He drove away, toward the new condo building at the edge of town, where he found one furnished unit available to rent, but not until the end of the month. Tomorrow. He booked a room at the B and B and got the top floor suite. Good. He needed privacy. Needed to be alone.
He fell into bed and slept through until the following morning. Eyes gritty, he squinted against the sunlight streaming through the window, past curtains he’d forgotten to close, like a happy harpy singing, “Good morning!”
What the hell was so good about it?
I’ve lost my family!
He didn’t shout it, but he wanted to.
In the shower, he let water pour over him in nearly scalding waves to cleanse the grime of shame he imagined coated his skin like dirt.
He punched the wall. He’d had no choice, dammit. He’d had to take Dad out of the equation.
Not that he was yet. John Spade had a long way to go before that was done.
He’d just finished dressing when someone knocked on his door. He opened it. Audrey stood on the landing, hands in fists on her hips, her lips thinned, a white line of fury around her mouth.
Jeez. She’d heard.
“Abigail called,” she said. “You’re having your dad evaluated?”
He nodded. “I tried to avoid this. I really did.”
“How could you?” The warm voice that usually bathed him with honey sounded raw, as though her throat was so choked with anger it hurt to speak.
“I can’t—” She studied him as though he were a science experiment gone horribly wrong. “You couldn’t have changed that much. You used to be sweet. Did business, did your MBA, really change you so profoundly you would betray your parents?”
“No!”
“Then what? Why did you do this?” She scrubbed her hands through her hair. “Abigail called in tears.”
His gut did its churning thing, now so much a part of everyday life he missed it when it wasn’t happening. Mom. He’d been trying to avoid seeing her hurt, but there was no way this situation would ever go down well.
Still, he’d made his choice. Save the company. Save Mom. He and Dad no longer mattered.
Audrey’s violet eyes flashed fire. “Is money so important to you that you have to take your dad’s company from him?”
“No! I don’t need the money. The company does. And She—” He’d almost said, And Shelly does. That was family stuff. Private. None of Audrey’s business.
Fed up with how unfair life was, he ground out, “Listen, I’m tired. I’m sick of being the bad guy. I was called home to help out and I’ve tried my damnedest to make things right. If you don’t like how I’ve done it, tough.”
He slammed the door in her face.
Well, he thought, that’s that.
CHAPTER NINE
AUDREY PRESSED HER finger against the Turner doorbell. When Harrison opened the door, she barely suppressed a gasp. He’d aged ten years in a day.
He stepped aside to allow her to enter.
Abigail sat on the sofa, her eyes red-rimmed, her demeanor defeated.
Oh, Gray, look what you’ve done to two of the best people on earth.
Dear God, she was angry. Furious.
She should go back to the B and B and kick his ass. Instead, she stayed where she was, because Harrison and Abigail needed a friend.
It also looked as though they needed comprehension of this disaster, but that she couldn’t give. Even after seeing Gray only a few minutes ago, she had no better understanding of his motives than before she’d confronted him.
He’d been recalcitrant and unhappy. He might have committed a horrible disservice to his parents, but he hadn’t looked the least bit pleased about betraying them. In fact, he’d seemed almost as ravaged by his actions as his parents were.
So why had he elected to try for guardianship over his father? What was in it for him?
Audrey sat beside Abigail and took her hands in her own. They were icicles. Audrey chafed them.
“I’ll make tea,” Harrison said.
“I can do it,” Audrey offered, but Harrison stopped her with a sad smile.
“I need to keep busy. Stay with Abigail.”
After he left the room, Abigail said, “This is killing him.” Her voice hitched. “I don’t know what to do for him or how to help him. We gave Gray everything, and now this.”
Her bewildered gaze delved into Audrey’s, as though she could find answers there. “I don’t understand.”
“Me, either,” she said, her need to fix this undermined by helplessness and ignorance. “There has to be a reason. Did Gray need money?”
Abigail shrugged, the gesture more eloquent than words at indicating how at sea she was.
“Perhaps it had something to do with his life away from Accord. Tell me what happened to him back in Boston.” Maybe between the two of them, she and Abigail could find hints. “I heard rumors of a car accident.”
“Yes. His fiancée died in the crash.”
Oh, God. She hadn’t heard. She’d had no idea. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes, it was very sad. Devastating for Gray. They’d been engaged for five years.”
There were no words. Even something like devastating couldn’t possibly say enough.
“He loved her?”
“He adored her,” Abigail said. “So much so that he stayed in Boston when he really wanted to move back here.”
Oh. She’d thought he hadn’t cared enough—about the town, his parents or Turner Lumber, to come home. She thought he’d become an urban snob.
Things weren’t adding up. “Could he be so, I don’t know, deranged by sorrow that he isn’t thinking clearly?”
“I don’t think Marnie’s death caused this, Audrey. When he’d returned home, he’d seemed...diminished, but not bitter. I know he loved Marnie, but how could it relate to what he’s done here?”
“I don’t know.” She held Abigail’s hand and said, “I have to find out. I can’t leave this. One way or another, I’ll figure it out and get back to you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Any ideas?”
Abigail thought about it. “Ask him.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”
“Try. Please.”
How could she not? Her only thought was to go back to see Gray and to show no mercy, to bash away at him until he gave her answers.
* * *
ISOLATED AND VILIFIED, Gray did a strange thing.
He called Shelly Harper.
If Marnie were still alive, he could talk to her. She would comfort him, support him, and he wouldn’t feel so alone.
But she was gone.
So thinking, maybe still hoping, that Shelly might be family, he phoned her.
She sounded cautious when she heard his voice. Rightly so.
“I, ah, just wanted to know how you’re doing.” More like he wanted to touch base with someone for whom he’d done something good and, judging by their faces when they’d opened the bags of groceries that he’d left, had been recognized as good.
Not vilified.
Not questioned.
Not undermined.
Not stonewalled, or smirked at or talked about behind his back.
He brought himself under control. It was all water under the bridge now.
He listened to Shelly talk about her kids, and his mood shifted, lightened. He’d met those children. He’d pictured Joe’s smile while the boy’s body betrayed him. He didn’t know how was it possible to still smile, but Joe had. Gray had witnessed Tiffany’s joy when she’d seen those silly flip-flops.
So, while Shelly talked, he got to know them better. Finally, too soon, he ended the conversation.
Shelly had to get breakfast for her children.
And Gray had to figure out where to go next.
* * *
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE come home to Accord. None of this would be happening if he hadn’t.
Stop. Of course it would. It just wouldn’t be happening to you.
True.
So, where did he go from here? Into work, he guessed. Just because his world had caved in and his parents would probably never talk to him again, and the only relatives he had left might not really be relatives, didn’t mean that the world had stopped spinning on its axis or that time was standing still.
There was still work to be done and a company to be saved. If Dad wanted to call the cops to have him ousted from the place, fine. Until then, he was going to do his job.
When Gray entered Turner Lumber at nine, his anxiety level breaking records, he expected there to be coldness, expected to be shunned, but there was no more hostility than usual. Maybe Audrey was the only person her parents had told.
Hilary greeted him as though yesterday had never happened, as though she hadn’t quit and been persuaded to come back.
Her presence reminded him of something he’d said to her yesterday about finding middle ground.
“Hilary,” he said, “can you have Arnie meet me here as soon as he can?”
“Sure thing, Gray.”
Gray? Not boss, or sir? Hmm, a good sign, maybe?
He and Arnie worked all morning, circling the layoff issue, which Gray still resisted. Yes, he understood compromise, but not on this. Not yet.
He asked Hilary to have everyone meet in the main office after work again. Before she could ask, he said, “I would appreciate it if you would get baked goods.”
“You got it.”
At ten after six, he stood beside Arnie in front of everyone and told them about his dad reinstating the benefits, which of course everyone already knew.
And then he did something most business people would think insane, the business equivalent of hara-kiri. He gave the employees numbers. He told them how much the company owed. He told them how much the benefits were costing.
“Our largest expense, as with any business, is in the payroll.”
Panicked muttering filled the room.
He expelled a breath and waded in. “You all need your jobs. I’m still fighting to keep everyone, but here’s how it’s got to go down if you want to keep your jobs.” His finger jabbed the air to stress his point. “We have to cut benefits. You can call my dad. You can have him override this decision, and you can walk out of here tonight and not come back.”
They grumbled. “I don’t mean that I’ll have a fit and fire the snitch. I mean that if we keep handing out money for all of the benefits as they currently stand, we will lose Turner Lumber and every one of you will be out of a job. There’s no more money.”
He studied the faces around him. They were finally taking him seriously. “I’m learning to listen, to moderate in the middle of working to preserve what we have here, so this is the deal. We’re purchasing a new benefits package. Gone are the orthodontics. Gone are the massages. Gone is chiropractic or physiotherapy without a doctor’s certificate.” He ticked them off on his fingers.
“All of your children will be covered for medical and dental. Anyone over the age of sixty will have prescriptions covered. Pregnant women will have their deliveries paid for.”
Just as on a sinking ship, Gray was putting women and children into the lifeboats first.
“Banking sick days is off the table. No negotiation on that. I can’t keep it. It’s either that or lay off half of you. I can, however, upgrade you to twelve sick days a year instead of ten. That’s the best I can do.”
He turned to Arnie. “Anything else?”
Arnie shook his head.
Gray said, “As I told you last week, my office will be open at any time if you want to talk. I need help here, people. We’re in this together. Let’s make this company work.”
He walked away, exhausted despite last night’s heavy sleep.
“Hilary, I’m moving into that new condo building today.” He gave her the address and left to pay up at the B and B.
He then bought bedsheets, towels and food and drove to the condo. He opened the door, put the food away, and went straight to the bedroom where he made the bed, crawled in and fell asleep.
A persistent pounding on Gray’s door refused to let him drift any longer in the gathering gloom of twilight.
He flung open the door, groggy and angry as hell.
Audrey stood in the hallway. She wore a deep yellow dress with big red poppies splashed across it. Springtime on steroids.
She wasn’t smiling, but neither did she look as angry as she had this morning.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“May I come in?”
“It depends. If you’re here to give me shit, I’m in no mood to take it.”
“I’m here to listen.” She looked sincere.
He stepped aside, and she brushed past him, her perfume waving a familiar hello. She stood in the center of the room and watched him. And waited.
Her serenity pissed him off.
“Don’t you ever hurt?” he asked, not caring that he sounded as belligerent as a bully. “Don’t you ever have bad days, or is life just one big dress-up party for you?”
A soft gasp reflected her shock.
He’d wounded her, and immediately pulled in his claws, feeling as guilty as if he’d stolen her lunch or punched her best friend.
A militant look crossed her face. If frowns could be lethal, he was a dead man. But so what? He was already dead, hollowed out and gutted like a fish for dinner. He’d lost everything that mattered to him.
“You were there when I had more than one bad day in the past week.”
He deflated, then threw off his sour mood like a dog shaking off bathwater. “You’re right. That was so far past fair. I’m sorry. Please, sit.”
She did, on the sofa. He sat opposite her on a ridiculous little armless chair.
“We need to talk,” she said. “I’ve been to see Abigail.”
He found himself craving information about his parents. “Is she okay? Is Dad okay?”
What if his drastic solution had caused health problems?
“How are they? Are they sick? Dad hasn’t had a heart attack?”
“No. Nothing like that, but they don’t understand what happened.” Her violet eyes thoughtful, as though trying to figure out a conundrum, she said, “Neither do I.”
“Dad’s running the company into an untenable position. Without real change, it will fold.”
“I didn’t know that. It’s really that bad?”
He nodded.
She wrapped her hands around her knees. “I don’t think that’s all of what’s going on.”
She was too perceptive by half, damn her.
“What happened to you back east, Gray?”
Wariness gripped his throat like an old enemy. “What do you mean? This has nothing to do with Boston.”
“What you did to your parents was so far out of character, I can’t fathom it. When you first came back, you were cold, different, but people don’t change their fundamental characters.”
“They can.”
“Really? Do you suddenly have so little respect for your parents that you would do what you did for money?”
He shook his head.
“Then why? What did you hope to gain?”
“Ironically, money.”
“Something isn’t adding up, Gray. This whole affair is fishy. You said your business is successful.”
“My own company. Yes.”
“Then you don’t need your parents’ money.”
> “I need cash. A lot of it. Quickly.”
“Why?”
Audrey loved and respected his parents. How could he destroy that respect? Stomach acid, his old friend, put in an appearance, scalding him.
“I can’t,” he whispered. God, his head hurt.
Audrey approached and knelt on the floor in front of him. She grasped his wrists to urge his hands away from his face, to force him to look at her. This close, her eyes resembled pretty jewels, like amethysts with dark veins of purple running through.
Her honest goodness, her purity, made him feel dirty.
“Tell me why,” she urged.
“I honest to God can’t.” Lord, he was miserable. He wanted to tell her, desperate to redeem himself, at least in her eyes.
“I—” He almost blurted the whole thing, but held himself back in time. A potent curse whooshed out of him. “I can’t. If I could I would.”
Her tongue made a clicking sound of frustration. She got up and returned to the sofa, crossing her arms, as though settling in for the long haul.
“Okay, then tell me what happened in Boston. Abigail said you were in a car accident.”
When he didn’t respond, she said, “You might as well confide in me. I’m not leaving here until you do, even if it takes all night.”
He almost smiled. After the little he’d learned about her in the past ten days, he didn’t doubt she meant it. She would probably sit here for a week. She would wait him out.
He nodded, not sure he could say anything without falling apart. He’d never spoken about that time, had never shared with anyone what it had done to him, about how poorly he’d handled the aftermath. How the effects still lingered, giving him strange ideas, dreams and memories, turning him into one sick puppy afraid of his own shadow.
Here goes nothing.
“I’d gone to a party with my fiancée, Marnie, and had too much to drink. No problem. Marnie was designated driver for the evening. She wasn’t much of a drinker and didn’t mind.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded dead. “I fell asleep. Marnie must have, too. She missed a bridge, we rolled down an embankment and ended up crashed against a boulder, the car on its roof. She must have been speeding. Doctors said she died on impact.”
Because of Audrey Page 17