A Heart's End - A Billionaire Romance Novel (Romance, Billionaire Romance, Life After Love Book 6)

by Nancy Adams

  David continued to gaze attentively out of the window at the passing scenery; mostly desert, cactuses and the odd stone building, only the occasional Mexican flag waving on the end of a pole to distinguish between the two countries. It was only when they got deeper into the place, passed through the dusty little border towns, that David began to see the sudden change. The first thing his child’s mind grabbed ahold of was the fact that the cars were much poorer, older, in disrepair, only the odd one being new or even clean, tractors and other agricultural machinery tootling along and holding up the lanes. He also saw whole families sat abreast motorbikes, motorbikes that resembled bicycles with engines everywhere zipping in and out of the heavy, eclectic traffic. Then at the sides of the road, he saw people thronging together, often whole groups of them with young children, walking along the dusty edges of the highway, nonchalantly flicking out a thumb every now and then to passing motorists. Another glance led his eyes to a group of people riding in the back of a pickup truck, as though it were public transport, whole families in the dusty back, eating their breakfast as it bumped along like it was the most natural thing in the world. He spotted animals too, grazing wherever they wanted: pigs, cows, goats and countless dogs running around, eating what they could. It seemed to David that Mexico was an open zoo; the animals were everywhere, at the sides of roads, in the middle partition of the highway, or even on the roads themselves, people stopping and ushering the beasts from the sun-scorched asphalt, the creatures oblivious to any danger that may have been around them, humans and their machines the most natural thing to them in the world.

  Everything that made its way to David’s eyes fascinated him and filled him with wonder, and even though he had been very tired when his father had woken him up, he felt suddenly invigorated by the diverse and strange world that he saw around him, a world that, the more he saw, the more he realized contrasted so much with his own homeland. When they stopped in traffic in large populated areas, children covered from head to foot in dust with matted hair would come up to the windows and Jules would instruct David to ignore them. But the sweet boy found it all so hard to simply look away, the children’s dirt-stained faces full of sadness, their clothes almost rags that hung off their little bodies, no shoes upon their tiny feet.

  Seeing these odd scenes, the boy wondered why his own parents would take him to such a place.

  “Where are their parents?” he asked his father at one time.

  Jules let out a groan; a question he had asked himself many times when among the world’s most destitute.

  “I guess they’re either waiting for them to come back with some money, or they simply aren’t around and the children use the money to buy food, and then sleep somewhere on the streets.”

  “Like in Oliver Twist? The story Momma read to me about the orphan boy. Is it like when the children lived with Fagan?”

  “Yeah,” Jules replied with a smile. “Fagan looks after them. He cooks them sausages every night in abandoned buildings.”

  “But Momma said that Oliver Twist was a very long time ago in England. She said that it’s much better nowadays and that children don’t live like that anymore. Why are children here living on the streets?”

  “Because not everywhere is the same. Some places don’t have the things that we have back home.”

  “Why not? Can’t we share with them? If children don’t have to be on the streets nowadays back home, then why are they begging here in Mexico?”

  Jules once again smiled.

  “Well, that’s a question that people have been asking since there was people, and I don’t think I’m in any place to know all the reasons myself, let alone explain them. Even if you are sharp as a pin, I certainly ain’t! So we’ll leave off of geo-politics and socio-economics for now, huh, and just enjoy the scenery.”

  All of a sudden, Juliette woke up like a bolt, startling Jules, and began darting her gaze around her, directly at Jules for a moment and then into the back of the car at David, before dashing her eyes around the exterior of the car at the rolling Mexican scenery. Jules felt an instant pang of worry, but his love calmed him when she simply announced, “Are we in Sinaloa yet?”

  “No, not for another four hours at least. We only passed into Mexico about two hours ago.”

  “Oh! That’s good,” she gasped with relief, settling herself back down into the seat. “When we reach Sinaloa, do you fancy stopping off at Topolobampo and staying the night or perhaps a day or two, before we reach Durango?”

  Jules smiled and looked over at her as she looked set to fall back to sleep, her eyes once again closed, her medication making her drowsy.

  “Why do you ask to go there?” he wanted to know.

  Without opening her eyes, she answered in a plain voice, “Because I just had a dream about it. It made me desperately want to go there and see the harbor and the beautiful foothills across the river. I dreamed we were sitting on the beach around a fire, the three of us, with all the fishermen eating fish cooked on the hot logs of the fire, the salted skins of the fish nice and crispy. It was like that time we stayed there all those years ago.”

  She opened her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance, seeing that his eyes kept flicking back and forth between her and the road, that same smile on his face.

  “Why do you smile at me like that?” she asked him, a gentle annoyance in her voice.

  “Because I was headed that way anyway. You read my mind or something. Or maybe we shared a dream. I don’t know. Maybe because I was thinking it so much while driving, my thoughts somehow left my head and went into yours while you was sleeping; reminded you of that time. Because since the moment I was looking on the map the other day when deciding how we’d get to Durango, I been planning to surprise you by taking us to Topolobampo on the way.”

  “Well, the surprise is ruined now,” she exclaimed gruffly with hidden mirth.

  “By your spooky dream!”

  “No, my love, by your big mouth! You could’ve still lied and said there was no time. I would’ve probably fallen back to sleep on the way, these meds are so strong at times, and you could have safely delivered me there.”

  “I apologize for ruining the surprise by confirming your dream’s premonition.”

  “I accept your apology, Jules Lee. Now,” and she snuggled herself back into her seat, once again closing her eyes, “don’t wake me until we stop for breakfast.”

  Jules allowed her to sleep for another hour or two, David also covering himself once again with his blanket and falling back to sleep. When they reached a tortilla stand that stood in a small town that looked to house the local farming community, Jules stopped for breakfast. He gathered that it was mostly farmers that lived there from the fact that the land for some miles around was heavily cultivated with different crops, ranging from corn, to wheat, all the way to orange orchids. The tortilla stand looked a little grubby, but sufficient for a fairly clean breakfast. Plus he was a romantic and believed that the first meal in any country should always be of the local variety. Along the way he had driven past several American franchise outlets that would have possibly been safer for their stomachs, but he wanted David’s first meal in Mexico to be real Mexican.

  He woke his family and they all sleepily made their ways to the stand. The tortilla cook was a jolly kinda guy and had a big smile on his face that appeared especially for the sleepy family. He was middle-aged, overweight—but clearly not bothered by it—and had a similar nonchalant opinion of his thinning hair, which was simply combed in a way that suggested he still believed it was a full head of hair, strands of it blowing in the not-so-severe breeze. He wore a yellow—although it looked to have originally been white—vest over his plump, hairy back and shoulders, and held a spatula in his left hand that continually worked at the grill in front of him.

  “Seat. Seat,” he compelled them as they approached.

  They each took a stool at the front of the stand, Juliette helping David up onto his, and the cook presented them a men
u in poorly spelled English. They soon all chose the breakfast burrito with coffee, a coke for the boy. They then sat and watched the rotund figure work away. The cook was efficient and quick and soon they were all holding their burritos, the cook looking at them with a wide smile, occasionally nodding and compelling the gringos to tell him how they tasted.

  “Muy bien, señor,” Juliette let out after a second or two of her first bite, smacking her lips in the Italian style as she did. “Muy bien!”

  This made the cook’s face even more jovial than it had been before, so Jules added, “Excelente tortilla, señor!” to finish the man’s joy.

  The cook’s smile almost lifted off of his face.

  As they ate, Jules looked around them. The town wasn’t much. Across the road stood a shabby-looking garage, alongside which was a collection of shack-like buildings that sold various wares, mostly of an industrial nature. In front of him, behind the tortilla stand, was a grocery store; a rack of dusty vegetables and fruit stood outside its partly boarded-up door. Several meters to their left stood a tall tree with twisted branches. Around it stood a circular stone wall with a plaque on it commemorating the tree for something or other. Lying on the wall, and evidently fast asleep, was a skinny-looking man who, despite the limited shade that the old tree offered him, seemed to be sleeping soundly, a greasy baseball cap pulled over his face.

  Jules turned back to his family. Juliette was eating heartily while David mirrored his father in his inquisitive glances around the surroundings. While the boy did, a sandy-colored dog, no more than a pup, came up to him and sat not a foot from where David was, looking up at the boy with its pitiful, round eyes, its tail wagging behind it in the dust.

  “Is it okay to feed him, Momma?” the boy asked turning to his side.

  “Sure. Just be careful he don’t nip you when he snatches the food.”

  David tore a piece off of his burrito and fed it to the small dog, who greedily snatched it from his hand, looking worryingly up at the cook as he did. So desperately did the pup tug it from David’s hand that he dropped the whole piece onto the dirty ground, and when he finally got it back into his mouth, the dog had the job of chewing down the dirt as well. Once the dog had gobbled it all down his thin neck, David tore another piece off, this time much smaller so that the dog could take it whole, and offered it. The dog took it gently this time and managed not to drop it in the dirt. David smiled and, watching him, so too did Juliette and Jules.

  As they watched the boy feed the dog, Jules spread his arm around his love and she leaned her head back onto his shoulder. Even the cook couldn’t help but smile for real as he watched the family look so blissfully happy.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Someone jerked his arm and Paul awoke to find the smiling face of an airhostess looking him straight in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry to spoil your sleep, sir, but the seatbelt sign has just gone on and you are expected to buckle up.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Paul groggily replied.

  The flight from L.A. to Casselton had been long, and his mind had been heavy with thought about what he had done. Even up to the final moment when he had walked into Sam’s study, a part of him had begged him not to do it, not to tell him, to leave it up to Claire. But he had, and now it was done.

  Nothing to be done about it now, he said to himself in thought as he snapped his seatbelt shut. I’ve done it all now and nothing can change that. I’ve cut myself adrift for sure and must live with the consequences, whatever they’ll be.

  When he reached the arrivals suite, he found the smiling faces of his folks standing just beyond the barrier. The second he spotted their beaming expressions, a part of him wanted to turn straight around and get away as fast as possible, and, as he approached them, he wondered whether he actually would have done so if it weren’t for the fact that they’d spotted him the exact moment he’d laid eyes on them, thus making his getaway impossible.

  Paul came forward to meet them and they both took ahold of him in an emotional embrace. He felt his knees go weak at the strength of their unconditional love for him. As he’d expected, his mother fell into crying and his father kept repeating that it couldn’t be helped. It couldn’t be helped.

  As the three of them walked to his parents’ vehicle, they each said very little, and by the time they were all jumping into his father’s car, they were practically silent. In the same way that he’d done when he was a boy, Paul rode in the back while his father drove and his mother sat in the passenger seat. Just as always, the radio played old songs in the background and everything was silent between them, the flatlands of North Dakota sliding by as they approached the town of Casselton.

  Paul found himself drifting back into reverie as he gazed sadly out of the window at the unbroken plane of fields that stretched out beyond the lines and lines of fences, nothing but flat fields for miles on end. His mind cast itself back to the time he had sat in the back of Claire’s mother’s car all those years ago when he’d first traveled down to Colorado to meet the Prior family. As his dream became stronger, the horizontal surface of the surrounding lands grew mountains, and the air filled with them, the gray sky fading behind a row of jagged peaks as they rose upward. He was once again seated beside Kyle in the backseat, spying on Claire as she sat in the front. Every so often, she would catch a glimpse of him looking at her, seeing his reflection in the passenger-side mirror. And when she did, she’d giggle, and he would feel true joy as she laughed in secret with him.

  “Wake up, son,” his father said, as he shook him.

  Looking sleepily around him, Paul realized that they had arrived home and that he had obviously fallen asleep on the way there. Glancing about, he observed that nothing had changed of the old suburb since he had last visited some nine months before. Not one thing. The American flag still flapped in the wind outside Mr. Henderson’s place, and he was sure that the old military man himself still shuffled out onto his front lawn each morning and raised it with a proud salute. Then there were the rows of white picket fences that lined the houses in front of the sidewalk. Like razor wire in a prison yard, he said to himself. Farther on down the road he spotted kids playing street hockey and recalled all the great times he and his friends would have years ago when he was a boy doing exactly the same. Full of joy and determination, the game increasing in ferocity, before the inevitable car would come along and postpone it all for a few minutes while they had to drag everything, including themselves, to the side of the road. Only the vehicles in the drives ever change here, he thought. It was like the story of Abraham in Genesis: everything begat everything else, a continual flow throughout time, each generation picking up where the last left off, all of it transient but still somehow standing still, the place trapped in an eternal sideways movement.

  He shuddered and got out of the car. His folks took him through the house, upstairs and to his old room. As they did, they would continually glance at him with worried looks. He had noticed these looks ever since he had arrived. At times, in the back of the car, he had awoken to find his mother’s timid eyes gazing anxiously back at him from the passenger seat. He knew what these looks meant and felt a pang in his heart from their love and concern for him.

  When Paul walked inside his room and dumped his bags onto his bed, he walked to the large bay window that his desk used to sit in front of.

  “Obviously we redecorated and removed a lot of the furniture, including your old desk a while ago,” his mother informed him from the doorway. “We never thought you’d be back and decided to turn the room into a spare one. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” he answered blankly without turning to her.

  “We kept most of your stuff that you didn’t take to New York and put it all up in the attic. Your school books, report cards, pictures and medals and trophies. What happened to the things you took with you? Are they still in New York?”

  “I got rid of them, Ma,” he replied glaring out of the window at the flat neighborho
od that seemed to grow out across the landscape like mold. Behind the houses, his eyes travelled over the bleak fields that stretched out to nowhere and he felt that same loneliness grip his heart that he always felt when he went back to Casselton. That’s why he’d placed his desk in front of that window when he’d lived there, because the study and hard work that he achieved at that desk would allow him to travel far beyond that bleak horizon and be somewhere else other than Casselton. But that somewhere else had turned out to be just as cold as Casselton, and he wondered if he would ever find his place in this world.

  “You wanna little time on your own?” his mother asked as she watched her son stand before the window.

  “Sure thing, Ma,” he replied in a dead tone.

  She was about to leave and close the door behind her, but she changed her mind and entered the room. She walked determinedly up to her son, who still had his back to her, and took him around the shoulders with both arms, hugging him warmly, nestling her face into the nape of his neck. He seemed so rigid within her grasp, not like he had been when he was a boy and had always softened to her touch, as young boys who love their moms do, and she realized with a regretful certainty that a new hardness had entered her boy.

  “I love you so much, son,” she said tearily, a drop or two falling from her sad eyes.

  “I love you too, Ma,” he replied in a broken voice, raising his hand and laying it upon her arm, which draped across his chest.

  Having sated her desire to hold her sad son, Paul’s mother left the room and he was all alone. Taking his eyes from the view out the window, he looked around him for something to sit on, but observed that all the chairs, including his old couch, weren’t there anymore. So he decided to fetch the only thing that was still there: his bed. He scraped it across the floor, so that its end was pointing directly out of the window, and sat down watching the endless view of North Dakota in early summer.