The Bluegrass Billionaire Trilogy: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set

by Alice Ward

  The door opened, and Worth reappeared, his face pale. He was gently shaking his head, tears running down his face as he said, “Auggie, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. He’s gone.”

  At that point, any sounds that may have been in the room disappeared into a vacuum. I felt sucked into a sense of unreality. I couldn’t feel my legs and my mind began to process the tiny inconsequential; such as whether they had Dad’s insurance card and what we had planned for dinner. I thought of everything that meant nothing because the tsunami of pain that was descending over me was not survivable.

  Images of Dad flooded me. I saw him lifting me atop my first pony and leading me around the soft grass next to the house, my mother watching and giving orders for my safety. I saw his face filled with pride when I handed him Ford and told him we had included his family in naming the baby. I remembered Dad’s patient solace and sitting in the woods when Mother became too much to take. That was all gone. There would be no more loving hugs, no words of wisdom. All that disappeared with his last breath — and I hadn’t even been there with him. Instead, I’d been fighting on a boat bobbing around on the water. My heart felt as though it was being crushed with the pain of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Auggie

  Snowflakes fell with abandon on the opened grave next to Margaret. The bronze casket rested nearby on a dais, looking for all the world like a ship that was about to be launched into an endless sea. Despite the chill, hundreds of people stood about us, their accumulative bodies shielding me from the blustery wind that tossed leaves into that earthen hole. Worth’s arm was around me on one side. Mark and Marga were on the other.

  Unbelievably, Hawk had come and had held me in his arms while I cried. It had taken the passing of the man I’d loved the longest, to bring another back to me.

  We left Dad there with his friends as witnesses to see him through. I couldn’t bear to think of the hole that awaited him and stood, stumbling my way toward the limo that waited. Worth put me inside and climbed in beside me. I don’t think it was until I heard that limo door gently close that everything hit me. I began to shake uncontrollably and the tears came in choking waves. I could barely breathe. Worth held me against his chest, but I pushed him away. I needed air. Cold, cold air. I ordered the driver to lower the windows — all of them. I told him to drive fast, to make the frigid air encase me in its numbing maelstrom. I didn’t care if anyone else was cold. Their cold couldn’t match what I felt inside.

  Why didn’t I feel this when Mother died? I continued to ask myself that question but didn’t seem to really need an answer. Perhaps it was because I already had one. When Mother died, there was no loss.

  I couldn’t make myself go to the wake. I wouldn’t sit quietly at a table and receive the pity and meaningless expressions of condolences from people who weren’t truly affected. They would leave to their cozy houses, put the pot roast in the oven and turn on the Cardinals game. They would call one another on the phone and gossip about Walter Langford’s funeral — who had shown up and who had not. They would discuss what I’d worn and how I’d left before anyone, as though I was angry. Most of them, however, would talk about how the eldest LaViere boy had finally come home.

  I spent the winter in mourning and for the first time in my life, really understood the term. The holidays came and went, and while I showed up at the table and smiled at the appropriate times, it was Letty who did the cooking and Marga who supervised the decorations. Lily kept her distance, not because she was avoiding me but because she was busy with the farm. Hawk and Liane spent the holidays with her dad, and while that may have been a convenient excuse to stay away from Carlos Acres, it was plausible enough that I could accept it.

  I realized that I had fallen into a grieving depression. Worth saw it long before I could and tried to begin intimate chats in the living room or in his study. He encouraged me to open up and talk about how I felt. Somehow, I couldn’t separate my husband from the therapist, and it really didn’t feel right. He suggested that I talk to Deborah, but that idea felt worse. From time to time, I drove to Dad’s grave and talked to him. It was the only thing that helped.

  While Worth was solicitous, there was that wall that could not be breached. I’d laid the words upon his back, the day Dad died. He carried the burden of them with a bit of martyrdom, but never laid them back on me. Professionally, he knew what I was going through and was caring enough not to add more to me. Personally, however, he’d never felt true grief. I don’t think he was capable of it. He’d insulated himself in a world where no one could reach him. It had been a survival instinct he’d honed when he was a young boy and his father had beaten him. Perhaps it came naturally to him since Hawk seemed to be the same way. I would never know. I couldn’t find my way out of the darkness long enough to gain perspective.

  Even though I knew it was from Liane’s urgings, Hawk stopped by from time to time, but only when he knew that Worth wouldn’t be at home. We sat in the family room, and he talked. If there was anything redeeming about that winter, it would be that I grew closer to my first born son again. He told me of the years living in Mexico and how Bernie had valiantly tried to hide his sexual preferences from an unforgiving community. He told me Bernie had taken care of him the night he’d been attacked; sewing up his slashed skin. I grieved for Bernie that winter as well.

  Hawk and I played checkers and card games, but these were simply incidental to the real reason he would come. He needed a mother’s love; to know I’d never really abandoned him, but had, for his own good, sent him to a safe place. I confessed my selfishness and my fear, how I’d put my focus on the children at home. I explained as well as I could that it hadn’t been deliberate or about him. I’d been as lost as he was. Afraid. Uncertain what to do. I asked him not to blame Mark or Marga. About them, however, he seemed indifferent.

  It was Worth for whom he reserved the bulk of his resentment. He believed Worth to be the architect that lay behind the circumstances. He accused Worth of refusing to deal with him personally, foisting him off onto other doctors who pressed bottles of medications into Hawk’s hand.

  “How could I know that what they were doing was wrong?” he asked me one snowy afternoon when the wind managed to wend its way between the window panes. “My father was supposed to protect me. To know more about what was good for me than I could know for myself. I trusted him. The more pills, the worse my world became. One pill caused me to be sleepy, and they’d give me another to wake me up. Then I’d feel hyper, and another pill would calm me down. It was pills, pills, and pills, Mother. I sensed I was out of control and the only way I knew to reach out for help was to behave badly. As badly as I knew how. It was the only time I had yours and Father’s complete attention.”

  “Hawk, I’m so sorry,” I said for the hundredth time that day, but he only shook his head.

  “Father ignored everything. Ignored the signs. He knew them. He’d been there before himself, hadn’t he?”

  I swallowed and nodded, remembering the man Worth used to be. Still was, I feared.

  “It was easier for him to send me away, to put me into a stranger’s responsibility than to admit his own shortcomings. If he admitted he was fallible, he no longer had any defenses against his own father. Even after his father was dead, his brother rose to take that place, and the torment began again. Mother…”

  I held up a hand. “Please call me Mom.”

  His eyes softened and he nodded. “Mom, the day I killed Linc, Dad wasn’t sorry. When I ran to him, he hugged me, but I knew he wasn’t hugging me because he was glad I was safe. He was hugging me because he was glad Linc was dead — and that I’d been the one to do it. He always passes the buck.”

  I had to admit, although I didn’t verbally acknowledge it, that much of what Hawk said was true. I’d come close to saying the same thing many times but had held back. I knew where the line of no return lay, and I wasn’t willing to cross it. I’d come close enough to create the chasm that lay betwee
n Worth and myself since Dad’s death.

  Was I being selfish to not take Hawk’s side and confront Worth? Would it do any good?

  “You have to understand, Hawk,” I said as gently and dispassionately as I could. “When a parent realizes they cannot be what their child needs, sometimes the best thing they can do is to take that child to someone who can help them. I think your father thought that’s what he was doing. Perhaps he could have risen to the occasion and helped you himself. Perhaps not. It’s in the past, however. Is there any way you can forgive him… forgive me… and let go?”

  “The same way good ole Dad has let go of what his father did to him?” he pointed out without empathy.

  I sighed heavily. “Your point is well taken.”

  I never told Worth much about those conversations with Hawk. I felt the conversations were private, much the same as those Worth had with his own patients. I did tell him when Hawk came by, though. When I spoke our son’s name, I could see a flicker of something in his face, but never really knew whether it was pain or anger. He kept it below the surface, which was dangerous. I felt the volcano building inside him.

  Sometimes Hawk brought Liane, and as we became better acquainted, we grew much closer. She told me of her empathic nature, and I told her I’d already guessed it, based on the way she had calmed that birthing mare. I think she was relieved that I knew; and more so that I didn’t think she was strange.

  “You have a special gift, Liane. Everyone does, but not everyone gets to use theirs or even know they have it. That’s why it’s so important to be true to yourself. You can’t live the life others would have for you. Otherwise, on your final day, you will look back with regret.”

  I noticed I’d become far more introspective since Dad’s death. Suddenly life and death were not just something that happened in the barn or on television. It was real and part of my life. Indeed, it would be my own life.

  The day came that Hawk and Liane told me they were getting married. After months of legal paperwork, Hawk officially had his new identity, and his passport had arrived. They would honeymoon in Australia. I was jealous. I’d always wanted to go there myself.

  “So, when and where will the ceremony be? Liane, I’ll be happy to help with the planning.” I smiled with enthusiasm. It was the first shaft of light in an otherwise gray existence. “I’m sure your dad won’t mind if Worth and I were to chip in a bit?”

  Hawk looked at Liane and swallowed hard. “It won’t be necessary, Mom. Liane and I will be married by her father in the churchyard with only a few people there. My friend, Kenny, will be my best man and Liane’s girlfriend will stand up for her.”

  “Oh.” My heart shifted closer to my feet.

  “Mother… Mom, you and Father won’t be invited to the wedding.”

  The words lay there, stark and cold and I dared not pick them up. I wasn’t strong enough.

  “Oh, I see.”

  Could he hear the sound of my heart breaking? Could he feel the pain that was rushing into my brain at that moment?

  “We’ve discussed it and feel it would be, well, cleaner that way. Father and I are not on good terms. I don’t think either of the twins will care either way. The only one who will care is you. But you won’t come without Father. You see?”

  I swallowed hard and nodded slowly. “Yes, I guess I do.” I couldn’t stop the tears, though. They had become a daily event over the winter. I was to be denied my eldest son’s wedding because of Worth. The only question that remained was who to blame? Who could I blame?

  “It’s okay.” I tried to be brave and patted Liane’s hand. “It’s your special day, and it shouldn’t have any tension in it.”

  “I’m glad you understand.” Hawk’s voice cracked a bit, and I glimpsed a softness there for the first time. Perhaps it had more to do with Liane, than with me, however.

  “Hawk, one thing. I don’t want to be the one to tell your father. Don’t make me go through that. Either tell him yourself or not at all, but just don’t ask me to be the middleman on this.”

  He nodded. “I understand. I think it’s better if we just don’t mention it to him. This is about Liane and me. It’s about beginning our lives together. It will be better if Father’s role is as an observer than participant.”

  I had to agree, and as much as it hurt, I could see his point. I resolved to look at the brighter side. Hawk and Liane had spent a good deal of time with me through the last months. The least I could do was to finally put myself second and them first. I could find the strength to let Hawk have his happiness. As a matter of fact, I owed it to him.

  So, on the eve of their early spring wedding, I met Hawk and Liane at a small restaurant in town. We kept the mood light, and I presented them with the deed to a thousand acres that adjoined Hawk’s property as a wedding gift. It had just come available through a tax sale, and I managed to spot it and snap it up. Its elevation was high enough to see the Ohio River and a good deal of the county.

  “Perhaps someday you would like to build there,” I suggested.

  A part of me expected Hawk to fling the piece of paper back into my face. Instead, he swallowed hard and said, “Thank you.”

  When it was time to leave, I walked out to the parking lot so I wouldn’t be crying in the restaurant.

  “I want you both to know that I love you and wish for you all the happiness you can possibly squeeze out of this life. Your father, Hawk, for all his self-involvement, loves you too. Never forget that. Liane, welcome to the family, darling, although I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.” I forced my lips to smile and my eyes to twinkle as I said it. “Regardless, after tomorrow, you will be a LaViere, just like the rest of us who are cursed with the name.”

  We all laughed as I kissed them. I closed my eyes as Hawk enfolded me in his arms. I waved goodbye as I got into my car and lowered the window. “Have a wonderful honeymoon!” They both waved and I watched them as long as I could in the rear view mirror.

  They didn’t notice the small, gray rental car that briefly parked across from the churchyard that next day. They didn’t see my tears or feel the warmth of the love I sent toward them. Well, Liane did, for after Hawk kissed her at the altar, she turned a bit and blew a kiss toward the street.

  I’d blown one back, and she’d smiled and touched her hand to her cheek. It was enough. I pulled away from the church, heading toward home.

  I had no idea what life was to bring and could not have been prepared, even if I did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hawk

  If there was ever a time in my life that I believed I knew what wonderful felt like, it was then. Liane and I were married by her father that cool spring day, surrounded by sprouts of spring flowers and the sound of the church bell tolling. The scene could have easily been in England — even I felt it was a romantic setting.

  Liane was breathtaking in a simple, white tissue sheath with her long locks atop her head in a circlet braid with little dried flowers woven in. She had described the dress to me beforehand, although I wasn’t permitted to see it. Beyond that, I don’t remember much except that for the first time, I knew what it was to truly have someone who belonged to me. It was unimaginable.

  After the ceremony, we went inside the vicarage with Vicar Coventry. Many of the church ladies had assembled a light luncheon with delicious foods they’d made in their kitchens that morning and brought by. Judging by the display, I had a feeling that many of the ladies might have an eye on the single vicar and were taking advantage of that opportunity to show off their cooking skills. Needless to say, he’d have leftovers for days.

  Liane and I boarded a Quantas jet for Australia that evening, and as we settled into our first-class seats, I wished that we’d had our honeymoon night before we left. The anticipation was incredible. True to her beliefs, Liane and I had never been intimate; not even much more than kissed. To a man who could buy almost anything he wanted, it was unbelievably titillating. I was putting over nine thousan
d miles between my wedding and making love to my wife for the first time. I must have been insane when I agreed to that.

  We touched down in Sydney, and it was seventy-five degrees. They were just approaching their spring equivalent of our autumn weather. We saw Sydney Harbour from the jet, and it was certainly impressive with its ferry and the iconic Sydney Opera House and bridge. This city of modern, white elegance had come a long way from its Aboriginal ancestry. The native Aborigines had inhabited that land since Paleolithic times, but the concept of founding hadn’t taken place until the first fleet of British ships arrived in 1788. Even then, that beautiful landscape had been used as a British penal colony. I’d had plenty of time to read up on the country’s history on that nine-thousand-mile flight.

  Our concierge had a limo waiting with champagne and a seafood tidbit selection, but I opted to wait until we reached our destination. I was tired, even after sleeping on the jet, and wanted my full faculties for my bridal night. I had booked Barford, a luxury home that had the appearance of an English manor house. I thought Liane would appreciate the ambiance.

  Although there were only two of us, the home featured ten bedrooms and baths and included manicured lawns and a view of Sydney Harbour. It was completely private. I’d requested a Lamborghini be available for private sight-seeing. Although the kitchen was to be fully stocked and staffed with a chef, I wanted to try some of the local cuisine while we were there.

  When we arrived, our driver left us at an impressive entrance with a massive black door surrounded by leaded glass. Once inside the harlequin-tiled entryway, we were briefly introduced to the staff who maintained the house and grounds as well as the comfort of the guests. We were shown through the ground floor rooms beginning with a comfortable living area banked by fireplaces and windows overlooking the harbour. Most of the house was built around a central courtyard. The inside rooms had doors that opened onto it. The outside rooms had views of the extensive, manicured grounds or the harbour itself. Decorated traditionally but in subtle prints and white marble baths and kitchen, the overall effect was one of being in a shaft of heavenly light surrounded by water and greenspace. The lower level offered a massive workout room and a home theatre banked by white leather seating. A pool in the back completed the luxury. I felt a pull between wanting to have the home filled with friends so we could party non-stop and the more realistic and immediate desire to be alone with my new wife.