Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(35)

Ash smiled at the memory. “It was a wonderful day,” he agreed.

“But how was that possible?”

“That same lawyer found a sympathetic judge who was willing to allow both of you to change your names legally, but that’s as far as it went. Your mother and I couldn’t marry, and there was no adoption.”

He held her gaze, his eyes filled with regret. “I’m so sorry, Dee. When all of this happened, the paperwork would have meant nothing to you. You were too young to understand it. Later...” He shrugged. “I always meant to tell you the truth. So did your mom, but then she got sick, and I just couldn’t hit you with this while you were worried. You had enough to cope with. It was selfish on my part, but I didn’t want it to change the way you treated either one of us.”

Shock left Deanna speechless. Nothing about her life was what she had always believed. She’d thought she had this great—perhaps even courageous—mother, who’d dared to take off on her own to get out of a bad marriage. She’d thought they’d both been the luckiest people ever to have found Ash and his warm, loving family. Suddenly her heart seemed to stop.

“Did Grandma and Grandpa know?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It would have broken their hearts to know about all the lies. They loved your mom and you so much.”

“And Aunt Karen and Uncle Blake?”

He shook his head. “Just your mom and me. No one else. Like you just now, everyone assumed we must have eloped at some point. We never told anyone otherwise.”

“How could you lie to everyone?” she asked, shaken to think that this man in whom she’d placed so much trust her whole life could deceive all of them. “They’re your parents, your sister and brother.”

“We thought it was for the best. And after a while, it didn’t seem to matter. We were so happy. Whatever else you think, Dee, remember that. We were happy. That wasn’t a lie.”

There was such a sad, plaintive note in his voice, Deanna might have felt some sympathy for the position he’d been in, but right now she was still reeling at the realization that her entire life had been based on this huge deception.

“Why tell me now? Is it just because you were backed into a corner?”

“Yes, I suppose so. If you meet your father, it’s likely to come up that he and your mother never divorced. I wanted you to learn the truth from me, even if it means you’ll never be able to think of me as your family again.”

She stood up. “I have to go.”

“Now? You’re too upset. Stay here and let’s talk about this.”

“What more could you possibly have to say that would make this any better?”

Ash sighed heavily at the obvious truth of that. “Where will you go? Back to school? Or are you heading to Chesapeake Shores?” he asked worriedly.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “School, probably. At least until after finals. I’m not throwing away a whole semester of studies over this.” She said the last with a touch of defiance, as if trying to prove to herself and to Ash how brave she was or how little any of it mattered anymore, that the only thing that mattered was the future, not the past.

She gazed into Ash’s eyes, trying to remember the wonderful, honorable man she’d thought him to be just moments ago.

“I do know one thing for sure,” she said. “And I’m not doing this to hurt you, Ash. It’s just that I need time to make sense of everything. I’m not coming home this summer. I have a chance to volunteer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and I’m going to take it.”

He looked taken aback by her seemingly out-of-the-blue declaration. “Because it’s close to Chesapeake Shores?”

“No, because it fits with what I want to do with my life. I’d planned to tell you even before all of this came up.”

Now he looked confused. “I thought you intended to come back here and take over my business someday. This doesn’t have to change that. I’d still like you to work with me. The business was meant to be your heritage.”

“I used to want that, too, but when Mom was so sick, I realized I wanted to study medicine. I’ve been taking a few premed courses. I believe it’s what I was meant to do. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

He gave her a wry look. “And now you don’t think that matters, because I’ve disappointed you,” he concluded.

“It’s not about punishing you,” she insisted. “It’s about doing what’s right for me. I hope you’ll try to understand.”

“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. Once you’ve had time to think, I hope you’ll see that’s all your mother and I tried to do, to give you a stable family. We might have gone about it the wrong way, but our intentions were good.”

“I know you see it that way,” she said wearily. “Maybe I will, too, at some point. Right now, though, all I see is the incredible, awful lie our life was built on.”

And as much as she’d loved her mother and Ash Lane, she had no idea what it would take for her to feel the same way about them ever again.

*

Even though it was her day off, Kiera was up with the birds, quite possibly because it seemed as if whole families of them were chirping loudly right outside her bedroom window. It was a lovely sound, if not a restful one.