26. Andie
Ihaven’t seen my father since the day he walked out on me and Rebecca. Honestly, if it weren’t for the one photograph I managed to save of the three of us while my mother had been burning all evidence of him, I probably wouldn’t even recognize him. So to find him staring down at where I lie in the hospital bed is nearly as much of a shock as learning I was technically dead for three minutes.
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard what happened.” He remains where he is, standing nose to nose with Elijah, who looks about ready to tear him apart.
“But how?”
“I’m an investor in your company. When they made the announcement that you were in the hospital, I caught a flight, and now I’m here.”
“An investor?” He could have told me he could fly, and I would have been less shocked. “Since when?”
“Since your grandmother contacted me and told me what you were doing.”
“What— Elijah, please.” He looks ready to rip my father’s head off, which is making it hard to fully process everything that’s happening.
How is he here?
Why is he here?
Elijah takes a step back, and I note a third man in the room—one I definitely don’t recognize but imagine is probably the detective Elijah told me was coming.
One stranger at a time.
I shift my gaze back to my father, who is watching me intently. “Gran contacted you?”
“Yes. We stayed in touch throughout the years.”
The words are a traitorous dagger. “She never mentioned you. Not once.”
“I asked her not to.” His gaze flicks nervously to Elijah. “Can we talk in private?”
“No,” I snap before Elijah has a chance to answer for me. “In case you haven’t noticed, someone is trying to kill me. They are here for my protection.”
His cheeks flush. “You don’t need protection from me. I’m your?—”
“You’re a stranger,” I interrupt. “We may share blood, but that doesn’t make us family.” My words land, and his expression softens before he nods.
“I am a stranger.” He takes a deep breath then turns to Elijah. “My name is Jack Gannon. I am Andie’s father.”
“Elijah Breeth.”
“Jaxson Payne,” the man in the corner says.
“Thank you both for keeping her safe.” He turns back to me. “I contacted your gran a few years after your mother and I split. I apologized to her for running, and she told me that she didn’t think it was good for you to have any contact with me. I imagine it was out of protection because she didn’t trust me not to disappear again. Since I couldn’t blame her, I agreed and begged to be kept up to date about anything going on in your life. After you graduated college and were trying to get your own design firm off the ground, she contacted me, and I have been supporting you anonymously ever since. A silent investor. Alec works for me,” he says.
“Alec.” I nearly laugh.
“Yes. He is my assistant. He intervenes on my behalf and attends all meetings for me.”
“So you just write the checks and send him in to handle everything else?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. Your gran made me promise to stay out of your life.”
“I’m an adult!” I yell. Tears sting the corners of my eyes. “For the last nine years, I’ve been an adult. You couldn’t reach out to me once in any of those years?”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. I don’t remember much about my father. I know he wasn’t a yeller, that he let my mom do whatever she wanted and spent more time drunk than sober. But right now, he looks like an exhausted man, one weighed down by the choices he’s made.
“I can only say I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I can’t make up for what I did, though I can make plenty of excuses as to why I left.”
“Rebecca is dead.” For the first time in my adult life, tears stream down my cheeks. “Did you know that? Gran is gone.”
“I know. I heard about your mother. It’s a shame.”
“A shame?” I try to sit up, but exhaustion pulls me down. “A shame? Someone murdered her.” I know it’s not his fault, but I spit the words out.
“It is a shame. Your mother and I didn’t have a great relationship, I’m sure you know that. It was toxic, and I thought you would both be better without me.”
“Don’t hand me that load of bull,” I tell him. “You thought you would be better off without her. You didn’t consider what would be best for me. And it looks like you were better off.” I gesture to the suit. “Where exactly did you get all that money you’ve been donating?” I snap. “We were broke when you were married to Mom, so where did it come from? Drugs?”
He winces like I struck him. “That’s fair. But no. I’ve been clean and sober for nineteen years now. I started working for a trucking company then left five years later and opened my own.”
“Did you remarry?”
He hesitates. “I did.”
“Kids?”
“Two.”
The hurt starts all over again, the feeling of abandonment rooting in my soul. “So you started all over again. Just left us behind for newer models.”
“Your mother and I met when we were both so young,” he insists. “We never should have gotten married. I knew it, but when we found out about you…” He looks away. “I’m sorry, Andrea, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“My name is Andie,” I snap. My heart rate spikes, and the monitor beeps. I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing before opening them again.
“You need to leave,” Elijah tells him. “She’s healing, and this is too much stress.”
“I want to know that she’s safe.”
“She is. And when she’s ready to contact you, she will.” To my surprise, Elijah keeps his tone level, his expression neutral.
“I want to talk to you about your employee, Alec,” Jaxson says then pulls out a notepad and a pen. “Let’s do it in the hall.”
My father starts to follow then hesitates. “I’m sorry, Andie. I never stopped loving you. If you don’t believe anything else I say, please know that I hate myself for leaving you.”
Without another word, he follows Jaxson out of the room. I lean back, my adrenaline pumping, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The bed dips as Elijah climbs on beside me, and I curl up against him, resting my head on his chest. The heavy beating of his heart serves as a grounding mechanism for me, and as I time my breathing to his own, I’m able to ease my frayed nerves.
“Are you okay?” he finally asks.
“No.”
“Understandable.”
“The nerve of him. To show up like this after all these years.”
Elijah presses a kiss to the top of my head but doesn’t say anything.
“It’s like he thinks that, just because he waltzes in here and says he’s been investing money in my company, it makes up for all the years he left me alone.” I shake my head and then tighten my grip on Elijah.
“I’m sorry, Andie.”
“It’s not your fault. I just—I can’t believe he showed up.”
“In his way, he loves you.”
I look up at him. “You sound almost sorry for him.”
“I am sorry for him,” he replies. “He missed out on getting to know you.”
* * *
“I’m doing much better,thank you,” I tell Mia as she calls and checks in yet again. The hospital released me first thing this morning, and we wasted no time leaving New York. We rented a car and opted to make the nearly eight-hour drive back rather than take a flight. Since planes make me nauseous on a good day, I’m grateful.
With Jaxson in the back seat of our rented SUV, we’re headed back to Hope Springs, and although I’d once left this place behind and never looked back, I’m ready to return.
I miss the ocean. The smell of the salty air. The people.
“I’m so glad to hear it. You gave everyone quite a scare.”
I look over at Elijah, who is staring straight ahead as he drives. Does he know how crazy about him I am? “That’s what I heard.”
“When are you coming back in? The investors have been trying to nail down a time to re-schedule.”
“Once I get everything handled with my grandmother’s house,” I tell her. “Right now, we’re on our way back to town.”
“How far out are you?”
“About fifteen minutes,” I reply.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything you need me to handle. I’m here.”
“Will do, thanks. Goodbye, Mia.”
“Goodbye, Miss Montgomery.”
I set my phone back in the cupholder.
“Everything okay?” Elijah asks.
“It will be. Once all of this is over, I can figure out who stole my designs and pawned them off as their own. Then I can put the investors’ minds at ease, and everything can go back to normal. Well, as normal as it can be.”
“Speaking of,” Jaxson says. “When did you say you revealed the design they claim was stolen?”
“Right before my gran’s funeral. It was part of our spring collection.”
“And who had access to it?”
“No one. I made the outfit myself. I always make the first one. No one saw it until it was revealed at that show.”
“Do you ever leave your things unaccounted for?”
“No. The only one with a key to my office is Mia, but even then, the designs are kept in my private safe at home.”
“Who has access to that?” Elijah questions.
“My neighbor has a key to my apartment. But?—”
The car comes out of nowhere. Everything happens so quickly.
The screeching of tires.
Twisting metal.
Glass shattering.
Pain. Mind-numbing agony.
“Andie!” Elijah bellows, and then, for the second time in as many days, the world around me goes black.