5
Dane
I thought I had my life figured out, but everything changed in an instant. Now, I know what I should do, but it’s not what I want to do. I wish there was a mailbox where you could write something down and the answer to your problem would magically appear below. -H
You’d think allthe walking and fresh air would have made me sleep like the dead, but you’d be wrong. When my phone rang the morning after dinner with Brook, I could have sworn it’d only been a couple of hours since I’d lain down on the luxurious mattress in my room.
I’d tossed and turned all night, trying to figure out how I’d read Brook so wrong. He’d been fun and flirty all night, until the end, when his face had gone blank and he’d pulled away when I leaned in to kiss him.
And what in the hell was that all about, anyway? I wasn’t a kisser. I mean, I didn’t have anything against kissing, but it wasn’t part of my standard operating procedure when it came to hookups. Time making out like teenagers was much better spent getting naked and on with the main event. But with Brook, it was different. The stress had melted away as we walked along the beach. I’d enjoyed the way he fit against my side, the little sighs he made when he was happy. When he fell, I wanted nothing more than to take care of him. Hell, I barely recognized myself when we were together, but I wasn’t certain that was a bad thing.
The phone rang again, and I snatched it off the nightstand. “’Lo?”
“Did I wake you?” The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t familiar, but the Southern drawl hinted at who it might be.
“James?”
“Yes, sorry. Your dad gave me your number when we were writing back and forth.”
Dad and I would have to chat about him handing out my personal information when he got out.
“I wanted to apologize for last night and see if you’d like to talk over breakfast.”
I rolled onto my stomach, pulling the quilt over my head. If I pretended the world didn’t exist, it’d go away, right? Sadly, I’d learned long ago that wasn’t the way the world worked. I’d tried that the night Dad was arrested, and everything seemed bleaker when I finally rejoined the world.
“It’s going to be a while before I’m ready,” I told James, swinging my feet to the floor. A cool breeze carried the sounds of morning through the window I’d left open last night. I stumbled to the coffee maker, cursing that the supplies hadn’t been refreshed. Oh yeah, I was staying in a hotel that wasn’t open yet, which likely meant no one was cleaning and restocking the rooms.
“Actually, I’m sitting on the back patio, and I brought coffee and pastries.” Life. Saver. I took back all the shitty things I’d thought about James and hurried to yank on a T-shirt. He’d have to deal with my thin cotton lounge pants, because I needed coffee more than I needed to look presentable. And I wanted answers. James currently held everything I wanted most in life in his possession.
“I’ll be down as soon as I can.” I raced through my morning ablutions, grabbed my room key, and practically jogged through the hall. There was no sign of Brook, but it was probably his day off. No reason to work on a Sunday if there weren’t any guests and the renovation crews had the day off.
I studied James as I crossed the patio. There were hints of my father’s features in his face, but if I’d walked past him on the street, I wouldn’t have assumed the two men were related. I wished I knew which of them took after which of their parents, just as I often wondered where my own features came from. I’d assumed my egg donor, but looking at James, it was obvious I carried some of the Montgomery genetics.
“Sleep well?” James asked as he handed me a disposable cup of coffee. I typically drank it light and sweet, but I was sleep-deprived enough I didn’t mind drinking it black. When a person traveled as much as I did, spent as much time in generic conference rooms, they got used to taking whatever they were offered.
“Not really,” I admitted. Deep lines formed across James’s forehead and at the corners of his mouth, so I quickly added, “Believe me, that’s not a slight to the accommodations at all. The room’s amazing. It’s the curse of trying to sleep anywhere other than home. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but it always takes me a few days to get used to a new bed. And by that point, it’s almost time to head to the next city.”
“That must get old after a while.”
I shrugged, because yeah, it totally did, but the job paid well and the benefits were out of this world. Hell, soon they’d force me to take a few months off, with pay, because they said sabbaticals helped with employee satisfaction and retention.
“Have you ever considered a career change? Possibly something that would give you home time and allow you to settle down somewhere?”
“Just how much have you and Dad been writing back and forth?” Talking to James felt eerily similar to those days I visited the prison.
“We’ve been in touch for close to a year now.” James cleared his throat a few times and stared out at the ocean. I couldn’t blame him; it was a spectacular view. But something in his short, jerky movements as he reached for a donut hinted that this conversation wasn’t going to be comfortable for either of us. “I contacted him after our father, your grandfather, passed away. One of my dad’s greatest regrets in life was allowing your grandmother to dictate what all of us did. I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but she wasn’t a great woman.”
Seems like the men in the Montgomery family have a history of picking all the wrong women. Good thing that’s one bullet I’ll manage to dodge.Luckily I was awake enough to avoid saying that out loud.
“Before we go any further, I feel I owe you a bit of an explanation.”
I waved him off. As curious as I was about my family and how he’d suddenly reappeared after an entire lifetime, I didn’t want him lancing old wounds for my sake.
“No, you deserve to understand a bit about the Montgomery family,” he insisted, sipping at his coffee, picking at his pastry. “Or perhaps it’s more fair to say the Leeds family. You see, your grandmother came from old money. Her family still owns a plantation in South Carolina, and everything they do is for appearances. When she fell in love with your grandfather, they made their distaste known, but she was a rebellious debutante set to carve her own way in the world.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I argued. If she’d faced that type of reaction when she met my grandfather, why in the world would they have shunned my dad for falling in love with my egg donor? Granted, they might have had legitimate concerns given how that particular story ended, but it didn’t compute in my brain.
“Anyway, she was always the one in control in our family. She was a spiteful woman, and I think she grew to regret the choices she’d made to prove a point to her family,” he continued. “Looking back, I’m not sure my parents ever truly loved one another, but even suggesting divorce was forbidden as far as she was concerned. It was much better, in her view, to be miserable and drag everyone down with her. Eventually I think it was the poison inside of her that did her in.”
