25. Gage
Gage
T he cottage was dark when I got home from walking Billie to her door, but I could make out a familiar silhouette sitting on the porch steps. My father looked up as I approached, and even in the dim light, I could see the soft smile on his face.
"Good evening?" he asked.
"Very good evening," I said, settling beside him on the steps. The night air was crisp with the promise of autumn, and I could still smell woodsmoke and cinnamon from the festival in my hair. "What brings you by?"
"I was hoping we could talk," he said quietly. "About tonight, about Caroline, about... a lot of things."
I studied his profile in the darkness. There was something different about him tonight. Lighter somehow, like he'd set down a burden he'd been carrying for years.
"You reached out to her," I said. It wasn't a question.
"I did." He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar I might have been looking in a mirror.
"After twenty-eight years, Gage. And she didn't ignore me, she didn't turn me away.
She agreed that it's time to talk, and I'm going out to Blue Point Bay next week.
" He paused then, and I saw the emotions warring on his face before he dropped the bombshell.
"She has a daughter who's twenty-eight years old. "
"Do you think...?"
"Yes." His voice was quiet but certain. "I called her. Today. I couldn't wait another week to find out if what I suspected was true."
My heart clenched. "And?"
"Her name is Leigh. She's a photographer in Blue Point Bay, freelance work mostly. Landscapes and street photography. She has my eyes and her mother's stubborn chin." He laughed, but it sounded shaky. "Caroline sent me pictures."
"Jesus," I breathed. "You have a daughter."
"I have a daughter," he repeated, like he was trying to make it real. "And she wants to meet me."
I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw something I'd never seen in my father's face before. Hope. Pure, uncomplicated hope mixed with terror.
"How do you feel about that?" I asked.
"Terrified," he said immediately. "Grateful.
Furious with myself for all the time we've lost. Hopeful that maybe it's not too late to be the father she deserved.
" He turned to look at me, uncertainty creeping into his voice.
"I'm not sure how to tell the others. How do you think Trace and Booker and Xander will take the news? "
I could hear the real fear underneath his question. Not excitement about family expansion, but worry about disrupting the careful balance we'd all found since coming back together.
"They might be shocked at first," I said honestly.
"It's a lot to process. But Dad, this is a good thing.
This is your chance at a fresh start, the same way all of us are getting fresh starts.
You've got a daughter who wants to know you, and Caroline who's been carrying this secret for almost thirty years. "
"What if they resent her? What if they think I'm choosing her over the family I already have?"
"Then you tell them what you just told me.
That there's room in your heart for everyone.
That loving Leigh doesn't mean loving us less.
" I leaned forward, wanting him to understand this.
"You've got a chance to build something new without losing what you already have.
That's not something to be afraid of, it's something to be grateful for. "
Some of the tension left his shoulders. "You really think so?"
"I think you should tell Caroline how much you'd like to meet Leigh when she's ready. And then you should trust that this family has enough love to go around." I smiled at him. "We've gotten pretty good at welcoming people home."
His smile was soft and surprised, like he was still getting used to being included in that "we."
"I'm going to call Caroline tomorrow," he said. "Set up a time to meet Leigh properly."
"That sounds like a good plan."
"I was wondering..." He paused, then seemed to change his mind. "Never mind. You've got your own life to figure out."
"What were you going to ask?"
"Nothing important." He was quiet for a moment, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. "There's something else. Something I should have given you years ago."
I stared at the box, my heart starting to race. "Dad..."
"This was your grandmother's," he said, pressing it into my hands. "Your grandfather gave it to me the day before he died, told me to keep it safe for you."
"For me?" My voice came out rough.
"He said you'd know when the time was right." Jasper's smile was soft with memory. "He also said the girl with the blue eyes and the stubborn heart was going to need it someday."
My hands shook as I opened the box. Nestled in faded velvet was the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen, a vintage emerald surrounded by delicate diamonds, set in rose gold that had been polished to a warm glow.
"He proposed to your grandmother with this ring in 1952, by the lake where they first met. She wore it for forty-three years, until the day she died," Jasper said quietly.
I couldn't speak. The ring sat in my palm like something precious and fragile, a symbol of the kind of love I'd never believed I deserved.
"Grandpa knew?" I managed finally. "About Billie?"
"He knew you loved her," Jasper said. "He also knew you were both too young to understand what that meant yet. But he never stopped believing you'd find your way back to each other."
Tears stung my eyes as I thought about my grandfather. The man who'd taught me to build things with my hands, who'd believed in me when no one else did, who'd seen something in a teenage boy's clumsy devotion that even the boy himself hadn't recognized.
"You kept this safe for ten years," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
"I would have kept it safe for as long as it took," Jasper corrected. "And now it's yours to do with what you will."
I looked up at my father, this man who'd made so many mistakes but who was trying, every day, to be better than he'd been.
"Thank you," I said. "For keeping it safe. For bringing it to me tonight."
"You're welcome." He stood to go, then paused. "Gage?"
"Yeah?"
"For what it's worth, I think your grandfather would have liked seeing you two together tonight. You looked happy. Both of you."
After he left, I sat on the porch steps for another hour, turning the ring over in my hands and thinking about love and legacy and second chances. The weight of it felt significant in my palm, not just the physical weight, but the emotional weight of all the love stories that had come before mine.
My grandparents, who'd loved each other for four decades and built a life that became the foundation for everything good in our family.
My father and Caroline, who'd found each other again after nearly thirty years apart.
And now, if I was brave enough and lucky enough, Billie and me.
The ring caught the light from the porch fixture, throwing tiny rainbows across my palm.
I could picture it on Billie's finger, could imagine the look on her face when I told her about my grandfather's faith in our love story.
Could imagine myself getting down on one knee and asking her to build a life with me, to trust me with her heart again, to believe that this time I would stay.
But not yet. She'd asked for slowly, and I meant to give her that. Meant to earn her trust one day at a time, one shared smile at a time, one perfect evening at a time.
Still, as I finally headed inside and carefully placed the ring in the drawer of my nightstand, I allowed myself to hope. To imagine a future where the boy who'd run away scared and broken had become a man worthy of the kind of love his grandparents had shared.
To imagine Billie saying yes.