Last Second Chance (32 page)

“Hell with this,” she muttered to herself, leaving her hair wet and pulling on jeans and a plain old white T-shirt. She wasn’t anyone’s doll and she certainly wasn’t dressing up for dinner with these people who didn’t know her and didn’t care to.

More importantly, she just wanted to get this over with and get back to her life in Dallas. To Van, if she were being honest. Because she didn’t care anymore if she lost her job. She knew where her real life was now. It had begun the moment he bumped into her. It was with him.

H
er mother was practically convulsing at the dinner table. Stella couldn’t stop smiling.

“Dr. Lesley, in addition to checking Stella’s back, if you could recommend a good psychiatrist, that would be appreciated. She’s obviously lost her mind.”

Stella grinned as she cut into her steak. “Yes, Dr. Lesley. Clearly, because I didn’t want to wear a ball gown and forty pounds of makeup to dinner, I’m a nutjob.” She speared a piece of meat with her fork and pointed it at her mother. “Now there’s the picture of mental health right there. Grown woman, collects dolls, treats her grown-ass daughter like one.”

“That’s enough,” her father said from the head of the table.

She flinched. Two words. In her whole life, the man had never spoken—not directly to her, anyway. And when he finally had, those were the two words he’d chosen?

“He speaks,” she said, ignoring poor Dr. Lesley’s slumping shoulders as he tried to disappear between them. “All these years, Daddy, and that’s all you got? ‘That’s enough’? Because honestly, what the fuck?”

Her mother’s voice pierced the air before he could answer. “Estella Josephine Chandler, you will mind your mouth if you ever want to be welcome in this house again.”

Stella practically exploded out of her seat. “Welcome? Welcome in this house, Mother? When in God’s name have I
ever
been welcome in this house?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her mother glanced down and straightened the cloth napkin in her lap. “Sit down and finish your dinner.”

“No. I’m done. I’m way past done.” She shook her head and glared at both of them. “My whole life I’ve tried so hard—so damn hard to be good enough. To be perfect.” Her voice cracked, weakened by the threat of tears, but she continued. “I don’t know why you hate me so much, Daddy. I really don’t. And I’m finally learning to accept the fact that I never will.”

Her mother opened her mouth to interrupt, but Stella wasn’t finished.

“I wasn’t abused, and we weren’t impoverished. I know I should be thankful. I got to live in a big house, right?” She swallowed. Compared to what Van had endured, she felt wretched for even complaining. “But the truth is, I was mostly in the way in this big, empty house unless I was winning races. And how many words have you spoken to me, Daddy, in my entire life? Counting just now, I think we’re at a whopping two.”

“Nobody hates you, Stella Jo,” her mother said softly, shooting a pleading glance at her father. “We just—”

“Get on back to your life, girl. You’ve made your point. Have a safe trip to Dallas.” With that, her father stood and walked outside.

“Nineteen,” Stella whispered after he’d slammed the door. That made nineteen words.

“Come. Let Dr. Lesley look at you. Then we’ll talk, okay?” Her mother’s tone was placating, but a little patronizing too. Similar to the one she’d used when Stella had woken up in the hospital after her fall. Right before her mother had started asking the doctors how long until she could ride again.

“Since Dr. Lesley came all this way, fine. But then I’m leaving. I can’t do this with y’all. I just want to move on. Past this place. Past whatever it is that makes Daddy wish I was never born.”

Her mother’s eyes went round. “You feel that? That he wishes that?”

Stella winced internally. “I always have. I was invisible to him. Always. The more you shoved me in his face when I’d won something or accomplished something, the harder he tried to avoid me.”

Which was why she’d spent her life down at the barn. With animals that loved her, depended on her.

“Let’s let Dr. Lesley do what he came for so he can escape this awkward evening of torture. Then we
will
talk, Stella Jo. If I have to follow you to Dallas myself.”

Now there was a nightmare come to life. Her life was in Dallas, and she didn’t want any part of her past encroaching on it. Stella nodded and looked over to the gray-haired man at the dinner table. He met her eyes and stood, following her into the living room.

“Sorry you had to witness that,” she said quietly as he stepped in close behind her. The scent of expensive cigars wafted around her.

“No trouble. You’d be surprised what I’ve seen.”

“I bet.”

“Lift your shirt for me, please. And point to where the pain is primarily.”

“Um. Okay.” Stella complied, pulling her shirt up to her shoulders and wondering if there were still bite and passion marks decorating her backside.

The doctor cleared his throat. Apparently there were.

“Well, there’s certainly some bruising. And you may or may not have a cracked tailbone. Only way to know for sure would be to get an x-ray.”

“I’ll bring her to your office in the morning,” her mother said from the doorway.

“I’m not staying that long. I’m heading back to Dallas tonight,” Stella reminded her.

Dr. Lesley sighed from behind her. She turned and met his sympathetic smile.

“To be honest, Mrs. Chandler, there’s not much we can do for tailbones regardless. Some injuries just need time to heal.”

Stella wasn’t sure why, but emotion clogged her throat. Her mother wasn’t perfect. But at least she cared.

“Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate you coming out on the weekend and on such short notice.”

“Any time. You take care, Stella Jo. And er, maybe go easy on the riding for a while.”

She was pretty sure he meant ‘take it easy on the rough sex.’ She thanked him as he left.

Once he was gone, she turned to a defeated-looking Candace Chandler slumping against the doorway.

“I’m sorry for the outburst. And for embarrassing you. Truly, I am. But I’m a grown woman now. I need to let go of the hurt and move on.”

“I never wanted anything or anyone to hurt you, baby. I swear. I just wanted you to have the best of everything.”

Stella swallowed and took a breath. She glanced down at her fidgeting hands. “I get that now. But growing up, it felt more like you wanted me to
be
the best at everything. And that was a hell of a lot of pressure sometimes.”

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry,” her mother whispered. “I was raised by people who didn’t want children. I wasn’t allowed to have anything, join anything. I worked this ranch from the time I could walk, and I envied those debutantes with their pretty dresses and their damn dolls so much I could taste it.”

Both women choked out a laugh.

“I wanted a little girl so badly.” Stella’s mom sobered and shook her head. “For a while, that was all I could see. My desire to have a little girl who would have everything I wanted and never had. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“It wasn’t, Mama, but I could’ve handled it. I
did
handle it. It’s him I can’t handle. The disgust that rolls off him every time he looks at me. The refusal to acknowledge that I exist. Why? Why does he hate me? I just want the truth. That’s all I came for.”

Her mother’s eyes closed so tightly they creased at the corners. “He doesn’t hate you. He hates himself. And it’s all my fault.”

Stella sighed. “That isn’t really clearing anything up for me.”

“I know.” Her mother nodded. “I know it’s not. Sit tight.”

Stella watched as her mother left the room and stepped outside.

“Hugh,” she heard her mother say evenly. “It’s time.”

“A mistake,” was all she heard her father mutter as he came into the house.

Her heart turned inside out. She’d known he’d felt that way, but she’d never heard him voice it out loud. And all these years, she’d thought she wanted him to speak. She’d been wrong. She moved to stand, but as her parents entered the living room, her mother motioned for her to remain seated.

Her father looked twenty feet tall from that angle, angry and tense and avoiding her eyes. It was her childhood all over again.

A fleeting need possessed her. She wished Van were there. Wished he could hold her through this excruciating experience. Promise to make it all better once it was over.

Her parents sat together on the loveseat across from her.

“Stella. Before we discuss this, I want you to know, your father did what he did because I was inexorable. I was overcome with the obstinate desire to have a child, and while I wanted a daughter, I would’ve taken whatever the good Lord saw fit to give me. But at twenty-nine, I was tired of waiting on the good Lord.”

Stella nodded, feeling completely off kilter and confused as to where this was going.

“Maybe you should tell her, Hugh.”

“Like hell,” he said without looking up. His cold green glare focused on a point in the distance.

Stella turned to look. It was the blue lamp she’d accidentally broken as a child. Without a word, he’d glued it back together. Neither of them had ever told her mother— that she knew of. It was the one secret they shared.

“Okay then.” Candace Chandler turned her attention back to her. “Stella, if you want to leave when I finish, we will understand. But please, please, wait to hear the whole story. And promise me that you won’t cut us out of your life forever. I understand needing space, darling. But these past few years have been so hard.” Her mother’s voice faltered.

“I can’t promise anything until I hear what you have to stay. But I will listen and try to understand.”

Candace shook her perfectly coiffed blond head. “I don’t expect you to understand. Some things… Some things you can’t understand. I just need you to accept it. Accept that I am a flawed individual who made a whole slew of choices based on pain and regret.”

Stella nodded.

The story her mother told came out evenly, despite the sobs that lifted her shoulders periodically. She seemed to literally be pulling strength from her father’s solid presence beside her, leaning on him when it became particularly difficult to speak.

“I was raped by a ranch hand when I was a teenager. Brutally.” The words stabbed at Stella’s heart. “The doctors said I would never have children. And they were right.”

Time seemed suspended in the moment as she tried to think of something, anything, she could say to console her mother.

“I’m so sorry, Mama,” was the best she could do. Shock and confusion had a stranglehold on her thoughts and tossed them back and forth recklessly to oblivion.

Her mother just nodded, and Stella realized the woman was a stranger sitting before her. Both of her parents were. Her mouth gaped uncontrollably and she did her best to keep it closed and just listen. Her mother seemed to be waiting for her to gather her composure to continue. Once the faraway ringing in her ears lessened, Stella nodded for her to continue.

“Your father was the one who found me. He saved me. That day and many times since then.”

Stella struggled to hear the words over her own breathing and the questions rising rapidly in her mind.

“I put it behind me. My family wasn’t the type to seek counseling. They were the ‘suck it up and get back to work’ type. They worked themselves and me to the bone until the day they retired. Once they both passed, the ranch was given to me. I wanted nothing to do with it, as you can probably imagine and empathize with.”

Stella swallowed hard, hearing the pop in her ears as she did.

“But Hugh reminded me that we had met here, that we could have a beautiful life, make our own memories here, and let go of the painful ones. He was right. So we got married here and began trying every possible way to conceive imaginable.”

Stella’s stomach tightened as she listened. She’d never been told much about her parents’ life before her. She wanted to know their story, but she was beginning to see why they hadn’t shared it.

“Nothing worked,” her mother told her with tear-filled eyes. “I’d nearly bankrupted us and driven your father away with my frantic need to have a child.”

Stella watched as her father murmured something in her mother’s ear that seemed to calm her.

Her mother’s shoulders straightened. “Then Grace Whitman showed up on our doorstep. She was the young woman who’d agreed to be our surrogate. She was pregnant and had an abusive boyfriend who knew her baby wasn’t his.”

Stella bolted upright without having meant to.

“Please,” her mother pleaded. “Please just let me finish.”

Stella eased herself shakily back onto the couch. Her stomach pitched and rolled. Wherever this was going, it was somewhere fucked up and ugly. She could feel it.

“I thought she was a gift from God, and in many ways, she was.” Candace sniffled. “But she hadn’t gotten pregnant by her boyfriend, nor had she gotten pregnant by herself, or by using the In Vitro methods we’d been trying.”