Free Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) by Anna DeStefano Page B

huge family, despite learning that they couldn’t have babies of their own. They’d from the start put doing what was right for the kids first. The rest had worked itself out every time.
    “Brad and Oliver and Selena and Camille,” Marsha said. “It’s not a coincidence that they’re all back now.”
    “Not if you have anything to say about it,” Joe teased.
    “I don’t know what has Oliver more spooked. Agreeing to stay in town for longer than he’d planned.” She could still see her son’s shock in the hallway. His anger downstairs. “Or the prospect of still being so tangled up over Selena.”
    “They weren’t ready for what they had when they were younger. Or how hard it was going to be to keep it. Not everyone gets it right from the start.”
    The way she and Joe had. “Brad and Dru worked past their issues.”
    Their Dru had learned how to believe in someone, something, as her very own. Oliver needed the same confidence in himself—in his heart. A lot of their kids struggled to trust the best of what life had in store for them.
    “What if he’s still not ready?” Joe looking worried—for her and their son.
    “What if Selena isn’t?”
    The young woman was so deliberate now, so careful. Like Oliver always had been, even when he’d been drinking and self-destructing in high school. He and Selena had worked hard for their new lives. And both were determined to believe those lives should be far away from Chandlerville.
    “This may be their last chance.” Marsha rested her head on her husband’s shoulder. “
Our
last chance to help them. We have to do something.”
    She and Joe had guessed for a while now that there was more going on than Selena admitted to. They hadn’t said anything to anyone else. There was no way to ask questions about Camille without making the situation worse. But after what had just happened in the hallway, Marsha was even more convinced that Selena was hiding something, and isolating herself because of it.
    Her husband sighed. “You’re determined this is the right time?”
    “Is there ever a
right
time to dig into the past and hope the truth doesn’t make things worse?” Marsha was thinking of Dru now, and everything she and Brad had already been through. “The last thing I want is to cause more hurt.”
    “A lot of good can come from believing that people will support each other, even if it hurts a little.”
    “Camille,” Marsha whispered. “She’s a very good thing.”
    “She’s the most important thing. Oliver will see that. Dru and Brad, too. Selena already does, the way she dotes on the child. We’ll have to convince her that she belongs with us, too. Or no matter what Oliver does next, Selena might bolt.”
    “Oliver will make sure everyone’s taken care of.” Protecting his own was a soul-deep part of the man he’d become, the same as with Travis. And Joe. “But . . .”
    “He needs to want Camille for himself—not see her as another responsibility to throw money at while he keeps himself from getting too attached.
If
she turns out to be his.”
    “She’s so beautiful. And she’s
so
Oliver’s.” Marsha had hoped so at least, since the first time Camille had flashed her crooked, heart-catching smile.
    “Our first grandchild.”
    Joe sounded exhausted—and positively bewitched. Then his breath caught on his next chest pain. He insisted they weren’t nearly as bad now as when he’d collapsed in the heat of the lateafternoon sun, mowing their lawn. Fin Robinson, one of their newest kids, had found his father and run screaming inside to get Marsha. Her own heart clenched at the terrifying memory.
    Straightening, she made her smile wider, softer, wanting Joe to know. Did he know? He was her everything—their family’s everything. He had to pull through this.
    “I can’t wait to see Camille wrap her grandpa around her little finger,” she said. “You’ll be toast. You’re always such a pushover with the girls.”
    He smiled