Read Online Sunrise Point by Robyn Carr - Free Book Online

found herself pregnant with Berry she was terrified that something would happen to her and she’d wake up one morning finding she hated her child, discovering she couldn’t control her anger.
    * * *
    Noah turned up at her house after work three evenings during that week, just to give her an opportunity to talk. News of her mother’s death brought out all these issues she had with her mother, which she told Noah.
    “But what about this father of mine?” Nora asked. “Right in the area and never a phone call? Never any contact, any help to deflect some of my mother’s more cruel moments?”
    “Yet another thing to ask, to try to understand,” Noah said.
    “He’s either a very bad man or a very negligent man,” Nora said. “He had a daughter! Shouldn’t he have done something? Was my mother right? That I was better off? Because it’s hard to imagine being better off alone with her.”
    “When you’re ready, you can ask these questions,” Noah said.
    “I have a full-time job, thank God,” she said. “I can’t leave the kids with Adie and leave town. And I’m not letting him anywhere near my children.”
    “All these concerns are resolvable. Once you settle on a day—a day that I can take you—I’ll ask Ellie to help out with the girls. She’s wonderful with babies and was a huge help to Vanessa Haggerty when she adopted a nine-month-old before her eighteen-month-old was out of diapers.” Noah laughed and shook his head. “It was insane—and all turned out well. Remember Paul Haggerty? He plowed the roads in town last Christmas and sent one of his crews over to your house to seal the windows and doors.”
    “Listen, I don’t need everyone in town knowing that Nora Crane has yet another crisis, that I’m from a crazier background than they even imagined.”
    “I know it sometimes seems that way, Nora—that everyone else has a normal, average, functional life and only you have stuff to work out. Believe me, I know the feeling. But really, it’s not that way. I come from a pretty crazy family, and poor Ellie—she had such trials growing up, taking care of her kids alone before we met. When you get to know her better, you can ask—Ellie is very up-front about everything. For right now, let’s think about the challenge you’re facing. You need to see your father. Talk to him. Ask him questions. Ask for some documentation that he’s really your father, that your parents were divorced and he chose not to see you, et cetera. First find out what he has to say and then let’s work on understanding what happened.”
    “I won’t put my girls at risk,” she said.
    “Absolutely not,” Noah agreed. “Whenever you’re ready.”
    * * *
    Of course Nora told her closest girlfriends what was going on—Adie and Martha, both in their seventies, and Leslie, the much younger neighbor a few doors down. Those three women had included Nora in gab sessions on the porch and shared stories and it happened they agreed with Noah—that she should face her father with her questions.
    Of course she hadn’t mentioned anything at the orchard. She didn’t feel close enough to anyone there to talk about her personal business. In fact she had been so preoccupied thinking about her mother’s death and her father’s reappearance, she did her job mechanically, the hours passing like minutes while her mind was in another place.
    She showed up at the crossroad of 36 and the road to Virgin River and there sat that familiar big white truck. And there he was, leaning against it. Waiting.
    “Wow,” she said, stopped in her tracks.
    “Hop in,” Tom invited.
    She went around the front of the truck and climbed up and in the cab. “I bet when your grandmother forced you to hire me, you didn’t foresee taxi service.”
    “Is everything all right, Nora?” he asked before starting the truck.
    She was startled by the question. No, things were not all right. But it was personal business. It had nothing to do with her job.