by A. C. Arthur
“Yes, hello to you, too,” Eleanor said.
She’d been holding a handkerchief that she now placed in the palm of her hand. She then used that palm to push the door open farther and enter the room.
Ava sighed and tried counting to ten. Otis stood in the hallway, his baseball cap balled up in one hand, while the other hand scratched the tight graying curls on his head.
“You can go now,” Eleanor said to him from behind Ava. “Close the door, Ava.”
Ava felt awful. “I’m sorry,” she said to Otis.
The man simply shook his head, his leathery almond-toned skin lifting on one cheek as he resisted a smile. “No problem. Was nice meeting you, Mizzus Eleanor Cannon,” Otis said as he looked past Ava to her mother.
Ava looked back to find her mother had gone deeper into the room and was now running her handkerchief-covered finger over the top of the dark oak armoire.
“You let me know if you need anything, Miss Ava. I’ll be right downstairs,” Otis said with a nod to her.
“Thanks, Otis. We should be fine. Have a good night,” she told him and waited while he waved and attempted to look farther inside the room once more before closing the door.
Flattening her back against the door, Ava glared at where her mother now stood near the bed.
“Does this place really not have any good hotels? I mean, this is ridiculous, Ava,” Eleanor said. But before Ava could answer, she continued. “Well, I guess it is what it is. And that means it’s a good thing I’m here. Let’s get you packed. I have a driver waiting downstairs to take us to the nearest city with suitable accommodations. Then we can fly out of here as soon as possible.”
“I’m not leaving,” Ava said almost to herself.
“Where are your suitcases? Come, Ava, don’t procrastinate.” Eleanor continued to move throughout the room, stopping at the floral-printed couch in the sitting area of the room and scrunching her twenty-five-thousand-dollar nose at it.
“I don’t need a suitcase, Mother,” Ava said, pushing herself away from the door and walking toward Eleanor. “Because I’m not ready to leave Temptation.”
“Well, I certainly am,” Eleanor told her as she set her large Givenchy Atigona tote on the coffee table.
For a moment Ava could only stare at the woman who had not only raised her, but had also given birth to her. How could they have been any more different? Was it truly possible that people who shared the same DNA could be any less alike? The answer to that was obvious as she watched Eleanor Germaine Stanley Cannon smooth down the skirt of her winter-white Chanel suit and sit ever so gingerly on the edge of the couch. She was a very fair-skinned woman with auburn-colored hair that dared not ever show a speck of gray, or she would personally choke her hair stylist. Diamonds glittered from the ring fingers on both hands, at her ears and in the choker at her neck. Her pumps were Louboutin, her nails long and perfectly manicured, makeup light but efficient. She was beautiful and cold and the only family Ava had.
“When my work is finished I’ll return to LA, then probably back to New York for site-scouting on the show.”
“Nonsense, you pay people for that, and I told you Richard is expecting you.”
Counting hadn’t worked, and deep breaths weren’t helping. Words were failing miserably. So that was three for three. Maybe food and a public place would be better.
“I’m hungry,” Ava said quickly. “How about we go get dinner and discuss something else. Like, I don’t know, maybe how I just received a prestigious award for my show almost a week ago.”
She didn’t wait for Eleanor’s answer, but walked back toward the bed and slipped her feet into the flats she had there. She grabbed a jacket and her purse from the chair on her way to the door, and then turned back to see her mother still sitting with her hands folded primly in her lap.
“Are you coming, or do you want to stay here and have dinner with Mr. Otis?”
* * *
“I don’t see why we couldn’t have the driver bring us,” Eleanor complained when she climbed out of the passenger side of the hybrid vehicle. “This...car, or whatever, is horrible. And where are we? Does this place even serve Troubadour Pinot Noir? I need a drink and a medium rare steak.”
And Ava needed a tranquilizer and a six-pack. Or maybe a one-way ticket to Budapest, a place she was almost positive her mother wouldn’t follow her to.
“It’s a nice Italian restaurant, Mother. They have wine and pasta. You like pasta,” she said as they walked up to the doors of the Temptation Trattoria.
“Well, hello, Ava. Nice seeing you this evening. I heard about your award. You go, girl!” Niecy Monroe, a tall, slim nineteen-year-old saving money to move to Hollywood to chase her own dreams, worked as a hostess at the restaurant. She and Ava had become fast friends since Niecy admired everything about Ava’s life—except Eleanor, Ava was certain.
“Thanks, Niecy. Can we get a booth in the back, please?”
“Sure, sure,” Niecy replied and then leaned over the podium and iPad they used to keep their seating chart to whisper, “Is she an exec from Hollywood?”
Ava almost laughed. “No. This is my mother, Eleanor Cannon.”
“Oh my, well, hello Mrs. Cannon,” Niecy said as she grabbed two menus and led the way to their booth.
“I’ll bet you’re brimming with pride for Ava. She’s so talented and nice. I heard stories about those Hollywood producers being stuck up or mean. Ava’s nice and friendly. She’s fit right in here in Temptation. Almost like she was born here,” Niecy continued as they walked through to the back of the restaurant.
“Well, she was not born here, thank the heavens,” Eleanor snapped.
“Oh, well,” Niecy said when they were both seated and she attempted to hand Eleanor the laminated menu.
When Eleanor only looked at the girl with a weary expression, Ava accepted the menus, and gave Niecy an apologetic smile.
“Right, so Raquel’s your waitress, and she’ll be over soon to take your drink order.”
“Please tell her that I’d like a glass of Troubadour Pinot Noir. As a matter of fact, just bring us the bottle. We can take it back to that shack where my daughter is staying,” Eleanor said without bothering to look at Niecy, who was now frowning.
“Thanks, Niecy,” Ava said and waited until the girl was gone before chastising her mother.
“You really don’t have to treat them like this. They’re nice people here.”
Eleanor sighed and reluctantly sat back against the seat. “I’m sure they are, Ava. But this is not what I’m used to. It’s not what you were raised to accept. Why you refuse to take advantage of all the things available to you, I have no idea.”
“I like doing things my way, Mother. It has nothing to do with you.”
“That’s what I’m sensing,” her mother replied. “That you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ava said. “I’m just tired of trying to make you see me for who I am. I am not, nor will I ever be, the daughter you planned for. I’m me, and I love and respect you as my mother, but if you don’t stop criticizing me and ignoring my accomplishments, our relationship is going to take a bad turn.”
There. She’d said it. She’d kept her cool, and she’d maintained a respectful tone, all while telling her mother in no uncertain terms to cut this crap out.
“Well,” Eleanor said before clapping her thin lips shut.
She blinked at her daughter as if just seeing her for the first time in forever, and then shook her head.
“I don’t know where I went wrong—” she started and then held up a hand when Ava would have said something else. “But you are my only child, and I love you. So I guess we’ll work this out. But if you think I’m going to eat from Styrofoam containers, as you just said, our relationship is going to take a bad turn.”
; Ava grinned. “They have real dishes here, Mother.”
Working things out still meant that Eleanor had definite opinions about Ava’s life and her career, and it was going to take a little more than delicious lasagna, buttery garlic bread and a great red wine to change that.
* * *
“You can still afford a better car than this.” Eleanor was fussing as they drove onto the road heading back to the B and B.
The trattoria was located about twenty minutes outside the main part of town, but Ava loved their food, so she made the drive frequently. Only, her trips were usually during daylight hours. As it was a little before nine, it had grown pretty dark, and there weren’t any streetlights on dirt roads. She switched on her high beams and tried to tune her mother out.
“And why television? If you’re going to be in entertainment, why not go for movies? You’ll certainly make more money there. I believe there was a studio executive who hired your father’s firm at one point. I can probably look him up when I get home to civilization,” Eleanor was saying.
“I don’t need you to help me get into movies, Mother. I’m doing exactly what I want to do right now.”
If that included holding the steering wheel with a death grip as a crack of thunder sounded and the skies opened up, dropping buckets of rain down around them, then so be it.
“Crap!” she said and switched the windshield wipers on.
“It’s awfully dark out here, Ava. I don’t like it.”
“I know you don’t like it, Mother. You’ve spent the three hours you’ve been in town telling me how much you don’t like it here.”
“Well, I don’t. And that rude woman who came over to our table. What was her name? Millie something? I mean, really, who names their child Millie, nowadays? And she had on too much lipstick, looking at me as if I had offended her in some way,” Eleanor continued.
Her mother had definitely offended Millie, considering she’d told her that she could purchase better wigs at professional salons instead of online. In response, Millie had run her fingers through her natural, but permed, hair as she stood over Eleanor and made a snide remark about Ava and Eleanor being suspicious characters in town. After that, and considering the other times Millie had pushed Ava’s buttons, Ava hadn’t even bothered to apologize for Eleanor’s comments.
“Millie Randall is a special character,” Ava was saying before something hit the car’s fender.
She kept her grip on the steering wheel, but the car had already spun around and was now going down a slight embankment.
Eleanor screamed from the passenger seat, holding her chest and mumbling something about a heart attack, while Ava tried desperately to press on the brakes and keep them from crashing into the trees ahead. The sounds of her heart thumping wildly and her mother’s screeching didn’t help, so when the car slammed into something hard and the airbags exploded, knocking Ava back against the seat, she sank blissfully into the darkness.
* * *
Gage laughed like he hadn’t since he was younger. Since he and his siblings were all together in Pensacola.
They were seated in the room that, according to Harper, would eventually become their formal living room. Right now there were two couches and two recliners positioned on an Aubusson rug around a long coffee table that Harper’s cousin Craig had made.
Gray and Morgan sat on one couch, while Gage and Harper had pulled the recliners close to each side of the couch. Gray held his phone out with Gen on FaceTime. Gage had his phone with Gia, Harper had hers with Garrek, and Morgan, who had become fast friends with Gemma, had hers out, as well. This was how they’d had a family get-together after dinner.
“I’d forgotten all about that,” Gage said after he’d laughed until his sides hurt.
“Well, I didn’t,” Gia replied. “All of our dolls were floating in the ocean after you and Garrek decided they could take a cruise on the raft you’d built out of branches and old shoeboxes.”
“Gia cried for days,” Gemma recalled with a chuckle.
“And Mom punished us for a week because we didn’t ask permission to use your dolls on the virgin voyage,” Garrek added.
Gray laughed. “I warned you two not to go in their bedroom, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Gage was a master manipulator back then,” Gen said. “He’d convince you that anything was a good idea. Remember he got Mom to let us open a gift not only on Christmas Eve, but on the day before Christmas Eve, too. Telling her it was a shame that only those two days out of the month got all the attention.”
“And I used to cry about being an only child,” Harper said, shaking her head.
“Those were good times,” Gemma said. “I miss us all being together.”
“I’ve missed it, too,” Gage admitted. “But Gray’s kids have reminded me of all that.”
“Oh yes, I’m sure Jack and Lily have reminded you of how much mischief youngsters can get into,” Morgan chimed in.
“More like reminding all of us how important family is,” Gray said soberly.
“Speaking of which,” Garrek announced and cleared his throat. “The last time we all met, Gray informed us that he’d narrowed down where the money that was deposited into the Grand Cayman account had come from.”
“Someone who lived in a group home on Broad Street,” Gage added.
He didn’t really want to talk about this, but figured it was probably best for them all to decide to leave it alone.
“I’ve driven past there a few times, and I have to say, I really don’t care who lived in that house or who followed Dad’s instructions and deposited that money in the account. I’ve decided to use some of my share to start my own research foundation,” Gage said.
He hadn’t planned to announce this just yet, but since they were all here—so to speak—now was as good a time as any.
“Really?” Gray asked. “When did you decide this?”
“I’ve been thinking about it since I arrived in Temptation. My career didn’t exactly work out the way I had planned, so I figured it was time for me to regroup and start again,” he told them.
He left out the part that included Ava being a big influence on his decision. She’d always known what she wanted to do in life, and she’d even gone against her mother’s wishes to achieve her goals. Gage had even told her she was doing the right thing, that she had a right to live the life she wanted. Well, he was making plans to live the life he wanted, with or without Mortimer Gogenheim and the chief of obstetrics position at Nancy Links Medical Center.
“I’m going to use my money to open my own restaurant,” Gia announced.
“And I’ve been thinking about teaching and expanding my company to offer design grants in some of the colleges,” Gen added.
“Onward and upward,” Gemma told them. “Just like Daddy used to say.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Gray spoke.
“I’ll dismiss the private investigators, and we’ll all accept that Dad left us this additional money because he loved us.”
Morgan touched her husband’s knee and smiled up at him.
“I agree,” Garrek said. “We’ll finally begin to focus on our future instead of being bogged down by our past.”
“That’s a great idea,” Harper told her fiancé.
The Taylor sextuplets agreed.
“Now, with that said,” Garrek began again, “I hear Gage is settling in to Temptation with a certain young lady who’s been visiting, as well.”
Oh no, Gage thought as all eyes, even the ones via FaceTime, zeroed in on him.
“Yes!” Morgan exclaimed. “You should see them together. They’re so cute. Especially when they babysit the babies. I’ve used them as sitters twice now, and I would definitely recommend them.”
His sister-in-law happily grinned at him, and Gage could only shake his head. He’d g
rown to love her and the stability and happiness she’d provided for his older brother.
“Ooooh, tell us more,” Gia prodded.
Gage dragged his free hand down his face and groaned. “It’s no big deal. Her name’s Ava, and we worked together on her television show earlier this year. She’s in Temptation for a writing retreat.”
“Uh-huh, during the same time that Gage decided to come back for a visit and has since decided to stay on longer,” Harper added.
“Yes, I came back to see Gray and his family. And I started working on the project Dad wanted at the hospital, so I don’t want to leave until it’s up and running smoothly,” Gage said.
“And she just showed up? At the same time?” Gen asked. “Hmm.”
“Right. Hmm,” Morgan added.
“It was a coincidence,” Gage said, but had to admit the words didn’t sound accurate even to his mind.
“A coincidence that one of the famous Taylor sextuplets would be selected to work on another television show. And then that the producer from that show would arrive in our hometown at the exact same time that you did?” Gen asked.
“That’s a pretty big coincidence,” Gray said.
“Ava didn’t know I was coming here,” Gage replied calmly. But he was feeling anything but calm at the moment.
Why had they brought this up, and why were they questioning what had been just a chance happening? He had nothing to do with Ava showing up here and neither did his family.
Another phone ringing interrupted the conference, and Harper handed Morgan her cell phone as she stood and crossed the room to answer the landline.
“Morgan, it’s Wendy for you,” Harper said.
Morgan gave her cell phone to Gray and took the cordless phone from Harper.
“So we’re all set for Christmas?” Gemma asked. “Everyone’s coming back to Temptation for dinner in the Victorian on Peach Tree Lane?”
She sounded wistful as she smiled, and Gage wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug her. Gemma was the closest to their mother, and Olivia’s love and caring nature radiated through his sister. He hadn’t realized how much he missed being close to her until this very moment.