Almost Paradise (Sinners on Tour Book 8) (11 page)

When they crossed the border from New Hampshire into Maine the next day, Rebekah turned her head to read the big blue sign: Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be. She hoped that sign proved true, but she feared Eric’s life shouldn’t be this way at all. The closer they got to Bangor, the further Eric retreated into himself. Maybe they should head directly for the airport and skip meeting his grandparents. If he suggested the idea, Rebekah would support his decision, but he never brought it up. Perhaps she was reading his silence wrong. Maybe he was excited. She’d never known the man to be withdrawn when he was excited before, but she was always discovering new things about him.

They rolled into town mid-afternoon. Bangor had seen snowfall too, evidenced by banks of dirty snow on the edges of the road. The trees were bare and patches of yellowed grass peeked through the thin blanket of white. As they journeyed to the suburbs, Rebekah smiled at the whimsical, lopsided snowman in one yard. The one she and Eric had finished at their hotel the night before had been far superior—or at least larger.

She craned her neck to gawk at a spectacular nativity scene. Rebekah noted that with a wintery backdrop, Christmas decorations didn’t seem out of place the way they did next to palm trees in California. Except those nativity scene camels. Camels looked much better in sand than in snow. She reached over to their Christmas tree now decorating the gap between the front seats and touched the glass ornament Eric had selected. He’d found his heart this year, he’d said. And now he would find his family. What could be better than that?

The navigation program on her phone instructed them to turn into a cul-de-sac. “Your destination is on the right,” the feminine voice said as the van rolled to a stop.

“There it is!” Rebekah pointed to a giant contemporary-styled house that looked very similar to every other giant, contemporary-styled house in the subdivision.

“It doesn’t look like the kind of house grandparents should live in,” Eric said, craning his neck to take in the entire structure.

“What kind of house should grandparents live in?”

He focused his gaze on her face. “One like mine.”

Her heart produced a hard thud. She had always suspected that he’d bought his whimsical Victorian-style yellow house to compensate for his missing family. His admission pretty much proved her theory.

“So what do you want to do?”

He shut off the van and engaged the parking brake. “I’m not sure. Can I just sit here and think about it for a minute? I don’t know what to say to them.”

“Just introduce yourself.”

He scratched his neck. “I was just in the neighborhood after driving three thousand miles and thought I’d stop by to say hey, you have a twenty-eight year old grandson you’ve never acknowledged.”

“Maybe something a little less accusatory,” she suggested. “They obviously have no clue you exist, or surely they would have taken you in. Based on the size of this house, they could easily afford to.”

“They could have recently hit the lottery or something. My mother was a crack whore. Rich people don’t raise crack whores.”

“I wish you wouldn’t refer to her like that,” Rebekah said. She knew his mother had abandoned him, knew that his childhood had been horrible and lonely, knew that he had no reason to think of the woman kindly, but she was his mother. Shouldn’t that require at least a little respect?

Eric snorted. “I’m not referring to her as anything she wasn’t. According to my medical records, I was born addicted to crack. According to police records, the woman was arrested for prostitution. So I think I’m entitled to call her whatever I want to call her, especially if it’s the truth.”

It was so hard for Rebekah to relate to that part of his past. She’d been very sheltered growing up. She’d never even seen a crack whore, much less could she claim one as her mother.

“Perhaps we can refer to her as a lady of the evening instead,” Rebekah suggested.

“Crack lady of the evening doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Maybe we just call her your mother and leave out any description.”

There was a loud rap on Rebekah’s window. She jumped at the sound, not having heard the approach of the woman standing next to the bus.

“You can’t park here,” the woman yelled through the glass.

Rebekah rolled down the window and found herself looking into eyes so like Eric’s that she couldn’t draw air.

“Sorry to block your drive. We were looking for the Anderson residence,” Eric said. Rebekah couldn’t believe how calm he sounded.

The woman leaned down to look into the vehicle. “I’m Kate Anderson. Do I know you?”

Eric sucked in a deep breath. “I… No,” he said. He turned the key in the ignition. The minibus’s starter grinded and grinded, but the engine refused to kick over.

“Sounds like you’re out of luck,” Kate said.

“I’m Rebekah,” Rebekah said, deciding this was her opportunity to meddle. “And this is my husband, Eric. His last name used to be Anderson.”

Kate shook her head. “Sorry. Don’t know of any Eric Andersons.”

Ha! She’d been right. They hadn’t known about Eric. That was why they’d never come to claim him and raise him as their own.

Cursing up a storm, Eric pumped the gas pedal and tried starting the bus again.

“Have you ever heard of a Karen Anderson? Karen Nicole Anderson? She was born here in Bangor, so we thought maybe—”

“She’s been missing for over twenty-five years. She’s most likely dead.”

Rebekah gaped at the woman. She didn’t look the least bit upset to be reporting this news.

“So you do know her?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, I know her. I once called her my daughter, but then she went and got herself knocked up. Then ran off to Hollywood to make her fortune as an actress.” Kate snorted derisively. “Last time I spoke to her, she was begging for bail money. She’d been arrested for prostitution. Can you believe it? We gave her everything growing up and
that
is how she repaid us.”

“What happened to her baby?” Rebekah asked.

Kate shrugged. “She aborted it.”

Rebekah scrunched her eyebrows together and turned to Eric, who had curled his body around the steering wheel as if it were his security blanket.

Rebekah turned back to who she suspected was his grandmother. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Her daddy dropped her off at the clinic himself. That was the last time any of us saw her. She hopped on a bus headed west that very afternoon.”

“She didn’t have an abortion that day,” Rebekah said.

“How the hell would you know?”

“Because this is her son. Eric.”

Rebekah expected the woman to be shocked. She did not expect her to level a glare laced with venom at her grandson.

“Get off my property,” she hissed.

“Gladly,” Eric said, trying to start the engine yet again. It still wouldn’t start.

“Wait,” Rebekah said, more to herself than anyone. “Don’t you want to get to know your own grandson?”

“I disowned his whore of a mother almost thirty years ago, so he’s no grandson of mine.”

“Will you just fucking start, you foreign piece of shit?” Eric bellowed at the van’s steering wheel.

Kate spun on her heel and headed back up the drive. Rebekah wasn’t sure what compelled her to open the door and chase after her.

“We came all this way to meet you,” she said. “He didn’t even want to come, but I made him. He’s only here because he loves me.”

Behind her, the minibus finally roared to life. “Rebekah!” Eric called out to her.

Rebekah didn’t slow in her pursuit of Kate Anderson. If anything, she moved faster. “Don’t you care about what he went through? All those years with no one to love him and guide him, no one to tell him things would be okay, no one to depend on but himself.”

“Stop following me,” Kate said, probably wishing her driveway wasn’t quite so long and stately at the moment.

“Rebekah!” Eric called, gunning the engine. “Let’s just leave.”

“Don’t you want to know what he’s made of himself? And the rich and famous part of it is the least remarkable. He’s a wonderful man. He’s caring and considerate. Puts everyone before himself.” Rebekah didn’t know when her tears hard started to fall, but she didn’t try to stem their flow. They were tears for Eric’s lost childhood, but really, she should probably be crying for the selfish bitch she was chasing up the drive. His family members were the ones who’d missed out. Eric was probably better off without these fucking people in his life. “And he knows how to love. I don’t know where he learned. There was no one for him to model after. No one to show
him
any love. Don’t you want to make it up to him?”

Kate had almost reached the steps that led to her front door. Growling in rage and frustration, Rebekah scooped up a handful of dirty snow and flung it at Kate’s retreating back. It missed her, slammed into the ground, and scattered up the pavement in icy gray clumps.

“Stop fucking ignoring me!” Rebekah yelled. “Go talk to him! I want you to look him in the eye and realize how much you’ve missed, you cold-hearted bitch.”

Kate wrenched open her front door and turned long enough to scream, “Go away! No one wants him here. If we’d wanted him, we would have gone to get him when California tried to pawn him off on us twenty-five years ago!” She slammed the door and turned off the porch light, a clear sign that Rebekah was not welcome.

Rebekah kicked the snow bank, finding its destruction less than satisfying. The rumbling engine of the Volkswagen came up behind her. Maybe she shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that. Maybe if Eric had approached his grandmother calmly with that winning grin of his and an easy ice-breaking joke on his tongue, Kate wouldn’t have fled. As it was, the woman would probably never talk to him now.

“Rebekah?” Eric called softly. “We should head to the airport. We’ll miss our flight.”

She shouldn’t have ever made him come in the first place. If she hadn’t meddled, they’d be lounging on a beach right now, sharing a laugh, watching the waves. Her heart wouldn’t be breaking for him.

She gave the Andersons’ luxurious home a one-fingered salute and then climbed into the passenger side of the van. She rubbed her frigid hands in front of the heater vent and avoided looking at Eric.

“I’m sorry,” she said as he backed the van out of the drive.

“For what?”

“For making you come here. For meddling. For ruining any chance you had at getting to know your family by acting like a complete fool.”

“You were just doing what you thought was best.”

“Don’t try to make me feel better. I fucked up.”

He shrugged. “At least I got a few answers for your trouble.”

“You must be devastated.” Rebekah reached for his hand and gripped it firmly.

“Damn, woman!” Eric said, jerking his hand away. “Your hands are like ice.”

“Sorry. I promise to keep them off your ass until they warm up.”

He chuckled softly, and it was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.

“I’m not devastated,” he assured her. “I don’t know those people. If I lost you, that would be devastating, but them…” He shrugged. “I never had them in the first place.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant that or if he was just being kind and letting her off the hook.

“And I told you my mom was a crack whore,” he said.

“She didn’t start out that way. Aren’t you mad at these people for driving her away? Your life would have been totally different if she’d stayed.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’d have been aborted before I was ever born. That
is
quite a bit different than being abandoned and bouncing from foster home to foster home.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry for putting you through this.”

“I always wondered why my extended family never showed up to claim me. I thought maybe they were dead or no one knew where they were to inform them that I needed a home. I guess they just didn’t want me.”

Rebekah’s already tattered heart shattered into a million pieces.

“Fuck them,” she said. “I want you. I’m glad I don’t have to share you with a bunch of stupid pricks.”

He smiled. “It made me feel good that you stood up for me like that.”

Rebekah’s jaw dropped. “It made you feel good that I tried to assault your grandmother in her own driveway?”

“Exceptionally good. While I was watching you try to sell me to her, I thought, wow, she must really love me.”

“I do,” she said. “I’m just glad you realize that’s why I went a little crazy. I don’t understand how anyone wouldn’t want to shower you with affection.”

“You’re the only one who does,” he said. “And you’re enough for me.”

For now. But she figured sooner or later they’d start planning their family and filling it with kids who had a fate similar to Eric’s. Kids who fell through the cracks. Kids who had no one else to love them. Kids who needed a big-hearted man like Eric Sticks in their lives. Maybe then she’d feel like everything he’d gone through as a child had been for a reason. At the moment, she was still supremely pissed at the woman who should have welcomed him into her heart as her beloved grandson.