Heart of Stone (Road Trip Romance #19)

One

Reid

My mother wasn’t dead, and I was irritated.

For four hours, I’d believed the unthinkable. Four hours of living with the knowledge that the woman who’d brought me into the world had suddenly and unexpectedly left it.

As I packed a bag with enough clothes to last me two weeks—plus the suit I’d need for her funeral—memories assaulted me.

All the evenings I’d come home after a long summer day and find her home-cooked meals waiting. All the warmth and patience in her delicate features. All the softness and understanding and encouragement in her voice whenever she spoke.

A good woman, down to her very bones, taken from the world far too soon.

It was an hour and a half after I’d received my father’s call before I was on the road heading from just east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I lived and worked, to Cardinal, Ohio, where I was born and raised.

Our home in Cardinal was a short fifteen-minute drive to the shores of a beach on Lake Erie, one of the few spots I actually appreciated about my hometown.

This homecoming, the first in just shy of a year, was poised to be fraught with unbearable pain and suffering.

I spent the entire drive thinking and doing the very best I could to prepare for the worst but not feeling like there was anything that could truly make me ready for what I was going to face.

My mom.

This had to be about my mom.

My father wouldn’t have called otherwise. He wouldn’t have reached out and spoken with that tone that begged me not to fight him for once.

And because he hadn’t told me to meet him at the hospital, where there might have been some small spark of hope that my mom was just in a precarious situation, I feared the worst had happened. I’d return to Cardinal only to learn that I wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her.

Somewhere in the hollows of my body, somewhere nobody else would ever see, I felt a flicker of regret. It was only a grave occurrence—my mother’s untimely death—that could evoke such a response from me. If someone had deserved better from me, it was her.

But then I arrived and learned the truth.

I should’ve been relieved that I didn’t return home to bury her, to watch as Sylvia Erickson was laid to rest.

Deep down, I was. A couple of hours from now, the reality would settle in, and I’d be grateful she was still here.

But right now, even the knowledge of that silver lining wasn’t enough to erase the aggravation.

I’d pulled up outside my parents’ place ten minutes ago, rushed inside, and found my father in his study, wearing a far-off look. His body was here, but his mind was somewhere else.

And considering my mother was nowhere to be found, something unpleasant bubbled up inside me that my worst fears were coming true.

Swallowing roughly past the pain in my throat, I croaked, “It’s Mom, isn’t it?”

My father’s eyes cut to mine, weariness coating his expression.

I’d never seen the man looking so exhausted.

As diligent as Barrett Erickson had always been about making each day count, he seemed to have a never-ending supply of energy.

To go, go, go… even if it was in complete contrast to how I did the same.

“Thank you for coming so quickly.” His voice was hoarse, his spirit wounded.

In any other scenario, I would have remained in the doorway. Years of encounters had taught me that it’d be futile to sit and hope for some semblance of normalcy between us.

My father and I had always had a tumultuous relationship. We were so vastly different from one another, and finding any common ground had proven to be a struggle.

But at the utter lack of fight in his tone and the absolute defeat in his features, I found myself crossing the room to sit in the chair across from him. “I can… I can take care of the arrangements.”

His brows shot up. “Arrangements?”

“For Mom. For the funeral.”

He blinked, seemingly stunned by my willingness to lend a hand. “Reid, your mother isn’t dead.”

It was a good thing I’d decided to sit down, because my knees would have buckled.

“What? I thought… You said I needed to get back here as soon as possible. You sounded awful. And judging by the look on your face the moment I walked in, I suspected you were in a state of shock. Or depression. You’re telling me that Mom is alive? ”

Any of the sympathy I’d been feeling for him had vanished.

He had to have known that getting his phone call at all was enough to set me thinking the worst. Combining the call with his words and the way in which he said them, I didn’t understand how he could assume I’d believe anything but the worst had happened.

He huffed. “I got a matter of a minute of softness from you before things went right back to normal.”

I balled my hands into fists. “You made me think my mother was dead.”

Waving his hand in the air dismissively, as though he’d done no such thing, he revealed, “Your mom is fine. Well, as fine as she can be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that she’s alive. I’m sorry if I made you believe otherwise.

” His gaze shifted to the trees outside the window, his lips pressing together in a thin line.

It was almost as much of a struggle for him to talk to me as it was for me to talk to him.

“That’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. ”

There was no doubt he probably viewed me as such, anyway. I was so furious with him; I couldn’t think straight. Speaking wasn’t close to being an option.

Eventually, my father returned his attention to me. “How are things at work?”

“Pardon?”

I’d gotten that question from him dozens of times before now, but it seemed like a wildly inappropriate one to be asking after I’d just driven two and a half hours to get here under the presumption my mother had died.

“Are you tired of the city life yet?”

If this was what he’d called me out here for, I was going to lose my mind. “No, Dad, I haven’t. But you already knew that.”

Something that looked a lot like disappointment washed over him. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”

I’d grown accustomed to that look. It was one of the reasons I made my visits here few and far between. If it weren’t for my mom, I wasn’t sure I would have come back at all. It wasn’t as though my dad cared enough about me to want me around, even if he tried to claim it was all he wanted.

I knew better.

I knew what really mattered to him.

“Why did you call me? Where’s Mom?”

He let out a deep breath, his shoulders sagging. Judging by the look on his face, it was clear he was torn. Like he had been forced into some undesirable situation. “I need to ask a huge favor of you, Reid.”

Well, there it was.

If given the choice, my dad would never ask me for a favor.

So, something had happened. Something had forced him to this place.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep the bite out of my tone. “What is it?”

For several silent beats, his eyes roamed over my face. “I need you to take over the operation at the retreat.”

“We’ve been over this no less than a dozen times already,” I retorted, feeling my anger bubbling to the surface. “I’m not interested in the retreat unless it’s to demolish what’s there and put something worthwhile on that acreage.”

“Your mother had a heart attack.”

Like I’d been doused with cold water, the rage fizzled out. “What?”

“A week ago. She had a heart attack a week ago, and at the same time, she fell, breaking her hip.”

It took everything in me not to growl with frustration and disgust. “You’re just now telling me this? Where is she?”

He did not hesitate. “She’s currently in the hospital. We were told she’d be able to come home either today or tomorrow.”

I scoffed. “And you thought you’d use this opportunity to convince me to take over your retreat?”

He offered a sheepish look in response. Clearly, he realized just how grimy his actions were. My mother was in the hospital, and this man seemed to be worried about only one thing.

“I should’ve expected nothing less from you,” I muttered as I stood from the chair and stared down at him.

“You could’ve done all of this over the phone.

You could’ve told me a week ago about what happened to her, and you could’ve made this foolish attempt to get me to run your retreat over the phone. ”

He shook his head. “If I stood any chance of convincing you, I needed you to be here.”

“No, you didn’t. Because whether I’m here or there, my answer remains the same. I’m not going to do it. My answer hasn’t changed, and it never will.”

“But circumstances have,” he reasoned.

Throwing my hand out to the side in frustration, I countered, “And you thought you’d try to use the sympathy I feel for my mom to get what you’ve wanted all these years.”

My dad sighed. “If only it were that easy. I didn’t suspect you’d jump at the chance, Reid, but I was hoping you might find some compassion and understanding.”

“Compassion? For whom? And understanding? What I understand is that my mom had a heart attack and broke her hip a week ago, and I’m just how learning about it because you want to scheme to get your way.”

He winced, his shoulders dropping. “I know it seems that way, but?—”

“It is that way.”

Holding his hands up in surrender, my dad said, “Reid, I’m sorry. I know you don’t like the retreat. I know you don’t want it. But I have no choice at this point. I’ve had to make some tough decisions this week, and the only thing that matters to me is your mom.”

“Oh? So, is that why you waited a week to call her son, her only child, and let him know what’s happened to her?”

My dad stood from his chair, placed his hands on his hips, and stared me down.

“I don’t claim to have made all the right decisions in my life.

I’m sorry. I should’ve called you sooner.

But this hasn’t exactly been easy for me, either.

Whether you believe it or not, I love you and her, and I’m doing the very best that I can. ”