Claiming Colleen (Home to Harbor Town 3) - Page 61

She stayed on the phone a while longer, trying her best to bring Deidre comfort. When she did eventually hang up, she sat curled up in the corner of Eric’s couch, feeling lost. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, feeling miserable. The next thing she knew, Eric was coming down next to her and his arms were surrounding her.

She lost control at his touch. For some reason, his compassionate, strong embrace made the dam break. She sobbed with emotion. She’d held so much inside of her since that night last summer when she’d heard her mother’s confession about her affair with Lincoln DuBois and her subsequent pregnancy with his child—Deidre. It bewildered her, this upsurge of emotion. Sadness, worry, hurt and anger swelled and spilled to the surface. Eric didn’t say anything but just held her and made soothing noises. When her storm began to recede, however, Colleen knew she had to offer some kind of explanation. He stood to get her a box of tissues.

“I’m sorry. Here I go again. You really must think I’m a basket case,” she mumbled, wiping off her cheeks with the tissue he offered her.

“I don’t think that at all.” He sat down next to her again on the couch and put his arms around her. He’d pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans before he came downstairs. The clean cotton smelled good when she pressed her cheek against it. He stroked her back. “Who were you talking to? Are the kids okay?”

Colleen realized he’d noticed her cell phone sitting on the couch cushion next to her. “I was talking to my sister, Deidre,” she whispered.

“Is she okay?” he asked, concerned.

“She’s fine. It’s…Lincoln DuBois. He’s dying.”

“The family friend? The one she’s visiting in Lake Tahoe? Natalie told me something about it. Isn’t he the DuBois of DuBois Enterprises?”

Colleen swallowed thickly. She’d shared so much with him in the past few days. Somehow, lying to him given their new closeness felt wrong. Very wrong. She lifted her head and met his stare.

“Yes. Lincoln DuBois isn’t just an old

friend of my mother’s,” she whispered. “He’s Deidre’s biological father. That’s what Liam and Natalie discovered last summer, when they investigated the reason Derry was so upset on the night of the crash. My father had encountered some medical information about Deidre that made him suspect she couldn’t be his biological daughter. He confronted my mother about it on the afternoon of the accident, and my mother had admitted the truth about her affair with DuBois and her suspicion that Deidre was his child. That’s why my father got so drunk that night…the night he killed your mother and injured Natalie.”

Eric’s stroking hand stilled on her back. His expression looked flat…incredulous. The sound of the furnace turning on interrupted the thick silence.

“Deidre is out there in Tahoe with none of us there. She just told me DuBois is near death. She’s losing another father, just when she got to know him, and she’s so angry at my mom…and there’s nothing I can do.” She broke at the last, a fresh convulsion of grief tearing through her. Eric tightened his hold on her while she wept.

“I thought about telling you before,” Colleen said, lifting her head off his chest and straining to compose herself.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Embarrassment?” More tears spilled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away impatiently. “I used to think my parents were the perfect couple, but in the background, in secret, all this drama was taking place, and it’s so…tawdry,” she spit out. “It’s bad enough that the crash happened…that you lost your mother, and Mari lost her parents, and Natalie went through all that pain. But the reason behind it is so shameful.”

Her gaze flickered over him. He looked sober as a judge. He inhaled slowly, and she found herself on pins and needles, wondering what he would say. He placed his hands on her jaw, tilting her face so she was forced to meet his stare.

“I understand why you didn’t want to tell me at first.”

“You do?”

“You must be torn up by this. Of course you’re not going to be shouting it out to every stranger who walks by. I imagine it’ll take a while for you and your family to sort all this out. But believe this,” he said firmly. “You have nothing, nothing to be ashamed of. You had as much control over your parents’ actions as I do.”

“I know,” she said honestly. “But that’s how it is with family. You share the burden of the guilt. It’s hard to just let it go. It’s not that easy, especially when I see how their mistakes have affected people in the here and now…people like you, and Natalie and Deidre. How can an act of infidelity have such far-reaching consequences?”

He leaned down and kissed her lips tenderly. “You aren’t the responsible one. You can’t control other people’s fates, Colleen. I understand that the truth can be sad, and that it can hurt, but it’s not in your power to change it.” She looked into his eyes and saw his compassion, but also just a hint of a challenge. “Remember how I said a while back that you and I are a lot alike?”

She nodded.

“I know it’s hard for you relinquish control in a situation like this, to admit that you can’t be the one to make everything better. That’s why you’re so good at your job, because you don’t give up on your patients. You keep fighting. Just like I do for mine. But sometimes, you have to be able to admit that you can’t control things. People we care about are going to get hurt, and they’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes people die, too,” he whispered hoarsely. “And you have to be able to let go, to admit you can’t play God and control their destiny.”

She sobbed quietly. He was one hundred percent right. She was the nurturer of the family, the one who always smoothed things over and strove for harmony. At work, she hated admitting defeat with her patients and rarely did. Eric was right about something else. He really did understand her because they were similar in that way; they’d fought similar internal battles with accepting when things were beyond their control.

He made a hushing sound and kissed the tears from her cheeks.

“Will you do something for me?” he murmured.

“Yes.”

“Let go of it, Colleen. I know you can’t stop worrying about people. I know you can’t stop caring. But please…let go of the responsibility. Let go of the shame.” His face pinched slightly, as if he was pained. “I can’t stand to think of you holding on to it.”

“I’ll try,” she said earnestly. “I will.”

Tags: Beth Kery Home to Harbor Town Billionaire Romance
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