Dreams Claimed
Warfield’s Landing – Book 1
Romance
Adeara Allyne
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dreams Claimed (Warfield's Landing, #1)
CHAPTER 1 | 22 years ago in New England
CHAPTER 2 | 14 months ago in Washington, DC
CHAPTER 3 | Early May, present day in Washington, DC
CHAPTER 4 | Four weeks later in Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 5 | Next week, delivering paintings in Washington, DC
CHAPTER 6 | A few minutes later at the coffee shop
CHAPTER 7 | Driving home to Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 8 | Two days later in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 9 | On the date with Daniel and Bentley
CHAPTER 10 | Two days later on Girls’ Day Out
CHAPTER 11 | Lunch in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 12 | A week later in Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 13 | In Alexandria VA, dinner and...
CHAPTER 14 | After dinner in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 16 | Two weeks later in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 17 | A week later in New York City, NY
CHAPTER 18 | At the Board Meeting in Washington, DC
CHAPTER 19 | After the Board Meeting
CHAPTER 20 | Four days later in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 21 | The next week in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 22 | The next day in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 23 | Three days later in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 24 | Two days later in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 25 | Two days later in Alexandria, Va
CHAPTER 26 | After Luke leaves Daniel’s condo
CHAPTER 27 | That same night in Old Town Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 28 | The next morning in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 29 | Same day, after lunch in Alexandria, VA
CHAPTER 30 | The next day in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 31 | The morning after in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 32 | Later that day in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 33 | The next day in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 34 | Lunchtime the same day, in Warfield’s Landing, MD
CHAPTER 35 | Later that day in Warfield’s Landing, MD
EPILOGUE | Eight months later in Warfield’s Landing, MD
Message from Adeara
Adeara Allyne
South Boundary Publishing
Dreams Claimed
Adeara Allyne
South Boundary Publishing
Dreams Claimed – Warfield’s Landing Book 1: Book Description
Currently Available: Book 1 - Dreams Claimed, Book 2 - His Best Girls, Book 3 - Liv for Love, Book 3.5 - First Christmas in Warfield’s Landing
Since the summer he was twelve, Daniel Sterling has had a clear image of his ideal woman. Now, at last, he sees her... on the Washington DC Metro — traveling in the opposite direction.
Once he finds her, she is everything he wants and more...
Rising artist Nic Bannerman isn’t looking for love. When she meets Daniel—he has dimples — call her shallow, but she’s willing to take a chance.
All too soon, outside events overtake them... her birth father’s bad choices, the frightening phone calls she’s been getting... and other unexpected complications.
They’re made for each other, but...
READER ADVISORY - This book has a mid-range heat level, along with the occasional S-bomb and F-bomb, and a really sweet Golden Retriever!
Don’t miss the next books in the Warfield’s Landing Series
Book 1 - Dreams Claimed
Book 2 - His Best Girls
Book 3 - Liv for Love
Book 3.5 - First Christmas in Warfield’s Landing
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Dreams Claimed - Warfield’s Landing Book 1
CHAPTER 1
22 years ago in New England
Everything in his life had gone wrong since his mother left them. His father fought her for custody and won. Daniel wondered how any judge could think that his dad should take care of a kid.
“Shit.” The forbidden word had a presence. What was it about those four letters, spoken in that order? “Shit.” Daniel repeated it, and somehow, it relieved the pressure inside him.
Daniel lay on his back in bed, listening to the rain on the roof of his grandmother’s house. A breeze wafted in the window, bringing the earthy smell of wet soil.
The brief New England summer was ending. The nights were cool and his bare legs had goosebumps. His father had sent him here for the holidays. The reprieve was almost over. In three days, he was being shipped off to boarding school to start seventh grade.
He was still, trying to keep his mind empty. He was afraid of the new school, of having to live there all the time... and wondering when he’d see his Mom again.
Once he was sure that his grandmother was asleep, he rolled over on his side and reached between the old mattress and box spring. He’d hidden a small flashlight and THE magazine.
Daniel tugged the sheet and thin cotton blanket over his head to hide the glow and flipped on his stomach, the upper half of his body supported by his arms.
Careful not to damage the fragile pages, he looked at the images in the faint light of the battery powered torch.
The magazine was an issue dated in the 1950s. He suspected it was even older than his grandmother, who was OLD. The pages were yellowed and everything was black and white. No color pictures at all. And the cars... they were soooo weird.
But, what captivated him most were the portraits of a young actress — Audrey Hepburn. She was small and slender. Her dark hair was cut short, her dramatic eyebrows winged. He was fascinated.
He’d already figured out how to conceal the magazine in his suitcase. Probably his grandmother wouldn’t care if he took it, but he wasn’t willing to risk having her say no.
If he had to go to that horrible boarding school, he was taking Audrey with him.
CHAPTER 2
14 months ago in Washington, DC
Nic looked around the mega expensive, obviously tasteful office and was happy that her best friends—Stevie and Karyn, had insisted she dress for the occasion.
The chic, little black dress was a departure for her. She spent most of her time in paint clothes — large white men’s shirts and black leggings, all sporting colorful paint streaks from wiping her brushes absentmindedly.
Today... no stains in sight.
Glen Conrad had been her birth father’s long time best friend. He was one of those men who had gotten more handsome as he aged, she guessed. He was tall with silver hair, impeccable custom made clothing, and a distinguished mien. He looked comfortable in his elegant office. Now the executor for her father’s estate, he ushered her into his office, a hand solicitously at her back.
“Thank you for coming by.” Glenn pulled a chair out for her, seating her facing his large desk and she looked at him over one shoulder.
“Did I have a choice?” She grinned at him.
He returned the smile. “No. No, you didn’t. These are legal matters related to your father’s estate.”
“I prefer to call him my birth father.” She knew her reply was cool, but she couldn’t help it. “I didn’t know him well... And I prefer to respect Frank Bannerman’s memory. He was my real father. My daddy.”
“Of course.” Glenn was gracious.
He took a seat behind his
desk, opened a drawer, and withdrew a crisp white envelope. The elegant paper was thick and the name on the front handwritten. Scrawled artistically, the intense black ink made a strong visual statement.
He pushed the envelope across the empty desk.
She reached out and picked it up. She noticed him staring at her hand. He caught her interest and smiled, in acknowledgment.
“You have your father’s...” He corrected himself with another smile. “You have your birth father’s crooked middle finger.”
Nic slid a finger under the seal. She pulled out the letter and placed the envelope on the table. Opening the letter, she read it once quickly, then a second time more slowly.
Nic felt the color drain from her face. She crumpled the heavy paper and tossed it to his desk, then sprang to her feet.
Unable to stop herself, she paced around the luxurious office. Glenn left the letter where she had thrown it and watched her without comment.
If things had been different... if her mother hadn’t disappeared from New York... if Max had known Evie was pregnant, if Max had been a part of Nicole’s life growing up, would Max have been less concerned about forcing her to do what he wanted now?
Now, Max — her birth father... who she hadn’t known until a few years ago, was giving her an ultimatum from the grave.
“Did you know about this?”
Glenn nodded, clearly unhappy.
Max had told her a little about his relationship with her mother, long before her birth. Her mother, Evie, had been a young dancer breaking into the scene in New York. Evie and Maxfield Hayes — an up and coming artistic genius, had a secret romance. Max’s college buddy — Glenn Conrad, had been one of the few aware of the romance between them.
Max had told her this, but her mother hadn’t been around to ask for details. Nic understood that Max had likely given her an extremely one sided account of the relationship. Nic also suspected that Max had been obsessed with Evie, making his version even more questionable.
At their sudden and dramatic break-up, he left for Europe and Evie disappeared from New York. Max claimed that he had tried to find her months later, but there had been no trail to follow. The art world still wondered what had happened during that 12 month period, when Maxfield Hayes, normally prolific, had produced nothing.
Nic took a deep breath... she made a final circuit around the room, sat back in the chair on the other side of the broad antique desk and reached out a hand for the letter. With a grimace, she smoothed it on her lap. “I’m sorry, Glenn. I apologize for being a drama queen. This is such a shock.”
She waved the poor battered page. “Can he really do this? He can make his wife’s inheritance and the Maxfield Hayes Foundation funding contingent on me? I have to accept this or everything is given away to...” She checked the letter. “This organization. I’ve never heard of it.”
Glenn cleared his throat. “I believe it’s a hate group.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“He wanted to be sure that you would accept the terms.” Glenn explained. Nic could see that this was distressing him, as well.
Damn, Max!
“Is there any way to fight this?”
“You could fight it, but everything would be made public. Courtney would not only lose the money, she would be publicly humiliated.”
Nic’s eyes narrowed in distress and she muttered several pithy sentences under her breath.
Realizing what she’d just said, she colored. This office, with its beautiful handpainted wallpaper was not the place to vent. She’d wait until she got back to see Karyn and Thomas. She started to apologize, but Glenn waved it away.
“Don’t worry. You might want to hold on until I give you the next bit of bad news.” He gestured to the letter. “The Evie Collection, he mentions...” His voice trailed off while she glanced at the note.
She looked back up, questioning, and he pushed his chair back. “I have it displayed in the next room. Now that Max is gone... you, I, and an appraiser who has been sworn to secrecy, are the only ones who know about this.” He crossed to the door and pulled it open.
The private conference room was filled with art. Nic’s breath caught in her throat. She stopped one step inside the door.
The room was a large one, with a long credenza across one wall. The drapes were drawn shut across a broad window. The chairs had been moved out to make room for an astonishing collection.
Paintings leaned up against the walls. Directly across from the office door was a full length portrait. It was the first thing she saw. She had to pull her eyes away. Arranged on each side of it were other stretched canvases. Stacked neatly on the conference table and credenza were drawings, sketches, and studies on paper.
That portrait caught her eye again and drew her in. She couldn’t help herself. Large, almost life size, it was a full length study of her mother.
Nic skirted the table and stepped over in front to the large framed piece.
Behind her, she was aware that Glenn had moved to the side and was watching her.
Nic had always known that she resembled her mother, but now...
This was like looking in a mirror.
With a change in hair style, the large oil painting could be Nic in ballet rehearsal clothes. She looked her fill.
The room was silent as she examined the painting, her artist’s eye noting every detail.
Slowly, she reached out and pointed to the mole beside her mother’s eye. “When I was little, I understood that I looked like her, but I was very disappointed that I didn’t have her birthmark.”
As she came out of her near trance, she realized that she’d mirrored the relaxed pose in the portrait.
Eventually, she looked over to the right and down, at the next painting—one of a series showing Evie relaxing on a rumpled bed, beautiful in her nudity.
That group was smaller in scale and painted in a horizontal format. The linens on the bed changed from image to image, but the luminous beauty of the model and the love of the artist were constant.
On the other side of the portrait was another series of paintings, the slashing brush strokes giving life to a graceful figure dancing, spinning, stretching. She studied these for a long time.
For the first time, she saw a link between her father’s work and her own.
She knew about Max Hayes’ career. After he had introduced himself as her birth father, she’d researched him... reading everything she could find.
She understood the significance of this collection. Without these transitional works, critics had long been puzzled by the leap in Maxfield Hayes’ technique across the missing year.
Nic turned from the wall of canvases and began to look through the works on paper.
She did it methodically, starting at one end of the table with the first stack. Glenn had left a couple of pairs of white gloves sitting on the table, the kind used by museum curators. She carefully donned a pair before beginning her perusal.
While she looked through the paper works, Glenn leaned back against the wall, keeping silent, holding still. She appreciated that he was not distracting her from this life changing event.
She was silent. The only sounds in the room were the whisper of the heating unit and the rustle of papers.
Eventually, she finished, looking around almost blankly.
*****
Nic shook her head to clear it, then focused on Glenn Conrad, her birth father’s oldest and dearest friend. He was looking at her with kindness and sympathy, aware that his responsibilities as her birth father’s executor had triggered this reaction.
She glanced around the room again and gestured, “Did you know about this?”
He nodded. “When Max decided to keep this a secret, he asked me to care for the collection. It has been in storage with a fine arts storage company for years. After Max died, it was important to get it appraised. With my years in the world of art, I chose someone we could trust.” He indicated that he was including her in this
statement. “I’ll repack them myself and they’ll be picked up tomorrow.”
For the first time she noticed the sturdy wooden crates stacked in a corner of the room.
“Did you know her?” It wasn’t what she had been planning to ask and his gentle demeanor suggested that he knew it.
“She was beautiful, inside and out.”
It was the perfect thing for him to say, and suddenly the tears came. To her surprise, he didn’t panic. He gathered her into his arms and held her, like a father comforting his daughter.
When the sniffles started, he handed her a crisp cotton handkerchief. She pulled away and he released her gently.
She mopped her face and was going to return the handkerchief, when she realized that it was dark with mascara. She balled it up in her hand and said, embarrassed, “I’ll wash it and return it.”
“No worry,” he said with sympathy.
“So what happens now?”
“We’ll put this back in storage until you decide what you want to do with it. You have a number of options, and thanks to your bequest, you’ll be able to afford the insurance on it.” He spoke dryly and startled a laugh out of her.
“What IS it worth?”
He casually mentioned a figure that had her jaw drop. At her surprise, he explained. “Think Andrew Wyeth and the Helga pictures, except this represents the largest advance in Max’s style and power. Everyone in the art world knows about the Lost Year... and here it is.”
The two of them looked around at the large body of work, so casually displayed. She caught him looking at her and raised an eyebrow in question.
“Would you like to take a piece with you?”
“What about the insurance?” Even as she asked the prosaic question, she knew that she wanted him to give permission.
“If you take a small piece and don’t display it, we should be fine.”
She considered and then nodded decisively. There had been a very small study — of her mother’s head, eyes closed, face peaceful in sleep. She put the gloves back on and carefully sorted through the stack until she found it. Mounted in a mat, there was a flap of thick vellum over it, protecting it. With care, she should be able to get it home unscathed.
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