by Eboni Snoe
“The door was cracked.” She walked around the room slowly, calming herself from her confrontation with Mr. Ellis. “You know, I was just serving your father his ice tea and I saw the broken window. What happened?” She picked up a bottle of Lagerfeld, smelled it, and put it down.
“Father opened one of the shutters during the storm and a branch broke one of the windows in his bedroom.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He said he thought the storm was over. We were in the middle of the eye. He had been sleeping.”
“You know I’ve been noticing Papa lately. I’m beginning to worry about him.” She forced a very concerned look onto her face. “I think old age is beginning to take its toll.”
“I didn’t know that you cared so much.” Cay removed his undershirt. “The two of you haven’t gotten along very well through the years.”
“I’ve always felt like a part of this family. Even before Wally and I married. It’s impossible not to care.” Sherry looked at his bare chest and became silent. Finally, her gaze rose slowly to his face. “You are such a handsome man, Cay.” She walked toward him. “Seeing you like this…it’s hard for me to take my eyes off of you.” She touched his pecs. “They’re so firm, and such a beautiful rich brown. M-m-m,” Sherry sounded in her throat as she leaned her head against him.
Cay’s arms remained at his sides. “Aren’t you forgetting something, sister-in-law?”
Sherry looked at him with dreamy eyes. “I’m not forgetting anything. I’m simply remembering. It was you I wanted all the time, Cay.”
“It wasn’t me that you married,” he reminded her. “It was my brother. You need to start remembering that.”
“But I couldn’t marry you, Cay. You had gone off and married Precious. What was I to do?” She pushed out her bottom lip ever so slightly. “But here we are. We’ve been living in this house together for five years. Two and a half of them we have been single. Two healthy adults with healthy appetites in every way.” She lifted onto her toes to be closer to his face. “I’m at the point of starving and I know just what I want.” Sherry focused on his lips. But she noticed a hint of cherry-raisin color on them. “What’s that on your mouth?”
Cay wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked at the reddish smear.
“You’ve been kissing Sasha Townsend, haven’t you?” Sherry accused.
“If I have, Sherry, it’s really none of your concern.” He walked away and pulled a clean T-shirt over his head.
“You let me make a fool of myself right after you know you’ve been kissing that woman,” Sherry fumed.
“Careful, if anybody heard you they’d think you were a jealous wife. My wife.” He pinned her with his stare. “And that’s the problem, Sherry. You’re starting to act like you’re my wife. But you’re not. And you never will be.” The bedroom rang with his statement. “You married Wally, and Wally’s dead now, just like Precious is dead. We’ve got to get on with our lives, but it will never be as a couple.” He walked away from her. “Like I told you before, you are welcome to live here at Guana Manor until you die, but it will never be as my wife.”
Sherry looked down at the floor. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
“I hope so,” Cay declared. “Because I don’t ever want to have to talk to you about this again.”
“Don’t worry.” Sherry’s eyes hardened. “You won’t.”
Chapter 11
“Do me a favor, Sasha,” Mr. Ellis called.
Sasha approached his room reluctantly. “What is it?”
“Go and get me a fresh pitcher of ice tea. I don’t know what’s in this stuff Sherry brought in here, and I don’t plan to find out.” He sat back in his chair.
Sasha walked over and picked up the tray. Silently, she headed for the door.
“Don’t let her fool you, Sasha. She’s no goody-goody. She’s got the airs of one, but I believe she is as low-down as a woman can be.”
Sasha wasn’t fooled, but she had no intention of getting in the middle of the fray. “I’ll see what I can do about the ice tea,” she replied as she took the tray down to Olive in the kitchen.
“One storm is over, and the other looks like it’s really about to get started,” Olive commented.
“I don’t know if it’s bigger than the one outside, but I think it’s been brewing longer.”
“It has. I’ve been watching it coming for years.”
“Why do you think it’s heating up now?”
Olive thought for a moment. “I think Mr. Ellis is taking a look at his life. Older people tend to do that sometimes when they’re afraid the end may not be too far away. Even if they don’t believe in the pearly gates, they still tend to want to make things right. It’s called fear and getting your affairs in order.”
“Mr. Ellis is afraid of Sherry?”
“No, not really. Maybe he’s afraid of the part of himself he sees in her.” Olive poured the ice tea down the drain, then opened the kitchen window. “I just love the kind of smell you get after a storm, don’t you?”
“Now that you’ve mentioned it, yes,” Sasha replied.
Olive continued. “I think Mr. Ellis knew what we all knew, us older folks.” She turned to Sasha. “Sherry wasn’t in love with Wally; she really wanted Cay. But the truth is she didn’t love Cay, either. She loved what the Ellis money could buy, and she loved Guana Manor. But Mr. Ellis wanted a family of Sherry’s family’s status to merge with his own. He’s got some real preferences when it comes to certain things. At least that’s what he claims publicly.” Olive started preparing a fresh batch of tea. “This family’s got all kinds of water under the bridge. To be honest with you, I never thought Wally or Cay would marry. Mother Ellis and Mr. Ellis always talked against it. Said it wouldn’t be in their best interest. They encouraged them to play the field, and if there were any children born out of it, claim the ones they wanted, then do like Mr. Ellis did and raise them here at Guana Manor without the mothers.”
“I’ve never heard of such. Usually, it’s the mother who raises the child alone,” Sasha replied.
“I know.” Olive looked as if she knew more but she didn’t want to say it. “So that’s why I was surprised when Mr. Ellis got involved before Cay and Wally married.”
“So you’re saying Mr. Ellis did it because he had his own ideas about who his sons should marry and what families they should come from? And because of his objectives he stood silently by, even knowing there could be trouble down the line?”
“I’d say that’s pretty much it.” Olive poured the fresh tea into the empty pitcher. “Mr. Ellis seemed ill at ease the first year or so, but after that he became comfortable enough. I think he came to believe as long as Cay and Precious were together, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Sherry would stay in her proper place, and things would work out in the end. But then Precious died, and Wally conveniently died after that.”
“Conveniently…”
“It might as well have been.” She put her hand on her hip. “I never saw Sherry honestly mourn one day for Wally. She tried to act like the bereaved wife, but that didn’t last for long. But truly mourn him” —Olive shook her head— “it never happened.”
“Does Mr. Ellis think Sherry was the cause behind Wally’s death?”
“Well, we’ll never know for sure. But I do know Sherry has always preferred Cay, and right now he’s her full ticket to being the mistress of this household. I think she’s spent her youth trying to attain that goal so she’s not going to give up on it too easily. I don’t think so at all.”
“Do you think Cay would ever marry Sherry?” Sasha walked over to the window. She couldn’t look at Olive.
“Cay has said over and over again Precious was the only woman he would ever marry,” Olive said proudly. “She was like an amulet to him. I guess he believed after God made her he broke the mold. I tell…”
Sasha saw Cay walk by the window. He was headed for the SUV. In her head Olive�
��s words taunted her: “Precious was the only woman he would ever marry.” Why did the words matter? Why should she care? But there was no doubt that the way Sasha’s heart tightened in her chest meant that she did. She had come to Guana Manor to confront the man who was trying to stand in the way of her future, and now she found herself having feelings for him. Real feelings. The kind that could become deep and entangling. Sasha had to pull back.
“I think I’ll go with Cay to check on my car and my house.” She hurried for the side door. “Can you please bring Mr. Ellis his tea?”
Olive spun around. “Oh, all right,” she said, but Sasha was already outside.
She opened the vehicle door and jumped in as Cay started the engine.
“What’s going on?”
“I need to know what happened to my car and if my house is okay,” Sasha said, looking straight ahead.
“I told you I would—”
“I know what you told me.” She looked at him. “But they are my responsibility, not yours. I’d appreciate it if you would just allow me to ride along.”
“Your riding along is not the problem,” Cay explained. “I don’t know if you realize it, but during a storm like the one we just had things are usually torn up pretty bad. Houses get completely destroyed, trees are uprooted, and lots of times there are loose wires. It could be really dangerous.”
“Who made you my protector?” Sasha lashed out with misplaced anger. “So if you have some other reason for wanting to pretend you are concerned about me, you can stop right now. Because I don’t believe it. Now, if you would just take me to check on my house and help me find my car, that’s all I want from you.”
“Are you sure about that?” His voice was low.
Sasha knew what he was implying. Although she sat as close to the passenger door as possible she could still feel the electricity between them. She took a deep breath and replied, “Yes, I am. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
Cay was silent before replying, “If that’s what you want, Sasha.”
“It is,” she said, staring straight ahead.
They drove off. Cay thought about Sasha’s sudden need to leave Guana Manor and he wondered what had triggered it. Sasha was a complicated woman, full of fire. Cay had known that even before he kissed her. He had kissed many women in his lifetime. In his younger days, when he saw women as nothing more than conquests, kissing was a mere tool to manipulate them. He wasn’t interested in relationships. Women were easy to get.
It was another reason he’d married Precious so quickly. She possessed a pureness of spirit that he hadn’t thought was possible. One that he longed to have. But none of the women he’d ever known, especially Precious, had sparked the desire Sasha had been able to ignite. It baffled and intrigued Cay. In the bedroom, he knew he had Sasha in the palm of his hand and that Sasha wasn’t accustomed to that. He had seen surprise and something akin to fear on her face. He had wanted to take it further, to find out just how hot the fires burned…but it wasn’t that easy. Life was much more complicated than that.
First, he had found out Sasha was not the kind of woman to be toyed with. He felt she knew the games men and women played better than most. Then there was the curse…. Years ago, Cay never thought the day would come when he would believe in the curse, but with Wally’s and Precious’s deaths, that day had surely arrived.
Still, it was hard to ignore the attraction he had for Sasha. Like Precious, Sasha had some quality that he yearned for. Sasha lived and believed in tomorrow. Something he no longer could afford.
To get involved with Sasha Townsend would create other problems as well. There was the issue of the Bethel property. She wanted to sell the water from the spring. But when Precious died Cay had vowed the spring would never cause trouble again. Yet here was Sasha Townsend, wanting to sell that trouble to the world.
“This is where my car was swept away.” Sasha’s voice invaded his thoughts. “Where do you think it is now?”
“Probably in a small lake about a mile and a half from here.”
“You think my car is in a lake?” Sasha asked, dismayed.
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s highly possible.”
Sasha looked over the storm-ravished area in frustration. Suddenly, she pointed. “Look. There’s a woman carrying a baby.”
Cay followed her line of view.
“They look horrible,” Sasha said with compassion. “Where do you think they’re going?”
“I have no idea. You know Guana Manor and the Bethel House are the only houses on Magic Key,” Cay replied as they watched the woman clutch the baby to her. “Sometimes people use our property for camping. It’s illegal, but they do it anyway.”
Cay pulled the SUV up beside the pair. The woman looked disheveled and in shock. The baby, who was about ten months old, was screaming at the top of its lungs.
“Can we help you, ma’am?” Cay asked, descending from the vehicle. Sasha came around to where they stood. The woman looked from Cay to Sasha, her lips trembling and her eyes filled up with tears.
“My husband. I don’t know where my husband is.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Sasha inquired.
“We were camping in our RV, and the weather started getting really bad. So Bill decided we should leave the RV, and we found a place to go inside. He went back to get some things for the baby and something for us to eat, but he never came back.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
Sasha placed her arm around the woman.
“You found a place to go inside. What kind of place?” Cay asked, puzzled.
“A small shed. A toolshed, back there somewhere.” She pointed. “It was nestled between some large pines, and my husband thought it would be safer than the RV. I’m afraid the RV may have been swept up by the storm with my husband in it.” She began to tremble.
Sasha looked at Cay.
“I know where she’s talking about. We’ve got a good-size shed on the property. At one point we kept tools for doing work on the west end of the estate in there. But now that Baltron is getting older, we have a maintenance company doing the work.” He looked where the woman had pointed. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find your husband.”
They piled into the SUV. Sasha climbed in first. To make it simpler the woman handed her the baby, who was still squalling. Sasha looked down at the squirming child. “What’s wrong?” she cooed. “What’s wrong, huh?” Sasha tried to arrange the baby’s clothing. It was soaked.
As if he were reading her mind, Cay announced, “Let’s turn some heat on in here to dry you two out. And here…” He reached across Sasha and the baby to open the glove compartment, where a Happy Tourists magnet gleamed on the door. “There’s something in here that might make her feel better.” It was a package of Fruit Roll-Ups.
“Fruit Roll-Ups?” Sasha looked at Cay, surprised.
“I’m not supposed to like Fruit Roll-Ups?” he asked.
“Well, Fruit Roll-Ups don’t seem to be the kind of thing Cay Ellis the third would dare eat,” she added, a nasal quality to her voice.
“See, that goes to show how much you really know about me.” His words had a hushed tone as he looked into her eyes. “Practically nothing.” Then Cay piped up. “They’re convenient, sweet, and nutritious,” he rattled off as he tore a package open and handed the slick sheet of purple fruit to the baby. Her chubby hands closed around it gratefully, and into her mouth it went. The crying stopped immediately. “How about you?” He motioned toward Sasha.
She nodded. Because her hands were full, Cay did the honors. Carefully, he placed the treat in Sasha’s mouth; her lips softly touched the tip of his finger. Their eyes met before Cay drew his finger away.
“Would you care for one, ma’am?” he inquired.
The woman shook her head as her anxious eyes searched the road ahead of them.
“I guess we’re ready then.” Cay started the car.
It was a difficult drive. Uprooted trees and branches lay ove
r the road. As Cay had warned, there were loose wires hanging from the utility poles. From time to time he ventured off the road onto the rain-soaked ground to avoid a dangerous situation. There was so much mud and water Sasha feared the SUV might get stuck.
“You had quite a walk, didn’t you?” Sasha remarked, looking at the ponds that had formed on the ground from the storm.
“I guess I panicked,” the woman told her.
“That’s understandable. If I was in your shoes I probably would be worse off than you are. I think you’re holding up pretty well,” Sasha said, attempting to comfort her.
“It won’t be long now,” Cay said, driving over a tree branch. “This road is really one big circle, that’s probably how you became confused.”
Sasha glanced at his concerned features. Ever since he had jeopardized his own life to help her she knew that he wasn’t such a bad guy. Still, the situation was so awkward. He was a major threat to her livelihood and her emotional well-being. But Sasha couldn’t help but notice how warm Cay felt against her side as she held the baby. His large, muscular frame and the tiny, soft body within her arms felt good. She recalled how her mother had longed for a grandchild, and Sasha had promised her that one day her wish would be fulfilled. Thinking of the things Olive had said, Sasha wondered if she had a baby now, would her mother know it and would she experience joy because of it?
“What’s your name?” Sasha asked the woman.
“Nancy.” She tried to smile.
“And the baby?”
“Erma.”
“My name is Sasha. And this is Cay.”
“Are you two a couple?”
“No,” Sasha responded, maybe a little too quickly.
“You look like you would make a wonderful couple. People say my husband and I do.” Nancy began to search the landscape again.
Sasha could feel the woman’s anxiety. She prayed that if they found her husband he would be alive and well. It had to be wonderful having someone in your life that you cared so much about. But Sasha believed, in order for Nancy to care the way she did, her husband had to love her as much as she loved him.