AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seventeen
On Sundayafter she had left, he had fumed for hours about her abrupt departure, questioning why she had left. His mind could only say it was because she either had something going on like she had said, or she felt it was a big mistake. Whatever the reason, all he wanted to do was talk to her about it.
To him, it hadn’t been a big mistake, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wasn’t even the sex; it was everything about her. Her feistiest, her enthusiasm, her uninhibited personality … everything wrapped in one person.
After a few hours of stewing over what little he knew about the woman, he decided to put her out of his mind and go for a drive, but his car still seemed damp and smelled of her perfume as he drove a few miles trying not to picture her there with him, wet.
His mind drifted to the moments before she had walked out on him. In that moment, he had never wanted her to leave. That had scared him. Not once since his marriage had fallen apart had he wanted to spend more time with a woman he was seeing. Usually, he preferred them to leave his bed without any fuss. At least until it was Sera walking out his door before sunrise with no plans to ever return again.
Suddenly all he wanted to do was spend all his time with her—make breakfast for her and linger over coffee as they talked about everything, or spend the day doing what she wanted to do and hoping to end the day together. Instead, she was gone.
Harrison pulled into the short driveway of a little yellow Cape Cod with blue trim, completely out of place in Minnesota. As he climbed out of his car, he could hear someone in the neighborhood mowing their lawn, and Harrison could smell the crisp scent of freshly cut grass in the air.
Before he could even knock on the door, it opened to reveal a smiling face that always put a grin back on his. Emily Dean had no idea he was coming to visit today, yet his unexpected visit hadn’t seemed to surprise her.
“Harry! You didn’t call.” She stepped back from the door and let him inside.
“I guess I should have. You could’ve had company,” he teased her. After thirty years as a single mom, as far as he knew, she hadn’t started dating again.
“No company but you, and you’re my favorite company,” his mom gushed and gave him a hug.
Her arms around him was enough to make him feel better for a moment. “Thanks, Mom. You do know how to make a man feel loved.”
“You are loved, Harry. I love you every day. Even when you don’t call or stop by very often,” she scolded him mildly.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” He knew he should call her more often, but life sometimes got in the way.
“Come and sit in the kitchen. I was making cookies. We can talk.” She walked away from him, and he followed like he always had.
When he had been thirteen, he had grown taller than his mom, but she still was able to control him with just a few words. Her dark hair matched his until gray had overtaken hers after he was an adult. In his mind, he still saw her as the woman she had been when he had still lived in the small apartment with her, miles and a lifetime from where they were now.
Once in the kitchen, he saw she was in the middle of not just one batch of cookies but two or three different kinds. The room was warm from the oven, but the entire scene took him back to his childhood, watching or helping her bake. She had always loved to bake. Her day job could have been anything, but baking was one of her passions. One of the many passions she had to forgo to make a barely livable wage for years.
“So, what brings you over today? You don’t just stop by much. Getting married?” Her gray eyes lit up at the thought. She had never married but was always ready for him to be married again.
“Nope, nothing that bad. Not even seeing anyone, really,” he said, watching her scoop out even-sized balls of batter to put on a cookie sheet.
“Really? What does that mean? You either are or not,” Emily stated.
“It’s complicated.”
“Everything is.”
“Why didn’t you ever date after Dad left?” he asked. He had never questioned anything about the man who had walked out on his mom when he was four. He just knew it had happened, and that Emily Dean was the best mom ever. He had never missed having a dad around. Mom was there.
Her eyes went to the bowl in front of her, and she didn’t look back at him. “It’s complicated.”
“Everything is.” He shot back at her, making her chuckle.
“I guess you are all grown up now,” she said to her thirty-six-year-old son. “Your father was not a nice person, Harry. I left him more than once, and he would get me to come back, mostly for you. ‘A boy needs a father,’ he would always tell me, but you didn’t need him as a father. He was very abusive in every way. I will not go into it, but after I finally broke it off in the end, I never found someone I could trust again. It’s as simple as that.”
“You never even hinted anything about that.” Harrison was shocked by her words. He had just assumed the man had walked away and never looked back, not that his mom had ran from him as fast as she could.
“I didn’t want you to think poorly of him. He was your father.”
“I don’t even think about him ever,” Harrison admitted. He had one parent, always had.
“I do.” His mom actually smiled at her admission. “You turned out exactly like I had always wanted him to be. I am proud of you.”
