Swan Point

by Sherryl Woods

  “I thought that might shut you up,” Ernesto said, obviously pleased with himself.

  “It is only out of respect for Adelia that I’m not wiping the floor with you right this second,” Gabe told him. “But don’t push me too far, Ernesto. And stop with the mudslinging about Mitch. If I hear one more word that’s attributed to you, we’ll both see you in court.”

  He walked out of the office without looking back, aware that the secretary went rushing in, probably to make sure her boss was still in one piece.

  He was just exiting the building when a patrol car pulled up out front. Carter Rollins gestured for him to come over, then nodded in the direction of the building.

  “Everything okay in there?”

  “Ernesto’s pretty face is untouched, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Too bad,” Carter muttered, then regarded him sternly. “You did not just hear those words come out of my mouth.”

  Gabe bit back a grin. “Never heard a thing. I imagine I can thank his secretary for alerting you that trouble was on the horizon.”

  “She said you’d stormed in without an appointment and she’d heard raised voices. I decided given the complicated dynamics of the situation, I’d better check it out myself.”

  Gabe’s expression sobered. “I threatened him,” he told Carter.

  “I do not need to hear that,” the Serenity police chief said.

  “Yes, you do. You also need to understand why.” He explained about the campaign Ernesto had been waging to undermine Mitch’s reputation. “My next stop is Helen’s office. I want her to be aware of this, too. I don’t know that Mitch will want to take action, but I need to know what the options are.” He nodded toward the building. “And just so you know the whole ugly story, since he wasn’t real happy with me, Ernesto threatened to find a way to keep me away from Adelia and his kids.”

  Carter groaned. “Gabe, I know you’re in the right here, especially since you gave him a warning and didn’t lay a hand on him, but watch yourself. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Ernesto may not have many supporters around here, but the courts have to be above that. If a judge sees you as a threat, he’ll have no choice but to order you to steer clear of the kids. He probably can’t do the same when it comes to Adelia, but you know what it would do to her. If she’s forced to make a choice, you’ll lose.”

  Gabe sighed. “I know that. I’m just praying it won’t get to that point.”

  “Warn her, okay? Ernesto’s unpredictable and he’s angry. You don’t want Adelia to be blindsided by any of this.”

  “Got it,” Gabe said. “Thanks, Carter.”

  “I’ll have your back as long as you don’t cross any lines. Understood?”

  Gabe nodded. “Understood.”

  For the first time ever in this town, he felt as if he wasn’t totally alone when it came to standing up to a bully. And when it came right down to it, that’s what Ernesto was, nothing more than a grown-up version of the sort of thugs Gabe had seen far too much of as a kid.

  * * *

  Gabe’s conversations with Helen and with Mitch to fill them in went reasonably well. Helen was ready to start legal proceedings right away, but Gabe told her to hold off, that it was Mitch’s call whether he wanted to go that route.

  To his surprise, Mitch laughed off Ernesto’s underhanded campaign against him. “Gabe, people in this town know me. He’s not going to be able to say a thing that will hurt my reputation. All I have to do is say, ‘Consider the source.’”

  Gabe thought he was being naive. “That kind of talk is insidious. Once he plants the idea that you do shoddy work, if a single shingle falls off a roof anywhere in town, people will start to wonder.”

  Mitch’s expression sobered at that. “Okay, you may be right. It is dangerous to let his lies circulate without fighting back, but a lawsuit might be overkill. I’ll just have Helen send some kind of cease and desist letter just to let him know that I’m taking the matter seriously. That ought to put him on notice to shut his mouth.” He held Gabe’s gaze. “Will that suit you?”

  Gabe nodded. “I just saw red when I overheard Walter in Wharton’s. Who knows how many other people heard him?”

  “They also heard the mayor standing up for me. And you,” Mitch reminded him. He smiled. “Thanks for that, by the way. As for Howard, he’s respected in this town. He’s been reelected time and again. He may be a figurehead for all intents and purposes, but his faith in my work will carry a lot of weight.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I’m not worried,” Mitch insisted. “You need to let it go for now. Take off and go over to Adelia’s. You need to fill her in sooner rather than later.”

  Because he knew both Mitch and Carter were right, Gabe agreed. “I’ll make up for all the time I missed this afternoon,” he promised.

  “Not to worry,” Mitch said. “You were on company business.” To Gabe’s shock, Mitch pulled him into a bear hug. “Thanks for standing up for me, Gabe.”

  “Hey, it’s what family does.”

  “I didn’t, not back when you needed someone on your side,” Mitch said.

  “We agreed that’s in the past,” Gabe told him.

  At Adelia’s a few minutes later, he found Tomas sitting glumly in the middle of his bedroom, awaiting Gabe’s arrival. He glanced up when Gabe walked in.

  “Hey, buddy,” Gabe greeted him. “Something wrong?”

  “You’re late. I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” Gabe said, sitting on the floor beside him. “I’ll always keep my word.”

  “Like I believe that,” Tomas said. “Nobody does.”

  Gabe had a sick feeling he was being tarred for someone else’s neglect. He had a pretty good idea who that might be.

  “Somebody let you down?” he asked. “Besides me, that is?”

  “My dad said he was going to get me today and play catch with me in the park.”

  “He didn’t show up?”

  Tomas shook his head, fighting tears. “I called him when he wasn’t here when he said he would be. He said he didn’t have time, that he had a lot of important work to do. It’s what he always says,” Tomas said in a resigned tone.

  Gabe muttered a harsh curse in his head but refrained from saying a word against Ernesto aloud. “I’m sure he does have a pretty busy schedule at work,” he suggested instead.

  Tomas brushed impatiently at the tears on his cheeks. “He’s not at work. I called there first. He’s with that lady, the one he picked over Mom. I heard her telling him to hurry up and get off the phone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gabe said, unable to think of a single comforting thing he could possibly say, much less any defense he could offer for Ernesto’s behavior.

  “It’s not like it’s the first time,” Tomas said. “I should be used to it, huh?”

  His plaintive words took Gabe straight back to his own childhood when he’d struggled time and again to prepare himself to be let down by his mom.

  “It’s not the kind of thing you should have to get used to,” he told Tomas honestly. “But the truth is that sometimes adults make choices kids don’t understand. It is hard, but one of the important lessons of life we need to learn is that we have to find some way to accept that people we love have flaws. It takes a real grown-up to understand that. Do you think you can try? Personally I think you’re pretty mature for a kid your age.”

  Tomas sat a little taller. “I can try,” he said.

  “Good for you. Now, are you going to help me get this room painted?”

  For the first time the boy’s eyes lit up. “I get to help?”

  Gabe wasn’t sure how much help Tomas would be, but he nodded. “Put on some really old clothes, so you don’t ruin what you’re wearing, and you ca
n help,” he confirmed. “And later on, if it’s okay with your mom, I’ll take you to the park and we can play catch.”

  “Cool,” Tomas said, racing over to dig through a box of things still packed from the move. “Mom says these are ready to be turned into dust cloths,” he said, holding up a pair of shorts that looked practically threadbare and a faded T-shirt.

  “Those look perfect to me,” Gabe said.

  When Tomas ran off to the bathroom to change, Gabe drew in a deep breath. As sleazy as Gabe thought Ernesto was, he still couldn’t grasp how he could so easily dismiss the needs of a great kid like his son. Gabe might not be the best person to make up for a dad’s attention, but he sure as heck intended to try.

  * * *

  Adelia waited until dinner was over, Gabe and Tomas had returned from their game of catch and all the kids had gone upstairs to bed before she walked across the kitchen to Gabe and kissed him firmly on the lips. Shock and a quick flash of desire lit his eyes.

  “What was that about?” he asked, his expression incredulous.

  “To thank you for the way you handled Tomas earlier this afternoon.”

  “You were here? I thought you were still at work.”

  “I would have been, but Selena called me and told me what Ernesto had pulled and that Tomas was really upset. By the time Raylene could get in to cover for me and I got home, you were with him.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because you were already saying all the right things,” she told him. “And, to be honest, it made me cry.”

  Gabe looked dismayed. “I made you cry?”

  “You were so sweet, exactly the kind of man my son should have as a father. Instead, he has this thoughtless, careless jerk in his life, a man who will always put his own needs ahead of his son’s.”

  Gabe seemed uncomfortable with her praise. “You might not feel that way when you’ve heard about what I’ve been up to today,” he suggested direly.

  “Gabe, you put a smile back on my son’s face and made him feel as if he matters. You took him to the park for a game of catch, when I know you must be beat. I can’t think of a thing you could tell me that would negate that.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said and described what had apparently been quite the confrontation with Ernesto.

  Adelia heard him out. “Of course you had to stand up for Mitch,” she said.

  “That’s not all of it, though.”

  She stood silently as he described Ernesto’s reaction.

  “He threatened to go to court to keep me away from you and the kids,” he concluded.

  Adelia laughed. “It’s all bluster,” she said. “He wouldn’t dare set foot in that courtroom again. The judge wasn’t any happier than Helen that I let him off as easily as I did when we divorced. He’s not going to listen to anything Ernesto has to say, especially when it comes to throwing mud on someone who’s been as great with my kids as you’ve been. Don’t you get it, Gabe? You’re everything that Ernesto’s not. That’s why he’s so upset.”

  “He could complicate things for us,” Gabe countered.

  “Not a chance,” Adelia insisted. “You don’t know him like I do. It took me a very long time, but I finally realized that despite the way he behaved when it came to honoring our wedding vows, Ernesto craves respect. He liked the image he presented of being this terrific family man with a big house and four kids who excelled in school and a wife who was involved in all sorts of community activities. He didn’t give two hoots about us, but he did like what it said about him. We mattered to him just a tiny bit more than his designer suits and his Rolex watch.”

  “But the whole blasted town knows now that it was a lie, that your kids are great because of you, that you were the person to be admired.”

  Adelia didn’t even try to deny it. In fact, the knowledge satisfied her need to feel a sense of pride in the way she’d lived her life despite Ernesto’s philandering. “But he’s not going to want to have any of that mud slung in his face again. He won’t risk it by attacking you.”

  “He’s already attacking Mitch,” Gabe countered.

  “Not the same thing, at least as he sees it. That’s all about business. This would be personal, and he wouldn’t come out smelling like a rose. More like a pile of manure.”

  Gabe regarded her with surprise, then shook his head and chuckled. “You really do see him clearly now, don’t you?”

  “If I didn’t, shame on me,” she said, then cautioned, “That doesn’t mean I want my kids disillusioned about him, at least not until they figure out what he’s all about on their own. I think Tomas made that discovery today.” Sadness settled over her. “His awakening came a little sooner than I might have liked, though.”

  “I’m sorry if I contributed to that,” Gabe apologized.

  “Don’t go there. I meant what I said before. You said all the right things. You put a smile back on his face.” She grinned then. “How’d the painting go, by the way?”

  He gave her a rueful look. “The painting went great,” he claimed. “The cleanup, not so much.”

  “So you’re saying my son probably doesn’t have a career as a housepainter in store.”

  “Not unless someone’s after a decor that looks as if it was painted by Jackson Pollock. Tomas can splatter with the great modern artists of all time.”

  “Maybe I’ll get him some canvases and some washable paints for his birthday and nudge him in that direction,” she said, laughing. “Though personally I prefer to know what I’m looking at when I see a painting.”

  “Oh, you will when you see his,” Gabe said. “Chaos.”

  She let her gaze linger on his face. “You just did it again,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Put a smile on someone’s face after a difficult day. Thank you for that.”

  He ran his thumb over her lips, lingered at the upturned corner of her mouth. “Glad to help. I wonder if I can do the same thing without words.”

  Even before he lowered his mouth to claim hers, Adelia murmured, “I’ll bet you can.”

  In fact, just as she’d anticipated, Gabe turned out to be very good at silent communication, too.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Because it was a family tradition and because her children begged to go, at least the younger ones, Adelia agreed to return to her mother’s for Sunday dinner that week. Even so, when she arrived, she wasn’t anxious to face all the judgmental looks from her sisters and their husbands. Instead, she urged the kids toward the backyard, where their cousins were already playing.

  Karen, who’d never been comfortable—or, to be honest, welcomed—in the kitchen with the other women, was sitting on the patio with the baby in her arms. Elliott, as usual, was in the thick of the games the kids were devising. Adelia sat beside her sister-in-law, then nodded toward her brother.

  “He really is just a big kid himself, isn’t he?” she said, amused.

  Karen laughed. “I know that’s why Daisy and Mack loved him from the instant they met him. It takes a man with real confidence to risk looking silly.” Karen turned her gaze on Adelia. “You must feel the same way about Gabe. I saw the picture from the tea party.”

  Adelia laughed. “That picture is destined to haunt him forever.”

  Karen studied her worriedly. “Adelia, are you deliberately hiding out from your mother and sisters?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “I recognize the signs,” Karen said. “I tend to avoid the house and head straight back here. It gives me time to prepare for all that Cruz togetherness.”

  “It’s not the togetherness that bothers me,” Adelia confided. “It’s the way my sisters and their husbands still look at me as if I’d committed a sin. I’m tired of defending my actions to them.”

 
; “Welcome to my world,” Karen replied lightly.

  “Why do you keep coming back?” Adelia asked, genuinely wanting to know. She was well aware that for months she’d been part of the problem, no more understanding with Karen than her sisters were being with her now.

  “For Elliott’s sake, of course. And I want my children to be part of this family. I have no issues with your mom. Not anymore, anyway. And I can tolerate the judgment and unwelcoming looks from the rest of them. They’ll either come around to give me a chance as you and your mother have, or they won’t.” She shrugged. “I can’t control that. I’ve given up trying to. As long as there’s nothing overt said that might hurt my family, I can deal with whatever they might direct at me.”

  Adelia regarded her with deepening respect. “I hope I get to that point. As disappointed as I am in them, I’d still like us to be as close as we once were.”

  “I can understand that,” Karen said. “It’s different for you. You’ve had a lifetime of being close to your mother and sisters. It has to be incredibly hard to feel they’ve turned on you.”

  Once again, Adelia thought, Karen had surprised her. “That’s exactly right,” she admitted. “It feels as if I don’t even know the people I’ve loved and trusted my whole life. Or as if they don’t know me. Either way, I feel uncomfortable in the house I grew up in. It’s hard, too, seeing Mama caught in the middle. She’s doing her best to be supportive of my decisions, but I don’t think she can quite bring herself to call Carolina and Maria to task, because on some level she agrees with them.”

  “Same with me,” Karen said. Her expression brightened. “But we have Elliott and we have each other, at least if you want my backing.”

  Adelia reached over and squeezed her hand. “I count on it,” she said, realizing it was true. “Now, hand over my nephew. I need to hold a sweet, innocent baby and forget all about this complicated family drama.”

  Karen shifted the baby to her. He whimpered but then settled trustingly in Adelia’s arms. “I’ve missed this,” Adelia whispered, eyes closed as she drew in the baby powder scent and felt the weight of the child in her arms. She’d never really aspired to be anything more than a great mom. While she was discovering that she had strong business skills, her real passion was her family.