Free A Time to Forgive and Promise Forever by Marta Perry Page A

face looked old. “You know all there is to know from your brother. I don’t see any benefit to discussing it again.”
    â€œYou talked to Matt about it.” At some level, that rankled. Why had Matt—the rebel, the wanderer—been the one his father confided in? Why not him, the good son who’d always been there for his father?
    â€œOnly because he didn’t give me much choice.” His father frowned.
    Adam didn’t move. After a long moment Jefferson slumped into the leather chair behind the cherry desk. A breeze from the French doors ruffled the papers on the desk and brought the scent of the salt marsh into the room.
    â€œAll right,” his father said finally. “What are you wondering?”
    He’d been holding his breath. He let it out slowly. “I want to know why. Just why. Why did you take the dolphin?”
    His father leaned back, rubbing his temples as ifto massage away memories. “I was sixteen. It was a girl. Your brother must have told you that.”
    â€œNot just any girl.” Why, Dad? Why would you betray everything your family held dear?
    â€œNo.” The lines in his father’s face deepened. “Not any girl. Emily Brandeis.”
    â€œA summer visitor.”
    Jefferson shook his head with sudden impatience. “I can’t make you understand what it was like then.”
    â€œTry.” It might be the first time in his adult life he’d pushed his father.
    Jefferson stared at him, his face tightening. “They looked down on us—the yacht club people with their fancy boats and fine houses. They thought we were dirt beneath their feet.”
    Bitterness etched his father’s voice. Was that where his drive to succeed at any cost had come from? “Including the girl?”
    â€œEmily was different.” His voice softened. “She was—a golden girl. Different from anyone I’d ever known. It was like having a princess step out of a fairy tale. And she wanted to be with us, Clayton and me.”
    So Uncle Clayton was part of this story. “The three of you were friends.”
    â€œMore than that. Puppy love, I suppose it was, but I’ve never felt anything like it before or since. I’d have done whatever Emily wanted. And when she teased us about getting the dolphin for her—”
    He stopped, his lips twisting. “Clayton wouldn’t. Mr. Goody Two-shoes would never do anything likethat. I wanted to show her I cared for her more that he did. I’d have put it back the next day, and no one the wiser.”
    Oh, Dad. “You didn’t.”
    â€œNo. We were having a clambake out on Angel Isle. The island kids and some of the summer visitors. We weren’t supposed to hang out together, but we did. I showed Emily the dolphin.” He stopped.
    â€œAnd then?” Adam prodded.
    His father made a chopping motion as if to cut away the rest of the story. “We quarreled. I left. Later a bunch of yacht club parents raided the party. Emily’s father must have been upset that she was hanging out with geechees like us. Her family left the next day.”
    â€œThat’s it?” He sensed things unsaid, things his father would probably never say.
    Jefferson’s mouth formed a tight line. “Believe it or not, I never saw her or the dolphin again.”
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    Tory took a soundless step away from the open French doors, then another. She backed up until she hit the railing that separated the veranda from the salt marsh. Raising her hand to her cheek, she discovered it was wet with tears.
    She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Their voices had come floating out the open door into the darkness on the veranda. She’d heard her mother’s name and she hadn’t been able to move away.
    Tory wiped tears away with the back of her hand. She couldn’t change the past. She had to decide.What was she going to do with the knowledge she’d been hiding?
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