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“What?” Olivia gasped then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Go on Dad.”
Beneath the wired frames, Mr. Green’s eyes leveled his gaze with Shane. “Your grandmother isn’t your biological grandmother.”
“He cheated on Mimi, didn’t he? And the woman got pregnant?” It was the only thing that made sense. Shane looked like Connor, and there was no way he could have any of the McConnell traits without their blood running through his veins.
Mr. Green exhaled slowly. “Your grandfather and grandmother were married after eight months of dating. Your grandfather had an affair very early into the relationship. The woman got pregnant. From what I know, your biological grandmother gave up her parental rights, and Mimi adopted him. They kept the truth to themselves, and Mimi treated Shane as her son. Anyway, he confronted your grandfather. It didn’t go well. Both said things that couldn’t be taken back.
“I’m sure my grandfather told him he was a mistake and an ungrateful brat.” After their meeting, Shane knew in all the years since his father took off, those feelings still simmered.
“Something like that,” Mr. Green confirmed. “He called me, telling me he was moving to California to get as far away from his family as possible. He asked me to go with him, but I had just met Celia, and I wanted to see it through.”
“Good decision, Dad. Mom turned out to be a keeper,” Olivia said, her loving tone helping to alleviate the tension in the room.
“I planned on taking a trip and meeting this new girl he told me about. But it never worked out. The last time we spoke, he said he had something to tell me, but I was home with Cindy, and she was a colicky baby. I could barely hear him over her crying, so he said he’d call me later. I never heard from him again.” His voice quivered, and his eyes swelled with moisture. He swiped his eyes and stood, looking as if he wanted to run away from the conversation. “The next morning, he went out on his surfboard and never returned. The only solace I’ve ever been able to find in the whole awful tragedy is that he died doing what he loved.”
Even though there was never an upside to death, Shane recognized the comfort in the way his dad left the world. “My mom said he could stay in the water from sunbreak to sunset.”
“She wasn’t kidding. Our games of Dungeon and Dragons had to be put on hold in the summer months because your dad was always down at the beach. He tried to teach me one summer when we were sixteen.”
“Tried to teach you what? To surf?” Olivia barked out a laugh. “I would have paid money to see you try.”
“Obviously, it didn’t take.” He took his glasses off and studied them before sliding them back in place. “Sometimes I wonder, if I was out there in California, if he would have been in the water that day…”
Shane understood regrets better than anyone, and he also understood falling down the rabbit hole of what ifs. “You can’t think like that.”
“Took me along time not to. Even now I have a hard time ignoring all the different scenarios. Anyway, is there anything else you want to know?”
Shane didn’t even know where to begin. He had twenty-six years to think about it, and now that he had the chance, he couldn’t pluck a single question from the pile. Olivia’s finger brushed his, and the chaos in his mind settled down. A question pushed to the surface and Shane figured it was a good place to start. “What was his favorite kind of pie?”
Chapter 12
Bright rays of sun filtered in through the drawn curtains, and Shane slipped into his sneakers. He opened the blinds, basking the room in light. It was nice out, with no overcast and a promise of sunshine for the entire day. It would be a perfect time to head down to the beach, but he had a more pressing issue he needed to take care of.
He’d finally gotten an answer, but once again that answer came with so many more questions, and there were only two people who could answer them. Unfortunately, Mimi didn’t want to talk about the past unless they were discussing Shane’s history, and the other person, was an insufferable ass.
Grandfather was out of the question. If Shane never had to see him again, it would still be too soon. And whether or not Mimi would answer his questions was still to be determined, but he had to at least try. Milo’s car pulled up to the curb, and he honked once just as a text came through, notifying him Milo was there. Shane tugged a baseball cap on his head and shut the door behind him.
He got in the passenger side and gave Milo a fist bump. “One of these days I’ll get a car,” he said as Milo put the car in drive.
“No worries. I’m making burger money off of you.”
Shane barked out a laugh. “I’m happy to support your eating habits.”
They drove in silence. Shane had a million thoughts running through his mind. Why did Mimi stay with his grandfather? Why didn’t they tell his dad the truth? Why keep it from him? Mimi had said she’d had no idea Shane existed until he contacted her, so did that mean the rift between her and his father was never mended?
Milo came to a stop at the gates of Bayview Estate. He threw the car in park and ran a hand through his unruly hair. “Everything okay?”
Shane should have made more of an effort to strike up a conversation, but his head was stuck on a one-way track. “Lot of shit on my mind.”
“If you need to blow steam off later, give me a call. I’ll treat you to a burger.”
“With my fare.”
“Pretty much. I think of it as paying it forward from one friend to the next.”
Shane didn’t have friends. After experiencing the pain of loss, he decided it was better to go through life without forming relationships. He couldn’t get hurt when he wasn’t attached to anyone, but the people in Morgan’s Bay were making it hard for him to keep thinking that way.
After everything he’d been through, having a friend didn’t sound half bad. “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
