by Carrie Elks
She’d never been a believer in retail therapy, but there was something to be said for getting lost in a good dress. Brooke stared at herself in the mirror, liking the way the light blue fabric clung to her upper body and flared out at the waist to a short, floaty skirt. It was sexy without being too obvious – and clearly very expensive. Out of her price range for sure.
“You look beautiful, dear.” Her mom peeked around the curtain separating the changing rooms. “With your hair up, you’ll look outstanding at dinner tonight.”
Brooke whipped her head around. “Dinner? You didn’t say anything about that.”
“Oh, didn’t I?” Lillian widened her eyes in innocence. “Silly me.”
She wasn’t even worth fighting with right now. Brooke looked back at the mirror, a wistful expression on her face. Once upon a time she was the sort of girl who would wear a dress like this. One who would attend dances at the Beach Club, and let her parents pick out a suitable partner. One who did as she was told and made them both proud.
Hah! Look how that ended up.
And suddenly, the dam burst and all the thoughts she’d been blocking out came rushing in. The memories of yesterday. The way Aiden had looked at her when she told him the truth. As though she was the girl everybody said she was.
She could take it from all the others. But not from him.
Reaching behind her, she tugged at the zipper, arching her back to pull it all the way down. The dress fell to the floor in a lake of pastel blue. An assistant bustled in – Brooke hadn’t even known she was there – and picked it up, sliding it onto the thick wooden hanger.
“Put it on my account.” Lillian nodded at the assistant. “And have somebody take it out to my car, please.”
“I don’t want it.” Brooke grabbed her jeans, shoving her legs into them. “It’s pretty and all, but I can’t afford it. Plus I have nowhere else to wear it to. It’ll hang in my closet and feel sorry for itself.”
“Clothes don’t have feelings, dear.” Lillian’s voice softened. “Let me buy it for you as a gift, you don’t let me treat you very often. You’re my daughter, I’m allowed to buy you things once in a while.”
Brooke chewed her bottom lip. Behind her, the assistant was wrapping the dress up in a thick plastic hanging bag, zipping it carefully to avoid snagging the fabric. She slid her mom’s store card through the reader and handed the printed receipt to Lilian. It all made her feel about five years old.
“Thank you.” Pulling her sweater over her head, and sliding her feet into the brown leather mules which had seen better days, Brooke grabbed her bag and walked out of the changing room. “And I definitely owe you some lunch now.”
Her mom opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again.
“No, we’re not going to McDonalds.” Brooke answered her unasked question. “I’ve booked us a table at Gerard’s.”
Half an hour later, they were eating lunch – a caesar salad for her mom, with anchovies removed, and a club sandwich for Brooke, with every thing included. It almost felt normal. Like any other girl spending time with her mom on a Saturday. Brooke tried to remember the last time they’d done something like this – had a girly day of trying on clothes and spending time together – but she couldn’t remember.
Had they ever done something like this?
“This is nice,” she said, putting her half-eaten sandwich down on the plate. “I’m glad you asked me to come.”
The fork her mom was holding froze in mid air, not quite making it to her mouth. “It is?” She didn’t bother trying to hide the surprise in her voice. “You really like it?”
“Is it so hard to believe? Yeah, it’s good to spend some time with you. We should do it more often.”
“I’ve tried,” Lilian said pointedly. “But you’re always busy.”
And there was the guilt again, made extra spicy because there was truth in her mom’s words. All those time she’d asked Brooke to come with her to the salon, or the Beach Club, or even out for coffee, and she’d refused, not wanting to feel the pressure of parental expectation weighing down on her any heavier than it already did.
“I’ve got a lot going on,” Brooke said quietly. It sounded pathetic out loud.
“I know you do, dear. And I don’t want to add to your burden, I only want to see you once in a while. And Nick, too. Daddy was so happy to get to spend some time with him on the golf course today. He loves you so much, but being surrounded by us girls and not having a son has been tough on him. He always feels outnumbered.” Lillian lifted her water glass to her lips, taking the smallest of sips.
“You don’t add to my burden,” Brooke said. Her throat felt scratchy, making her voice hoarse. “I’m grateful to you both. You gave Nick and me somewhere to live when you didn’t have to. And you make sure he wants for nothing.”
“We’re his grandparents. It’s our job. We want you all to be happy. But sometimes it feels like we’re battling you all the way. Look at Maggie Richardson. She’s always taking her daughters shopping, and they’ve joined our little book club, too. I wish we could do more together.”
Okay, that might be taking it a bit too far. “Well we’re here now,” Brooke pointed out. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Lillian smiled. “Yes, it is. I’m very pleased we are. So why don’t we talk about you? How are things going with school?”
“It’s okay. There’s lots going on at the moment. It’s only a few months until graduation and there are so many assignments to finish.”
“You work so hard. You’ll do it, I know you will.”
Brooke blinked a couple of times. Where had this cheerleader mom been all her life?
“I hope so. And then there’s Nick’s extracurricular activities, and the shelter. I keep telling myself it will all be easier once I graduate. I’ll only have one job to manage then, plus Nick.”
“And you’ve been over to the Silver Sands Resort, too, haven’t you?” Lillian pushed her half-finished salad away, clearly done with it. “Sally Mayweather said you were there. Fred told her.”
Any appetite Brooke had dissolved with her mother’s question. She should have known the word would spread in a little over a millisecond – this was Angel Sands, after all, not some metropolis. Funny how she used to love knowing everybody when she was a kid. But now the town was up in her business, and it felt as though the walls were closing in on her.
“What else did she say?” Brooke asked. Did her mom have any idea that Aiden was back?
The server came to clear away their plates. The two women waited silently as he stacked the half-eaten entrees in his arms, nodding when he asked them if they wanted the dessert menu.
“Not very much,” Lilian said as soon as he’d left, balancing the dishes precariously as he walked. “Something about a stray dog. I have to admit I tuned out after that.” Lillian laughed. “You know about me and animals.”
“Did she tell you about Aiden?” Brooke blurted out. As soon as the words escaped she wanted to cover her mouth with her hand. What was she thinking?
“Aiden who?” It still hadn’t sunk in. Her mother waved at a couple in the corner, a smile arching her painted lips. Lifting her hand into a strange impression of a telephone – thumb and little finger stretched out, she mouthed something about calling them next week.
Brooke considered changing the subject. Her mom was too preoccupied by whoever was in the corner to pay her any attention. She should take advantage of her distraction and end this before it started. Talk about Nick or her father, or even tonight’s dinner, anything to get away from the one subject dominating Brooke’s thoughts.
But that was precisely why she wanted to talk about him. She was desperate to. It wasn’t only last night and his reaction that was getting to her, but the fact she actually cared about it. She cared what he thought about her – and that was the most frightening thing of all.
“Aiden Black. Joan’s son.”
Her mom slowly dropped her hand,
the smile on her face dissolving as her eyes widened. It wasn’t often Lilian was silent, but for a moment all Brooke could hear was the low hum of chatter from the diners surrounding them, and the noise of traffic from the street outside. Beneath her perfectly-applied make-up, the color drained from her mom’s face.
“What’s he doing here?” Her voice was a whisper.
“I saw him at the Silver Sands site. He runs the business redeveloping the hotel there.”
“Oh.” Lillian’s hand fluttered to her neck, pulling at the cameo bracelet pinned to her collar. “I didn’t know he was back.” She shook her head as if in answer to a silent question. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
Brooke stared at her for a moment. Yes, the Blacks had left town in a hurry, but it didn’t explain why her mom had turned so pale. Lillian lifted her glass and took a deep mouthful of water, closing her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them she seemed almost back to normal. The shocked expression was gone, replaced by her usual poise.
“Did you know Joan died?” Brooke asked her. “From cancer.”
“That’s very sad,” her mom said evenly.
“Yes it is.” Brooke was vehement. “Really sad. How long was she with us? Sixteen years or more? And we weren’t even there to pay our respects.”
“We hadn’t seen her for years.” Lillian kept her voice even. “And she wasn’t a friend, she was staff. She wouldn’t have expected us to be there.”
Her mother’s cool dismissal of a woman who’d meant so much to Brooke growing up rankled her. “She was more than staff,” Brooke told her. “She was a friend. Practically family. She was the one who got me dressed in the morning, the one who took me to and from school.”
“Because that’s what we paid her to do,” Lillian pointed out. “I worry about you, Brooke. You have no idea what it takes to run a home or manage staff. When you do move into your own place, you’ll need to learn very fast. Otherwise people will end up walking all over you.”
The server arrived again, passing them each a leather bound dessert menu. Brooke took it gratefully, desperate to see the end of this conversation. She should have known talking about this with her mom would end up in them both feeling frustrated.
Lesson learned, she told herself as she opened the menu, taking in the sugary options printed on the page. Trying to talk to her mom about Aiden was a stupid idea. She wouldn’t do it again.
9
“How much is this costing us?” Robert Carter asked, as he and Aiden watched the construction team moving the red Spanish tiles from the pallets they’d arrived in to the bungalows they were working on. “Twenty men, eight hours, all at double time.” He winced. “Have you heard back from the suppliers?”
“They’re willing to pay half the overtime,” Aiden told him. “We’ll have to cover the rest.
At seventy-five, Robert Carter was still as strong as an ox, and his sharp brain missed nothing. When Aiden first met him he’d found him as intimidating as hell. But Old Man Carter had seen something in Aiden which caught his interest – maybe the fact they were both born dirt poor and weren’t planning to stay that way. Whatever it was, eight years of working together had taught Aiden that his boss’s bark was way worse than his bite.
“Daylight robbery,” Robert muttered, taking a tile and turning it, checking out the finish. “Still, they’ve got us over a barrel. What choice do we have?”
“We still have the contingency,” Aiden said, his voice reassuring. “We’ve budgeted for problems like this.”
“The contingency isn’t bottomless. We’re less than a year into the project, we shouldn’t need it yet.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow. He’d heard this lecture before, about a hundred or more times. “I’ll go over the schedule, see where we can make some savings.”
Robert turned to him. “You do that. And now you can tell me what’s really on your mind; you’ve been distracted all morning.” He looked around the site. His visit had always been planned, though neither of them had thought there would be any construction happening on that Saturday morning. He might have been head of the company, but Robert still liked keeping an eye on every project, driving down from LA early that morning to check out the Silver Sands Resort.
You could sum up in two words what was bothering Aiden. Angel Sands. It was that simple, wasn’t it? And that was complicated, too. Because it was more than the town or the people who lived in it. It was him, and the emotions he’d been burying for years. The unfamiliar feelings rising to the surface.
And it was her, too.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come back,” he said, turning to look at the man beside him. “There are too many bad memories here. I thought I could deal with them but…” Aiden shrugged. “I don’t want my personal life to stop me from bringing my A game to this project. You gave me a job when nobody else would, you put your trust in me when everybody else thought I was a punk. I don’t want to let you down.”
“Your personal life, eh?” Robert pursed his lips. “And what personal life would that be? Last I heard you were married to this job.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does. Because it matters to you. I can see that. And that means it matters to me. I’m not only your boss, I’m your friend. At least, I’d like to think I am. So what gives?”
Aiden picked up his coffee. It was lukewarm. “It’s not what’s the problem, it’s who.”
“Now this sounds interesting.”
“Remember the girl I told you about? The one I left behind?”
“The one whose dad threw you out?” Robert asked. “Yeah, I remember.” Realization crossed his face. “Is she still here? Have you seen her?”
“I’ve seen her three times in a little over a week,” Aiden said. “I told you Angel Sands was small, but even I didn’t know it was that small.”
“And you want to leave because of that?” Robert shook his head. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”
Aiden laughed, though the sound was hard. “No, not because of that. I can handle her. It’s the rest of it I can’t manage.” He took a deep breath, blowing the air out in a single burst. “She has a son, an eight year old son. It turns out he’s my nephew.”
“Whoa.” Robert rocked back on his boots, folding his arms across his chest. “I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Neither was I.”
Robert cleared his throat. “So Jamie is the father?”
“Yeah.”
“And this is the girl you loved back when you were a kid?”
“Yep.”
It was Robert’s turn to take in a big mouthful of air. He was quiet for a moment, staring into space. Shaking his head, he chuckled. “Jesus, we weave a tangled web, don’t we? No wonder you’re all messed up.”
“Are you worried about my performance on the project?” Aiden asked him. “I’d understand if you were.”
Slowly, Robert shook his head. “No. I trust you to keep your private life separate from your work. Anyway, now you have family here. Isn’t that something you’ve been missing ever since your mom died? You should stay here and get to know your nephew. He’s your flesh and blood, after all.”
Robert’s words stopped him short. Flesh and blood. Strange how that hadn’t even occurred to him; he was so busy getting crazy over the thought of Brooke and Jamie, he hadn’t even bothered to think about his own connection to Nick.
Aiden closed his eyes, picturing the way the kid had looked when they met at Lucas and Ember’s house. His dark hair, his curious eyes. The perfect mixture of Black and Newton. His nephew had Brooke’s goofy smile, and the same line of freckles across the bridge of his nose, but his hair and eyes came from the Black side of his family.
“I guess he is,” Aiden said, opening his eyes and looking at Robert. The old man was staring at him.
“What would your mom want you to do?” Robert asked. “Would she want you to walk away, or would she want you to get to know him?
To take care of him?”
She’d always said family came first. Wasn’t that why they all left Angel Sands together? Even when Jamie’s activities turned obviously illegal, she still held out hope that one day her prodigal would return home.
“She’d want me to get to know him.”
“And how about you?” Robert asked. “What do you think you should do?”
Aiden tipped his head, thinking about his boss’s question. When he’d imagined his return to Angel Sands, he’d always seen it as some kind of redemption. The local kid from the bad side of the tracks come good. He wanted to show them all – the doubters, the rich kids, the ones who’d shouted out insults as they’d driven past in the brand new cars their parents had bought them. They’d been kids, but now he was a man. He wasn’t going to take any shit. Not any more.
He lifted his head and looked Robert Carter straight in the eye. “I want to stay,” he said firmly. “And get to know my nephew. But first of all I need to get back to work.”
Martin Newton was a man who commanded everybody’s attention simply by walking into the room. His once blonde hair may have turned into an impressive full head of white that contrasted against his deeply tan skin, but he carried himself as though he was closer to thirty-years-old rather than sixty. Brooke watched as he dominated the dinner party conversation, his voice loud enough to be heard across the twelve foot table, his eyes constantly scanning the guests to make sure they were listening to what he had to say.
As a child she’d thought he was a superhero, the same way Nick did now. He lapped up the attention of children the way a cat licked up cream, always with a big smile on his face. It was in her teenage years when things started to sour – when she tried to assert her own opinions, and make her own decisions. As long as she went along with his wishes, she was fine. But if she went against them?
Well, she ended up here. And wasn’t that a bitter pill to swallow?
“Your father’s on good form tonight,” the man next to her whispered, lifting his coffee cup to his mouth. “Where the hell does he get his energy?”