What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(100)

“You also told me she was a scatterbrain. But you were only trying to be diplomatic.” Her voice grew unsteady. “I don’t care if she was nothing more than a party girl. A one-night stand that backfired. I just—”

“That’s enough!” He thrust his finger toward the camera. A vein throbbed at his temple. “Turn that camera off right now.”

“She was my mother. I need to know. If she was just another bimbo, at least tell me that.”

“She wasn’t! Don’t you ever say that again.” He snatched the camera from her hands and flung it to the tiles, where it shattered. “You don’t understand anything!”

“Then tell me!”

“She was the love of my life!”

His words hung in the air.

A tremor passed through her. She locked her eyes with his. Anguish twisted his features. She felt dizzy, wobbly. “I don’t believe you.”

He pulled off his glasses and sagged onto the carved bench. “Your mother was…enchanted,” he said in a husky rasp. “Enchanting…Laughter came as naturally to her as breathing. She was smart—smarter than I could ever be—and she was funny. She refused to see the bad in anyone.” His hand shook as he set his glasses next to him. “She didn’t die in a car accident, Georgie. She saw a pregnant girl being slapped around by her boyfriend and tried to help her. He shot your mother in the head.”

“No,” she said in a soft whimper.

He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “The pain I felt when I lost her was more than I could handle. You didn’t understand where she’d gone, and you cried all the time. I couldn’t comfort you. I could barely find the energy to feed you. She loved you so much, and she would have hated that.” He rubbed his face in his palms. “I stopped going to auditions. It wasn’t possible. Acting takes an openness I didn’t have anymore.” His fingers tunneled into his hair. “I couldn’t live through that kind of pain again. I promised myself I’d never love another person the way I loved her.”

Her chest constricted, ached. “And you kept that promise,” she whispered.

He looked up at her, and she saw tears brimming in his eyes. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t keep it, and look where it’s taken us.”

It took her a moment to understand. “Me? You love me like that?”

He gave a rueful laugh. “Shocking, isn’t it?”

“I…It’s hard to believe.”

He dipped his head and nudged the broken camera aside with his shoe. “I guess I’m a better actor than I thought.”

“But…why? You’ve been so cold. So…”

“Because I had to plow on,” he said fiercely. “For us. I couldn’t fall apart again.”

“All these years? She died so long ago.”

“Detachment got to be a habit. A safe place to exist.” He rose from the bench. For the first time in her memory, he looked older than his years. “Sometimes you’re so much like her. Your laughter. Your kindness. But you’re more practical than she was, and not as na?ve.”

“Like you.”

“In the end, you’re yourself, and that’s what I love. What I’ve always loved.”

“I’ve never felt…very loved.”

“I know, and I didn’t—I couldn’t figure out how to change that, so I tried to compensate by being scrupulous about your career. I needed to convince myself I was doing my best for you, but all the time I knew it wasn’t good enough. Not even close.”

Pity welled inside her, along with sadness for what she’d missed, and a certainty that her mother, the woman he’d described, would have hated seeing him like this.

He picked up his glasses. Rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Watching you after Lance left, seeing how you were suffering and not being able to comfort you. I wanted to kill him. And then your marriage to Bram. I can’t forget the past, but I know you love him, and I’m trying.”

A protest sprang to her lips. She bit it back. “Dad, I understand I hurt you by telling you I need to run my own career, but I just…want you to be my father.”

“You’ve made that clear.” He took the bench across from her, looking more troubled than offended. “Here’s my problem. I know this town too well. Maybe it’s ego on my part, or maybe overprotection, but I don’t trust anybody else to put your interests first.”

Something he’d always done, she realized, even if she hadn’t always agreed with the results. “You’re going to have to trust me,” she said gently. “I’ll ask for your opinion, but the final decisions—right or wrong—are going to be mine.”

He gave a slow, unsteady nod. “I suppose it’s time.” He bent down and picked up what used to be her camera. “Sorry about this. I’ll buy you another.”

“It’s okay. I have a spare.”

Silence fell between them. Awkward, but they stuck it out.

“Georgie…I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but it seems…” He toyed with the empty camera body. “There’s a remote possibility—very remote—that I might…have my own career to concentrate on.”

He told her about Laura’s visit, her insistence on taking him on as her client, and the acting classes he’d begun attending. He seemed both embarrassed and a little bewildered. “I’d forgotten how much I love it. I feel like I’m finally doing what I should have been doing all along. As though I’ve…come home.”