Song of Life

by C. L. McCullough

  Sunny had visions of teas served out in the conservatory, where people could sit at their ease in comfortable chairs and look out through lush plantings to the majesty of the Blue Ridge. A place of peace, a place to gather thoughts and calm minds. All kinds of people came to the mountains, looking for different things. Hunters and biologists might prefer the wilderness, but there were some who would prefer their wilderness at a distance and the conservatory would be perfect for them.

  Cas had no objections. He liked working with plants and digging in the soil. In another life, he thought he might have been a farmer. He would like a piece of land that belonged to him alone, especially if it were here in these mountains. Once again his mind touched briefly on his mother, wondering at her origins. It was safe to say, he didn’t get his love of the land from his father. Jose Aguilar had no love for anything and any land he acquired was for profit or for pride.

  Clayton Smith stocked a few plants in his store and Sunny had ordered others that had come in just yesterday. With no real idea of what effect she wanted, Cas set to work. Some of it was bound to be right, and he’d just redo what wasn’t. He wanted to surprise her, have much of the planting and arranging done when she got back home.

  He’d carried in one chair and a medium sized table, where he could sit and work on the hanging baskets and smaller pots. The work fell into a rhythm. It was like in the back garden, a feeling of connection, of contentment. Time passed without his awareness. Once Reese stomped in, slammed down some bottled water and told him to take a damn break. But Cas was in the zone, and saw no reason to stop what he was enjoying so much.

  He saw the plants, the shape of the leaves and the different shades of them. They ranged from pale green to a dark, almost black hue, and the delicacy of the blooms and the amazing range of colors gladdened his heart. His touch was gentle as he handled them, his fingers tracing a petal or feeling the texture of a leaf. He saw them, but his mind was somewhere else.

  He was in the zone, as at home as he could ever feel, as safe as he could ever feel. He began to hum, cautiously at first, and this brought back memories of his mother. He hadn’t sung in years, not since she’d left him, but this place, these mountains and Sunny herself, gave him the courage. Surprisingly, the world didn’t care; everything continued as before, except maybe himself. He gathered his courage and strengthened his voice.

  He could almost see her, the mother he both loved and hated. He was lost in the search to understand and slowly the humming became words he remembered from his past. Words his mother had used, the only part of her he had left. For him, they represented love.

  He closed his eyes and his mother was there. Sitting beside him in the big bed, leaning back against the piled up pillows, one arm around him. Her green eyes smiled at him as she sang. Her face was shadowed in the dim night light, but shone brightly to him, her white skin almost luminous. Her dark hair fell about her shoulders, smelling of some exotic flower, a scent he associated only with her.

  She had loved him, he was sure of this. She had loved him, so why had she left him? How could she have left him with never a word for him in the following years? Surely she could have found a way.

  In his voice was a longing he couldn’t express in any other way. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, he wanted his mother, just as he had when he was five.

  Chapter 15

  Sunny seemed to have an innate awareness of Cas. When she arrived at the inn, she headed straight for the old summer kitchen, leaving her overnight case on the floor of the truck. She heard him before she saw him. Her steps slowed and she came to a halt in the open doorway.

  He knelt on the floor, putting the last touches to a planter filled with begonias and young philodendrons, completely oblivious to his surroundings.

  His voice was deep, a rich, dark chocolate that made her nerve endings quiver. The humming became louder; words were added, words she didn’t recognize but she could feel they meant something to him. The love in his voice brought tears to her eyes.

  His voice was smooth, as smooth as dark clover honey, untrained but pitch perfect. This man had been born to be a singer.

  His voice was beautiful, made for great concert halls and intricate, heart stopping arias. Someone–she suspected his father–had deprived the world of a great singer and would surely burn in hell for his transgression.

  He sang with power but softly, as if hiding a secret. His head bowed and his hands stilled, but his voice continued on, spellbinding, heartbreaking. She hadn’t been aware he could sing. There was so much about this man she didn’t know. She had never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

  He seemed to become aware he was no longer alone. His voice faltered and came to a complete stop as she said, “You have a beautiful voice, Cas.”

  “Sunny.”

  He came to his feet and moved toward her, his expression intent.

  “Sunny,” he said again, and wrapped his arms around her, bent his head to lay his cheek against hers. He held her tightly and remained silent.

  “Cas,” Sunny said gently. “What is it? Is everything all right?”

  He pulled back from her slightly so he could look into her eyes. “It is now. You’re back early. I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.”

  “Yes. Well.” Sunny gave an embarrassed laugh. “Aunt Ruth sent me back to be wooed.”

  “Can we talk instead?” Cas asked, his tone serious.

  “That’s part of it, I think. Getting to know each other, past and present. Of course we can talk, if you’re sure you’re ready.”

  “I have questions, and I can’t answer them myself. Besides, you need to know. You can’t continue on without knowing everything. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Good Lord, have you murdered someone or something? You’re beginning to scare me.”

  “No, I’m not a murderer, but it’s not for lack of desire.” His expression was grim as he guided her to the chair and settled her in it. “Want some water?”

  “No, I’m fine. Isn’t there another chair?”

  “This’ll do.”

  He settled himself at her feet, leaning back against the chair leg, one hand loosely grasping her ankle. He was silent for several minutes and she didn’t try to prompt him, but patiently waited. It was plain this was very difficult for him and she treated the moment with the seriousness it deserved.

  “My father is a very wealthy man,” he finally said. “Not famous like Bill Gates, but in his own way maybe even more powerful. He likes to work behind the scenes. You’ll never see him on TV or in a magazine article.

  “You might have guessed I’m of Hispanic descent. Well, my father’s…obsession, I guess you’d call it…is that our blood is pure. No Indian genes in the Aguilar line. No, his pride is that we’re pure Spanish. He can trace it all the way back to Spain.

  His hand tightened on her ankle. “Except me, of course. He calls me a mongrel. Because of my mother. Hannah said she was American, so God only knows what her background was. Hannah didn’t know and I sure don’t. He’s hated me ever since I can remember because of that.”

  He fell silent again and Sunny was moved to protest. “But he married her. Why did he marry her then?”

  Cas shook his head. “I don’t know. Except he was a collector. He collected the lands that had once belonged to the Aguilars. He collected everything he could find connected to the Spanish in the Americas, traveled all over Mexico and South America for that reason. And he collected women. He didn’t keep them long. Hannah said my mother was a singer, that she was singing opera in Spain when he found her. And Sunny…”

  He twisted around to look at her. “I don’t know that he ever married her. I assume. I don’t know why else he’d be so intent on keeping me in his power. Why bother with a bastard?”

  “I’ve always thought the children weren’t the bastards, but the parents.” Sunny said.

  Cas turned around, brushing her leg gently. “She left when I was five, shortly after my fifth bi
rthday. No explanations, no goodbyes, not even Hannah knew what she was planning. One day she was there, the next she wasn’t. And my father, I think my father went mad.”

  Sunny sat quietly, listening to his deep voice, feeling his hand squeezing her ankle when he came to the difficult parts. She tried to remain neutral. The last thing he needed was an emotional woman to add to his burden. But she was outraged that for this child, there had been no protection.

  “He’d always been strict. In some ways it was like living in a book. You know the ones, where the children are brought down before bedtime to say goodnight, and eat alone in their nursery. It was sort of like that. He didn’t want me near my mother. He wanted her all to himself.

  “It started the week she left. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t come to me anymore. And I guess I was afraid. The room was so big, not a child’s room, an adult’s room. Lots of shadows, lots of stuff for an active imagination to feed on. She used to sing to me before bedtime. I started thinking about that, how it would keep the monsters away and then I was singing too, and that’s how he found me. He had a dog whip he used to use on the hounds he bred for hunting, but after that night, it became mine alone. It…excited him. When I was older, I wondered if I looked like my mother and just exactly who he was beating.”

  She stared down at him, tracing the profile of one high cheekbone and the long lashes resting there when he closed his eyes with her gaze. Her heart ached as he spoke of repeated beatings, perverted behavior and a total lack of any caring whatsoever, except for his nurse, Hannah.

  “If there’s anything sane about me, it’s all thanks to Hannah. She tried to make things as normal as she could.” He gave a ‘huh’ of disbelief and shook his head. “There was nothing normal about it. But I loved her as much as I hated him and maybe that was the saving of me, that small sanctuary she gave me.”

  He had felt so alone, so isolated, home schooled and not allowed normal contact with other children his age, the song that brought his mother beaten out of him. It was a miracle he’d survived with a sound mind, that he had survived it to become Cas.

  She reached out to him and stroked his hair, traced an ear lobe, caressed the rough skin of his cheek and then moved back to his hair, fingering the curls. Trying to express her support, her sympathy, and yes, her love.

  “The beatings stopped the day I turned twelve. I’d gotten too big for him to control physically. But there are other ways of hurting someone, other ways to degrade them. Words can hurt almost as much as beatings and he knew them all.

  “I used to escape to the greenhouse. The gardener, Juan, liked me, told me I had potential.”

  He laughed softly and laid his head back against the chair. She encircled him with one arm and caressed his chest.

  He droned on in a low tone, almost expressionless in the telling–Hannah’s death, his father’s orders to the guards to keep him from the greenhouse, the sudden lack of food until he was forced to sneak into the kitchen at night to steal enough to keep him alive, the cook obligingly adjusting his count. At last he was finished and sat in silence, his hand warm upon her ankle.

  “Cas,” Sunny said softly. “Oh darlin’.”

  “Do you think less of me?” he asked in a low voice. “Not very heroic, is it?”

  “You were a child, nothing but a baby,” she protested. “What about this Hannah of yours? Why didn’t she do something?”

  He twisted around to look at her. “She did,” he said fiercely. “She stayed with me as long as she could and she loved me. One wrong word to him, one false step, and she’d have been gone. He owned everyone in his world. There was no one she could go to for help, no one who would have believed her.

  “She tried to make things as normal for me as she could,” he said in a more gentle tone. “But it was hard. You never knew what he’d disapprove of, or when you’d get punished. Sometimes I didn’t know what I was being punished for.”

  He relaxed against the chair. “I ran away several times after she died. It wasn’t worth it, but it seemed I was a slow learner and I was desperate and I wanted out so bad. When I turned eighteen I got lucky–and successful. I left for good. Sunny, I like to think I’ve got courage, but…I had the thought that he wanted me there, under his thumb, that maybe…oh hell, it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.”

  “Just say it, Cas, you can say anything to me.”

  “I was impure,” he said slowly, watching his finger trace a circle on his denimed thigh. “For whatever reason he let me be born, I think he was regretting it. I could probably count the people who knew of my existence on one hand. Who would there be to notice if I disappeared once Hannah was dead?”

  Her hand froze. “You think…my God, Cas. And he’s still looking for you?”

  “That I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe he’s willing to let me disappear into the great unwashed masses, as he calls them. I don’t use his name. Not only would I be crazy to but it would make me sick to my stomach. Sometimes I’ve thought, what with the way he is, that he might be involved in the drug trade somehow. He did have guards around the house, but I suppose most rich men do.”

  “And your mother...do you think that he might have…” She couldn’t finish the thought, it was too horrible to contemplate.

  Once again he twisted around and stared at her blankly. “Do you know, I never thought of that. It was drummed into me she’d walked out on him and didn’t care enough to take me with her. I never thought…”

  He fell silent, a look of such sadness on his face that Sunny’s heart clenched. She leaned forward, framing his face between her hands and kissed him gently. The position was uncomfortable, so she slid from the chair and curled up beside him on the floor.

  “Cas, I’m talking foolishness. Don’t listen to me. We can use the computer. Surely we can find out something, especially if she’s singing for her living.”

  “I’ve tried before, but there was never enough time.” He gave a slight laugh. “Most folks don’t like their handyman using their computers.”

  “Most folks aren’t me. And you aren’t my handyman anymore, you’re my partner.”

  “I don’t think so, but thank you. Partners usually contribute something to the partnership. All I’m doing is taking, your money, your time–your affection, I hope.”

  “Don’t talk like a fool,” she said sharply. “You’ve given more to me and mine than anyone I can think of. Including Jim. You care. And it shows. You’re the best kind of partner there could be.”

  He smiled again. “You sound like a mama.”

  Sunny hesitated before she asked the question that had been on her mind. “Do I remind you of your mother?”

  A corner of his mouth quirked up. “You’re asking if I want to make love to my mother?”

  Sunny clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a nervous laugh. “Oh Lord!”

  His arm encircled her, drawing her closer to him. “I want to make love with you, with Sunny. Not because you remind me of my mother, because you’re you, a beautiful woman who cares. I guess you could just be mothering me. Is that it? You want to mother me?”

  “You know it’s more than that.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “I think…I think there’s a bit of mothering in all decent women’s relationships, it’s just part of being female, that instinct to ease upset, to protect.” She stifled a yawn.

  “You’re tired,” Cas said tenderly.

  “It’s a long drive, but I’ll survive. We should get on the computer, see what we can find.”

  “There’s time.” He dragged an unopened sack of potting soil over and positioned it behind him. Sliding down, drawing Sunny with him, he used it as a pillow, while Sunny’s pillow remained his shoulder.

  “We have time,” he reiterated. “I’ll tell you about Hannah.”

  “I’m sorry I upset you about her,” she murmured sleepily. “I don’t know that I have any secrets to tell you.”

  “That’s okay, it isn’t a contest.”<
br />
  “Cas, I think I love you.”

  “I know I love you. Sleep a bit. We’ll both sleep a bit.”

  “…kay.”

  * * * *

  Long shadows stretched across the room as dusk settled on the mountains. The setting sun burst forth with one last explosion of light, illuminating the relaxed bodies, turning Sunny’s hair to molten gold. Cas curled against her protectively. Her cheek pressed against his neck and collarbone; her breath warmed not only his skin but his heart.

  He would never have believed he could lie beside her in such innocence, but the love that had his chest aching had nothing to do with the physical and everything to do with what men of great wisdom called the soul.

  He closed his eyes with a sigh of contentment. He had bared his heart and Sunny still loved him. All was right in his world.

  Chapter 16

  “Goddamn it, Martin, you’re so damn stubborn! Why the fuck can’t you just do a friend a favor and be done with it?”

  “Why the hell you got to be climbing out of windows in the middle of the night? If you’d act your age you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

  “You’re the one making it a problem. And you ain’t never too old for sex and what the fuck was I to do when Stace finally agreed? How the hell was I to know her sister would come barging in when she heard Stacy?” Reese paused and couldn’t hold back a grin. “This old boy’s still got it. That’s one woman knows she’s been loved on.”

  Then his scowl returned. “She oughta de-vorce that bassard she’s married to and then there wouldn’t be these problems. Said she’s got to maintain her good reputation and she practically pushed me out that window head first. Should be my head sprained, not my ankle.”

  “Your head is sprained if you think I’m going to be in charge of feeding the whole damn town, Reese. It isn’t what I do. And I got other reasons. Get one of your students to do it.”

  Reese dismissed his students with a wave of his hand. “They ain’t got enough sense yet to boil water. I trust you. All you’d have to do is slap some food on some plates. It’s all made. Sunny said she’d help. You and Sunny could do a fine job. And who the hell do you think is gonna feed all the outlanders putting up here at the inn?”