Forever Yours (3 page)

This was
so
not the subject she was expecting. “My
dad?
” she asked, pulling out of the driveway.

“Yeah. Is what you’ve told me you know about him still all you know?”

“You mean basically nothing?” He nodded but waited. “Yes, all I know is what I’ve told you. She dated him in high school, and he moved before she could tell him she was pregnant. When she finally did track him down after I was born, he didn’t even want to see me. He was already in a relationship and wanted nothing to do with either of us.”

The sting of rejection Sarah had felt, even as a pre-teen when her mom first felt fit to explain it a bit more, was enough that Sarah had never asked about him anymore. It wasn’t worth the pain. She’d never had any desire, even now as an adult, to try and find him.

Sarah pulled over into an empty school parking lot, needing to look Sydney in the face now. She thought it odd that he’d drive all this way out of the blue
just
to surprise her. The last time he’d showed up unannounced was when he wanted to talk to her in person because it was a pretty heavy subject.

“Why?” she asked, turning the car off.

Sydney smiled sweetly, another bad sign that this was not good. She knew him well enough to know that was his attempt to calm her. Her pulling over and parking was obviously a sign to him that she was getting anxious.

“My mom got a weird phone call a few weeks ago from a woman fishing for information about you. She wouldn’t tell my mom how she got our number. When my mom first told me, I thought maybe the woman had gotten it from when you used to list our number as a reference that year we applied everywhere for seasonal jobs or maybe from when it was your emergency contact number. My parents are probably the last people on the planet who not only still have a landline but have the same original number they’ve always had.

“My mom wouldn’t give her any information only that you moved away years ago and didn’t even tell her to what state. It made my mom nervous because she said the lady was really digging, more than just a telemarketer, so . . .” He rolled his eyes with a smirk. “My mom hung up on her.”

“Did the lady give a name or say why she’s looking for me?” Sarah asked curiously.

“No, it never got that far, and she never called back. My mom hadn’t even mentioned it to me until I’d been home a few days, and even then I didn’t think she was much more than a telemarketer too, so I didn’t bother telling you.” He paused as if to think for a moment.

Sarah waited not so patiently, wondering how this had anything to do with her dad.

“The other day a man showed up at our door. He said he was your father and he’s trying to find you—has been for years.”

He paused again when he saw Sarah’s eyes open wide. Her heart spiked, but she wasn’t sure what to think. Sydney didn’t seem excited. It felt as if he were being really careful about this and he hadn’t wanted to say anything in front of her mom. Why?

“His story was a lot different from the one you’d told me about him, Lynn. According to him, he said he and your mom were together for a while when you were a baby. He said they had a falling out and she left one day without a trace.”

With her brows pinched now, Sarah took in everything he’d just told her. “How did he track me down to your house?”

Sydney pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “He said he found the address online, but that didn’t make sense to me because he said it was the
only
address he’d found for you guys. He didn’t have
any
of the other places you and your mom lived before you settled in Flagstaff, not even the apartment you lived in there—only my house. At first, like I said, I thought it was my parents’ landline. I figured they did a reverse look up and found it. But the more I thought about it later, I got a different theory. He said he’d given up looking for you until recently when your brother started asking about you.”

“My brother?” Sarah’s heart thudded.

Sydney nodded but frowned. “That was his first stumble. He said you have a younger brother he had with someone else after your mom left, but he said his son is twenty-one. I didn’t wanna tip him off and tell him you’re only twenty.”

Incredibly, Sarah felt a little disappointed. The thought of actually having a sibling out there somewhere excited her a little. Regardless of what her father must be like or that he’d never been interested in her, the possibility that there was a brother out there who was asking about and interested in her had excited her for a fleeting moment.

“He messed up on something else too. Because he said the trail he’d been on to find you ended at my place, I pretended to know you a long time ago but said I hadn’t heard from you in years. I told him I’d do my best to see what I could do to try and reach someone who might know where you are now, and I asked him to leave me whatever info he had on you. All he had was your first and last name. Your birth date was off by a year, and he said you didn’t have a middle name.”

Sarah stared at Sydney, perplexed and not sure what to make of all this. She shook her head.

“Don’t get mad okay, Lynni? But I wasn’t even gonna tell you about it,” he started to say.

“What? Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because at the time all these other things popped in my head. Maybe when your mom took the money from her employer it wasn’t the first time she’d done it and someone else was trying to track her down. I didn’t want to worry you, but the more I think about it the more I’m convinced, even with all the wrong facts he had, he
is
your dad.”

Sarah’s mouth nearly fell open. “Why? You said yourself he doesn’t even know my birthday or my middle name.”

Sydney’s lip pulled to the side. “I don’t know why he’d get that all wrong, but even my mom agreed. She says my dad’s been known to forget what year I was born too, and a man forgetting his own kid’s middle name, even one who’s raised them the whole time”—he smirked—“sadly isn’t so unheard of. Since he hasn’t seen or heard anything about you in nearly twenty years, it could just be that he forgot.”

Sarah wasn’t buying it. “Even if that were true, why would my mom lie to me all these years?”

“That’s what I’m wondering too.”

Feeling a little annoyed that Sydney would take this stranger’s words over her own mother’s, Sarah peered at him. “Because she hasn’t been, Sydney. This guy could be anyone. He doesn’t even have—”

“Listen to me,” Sydney said, quickly holding up a hand. “For days after, I thought the same thing. Then I started remembering things such as when your mom asked if she could use our address to have things delivered because she claimed she didn’t trust the mailboxes at the apartments you guys lived in.”

“What do you mean
claimed
?” Sarah snapped at him, suddenly feeling defensive for her mom. “People had things taken from the boxes downstairs all the time.”

“But the things she had delivered to our house usually came from UPS or FedEx, not the post office.”

Sarah thought about that for a moment. “If we weren’t home, she didn’t want things left at our door. Those things could be stolen in our building. She probably thought it safer to have them delivered to your house.”

“I’m thinking she was having things delivered from someone back home. Maybe she was afraid somehow it could get back to your dad, so she didn’t want to risk having the stuff delivered straight to your place.”

Sarah shook her head. That didn’t make sense. It still meant her mom had lied all this time and that Sarah actually had a father who wanted to know her and her mom had denied not only him but Sarah the chance to get to know each other.

There was no way.

“Think about it. If she really wanted to, she could’ve just had the packages delivered to her work. But then she would’ve risked them tracking her down there.”

“Maybe her work didn’t allow it,” Sarah argued. “Maybe she just thought it would be easier to have them delivered to your house. Any of that makes more sense than her lying to me.”

“Lynni, until he screwed up about your age and birth date, I was convinced I was talking to your dad.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Why? Because he said so?”

“No.” Sydney frowned. “Because when I first opened the door, the thing that struck me most was his light green eyes and dark lashes. I couldn’t stop looking at them. I felt like I was looking into your eyes the whole time. As dark as your hair is and as light as your mom’s is, I always knew you must’ve gotten your hair color from your dad, and I was right. His brows are even arched just like yours. It was eerie as shit.”

In all the years she’d known Sydney—even when her mom had left her alone a few times, most notably the New Years she went to Vegas and Sarah was hurt that she wouldn’t be there for her birthday—Sydney had never once spoken badly of her mother. Minutes ago she’d begun to wonder if maybe he secretly harbored feelings of resentment towards her mom all this time and that’s why he was so quick to think the worst of her. But that wasn’t Sydney. He’d never hurt Sarah by making her feel her mother had kept something this huge from her. What he was saying now actually made sense.

Torn between excitement and feeling hurt that her mom may have lied, Sarah stared out the window aimlessly, unable to argue anymore. “You really think I have a brother?”

“I don’t know. He might have his age wrong too.” She turned to watch Sydney pull his phone out of his pocket. “He left me his number and email address in case I got a hold of you. He said he and your alleged brother would be waiting anxiously, and my mom said he sounded real genuine. She also agreed that the resemblance was uncanny. You could try emailing him first—get a feel for him before talking to him.” He tapped a few things on his phone screen then stopped and looked up at her. “But you have to promise me, Lynni, that you won’t agree to meet with him or your brother alone.”

“I promise,” she said, unable to believe after twenty years she might actually be meeting her dad—maybe even a brother she had no idea existed.

Sydney texted her the information, and then they sat there and theorized some more for a while. They finally left to go get that ice cream with Sarah’s insides a mix of excitement, hurt feelings, and anxiousness. If by chance this was some kind of con, her mom might be hurt that Sarah had ever considered it to be true.

After talking about it until she was exhausted, she decided her mother deserved the benefit of the doubt and she’d just ask her before doing anything else. But it would have to wait until tomorrow when Sydney was gone. Sarah didn’t want to risk there being some truth to this and her mother having to explain something so personal in front of Sydney.

By the time she’d set up Sydney on the front room sofa and was getting ready to climb in her bed, she remembered Carina and felt bad that they’d spent the whole night discussing
her
issues—again. His Carina troubles and asking Sydney about them had been the last thing on her mind. She tiptoed out into the front room in case he’d already fallen asleep. The second she walked in the room he turned to her and smiled. “Can’t sleep?” he asked. “I can’t either.”

He patted the spot on the sofa adjacent to his waistline. A million years ago, or at least that how long ago it felt, she would’ve thought nothing of it and plopped right down next to him. There was no way now. She leaned against the hallway doorway instead.

“I meant to ask you,” she said, rethinking having gone out there in her sleep clothes—an oversized T-shirt and undies. Tugging at the bottom of her shirt, she continued, “So things are not so great with you and Carina?”

Sydney grimaced. “We broke up actually.”

Sarah’s brows shot up, and her heart actually ached for him. He and Carina had been together as long as she and Angel had. “Really?” She pouted, feeling even worse about not having asked earlier.” What happened?”

“Long story,” he said, sitting up with a crooked smile.

“Tell me,” she urged.

It didn’t feel fair that, as usual, their entire conversation tonight had been mostly about her and her issues. For the past several years—ever since the whole nightmare started with her mom being sent to jail and Sarah having to move out to California then dealing with the trial against her coach and every other new thing that happened to her—it was always the same thing. They’d spend the majority of their conversations discussing her dilemmas, and, like tonight, something as big as Sydney breaking up with his girlfriend of nearly three years had not even been brought up. She felt disgusted with herself.

“If I tell you, you gotta promise you’re not gonna feel bad or try to talk me out of it. My mind is made up. Okay?”

Sarah tilted her head, confused. She already felt bad for him. That was a given. This was huge, and she knew how much Sydney cared about Carina. She’d been his first everything. But trying to talk him out of it?

She nodded. “
Okay
. . .”

With a deep breath, he began. “She’s never been able to deal with you in my life, Lynn, even from a distance. We’d been having other issues too, but that was the biggest one. It’s why I hadn’t come around in so long. Last year, when I cancelled my trip out here last minute, it wasn’t because of my car issues. It was because, when I told her about the trip, things got hairy.”