Chapter 53
Hope knew something major had just happened when she stepped back into the kitchen to get Madison.
For one thing, Dom had the look of like intense hunger on his face that had her going whoa!
And Madison looked rattled. Like seriously.
Norm looked at Marcia like that, and Nick had definitely looked at Joy like that.
She didn’t know why Madison didn’t just go for it. Dom was one of the good guys.
Heather wouldn’t have sent him if he wasn’t.
Hope was trying not to freak out and demand her mom drive her back to the hospital to see her sister.
But her mom had said Heather had been awake for a full half an hour today.
She’d demanded someone help her wash her hair and help her brush her teeth.
It had been driving her crazy, she’d said.
Heather had been in there, she’d just been too tired and weak to say much.
Her sister hadn’t officially been in a coma or anything, she’d just been… kind of unconscious, really.
Hope knew how it all worked. That biomedical degree she had and everything did come in handy for that. She just…needed to see her sister for herself.
Hope dragged Madison upstairs with her to her own suite again.
She had turned her little sitting room area into a computer room.
She had all of her monitors and towers and stuff exactly how she wanted them.
There was a station for Crispin in there for when her niece needed the more sophisticated stuff Hope had been able to afford that Crispin hadn’t.
They did a lot of coding things together and always had.
Hope’s laser printer was in there. It was really old, but it still worked okay. Ink was getting harder to find, though.
It would be really nice if she could afford the good equipment someday.
She could just imagine what kind of stuff her nephew Luc had access to.
Him and Houghton Barratt. Those techie billionaires had invented some of the technology she would love to be able to have—and would never be able to afford.
That was just the way it was. A lot of software that Hope used was open source, too. A girl had to do what a girl had to do.
She was going to print everything Heather had asked her to keep for her. And give it to Madison.
It felt weird, opening up about what she had been doing for so long. Since Frankie had been born and Heather had told her exactly what had happened. When Hope had shown up at Heather’s door at the little two-bedroom apartment her sister had rented.
After Heather told Steve she was pregnant with Frankie. Hope had been digging into Steve Wilson ever since.
She had never really stopped.
Heather deserved to know what Hope had found, too.
But now…it was time to go public, right? To give what she had to TSP they actually trusted?
The scars itched, reminding her that something could happen to someone at any time. Because…if she didn’t, and something happened to her, no one would ever know.
Except Heather. And that would put her sister in a position Hope would never want. Telling the TSP now—it protected Heather, right? At least a little bit?
“He looked like he was going to like kiss you. In my kitchen.”
“He did. I am still…shaking here, Hope.” Madison just blinked at her.
Talk about kiss-rattled or something. Poor Mads—she looked shell-shocked.
“I think I may be in trouble. And…just between us…I am not so sure why I am fighting it. I am so tired of fighting it. But if I am with him, and it gets screwed up—it affects not just us now.”
“I see. So you are staying apart for the ‘rents? Isn’t that just another version of staying together for the kids? What do you think your parents would say about this?”
Not like Hope should be giving anyone relationship advice, right? That was a bit beyond her experience and everything.
“I—just do not know. My mother would probably just get giddy and say ‘Oh, Vince, we are getting grandbabies!’ or something like that, honestly.”
“Do you want that? I mean…a hot guy, a relationship, maybe kids some day?”
Hope used to think she did when she was younger, and then she’d seen what had happened to Joy when Nick had died and she had told herself she would never fall for a guy like that.
But when she saw Marcia and Norm—she had grown up seeing that kind of love every day…
but…did she want that for herself? “I don’t even know if I can have kids, Mads.
Not with my heart condition and everything. I’d have to ask the doctor.”
“You don’t have to have kids to be happy with a guy. Or you could go for a hot single father type…or could even adopt.”
“Yes, I could. I just…am still figuring out what happens next with my life. It’s going to be a long time before I figure out what happens next.
” She thought. But if the right guy came along, would she even realize it?
“I’ve been so caught up with the TSP and helping Heather for the last three years, and helping Joy with her kids after Nick…
and everything that happened since Eastman…
I’m not even sure what I’d want with a guy to begin with.
” And she was really confused right now, anyway.
No, now was not a good time for Hope to even be thinking about guys.
Maybe when she was older. Like thirty? Maybe by then she’d be ready, or at least know what she wanted from life.
“I think…if a guy shows you what he wants and it’s what you want, too…
just go for it, Hope. Life…I think we both learned that life is too short to be afraid.
Or just sit around waiting for someday. Maybe someday won’t ever come?
Like Mel says all the time. She says it so much it gets annoying.
Fear robs you of the future. Do not let it. ”