The Sheriff's Mail-Order Bride (The Watson Brothers #2)(54)

His wife cleared her throat and spoke. “He threatened to leave us forever otherwise and there were other threats as well, childish outbursts that only intensified as he grew older. We couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, so we gave him what he wanted. We never saw him again. After all the promises to keep in touch with us, he never did.”

“I’m sorry, truly I am. I knew he was troubled but I didn’t know why.” Gina broke a cookie in half and gave it to Fisher. “I was very lonely when I met him and I think we were good for each other, at least at first anyway.”

“I found it very hard to believe he would turn to drugs and we have to apologize for what was said between the lawyers. I suppose any parent wouldn’t want to be the cause of their child’s problems, and to blame someone else is much easier on the ego.”

“Look, I can understand that, and even though I hated what you thought, I don’t hold it against you. After seeing my father hit rock bottom due to drugs, it’s the last thing I’d do.” She leaned into Rory for comfort and he slid his arm around her waist. She was being very brave about this meeting with Aden’s parents. As he’d held her last night she hadn’t slept worrying about what could happen today, how they would react to her or how upsetting it could get for them all. He had almost canceled the meeting because she was so nervous.

“Anyway, the reason we’re here is to get to know Fisher and you also, Gina, if you’ll agree to it. We have lost time to make up for and we’re not going to miss out on our only grandchild’s milestones in life.” She glanced at her husband again. “I hope you don’t hold grudges because we’re so excited and want to spend a fair bit of time coming to visit if that’s alright with you both. That’s if we can come to an agreement, that is.” Mrs. Bellingham smiled encouragingly and Rory felt sorry for her.

“Um, sure. I don’t see any reason why not. I don’t have any other family apart from Rory’s brothers and father, so it would be nice to see you. That’s okay, isn’t it, honey?” Gina looked at him, uncertainty in her eyes.

“Whatever makes you happy. It’ll be nice for Fisher to have plenty of family. And please call me Rory. ‘Deputy Sheriff’ is a bit of a mouthful all the time.”

Their visitors seemed to relax at this statement and the tension left the room.

“I’m so glad you both feel that way. We’ve been on tender hooks, haven’t we, Richard? I mean, after trying to take your son from you, we didn’t think you’d be open to us visiting. Our lawyers wanted us to go in prepared to fight to the death for Fisher when we found out about Aden but we decided after hearing the report that it would be wrong of us to do that to you. We put you through a terrible time.”

“Yes you did but we understand. You’ve been through a horrible time, too.”

“Yes we have. Especially my dear wife here. She was terrified thinking it wouldn’t possibly all come together. It’s been hard since Aden disappeared and to find out he had died was devastating but the fact he’d left a child behind was the best news we’ve had all year.”

*

“How did you find out he was gone?” Gina held her breath and hoped she wasn’t bringing up something that should stay in the past.

“When we couldn’t find him and he never returned home after the agreed time off, we hired a private investigator. Nothing turned up until we remembered he liked to call himself by my mother’s maiden name when he didn’t want anyone to know who he was. He hadn’t done it for years and we’d almost forgotten about it. Anyway, the police let us know what happened and that in turn pointed us in your direction, Gina. Your old boarding house friend told us you’d packed the car and driven to Montana to start a new life.”

“I see.” She cleared her throat. “How is she? Do you know?”

“We eased her burden financially when we found out she was involved in helping with Fisher when he was born so you could work. Poor thing was beside herself and tried to refuse but if not for her, we may never have found either of you. She did ask if we caught up if we would pass on a message from her.” Mrs. Bellingham opened her purse and took out a crushed envelope, rising to pass it over.

Gina took it and put it on the chair beside her for later.

“There is something else we brought for you too. I hope you don’t mind, we wanted to try to make up for what you’ve been through.” He held up his hand when Gina tried to stop him. “Please let me speak. If we’d known about you and Fisher to start with, you would have been well looked after, instead you brought him into the world in poverty and we can’t forget that and what you’ve gone through. At the end of the day, we feel responsible. This in no way buys anything from you nor is to make you feel like you owe us something, you don’t. It isn’t a bribe to let us see Fisher either, I just wanted to make that very clear.” He cleared his throat and his wife reached for his hand. “It is merely Aden’s life insurance, which we feel is rightfully yours anyway. If we’d known about you, it would have been yours earlier considering you were together and had a child.” He stood up and took a small black folder from his jacket pocket, and handed it over.

Gina looked at Rory before taking it. He nodded his head and she looked at the bank book. When she opened it to the first page, her eyes went wide and she shook her head. “I can’t take this.”