Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope by Bernadette Marie Page B

my reasons.”
    “I know. I heard them.” Sophia’s eyes narrowed on her. “I heard you argue with Dad last night. I was on the porch,” she admitted with a quiver in her voice.
    “I see. And you think my reasons were wrong?”
    “I know they were.” Carissa carried the instrument case to the corner of the room and set it there before returning to the stand full of music. “My father didn’t know about me.”
    “I find that hard to believe. I saw the way he looked at you.”
    “It’s true. I don’t know anything about their relationship, but I do know that they didn’t love each other and that my mother only used him for drug money. She told him she had a baby and that I died at birth.”
    “Oh, Carissa.” Sophia sat down in her chair again, clutching her cello case.
    “I’d come to the house that day to find him. My mom crashed the car on our way there. We were only a mile away. I think she was so nervous. I’d found out who he was and where he was, and I made her take me to meet him. Actually, I had a few choice words for him.” She laughed a nervous laugh.
    Carissa sat in the chair across from Sophia. Her palms began to sweat, and she rubbed her hands on the knees of her jeans.
    “She took too many pills. She passed out. He ran back with me, and by the time we got to her, the ambulance and police were there. He was blindsided. But he wrapped his arms around me and never let go.”
    Tears stung Carissa’s eyes. “He loved me, and I could see that. He loved me from the moment you opened the door and found me standing on your front porch. He didn’t know I existed, but he understood who I was.”
    Carissa stood and carried the music stand to the corner of the room where her cello stood. She looked out the window over the lawn where she’d seen the rawness of Sophia’s pain. “They wouldn’t let him take me home with him. They had no proof that I was his daughter, and my mother was unconscious. The police were going to take me away.” She stopped there. Anything else would make Sophia only think less of her.
    “When he finally returned home, you had gone. And I was glad.” Carissa let out a sigh. “I didn’t even know who you were, but you were in my way. You were in the way of my fairy-tale life. When Dad finally realized you were gone, and not just ignoring his calls, we were too much into his life for him to turn us away. Mom needed help, and he needed me. I was happy with that.”
    “I went to the hospital,” Sophia said softly. “They called her his wife, and a kind of pain I’d never known shifted through me. Then I saw him with you on his lap. He was stroking your hair. I think you’d fallen asleep. He kissed you, and I decided I had to go.”
    Carissa sat on the edge of the large oak desk in the center of the room and looked at Sophia. She hurt for her. “He was miserable. He was mad at my mom for lying. He was mad at you for leaving. I could tell I brought him joy, and that was all I wanted,” she admitted. “When you released the house to him, we found a house for us. Just him and me. We picked it out. Mom came with us, but really, it was our house. Mine and Dad’s. She wasn’t there much, and by the time I was ten, she left us.”
    “Ten? Your mother has been gone that long?” Sophia’s eyes were damp, and she barely knew Carissa. Her mother had never cried for her.
    She snorted and shook her head. “He wouldn’t marry her. All he would give her was a home and money. He didn’t want her. He wanted you.”
    Carissa stood and paced the room, walking by the piano in the corner and running her fingers along the polished wood.
    “Mandy didn’t love him, and she hated me. She wanted drugs, and he’d started to refuse to help her. She finally realized it would be better to dump us both, and she left. I haven’t seen her since, and I don’t care. I have my dad, and that’s all I need.”
    “Carissa, I had no idea.” Sophia looked like she might be zoning in for a hug,