The Christmas Rose by Pam Crooks

Author:Pam Crooks [Crooks, Pam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-09T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The restaurant owner hooked an arm over the back of the chair. “Your father had a reputation for being a hard man, Miss Blanchard. There’s some that says a good businessman has to know how to hit below the belt to succeed. Your daddy knew all the ways.”

She arched a brow. “How so, Mr. Parsons?”

“He knew people. He had men who worked under him to help get what he wanted.”

“My father was an ambitious man, yes,” she said carefully. What was Stan insinuating? That her father was less than honorable?

“’Course, money’ll get a man to do most anything. Money or a woman. In your daddy’s case, it was both.”

“A woman!” Instant disagreement shot through her. “My parents were deeply in love. If you’re claiming he took a mistress, I’ll refuse to believe—”

Stan held up a hand. “Hold on, Miss Blanchard. I ain’t claiming that at all. No, ma’am. He loved your mama, all right.”

“More than anything,” she said fiercely, flooded with a rush of happy memories of them together.

“Yes. Your mama loved him, too, but maybe not as much as he loved her.”

Juliette didn’t move. “What do you mean?”

“Her heart belonged to another man,” Stan said. “Even after she married Avery, she couldn’t get her first love off her mind.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said, aghast.

“She had an affair with my father, Juliette,” Tru said. “After she married yours.”

Shock rolled through her. Mama and James McCord?

“They’d known each other since they were kids. Pa even proposed when they were of age, but she spurned him and went off to school in St. Louis. Eventually, she married Avery and bore his daughters. Pa and Elizabeth didn’t see one another until Avery brought you all back to Omaha when he took the job as bank president.”

Tru’s gaze didn’t waver. He appeared calm, in control. He spoke low, nonchalant almost, showing no sign he could be lying to her. No semblance of deceit.

He’d always spoken the truth to her. How could she not believe him now?

“I remember James and Mama meeting,” she said in a hushed voice.

It’d been purely by chance outside a grocer’s store. Mama had been flustered, a little giddy. Juliette had seen the flush to her cheeks, the brightness in her eyes. The pair had visited an extraordinarily long time, but Juliette hadn’t minded.

Tru had been there, too.

“You were wearing a pink dress,” Tru murmured, watching her. “And a hat to match.”

“Yes.” And you stole my heart that day.

“He was never good enough for her,” Tru went on matter-of-factly, as if he’d accepted it long ago. “After all, he was just a two-bit gambler who did some carpentry on the side, saddled with a couple of sons he’d fathered with a prostitute and a run-down ranch he managed to scrimp a living on. He couldn’t give her the life she was accustomed to. Or the respect. Society meant everything to Elizabeth. She intended to keep her place in it.”

Yes, Juliette thought on a wave of dismay. Mama thrived on dinner parties, the theater, expensive trips abroad with friends.

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