by Amberlee Day
In the kitchen, Cleo was surprised to see Loren and Reva bustling about. “Hello! Are you two back to visit?” she asked them.
“Just for a few weeks,” Loren said. “Our friends’ wedding’s over in Alaska, and we’re Scotland-bound.”
“Scotland? Very exciting.”
Reva wiped her hands on a towel and approached Cleo with a smile. Her bright purple ponytails had been changed to a brilliant blue. “We’ve never been there,” she said. “I want to learn to make haggis.”
Cleo laughed. “Well, then naturally you’ll need to go to Scotland for that.”
“Goodness!” Mrs. Fortney stood in the kitchen doorway, her hands on her hips. “You’ve finally decided to come home, have you?”
That warmth Cleo felt before threatened to overwhelm her. She’d never had a place that felt like a real home before, but she certainly felt it now. “I did,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on here. I’ve been busy helping with a synchro program in North Carolina, and only heard about it two days ago. How is Van?”
“Better, now that Lily’s back.”
Hope flew into Cleo’s heart. “Lily’s back? Does he have custody again?”
“Lorraine’s signing over full custody this time. Once she stopped getting so much attention about what a victim she was, she realized that having a daughter to care for would impede on her lifestyle.”
Cleo nodded. “That will be good for Lily. And Van.”
“Yes, it will. And what will be even better for him is having you back. He’s in the library.”
“Okay,” Cleo said, starting to leave. “Is Lily in her room?”
“You mean her grotto? Oh, yes. She’s so happy to be back. Somehow she thought we might have cleared out all her things while she was gone, poor thing.”
“I think I’ll stop there and say hi first,” Cleo said. Just in case Van isn’t as happy to see me as everyone else seems to be.
It was like Mrs. Fortney read her mind. She held Cleo by the shoulders for a moment. “You’re just what he needs. Don’t worry. He’s been humbled by this, poor man. Needs someone to help him see which end is up, if you know what I mean.”
Cleo hugged the woman, who was so much more than a housekeeper at Eagle Hill. “Okay,” Cleo said, really leaving this time. “Wish me luck.”
Chapter 30
Lily was beyond happy to see Cleo. She wanted her to stay longer in the grotto, but Cleo said she’d have to come back later, after she talked to Lily’s uncle.
“Will you love him again?” Lily asked. “He’s been so sad. Everyone was mean to him.”
“I’ll see what I can do to help,” Cleo said. Loving him isn’t a question. It never was.
THE REAR LIBRARY DOOR swung open silently. Lights were off in the room, and the curtains pulled. Despite the coming summer, a fire still burned in the hearth. Samson lay where he always had. He must have sensed Cleo’s arrival, because his tail began to wag, though the rest of him didn’t move.
The loveseat was too tall to tell if it was occupied, but Cleo could see Van’s feet from underneath. She hadn’t thought what to say, how to approach him. Surprise! I’m home! Obviously that wouldn’t be right.
As she hovered in the shadows, deciding, Van must have heard a movement. “Mrs. F? If it’s lunch you’re here about, I’m not hungry,” he said. He sounded grumpy, but resigned. “You can feed whatever it is to Samson. Or leave it, and I’ll do it, if you don’t like the idea.”
Cleo still didn’t say anything, still didn’t know what to say. While she was considering, something tickled her nose. Antihistamines! She’d forgotten how the old library got to her allergies. Before she could do much to hold it off, one of her enormous sneezes erupted in the still room.
Samson leapt to his feet, barked once, and immediately lay back down. Van was faster. Before Samson was all the way on his feet, Van had rounded the distance between the loveseat and Cleo’s hiding place. Her eyes had gone watery, of course, and she couldn’t see much, but she felt his hands on her arms, the firm grip holding onto her. When her eyes cleared, his shadowed face was inches from hers. She sniffled.
“Van,” she began, wanting to tell him that she loved him, but he didn’t wait. She was suddenly engulfed in his arms, and he kissed her.
If she thought coming back felt like home before, being in Van’s arms felt like heaven. She pulled him closer, and let the warmth roll over her in waves as his kisses told her everything she needed to know about how Van Rivers felt about her.
“You left,” he said eventually, resting his forehead on hers.
“You told me to leave.”
He nodded. “I still missed you.”
Cleo sniffed again, and he gave her his handkerchief. She giggled. “Thank you.”
Van led her back over to the loveseat. Cleo scratched Samson’s head before settling into that comfortable spot against Van’s chest. “I’ve missed this.”
“Lily’s back,” he said, a happy, bright quality lighting his voice.
“I just saw her.” She explained how she’d only just heard about everything that had happened, and had hurried back as quickly as she could.
“I suppose you’ve been in a pool somewhere,” he said, and she was happy to hear a bit of teasing.
“Where else would I be?”
“Did Florida Adventures get their star mermaid back, then? Will I have to bribe someone if I’m going to keep you?”
Cleo nuzzled his collarbone. “I didn’t go back there.”
“No?”
“It took me a few days to figure things out, but I ended up in North Carolina.”
“North Carolina? What’s in North Carolina?”
“An old synchro friend knew of a coaching position there. I’ve been working with a group of girls not much older than Lily.”
“I see.”
For a while, the only sounds Cleo could hear were Van’s heartbeat and the fire crackling. She’d told her story. It was his turn, and she was relieved when, after a moment, he began.
“My mother was an alcoholic,” Van said slowly. “Addiction runs in her family. It’s hereditary. Lorraine started drinking when she was in high school. She ended up pregnant. Our mother had already died, drunk driving. Dad remarried, but he didn’t want to raise another child. So, when Lorraine’s pastimes moved on to drugs and she left, Lily became my responsibility.”
“How old were you?”
Van shrugged. “Twenty-eight.”
“That’s a lot to take on when you’re young, and alone.”
“I never minded. I’ve loved Lily from the moment those blue eyes first locked on mine. But alone? Yes. That was hard. And then you came along, and for a while, I wasn’t alone.”
She hugged him. “You aren’t alone now. I’m not leaving.”
She felt his heart speed up, and wished she could hold him tightly enough that he knew she meant it. “I should have told you,” he said.
“Yes, you should have. You should have trusted me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you when it all came crashing down. I hadn’t known where Lorraine was for a long time, but I had a call that she’d been admitted to a hospital. She was being treated for an overdose. As soon as she was able, they were going to release her. She’d go right back to it; she always does. I thought if she could just be away from it long enough to detox ... It was what I’d been waiting for, a chance to bring her back here.”
“You thought you could fix her.”
“I know how controlling that sounds. I thought if she had a chance to be clean and sober, maybe she’d have a clear head, be able to make some decisions to choose a better life.”
“So you locked her in the guesthouse.”
“Dr. Kapoor was there with her. Lorraine wanted to leave, I knew that. I told her to just give it a little more time. But she got hold of a phone, somehow, and called the boyfriend.”
“The guitarist.” An image flicked in Cleo’s mind of
the man hooked up to the IV, his fur coat lying on the floor.
“Yes. He brought drugs, and I guess they were planning on taking off while the doctor slept, but Lorraine was so desperate to get high, they did that first.”
“Was Lorraine inside Eagle Hill that night? Was she the one who screamed?”
“Yes. Somehow she made it into the house. The doctor knew what had happened by then, but the boyfriend was overdosing. She called me, but not before Lorraine managed to create havoc.”
“She was high, and still made her way to the house?”
“Apparently. Agitated, hallucinating, but somehow she made it. And Lily ...”
“Lily?”
“For some reason, she was looking for Lily. Gus found Lorraine wandering through the house, with Samson following after her. He was Lorraine’s dog, years ago. While she was pregnant with Lily, she lived in the guesthouse with Samson for protection.”
“I see.”
“It was her idea to live in the guesthouse back then. No one sent her there. She was just done being home.”
The fire crackled, and Cleo stared at it while she thought. There were still questions, and now seemed to be the time to ask. “Alyssa?”
Van huffed. “Alyssa started inviting herself here years ago. She’d just show up, bring a group. I didn’t care much. I wasn’t ever going to marry, but people started to assume we were a couple. That kept anyone else from trying to pin me down, so that worked for me.”
“Why didn’t you send her away, with Lorraine in your guesthouse?”
“Alyssa’s like a jackal. She’s vicious. Anything to get attention. She would have sniffed a rat, and I knew what she’d do if she found out about Lorraine. What she did do. I was just biding my time, hoping she’d get bored and leave.”
He never loved her. Cleo felt a little petty at how happy that made her. There was still one more vital question to ask, though. “After you brought Lorraine back from the hospital to help her, why didn’t you tell me?”
Van gently turned Cleo’s face so their eyes met. “When Lorraine turned to alcohol and drugs, she was following in our mother’s footsteps. She always swore she wouldn’t, and then, one day, she did.”
“And you were worried that it would happen to you, too?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. I’ll never touch the stuff. Never have. What I can’t change is the fact that addiction is literally in my genes. Lorraine passed those on to Lily, and now it’s my job to protect her. To keep her away from influences that could turn her the way they turned Lorraine.”
“So why push me away?”
“Children, Cleo. I can’t have children.”
“Because you might pass on the addiction gene.”
“Because I would pass it on. I’m sure of it.”
Cleo turned around to face Van better. His expression was so earnest, so vulnerable. She put her hand on his cheek. “You need a shave,” she said. “These last months have been hard on you.”
“Harder on Lily. They took her away, gave her to Lorraine. Can you imagine, giving a child to someone who’d been sober for all of five minutes?”
Cleo shook her head. “I can’t, but she’s back where she belongs now. The thing is, you can’t control everything, Van.”
“I couldn’t. I tried, but I just couldn’t.”
“It’s not your responsibility to do that. Sometimes you just have to have faith that it’s all going to work out.”
Van kissed her lightly. “It’s so much easier when you’re here.”
“It’s easier for me, too.” She leaned back against him again. “It sounds like one good thing has come of this.”
Van half-laughed. “The only thing I can think of is you coming back.”
“One of the news stories I saw said the prime minister is using this as a platform for supporting families touched by addiction.”
“Yes, that’s true. He’s called and talked to me a couple of times. He’s making it a national conversation—and I think trying to take the spotlight off of me as the monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Van. And the P.M. seems like a good man.”
“He is.” Van shifted positions, pressing Cleo to his chest. “Falling in love with you wasn’t meant to happen. It was too easy, natural. As if that’s all I was meant to do in this life, is love you.”
Cleo felt like her heart would burst. “You love me?”
“Well, of course I do, woman.” His hands tightened on her waist, sending a shiver through her. “Mermaid. What did you think?”
Tilting her head back, she gave him a firm look. “If you don’t say it, I don’t know. You have to say it.”
“Hmph. Well so far, I’m the only one who has said it.”
Cleo took Van’s whiskery face in her hands. “Van Rivers, I love you. I’ve loved you almost since I first saw you, since I first heard you roar, here in the library.”
“I never roar,” he protested, but she stopped him with a kiss. “Well, hardly ever.”
She kissed him again. “As long as you promise not to roar at me, or at our children, you can roar all you like.”
That terrified, vulnerable look flashed in his eyes again. “Our children?”
“Yes. We’re going to have children, Van. Lots of them. Probably ten.”
“Ten?”
“The number’s negotiable, but we will have them. And we’ll love them, and spend time with them. They’ll be involved with sports teams, and public schools. Lily will be their big sister. We’ll let them all become exactly who they become, and we’ll always love them. Can you do that?”
“No addictions.”
“Not if we can help it, but we’ll love them, no matter what.”
“We’ll have to get married first.”
Cleo inched away a bit, and sat up prim and tall. She pretended interest in straightening her skirt. “If you say so.”
“If I say so?” he half-roared. “What does that mean? You can’t talk about children, and not—”
“I mean, no one’s asked me yet.”
“Oh, if that’s all ...” Before she had a chance to think, Van had flipped her backward so she was lying on the loveseat, breathless. He knelt on the floor beside her, hovering so close he could have kissed her, but didn’t quite.
“Cleopatra Belinda Willey,” he began, “I can’t do without you. I won’t, if I can help it. Will you marry me? Be the mermaid in my pool, the love in my life? Will you be my wife, Cleo?”
Between her allergies, the position change, and the tenderness in his words, Cleo couldn’t answer until she could breathe again. “Well, I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “Will the prime minister be coming to dinner often? Because then it’s a definite yes.”
Before he could make a retort, Mermaid Cleo’s arms wrapped around Van Rivers, and she pulled him close for a tail-curling, deal-sealing kiss, which turned out to be just what she needed to stifle her next sneeze.
Epilogue
Six years later
It wasn’t often that the family came home through the front door, but Van liked to make his babies’ introductions to Eagle Hill momentous. When he pulled up to the main entrance, Gus and Mrs. F must have been watching, because they were already descending the steps with four-year-old Vander and two-year-old Justin before Van came around to open Cleo’s door. His heart swelled, not for the first time in the past twenty-four hours. His own father and stepmother were out of the country again, but Gus and Mrs. F were more like family than employees.
“Welcome home,” Mrs. F said, giving him a quick hug before brushing past to open the rear door. “Oh, my! Would you just ...” Her voice trailed off, and when he looked to see why, he saw she’d started to cry.
He smiled, and his own chest grew warm. “She is a beauty, isn’t she?”
“A doll. A perfect little doll. I can’t seem to convince these boys that a baby sister’s going to be fun, but Lily’s going to go nuts over her. Who gets to carry her in?”
Van helped Cleo out of the car, not that she needed help. Cleo had taught Lily that mermaids were both beautiful and strong, but after holding Cleo’s hand through the delivery of all three of their babies, Van knew without a doubt what beautiful and strong really looked like. He kissed the back of his wife’s hand. “Doing okay?” he whispered.
She nodded. “I’m perfect,” she said, bending to hug the little boys who’d already bombarded her. “So glad to be home to these little monsters. Mm, you both smell so good! Did Mrs. F give you baths?”
“She did,” Vander announced as if he were giving a report. His hair was still slicked back, perfectly combed except for one flyaway piece that he would have fixed if he’d known about it. “I behaved, but Justin fussed.”
Van tried to hold back a smile at his littlest boy, whose expression showed he’d forgotten about his bath-time misadventures and suddenly remembered he’d been naughty. “That’s okay,” Van said. “Hey, you boys want to see your new baby sister?”
“No,” Vander said.
“No!” Justin mimicked his older brother, his mischievous toothy smile back in its normal spot.
“Aw, come take a peek. She’s not so bad.”
Vander obediently let his father lead him to the open back door, and Justin followed.
Van pulled back the blanket so they had a better view of the tiny sleeping beauty. “What do you think?” he asked in hushed tones. “Think she looks like you boys?”
Vander huffed. “She’s a girl. She can’t look like us. Is she going to sleep all the time?”
“Wake up, baby!” Justin yelled, startling Van. But the infant just closed her eyes a little tighter.
“Yeah, we don’t want to be loud around the baby,” Van said, gently pulling his boys back again, where Mrs. F took a chubby little hand in each of hers. He looked up at Cleo, who watched her little boys with a loving shake of her head. “What do you think? Who gets to carry this little bundle inside?”
Cleo’s eyes sparkled, warming him even in the June sun. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe her daddy, who’s dying to show her her new home?”