Prodigal Daughter

“Sure thing. Hop in before you get any wetter.” A flurry of raindrops accompanied his words.

“All right. If you’re sure it isn’t any trouble.” She picked up her bag, opened the door and slid into the front seat. Instantly, she was engulfed by the masculine scent of his aftershave, the smell of leather upholstery and the aroma of…was that pecan pie? Her stomach did a flip-flop.

“I can put your bag in the trunk,” he offered.

“No, this is fine. Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around her duffel and held it tightly in her lap, hoping to hide her pregnancy for a little while longer. At five months she wasn’t showing much, but it wouldn’t be long before even her full skirt and baggy peasant blouse wouldn’t conceal how far Wallace Hamilton’s youngest daughter had fallen.

She asked, “Do I smell pecan pie?”

“You do. My great-aunt Lettie sent one home with me. It’s on the back seat if you’d like a piece.”

“No thanks.” Her stomach rumbled. She couldn’t tell if she was hungry or if she was going to be sick again. Either way, the thought of pie wasn’t appealing. She rolled her window down an inch to let in some fresh air.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at her in concern.

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she didn’t want to elaborate on the cause. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then looked straight ahead. As he pulled out into traffic, Melissa rode in silence. After all, what could she say to defend the way she had acted? She glanced at him several more times. His face was set in stern lines, making her feel nervous and ill at ease even though she had known the man since she was eleven.

Face it, Melissa. It’s time to stop procrastinating. She knew why he was upset. “Have you seen my dad lately?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” He didn’t quite mask the edge of sarcasm in his voice.

Here it was, the conversation she had been dreading. “I know what I did wasn’t right, but I do love my father, and I am worried about him.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“Yeah, well things aren’t always what they seem, are they?” He wouldn’t understand the irrational panic that swept over her at the very thought of seeing her father in a hospital bed. No one understood it. Least of all Melissa herself.

She had tried to visit when her father was first admitted. She had made it to the wide doorway of the stark glass-and-steel building, but she couldn’t make herself go in. She had wanted to—but she couldn’t. If she had needed to save her own life by walking through those doors, she would have died on the sidewalk. Instead, she had run to Dean and kept on running. Until now.

Richard cast her a puzzled glance. Instead of the scolding she expected, he said, “I’m sorry if I sound like I’m condemning you. Your parents and your brothers and sisters have been very worried about you.”

“I know. How is Daddy?”

“He’s back in the hospital, but he’s doing a little better. They were able to find a bone marrow donor for him and it looks like the graft is working. He’s had a few setbacks, including a nasty infection his doctors have been fighting, but your mother is hopeful that he’ll make a full recovery.”

“That’s Mom. The family’s eternal optimist.”

“Your mother relies on her strong faith, Melissa. That’s what has gotten her through this.”

“People always give God credit for getting them through the bad times. Kind of funny, isn’t it, when He gave them the bad times to start with.” Melissa didn’t try to conceal the bitterness in her words.

He cleared his throat once, then asked, “Are you back in town to stay or is this merely a visit?”

“I’m not sure.” Besides her parents, she had three brothers and two sisters who would soon know about her condition. No doubt they were all angry with her for running away when their father was ill and the family was in such turmoil. For an instant, she considered getting out of the car and heading back to the bus station. It would be easy to just ride away from the painful confrontations ahead of her, but her seldom-used common sense kicked in.

A hundred and twenty-four dollars was all she had left of the money her sister, Amy, had sent. It wouldn’t last long. It certainly wouldn’t be enough to get a place to live while she looked for a job.

“I take it things aren’t going too well for you and…what is his name?”

“Dean Orton. No, things aren’t going well for us.”

That had to be the understatement of the century. She was twenty-three years old, single and pregnant. She had no money, no job and her baby’s father was long gone.

It wasn’t fair. All she had wanted was a life free of the expectations tied to being the daughter of Wallace Hamilton. She thought Dean would give her that life. She desperately wanted to love him and be loved in return. His dreams of making it big with his rock band had sounded exciting and exotic.

If he had been surprised by her sudden offer to travel on tour with him, he hid it well. Life on the road with Dean was a far cry from her family’s successful publishing business and the strict Southern upbringing she had known.

Only Dean hadn’t really loved her. All he wanted was a piece of the Hamilton fortune. When she realized that, she had been heartbroken. And she discovered that having morning sickness in a run-down motel on the outskirts of Detroit wasn’t exotic at all.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for the two of you,” Richard said, turning on to Mill Road and heading toward the bridge that led to Davis Landing.

She scowled at him. “You don’t sound sorry at all.”

“Melissa, I’ve known you since you were a kid. I play golf with your dad, and your mother invites me to dinner. I’m a friend of the family, and that means all of the family. I care about you and your happiness.” The rain had stopped and he turned off his wipers.

“I know,” she admitted, turning to stare out the window. “Things are just so messed-up right now.”

The sounds of the tires changed as the car rolled across the bridge spanning the Cumberland River as it snaked its way through the beautiful tree-covered hills of Tennessee. Upriver she could see the hills were ablaze with fall colors of gold and scarlet, but even their beauty didn’t lift her spirits. Below her, Melissa watched two paddle wheelers moving with stately grace as they steamed past each other. Their stern paddles churned the gray river water into white latte foam behind them.

On board, their cargo of tourists hung over the pristine white wooden rails festooned with swags of red, white and blue as they enjoyed a trip back in time. The boats were from Nashville and Davis Landing was one of several stops on their itinerary. How many times as a child had she begged her father to take her on board one of them? No matter how many times he had relented and agreed, she had never tired of the ride. What she wouldn’t give to go back to those carefree days.

Richard reached over and laid a hand on hers. “I, for one, am glad you decided to come back, Melissa. Your family needs you. I don’t know how much you know about what’s been going on since you left.”

“I spoke with Amy not long ago. She sort of filled me in. I know that Jeremy is only our half brother.” She cast Richard a sidelong glance. As the family attorney, had he been privy to that secret before the rest of them?

He said, “It came as a shock to everyone. Especially to Jeremy.”

Another major understatement. “No kidding. Did you know that Mother was pregnant when she met Dad?”

“No, they never told me. It wasn’t until your father became so ill that anyone knew. He’d accepted Jeremy as his own child. He told me keeping the secret was his decision. I think he knows now that it wasn’t a very wise one.”

The car left the bridge and entered the business district of Davis Landing. Old redbrick-fronted stores and black iron lampposts added to the town’s quaint turn-of-the-century charm. Just ahead, she saw the three-story brick office building that housed her family’s business, Hamilton Media. Both the Davis Landing Dispatch newspaper and the Nashville Living magazine had offices there.

Her great-grandfather had started the paper as a local weekly in the 1920s. Under the sound business hands of both her grandfather and then her father, the business had grown to a daily paper and now included a monthly lifestyle magazine that enjoyed tremendous success locally and across the region. Except for her brother, Chris, who had decided to become a cop, all of the Hamilton children had worked alongside their father in the family business.

“Amy said that Jeremy and Dad had a falling-out, that Jeremy quit.” As the company’s vice president, her oldest brother, Jeremy, had been her Dad’s right-hand man and everyone assumed he would take over the company when the time came. Now what would happen? Would her brother, Tim, as second in line, step in to run both the paper and the magazine?

Richard nodded. “That’s true. Apparently Jeremy and Tim had quite a fight about it. To make matters worse, the story was leaked to the Observer.”

“I imagine they had a field day with that. The Observer loves a good scandal and they’ve been trying to put Hamilton Media out of business for years.”

“A smear campaign won’t accomplish that.”

“You’re our attorney. Why don’t we sue them?”

“Because what they printed was true.”

She waved aside his comment. “Oh, that’s just a technicality.”