A Daughter's Story - Tara Quinn Taylor

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she couldn’t contact Rose’s ex-fiancé’s son without letting her mother know.

      “I accused an innocent man....” Rose’s words trailed off and hung there.

      “You were a mother who had to do whatever she could to find her missing child.”

      “I threw him out. Threw them out…”

      “You were agonized.”

      “I sent letters, contacted schools.…”

      “You did what you felt you had to do to protect other children.” The crusade to stop Frank Whittier had probably saved Rose’s life. It had certainly given Emma her mother back, as it had provided Rose with an outlet for her anguish.

      “You did what any mother would have done, given the evidence.” From his backyard hideout, Cal had seen Claire in his father’s car. When the police had searched the car, they’d found Claire’s favorite teddy bear, the one she’d slept with the night before and brought to breakfast the morning of her disappearance, under the front seat of Frank Whittier’s car.

      “Cal was hiding under those bushes that used to be in the backyard. When he first got there, he peeked around the corner to make sure Frank’s car was still there. That’s when he saw Claire. He didn’t look again, but he heard the car drive off. There’s no way he or any of us could’ve known she’d gotten out of the car during those six or so minutes.”

      Rose’s eyes were filled with tears as she looked over at Emma. “I loved him. I should at least have given him the benefit of the doubt.”

      “At the risk of losing Claire forever?” If Frank had been guilty, and Rose had protected him, stood by him, it could have been too late.

      “We did lose her,” Rose said. “And we lost Frank and Cal, too.”

      And Emma and Rose owed the Whittiers the respect of an apology, at the very least.

      “I have to call him, Mom.” She’d handle this one.

      Her mother had forbidden Emma to write to Cal over the years, but she’d wanted to. So badly.

      Would her life have been different if she had? Would she have avoided coming home to find another woman in her man’s arms if she’d ever, even once, dared to take a chance? To demand for herself as much as she gave to Rose and Claire?

      Looking sick to her stomach, Rose nodded, and retreated to the balcony that looked over the Atlantic Ocean, in the distance.

      Putting their untouched dinner in the refrigerator, Emma cleaned up and let herself out.

      Life wasn’t easy. Not for Rose. Not for any of them.

      Rose couldn’t make things right for her daughters.

      Claire was gone.

      And Emma just felt dead.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE NUMBER OF TIMES Chris had felt grief were so few and far between he could remember all of them. He relived each and every one as he sat at Citadel’s that Friday night and nursed a second glass of not-cheap whiskey. A single shot this time.

      Every hurt, every disappointment, every little insecurity he’d ever felt, came back to him as he sat there alone, trying to hold on to faculties he refused to do without.

      There was the time his father had called home and asked him to bring his mother to the phone, and Chris, running into her room to get her, had found her beneath a naked man he’d never met in the bed that his parents shared.

      He touched briefly on the night Sara had given him back the diamond engagement ring she’d accepted several months before, but didn’t allow himself to linger. The void that Sara’s leaving him had created was soon filled again—by Sara. She was another man’s wife now, but she was Chris’s best friend.

      He thought about calling her, telling her about Ainge, and took another sip of Scotch instead. Part of the reason she’d left him was because she couldn’t live with the constant possibility of his death on the ocean. He didn’t need to bring the possibility any closer to home.

      Which left Chris with his morose trip down memory lane.

      There was the morning he’d received the call that his parents had been killed in a pileup on the freeway just fifteen minutes from home. That was also when he found out they’d been on their way home from a court hearing because his mother, who’d already broken his father’s heart, had filed for divorce.

      The last time had come a couple of days ago, when word had spread that Wayne Ainge had gone overboard, when they’d all waited as rescue crews attempted to get the young man up from the bottom of the ocean in time to save his life, and then heard the news that they’d failed, that the boy was dead.

      Oh, and there was Christmas Day. He always had invitations for the day, places he was wanted and welcome. But for some reason that day got to him. Which was why he was usually the lone boat out on the ocean on December 25.

      Still, only a handful of sad memories in forty years… He was a lucky guy.

      “You playing tonight?” Cody was back, tipping the bottle over the top of Chris’s glass. He might have stopped him. Probably should have. Instead, he allowed the younger man to fill his glass and then raised it to his waiting lips.

      The piano up on the dais was the reason he was there.

      “Yeah,” he answered after he sipped.

      Nodding, Cody headed down the bar. Chris was pretty sure he heard him say “Good,” but he could have just imagined it. No matter. He didn’t play for Cody. Or for anyone.

      He played because music was good for the soul.

      And because he could.

      He played because doing so helped ease the tension that came with lobstering every day of your life.

      * * *

      SHE’D GIVEN ROB twenty-four hours to get out of the house. She’d told him she was going to stay with her mother. She’d known she could. Truthfully, she hadn’t planned anything. Contrary to her normal way, she’d spoken without first analyzing the various ramifications of her decision.

      She didn’t have a house to go home to. She’d left her mother’s and she wasn’t going back that night.

      Her attachment to her mother was probably part of the reason Rob had cheated on her. A woman with her mother attached to her hip couldn’t be much of a turn-on.

      A woman who couldn’t climax probably wasn’t much of a turn-on, either. Lord knew she tried, but her body didn’t seem to be capable of letting go.

      And even if her relationship with Rose had nothing to do with any of her problems, Emma needed to be away from her mother long enough to be able to breathe on her own.

      First, she needed a place to spend the night.

      She’d walked out without packing so much as a toothbrush.

      She kept one at her mom’s. Along with pajamas and changes of clothes. Maybe she should go back. It made sense to go back. What was one more night going to hurt?

      She could start her new life tomorrow. Right after she changed the locks on her doors.

      And what if Rob was at her townhome tomorrow, waiting for her? What if he tried to change her mind? There she’d be, going straight from her mother’s house back to the secure life Rob offered her—albeit a life spent putting up with Rob’s philandering ways.

      No, she couldn’t go to her mother’s. She couldn’t show up at home tomorrow, the same woman she was today—the woman who hadn’t been exciting enough to hold her man’s interest.

      She couldn’t go home as the woman who settled for safety and security.

      If she was going to change her

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