt like someone had dunked a bucket full of icy water over my head. As if my mind was emerging from a haze, I realized that, while the idea was laughable this early in a relationship, it might just be true.

I had no choice but to answer honestly. “I don’t know.”

“Well, only you can answer that for sure, but I want you to know that I won’t stand in the way if that pull toward him exists for you.”

It did. I was stunned.

“But he’s a Perkins,” I blurted out stubbornly.

My dad let out a low laugh. “He is, but that doesn’t change the way that you feel about him, sweetie. The heart wants what it wants.”

“Even him?” I asked hesitantly. “What about you? And what Mr. Perkins did to you?”

“Even him,” he replied confidently. “The truth is that what Mr. Perkins did might have been unethical under the circumstances, but he was a businessman who saw the opportunity to make more money by using cheaper suppliers in the procurement process. If he’d given us notice, it wouldn’t even have been unethical, and it would’ve had the same result.”

“So?” My head was spinning by this point in time. It was just so much to take in.

“Business is always going to be a tough world, Fiona. Choosing suppliers is always going to be the prerogative of the customer, and if they choose to let you go, it’s sink or swim. Just like the decision often is for them.”

“You hate them, though,” I whispered, wiping a stray tear from my eyes.

“I used to hate them. You know that I’ve been working at that. Any resentment that I still harbor is aimed at Mr. Perkins, not at Shane. He was a kid when his dad made those decisions. He can’t be held responsible for them any more than you can be held responsible for not being able to keep our family business afloat. It just took me a while to realize that.”

“So, you don’t hate him?” I almost couldn’t believe it.

My dad shook his head. “I’m not saying that I’m crazy about the guy, but no father loves the guy his little girl falls in love with. At least at first.”

“At first?” I asked, incredulously.

“At first. Maybe ever. Heck if I know. This is the first time my little girl has fallen in love. I’ll have to ask around to see if there’s any chance of ever loving the man, too.” He smiled teasingly.

“I still don’t know if I love him,” I repeated, though I was quite sure what the answer was.

“We’ll figure it out together, then. You figure out if you love him, and I’ll figure out how to live with the fact that there’s another man in my daughter’s life. Even if it turns out just to be research, I’m armed with the knowledge when the time comes.”

“Drew’s always been the man in my life,” I said, laughing and feeling lighter than I had since Shane left.

“Yeah, but Drew’s a man in mine, too,” my father teased back. “He’s always been the son I never had.”

Drew himself chose that exact moment to stick his head into the living room. I glanced at my watch. I hadn’t realized that it was time for their weekly catch-up session.

“I sincerely hope that I’m the son you never had,” Drew said, eyes crinkled in laughter as he made himself comfortable. Drew was as at home in my father’s house as he was in his own.

“You are, but you may be gaining a brother-in-law soon if my gut is right,” my father joked.

I threw a cushion at him but he dodged it neatly. Drew’s eyes grew wide.

“I thought that Shane guy moved back to Houston.”

“He did,” I said.

The joy I’d felt just a second ago was sucked away from me when reality set in. It didn’t matter what my dad thought, or how I might feel. Any relationship between Shane and I was doomed anyway, what with the long-distance thing.

“Then who am I gaining as a brother-in-law?” Drew asked, looking thoroughly confused.

“No one,” I said. “My mom had this theory about the universe, and my dad thinks that I’m in love with Shane. I’ll let him catch you up. I need to take a walk. Clear my head.”

“You are in love with him, Fee. I could’ve told you that much.” Drew smirked, then his expression turned worried. “That was never the problem though, was it?”

“Nope, I guess not. Looks like everyone knows what I feel but me.” I sighed.

“There’s a difference between not knowing and not wanting to admit it to yourself,” Drew said, showing one of his rare bits of true insight.

I bit back the urge to throw a pillow at him, too, and ducked out instead, waving to the only two men who were constant in my life.

Once I was outside, I decided to take the long way home, the way that conveniently passed the house where Shane had been staying while he’d been in town. I just felt like being close to him right now, and his house was the best I could do, even if he wasn’t there.

I fished my phone out of my bag, trying to call him when I neared the place. I’d never been there but I had a rough idea of where it was. Instead of reaching him, I was redirected to his super-professional, work voicemail.

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, the reality that Shane was back in Texas and wasn’t coming back for me slapped me across the face like a cold, smelly fish.

Reality sucked. I didn’t leave a message.

I didn’t know why I wanted to walk miles out of my way to Shane’s house, only maybe that it was time to say goodbye to the idea that we could have been together.

Whatever it was, I turned the corner to where I thought the house was situated and saw a familiar truck parked in the driveway. My heart leaped and started pounding in my chest, like there was a magnet pulling it toward its mate.

Then I remembered that you couldn’t take a truck on a plane. It was probably just a truck that came with the house. I’d watched a reality show once, where some multi-millionaire had garages full of cars at each one of his six vacation homes.

Shane was a billionaire. It figured that he would have at least a truck to leave behind in Connecticut.

When the house came into full view, I was surprised that there wasn’t something fancier than a truck outside of it. It was a huge two-story house, with a lush, sprawling front yard.

My heart sank when I realized that, other than the truck, there were no signs of life. There was a reasonable explanation for the truck being there, and it didn’t include Shane having come back. I had no choice but to face reality. Again. It really was a bitch.

I looped around the house, deciding that I wanted to see if I could find the boat he had been working on. Maybe I could finish it for him sometime, as kind of a surprise for when, or if, he returned. And I’d be sure to use the proper materials.

At first, when I saw the well-sculpted, golden-skinned back hunched over a workbench, I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Shane turned around slowly, and sure enough, there he was working on his Nymph.