Half-Moon Manor

by Darcy, A. J.

  “And you will be the second one.” Kissing her forehead, he whispered, “Trust me. I don’t want to ever let you go.”

  Chapter Seven

  Present

  George paced the small apartment, waiting for Victoria to call. It had been weeks since she had gone to some forsaken town to drop off her daughter for the summer. It irked him a little that she thought that her daughter needed protecting from him.

  He knew she had tried to hide it, but she never hid it very well. It was apparent in her looks and the way that her right fist would tighten whenever he looked in Olivia’s direction. Despite the differences in coloring, he could see Victoria in her daughter and imagined how she looked at Olivia’s age. She would have been unstoppable.

  Too bad he had not found her sooner.

  “You are supposed to tell the father when you are pregnant,” he growled at a picture.

  It had been weeks and she had yet to call him to tell him that she was saying at her father’s house in some town he never bothered to remember. Now he wished that he had paid more attention; it did not matter than neither Whitmore had ever told him where Victoria was from originally. It had been months and she never bothered to tell him that she was pregnant. He did not even know how far along she was in her pregnancy.

  George knew that he would find her and take away everything that she loved. Everything.

  It was only fair.

  “If you don’t tell her then I will!” Weston Greene was heard shouting. “She deserves to know the truth and I deserve to know my daughter!”

  “Not every parent deserves to know their child!” Victoria shouted back.

  “I’m not George!”

  “I don’t care. It’s been years. What makes you think she wants to know you now?”

  “Because she is biologically part of me and she will want to know who is her father. She’ll know that there is a part of her life missing. It’s part of her talent; you told me. She will search until she finds it. Until that missing piece is exactly where it needs to be. You know that and you know that part of it comes from me!”

  “If she asks I will tell her.”

  Neither Victoria nor Weston saw Olivia and Henry silently walk into the house until they were standing in the doorway.

  It took Victoria a moment to recognize that several key points where exactly the way that they needed to be to match a certain vision she recently had. Closing her eyes, she turned around until she was facing the doorway. “Olivia.”

  “Mom?” Looking over at her father, “Officer Greene?” Grabbing Henry’s hand for support, “What’s going on?”

  They both could tell she already knew. They just did not know how much she knew.

  Victoria took a step forward before noticing the look on her daughter’s face. “How much did you hear?”

  “All of it,” Henry answered for Olivia. “We already suspected. They have the same eyes.”

  “And hair.”

  For the moment they left out that Henry’s mother had already told them.

  Victoria looked at Weston. “I know.” Sitting down in a chair, “It’s been a constant reminder every single time I looked you in the eyes.”

  Still standing in the doorway, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did Henry’s mom have to tell me?”

  “I was scared.”

  Olivia looked at her mother before glancing at her newly ‘claimed’ father. Tugging on Henry’s hand then letting it go, she walked back up the stairs. Her bed was calling her. The one thing she had wondered about for years was finally in her grasp, but it also meant a million changes that she was not prepared to face. She thought she was ready to face them, but an overwhelming urge to cry overcame her instead.

  What would she call him? What would Grandfather think? Did Grandfather know? Why did her mother never tell her? All of those questions circled her mind, making her dizzy, and making her long for the comfort of her bed.

  “Aren’t you worried about them alone in her room?” Weston asked while looking through the now-empty doorway.

  “They’ll be okay. They aren’t together yet. Henry knows to wait and not to push her. The poor boy has been waiting years for Olivia to wake up. He also knows she will tell him when it’s the right time for them to be together and to not get impatient like some people I know.” Victoria collapsed into a chair as she weakly explained; she was suddenly exhausted.

  Henry glanced backwards towards the living room at the comment that Victoria made from his spot hidden from sight on the stairs. He wanted to go in and ask Victoria what she meant, but knew that if he was supposed to be talking with the adults then Olivia would not have tugged on his hand. Olivia needed him more.

  Climbing up the stairs, he started thinking about what Victoria had said. He was still thinking about it when he climbed on the bed next to Olivia and pulled her close. Ten minutes later they were both asleep.

  “Officer Greene is my father?” Olivia asked later once everybody else had left.

  Her mother collapsed into the nearest chair. “How did you find out?”

  “I’ve been looking for years. I found your box of journals and all the good pages were torn out. Henry and I thought about using his mother’s yearbooks to find out, but you only were in the required pictures. His mother finally told me.”

  “Hope,” Victoria groaned. “Why did you have to do that?” Looking at her daughter, “I would have told you if you had asked.”

  “I didn’t want to ask in case there was some horrible reason why he wasn’t in our lives, like if he was another George, Hunter, or Evan.” Olivia started pacing in front of her mother. “I didn’t want to upset you. But you knew the whole time when he had pulled us over and you didn’t tell me that he was in town. That he lived here. You never told me. How could you never tell me?” She started to cry.

  “You never met his mother.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Hers.”

  Seventeen Years Before

  She was busy getting ready for her date. Tonight she was going to tell Weston what the doctor had confirmed. She had been right and even using a condom had not been enough to keep her from getting pregnant. She still would not have changed any of it for the world.

  An insistent knocking was coming from the front door. “I’ll get it,” Victoria called upstairs to where her father was sitting in his study, probably looking at a picture of her mother. He would be so happy when he heard her news.

  “Coming,” she yelled to the door.

  “It’s about time. I have been waiting here forever,” a haughty voice complained from the porch. “Perfect, just the person I wanted to talk to. I heard you had an appointment today,” Nadine Greene coldly stated. “Bad news, I assume.”

  “I’d say it was good news,” Victoria smiled.

  Leaning as close as she would dare, Nadine smiled coldly. “That’s debatable.” Looking around to make certain nobody else was nearby. “You will get rid of it and break up with my son. I will not have a Mason witch stealing him away from his family and station in life.”

  “And if I don’t?” Victoria asked as she straightened up to meet Weston’s mother’s height.

  “All of that scholarship money you earned will be gone. You will not be able to go to college without it and Weston will not be able afford to help you out. I will disown him and ruin his chances for college.”

  “You would do that to your own son?” Victoria asked, forgetting to keep her poker face in place, her voice full of disbelief.

  “He knows how I feel about your family.” Nadine turned around and left, not once stepping foot inside the house. “Not that it made a difference.”

  Victoria stood there stunned, uncertain about what to do. She could break up with Weston and allow him to keep his future. He was always talking about moving away. He would never know if she ever returned with his child.

  Or she could stay gone.

  She would have to wait until Nadine was gone before she return
ed with her daughter. Daughter. A hand moved to rest on her stomach. She would be doing this alone. Weston would not have time to change his school plans. She could not steal his future away from him.

  There was no possible way that she was going to allow his miserable excuse of a mother to ruin his future. If she had known his mother would have reacted like that, threatening their futures, she would have waited longer. She would have made him wait longer. They knew the chances.

  He knew the odds.

  It was not fair to him that she was cursed.

  Oh, man, she was going to have to lie about the doctor’s appointment. She would have to make a fool-proof web of lies so that if he ever found out she would have her safety net covered. She would then try to forget the truth or at least most of the truth.

  Present

  “I had to lie to him back then. And I did it again the other day at the café. I knew that I was pregnant with you right before my high school graduation and I told him I didn’t know until I had left for college; I was planning on taking summer courses. He made plans to go on a trip with his father to get over our break up.” Victoria was starting to tear up, “So many lies. I had to tell so many lies just so that your paternal grandmother would not try to destroy all of our lives.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lying back on Henry’s forbidden bed Olivia started to talk. Sitting on the floor, his back propped against the bed, Henry only listened.

  “She lied to me. For years I was lead to believe that my biological father just wasn’t around. Like he died or abandoned us or something. No, she kept him away from me because his mother threatened her. She could have told us when my grandmother died.” Choking back a sob, “My grandmother who did not want me to exist.”

  Knowing that there would be trouble if his mother came into the room, Henry got up and joined Olivia on the bed, pulling her into his chest as she started to sob. There were only a few times in his memory where he had ever seen Olivia not being analytical and most of them were happened week.

  Everything about Olivia’s search had been done as if she was following a to-do list. She had only wanted a name. Now Olivia had a name and a flesh and blood person to go along with this name. For once she had no idea how to act; things no longer were logical in her analytical world.

  The cold stone stared at him, at least the angel his mother had insisted on stared at him. Weston never understood why his mother thought that an angel was appropriate for her headstone. Some days he felt as if a skull and crossbones cradling a bottle of poison was more appropriate.

  “I know, Mother,” he said to the stone, saying words that he wished he could say to a living, breathing person. “Why? Why would you do that? It was not your decision to make.”

  Looking around him at the nearly empty cemetery, Weston groaned. “Ever since I was little I have heard the story of Martin Whitmore and your doomed relationship. Why couldn’t you have tried to be happy with Dad? He loved you once.

  “Instead, you focused on the one bad thing that had happened in your life, the one event you disagreed with, and made everybody else’s lives miserable, including your own. Did it help?”

  Sighing, “I’m not going to give up this time. You can’t talk me out of it. You can’t lie and tell me you saw Victoria kissing my best friend.

  “He never forgave me for that, Mom. Alex Bell never met Victoria officially. Just what I told him about her. And Victoria had spent so much time avoiding male attention and then only seeing me that she did not even know Alex was a real person. He was just a name to her. Somebody in a different school. Somebody who was a part of my stories.”

  Weston closed his eyes, “How could you feel so good about ruining so many lives?”

  Shaking his head, knowing that getting answers was impossible, Weston walked away. This time he was determined that he would not lose Victoria or Olivia.

  “You’ll have to forgive her someday,” a voice said, making him jump. Laughing, “And you are supposed to be paying attention at all times.”

  “I’m off duty and out of uniform, Sis.” Hugging Melissa to him, “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Forgive her?”

  Melissa pulled back to look him in the eye. “She never ruined my life,” she bluntly answered. “If you had gone ahead with that idiotic plan of yours she would have disowned you and used her minions to cancel Victoria’s scholarships.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Judy Manor told me. She had asked Victoria once in college and Victoria can’t lie to anybody without practicing, even if she believes otherwise.”

  Weston closed his eyes. “Do you think she’s lying now?”

  “If she is,” Melissa advised, “ignore it. Any lie she tells you will be for protection; she is going to guard her heart and her daughter – not necessarily in that order.” Turning to look at the headstone, “Dad forgave her, you know.”

  “How is he?”

  “Alive. You should call him.”

  “He hates me.”

  “Only because you married one of Mom’s puppets, but you’re divorced now so everything should be okay.” Melissa looked at her brother, “He misses you.”

  “Then he can come here.”

  “Not with the memories Mom made. She ruined this town for him.” Getting ready to leave, “Bring Olivia over. She can meet her cousin. I know Henry is so wrapped up in Olivia to think about anybody or anything else.”

  Weston’s head jerked to look at Melissa, “Should I be concerned?”

  “Only if you think that Henry Hayes is a bad influence on your daughter. He looks at her as if she hung the moon and stars.” She laughed, “He looks at her the way you looked at her mother.”

  “I’m buying a lock for that window.”

  Melissa walked away, laughing. “He comes in through the front door.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Present - August

  The problem with knowing where things are supposed to go is in dealing with other people. Other people have minds of their own – it is called free will after all – and while dealing with things there was the complication that other people do not always know where something goes or why it goes in that particular place.

  Henry’s older brother Michael thought that Olivia would be needing help fitting in and would drag her to meet people in his circles. While Olivia agreed that meeting people was the right thing to do – nobody knew when they would need somebody’s help one day – she knew that this was not the group that she fit into. It did not matter how much Michael tried to convince her otherwise, he would not succeed.

  Henry was equally helpful by introducing her to his friends and other members of the junior class student body, but they also were not the people she was meant to hang around.

  It was not until lunch when Olivia found them. At first she had been worried about lunch and where to sit. Henry had a different lunch shift and Michael was off somewhere doing something. In a table near, but not at, the fringes of the cafeteria were the drama geeks. It was a puzzle piece that was just waiting to be put into place. Her tray was meant to be set on that table.

  “Hi,” she smiled, “can I sit with you?”

  The students at the table looked at each other and then at the unofficial leader of the group.

  “I’m Winnie, named after a distant aunt, and this is…” and one by one Winnie introduced the table. Each person smiled before turning back to his or her conversation.

  “I’m Olivia,” she stated.

  “I know. I have second period with Henry and he was talking about you.” Winnie glanced down the table, “Don’t tell Savannah. She has a huge crush on him – she has had it forever – but we all know it won’t work. We all thought he was lying whenever he talked about his girlfriend from Memphis because he never us showed any pictures and his relationship is listed as ‘It’s complicated’ and has been for over a year now.”

  Olivia flushed before leaning forward, “I’m not H
enry’s girlfriend and never have been. Not technically. I’m only around every summer for about a month. My grandfather lives next door to him.”

  She shifted in her seat while Winnie examined her. After a few minutes, “It’s only a matter of time,” the drama queen stated.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Winnie leaned closer and whispered, “Look, you are a Whitmore although we both know that you are really a Greene too.” At Olivia’s startled look, “You look just like my uncle and everybody knows the tales of the Mason women. They rarely ever get their intended even though the ‘intended’ leaves them pregnant with a daughter. Is it true that you all have special ‘talents’?”

  “Yes,” Victoria whispered, stunned at how quickly Winnie had rambled everything out. “How do you know all of this?”

  “I’m your cousin. Uncle Weston was supposed to bring you over to meet me before school let out; he’s just waiting for you to speak up about forming a relationship with him.” Winnie grabbed a chicken nugget off of her tray, “Although, Henry could have brought you over to meet me but he didn’t, obviously.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So, what is your talent?”

  Coming up behind them, Michael Hayes grabbed for a fry, “Nosy much, Winnie?”

  “You know me too well,” she grinned.

  Chapter Ten

  Weston decided that in order to develop a relationship with his daughter he would have to face things head on instead of waiting for Olivia to make a move. He understood her hesitation but he also wanted to get her out of the house and around town where people would recognize her as his daughter; he wanted people to know that if they messed with Olivia they would also be messing with him. The urge to become an overprotective father was strong.

  Instead of waiting for Olivia to come to him like Victoria advised, he went to her. Ringing the doorbell he had the clichéd bunch of flowers in his hands.