Acceptance, The (3 page)

Chapter Three

A rental car made Tyler feel a little more at home. At least he wasn’t arriving at his sister’s house in a cab.

When he pulled up to the house, he let out a long breath. There were cars parked everywhere and the car parked in front of the house was his father’s. Then he realized it was Sunday. That meant a large family meal and time together. Since Ed owned his grandparents’ house and they lived in a retirement community, that meant those dinners were still held where the tradition had started.

If he drove on, no one would ever know. He had a hotel room lined up. If he walked into his father’s office tomorrow no one would be the wiser.

He slowed the car, saw a parking space, and decided now was the time. His entire family was in that house. Courtney was somewhere in Nashville mourning.

Tyler parked his car and climbed out. Sucking in the air filled him with home. This was where he was rooted. This was where he belonged. No matter where he’d traveled in the past three years or what job he’d done or sight he’d seen, nothing compared to Nashville.

Still considering getting back into the car and driving away, the front door opened and his cousin Clara stepped out onto the front porch with her cell phone to her ear.

He couldn’t hear the conversation, but there was a smile on her lips. Could that mean her husband wasn’t inside, but on the phone?

For a moment he watched her absent mindedly play with her hair and laugh easily. He’d followed her career, bought her music, and watched her on TV. She’d done very well for herself. Tyler was proud of her.

Then, as if maybe she knew he was watching, she lifted her head and looked in his direction.

“Oh, my, God! Warner, I have to call you back. Tyler’s home!” She pushed a button on her phone and ran toward him.

His heart swelled in his chest as she ran across the street with her arms already wide.

“Oh! You’re Home!” She called at him as she jumped into his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He fell back against the car, his cousin in his arms. “I’m back,” he laughed as she gave him a squeeze.

“No one told me.”

“No one knows. Well now you do.”

She looked him over from head to toe and then her eyes settled on his. “You’re home for good. I can see it. You’re back.”

Tyler nodded. “I’m back.”

“Your mother is going to be so happy.”

She took his hand and started for the door, but he gave hers a tug and stopped.

“I think I should wait—until tomorrow.”

Clara turned and narrowed her eyes on him. “Wait? Why would you do that?” She studied him a moment longer. “You came here to see Darcy.”

“You’ve always been good at reading people.”

“It’s a gift.”

Tyler tucked his fingers into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “I owe a lot of people apologies. But I need to start with Darcy. She came into our lives and I ran away.”

“No one blames you for that. How could we?”

“I blame me. She didn’t deserve that.” He expelled the guilt building in his chest. “My mother didn’t deserve that.”

Clara moved back to him and rested her hands on his arms. “Both of them are inside. If you’re back you have a lifetime to apologize to them. Come in now and be with us. Part of us. We all love you and miss you.”

Did he have it in him to walk through that front door? His mind wandered back to Courtney and how she dropped her scarf. The world invisible to her, sight wise, but she trusted the feelings that surrounded her. Tyler knew the feelings he was having. Everyone he held dear was across the street inside that house.

If Courtney trusted the whole world, couldn’t he trust his gut and walk inside?

Clara grabbed hold of his hand and gave him a tug. “I think I just need to make the decision for you. Let’s go.”

He took her hand willingly and held it as they crossed the street.

“Your new single is awesome,” he said and she smiled at him.

“My husband is a writing genius.”

“He’s that. Where is he?”

She slid a look his way. “Don’t tell anyone, but he has a solo project. He’s working on it very hard.”

Tyler stopped. “Solo? Why would he do that? You’re a team.”

“We are. And my first love was Arianna’s theater. I’m going back there to do Annie again.”

“You’re too old for that.”

She laughed. “Ms. Hannigan now.”

“Okay. You’re old enough for that. Maybe too old.”

She slapped him on the shoulder. “That’s funny.” She sighed and dropped her shoulders. “I want a baby too. And you can’t have that perfect family life I had if you’re on the road.”

“You’re having a baby?” His voice lowered as he looked at her.

“No. I’m just planning it. But I think if I’m near home working it’ll happen. Being on the road is stressful.”

“Then it’ll happen when the time is right.”

“Just like you coming home.”

As she opened the front door, he heard all the voices of his loved ones. She was right. This was the right time.

They stepped through the front door of the home he’d come to when he was little. The smells were the same. The noise was the same. And he knew if he walked in further, his grandfather would be in the same place and his grandmother would be in the kitchen. They might not live there anymore, and it might be Ed and Darcy’s house, but he knew that much wouldn’t have changed.

Clara turned to him as he stood by the front door. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I just needed a moment.”

And only one moment was all he’d gotten.

“Who are you talking…” His cousin Christian passed by the front hallway. “Well I’ll be damned.”

He moved to him nearly as quickly as Clara had and pulled him in for a hug.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Christian asked as he pulled back.

Tyler noticed the wedding band on Christian’s finger and guilt punched him in the stomach. He’d gone to Ed and Darcy’s wedding because he felt he had a vested interest in it, but he’d neglected to come to Christian’s.

“It was a last minute decision,” he said on a partial lie.

“C’mon. Get in here.” Christian slapped him on the shoulder and walked back toward the living room. “Look what I found in the hallway.”

Tyler winced. This was it.

Before he even made it to the living room, the hallway had been flooded with relatives. Uncle Carlos and Aunt Madeline hugged him as did his cousin Avery and her mother, Aunt Simone. Uncle Curtis somehow managed to pull him through and into the room where his grandfather sat in the chair he always had in that same place.

He was nearly ninety-five, but there was still a vibrant man looking up at him. “Well, look who came home.” He patted Tyler’s hand.

“It’s nice to be home, Grandpa.”

But the sound of a woman sniffling caught his attention and he looked up to see his mother standing in the doorway, his father behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

She said nothing, only opened her arms to him and he went to her.

She enveloped him in a hug and held him. His father wrapped his arms around both of them.

“I’m sorry I was gone for so long,” he said into his mother’s ear, but for both of them to hear.

“You’re home? Are you really home?”

He could feel her sob against him and the pain of what he’d done was sharp. “I’m home.”

The sobs from his mother came harder, but he’d been prepared for that. She’d done the same when he made the very quick trip for Ed and Darcy’s wedding.

She pulled back. Her dark eyes were red from the tears which had come so quick and strong.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she said with a soft, wavering voice.

“I didn’t really know.” He took her hands in his and looked down at her. “I hurt you and I can never say I’m sorry enough. You gave me a wonderful life and I held a decision you made against you. I never should have done that.”

The tears started again. “You forgive me?”

“I did that the moment I learned about it. I had to learn to forgive myself for what I felt about it.”

She pulled him back into her arms. “I’m glad you’re home.”

He noticed his brother and sister standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Spencer had his arm around Darcy’s shoulders and she sobbed.

As his mother pulled back he went to them. These were the two people he shared his blood with and he had abandoned them.

Tyler was immediately pulled into their embrace.

“I let you guys down. I’m sorry. I want to make it up to you.”

He could feel Darcy sob, just as their mother had, and even Spencer sniffed back tears.

Darcy stepped back and looked at him. “We have time. We have all the time in the world to get to know each other.”

“You didn’t deserve this from me. I shouldn’t have left.”

“You needed to do what was in your heart to make it all okay. But you standing here in my house makes me think that perhaps you’ve made amends with it all.”

“I think I have.”

The house seemed smaller with so many people there. The dining room table had been extended and two more card tables added. His grandmother and grandfather sat where they had all the years he’d grown up eating family dinners there.

Though they’d asked about what he’d done while he wasn’t in Nashville, they didn’t focus on him the entire time and that made him more comfortable. He supposed in time they’d all corner him and ask him about his years away. But for now he was just happy to be surrounded by them.

Uncle John passed the basket of rolls to Tyler. “Do you need a place?” he asked.

“I guess I do. I have a room reserved at a hotel for tonight…”

“You what?” His mother’s voice broke as she questioned his plans. “You never have to do that when you’re in town. For the night or permanently.”

His father rested his hand over his mother’s.

“I know, Mom,” he said softly. “This was hard. I needed a night to think.”

Spencer laughed. “You needed a night to think and you came here?”

Tyler swallowed hard. “Well, I’d forgotten about dinner on Sundays. I came directly here to see Darcy.”

Darcy pursed her lips and batted her moist eyes. “You know, Tyler, I have some wine chilling in the refrigerator out back in the garage. Why don’t you go with me and we’ll bring it in.”

She stood from the table as everyone watched. Then, their eyes turned toward him. He stood and followed her to the kitchen and out the back door.

When he reached her she was on the back step taking a deep breath of the air he’d missed so much. She didn’t turn to him.

“Why did you come here first?” she asked.

“You’re my sister and I forgot to embrace what a wonderful thing that is.”

She turned now, her eyes shimmering from lingering tears in the low light of dusk. “You’re okay with that now?”

Tyler nodded. “What my mother—our mother—went through was horrible. She did what she did to protect you. She didn’t say anything to the rest of us to do the same.”

Darcy reached out a hand to him and he took it. “I love you and Spencer. When I fell in love with Ed, I thought I’d never need to find my birth mother. I thought that my entire life had become whole when I landed in this family. And to find out I belonged,” she sighed. “You can’t imagine what that did for me.”

“You do belong.”

“And so do you. It hurt when you left. It hurt Regan and Zach. Spencer has been lost…”

“And you?”

She batted her eyes quickly. “It hurt, Tyler. You hurt me by leaving.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You had to do it. I get it. But I felt as though just as I was finding my family I cost you yours. That’s a heavy burden to have carried for these past few years.”

Tyler pulled Darcy into his arms and held her against him. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’ll never do it again.” He pulled her back at arm’s length and looked her in the eyes. “I came here first because I knew my mother and father would forgive me. I needed to make sure you would.”

She dropped her shoulders. “Tyler, there was nothing to forgive.” Darcy pulled him back to her and held him tight. “But I’m glad you’re home.”

“So am I,” he said as his phone vibrated in his pocket and Darcy jumped back laughing.

“Word is out, huh? Everyone is looking for you now?”

He looked at the screen and smiled. “This is a woman I met on the plane.”

Darcy laughed as she walked toward the detached garage and he followed. “You’re picking up women?”

“She was escorting her brother home. His final trip home,” he said softly.

Darcy turned. “He was…”

“A soldier. Killed in combat.”

Darcy covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, Tyler…”

“She’s something too. Her name is Courtney. You’d like her.”

She watched him carefully and then dropped her hands. “You like this woman.”

“I do.” He looked down at his phone. “She just texted me the information for his funeral.”

“Are you going to go?” She began walking again with him following.

“I don’t know. I just met her. Isn’t that a little…”

“Wonderful.” She pushed open the door. “Tyler, she’s asking you to be there. That means she needs your comfort.”

That did something funny to his heart rate. “You think I should go?”

“I do,” she said as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of wine. “I’d be happy to go with you if you’d like.”

Tyler slid his phone back into his pocket and took the bottles from her. “No, but thank you. I’ll sleep on it and then decide.”

“You’d better sleep on it at Regan’s. If you sleep in a hotel tonight, she might banish you for good.”

He knew that was truth enough.

As they walked back to the house he thought of Courtney. He and Darcy seemed to have mended their very brief but important relationship. Courtney had lost that relationship when her brother died.

She’d asked for him—reached out to him.

He couldn’t let her down.

Besides, he really wanted to see her again.

Chapter Four