Chapter 20
An hour later we pulled up in the drive way of Matt and Jeff's dad's ranch house in the tiny town of Cameron North Carolina. As I stepped out of the car, I had suddenly become nervous. It hadn't dawned on me until that moment that one day I might be related to him.
"Hey, Maria, are you okay?" Jeff asked as we got out of the car.
He walked a little ways with me, gently draping his shoulder over mine.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little nervous that's all." I replied.
"Oh, don't me, my dad is very relaxed, he'll love you, I promise." Jeff smiled at me.
"Come on, I can't wait to see him." Jeff said, leaving my shoulder and bounding for the front door where the others stood.
"Come on Maria, join the group." Matt said, motioning for me to come stand with him.
I did, he gave me a quick squeeze of the shoulder and rang the door bell with anticipation. Liger barked from the inside. Gabriel suddenly barked from where he was, still in the car.
"Oh, I forgot Gabriel. Let me go get him." I said, ducking under Matt's arm and bolting back to the car where Gabriel sat anxious to get out.
"Hey, sorry boy, I almost forgot you. Sorry my prince." I said, lifting the back door up and giving him a quick ruffle of the ears.
He excitedly jumped down from the car and wagged his little stub of a tail. By this time, Mr. Hardy had opened the door and Liger came flying out to greet everyone, then managed to find Gabriel in the process. The two barked as if they were talking.
"Gabriel, this is Liger, be nice and go play." I stooped down to their level to "introduced" the two.
"Maria, come up here, I would like you to meet my dad." I heard Matt's southern drawl from amongst the laughter, loud chatter and dog barks.
I stood back up and took a deep breath and slowly walked to the front of the house were the group was standing.
"Maria Taylor, I would like you to meet my dad." Matt said very proudly.
I ran my fingers through my long curly hair in a nervous fashion and smiled, "Hi, Mr. Hardy, nice to meet you." I said formally.
"Nonsense call me Gilbert. Nice to meet you Maria, I've heard good things about you." His dad smiled just like Matt.
"Oh, really? Well, at least they were good things." I threw Matt a questioning look with a sly smile behind it.
"Well, shall we all go inside, the bugs are starting to get to me?" Gilbert asked, swatting at a fly that had passed.
"Yeah sure." we all agreed.
We followed Gilbert inside, the dogs following us as well. We had a great time there, we ate dinner and Gilbert told us many stories of what the boys did when they were young. Even some embarrassing stories. I could see that Matt wanted to crawl under the couch and die. After we had been sitting in the living room for quite awhile, and all the baby pictures had been gone through there was a lull amongst us.
Chapter 21
Chapter 19