by Liz Ireland
So why was she standing here frowning? Because she knew the truth of her pretty lie. None of this was really hers. She knew that rationally, but her heart wanted to believe otherwise. No. A big, fat no. Jayde took herself to task. She couldn’t allow her artistic mind-set to delude her rational self. She now glared harshly at her surroundings. All of this—everything that assaulted her senses with a richness beyond money—was, for her personally, only window dressing.
The reality was that her surroundings belonged to Mr. Hale, and the truth was she could be fired at any moment. Hadn’t he only just reminded her of that, right before he departed for the airport? Despite Lyle’s fast talking and her tearful apology for the bruises on Mr. Hale’s face, he’d left no doubt in her mind. If she did one more wrong thing, then all this would slip out from under her.
Now, that stung. Especially because it was JOCK who’d been the instigator of all her accidents. Mr. Hale wasn’t being very understanding, Jayde decided. With that revelation went her warm-and-fuzzy feelings for her handsome boss. Forget him and his soul-searing kiss. Good riddance. She was glad he was gone.
In his wake, he’d left her in a mood to paint. The heavy emotions welling up inside Jayde begged for definition, for a true representation in this concrete world. It was at a time like this, when she was reminded of the vagaries of life, of the sheer capriciousness of fortune, that she had to express herself in oils. With bold and bright colors slashed across the canvas. She had a hunger to show the world what she saw in her head. And she had to do it now.
Thus motivated, Jayde sprinted across the warm flagstones of the courtyard, heading for the closed front door. Suddenly, her smile was back. For the first time in her life she could truly indulge her artistic desire whenever the mood struck her. Thanks to Mr. Hale—and Ms. Kingston back in Kansas City—Jayde no longer had to deal with bad weather, the commute to and from work, or long hours of drudgery spent at a dead-end job. She no longer had bills to pay or financial worries of any kind. Nothing stood in her way. She could create to her heart’s content. Indulge her talent. Be an original whose work would rock the world of fine art.
She reached for the antique-brass doorknob and turned it. But only her hand turned as she smacked headfirst into the solid wood of the front door. Crying out, with a hand now to her forehead, she tried again. Same results. The knob only jiggled in place. It wouldn’t turn.
Realization dawned. The door was locked. And she was locked out. “JOCK!” she screamed, beating on the solid wood door with a fist.
“Step away from the door,” came the stern voice of the diabolically evil butler. “This residence is armed with an electronic presence that does not recognize your voice,” JOCK continued. “I will call the police if you do not cease and desist immediately. Furthermore, the owner of this residence will prosecute all offenders to the fullest extent of the law.”
Jayde wasn’t taking this lying down…or locked out. “JOCK, it’s me, and you know it. And I’ll be the one to prosecute you to the fullest extent—by cutting off your power supply once and for all, if you don’t open this door right now.”
Silence. But JOCK wasn’t giving up that easily. “This computerized system cannot be disconnected from any source outside the residence. Be warned that if this unit should become nonfunctional, nothing inside the residence will operate.”
“Ha. Guess what, Mr. Smarty Circuits? Mr. Hale told me all about this secret panel out here and the code that overrides you. I’m not afraid to use it. And if I do, it will mess up your memory. And Mr. Hale isn’t here to reprogram you. That means you’ll be out of commission the whole time he’s gone. So, it’s up to you. Open the door and behave—or say goodnight, Gracie.”
Again, there was silence. Jayde stepped back from the door, waiting. Nothing happened. Fine. She reached for the covering to the secret panel.
Instantly, the lock clicked and the door swung slowly open. “Why, Jayde. Welcome home. Why didn’t you just say it was you?”
A BIT LATER that same day, Jayde was out back, standing on the flagstone tiles of the patio and happily painting to her heart’s content. She’d been hard at it for two hours, which meant her painting was close to completion. She never bothered with sketching an outline or studying the best angles. No, she felt it was her special blessing that she was able to simply go at it with abandon. Today, she was trying something new. She wasn’t painting a fountain. Instead, in an effort to fit into her surroundings, she was capturing the tranquil beauty of Sarasota Bay. But suddenly, something stopped her cold. Her eyes widened. A cold, sinking feeling assailed her.
She hadn’t yet informed her family that she no longer lived in Kansas City, Missouri. Oh…my…God.
Jayde blinked, focusing again on her canvas…and saw what she’d done. Oh, lovely. Her hand had jerked, causing her to fling a sickly pseudoblob of a cloud across the otherwise pristine blue sky. A mild curse escaped her. This was awful—that cloud, as well as her oversight in informing her family. All sorts of dire scenarios leaped into her fertile imagination. What if they call my apartment, only to hear that my number has been disconnected? Or even worse, they call Homestead Insurance and find out I was fired? No phone and no job equals failure.
She couldn’t allow them to think that, much less to know that was the truth. Jayde took her role as her brothers’ and sisters’ role model seriously. She hated to disappoint them, but even worse, she hated to worry them. So she had to call them—now. Laying her brush and palette of colors down on the white wrought-iron table to her left, she hurriedly wiped her hands on a rag and tried to remember when exactly she had last called home. Had it really been Christmas Day?
Holy cow. Three weeks ago. She’d never gone more than two weeks without talking to them. Jayde threw down the cloth and headed for the double-wide patio doors, thinking of the kitchen telephone inside.
With each step, she hoped that her news would be a nice surprise. Not a where-have-you-been-we-thought-you-were-dead dressing down. She knew she deserved that, but still, she hoped she hadn’t caused her family any worry. But already found guilty in her own mind, with the crime of family neglect, Jayde grimaced as she walked toward the wall-mounted phone and dialed her family’s number.
The line only rang once at their end before the phone was snatched up by Jayde’s father. She swallowed. Wasn’t that just her luck? With five kids in the house, her father had to pick up the receiver, giving Jayde no time to get her act together.
“Hello, Daddy. It’s me,” Jayde chirped, fearing she sounded too artificially bright…meaning, guilty.
“Why, Jayde, honey. Hello. Your mother and I were just talking about you, baby. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. I just…” She glanced at her watch. Lunchtime here. An hour earlier there. A weekday in both places. Her sisters and brothers would all be in school. That explained why her father answered the phone. Wait. No, it didn’t. What was he doing home in the middle of the day? Jayde frowned, forgetting her own news for a moment. “Daddy, is everything okay there?”
A pregnant pause met her question. Finally, he responded, “Oh, sure. It’s fine, fine. We’ll be okay…if the plant opens back up soon. Don’t you worry though, honey. You’ve got enough on your plate right now.”
“Oh, Daddy.” Jayde felt like crying. He’d been laid off again. Her poor dad. He tried so hard and nothing ever worked. Jayde rubbed a hand across her forehead and tried to sound as brave as her father was pretending to be. “I’m so sorry. Let me help.”
“Now, no.” His voice was slow and defeated. “You sent enough money at Christmas. It’s my responsibility to see to everyone here. And besides, I hear it gets pretty cold out in Missouri. You’ll need to get yourself a better coat than that thin one—’
“But that’s just it, Daddy. I’m not in Kansas City anymore.” Jayde made a face, wondering when she would be able to stop sounding like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
“You’re not? Well, where the devil are you
?”
“I’m in Florida, Daddy. Sarasota, to be exact.”
“Florida? How the heck—Jayde Alyssa Greene, what is going on?”
“Nothing. Well, everything. Daddy, I—’
“Hold on, baby. Your mother wants to know what’s going on.”
Jayde held on and could hear her father telling her mother in the background that their oldest child had up and gone to Florida. He was saying…well, no, Maxine, he didn’t yet know why she would be there, that was what he was trying to find out. Then her mother was saying how she just knew it, that girl has lost her job again—Jayde cringed—and probably run off with some crazy cult or other such nonsense. Jayde rolled her eyes, wondering when they’d remember she was still on the line…the long-distance line.
Then her father answered that he doubted she’d join a cult—and then her mother, ever the practical one, got on the phone. “Jayde, honey, why are you in Florida? Don’t I have enough to worry about, what with five other children and your father to look after? Are you trying to worry us to death?”
Jayde had to grin. “No, Mother. I’m not trying to worry you. I’m trying to help you.”
“By going to Florida?” Then she yelled at Jayde’s father in the background. “Floyd, stir them beans for me, will you?” Then she was back with Jayde. “I’ve got pinto beans on for supper. Wish you were here to have dinner with us, honey. We miss you.”
Jayde’s grin mellowed into a poignant smile. “I miss you, too, Mom. And, look, I can help you.”
“I wish you’d tell me how. But wait—did I tell you that Gem got hurt in his gym class? Sprained his ankle. But since we never took out that school insurance and doctors are so expensive, Ruby wrapped it up for him. She learned how to do that in her first-aid class. I swear, the things they teach in school nowadays. I just hope nobody in the family really gets sick. With the cutbacks at the plant and us about to lose the house, I just don’t—’
“Mom? What did you just say?” Jayde interrupted sharply. “Did you say you’re about to lose the house?”
There was a moment’s silence. Cold dread coiled in Jayde’s stomach. “Mama, when did the plant close?”
“About three months ago. We didn’t want to worry you, baby. There wasn’t anything you could do.”
Jayde’s chest was so tight she could barely breathe. Her family was about to be tossed out into the cold, when here she was blithely painting away in sunny Florida and living in the lap of luxury. She knew what she had to do. It probably wasn’t right, but she had no choice. “Mama, I want you to listen to me. I can help you. I’m—I’m rich now. Really rich.”
“What? You’re rich?” Her mother called out to Jayde’s father. “Floyd, come here. I think the girl has taken a fever.” She got back on the line. “You’re worrying us to death, Jayde Alyssa. Now what’s really going on?”
“I’m not sick, Mother. I just—well, I—’
“You what, baby? You weren’t rich three weeks ago? And now you are. What did you do? Run off to Florida and marry some rich man?”
Jayde’s eyes widened. It was perfect. And a lie. But it was also the explanation least likely to get everybody upset. Knowing how traditional her folks’ beliefs were, she knew that they’d never accept the kind of money Jayde was getting ready to offer. But they’d accept it from her husband. “Yes. I ran off to Florida and married a rich man. Well, not really. I mean, we got married first. And then I moved to Florida, where he has a house.”
Her mother let out a whoop of joy, which prompted her father to join in. Jayde knew that their happiness wasn’t only because she’d married a rich man—it was because she’d married at all. She never quite understood why her parents thought a woman needed a man to be happy. Jayde grimaced. She’d never met a man who’d made her happy enough to marry him…except apparently the unwitting Bradford Hale.
Jayde recalled her past attempts to bring her folks into the new millennium. Disastrous, that was what they’d been. To get them off her back about being twenty-five-going-on-twenty-six and still single, she’d finally told them the truth. She liked making her own way in the world and she didn’t intend to rely on marrying well and retiring from life.
She’d believed that when she’d said it. And she believed it still. But if saying she had married well would get them to accept the financial help they so desperately needed, then so be it. To assuage their pride, maybe she’d tell them that the money she intended to send them was a loan from her and her new husband.
Her new husband. Guilt tore through Jayde. It was as if she could see Mr. Bradford Hale’s handsome and smiling face. Actually, she could see it—he was smiling back at her…but from the bookcase. A framed picture showed him accepting some award from the President of the United States. “Forgive me,” she murmured.
Suddenly she realized that her mother was still talking. “Did you hear me, baby? I asked how’d you meet him.”
Jayde blinked, coming back to the moment. “Oh.” She frowned. “Um, at an art show. In Kansas City.” Well, she was certainly in it now—up to her neck. “He liked my paintings and we started talking. One thing led to another—’
“I don’t like the sound of that, young lady.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Mother.”
“You can tell me, baby. I’m your mother. Are you in the family way?”
“Mother! For heaven’s sake, I just met Mr. Hale—”
“You call your husband Mr. Hale?”
Her story was already unraveling. “He’s eccentric. The rich are like that.”
“Well, he sounds ancient. How old is he?”
Jayde had no idea, of course. So, in keeping with this whole lying conversation, she made it up. “He’s thirty-four.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad. What church did you get married in?”
Here we go. “Um, it was a chapel. In Las Vegas.” Jayde warmed up to the idea. “We flew to Las Vegas and got married. We only arrived in Florida today. That’s why I’m calling you now.”
“Jayde Alyssa Greene, I swear—no, wait. That’s not your name anymore, is it? What’s your husband’s name?”
It was getting worse by the minute. What if her mother decided to speak with her new son-in-law? “Well, like I said, it’s Hale. Bradford Hale.” And then she declared her independence. “But I’m going by Jayde Greene-Hale in my private life.” Green hail? Dear God. “I’m keeping Greene because that’s my professional name.”
“Your professional name? What profession is that, baby?”
The question deflated Jayde. Her mother really didn’t know. Her folks had always encouraged her to paint because it made her happy. But she knew they feared she’d die a starved artist. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe in her. After all, her first attempts at oil painting decorated every room of her parents’ home. But their pride aside, they’d still made sure she got a secretarial certificate from community college before she’d left for art school. But given all the lies flying around, maybe it was time to be a world-renowned artist, too. “My painting profession, Mother. I’m going to have my work shown in a gallery here next week. It seems a number of well-connected people in the art world have started taking notice of me.”
“Why, Jayde, honey, I don’t know what to say. Hold on.” She called out to Jayde’s father. “Floyd, not only does she have a rich husband but folks actually like her paintings, too.” Then she said to Jayde, “Your father is just shaking his head at all this.”
He won’t be the only one, Jayde told herself. If Mr. Hale should ever find out about any of this, he’ll do more than shake his head. He’ll wring my neck.
THE REMAINDER of the afternoon—following her marriage and the birth of her new career as an artist—proved to be a busy one. There was no rest for the celebrated, Jayde found out soon enough. In her room, after putting away her easel and paints, she’d cleaned up and then reviewed all the papers Lyle had given her. There was her bank card. All she had to do was sign it, his note said.
It was already activated. She called the bank…and was stunned at the sum of money at her disposal.
“Is that for a month or a year?” she’d asked, trying not to sound as if she didn’t know.
“A month, ma’am, of course,” the person on the other end of the line politely answered.
“Of course,” Jayde had responded. Then she’d asked for directions to the bank and had found out it was right outside Queen’s Harbor. That was easy enough.
And the car keys she had in her hand…Oh, surely not. The key ring bore the Jaguar crest. No, seriously, she thought. But a peek into the garage revealed a gold Jag…and the keys fit.
From there, the day was exhilarating. There she was…tooling around Longboat Key and Sarasota in a gold Jag with a ready-to-be-mailed money order in her possession. The amount had a comma in it—more money, it seemed to her, than what was in an entire game of Monopoly. In a moment of silliness, she’d penned a note to her folks. Pay everything up and then come see me. Not that she ever expected them. Still, she had to admit that would have been fun. She missed them all terribly. And it had felt good to suggest it.
Would it be so awful if they actually showed up? Lyle had said she was allowed to have guests, but only when Mr. Hale wasn’t home. That wasn’t a problem. Mr. Hale had said he’d be gone for two months. And her folks—still in this imaginary scenario—wouldn’t stay more than a few days, a week at most. Their paths wouldn’t cross. So…ta-da! But her conscience wouldn’t leave well enough alone. So, Jayde, what if they showed up when Mr. Hale was home? Wouldn’t he be surprised to discover he’d hired his wife?
Okay, that part was easy. She’d just die. It would be the only way out.
Using the map of Sarasota which Lyle had put in her folder of papers, Jayde had no trouble finding the post office. Moments later, the “loan” and her note were on their way to her folks.
They’d been very reluctant to accept any money, especially as large a sum as Jayde had named. But she’d told them not to worry—it was her money from her own account. She was free to do with it what she wanted, and what she wanted, more than anything was to help her family. Still, they wouldn’t let her send them a dime until she’d agreed to consider it a loan.