Scarlett Love (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  "Why not?" Slater mumbled. "I could open a studio, do music, book myself out for weddings and such. Work at what I like. Except I have no startup money to do any of that."

  "Ask Edmond to bankroll you.” Edwin glanced at him. "He has more money than sense. See, he paved the driveway and bought that new SUV when his old one wasn't even old."

  Slater grinned. "I'll ask him, if you allow him to update your side of the house to look like his."

  Edwin frowned. "No."

  "Then I guess the two of us will just stay proud and poor," Slater muttered. "Since your roof is leaking badly, it's only a matter of time before it collapses. You'll get pneumonia again, which will eat out your pension for medication; I'll stay as Mrs. Perry's handyman, doing music on the side until I can save up enough money to branch out. Who knows how long that will be?

  "And by the time I am comfortable enough to really search for my mother's or father's family so I have some inclination of who I am really am and can be comfortable enough to consider children, Amoy will have married to that stuck-up lawyer guy...and me, I will be with somebody else, of course, but I don't think I will be happy with them, at least not for long, not like I would be with Amoy. I am thoroughly convinced that we would be happy together. It’s a pity you haven't met her; you would like her."

  Edwin held up his hand. "Stop with the ode to Amoy for a minute. I can fix my own roof."

  "Your rainy day money? The funds you have in that fixed account? That is not to be touched until a serious emergency. Edmond wants to fix your roof; he wants to update your side of the house—let him!"

  "If I let him, you," Edwin pointed, "will ask him about funding your business plan. Which means that you have to create one. Find where you would want that studio, and do all of that stuff you talked about."

  Slater grinned. "Deal!"

  Edwin sniffed. "Please note carefully that I am sacrificing my pride here, and it’s for you."

  Slater chuckled. "Yeah, right."

  *****

  Amoy had her head on her desk when her phone rang. Her energy levels were in a constant downward spiral since... She glanced at the calendar--eleven days since the breakup. She had gone to the law review two days ago and Jay had taken it as some kind of admission that she was available. The minute that Slater had left her house, she had realized that she had made a mistake.

  They should have talked some more. She had kicked him out without hearing why he didn't want children. She had judged him before he could get in a word edgewise.

  She had allowed herself to get cold and hardened by her ex-husband, to the point where she was beyond reasoning. She replayed what she had said to Slater in her head and winced. "Experiment over."

  She allowed the phone to ring out and then she straightened up in the chair. It was life. She went to the Lawyers Review with Jay. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. It was just ordinary. Like the aftermath of having too much pepper in a meal—while you are eating it your taste buds were on fire and then it died down and then your tongue was so scorched you can't taste the rest of the food.

  Or a day-old milkshake with all the froth and smoothness gone. She looked at her watch. It was near lunchtime, hence the food analogies. Her phone rang again and she picked it up.

  "What?" she barked.

  Her father was on the other line. "I have your contract ready and waiting. I saw the entertainment pages in the newspaper. You are a very shrewd woman, Amoy. You seem as if you have balls after all. Why don't you bring Jay to Sunday brunch?"

  "Dad," Amoy groaned, "I am not in the mood for Sunday brunch."

  "Bring him by," her father said, ignoring her. "You didn't come by last week. I hope to see him then."

  "Why do you like Jay so much?" Amoy asked tiredly.

  "Is that a serious question?" Douglas cleared his throat. "He is a very good lawyer from a very good family."

  "Argh," Amoy groaned. "Daddy, so was Shawn! What does that have to do with your daughter's happiness?"

  "I am sending over the contract with Constance. Look it over. Marry Jay, the partnership is yours."

  He hung up.

  Amoy put her head back on the desk. She imagined Slater's smile. His calmness, his basic decency, his warmth.

  The fact that she felt a slow-burning flame inside her chest when she saw him, the fact that for the first time in her life she felt absolutely different around a man—a certainty, a completeness that she had never felt around another. She could be herself around Slater and he never seemed to mind that she was.

  He was more socially aware and intuitive than half of the men she knew. But he didn't want children. Dealbreaker.

  "You look like hell," Eugenia said from the door.

  "Ah," Amoy slapped her forehead, "did I forget a lunch date?"

  "Nah," Eugenia shook her head. "I am on a mission of mercy—saw this in yesterday's paper." She held up the picture with Amoy and Jay laughing together over a glass of wine.

  She didn't know how the camera managed to catch them at that moment because she had been solemn for most of the night.

  "Please have a seat," Amoy indicated the chair in front of her. "And pictures can be deceiving. I was bored for most of the night."

  Eugenia sat down and crossed her legs and put her bag on the other chair. "Want us to do lunch?"

  "Not very hungry," Amoy yawned.

  "Such a blatant lie, you deserve to starve." Eugenia grimaced. "Good for you I booked a table at Harvey's in half an hour. It's the new health food place that charges an arm and leg for a simple salad. You are paying."

  Amoy made a face. "You are so bossy."

  "And nosy," Eugenia added. "When I saw Jay the pompous was back in your life and looking more pompous than ever, I had to take a break from my busy schedule to ask you if you are planning to procreate with this fool?"

  "Oh, come on, Genie," Amoy scowled, "Jay is not that bad."

  "Please tell me that your baby obsession has not extended to Jay." Eugenia leaned forward in the chair and cupped her chin. "Please."

  "No," Amoy grimaced, "not exactly. Right now I am not so sure about my baby obsession, as you call it. I am not so sure about all the things that I have been wanting lately." She closed her eyes. "I don't know, maybe I need to re-prioritize? I need time to regroup."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Slater walked into the Chang and Dubois offices with heavy steps. He had not even gotten a glimpse of Amoy for the past three weeks. Lydia was gone too, and the original receptionist Tessa was back. She did not speak much; she just signed the clipboard, showed him where to put the stuff and then went back to what she was doing. No banter like Lydia or mocking hints as to what Amoy was doing. He never thought he would miss Lydia, but he did now.

  He exited the elevator and walked into a semi-crowded lobby. That lawyer, Amoy's current boyfriend—what was his name again? Jay. He almost laughed at himself. He knew Jaylon Best's name. He saw him on television almost every night commenting on one topic after another.

  They always had him on talk shows as their resource guy. He had that kind of face. He was standing at the reception desk, while Tessa was on the phone.

  Slater sighed. The guy was in what looked like an expensive suit, his nails were buffed to perfection and he had the kind of serious, businesslike look on his face that indicated that he was supremely busy even if he was just standing there reading a law journal.

  Slater walked up to the desk and waited for Tessa to acknowledge him.

  "Slater, right?" Jay asked, turning to Slater with a half-grin. "How is it going?"

  "Working," Slater muttered.

  "I see that." Jay indicated the package in his hand. "I am just here for a lunch date."

  Slater nodded. He couldn't wait for Tessa to look up so that he wouldn't have to watch Amoy and Jay walk through the door hand in hand, with her smiling, the two of them perfectly matched, taunting him with his inequality.

  Jay drifted closer to him and pushed the magazine he was
reading on the counter. "This is my article." He pointed to an article, 'Environmental Law is Important.' Beside the headline was his smiling face.

  Slater nodded. "What does Environmental Law involve?"

  Jay paused, looking at him. "It's, er..simply put, laws addressing the effects of human activity on the natural environment. I seem to have taken up a bit of a crusader mantle since coming to Jamaica. I practiced in the UK and the US, you know."

  Slater whistled. "I hear that both places have different ways of practicing jurisprudence."

  His word for the day, courtesy of one of Noah Ess' books about a family torn by a custody battle. Mrs. Perry had corrected him six times with that word. He was amazed he even remembered how to pronounce it.

  Jay was rigid now, looking at Slater as if he was just seeing him. Jurisprudence, the theory of law. Running over the word a million times and getting the definition was worth it.

  "Yes, er, I had to qualify for both bar associations," Jay said hesitantly.

  Slater nodded. "You guys read and study a lot. I give you props for that."

  Jay backed away from him. "Thank you. I must say I have heard you play the saxophone and I think that you are a pretty good too."

  Tessa got off the phone and looked at Jay. "Mr. Douglas Lee Chang will see you now, Mr. Best. He is ready for your lunch date."

  She then looked at Slater and gave him a rare warm smile. "Mr. Zack Lee Chang would like to see you after the delivery."

  Slater glanced at Jay, suppressing a smile. He had thought that Jay was here to see Amoy.

  Jay glanced at him curiously. He was curious as to why Zachary Lee Chang would want to see him.

  And so was Slater. He had talked to him at his sister's house and he had found him to be a quite likeable person.

  He was a bit like Amoy, very down to earth, didn't ask him any awkward questions, treated him like he was a normal person. He was beyond curious when after Tessa signed for the delivery, Zack's secretary, who introduced herself as Cora, escorted him into the hallowed hallways of the inner sanctum of the law office and to a wide door marked Zachary Lee Chang. The door was semi-open. She pushed it all the way. Slater stood at the threshold.

  Zack was in a navy suit, his hair brushed back from his forehead. He was staring down at his computer with a frown.

  He looked up when the secretary cleared her throat.

  "Oh hello, Slater." Zack beckoned him inside. "Close the door behind you, will you?"

  He stood up and shook Slater's hand and then indicated for him to sit.

  "How is it going?" Zack asked, steepling his fingers under his chin.

  "Fine." Slater waited for what...a query as to why he and Amoy were no longer together?

  "Going to Reuben's wedding this weekend?" Zack smiled at him.

  "Yes," Slater nodded. "He asked me to do a sax solo piece."

  "Ah," Zack nodded.

  "I have no idea where Treasure Beach is though."

  "You can drive down with me and Terri," Zack offered. "We can get to know each other a bit better."

  Slater frowned. "You do know that your sister and I are not together, right? I mean..."

  "Yes," Zack nodded, "but it is obvious that Reuben likes you, and my wife does too. She never stopped singing your praises after that Thursday dinner. It almost gave me a complex. "

  Slater grinned.

  "And you have an uncanny resemblance to Reuben. Terri was the one who pointed that out to me. I never really studied you two together."

  "It's the eyes." Slater shrugged. "I have heard other people mention it."

  "You got that feature from your mom?" Zack asked, looking at him almost too uncomfortably intently. Like he was studying him or something.

  "No." Slater shook his head.

  "Your dad?" Zack was talking to him almost lazily.

  "Didn't know him." Slater shrugged. Was Zack vetting him for a job or something? Because he would not be able to work here, at least not so close to Amoy.

  "Ah." Zack leaned back in his chair. He picked up a picture of a guy and handed it to Slater.

  Slater looked at it. It was an older guy with a broad forehead, deep-set eyes kind of like his, and an almost arrow-straight nose.

  "My in-laws sent a younger picture of him to me. I had an expert age it."

  Slater wondered how this was even remotely relevant to him.

  "That's Reuben's father," Zack continued. "His name is Peter Scarlett."

  "He looks good." Slater didn't know what else to say; he wasn't used to commenting about men and their looks.

  "And this," Zack handed him a sketch, "is a little boy, Kane Scarlett."

  Slater patiently took the sketch. "I saw this on Amoy's desk couple of weeks ago," he smiled. "He is a cute kid. Is he missing?"

  "Yes." Zack took up another paper and handed it to him. "My expert also aged him. He is around twenty-six or twenty-seven now."

  "Oh." Slater took the paper and then swallowed. He looked at Zack. "I don't understand. This looks a lot like me."

  "That's what I thought." Zack nodded grimly. "My investigator had deduced a while back that Kane Scarlett worked at King Express. He was following a lead, he said, based on a suggestion by Ricardo Mills, a businessman who saw you in Kingston in your uniform, but when the investigator checked King Express there was nobody there named Kane Scarlett. So we had to find a new strategy to find him."

  Slater felt a rush of blood to his head. He actually closed his eyes at the impact of the feeling.

  "We got a picture of him as a child, then we had it aged by professional software."

  "And it came up with me?" Slater squeaked. "Was it malfunctioning?"

  "No." Zack picked up another paper. "As legal representative of the Scarlett estate, I acquired a birth certificate for Kane Scarlett.

  "Mother's name, Keira Facey. Father's name, Peter Scarlett. Kane Scarlett was born at the female prison at Fort Augusta."

  "Keira Facey?" Slater squinted his eyes. "Never heard that name before. My mother used several names that I can remember. Keira was not one of them. And prison? How?"

  "Where were you born?" Zack asked, looking at him unblinkingly.

  "I don't know." Slater felt confused; what he knew about his past life could be written on a pinhead.

  "What do you remember about her, your mother?" Zack asked.

  "Nothing much in the early days." Slater inhaled shakily. "I remember us moving to a bigger place, in a slightly better area than where we were before, with Willie, the guy who got her killed. I can't even remember her much now. I know that she kept changing her name."

  "That's because Keira kept getting into scrapes with the law, mostly drug trafficking, so she had to change her name to stay under the radar. In fact, she was in prison for just that when you were born."

  "I thought my mother changed her name so often because of her profession." Slater said it matter-of-factly. He had long lost his embarrassment when talking about his mother being a prostitute.

  "No." Zack sighed. "It wasn't only that. We are going to need to do a DNA test to confirm your relation to Peter Scarlett."

  "Yes, sure." Slater felt like he should wake up now.

  "You can do it today?" Zack asked.

  Slater nodded. Then the thought occurred to him. "That means that if I am related to Peter Scarlett, then I am Reuben's brother?"

  "And Terri's cousin, and one of the grandsons to one of the most decent human beings to walk this earth, Dolby Scarlett, but we are getting ahead of ourselves now. We will do the DNA test and then we’ll discuss why it was so important for me to find you."

  Slater nodded. "Okay."

  He left the office almost shell-shocked. He didn't even realize that Amoy was in the lobby until he almost passed her.

  She was talking to her father and Jay. She looked over at him and gave him a little wave. He responded by nodding to her and her father and Jay, who were looking at him very coldly.

  But not even that could dull th
e feeling of elation he was feeling.

  He had a family, at least until he found out about the DNA test. He hadn't even realized how much the term ‘family’ had meant to him until now.

  This weekend at Reuben's wedding was going to take on a different tone than he had thought.

  He had played at Terri's wedding, with his own family members around him, and hadn't even known.

  He felt like he was floating on air and counting all his chickens before they hatched. Only when he was in the elevator and turned to see Amoy staring at him did he come back to earth with a thud.

  He allowed the door to close without changing his expression, because he wanted to scowl. She was with her boyfriend and her dad but somehow she wasn't looking at all happy.

  Good.

  ****

  Amoy headed for Zack's office as soon as the elevator closed behind Slater. Her father and Jay wouldn't miss her. They had invited her to lunch but she had found a way to escape them.

  She was not hungry. Both men would be discussing the case, which she had happily handed over, and it was a relief not to have to discuss it.

  She walked in on Zack as he was packing up his papers.

  "Where are you going?" Amoy asked in disgust. "I just got here."

  "Home. Lunch." Zack grinned. "Can't miss it."

  Amoy smirked. "I bet you can't. Why was Slater in here?"

  "He is driving down with Terri and me to the wedding. Terri booked him to stay overnight at the Treasure Beach hotel. Shucks, didn't even tell him." Zack grimaced. "So many things on my mind."

  "But why?" Amoy squeaked. "There is no use for you to be entertaining him; we are no longer together. And why is he even showing up at the wedding still?"

  "He is doing a very important solo piece for Lola and Reuben at the reception." Zack shrugged. "That ex of yours is so talented. He can play several instruments."

  Amoy grunted. "Yes, I know."

  "How many instruments can Jay play?" Zack asked, grinning.

  "None," Amoy said wanly. "And he only reads law papers and he doesn't know the lyrics to any songs and he hates my flavored teas."