As we pull all the way up to the house, I see my brother’s car, and he and my sister are sitting inside of it. “Who’s this?” Delaney asks as we stop.
“Kent and Kate.” I get out of the car and help her out too. My sister and brother get out too and meet us at the front door.
“Hey, Blaine,” Kate says, then smiles at the woman under my arm. “Delaney, how are you this evening?”
“I’m just fine. Blaine didn’t tell me you guys were coming out here. What a nice surprise,” she says as she moves away from me and hugs my sister.
I lead everyone into the house, where we’re met by the housekeeper. “Evening, Vanderbilts. Do we have guests for dinner?”
Delaney takes Kate’s hand. “Please tell me you two will join us for dinner this evening.”
“Sure, if Blaine’s okay with that,” she says as she looks my way.
“Of course,” I say. “Add two more to the dinner plan. We’ll be in the main living area. When it’s ready, would you let us know?”
“I will,” she says, then hurries away to let the cook know plans have changed.
Going straight to the bar at the back of the living room, I get out a short glass and fill it with ice. “Feel free to make yourselves whatever you want.”
Delaney picks up a wine glass and grabs a bottle of red wine out of the wine chiller. “Care to join me in this bottle, Kate?”
My sister nods, and Delaney fills two glasses and tucks the bottle under her arm. Picking up the glasses, half full of the red liquid, she makes her way to sit across from Kate. “Thank you, Delaney. So how did the visit to the hospital go today?”
“Great, except for one monkey wrench one of the patient’s fathers is throwing at Blaine. That man is a real menace.” I watch Delaney take a long drink of the wine, as if she’s really needing something to ease her tension.
“What’s he doing?” Kate asks.
I take a seat next to Delaney while my brother mixes himself up some kind of a fancy cocktail. I merely filled my glass with Scotch, not looking for anything more than little settle-me-down drink.
Electricity is coursing through my veins with excitement. I lean forward as Kent sits down at the opposite end of the sofa from Kate and tell them, “There’s a little girl in the hospital who is very sick—near-death sick. Her mother came to us and told me the little girl has a message for me from someone named Crystal.”
Kate nearly spits out the wine she's just drunk, and Kent’s eyes go wider than I’ve ever seen them go before as he says, “No way!”
Delaney clears her throat. “Yes, that’s what the little girl’s mother said. But let me tell you, as a person who has been around quite a few people who have been close to death, things aren’t always what they seem to be.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kate asks as she attempts to take another sip of her wine.
The cook’s assistant, Maggie, comes in with a tray of appetizers and places them on the table. “Chef Roxy said to let you know dinner will be ready in an hour. Salads will be served in forty-five minutes in the small dining room, if that’s all right with you, Miss Richards.”
“It will be fine with me,” Delaney answers, already taking well to the running of the place. “And I’d love it if I could have some iced tea in a pitcher on the table too. I’ve been craving some sweet tea all day.”
“I’ll make sure it’s there,” Maggie says, then leaves us with the tray of cheese and apple slices.
Kent picks up a piece of cheese, then asks, “So what do you mean by that, Delaney?”
She settles in, kicking off her heels and pulling her feet under her as she leans against my side. “You see, the neurons in the human brain begin to fire in odd ways as the body begins to die. Things start shutting down and it affects the brain. Dreams can occur while they’re in a semi-awake state. Lucid dreaming is one way of describing how it works.”
“This little girl,” Kate asks. “Is she on a lot of pain medication? You know, is she maybe hallucinating?”
“Could be,” Delaney says. “She is on pain medication. She’s also in the final stage of her illness.”
“Is there any hope for her at all?” Kent asks as he looks sad.
“Of course,” Delaney says, then smiles at us all. “I have seen things happen many times. I’ve seen people beginning to make funeral arrangements for their family members only to have to cancel them when the person came back around. The human body is amazing. Some believe it’s divine intervention that brings them back to our world.”
“God?” I ask as I feel another cold chill move through my body.
Delaney’s eyes settle on mine. “Yes, God, Blaine.”
And it really hits me. Meagan may show me what I have been searching for my whole life. The truth!
Chapter 4
DELANEY
I can see it, there in his light-brown eyes—the flicker of hope. The idea that what that little girl might say will have the ability to cement a faith in him that he’s lacked.
Blaine and I have had a few discussions about his beliefs. He’s shaky, at best. With the pain of having a mother who left them one afternoon with the promise of arriving back home the next day with a new addition to their family only to never come back, Blaine holds a lot inside of himself. He has little faith in the world or in there being anything real that is watching over us.
“I have to let you know that you could be in for a real disappointment, Blaine, if you go through with your plan,” I tell him.
“You have a plan?” Kent asks as he looks intrigued. “If it’s anything to do with the woman I never got to meet, can I be a part of it, too, Blaine?”
“Oh! Me too!” Kate says as her cheeks grow pink with excitement.
“You should all calm down,” I tell them, as I know things never go the way people think they might when dealing with this type of thing. “I’ve seen the mother of a child ask her young son about her father who had passed. The boy kept saying he smelled cigar smoke that no one else did.”
“Phantom smells, huh?” Kent asks as sits back, taking a sip of his fruity-looking drink. He pulls a piece of pineapple out and eats it as he looks at me with an expression that lets me know he thinks I’m about to tell a spooky story.
The story I’m telling is not spooky. It’s disappointing!
“I suppose you could call the smell a phantom one, if you wanted to be dramatic,” I say with a laugh. “But really, it was the oxygen that was being forced into the kid through his nose to help him stay alive. His mother, though, led him as she told him her dead father used to smoke cigars. With her interest, I think the child began to focus on something that was not really there.”
“Okay, Delaney,” Blaine says as he looks at me with a no-nonsense look on his handsome face. “But Meagan knows nothing about me or my mother. So why would she make this up?”
With a shrug, I say, “Why does anyone come up with anything?”
“You seem cynical,” Kate says. “I guess you’ve seen so much, it’s made you that way.”
“I’m not cynical. I believe in God with all my heart. I just know that it’s not likely this little girl will say anything to make someone who’s not been a real believer to make such a huge change in their mind.” I look back at Blaine. “Tell me, if you actually saw an apparition of you mother, would it make you believe in God and heaven?”
Blaine stares blankly at me, then he looks at his sister then his brother. “I don’t know if that would make me believe anything other than this world is really crappy. To think of mom trapped here is even more awful than thinking of her as just no longer existing. Maybe Delaney is right. Maybe I shouldn’t go see the girl.”
Kate shakes her head. “I don’t think you’re going to be shown a ghost, Blaine.”
“She said she had something to tell me,” Blaine says, then looks at me. “I do think if some words were told to me that only mom would know to say, then I might gain some faith.”
Kent nods in agr
eement. “Yes, if she said something only he would know about, that should make him feel like there’s another side. That she’s not trapped here or non-existent any longer.”
“And how about you two?” I ask. “What kind of beliefs do you have?”
“Pops took us to church every Sunday, up until Kent was about fifteen. I suppose he felt like he’d done his duty and introduced us to the Lord,” Kate says.
Blaine looks away. “I went with them until I was twelve, then I refused to go anymore. Pops was disappointed in me, but he told me he wouldn’t shove something I didn’t want down my throat.”
I feel compelled to let his brother and sister know the risks of Blaine going to see the girl. “The thing you don’t know is that the little girl’s father has banned Blaine from his daughter’s room. He’s having a meeting tonight to try to get him banned from the entire hospital.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen, though,” Blaine says. “I have a few supporters there.”
“Most likely it won’t happen. But even if he doesn’t get banned from the hospital, he and I are both banned from Meagan’s room. If we go into it without permission, then we could be arrested,” I tell them and watch their faces fall.
“Crap!” Kate says, then sips her drink.
“That does put a damper on things, doesn’t it?” Kent asks.
“A very big damper on it,” I say.
“But I have a plan,” Blaine lets them know. “And you both can help. I need four Santa and elf teams to be in the hospital at the same time Delaney and I are in the same costumes. Then the camera won’t catch us going into the girl’s room. It will catch one of the five sets of people who are moving around the hospital that day, but no one would be able to point out exactly who we are.”
“I like it!” Kent says, making my heart plummet.
I had really hoped they’d see the risk and decide it wasn’t worth doing. Am I the only one who’s worried about this turning out very badly?
Chapter 5
BLAINE
I can see by the look on Delaney’s face that she expected my siblings to be on board with her, and they’re anything but that. We are cut from the same cloth!
“The salads are ready to be served,” Maggie says as she enters the room.
We all get up, and I catch Delaney taking the bottle of wine with her. She seems a bit down with the news that my plan will go off, despite her objections to it. “You know, even if we do get arrested, I have the money to get us bailed out quickly and will hire the best lawyer to defend us both,” I let her know, then pull her close to me and kiss the top of her head. “You’d only see the inside of a jail cell for a short amount of time. Most likely, not even overnight.”
“Sure, that makes me feel better,” she says with a frown as we lead the way to the dining room.
Taking our seats at the table for four, I take Delaney’s hand. “Tell you what, let me say grace over the food.”
Her eyebrows arch in surprise. “Do you know how to do that?”
Kent laughs as he takes her other hand. “Sure, he does. He’s not a heathen, Delaney.”
Kate takes my other hand and Kent’s, and the four of us form a circle. “Bow your heads and close your eyes,” I say and make sure they all done as I’ve said to. “Lord, we want to thank you for this food. We also want to thank you for everything you’ve done for us and will do for us. I hope you see fit to let my mother come through the little girl and give me a sign that you are real. Amen.”
When I open my eyes, I see Delaney looking at me with that frown still on her face. “Blaine, that is not how faith works. Faith is believing in something you can’t see or hear. If it was supposed to be shown to you no one would call it faith.”
“You can’t understand, Delaney,” I say as I pass the salad dressing to her after drowning my salad in it. “If you’ve never doubted, like I have, then you don’t understand how I feel at all.”
“I guess so,” she says as she puts a tablespoon-sized dollop of the dressing on her salad, then passes it to Kent. “You know, there are things you do have faith in. You have faith all those toys are going to fly off your shelves at your stores.”
“That’s only because I’ve seen it happen,” I tell her. “By the way, Kent, how’s that all going? I can’t believe I’ve been so involved with getting Delaney all settled in that I haven’t checked our sales even once since the new toys started filling our shelves.”
“I can’t believe that either,” he says. “And sales have doubled since last year. With the advertisement about the toys being of improved quality, we’ve done better than any of your past year’s Christmas sales.”
“Seems you guys were right about things,” I say and find myself pleasantly surprised.
I had a bad feeling the sales wouldn’t increase and we’d make less money than previous years. Seems I was wrong. I wonder what else I might be wrong about.
“Tell me about her, Blaine,” Kent says as he stabs a piece of lettuce with his fork. “Kate can’t recall much about our mother.”
“She was pretty and nice. She smelled like honey most of the time. I’m not sure why that was, but she did. Honey and lemons. I think that might have been from cleaning the house, though. Pops ended up smelling like lemons, too, after she left us,” I say and find Delaney’s hand on my leg.
“She didn’t leave you. You shouldn’t think about her like that. She had finished her job here and was sent on,” she tells me.
“Her job was not finished,” I say with a huff. “And I suppose you’re right. I shouldn’t say she left us. I should say she was taken away from us.”
“Well, now I’m sorry I said anything at all about it. I don’t want you to think that way either,” she says, and that frown is still on her pretty face.
I kiss her cheek. “I’ll try to speak in a positive manner. How about that?”
She nods. “Did she do anything special that you remember?” she asks. “My mother used to cut up my meat for me. She did it until I was about fifteen. Dad’s the one who made her stop.”
“Mom did tons of stuff for me. She always made macaroni and cheese for dinner because it was the only food I would eat every time it was on my plate. I was a picky eater,” I tell her, then look at Kent, who never got anything from her. “I made sure we got macaroni after that. I would remind pops when we went grocery shopping that we needed it.”
“I wish I would’ve been able to know her,” Kent says with a sigh. “It’s hard never knowing your mother. I wonder how people who don’t even know who their mother and father are make it in this world.”
“Life seems unfair at times,” Delaney says. “I see it all the time. But there are plenty of times when life is more than fair. No one has it all bad. And no one has it all good. Look at you guys. You lost your mother, but you had a great father. And Blaine’s managed to make a hell of a lot out of himself, and with his help, you two are doing the same thing. I’m sure your mother looks down and feels nothing but pride in her family.”
Kate wipes a tear away, then takes a drink of her wine. I know Kate missed mom far more than we boys did. She was the lone female in the house. There was no one for her to talk to about female things. Or boys.
We were hard on her where boys were concerned. If she brought one up, pops, me, and Kent would tell her to stay away from all boys. They were out for one thing and one thing only. And now I look at my sister, who is twenty-eight and has never had a real relationship and I think we were too protective. Mom would’ve made sure she had a normal life as a teenage girl.
“You know, thinking about Mom has me thinking about you, Kate,” I say, making her look at me.
“About me? Why?”
“Well, it’s brought to mind that you have yet to have a real boyfriend. I have noticed a man at the office who watches you a lot. He’s not a bad guy. You might think about checking him out sometime. His name is Randy.”
“Randy Holdings,” she says with a smile. “He�
��s talked to me a few times. I didn’t realize he liked me.”
“I did,” Kent says. “I didn’t tell you anything because I’m so used to keeping men away from you. But I’ve seen his attention to you as well. He is a nice guy.”
Kate gives us both a look that tells me she’s a bit on the shy side when it comes to men. “You guys have kind of impaired any skills I might’ve formed to understand how to act with men.”
“I can help you out there,” Delaney says with a smile. “You have me around now. And men are easy. Show the tiniest amount of interest in him and you’ll have him eating out of the palm of your hand. You are stunningly beautiful, Kate.”
My heart grows with love for the woman on my right. Her kind spirit makes her even more beautiful to me, and I wonder if she was put in my path for a reason. Maybe Delaney is meant to be our matriarch, falling into the place mom’s death left vacant.
That role needs to be filled!
Chapter 6
DELANEY
December 23rd:
The bus full of Santa-and-elf teams Blaine has put together, using his brother, sister, and other members of his staff, is ready for action. Each Santa has a bag full of goodies to hand out to every last kid in the entire Children’s Hospital.
Mr. Sanders was unable to get enough signatures on his petition to get Blaine banned from the hospital, and Blaine has come with me every day to see his four favorite kids. He had posters made up to let the other kids know Santa would be visiting them today to give them all something special to make their holidays a bit better.
I’m uncomfortable in the shapeless elf costume with the long, pointy, green shoes that feel odd on my feet. Once I have to put the elf mask on, which Blaine said was a necessary evil so we don’t stick out like a sore thumb, I’ll really be uncomfortable.
I have to admit, after the makeup that Blaine had done on all the Santa’s, they all look alike. Their fat suits match right down to the last button and so do their white beards and little wire-framed glasses. I can’t tell one from the other.
Under Her Skin Page 87