A Dream Too Far (Summer Lake Silver Book 2)

by SJ McCoy

  Chapter Twelve

  Chris closed up the office in the women’s center and wandered through to the bakery. It had been a long few days since Seymour had left. They’d spoken on the phone each night, but it wasn’t the same. If he were still here, she’d be rushing out after her appointments either to meet him here or to go home and deal with the other details of her life before she got to see him later. Now, she felt a little aimless—and that wasn’t like her.

  April smiled at her from behind the counter in the bakery. “You look like you could use a pick-me-up. Are you after a donut, a coffee or both?”

  Chris laughed. “I’ll take both and call it lunch.”

  “How are you? Have you had a heavy morning?”

  “Not particularly. I had a follow-up meeting with Abbie. It sounds as though Michael is going to offer her the job.”

  “That’s great. I’m sure his patients will be pleased to see such a friendly face behind the desk. Mrs. Evans has always been efficient, but she’s a bit scary, too.”

  “She is, though she seems a lot more mellow since she decided to retire. Maybe she’d just had enough and wanted out.”

  “I guess. I hope she’ll be happier in retirement. And I hope Abbie gets the job and takes to it. She deserves a break after all her family’s been through.”

  “She does. I wish she’d leave town, though.”

  April made a face. “Why?”

  “Because that way she’d have a fresh start. Be able to create whatever life she wants without her past weighing her down. I thought you’d understand that. What bothers me most is that she’s giving up her own life to take care of her mom. And there’s no reason her mom couldn’t stand on her own two feet and take care of herself.”

  “Wow. You’re right. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right.”

  Chris shrugged. “Sorry, it bothers me, that’s all.”

  “It shouldn’t, you know; it’s Abbie’s choice.”

  “I know. And I’m supporting her in her choices.”

  April laughed. “But I’m sure you’ve made it clear that she has other options—options that you think are preferable.”

  “I have, but she doesn’t want to hear about them.”

  “Then let her be.”

  “I am!”

  They both turned at the sound of the bell ringing when the door opened. Marianne came in with a smile. “I thought I might find you here. Do you want to get some lunch?”

  Chris smiled. “I’m just about to if you want to join me. I’m going with the healthy option—coffee and a donut.”

  Marianne rolled her eyes. “I’ll join you, but I’ll have a salad.” She smiled at April. “And I’ll take a lemonade with it, thanks.”

  “Sure. Go and take a seat, I’ll bring everything over.”

  Chris sat down opposite Marianne and smiled. “Did you want me for anything in particular?”

  “Just for lunch. I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine. How are you and Clay? How’s the wedding planning coming along?”

  “Great, thanks. He’s doing most of it. And Laura and Autumn are helping. They’re all so into that kind of thing and—as you know—I’m not.”

  “Good for you. It’d drive me nuts to have everyone else take over the planning if it were me, but that’s just another one of our differences. Is there anything you want me to do, or is it all taken care of?”

  Marianne’s smile faded. “Should I have asked you to do more? You’re not put out, are you, that the girls are helping, and I haven’t asked you?”

  Chris laughed. “Not in the least. I’d love to help if you want me, but I don’t need to be involved if you’ve got it all covered.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t think you’d want to get lumbered with all the work, but I want to share the fun part—the most important part—with you.”

  “Which part is that?”

  “Dress shopping. You know me. Dresses have never been my thing, but I want to wear one. The girls would love to go, but I want it to be you. Do you remember …?”

  Chris’s eyes filled with tears. “Of course, I do.”

  “How old were we?”

  “Ten and twelve, maybe? I don’t know. But I’ve never forgotten.” Their parents had taken them to a cousin’s wedding. And they’d both fallen in love with the beautiful dress she’d worn. As they lay in bed that night, they’d talked about their own weddings and how they each would wear a beautiful dress like that. They’d made a pact that they’d go together to buy the dresses when it was time.

  Reality had stepped in, and neither of them had had a big wedding. Chris had worn a suit to the courthouse, and Marianne had worn jeans for her ceremony held in a barn.

  Marianne smiled at her. “I think this time around we should do it right. I want you to come with me and help me find a beautiful dress. And when it’s your turn, I’ll come with you.”

  “My turn?”

  Marianne gave her a knowing smile. “Don’t play the innocent with me. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Chris opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. Instead, tears pricked behind her eyes and a smile spread across her face. “I didn’t expect to fall for him. I don’t think I even wanted to. But damn, Marianne. He’s a hard man to resist—and I wasn’t able to.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you. I didn’t think you’d admit it to me.”

  She smiled. “Neither did I, but I can’t hide it. He’s amazing.”

  “And I’d guess he feels the same way about you?”

  “He says he does.”

  “What, you don’t believe him?”

  “I do. But the test will come now that he’s gone back to work.”

  “But you’re going to see him this weekend, aren’t you?”

  “I am. It’s not about how long we spend apart. It’s about his work. It’s been his whole life. I don’t know if he’ll be able to give it his all and still have anything left for me. This might sound crazy; you know that up until this point I’ve been happy to date around the edges of my life. I haven’t wanted to let anyone into it completely. It’s different with Seymour. If he wants to keep me on the edges of his life, then I’d rather walk away.”

  “That’s not enough for you?”

  “It could be. But it’d mean that he’s still hiding—hiding from pain and loss. I wouldn’t hold that against him, but I’m ready to move forward in life. If he’s not …” She shrugged. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but she knew that if Seymour was still addicted to his work, she wouldn’t be able to be with him. He was right; his addiction might not come in a bottle, but if he still needed to lose himself in it, she wasn’t going to let herself come second place to it.

  “For what it’s worth, judging by the way he was when we were all out together last week, I’d guess he’s serious about you.”

  Chris smiled. “He’s told me as much. But he’s lived his life the same way for many years now. Just because you want things to change, doesn’t mean you can change them.” She knew that all too well.

  “Well, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for you. Maybe we’ll be shopping for your dress one of these days. But in the meantime, when do you plan to come back from your visit to Malibu?”

  “He’s coming to pick me up on Friday afternoon, and we said it’s for the weekend, so I guess I’ll be coming back Sunday night or Monday. When do you want to go dress hunting?”

  “Clay’s going to LA for some meetings on Monday. I wondered if you wanted to meet there?”

  “Okay. I’ll have to see how it works out. Let me talk to him? I don’t know if he planned to bring me back here on Sunday or what. It’s about an hour’s drive from Malibu into the city, isn’t it?”

  “I guess. Maybe an hour and a half. I’m sure Ivan could bring you, even if Seymour has to work.”

  Chris smiled. “Can you imagine what Mom would think if she could hear us now? Talking about flying
around in private jets and having drivers take us places?”

  Marianne laughed. “She’d tell us to get over our dreaming and come back to the real world and do the dishes.”

  “It does feel more like dreaming than real life if I stop and think about it too hard. All those years scraping for every penny and now everything’s so easy.”

  “See, dreams do come true. I know mine have.”

  “I never dreamed of a rich man coming along to sweep me off my feet. Just a kind man who wanted to walk through life beside me and have my back.”

  “Seymour is definitely all of that. You’re not going to hold it against him that he just happens to be loaded, are you?”

  She laughed. “No. It just makes me wary—almost as though it’s a dream too far.”

  “I don’t believe there is such a thing. What’s that quote? If you can dream it, you can achieve it?”

  Chris nodded. “Yeah. I suppose. But let’s come back to here and now. What are you doing this afternoon? Do you want to come back to my place and we can look at dresses online? That way you’ll have some idea of what you like before we go.”

  “Good idea. See, this is why I need you. That wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

  “One of us has to have her feet on the ground.”

  Marianne made a face. “Just don’t keep them planted there too firmly. Let Seymour sweep you off them if he wants to.”

  “I’ll try.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Seymour ran down the steps in front of the office and crossed the sidewalk to where Ivan stood waiting beside the car. He opened the door, and Seymour slid into the back and immediately pulled his laptop out of his briefcase and got back to work. It’d been a long day, and it looked like it’d be a long night, too.

  “Was it a good day?” asked Ivan.

  Seymour frowned and looked up. It wasn’t like Ivan to interrupt when he was working; he knew better. He nodded curtly and looked down at the screen again. He fired off an email. He needed to set up an early morning meeting with the analysts. Next, he needed to …

  “Are you looking forward to the weekend?”

  He looked up again. Irritated now, that Ivan hadn’t taken the hint the first time. This time he didn’t bother to respond before he got back to his work.

  He didn’t look up again until Ivan pulled into the driveway back at the house. Once he brought the car to a stop in the garage, Seymour got out and started toward the door that led into the kitchen.

  “Do you want to hang out and drink a beer tonight?”

  Seymour stopped in his tracks. The question was so far out of left field, it took him by surprise. He turned around slowly.

  Ivan stood beside the car, twisting the keys in his hands. “This time last week, we were still in Summer Lake, and I remember sitting on the porch of my cabin drinking a beer with you. I enjoyed that. I think you did, too. I’m probably crossing the line here, but we’ve only been back here a few days and the Seymour Davenport I got to know last week is nowhere to be seen. I miss him. I liked that guy.”

  Seymour glared at him for a long moment.

  Ivan shrugged. “Fire me if you want to. Now that I know what it’s like to work for a relaxed Seymour, I don’t want to work for the other one.”

  Seymour’s lips twitched. He couldn’t help it. They curled up into a smile. “Are you calling me an asshole?”

  “Nope. I’m just saying you were a lot happier when you weren’t working. You were a lot more pleasant to be around.”

  Seymour blew out a sigh and jerked his head toward the kitchen door. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Sure.”

  Seymour let them in and went to check the oven. The housekeeper had left it on low to keep a casserole warm.

  He turned back to look at Ivan. “I don’t have beer, but there’s soda in the fridge and whatever you like in the bar. Are you hungry?”

  “How about you fix the food and I’ll bring the beer?”

  Ten minutes later they sat out on the terrace. Seymour smiled and took a swig of the beer that Ivan had brought from the guest house where he lived. It tasted good.

  Ivan grinned at him. “I knew I was pushing my luck tonight, but I had to do it.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad you did. I’ve fallen back into my same old ways.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, does what you do have to take every ounce of your attention?”

  Seymour thought about that. “It’s demanding; that’s why I chose it. The stakes are high. I can’t afford a lapse of judgment. Mistakes in this game cost millions—and those millions belong to my investors, not to me.”

  Ivan took a bite of his bread roll and nodded. “So, it is all or nothing then?”

  “You won’t meet any part-time hedge fund managers.”

  Ivan nodded but didn’t say anything. Instead, he ate and drank and stared out at the ocean for a while.

  Eventually, Seymour grew impatient. “I thought you were leading somewhere with your line of questioning.”

  Ivan shrugged. “So did I, but your answers made it clear that there’s nowhere to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had high hopes for you and Miss Chris, but from what you’ve said, she’s only going to be an occasional weekend visitor at best, right?”

  Seymour frowned. “That’s not what I want.”

  “But it’s all you have time for. You said it yourself.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t have time for her. I …”

  “I know it’s not my place, but if you remember, on the flight back here last weekend, you asked me to let you know if you were falling back into your old ways. I’ve tried dropping subtle hints since Monday. You’ve been in too deep to even pick up on them. Tonight, I realized that this isn’t about you falling back into your usual habits and working too hard. This is about what you value in life. Your work is high value—in a financial sense. I know that. But I really thought that last weekend was a turning point for you and that you were going to find some way to compromise. You’re not, are you?”

  “I want to.”

  “But you just told me it’s not possible.”

  Seymour blew out a sigh. “I’m not used to being put on the spot like this.”

  Ivan smirked. “Especially not by an employee. But that’s the trouble, Mr. Davenport. If you go making friends with the help, they want to help you. And I only know how to be real with you.”

  “If we’re friends, then you’d better call me Seymour. And I never saw you as the help.”

  Ivan laughed. “You didn’t mean to, maybe. But you never saw me as a person or a friend until Miss Chris made you stop and think.”

  Seymour nodded grudgingly. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “No need. I’m not trying to make you feel bad about how you’ve acted in the past. I’m trying to make you think about how you want to act in the future. Do you want to be the guy you were the last couple of weeks while you were at the lake? I’ve seen hints of him before when we’re in Montana. But when you’re working, the mighty Seymour Davenport comes back. I’m sure he’s the best in the world at what he does. He can move mountains and make billions, but he’s not a great guy to be around.”

  Seymour took a long swig of his beer. “You’re right. I’ve been Seymour Davenport all this time because I didn’t have anything else to be. Actually, that’s not true. I could have been Hope’s father or Johnny’s brother or Oscar, TJ, and Reid’s uncle. But being any of those things meant being here in the real world. And I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be the broken father, brother, uncle who lost his wife and lost his way. I wanted to be the mighty Seymour Davenport, who could still make millions despite being broken. I knew how to do that.”

  “I get it. But it doesn’t make you happy, does it?”

  Seymour shook his head.

  “That’s the thing, Mr. D.” Ivan winked at him. “I can make it less for
mal, but I can’t bring myself to call you Seymour.”

  Seymour chuckled at that.

  “The thing is that you don’t get to be happy until you face reality. The brokenness, the pain, the loss, the fear—the whatever it is for you. It doesn’t go away. You have to push on through it. Learn to live with it. You won’t ever find happiness by avoiding reality. You can find a temporary high, but you always have to come back down from there, and when you do, all the sucky stuff is still there, still waiting for you to deal with it.”

  Seymour held his gaze for a long moment. “How did you get so smart?”

  “When I got clean. I was lucky. I went into the program after just a couple of years. I was even luckier when I came out that you hired me. You know I can never repay you for that. But I think I can help you by sharing what I learned with you. You can’t hide from pain. I know you’ve done it for a long time. And maybe you’ve hidden for so long that there’s nothing left to be afraid of. It seems to me that when you let yourself live life, there’s a lot you enjoy. I’d guess that you’re ready to be happy again—but you’re not going to find happiness at work.”

  “So, what are you suggesting?”

  Ivan shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the smart one, or at least you’re supposed to be. I’m just like that little cricket on your shoulder. I’m not here to tell you the answers—just to remind you to ask yourself the right questions. What do you value: hiding or happiness? And if the answer is happiness, how do you find it? They say if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got. To me, that says that if you want something different, you’ll have to do something different—it’s up to you what that something’s going to be.”

  Seymour gave him a rueful smile. “It strikes me that you are the smart one. I’m lucky I have you around.”

  “Don’t look too happy about it. I did the easy part. It’s up to you to figure out what you want and how you’re going to get it.”

  Seymour nodded and stared out at the ocean as he sipped his beer. He already knew what he wanted. What he had to figure out was how much he was prepared to change to get her.