Torn

by Lauren Dane

  “I can’t tell you if your baby is ugly when you have one? That’s some bullshit, Cora,” Beto teased.

  “You’ve seen my man. We aren’t making any ugly babies.”

  “But you will be making babies? I mean, moving in is a big step but it seems to me you’re doing just fine with that. I’ve just not seen you so, I don’t know, solid in your choices. At ease in a way you haven’t been.”

  Cora had figured she’d have kids one day. She’d hopefully find the right man, but if not, she’d do it on her own if she really wanted to. But being around Beau every day, watching him nurture and protect the people and canine he loved, had convinced her she’d very much be interested in making babies with him.

  “Not like tomorrow. Or even this coming year. But yeah, at some point I think I do want to make tiny humans with Beau.” After the history he’d had with his sons, she knew the choice to have more children would be one Beau might not make for a while, if ever. But they’d talked lightly of it and he hadn’t seemed opposed to the concept. There was time to figure it out.

  “This is the real deal. Wow. I’m insanely jealous, but also really truly happy for you. If anyone deserves a happily-ever-after, it’s you.”

  “It’s still early days. I’m good with a dog and a house right now as he does his new show and I dig in here at the gallery. It’s all I can manage at the moment anyway. I figure I’ll get some great practice when Rachel has the baby too,” Cora said.

  “You’re killing this adulting gig,” Beto told her.

  “Ha! Not so much. But I’m muddling through.”

  * * *

  THE PARTY WAS in full swing as their friends and family and favorite clients moved around the gallery, drinks in hand, food in bellies. Walda had calmed down a little once people had begun to arrive, and then sought her out to compliment her and thank her for being invited.

  Sure, she acted like she was a queen, which rankled Beau a little. But she also remembered little details about people’s lives. Asked about this or that trip they’d taken, how their families were.

  She was eccentric and sharp-tongued, entitled too. But she was also generous and warm when she wanted to be. It was why Beau still tipped toward liking her even when she was a bitch to her daughter.

  “Tell me, Beau, do you have any contact at all with your family?” Walda asked him.

  “Yes, with some cousins who live on the East Coast. I have friends here who are as close as family. A nice bonus to being with Cora is that her friends and mine overlap so my entrance into her social life has been easier, as has hers into mine.”

  Cora’s father nodded. “I can see how that would be true. We quite like Cora’s friends, including Gregori and Wren, who we also have known through the art community.”

  “Gregori’s paintings are in huge demand. He’s immensely talented.” Walda’s comments weren’t calculated at all. They were genuine admiration for his friend’s work and in her way, he realized she was trying to find common ground with him.

  Not that he would let his guard down. Walda was jealous of him and that made her dangerous at times. Petulant and impatient, she was quick to complain and very at ease with using emotional manipulation to get what she wanted.

  Cora had given her mother all her attention. Now Cora had shifted to the gallery and to him. Walda had to share her daughter and it was hard on a person so used to being catered to.

  John was a good influence on her, the laid-back charm to her high-strung eccentricity. He clearly loved her, and to her credit, she clearly loved him too. But it was time for the man to hold to the promises he’d made and take the weight Cora had been carrying since she’d been a teenager.

  “I’m happy to say I’ve got a few of his early paintings. Even happier to say I now live in a house and property that can do justice to one of Gregori’s sculptural pieces. Cora is going to have him work with your design plans to create a custom work for us. I don’t want to mar the view, but there are several spots in the front and in the back of the house I think would enhance both the landscape design and the sculpture, as well. I’m excited to work with you and Beto on that.”

  “I hadn’t thought about a big piece in your yard, but yes, that does sound like a fantastic idea,” John said.

  Cora came over to them then. “As always, this is a great party. Happy New Year, Pai.” She hugged her father and came to sit at Beau’s side.

  “I was just about to tell your parents that it was your idea to have one of Gregori’s sculptural pieces as an outdoor piece of art,” Beau explained.

  Cora brightened, leaning into his side a moment. “Wait until you see this house. Because it’s on one of the highest spots in the neighborhood, it’s got absolutely gorgeous water views to the west, north and south with the Space Needle and downtown. We’re watching fireworks from that spot later tonight.”

  “You’re very involved with this process, Cora,” her mother said. “He said we a few times but I hope he realizes the type of services you’re providing with design and curation are of a type few are fortunate enough to have. You’ll be increasing his home value and the value of his collection.”

  As backhanded compliments went, it was a winner and it landed with a slight flinch he only felt because Cora leaned against his side.

  “Beau and I are living together. It’s my house too. So naturally I’m involved. He’s got great taste, which you’ll see when we have you all over for dinner. He already has a fantastic collection but when mine is added and we flesh out the rest, it’ll be stunning.”

  “What did you say? Living together?” Walda narrowed her gaze and her husband put a hand on her arm with a soft murmur.

  “Yep. I wanted to tell you when we came over on Christmas but then the snow happened and things got pushed back.”

  “Your phone hasn’t been broken,” Walda said.

  “No. But I wanted to tell you in person, and today was the first time I’ve seen you since.”

  “How long?”

  “Officially it’s only been two weeks so it’s not as if I’ve been hiding it for months,” Cora explained.

  “Are you out of your head? Cora, you barely know this man. What are you doing with your town house?” her mother demanded.

  “I have a yearlong lease in place. My tenant will move in tomorrow.”

  “What if things go wrong? You’ll be homeless.”

  “Mom.” Cora paused and took a steadying breath. “I am fortunate enough to have resources should things not work out and I need to move. I have several friends and two siblings living nearby. I can easily stay with one of them. I have money, a job and good credit so I will be able to locate alternate housing for myself should the need arise. I appreciate your worry, but I’m a grown woman. I’ve been taking care of myself—and you—for a long time.”

  Walda looked to Beau. “So here you are nesting in your new money house and your sweater vest and your art world girlfriend. You swoop in because you were bored with your old life. Cora is a novelty and when you are done? When you get tired of sweater vests? When nesting loses its charms, along with my daughter? When you go back to the life you had before, wallowing in easy sex and too much alcohol?”

  “Enough!” Cora said, her tone deadly sharp. “You’re being rude and disrespectful to not only me, but Beau.”

  “I’m trying to figure out what he’s doing with you. If that’s disrespectful I can’t help it. He could just answer my questions,” Walda shot back.

  “Your questions were rude. And based on the assumption that he couldn’t possibly just want to be with me because I am nice and smart and I make him laugh. Based on the assumption that should we break up, like people do from time to time, it would be because he wronged me terribly and I’d be too weak to suck it up and move on like everyone else who deals with heartbreak. He’s not a monster. I am not fragile. I am not gullible and I am abso
lutely awesome enough for someone to love me.”

  If Beau hadn’t already loved her, that impassioned defense of herself and of their relationship would have been the final thing that got him there.

  “Stop this before you say something you can’t take back,” Cora’s dad told Walda in a quietly firm tone.

  “Ma’am,” Beau said, “I believe with all my heart that you love Cora and you want to protect her so I’m going to choose not to be offended and to address some of the things you asked.”

  Cora turned to him, “You don’t have to do this. Her questions were insults.”

  He kissed her quickly. “It’s okay. Really.”

  Cora sucked in a breath, and then nodded for him to go on.

  “I made the decision to move up here before I knew Cora lived in Seattle. I was already working on a new show and cookbook concept with a Northwest flavor. I just signed a contract yesterday for a show—filming here—and the cookbook, which Cora will be doing the photography for. Did she tell you that? It’s going to be amazing. I know you both would be proud that Cora’s talent was being recognized.”

  Her father smiled and said something to Walda softly that erased some of the anger on her face.

  “Our home is beyond my wildest expectations. I grew up with pretty much nothing, so to have been able to live the way I do and share that life with Cora has been something I am very much grateful for. I have no plans to kick Cora out or dump her. In stark contrast to the idea that I’d get bored, I should tell you she fascinates me multiple times a day, every day. She makes me laugh. She is the kind of partner I never figured I’d have.” Or be worthy of. “I won’t apologize for my romantic life before I began seeing Cora. It’s frankly none of your business. I don’t need to explain or get permission for my choices. Not from you. But I will tell you that I am with Cora because I love her. The only secret about it is how on earth I merited such a person.”

  Walda said nothing as he stared at her, and then he finally shrugged. She’d do what she wanted and he’d stay out of it unless it involved him or it hurt Cora and he could make it better. All he could do was be the kind of person who Cora could love.

  Walda would have to let go of this petty need to slap out when she wasn’t getting her way, or when she got scared. Cora was patient long past sainthood with her mother, but eventually she would end up distancing herself from them and neither would benefit in the long run from that.

  “I have guests to visit with,” Cora’s mother said before getting up and flouncing away.

  John gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek, and then he held his hand out for Beau to shake, which he did. “I apologize on her behalf and I want to congratulate you because my Cora is perfect and you’re very lucky to have her. Her mother will come around. She’s hurting right now but soon enough she’ll realize she’s been wrong. She’s strong willed but not without integrity.”

  “What do you say we get out of here early? Go home, change into our warm clothes and get ready for our friends to come over so we can watch fireworks?” Cora asked as she turned to him. “Then I can thank you for everything you said and if I cry it’s in private.”

  “Let me go first. I’ll get the car and pick you up out front in ten minutes?” He’d run to the car just to get her the hell out of that place and away from her mother.

  “I can walk in heels you know. And I have sneakers in my office too.”

  “Say your goodbyes and meet me out front in ten minutes.” He kissed her and made a quick escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CORA HAD TO ADMIT—though it wasn’t hard—that Pops was as amazing as Beau had made him out to be. He’d met them at their car and had swooped in and grabbed both Ian and Beau up into bear hugs before turning his deep brown eyes Cora’s way.

  He bowed and took her hand. “You are Cora. I’ve been hearing all about you from my boys here. I’m going to lord it over Ian’s daddy for a minute or two that I got to meet you before they did. Come on inside. I made us some lunch but I figured you might like a tour of the grounds first. Bring that little doggie.”

  Jezzy jumped from the car and trotted over to sniff around the area. Pops bent down and spoke to the dog quietly before chuckling at the way Jezzy’s butt got to moving so much when her tail wagged.

  “I’d absolutely love a tour. I hear good things. I ate here once. My oldest sister was visiting from the East Coast and we had a birthday dinner here and it was out of this world,” Cora said, meaning every word.

  “It’s pretty much all Ian’s work. I just make sure everyone does what he tells them to.”

  The house Pops—his name when it came to his kids was Pops, he’d told her when he ordered her to call him that—lived in was perfect. Ian had gone to the effort to have built a single-story residence where his grandfather could continue to thrive but also be able to avoid stairs. The kitchen was astonishing, though she didn’t know why it surprised her. He was the source of both Ian’s and Beau’s love of cooking so it made sense. It smelled like she’d died and gone to food heaven when they came back inside after they’d tromped through fields of winter veggies, checked out the hoop tunnels where they could keep a higher temperature and grow more produce for the restaurant.

  Pops insisted on walking with Cora on one side, holding Jezzy’s leash loosely enough for her to stop and smell things or bark at birds whenever it appealed to her.

  Back at the house, once the muddy boots were left in the mudroom and Jezzy’s paws had been cleaned up, Cora headed toward the kitchen, where she knew the others had gone.

  Ian and his grandfather were at the stove, one tasting a sauce while the other stirred another pot.

  Beau was totally relaxed as he chatted with them and she sat at the stool next to his. “Anything I can do to help other than staying out of the way?” she asked, knowing how Ian and Beau worked in the kitchen. It was usually in everyone’s best interest if she kept to the side and watched, reaping the benefits of their hard work when it was time to eat.

  “I was just telling Pops about watching fireworks from your house,” Ian said. “Nothing for you to do but eat what we serve up and tell us it’s all delicious. Even if that’s a lie.”

  Beau snorted.

  “Easy to be me right about now, I have to say.” Cora laughed and stole a piece of cheese from the plate in front of Beau.

  “That cheese is from a creamery just fifteen miles away,” Ian said. “Goats and cows, so they have a nice variety. The chèvre there is something we’re going to start adding to our cheese plates at the restaurant. What do you think?”

  She tried some. “In Maui I had chèvre with lavender from the Surfing Goat Dairy. I know that sounds odd but it was so good. This has that sort of taste, still a little flowery but maybe more smoky. Like Earl Grey tea. I really like it.”

  “It is Earl Grey. Good catch.”

  He talked a little about community farming and the work Northstar was doing with different suppliers in the Northwest. He was trying to make his food better, make his community better by being part of it.

  It made her like Ian even more.

  “Did you tell him about your show?” Cora asked Beau.

  Ian gave her a look, a wink. He was pleased she’d brought it up. And she was too when, after Beau gave Pops the details, the older man whooped.

  “That’s my boy. Good work. I’m proud of you.”

  The meal was fantastic. Spaghetti and meatballs, which were Pops’ specialty, along with a salad with fennel and celery that managed to be sweet and spicy at the same time. They had brought the bread, as Cora had been at the bakery the day before and came home bread laden. As god intended.

  “We need to have a big party at the house when the weather gets a little warmer. I think you’d really like the Orlovas, who run the bakery. A lot of their family dinners feel just like this one,” Cora said.


  Beau told them both about the cabbage rolls from the wedding and how Mrs. Orlova had taken an afternoon to let Beau come over and get a lesson on how she made hers, as well as a taste test of his.

  They cleaned up the dishes and got things put away and were getting ready to leave, so Cora headed off to use the bathroom before she was stuck in the car. There were pictures up on the walls. Ian as a kid, maybe six or so, on the Dumbo ride, a huge smile on his face. High school graduation. Several magazine covers featuring a young and relentlessly hot Ian were also framed and she discovered he looked really good with his hair in braids and hoped he might decide that would be a nice hairstyle to return to at some point in the future.

  Ian’s father, Rian, was featured in many photos too, along with his mom. He’d progressed from hot young stud roles to now smoking hot older man with a little salt at the temples. His mother wasn’t a model or an actress but she was no less beautiful.

  A nice family with a nice life. That made her happy. So much so, she was still smiling when she came back out to the kitchen where the guys still were.

  “So they sent that note and then another to Ian’s restaurant and then they called you on New Year’s Eve? What do they want and can you trust anything they say to you?” Pops asked Beau.

  Wait. What?

  “He said my mother has cancer and she needs treatment. They have no health insurance and no money. Or so they say, and who knows? All the accounts the authorities could find have been frozen. He’s on the run with two dozen people and that gets expensive. But even if he’s lying about not having money, it’s my mother,” Beau said. “I can’t take that risk.”

  “But the note they sent to me said your dad won’t let her leave to get any treatment. How are you going to deal with that?” Ian asked.

  “My uncle—he’s the one who called—said he’s working on my dad to let her go. Said he’d accompany her. If anyone can convince my father to do something it’s Obie. They’re close. My dad depends on Obie for a lot, so there is some hope.”