by Jane Kindred
I leaned against the trunk, blinking back tears that were only marginally from the sting. Aravella was playing games with me, preying upon my need to know where I’d come from, and I’d walked right into it. A nervous energy had buoyed me here, anxiety about what it meant but excitement that I might finally discover who I was. Now the anticipation was tinged with dread and foreboding. And Lukas—how could he be here at the heart of the mystery of my past? Did he know who my parents were? Had he known all along?
None of it made any sense.
We’d met in the continuing education class consisting of mostly middle-aged soccer moms and a few unlikely goth kids. He claimed he’d only signed up to meet women while he was finishing his MBA at Berkeley, but the glint in his moss-green eyes as he spoke made for an infectious smile that made it impossible to tell if he was putting you on. He’d shown up at the converted studio in the old Fort Mason building after the class had been in session for a week, and the instructor had let him add the course. Lukas was the sort of person who could talk his way into anything.
One of the few people who spoke to me as if he didn’t see any scars, Lukas even managed to convince me to let him shoot my portrait for a photography class he’d signed up for at the same time. I told him I didn’t want to see it when it was printed and mounted, but he wouldn’t stop bugging me until I looked.
Somehow, he’d made me beautiful. All my scars were there; the image wasn’t touched up or softened with gauzy lighting. It was me. And he saw me as beautiful.
He’d taken the photo outside on the pier where it butted up against the marina. The fog and the bay wind were freezing, and I’d been wearing a pair of fingerless red gloves, with a blue woolen hat pulled down over my ears. I laughed and told him to get his camera out of my face, but he snapped it a few minutes later while I was leaning over the rail looking at the water. He said my name to make me turn and caught me off guard. My cheeks, pink from the cold, were lashed by strands of my auburn hair, and the wind had made my eyes water, their dull blue unusually bright beneath the hat. I was happy, and he’d caught it.
A one-in-a-million shot.
In the dark nest of trees, the feeling of being watched grew stronger. I pushed myself away from the trunk, shaking off the memory and the chill. I had to get it together before I confronted Aravella—and in case I had to face Lukas again.
The house was a long, layered structure of stone and wood that resembled a ranch house, if one were a ranching tycoon who’d paid Frank Lloyd Wright to design it. The levels were built into the inherent structure of the rock beneath it, angled around redwoods that almost seemed to be growing from the house itself, with broad, wraparound windows that had to make for a stunning view during the day. As I climbed the terraced stone steps to the entrance, I could see why Aravella had said it wasn’t a shining example of disabled accessibility.
There was no bell or knocker. I supposed the likelihood was slim of having unexpected visitors. As I lifted my hand to knock on the massive wood door, it opened as though someone had been watching for me.
“Good evening, Ms. Lang. If you’ll just remove your shoes and set them over here. The wood floor is delicate.” An actual butler had opened the door for me—if it was butlers who opened doors. Maybe he was a doorman. It wasn’t exactly in my realm of experience.
When I’d complied with the odd request, he gave me a pair of clean socks—brand-new, it looked like—from the bureau inside the door, fanning out his arm out toward a hallway to the right. “This way, please.”
I pulled on the socks over my stockings and followed the salt-and-pepper-haired man down a series of zigzagging hallways, each a step lower than the last, until we arrived at a cozy den of a dining room with a sunken floor. The wood paneling on the walls and ceilings with artfully recessed track lighting set on dim and a fireplace at the far end that was more like an open stone oven would have rivaled the ambiance of any upscale Bay Area restaurant.
Lukas wasn’t here. My relief was tinged with a stab of disappointment. At the head of the table, a stunning older woman who had to be Signe sat with Aravella to her right and another older woman to her left as though she were holding court. Lengths of once-copper hair were braided and coiled at the back of her head, spiraling inward in ever-lightening shades until it was a soft peachy blond at her crown. It was as if instead of going gray, she were fading like a plank of wood in the sun.
She rose with a gracious smile and came around the table to introduce herself and her sister Clara. Both somewhere in their mid-sixties, Clara looked enough like her that they might be twins, though hers was a more delicate beauty, like a paler version of her sister, and her voice when she greeted me was soft and hesitant. I had the feeling Signe had been overshadowing her most of their lives. Clara smiled at me almost shyly.
Instead of a handshake, Signe took both my hands and pressed my fingers in a warm, familial gesture. “Welcome to our home, Millie.” Gray-green eyes crinkled fondly as she glanced over my shoulder. “Ah, here’s our Lukas.”
I turned, swallowing my discomfort, and tried to smile as if we were strangers. Lukas managed to pull it off with greater ease. His hair was still wet from his swim, and his crisp white shirt was damp where it touched his skin as if he hadn’t bothered to towel off.
“This is Millie Lang,” Signe told him. “Koste’s new therapist.”
Something like the jolt of an electric shock went through me as he took my hand, the heat of his skin enveloping mine. He wasn’t so much shaking my hand as possessing it.
“Physical?”
I stared up at his cool eyes, and I knew my fair skin must have gone pink. “Sorry?”
“Physical therapist. I thought maybe Aunt Signe had gone and hired a shrink for the boy. God knows he could use one.” Still pressing my hand as if reluctant to let go of it, his expression changed at my involuntarily wince. He turned my palm up in the light, and Signe let out a dismayed little click of her tongue.
“What happened to your hand?” She took it from Lukas, who let go after an instant’s hesitation.
“I tripped,” I admitted, making an effort not to think about his proximity. “Tried to use a tree for balance.”
Signe nodded at the butler still standing off to one side. “Roger, will you get her a hot towel from the kitchen?”
“It’s not a big deal,” I protested.
“Nonsense. You’re bleeding.”
Roger stepped out of the room and returned almost instantly with the hot towel, as if a supply were kept steaming all the time, along with a spray antiseptic. I hated being fussed over, but I submitted while he cleaned it, refusing a bandage when Signe suggested it.
“It’s just a little scrape. I’m fine.” I was becoming uncomfortable with everyone watching me. To my relief, Roger pulled out a chair for me, and I sat next to Aravella, while Lukas took the chair opposite beside Clara.
Signe returned to her seat as the food arrived and a team of servants wove between us, setting our individual plates in front of us already filled. “Other than your mishap, I trust you had a pleasant trip?”
I nodded. “It’s quite a beautiful drive, especially along the coast. But it was much farther than I expected.”
“Millie’s from San Francisco,” Signe explained. “Quite a bit more urban than our little village. Jerusalem will take some getting used to. It’s an old hippie town, and some of them are still there, calling themselves ‘artists’ now.” I wasn’t sure whether it was hippies or art of which she didn’t approve.
I took a bite of my blackened fish. Sitting atop julienned strips of squash and yellow beets, with some kind of mashed root vegetable beneath it circled with balsamic vinegar, the whole thing was drizzled with a tart remoulade. “Oh my God.” I couldn’t stifle the exclamation. “This is amazing.” Clearly, my meds had kicked in.
Signe smiled. “Our chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu. Karol
ina is a marvel. You’ll find the meals here well worth the distance.”
I hesitated. If I wasn’t going to stay, this was probably the moment to say so. But a bottle of wine had been brought out, and the server poured a small amount into my glass, apparently for my inspection.
“It’s our 2007 pinot gris.” Lukas addressed me unexpectedly. “Our best year for the grapes to date.”
I swirled the beautiful golden liquid around. I’d never seen a white wine this color. It was almost amber, like the captured sap of a tree at the bottom of my glass. I gave the lovely bouquet a whiff before I sipped it and nodded to the server. She filled the remainder of my glass and moved around the table to pour for Lukas. I supposed the master of the house was next after the guest, though I found it irritating that age and beauty didn’t come before penis.
“It’s excellent,” I said. “I’m not a big white wine drinker, but you may have changed my mind.”
“Lukas’s pinot gris is the finest grape in Northern California,” said Signe. “If that sounds like bragging, it is. We’re very proud of him. Lukas has turned the Strand into something more than a quaint local curiosity over the past few years. My father, Justus, established the winery after he emigrated from Halmstad, but it’s only recently become a well-respected name.”
“Halmstad?”
“Sweden,” said Aravella beside me. “It’s all about the Swedish here at the Strand.” She laughed a bit uncomfortably. “I’m the odd one out. Lukas had to go and marry a Greek.”
I’d been trying not to think about what their connection might be, but I’d suspected as soon as I saw her standing like some ethereal nymph on the bluff that she must be his wife. Lukas had married, and apparently just as soon as he’d left me. A knot twisted in my stomach. More likely before. Koste, seven years old, was his son. I hadn’t thought I could feel like any more of an asshole.
“Of course Koste’s broken the family tradition,” Aravella went on. “Now we have a Greek Strand. An unheard of hybrid.”
Lukas turned his gaze on her, his eyes hard and his jaw set.
Koste. I’d been so preoccupied with the tension of being in the same room with Lukas and trying to find a moment to tell Signe I wouldn’t be staying that I’d completely forgotten my would-be patient.
I paused with a bite of fish on my fork. “Where is Koste? Doesn’t he eat with you?”
“Konstantin,” said Lukas, “gets his dinner brought to him like a prince. You’re going to coddle him to death, Vella.”
“He can’t walk. Are you going to carry him to the table?” Her lip curled at the stony look on his face. “I didn’t think so. It’s not my fault we can’t get a wheelchair around this tree house, and it isn’t Koste’s.”
If I’d thought there was tension in the atmosphere before, the room was crackling with it now. “How long ago did he break the leg?” I asked, trying to deflect the uncomfortable animosity.
Aravella threw me a grateful look. “Twelve weeks. The doctors said he ought to be able to start walking on it with help by now, but he won’t try.” She gave me an apologetic smile. “And I’m afraid I’ve never been able to get him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“Twelve weeks?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice. “And he’s bedridden?”
“Mostly.” She took a sip of her wine, looking unhappy with my reaction. “He has a chair, but like I said, there’s not really much point to it in this house.” She glanced at Lukas. “I forgot to tell you. You’ll have to move out of the cottage. Millie’s going to stay there with Koste.”
So he’d been living in the lightkeeper’s cottage. That was interesting.
I considered kicking my own leg under the table. Lukas’s relationship with his wife was totally irrelevant. He didn’t want me in his life, and he’d made that perfectly clear. And I wouldn’t have him back if he were single and begging. I ignored the small, shriveled thing in my chest that tried to argue with me about that.
Lukas set down his fork and pushed back his chair, tossing his napkin onto the table. “Well, then I suppose I should head up and clear out my things right now so Ms. Lang doesn’t have to wait around.”
He didn’t have to, because I wasn’t staying, but let him lug his crap down the hill tonight and back up tomorrow. Not my problem.
* * * * *
I hadn’t managed to find my moment by the time rustic apple tarts with crème fraîche sitting on a spiral of warm caramel sauce were served for dessert. I was starting to feel a little guilty about enjoying the five-star meal that had probably been prepared specifically to welcome me, but it had become impossibly awkward to broach the subject. I could just do it in the morning, privately. It wasn’t as if I could drive now anyway after taking a pill. I’d tell Signe I’d slept on it and had only come to the conclusion when I woke up that the position was just too remote.
I declined coffee and thanked Signe for the dinner, saying I needed to turn in early after the long drive.
Aravella glanced at the diamond-studded watch on her wrist as I rose. “I suppose it’s a little late for Koste,” she said reluctantly. “You can meet him in the morning.”
I nodded, though I had no intention of meeting Lukas’s son.
Signe rose to see me out. “It was lovely to meet you, Millie.” She glanced down at my hand. “Be sure to grab a flashlight from the bureau in the foyer on your way out. After the sun goes down, it’s as dark as the inside of tomb out there in those trees.”
Aravella stood and offered to see me to the door, saving me from having to find a way to get her alone to find out just why she’d lured me here, and what she really knew about my parents.
“Listen, Aravella,” I began as we headed down the hall. “You said you’d tell me more, and I’m getting a little tired of being toyed with.”
She gave me an affronted look as if no one had ever spoken to her that way before. “I beg your pardon?”
“What’s with sending me that text?”
Her brows drew together in what seemed like genuine consternation. “I didn’t send you any text. I don’t even know your number.”
I paused in the hallway. “But you sent me the emails, didn’t you? You sent me the ad.”
Aravella raised a dark, perfect eyebrow. “If you received any emails, they were from the agency Signe advertised with. That’s not my department.” She made another of those bitter squints. “I’m just Koste’s mother.”
Either she was a sociopath and an excellent liar or something else was going on here I didn’t understand. Who had brought me here? Because it sure as hell hadn’t been Lukas.
Aravella shook her head at me, sizing me up a bit, and then continued down the hall. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Millie. You seem a little confused. But perhaps you’re right about not being suitable.” We’d reached the foyer, and she opened a drawer in the bureau and handed me a rather hefty flashlight, lips in a tight smirk. “We wouldn’t want you to trip and break your neck.”
* * * * *
I headed back up the hill, baffled by the conversation and unnerved by the thought that someone whose identity I didn’t know had manipulated me into driving all the way up the coast. Was it some kind of sick joke? I still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced it hadn’t been Aravella, but if it had, she was very good at whatever game she was playing.
The flashlight made for a much less eventful climb to the cottage, but when I arrived, there was no respite from the tension of the evening as I’d hoped. Lukas stood on the porch. The beam of my flashlight gave him an unearthly quality, arms folded like some kind of avatar, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up over his elbows accentuating the sinews of his forearms and the cut of his biceps. Winemaking was apparently a highly physical job.
“I’m sorry for the scene with Aravella—”
I cut him off, furious that every time
I saw him, my body remembered only his touch despite my head remembering his betrayal. “I don’t need your apology for anything, Lukas. We have nothing to say to each other.”
His eyes smoldered, and he stepped down from the porch to my level. “Just what are you really doing here, Millie? You obviously didn’t come looking for me, but I don’t buy for a minute that you just happened to take the position without knowing who it was for.”
“Why the hell would I come looking for you? If you think I’d still be pining for you eight years after you disappeared without a word—that I’d have any fucking interest in you whatsoever—you’re a bigger dick than I thought you were.”
“Well, that’s just perfect, because I don’t have any fucking interest in you either.”
“Well, good! Then get the hell off my lawn!”
We stared at each other for an instant, and I tried desperately to ignore the absurdity, but it was impossible, and in the midst of hating one another we both broke down at once at what I’d unintentionally said.
“It’s not funny,” I said, laughing so hard I was almost crying. “You’re an asshole.”
“I know I am, Millie.” He sobered up, though his eyes were still smiling. “Damn, I always loved the way you laughed.”
We were too close together. I could smell the salt on him from his swim. There was a stain from dinner on the white shirt tucked in at his waist that was the color of blood. I was cataloguing again, desperately trying to occupy my mind with anything but the pain of his abandonment, as fresh as if he’d cut me open along the scar. I’d gotten over him. I’d moved on. I’d made a life for myself in which he was nothing but the memory of a youthful mistake in giving my trust.