Harvest Moon (13 page)

R
egina walked onto the tarmac of the private airstrip at the Mexico City airport, smiling broadly when she saw her father alight from the sleek corporate jet. He had come to take her back.

Racing into his outstretched arms, she flung herself against his solid body, reveling in his protective embrace. “Daddy, Daddy,” she murmured over and over as she placed tiny kisses on his chin and jaw.

Martin Cole tightened his grip on his daughter’s narrow waist, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her up the steps into the jet. He struggled to control his own emotions when he realized he finally was going to get his firstborn back after a ten-year absence. She was only twenty-seven, but it seemed as if they had been separated more than they had been together.

She had called him crying uncontrollably at 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time, begging him to come and get her. He couldn’t understand her need to leave Mexico at that time, when the ColeDiz pilot
was scheduled to meet her later that afternoon. He called the pilot, apologizing profusely for waking the man, then called the airstrip to have the jet fueled and ready for their departure within the hour.

They were now seated and belted inside the luxury aircraft. The pilot’s voice came through the speakers. “Mr. Cole, I’ve been cleared for takeoff.”

Regina held her father’s hand, sharing a dimpled smile with him. A casually dressed Martin Cole was breathtakingly handsome at fifty-seven. His close-cropped curly hair was a luminous silver, complementing his sun-browned, olive skin. Perusing his features reminded her that she was truly her father’s child, because she had inherited his coloring, dimpled smile, curly hair, large dark eyes, sweeping black eyebrows, high cheekbones, thin delicate nose, and full sensual mouth. Her father was in the full throes of middle age, claiming a network of attractive lines at the corners of his expressive eyes whenever he smiled.

Shifting an eyebrow, he stared at her. “Why the nine-one-one phone call in the middle of the night, Cupcake?”

Pressing her head back against the plush seat, she closed her eyes. “The closer I came to leaving the more I panicked.”

What she did not say was that if she had not left when she did, she would not have returned to Florida as promised. Her dependence on Aaron had grown so that she feared not being able to leave him.

“Are you saying you did not want to leave Mexico?”

She hesitated, holding her breath as the plane taxied down the runway before increasing its speed for a liftoff. “Is it ever easy to leave home?”

Martin frowned. “Florida is your home.”

She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Florida
was
my home, Daddy. Why do you find it so difficult to accept that I’m an adult now? I was a wife for eight years, and ran my own household in a country I had come to regard as home.”

Martin bit back the sharp retort poised on his tongue, leaning over and kissing her forehead. His daughter had experienced what most women twice her age hadn’t had to undergo—caring for a sick, elderly husband. She was back, and he did not want to do or say anything that would force her to leave—at least, not for a while. He wanted to hold on to her, knowing instinctively that even though Regina had decided to return to Florida her stay would not be a permanent one.

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep? You’re going to need it, because I doubt whether you’ll get much once everyone realizes you’re back.”

She closed her eyes, but did not sleep. She did not know why it had taken her ten years to realize home was not a country or a structure, but the people you loved. She loved her family, Oscar, and she had also fallen in love with Aaron.

Aaron was everything his father had been—gentle, considerate, protective, and more. The more was the passion he offered her—a passion that transported her beyond herself, where she felt free to exist without her childhood fears tormenting her.

A wry smile touched her mouth. She would wait until the new year, then travel to Bahia in time for Carnival.

Regina felt a swell of emotion fill her chest at the same time her father maneuvered his favored Jaguar sports coupe into the circular driveway of the sprawling Fort Lauderdale structure that claimed the Atlantic Ocean as its backyard.

She was out of the car before he turned off the ignition, rushing to the entrance to meet her younger sister. Arianna had grown at least another inch since she last saw her. Her parents, brother, and sister had come to visit her in Mexico for her twenty-seventh birthday in July, and while it hadn’t been three months, the change in Arianna was startling. It was as if she had grown up overnight.

“Ari! Baby sister,” Regina whispered, hugging her tightly and kissing her cheek.

Arianna sobbed softly, clinging to Regina as if she were her lifeline. “If you go away and leave me again, I’ll kill myself.”

Pulling back, Regina examined her sister’s pained expression. Fourteen-year-old Arianna had inherited her parents’ best features: towering height, slimness, rich, deep, golden-brown coloring, her mother’s green-flecked brown eyes and her mouth, and her father’s curly black hair, which she wore in a flattering short style. At five-eight, she hinted of a sensuality which was certain to short-circuit any teenage boy’s nervous system.

“I don’t want to hear you talk about killing yourself,” she admonished softly. “I just buried my husband, Ari. I came back here to reconnect with my family, not bury my only sister.”

Arianna nodded quickly, forcing a tearful s mile. “I’m sorry.”

“Where’re Mommy and Tyler?”

“Tyler went out for a little while, and Mommy’s in the house.”

Martin Cole walked up to his daughters, his dark eyes shining with pride and happiness. He extended his arms at his sides. “May I escort my lovely princesses into the castle?”

Regina went completely still, staring at her father.
Princesa
. That was what Aaron had called her. She was thousands of miles from him, and still he haunted her.

“Is there something wrong?” Martin questioned.

Shaking her head quickly, she flashed a smile. “No. Not at all.” Looping her arm through her father’s, she walked into the home filled with both good and bad memories.

Parris Simmons-Cole lay on a chaise beside Regina, holding her hand tightly as they stared at the foam-flecked incoming tide. It had been a long time since she had all of her children together at the same time.

“You’ve aged me, Angel.”

Regina stared at her mother, her mouth gaping. “You look beautiful. No one would take you for fifty.”

And they wouldn’t. Her mother’s hair had grayed considerably, but her hair stylist had lightened some of the remaining dark brown strands, so the overall effect was that of a frosted look. Her flawless skin was smooth and completely wrinkle-free, and five years ago she had begun an intense exercise regimen that kept her slender body well-toned.

Parris closed her eyes behind her oversize sunglasses. “I’m not talking about how I look. It’s how I feel. I’ve never hidden anything from you, so you know what I had to go through just to bring you into the world. Then I lost you for six days, and when I got you back I swore to myself that I would never let you go. But I had to let you go, or I would’ve spent the rest of my life hating myself if you did not fulfill your dream. It’s not easy for a mother to let her firstborn go—especially since you were so young.”

Squeezing her mother’s fingers, Regina smiled at her. “But everything worked out, didn’t it?”

Opening her eyes, Parris smiled and nodded. “Yes, it did. You made me very proud of you.”

A shadow blocked out the strong rays of the early fall sun, and Regina glanced up to find her brother standing over her. She sat up quickly, offering him her hand. He pulled her up in one strong, swift motion.

“Tyler!”

Curving his arms around her waist, he picked her up, holding her aloft effortlessly, then released her. “Welcome home, Sis.” He kissed her soundly on her mouth.

Staring at her brother, Regina’s eyes were filled with pride as she visually examined Tyler Cole. At seventeen, he was as tall as his father, but claimed a lankiness that made him appear more delicate than he actually was. He flashed a rare smile, his dark
eyes too serious for someone so young. He, too, had changed since she last saw him. She ran a hand over his head, feeling the stubble against her palm.

“What did you do, shave your head?”

He nodded. “I joined the swim team at school.”

Regina wagged her head in amazement. “I don’t believe it. The Coles have two swimmers in the family.”

Tyler ducked his head, staring at his shoes. “Arianna swims to compete. I’ve starting swimming to build up muscle. I feel uncomfortable working out in a gym, so I felt swimming was the next best thing.”

His head came up, and he stared down at his older sister. Taking her arm, he led her down to the beach and out of range of their mother’s hearing.

“How long are you going to hang around this time?”

“Tyler!” she whispered.

“Answer my question, Regina.”

“I can’t, because I don’t know.”

“You can’t imagine what Arianna and I have had to go through the past ten years.”

Her body stiffened in shock. “What are you talking about?”

“Mom and Dad have us on lockdown. They’ve tightened the reins so much that we feel like we’re under house arrest. They lost you and—”

“They didn’t lose me,” she countered angrily. “I graduated and I moved away. You still have another year before you complete high school, and Ari has four.”

“But you were only sixteen,” he argued.

“They could’ve stopped me if they’d wanted to.”

“But they didn’t.”

“So, what’s your beef?”

“My
beef is
that I’m not allowed to apply to colleges out of the state. I want to be a doctor, Regina, and for that I want to go to a college where I can get the best medical training available.
And in case you aren’t aware of it, Meharry, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale don’t have campuses in Florida.”

Resting her hands on her hips, she shifted her eyebrows. “So, you really want a career in medicine?” Tyler nodded. “Have you taken your SATs?”

“I took the PSATs last semester.”

“What were your scores?”

“I managed a combined score of over fifteen hundred.”

She smiled. “My brother, the genius.”

“Uncle Josh is the genius in the family. I just study my butt off, that’s all.”

She sobered quickly. “I had no idea what you and Ari were going through. When you came to Mexico to visit me, why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll talk to Daddy about this. I won’t let him know that I spoke to you. I’ll bring it up casually, and feel him out.”

Tyler gave her a wide smile for the first time. “Will you?”

“Of course. And what does Ari want?”

“She wants to be an Olympic swimmer. She’s fast,” he added quickly. “Very, very fast. Her coach had her try out for a possible spot on the team, and she beat everyone in the one- and two- hundred-meter freestyle competition. You should see her in the four-hundred-meter relay. She’s awesome!”

Curving an arm around her brother’s waist, she rested her head against his shoulder. “Narrow down the college of your choice, then give me a couple of weeks to see what I can do.”

Regina had been in Florida exactly two weeks when she was finally reunited with the entire Cole clan, who had increased appreciably in her absence. Four generations gathered at the family estate in West Palm Beach early one Saturday afternoon.

Her uncle Joshua Kirkland and his wife Vanessa had flown in from Santa Fe, New Mexico, with their son and daughter. Emily
had turned twelve, and Michael was now eight. Both children had inherited their father’s electric green eyes.

Music producer David Cole and his nurse-wife Serena had doubled their family with a set of twins. Ana and Jason, who had celebrated their first birthday on September twenty-third, joined their older brother and sister, eight-year-old Gabriel and six-year-old Alexandra, adding to the never-ending activity going on at their Boca Raton beachfront home.

Her aunts, Nancy Cole-Thomas and Josephine Cole-Wilson, were grandparents, claiming a half-dozen grandchildren between them. Her grandmother, Marguerite Josephine Diaz-Cole, the family matriarch, had managed to maintain her regal beauty at seventy-eight, while M.J.’s husband of nearly sixty years exhibited signs of aging poorly with his declining health. Samuel Claridge Cole was now eighty-five, and most times now was confined to his bed. A debilitating stroke had left him with limited use of his right arm and leg.

Cradling the twins on either hip, Regina walked across the expansive lawn where everyone lounged under a large tent to escape the harmful rays of the intense Florida sunshine.

Emily Kirkland approached her, holding out her arms. “I’ll take one.”

Regina handed her Jason, then cradled Ana to her chest, but the child squirmed uncomfortably in her arms. She smiled at the tiny girl, and much to her surprise Ana returned her smile. She was the image of her father, with the exception of her eyes. Ana, along with all of Serena and David’s children, claimed their mother’s clear brown eyes and their father’s dimpled smile.

“I’ll take her if she’s too heavy for you.”

Turning around, Regina smiled at Serena. “I don’t mind holding her. It’s time this little princess and I became better acquainted with each other.”

“Why don’t you come back to Boca with us tonight, and hang
out for a couple of days? David and I would love to have you,” she added when Regina hesitated.

“You, Uncle David, or Alex?”

Petite Serena Morris-Cole ran a hand through the profusion of short reddish-brown curls sticking to her moist forehead, flashing a knowing smile. She had recently celebrated her thirty-ninth birthday and had given birth to four children, yet could easily pass for someone in her late twenties.

“It’s Alexandra. Ever since she realized her cousin was, as she says, ‘a moo-vee star’ she’s been bugging me to ask you if you would come and tell her about your acting career.”