Page 48 of The Heartbreaker (Chandler Brothers 3)
Raina’s gaze softened. Though Chase didn’t share her hazel eyes, the shape and expression were similar, something more noticeable now, when Raina’s were filled with warmth. “Your mom loved the summer. She loved fresh air and being free from school and the constraints around her. That’s why she and I would spend time in a tree house behind her house.”
“A tree house?” Sloane asked, surprised. “From all I heard about my grandfather, I can’t imagine him building a tree house.” She crinkled her nose at the thought.
“Smart girl.” Raina smiled. “The tree house came with the property, and when your mother was late for dinner, your grandfather would threaten to cut the thing down.”
The thought made Sloane sad. “Now, that makes more sense.”
“The tree house wasn’t big, but it was private and no one would bother us there. We could talk about boys, and about girl things. Jacqueline was a very sweet person, but she lived with parents who stifled her sense of self.”
“I know what that’s like,” Sloane said, shocked she and her mother had something so fundamental in common. Having grown up with people who also expected certain etiquette and behavior, Sloane felt a sudden kinship with the mother she’d never really known. And suddenly she didn’t feel so lonely or unusual, the outcast in a political family. She was her mother’s daughter. And that knowledge filled her with an unexpected sense of belonging in this small town.
“So you can understand why the tree house was so important to her. It was a place she could go to get away.” Raina shook her head, her eyes wide.
“Is it still there?”
Raina shrugged. “It sure is. Do you want the address so you can see for yourself?”
“I’d like that.”
Grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen, Raina scribbled the house number and street and slid the paper across the table. “Don’t go alone or you’ll likely stir up questions you don’t want to answer,” Raina warned her.
She laughed at the older woman’s protective tone, then slipped the address into her pocket. “Now you sound like Chase.”
Raina leaned forward. “And is that a good thing?” she asked, obviously back in matchmaking mode.
“Tsk, tsk, Raina,” Sloane chided. “You’re too obvious.”
“Oh pooh. And you’re no fun.”
“Chase tells me you know my father?” Sloane latched on to the next subject of importance. So far, she’d learned much more than she’d hoped from Raina Chandler.
“You mean Samson.”
Sloane nodded. “He’s just a name to me.” She rose and began pacing the room. As she always did when discussing her unknown parent, she became restless and uncomfortable. “But since I came to town, I’ve got the distinct impression he’s not going to be what I expected.”
“Or hoped for?” Raina asked perceptively.
Sloane figured Chase got his intuition from his mother, who had nailed her feelings. “I never had the chance to form any sort of expectation,” she admitted. “I found out that Michael Carlisle wasn’t my father and came here almost right after. Next thing I knew, people in town are dropping odd comments about how no one’s ever called Samson a gentleman, or how he mooches sandwiches from Norman’s. Chase used the word eccentric?” She shook her head, confused and hoping Raina had more answers.
“Samson’s odd,” Raina allowed, as diplomatic as her son had been. “Surly would also describe him. But he’s harmless and mostly misunderstood.”
Sloane turned to face Raina. “How so?”
“People react to a person, but they tend to forget who they are or more accurately what they were.”
“What do you mean?”
Raina stretched out on the couch, looking more weary than she had earlier. Sloane made a mental note to discuss his mother’s health with Chase as soon as possible.
Pulling an afghan blanket over herself, Raina began to explain. “Samson’s mother was a quiet woman. She worked as a cashier at the general store, bringing in barely enough to make ends meet. But his father was a gambler.”
“Gambling?”
“It was very bad.” Raina ran her hand over the back of the sofa, deep in thought. “He was always in debt and had even spent some time in jail for stealing money to pay back what he owed. Luckily, the Coopers, who own the general store, took care of their food needs because his father too often would gamble away what little his mother earned. Awful, really.”
Sloane agreed.
“Circumstances made Samson a loner,” Raina continued. “But who can blame him? I mean, wouldn’t any teenager withdraw if they were embarrassed to bring anyone home?”
A lump formed in Sloane’s throat and she was unable to answer.
“But he was nice and kind and handsome in his day.” Raina smiled, remembering. “And he turned his attention to studies. His goal was to get a college education and do better than his parents had.”
Hope and admiration replaced Sloane’s earlier despair and she hung on Raina’s every word. “We can assume that at some point he had a relationship with my mother.”
