Spencer stood absolutely still for several moments after Hailey rushed from the room. He’d almost raced after her, but she was quite clear about how she felt about that.
When Delinda spoke, Spencer realized she was standing beside him. “Did she just break up with both of us?”
He didn’t find her joke funny, but it was accurate. Without looking away from the doorway, he said, “I believe she did.”
“I’ve never been spoken to that way.”
“Nor have I.”
“I may have deserved it.”
“You definitely did.”
“You couldn’t have chosen a less outspoken woman to fall in love with?”
“I wouldn’t change a thing about her.” Spencer glanced at Delinda. His anger toward her was overshadowed by how disappointed he was in himself for acting the way he had. Hailey had been right to remove herself from the situation. “Not that she’d say the same about me.”
“It’s probably all that drinking. You’re functioning on fewer brain cells.”
“Is it impossible for you to say anything nice?”
“Maybe I would if you weren’t always scowling at me like I’m the villain in a fairy tale.”
“When something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks—”
“And I’m the one who’s not nice?”
She has a point, but while we’re being honest . . . “We wouldn’t be here if you had just accepted that I don’t want you in my life.”
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke it was in a softer tone than he’d ever heard her use. “I won’t ever accept that. I don’t care what blood runs in your veins; you’re my grandson. You were from the first day I held you in my arms.” She cleared her throat.
Spencer’s head snapped around so he could gauge her expression. She looked serious and unusually vulnerable. “I don’t have a single memory of you that doesn’t include you either humiliating my mother or harshly critiquing me or my siblings.”
“Then you’ve forgotten the time you spent here before your parents divorced. You used to sit beside me on that very couch, and I’d read story after story to you.”
“I don’t remember that.” Even as he said it, memories of sitting with her and asking her to read to him returned. He could almost hear her roaring like a lion and feigning the voice of Billy. “How did we get from there to here?”
“I was angry with your mother, and I didn’t hide it.”
“I remember that, too.”
“I thought she was the worst possible choice my son could have made, and they would never last. I wish I had been wrong.”
Spencer sighed. “Your son was no saint. In a way it was a relief when I discovered he wasn’t my father.”
“Dereck loves you. He just doesn’t know how to express it.”
“I’ve heard that before. Rachelle loves to say that about Brett. It’s okay. We’re not children anymore. We don’t need to all get along.”
“Is that why you won’t go to Brett’s wedding, because you think he doesn’t care about you?”
Before now he would have ended this conversation prior to this point, but Hailey’s words kept circling back to him. He never again wanted to see her look at him the way she had just before she walked out. If that meant staying and talking things out with Delinda, he would do it. For Hailey. “Actions speak louder than words. Brett chose to not be part of our lives.”
“There’s so much you don’t know.” She sat down, and he found himself sitting across from her a moment later. She looked tired, and he was tempted to say they could speak another time, but that would have meant he would need to return, and he wasn’t sure that would happen. He could work to let his anger go, but welcome her into his life?
“You would have loved my Oliver. He was a lot like Mark. Family was everything to him. He never stayed upset with anyone. It was his warm heart that I fell in love with first, but it was that softness in him that took him from me.”
Spencer didn’t know what to think at first when a woman who had always held herself above everyone opened up in a very human way. She told him the truth about how her husband had died and how it had put great pressure on her son. She unapologetically described how she’d tried to toughen Dereck up because she feared if she didn’t, she might lose him, also. By the time she brought up Brett, Spencer already saw the pattern that had shaped his brother’s personality. He’d spent a good portion of his life envying Brett, but he saw then that he’d actually had the better childhood. Spencer’s had been full of love and laughter. Brett had been raised by two emotionally stunted adults. Was it any wonder he couldn’t express himself?
Delinda continued, “Dereck may not have known how to be with you when you were living with your actual father, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about you. Your mother didn’t want you or your sisters to take anything from us. I doubt Dereck ever told her about Oliver. In her mind, it was greed that ruined her marriage. She wanted to raise you away from that. You never went without anything you needed, though. Dereck made sure of that. He and Brett were quite crafty when it came to finding ways to take care of all of you without her knowing. Do you remember when Mark wanted to spend the last of his life at home? His insurance wouldn’t pay for it. Dereck made sure it happened, and he paid for it.”
“Why would any man pay for nursing the man who stole his wife?”
“Because my son still loves your mother, just like he loves all of her children. How could he not? You are part of her. And Mark was good to you. Dereck didn’t hate him. He did what he could for him, and then later Brett took on the responsibility of watching out for all of you when he took over the company. Do you know he has people on his staff whose sole job is to make sure you get any loan you apply for? Every scholarship you were denied, then received—that was Brett. Tell me, does that sound like a brother who doesn’t love you?”
Spencer took a moment to digest that claim. There had been times in his life, more than he cared to remember, when something had come through after it had looked like it wouldn’t. He’d always prided himself on having done everything without the help of his family’s money, so it was unsettling to discover he received boosts along the way.
There was a slim chance the entire story was bullshit, that Delinda had made it up. The Spencer who’d stormed into her house a short time ago would have accused her of exactly that. He would have stood up, told her to keep her lies, and walked out. He didn’t want to be that man. It wasn’t how he’d been raised. It wasn’t who he was in his heart. He looked at Delinda and asked himself who she would be to him if he let his anger go.
“Okay, there’s no blood, so that’s a good sign,” Brett said from the doorway. His fiancée, a woman who had briefly been Spencer’s as well, stood at his side.
“They look calm,” Alisha said as they walked into the room together.
“Brett,” Delinda said with a smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Jordan called and said I needed to get here ASAP.”
“Whatever for?” Delinda asked innocently.