She cleared her throat. “When he was mad at me, he used to say I looked just like her and acted like her, too. That I was just as bad. Just as ugly. I hated when he came home drunk after work. Booze makes him crazy. Loud. Mean.”
Jameson pinched his lips to keep his opinion of her father from spilling out. Rick Bannister was not only a narcissist, he was an over-weight, alcoholic asshole, with two felonies to his credit. One for stealing his neighbor’s car, the other for nearly beating that neighbor to death after Rick decided he liked the guy’s wife. She’d shot him to save her husband, which proved how one-sided Rick’s take on reality was. Her husband recovered, which was the only reason Rick hadn’t done time for manslaughter. All this went down before he’d sweet talked Krystyna into marrying him. She’d been pregnant by him, trapped into marriage with a charming, but mean-tempered man.
In his quiet investigation, Jameson had also uncovered Krystyna’s medical history. Two miscarriages, one live birth, and a frightening number of emergency room visits. Some other important details, too. But none of that mattered if Maddie chose not to investigate her mother further. Some things were better left alone. Jameson just didn’t think a woman’s mother should be one of those things.
“What would you say if I told you I know where she lives?”
“You do?”
He nodded in lieu of answering. Jameson could feel Maddie’s heart racing. She was probably grabbing sharp glances at him. Breathy panic crackled through the air between them. The atmosphere in her car had turned into a sucking black hole.
“Why would you do this to me?” she whispered.
“Because I’m a mama’s boy, Maddie. Yeah. Big, tough Navy SEAL here, but I know who’s been in my corner every step of my way. I grew up with everything you didn’t, and I guess… I believe…” He inhaled deeply, needing a gut full of positivity before he said, “Most moms love their kids more than they love themselves. Like my mom loves me. We don’t have to visit Krystyna, honest. We can just leave this in the past and never find out why she left you behind, why she thought she had to. But if you ever decide to meet her, I’ll go with you. I’ve got your six, babe. I’ll always be in your corner. Just want you to consider the possibility that she might be in your corner, too.”
“You… y-y-you want me to give her a second chance?”
His fingers squeezed her arm tighter. “You gave your dad more second chances than he deserved. Why not your mom?”
A quiet hitch in her breath was all that answered. Miles passed. The tires hummed over smooth pavement.
Jameson took his hand back. By then, he had no idea where they were, except inside Maddie’s car. The traffic sounds were the same. Busy. Rushed. A herd of people he’d never see or know rushing by like soldiers off to their private wars. She maneuvered corners, waited for red lights, then smoothly pulled over to a curb. Still not speaking.
At last he asked, “Where are we?”
“Brentwood. Crabby Rocks.”
Great. They were parked outside her dad’s bar. Her expressionless tone explained more than her words. Maddie was hurting, right back where she’d started, and that was on Jameson. Thank goodness it was too early in the day to go inside for a drink.
“I called him this morning,” Jameson admitted. “Your dad. While you were showering after the second time we made love. Before I made breakfast.”
She snorted. “How’d that go?”
“He’s everything you said he was and less.”
“What’d you expect?”
“Honestly?” Jameson turned in the direction where he guessed Maddie was looking. At what he now knew was a two-bit bar in a rundown neighborhood that boasted more murders per capita than most other Washington, DC, neighborhoods. Computers for the visually impaired were a godsend. A guy could find anything if he knew where to look and what to look for. “I wanted his permission to marry you, Maddie. That’s why I called your dad. I wanted his blessing. It’s what a real man does when he loves a woman. He does the right thing. He respects her enough to man up and ask to meet her dad, so they can talk face-to-face about the woman he intends to take away from that father.”
Maddie was staring at Jameson by then. He could feel her eyes on him. “What’d he say?”
Unfastening his seatbelt, Jameson tugged Maddie closer, wishing new cars didn’t all come with sturdy consoles between the driver and passenger seats. “He said he didn’t know what I was talking about, that he didn’t have a daughter. To get lost.”
“Th-that’s all?”
Jameson nodded as he leaned her under his arm. She was crying, he could tell. Rick Bannister had also told him to fuck off, that he’d beat the shit out of Jameson if he ever showed his face in his bar or at his front door. But Maddie didn’t need to know that.
“Have you talked with my m-mom, too?”
“No, babe. But I know where she lives, and I have her phone number if you want it. She’s actually not far from here. She lives in Bailey’s Crossroads. But that’s up to you. I just thought if your dad could so easily deny the beautiful, intelligent, courageous woman that his daughter is, well… Maybe he’d treated his wife the same way, and she’s feeling as bad as you. As lost.”
“I don’t feel bad. Least I didn’t until—”
“Until I brought all this crap up, huh?”
She was breathing hard. Swallowing hard, too. Trembling. “My life with Dad was crap,” she admitted. “So… I’ve been close to where she lives all this time, huh? Does she, umm, live in a
