by LJ Evans
I hadn’t texted or called ahead, and I was regretting that choice a little. I didn’t want Dani to be caught in the middle of an argument that had done nothing but gotten worse the longer I stayed in the military—stayed with the SEAL team which had become my home when my childhood one had abandoned me.
My chest grew heavy at the thought of my military life being taken away as well. The team I’d embedded myself in was gone, and my commander wasn’t sure I belonged on any team anymore. I could feel it in his eyes when he’d agreed with the therapist and put me on leave. Between Mac and Tristan, I’d had the truth handed to me more times than I cared to acknowledge since I’d seen Dr. Inez: I had some things to work out.
When I stopped at the gates to put in the security code, Dani looked up. Her family’s home in Wilmington had gates with a huge W emblazoned on it for Whittaker. It also had a paved drive leading up to a home that looked like a mini-me of The White House. The gates here also had scrollwork along the top, these announcing Wellsley Place.
When the wrought iron swung open, we drove over a stone driveway toward a house on an estate worked by enslaved people in a time the family regretted and abhorred. The inhumanity of it was a wound we couldn’t heal with a mere apology. Our family’s philanthropic efforts could never undo the wrong, regardless of the effort. There was no pride in knowing we’d been one of the first families to free the enslaved people on our land. Only a sick feeling of shame that was rightfully ours to shoulder for eternity. It was something that shadowed the land with its tall trees lining the driveway and the manicured gardens which hid the crops beyond them. A tint that wouldn’t quite ever fade.
The scent of lemon was already invading the vents as Dani took it all in with a look of surprise. When we turned the corner in the long driveway, the manor house finally came into view, and her eyes grew wider. The brick, black, and white facade was classic Georgian architecture built by predecessors who’d survived for decades on a wealth which had come with them from England.
“Is this really where you grew up?” Dani asked.
I could only nod.
“You lived here?” she repeated, as if she wasn’t sure I’d understood her question.
“Live might not be the right word,” I told her. “But, yes, it’s my family’s home.”
“Well, thanks for nothing, because now I’m terrified of being sick in your family’s eighteenth-century museum.”
“You’re not going to be sick, but if it makes you feel better, I once puked all the way down the stairs, causing Carson to call both a carpet cleaner and a tapestry repair expert.”
I had returned my eyes to the house, but I could still feel hers on me, trying to read the secrets I’d kept for so long it felt like they belonged to someone who wasn’t even me. As if the person who’d grown up in this house, running through the fields and hunting in the hills, was a completely separate individual. Someone whose story I knew but could no longer feel.
“Who’s Carson?” she asked.
“My uncle.”
She was shaking her head at the impossibility of it. “You said it last night, but it’s hard to imagine you with a family.”
I couldn’t help a smirk. “I didn’t spawn from the devil, much to everyone’s dismay.”
“You never, ever talk about them.”
I was quiet, because I didn’t—for many reasons I still had no desire to discuss.
“Your uncle lives here. Do your parents live here as well?” she asked, watching me.
I didn’t flinch outwardly, but inside, my entire chest seized up. “No.”
“Just no? You’re not going to explain that further?”
I wanted to say no again, but I wasn’t sure I could deny her answers when I was the one who’d opened the door to begin with.
“Not now,” I told her because it was the best I could do at the moment while I battled my emotions of regret and disquiet at my homecoming.
I parked in a line of spots to the left of the house normally reserved for visitors and staff. Turning the rental off, I looked at her before getting out. Her blue eyes were so clear and bright they could have been the waves off the wake of a naval carrier. Her normally glimmering skin was pale from the day before with shadows clinging to her eyes, but she was still heart-stoppingly stunning. I realized, with a quiet shock, that she looked like some of my ancestors. She could easily switch places with many of the women whose paintings lined the stairs, their hooped skirts, parasols, and lace gloves standing out amongst the purple fields of lavender. Except, Dani was more beautiful than any one of them. Her features softer, and yet, at the same time, stronger than theirs.
I turned away from the look of almost worry hanging from her face and got out. I grabbed both our bags from the trunk and refused to hand her suitcase to her when she tried to take it. I made my way to the door just as it was opened by Maribelle. Her skin was so light it almost blended with her halo of white hair, making her look like an apparition.
She didn’t say hello. She just wrapped her arms around me and hugged me as tightly as her ancient arms could. Her body felt frailer than ever before. I dropped the bags and hugged her back. I always allowed myself to forget her never-ceasing love when I was gone, choosing instead to concentrate on the disappointments that flew through all of us when I was here. But as I held her tiny body, I doubted I would have forgiven myself if she’d passed away without my hugging her one more time.
When we let each other go, she took two steps back and put her wrinkled, blue-veined hand to my cheek, assessing me as if she could see through me as she always had. Past the chin, rough with the scruff I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and the muscles on alert to the emotions hiding inside where they lay battered.
Maribelle wasn’t related to me by blood or marriage or in any way that people associated with family. I could say she was an employee, but it wasn’t that simple. She did work here, cooking and taking care of us, but without a clan of people claiming her, she’d made us her own. She’d been here as my mom and uncle grew up, just like she’d been here while I grew up. After nearly sixty years of being the backbone of the household, there was no memory of Wellsley Place that didn’t include her.
She finally spoke. “It’s been too long.”
There was no scold in her tone, just warmth.
Maribelle looked over my shoulder and said, “Who is this you’ve brought with you?”
The wonder in her voice was well-deserved. I hadn’t brought anyone home since I’d been shipped out to military school my freshman year of high school. Not a single person had crossed the threshold with me.
“This is Dani. Dani, this is Maribelle,” I introduced them.
Dani stepped forward to shake her hand, but Maribelle pulled her into an embrace much like the one she’d given me: shaky, warm, and heartfelt. Dani looked startled. Seeing the two women together sent shock coursing into my bones. It was as if my past, my present, and my future were colliding into one thing instead of remaining the separate entities I’d always imagined them to be.
Maribelle let go and stepped back into the house with Dani following her. I picked up the bags I’d tossed aside and closed the door behind me.
In the late morning sunshine, the stained glass surrounding the heavy mahogany doors was casting patterns onto the staircase, the colorful shapes of the light merging with the fleur-de-lis pattern on the burgundy-and-cream carpet running up the middle of the dark wooden steps. The gold marble floor in front of the stairs was also sprinkled with the colorful light, and my mind filled with memories of me in this entryway, displayed just as it was now, in a multitude of colors and patterns. My heart didn’t lighten at the images. There was no sense of relief in being here.
“Carson didn’t tell me you were coming,” Maribelle said, looking up into my face, searching for something I couldn’t give her.
“He didn’t know.”
“I see,” she said. This time there was a hin
t of reprimand there. The fact that I had limited communication with my uncle was the reason for it.
Dani punched me in the shoulder, her fist tight, landing with force as she didn’t hold back. I wanted to smile and pull her hand to my face and kiss it, but her brows squinting together told me it wouldn’t be received well.
“How could you just show up with me in tow?!” Dani said and then turned back to Maribelle. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m so sorry if our visit puts you out.”
After carefully watching Dani hit me, and my nonresponse, Maribelle smiled at Dani with warmth. “Not at all. We’re always glad to have Nash home.”
It was a credit to Dani’s time in politics that she could maneuver an awkward situation with grace and poise. She seemed to belong in the house more than I did. As if the old walls were leaning in and sighing at her sudden appearance, the ghosts haunting the halls running to greet her.
The grandfather clock, which was twice as big as I was even now, fully grown, chimed out the hour, the warm tones of the bells taking me back again to a childhood which was hard to believe was mine. To me running up the stairs with Mom smiling and chasing me, racing to see who would make it to the top first. Dad claiming me the winner. I was never sure if I actually beat her or if she always let me.
“Shall I put Dani’s bag in the green room?” I asked. It was where we normally put the guests on the rare occasions we had them.
“Unless she’s going to stay with you, that would be the right place,” Maribelle said with a wink and a smile. Dani flushed a color that rarely graced her cheeks. A color I remembered on them for a different reason while we’d been moving together, skin to skin.
“No. It’s not… We’re not―”
“I’m her security detail,” I interrupted so Dani wouldn’t have to continue to stutter out an explanation.
Maribelle’s smile only widened, mischievous, like she was once again getting me to hide Carson’s cigars from him. “Well, you do know how that movie, The Bodyguard, turned out, right?
I couldn’t help the chuckle that ripped out of me. Only Maribelle would suggest such a thing.
“I’m going to put the bags away, but I believe Dani might need some of your biscuits.”
I headed up the stairs before either woman could reply. I headed up the stairs, wondering if this spontaneous decision was going to be yet another thing I’d regret in my time with Dani. Would I be able to walk away from it a whole man, or would I be in pieces? As if an IED had exploded in front of me again, this time fracturing my insides as well as the burnt muscle I used to call a heart.
Dani
SWEETER PLACE
“Is there a place where I can hide away?
Red lips, French-kiss my worries all away,
There must be a sweeter place.”
Performed by Selena Gomez w/ Kid Cudi
Written by Kirkpatrick / Love Seguro Mescudi / Gomez / Emenike
Nash left me in the entryway as he jogged up the stairs. I was astonished by all of it. The huge estate. The white-haired woman who hugged him with a fondness you could see etched around her. The antiques, paintings, sculptures, and tapestries scattered about which belonged in a museum. Our house in Wilmington had its fair share, but this place reeked of a time our country was still seeking forgiveness for.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected when Nash had said he was bringing me to his childhood home. Maybe a house in the suburbs. Maybe a craftsman home with a porch swing on a tree-lined street. But I certainly hadn’t expected for him to drive up to an eighteenth-century manor house, well-managed and well-kept enough to breathe wealth. A wealth Nash himself did not breathe.
As my disbelief wore off, my curiosity grew.
I followed Maribelle down the hallway toward the back of the house and into the kitchen. There was nothing left of its origins except a brick oven where an old fireplace had likely once stood. Instead, the kitchen was all stainless steel, marble, and deep woods, full of modern conveniences but presented in a way that echoed the paneling and the staircase we’d left behind.
Maribelle waved me toward a small, round table in an alcove with a cushioned window seat. A vase of gorgeous fresh flowers rested on it. When I sat down, the scent of lemon and honey wafted over me again. The same scent had filled the car as we’d approached the house.
“Please don’t worry about getting anything for me,” I told her as she bustled around in the kitchen. “I’m not even sure I’d be able to hold it down.”
“Don’t be silly. Nash knows I always have biscuits. It would be a sin not to have them in my kitchen.”
She brought over a tray with a basket of them so large and fluffy they screamed homemade. Resting on the engraved, silver tray were small jars of honey and jams with the labels stating “Wellsley Place” just like the gates.
“You make your own jams?” I asked.
Maribelle sat opposite me. “Not me personally, but the plant does.”
I was having a hard time keeping up.
“What has he told you about the farm?” she asked.
I shook my head, grabbing one of the biscuits and placing it on a vintage, blue-and-white china plate she’d given me. As I broke the biscuit apart, I answered, “Nothing. Literally nothing. I didn’t even know he had a family until yesterday.”
She didn’t look bowled over by this revelation, which kind of clenched my heart. She seemed to care for him. She had obviously been a part of his life for a while, and yet, he’d never once talked to anyone I knew about her. About any of it. What did that say about him? About his childhood? Had he grown up in this gorgeous setting but left with scars he didn’t want to remember?
“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not,” she said, pouring two glasses of sweet tea without even bothering to ask if I wanted one. I wasn’t sure I’d ever want tea again after yesterday, but when I took a tentative sip, I had to sigh with delight. It was the best tea I’d ever tasted, sweetened with honey and a hint of molasses or brown sugar.
When I didn’t comment, Maribelle continued. “He and Carson fight more than talk. It wasn’t always that way, but it’s the way it’s been since Nash was sent off to boarding school when he needed us most. It ensured he grew up needing no one.”
There was a sadness in her words. Old wounds and heartache.
Military school. Had Nash been one of those rebellious kids who needed tough love to get his life back together? I couldn’t imagine him as some spoiled rich kid, doing drugs and partying. Nor could I imagine him getting into trouble stealing or with gangs or failed grades. You had to be at the top of your class to get into the Naval Academy. You had to remain there to get offered one of the exclusive spots at BUD/S coming right out of it. You couldn’t be a screw-up.
She brought herself out of her memories and back to me. “So, he’s your bodyguard?”
The one question was layered with many more, and I wasn’t sure how much to tell her. I didn’t need to worry about a response as Nash’s voice cut through the room instead.
“It’s just a temporary thing, Maribelle, so don’t start filling your head with ideas you and I both know will never come true. I’m on leave at the moment, and Dani needed help, that’s all.”
When he walked over to the table, I was taken in again by his jeans and T-shirt, so casual and yet clinging to him in every way possible. The jeans were not that different from his cammies, but for some reason, they gave him a different vibe. It took the badass Navy SEAL and made him more relatable. More human.
Or maybe it was just seeing him here, in an environment that had caused him enough pain to never mention it.
He picked up a biscuit and broke it in half before putting some in his mouth. I watched the path of the food to where it disappeared behind his lips which were strong and demanding and yet also gentler than you’d imagine. I looked away before he caught me staring, only to find Maribelle had been watching me instead.
“How long will you be here?” Maribelle asked.
“A couple of weeks,” he responded.
I didn’t know who was more nervous at that thought. Him, for being here in the place he obviously didn’t relish being, or me because it meant I’d be in constant contact with him. Although, the house was obviously large enough for me to avoid him, and I had enough work to do with Brady’s disappearing act to keep me busy. I had to stay on top of the rumors to keep them from doing permanent damage.
“You’ve told the poor woman nothing about us,” Maribelle pretended to scold. “Why don’t you take her on a tour? That is, if you remember how to be a tour guide.” Maribelle’s eyes were sparkling at the jab she gave him.
He snorted. “I’m not sure Dani is up for a hike across the fields. She was sick yesterday.”
“You were?” Maribelle asked right as I said, “I can make it.”
“You can take Betsy. Carson drove the car over to the offices today,” Maribelle said.
“Who’s Betsy?” I couldn’t help asking.
“A glorified golf cart,” Nash responded.
The opening and shutting of the front door echoed down the vacant hall, and to my surprise, it sent Nash into action. He headed for the back door off the kitchen, opening it and looking back at me expectantly. It was the closest to bolting I’d ever seen him do, and it caused me to join him at the door without a second thought.
Once outside, I stopped to take in the scene: a huge swimming pool tucked into a completely manicured garden that would have made the president jealous. But I didn’t have time to devour it before Nash had walked down the veranda steps and out across the yard swiftly. I jogged to catch up to him as he approached what must once have been a carriage house. It was now a multi-car garage.
Nash lifted the door of the first bay, and inside was, literally, a golf cart. Someone had painted it to look like a wagon with the word “Betsy” across the side like an old-fashioned merchant sign. It was as ridiculous as everything else I’d seen since arriving. I was smiling when I got into the passenger seat, and Nash noticed, his lips quirking in response.