“There’s that.”
And there was also what would probably happen if she succumbed to the temptation. “What made your mother marry John Wyatt?” she asked.
Sobering, he sat back. “I was enjoying the other subject so much more.”
“I’m curious.”
“I think she loved him. At first. I also think she saw it as a way out.”
“From…”
“From the life we were living. She was waitressing at a strip club in Nashville. It wasn’t a good environment, but it was the only work she could get that paid enough to keep a roof over our heads and let her be with me at least some of the time.”
“What about your father?”
“What father?”
“You’ve never heard from him?”
“Not a word.”
“And your mother’s family?”
“Her parents threw her out when she got pregnant with me, so she didn’t have them to rely on, either.”
Sheridan wondered if Julia was ever tempted to strip in order to make bigger tips, but she wasn’t about to ask Cain that. “Have you met her family?”
“No. She was adopted as a baby, but the couple who took her in conceived right afterward, and she always felt overshadowed. If they could throw her out like that and never even try to track her down, I don’t see any point in making contact.”
“So John frequented a strip club?” Sheridan remembered that he’d attended church services as often as her parents did; the two images didn’t seem to mesh.
“He tells everyone they met at a restaurant.”
Sheridan tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’ll bet your mother was excited that you were going to have a father.”
“Some father,” he said with a bark of derision.
“Did she feel she’d made a mistake?”
“I think she figured that out soon enough. The first year or two went smoothly, but John acted like a big baby most of the time and it became a serious problem. He demanded all her attention, which made him resent me. I’m sure she would’ve left him, but then she was diagnosed.”
“So she hung on.”
“She hung on because he wasn’t abusive, as irritating as his self-pity and emotional rants could be. She didn’t want to leave me alone, didn’t want to die knowing I’d have no one, and she trusted that Marshall would do what he could for me, provided she stayed with John.”
“What about John? If the marriage wasn’t working, why did he hang on? Why’d he take care of her all those months? Was it out of compassion?”
Cain picked up his cards and stared down at them, but Sheridan knew he wasn’t really seeing them. “He was well aware that Marshall would cut him off if he walked out on her at that point. Marshall had already sold the hardware stores rather than letting John take over. He needed the money to provide for his retirement, but John didn’t see it that way, so the relationship was strained. Besides, John liked coming across as a hero. Everywhere we went, someone clapped him on the back, applauding for his selflessness.” He shook his head. “Letting us continue to live at the house was a small price to pay for the ego boost. It didn’t cost him anything. Marshall helped out with the bills since my mother couldn’t work, and John just went on about his business as if she wasn’t even there.”
“How sad for her.”
Cain narrowed his eyes. “I hate him for treating her the way he did.”
Sheridan wondered how Jason, living in that same house, remained so unaffected. She’d had a class with him. Occasionally, they’d met at the library to do homework together. Sometimes he’d called just to talk. He was popular and went out with a lot of girls, but she could sense that he was interested in her—maybe more interested in her than any of the others. She always had the impression that he was waiting for her to let him know she was ready to take their relationship in a new direction. But until she got involved with Cain, she was careful not to do that.
When Cain didn’t call her after the camper incident, she’d cornered Jason and flirted with him just a little. And that was exactly the trigger she’d expected it to be. He’d asked her out, she’d agreed and everything had gone horribly wrong from that point on. But during all their conversations, Jason had never even hinted that there was any stress in the household. Cain’s behavior was what told her that.
“Jason always acted as if everything was fine,” she said.
“In his mind, maybe it was. His father worshipped him, would give him anything he wanted.”
“Was John like that with Robert and Owen?”
“Not as much.”
“So Jason was his favorite.”
“By a long shot.”
Sheridan had so many other questions she wanted to ask Cain. But the telephone interrupted them. Cain’s chair squeaked as he shoved it back to grab the handset. “Hello?”
Sheridan toyed with the cards while she watched him. Her mind was still in the past, with Jason and what he must have been feeling, with Cain and Julia, with John and his selfishness. So it took her a moment to realize this call wasn’t for Cain. It was her parents.
“…Cain Granger…That’s right, Granger…She’s doing better…I’ll let her tell you about that…”
Swallowing a sigh, she accepted the phone. Her cell didn’t work—Whiterock wasn’t big enough to have its own accessory store so she still didn’t have a new charger—but she’d used Cain’s landline to leave her parents a message at home. They refused to get a cell phone, which meant she would’ve had to contact the cruise company if she wanted to reach them before they returned, and she’d decided not to do that.
“Hello?”
“Honey, are you okay?” She heard her mother’s worried voice first, but it was only a second ahead of her father’s. He’d picked up the extension.
“Your message said you were attacked. What happened?” he shouted. “Why didn’t you call us?”
“There wasn’t any reason to ruin your trip.” After everything she’d been through, hearing from the two people who loved her most in the whole world nearly made her cry. She’d thought about contacting Jonathan, Skye and Jasmine plenty of times, but she’d been putting it off, probably because they’d think she was crazy for staying with Cain—and she didn’t want to explain or defend herself. She preferred to pretend that it was the smartest thing to do. Not telling them allowed that. “I’m fine—well, better, anyway. When did you get home?”