White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(84)
He gestured to her left hand. “What’s he like?” He knew so little about her current life and nothing about the man she’d married after he left home.
“His name was Walter. He was a wonderful man, but he died last year. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have someone in your life now?” He needed to know if the real reason she’d reached out to him was because there was no one left.
“Yes. I can’t bury another husband, and boyfriend sounds silly at my age. But he’s a good companion, and I’m grateful for his company.”
“Then I’m happy for you.”
“Did you bring some pictures of the baby?” she asked, and there was such yearning in her voice.
He reached into an envelope and withdrew several photos in a variety of sizes. “We had these taken about a week after Shelby was born.”
She looked as if he’d presented her with a precious gift. When she’d had her fill, she slid them back to him.
“They’re for you to keep, Mom.” He handed her his phone. “There’s a whole bunch more if you want to page through them.”
“She’s beautiful. So is your wife. She looks very kind,” his mom said when she handed the phone back to him.
“Kate is many things. Kind and beautiful are just two of them.”
As they sat in the corner of the restaurant sharing a meal for the first time since he’d left home, his mother began to reminisce about how happy his own birth had made her. “We were quite young, but we were so eager to become parents. I remember how proud I was the day we brought you home from the hospital. Your dad told anyone who would listen that his son was going to do amazing things someday.”
Ian smiled because his dad had said those words to him many times.
“There was a small theater company in downtown Amarillo. It’s long gone now, but from the time I was fifteen years old, there was never a production I wasn’t a part of. Sometimes I had the lead, sometimes I was the understudy. A few times I had small parts, and once I volunteered to help with the sets so I could still be involved. I loved it all, but musicals were where I really shined. All my life people had been telling me how special my voice was and that someday I’d go far with it.”
Ian remembered coming across an old scrapbook in the basement once. In it were playbills and pictures of his mother wearing different costumes. He hadn’t paid much attention to it back then because no one ever talked about it with him.
“Six months after you were born, your dad encouraged me to return to the theater so I could get out of the house in the evening, and I got the role of Velma in Chicago. News spread quickly that a Hollywood scout would be in the audience on opening night, and after the show the theater director pulled me aside and introduced us. He filled my head with all kinds of things and wanted me to move to California for a few months so I could go on auditions and have a screen test, but I told him I had a baby. He said I should leave it at home. Your dad was already working long hours to support us, and I didn’t have anyone I trusted enough to take good care of you while I was gone. It didn’t matter, because I couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from you. My understudy flew out instead, and she never came back. I still see her face in magazines sometimes.”
He knew in his heart she’d tried to stop it. But once the seeds of resentment had been sown, they’d likely grown stronger and flourished with each passing year away from the spotlight.
“I never stopped loving you, Ian.”
“I reached out to you so many times. And every time you turned me away.”
“I didn’t think I deserved to be in your life after the way I treated you.”
Ian remembered Kate’s words. “That’s not how we measure love.”
“I’m sorry. Missing out on all this time with you is my life’s biggest regret.”
Before they got into their respective cars in the parking lot, Ian said, “I’d like for you to visit us. Get to know Kate. Spend time with Shelby.”
His mother had started crying then, and she’d been coming to visit ever since.
Shelby led his mother away so she could listen to her song. Phillip and Susan appeared next. They’d no doubt spent some time inside with Steve and Diane, whom they’d gotten to know quite well in the past few years. Phillip had retired at fifty-seven—mandatory for the FBI—and he and Susan enjoyed frequent visits to Costa Rica. Shelby called them Nana and Papa and liked to tell people she had extra grandparents.
Charlie appeared on the deck last. He shook Ian’s hand, plopped down in the empty chair next to him, and handed him a beer. “You sure have a lot of women in your house. They gave me these beers and told me I was in their way. Better keep ’em coming all weekend, Smith. You still owe me.”
“It’s Bradshaw and you know it.”
“I always forget which one I’m supposed to use.”
“That’s the only one you need now.” Ian took a drink of his beer. “Where’s your better half? I’m surprised she hasn’t made it out here to say hello to me yet.”
“Are you kidding? I’m sure there’s a bottle of wine being passed around the kitchen table as we speak. They’re probably on their second by now.”
It turned out that Kate was right: Charlie wasn’t such a player after all, and he’d married Jade two years ago in a sunset ceremony on Kate and Ian’s very own white-sand beach. Charlie did have some reservations about settling down, but they had nothing to do with how he felt about Jade.