Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel (30 page)

Chapter 24—Dylan

Truth be told, I was kind of relieved to be excused from modern art duty. It wasn’t my favorite. I found a lot of it to be something I could easily copy. That was something I couldn’t say about Renoir, Van Gogh or Degas. I’d gotten in arguments in college with people who tried to impress on me that it was the originality of someone like Jackson Pollack that gave his work value. Thanks, but dribbling paint on a gigantic canvas was still dribbling paint. Any child could do it.

“That’s perfect,” I told Rene. “I’ll be much better able to focus on the meeting if I know you’re somewhere having a good time.”

Rene insisted on changing her clothes before we went to dinner. The simple polished outfit she’d worn to the spa didn’t strike her as ‘fancy’ enough for dinner at Esca.

“I’m not going to show up at Mario Batali’s dressed
down
for dinner,” she told me after I had explained that it was one of the orange-clogged chef’s best joints in New York.

“Darling, Mario himself isn’t likely to be there. He’s got an empire to run.”

“You don’t quite know when I’m making a joke yet, do you?”

I really didn’t. She’d sounded serious to me. “I have a lot left to learn about you.” Rene turned her back so I could zip the little confection of a dress she had chosen. I ran my finger against her spine before I closed it. “And, I am going to spend a lot of time learning everything there is to know.”

She’d chosen a dark cream colored dress that had just the right amount of plunge in the front to show off her assets. Rene’s figure was petite and generous at the same time. Her necklace hung perfectly in the V of the garment and it showcased the jewels nicely against her skin. She’d chosen some strappy rose-gold sandals that had heels so high I wondered how she was going to walk in them. She saw the concern on my face as I watched her fasten the delicate straps around her ankles.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m going to have to hang on to you for dear life or risk a broken leg.”

“You are welcome to hang on me all you want.”

“They’ll take some getting used to.” She twirled around on her toes. “But aren’t they perfect? The whole outfit looks like it was made for my necklace.”

“We did very well at Bloomies. I’ll have to get you more jewelry. I can’t have you matching everything to that one piece.”

She kissed me sweetly and softly enough so that she didn’t smear her lipstick. “Look how much taller I am. It’s much easier to reach your mouth.”

She’d taken extra care getting ready and the result was fabulous. I was so used to seeing her in the most casual clothes sans make-up that the little touches she applied were quite dazzling. Her beautiful eyes were even more intense with the lashes darkened by mascara. Her lips seemed just a little bit more luscious slicked with a subtle blush of rose pink.

“I don’t want you to think that you ever
have
to wear make-up,” I told her. “But you do look positively stunning tonight, love.”

“I feel so ‘girly’. It’s kind of fun.” She giggled and rolled her shoulders.

“I’ve never seen your hair like that either.” I think it was Stephen who told me that chicks love to hear that you like their hair. That’s not why I said it, but I remembered his advice when I told her the style was very pretty. It was braided down one shoulder in an unusual way.

“It’s called a fish-tail. I thought it might appeal to my champion angler.”

“I don’t know how much of a champion I am going to be from here on out. It may be a while before I want to get behind a rod and reel.”

“You’re my champion. That’s what counts. Anyhow, you’ll get back on the horse—or behind the fish. You’re a real fighter, Dylan. I can’t believe how well you’ve come through your whole ordeal. The accident, your father’s death, the wreck. Any one of those events would be catastrophic to most men.”

“Most men haven’t lived through a childhood of catastrophe. It toughens the spirit.” I grabbed my new blazer and steered her toward the door. That was as far as I wanted to take that thought on our first night out on the town.

Esca was crowded and I was glad I had thought to have the concierge at the hotel call ahead and arrange a tasting menu for us. I wanted the evening to be memorable. In a way, I felt like this was truly our beginning.

Mario didn’t disappoint us. We began with
crudo.
Turns out Rene was as big a fan of raw fish, too. The Italian sushi was served with a fine
prosecco
.

“I love the way the bubbles tickle.” Rene smiled across the simply laid table and sipped her wine. She looked serene bathed in the soft and mellow light in the dining room. The wall of wine bottles behind her caught the flicker of the candles much like her subtle diamonds.

“I’ll be tickling you even better later,” I promised her. She reached under the tablecloth and ran her hand suggestively up my leg. Even her lightest touch was enough to set me on fire.

“Ooooh! Look what we have here.” She made the remark when the waiter set down the plate of
buratta
. It was a deliberate tease. I couldn’t tell if she was exclaiming over the grilled escarole or my growing reaction to her below.

I took her hand and put it back up on the table. “My sweet, you won’t make it through our two-hour meal if you don’t leave the Major alone.”

She pretend pouted and told me she was just looking for a nice sausage to compliment all the seafood on our menu. “You,” I told her, “are positively shameless.”

We teased and talked and teased and talked. I had learned that Rene was easy to be with early on. Talking to her was, for the most part, effortless. Unless she chose to pick at my scabs, I never wanted our conversations to end.

I was mellow enough by dessert to actually
want
to talk about my sister when Rene brought her up. I surprised myself. I even gave her an opening by musing that I sure hoped the new law firm was as competent as my old friend seemed to think they were.

“So, are you going to ask the lawyers about the awful ‘Dawn’ clause?” she asked.

“I may just let them do the talking,” I answered.  “I want to leave it open ended at first. Don’t want to tip my hand.”

“Let them tell you what they think your options are?”

“Exactly.”

“What was she like?” Rene asked as she pushed the last bits of her dinner around the plate, not looking at me.

“Well, I only knew her as a child caught in the same vicious circumstance as I was in. It’s hard to say ‘what she was like’. I remember that she was a lot kinder to my parents than I was. She seemed to grasp intuitively that our mother was sick. I think at times she even felt sorry for her.”

“It would be very hard for a little girl to truly hate her mother.”

“I’ve always thought that Dawn didn’t really know how to hate anyone. Because if she couldn’t hate Francesca Cruz, she was pretty much incapable of that emotion.” I thought about how sweet my sister had always been and wondered if she had managed to retain that quality into adulthood. “It’s really strange to think about her being an adult. In my mind, she’s frozen in time—a ten year old girls with big blue eyes and little elf ears.”

“Elf ears?”

I laughed. “You know how kids’ ears often stick out a little? Hers were pointed at the tops. Like an elf. Not like Mr. Spock, just the tiniest bit. I used to tease her about it and make her cry.”

“You were really close. I envy you that.”

“Don’t envy me anything about my childhood. Trust me.”

“I don’t envy you your childhood. I know it was hideous. What I envy is that you have a sister. I’m it in my family. I don’t even have a cousin Phoebe. My parents were also both only children.”

“So, you come from a legacy of ‘lonely children’?”

She gave me a rueful little grin. “You remembered. Yep. A legacy. I guess my parents figured they survived being ‘lonelies’ and so would I.”

“Human beings have a way of surviving almost anything. God knows the world can sure hurl some heavy stuff at us.”

“I don’t think my parents meant any harm. It just wasn’t in them to have a house full of kids. Way too messy. One they could control.”

“So, I guess we both have our reasons for wanting the chaos of a big family. We both got there by different roads, but they arrived at the same point.”

“I guess Dawn was too little to think about the future?”

Back to my sister. Rene sure could bring a conversation back to where she wanted it to go. But, hell, it was harmless enough. “Actually, she always said she wanted to be a nurse. Doesn’t every little girl?”

“Not this little girl. I like my blood strictly coming from dead animals.”

“Sorry I put you through all that. I mean the fish attack and all.”

“Oh no, Dylan! I didn’t mean anything by that remark. It was fine. Well, not fine. But I took care of you willingly. No one forced me.”

Dessert came and we hardly had room to spare for the sweets. But we managed to find a small place in our full stomachs. The meal had been superbly planned and executed. We were full, but not uncomfortably so. The slow pace gave us time to enjoy, savor and digest.

We walked a few blocks, hand in hand. New York seemed as alive at ten at night as it did at ten in the morning.

“It’s an exciting city, but I don’t think I’d want to live here,” I remarked.

“I’ve always had an urge to live where there are lots of trees. Big trees like oaks. I’m kind of over Florida’s palm trees.” She stopped and turned toward me. “Where do you think you want to land, Dylan?”

“That’s a big question mark. I’d like to be near the sea. It’s part of me. But I have to agree that there has to be a more natural, soothing place to live than Ft. Liquordale.”

“We don’t have to decide now. It can wait.”

“There are still a lot of questions. You realize that we can live in more than one place, don’t you?”

“It’s hard to imagine, but yes, I guess on some level I do realize it. I’m still wrapping my mind around your fortune.”

“Trust me,” I assured her, “so am I. I’m anxious to find out what the lawyers have to say. Spencer implied that he expected me to take over the hotel business. I didn’t read that in the will.”

“No?”

“I might have missed it. But . . . well, I haven’t mentioned this to you. I don’t think I want the business.”

“No,” she said very slowly, “you haven’t mentioned it. If you don’t want it, what happens?”

“It can be sold.”

“What about your sister? Doesn’t she own half of it?”

“I presume she does. That’s one of the things I have to find out. If she owns half, I want to know if I can still sell my half.”

“But why not just let it run itself? You take your profits and do what you want with them.”

“Because, Rene, maybe I want to do big things. Big things require big money.”

Chapter 25—Rene

Dylan’s plan to use his father’s fortune to save the ocean seemed a bit preposterous to me. I understood the concept and I understood that his heart was in the right place but it didn’t seem practical or well thought out.

As he explained it, the seas were in such dire trouble it would take a lot more funds than any one man, maybe any one government, could bring to bear. I had heard of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ but it was one of those things too vast for me to even ponder. I did what little I could for the environment. I recycled, tried to stick to biodegradable packaging, and drove a fuel efficient car— that kind of thing. But the concept of one person making any measurable difference seemed pretty far-fetched.

I applauded his dream, though, and let the discussion turn to other things as we meandered back to the hotel. Selfish I may have been, but the other things were more important to me than millions of square miles of plastic floating thousands of miles away.

Sated by outstanding food and stimulated by eight courses worth of wine my head was firmly wrapped around getting my honey between the sheets. I needed the reassurance of his body before I went off on my mission in the morning. I felt sneaky and I knew it was wrong. Making love to him would be a way of reassuring myself that everything was alright before I went off and stalked his sister without his knowledge.

When he had me horizontal and started to whisper seductive, loving things in my ear, I had second thoughts about everything I intended to do the next day. He deserved to know that I found out where his sister was. But even revealing that to him would mean admitting I had poked around in his email and read what I could of the will.  I was pretty sure that wouldn’t fly too well with Dylan.

“I’m sorry, hon. Maybe I ate too much or drank too much.” I snuggled against him.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he responded kindly, making me feel even worse.  Maybe you’re just whacked out from jet lag.”

I kissed the chest under my cheek and traced the dark hook tattoo. At that moment I didn’t feel deserving of much of anything, especially the love and trust of the wonderful man who just did everything he could to please me. In fact, I felt like a traitor.

When morning came, my mood hadn’t improved. Dylan tried to make up for what we didn’t get to last night. But I asked him to just let me have a good cuddle. I promised I’d be myself again very soon. I rationalized that maybe I’d have some wonderful news for him when we met up in the afternoon. I hope it was wonderful enough to make him forget that I was deceiving him to find it out.

The timing was perfect. I planned to take a taxi to the museum, grab an expensive guide to the exhibits in the gift shop and hop a train to Stamford. While we were surfing on our respective computers that morning I had found out that the MoMa opened at ten-thirty. The metro north rail would have me in Stamford a little after Dylan started his meeting with the lawyers. I’d have to do my stalking fast, but I had at least a few hours.

It wasn’t just being nosy or idle curiosity that made me go behind Dylan’s back. On the train ride up to Connecticut I rationalized several new reasons why it was really okay to conduct my little investigation. I might find out something useful that could help him make a decision about his sister. He hadn’t entirely dropped the possibility of taking the great risk of finding her. If the lawyers told him the will was air-tight the knowledge that she was safe and happy might make the waiting easier.

By the time I reached the nursing school at Sacred Heart I had done a great job convincing myself that I was doing the right thing. I was kind of enjoying my role as sleuth. Maybe I’d missed my calling and should have been a private eye.

No one paid any attention to me. I looked very much like I belonged among the predominantly female students milling around halls. The fall term wasn’t in session, but there were still a respectable number of students in the building. Plenty of college kids go year round.

I stopped a plump redhead dressed in bright purple scrubs and asked her where I might find a map of the school and perhaps a student directory.

“You can probably find a map in the Healthcare Resource room. Our library. Down that hall at the end.” She pointed to her right. “I don’t know if you can get a directory. I think it’s only on line. You have to log in for access.”

That made sense, of course. No one in their right mind would freely hand out phone numbers or locations of college students. Not with all the weirdoes out there.

I made a pass around the ‘library’ which was not much more than two rooms, a couple of couches and a bunch of reference books. A young guy was able to point me to a diagram of the buildings associated with the Health Sciences complex. That didn’t do much good. Unless I knew where Dawn was living or what classes she was taking there wasn’t much hope of finding her.

My stomach was starting to grumble so I headed over to the lunch room in the center of the complex. It was a pretty campus full of plenty of green spaces, big trees and ivy-adorned brick buildings. In the distance I saw the spire of a modern church rising above the lower buildings. As I walked toward the cafeteria, the brass bells suspended from the concrete cross beams that made up the steeple began to toll the hour.

The lunch room was hopping. It must have been packed to the max when school was in full swing. I went through the ‘hot’ line mainly out of curiosity and not expecting much. It was the least popular venue in the cavernous room. Pizzas, a salad bar, sandwich counter and what looked like an Asian service were more appealing stations to most of the students. They all had lines, but I didn’t have to wait at all. I picked up a bowl of chili that looked pretty edible and got a premade salad at the register.

I picked a table for six already occupied by three girls and a guy. All the big tables had at least two people sitting at them, so eating alone wasn’t an option. “Mind if I join you?”

The guy looked up from texting long enough to nod. The girls’ eyes never left their phones.

I took a few bites of my not-too-shabby chili and tried to catch someone’s eye. But not one of them looked up from their devices.

“Excuse me,” I finally ventured, “I’m going to be transferring here in the fall and was hoping to connect with an old friend of mine who’s just graduated.”

One of the girls laughed. “If she’s just graduated, why the hell would she stick around here?”

Good point. And I was going to sound real flaky if I tried to pretend I had a ‘friend’ but didn’t have a phone number, email or FB contact. I needed a more plausible lie. “No, she told me she’d be here but I didn’t know I was going to get up this way so soon from the city. I thought I’d surprise her.” Still pretty lame, but none of them jumped up to call campus police. “Her name’s Dawn Cr—Dawn Jackson.”

One of the girls looked up from her phone. “Dawn was in my simulation lab last semester. She’s taking a couple grad courses this summer. I don’t know which ones. But she usually eats in here every day. I haven’t seen her yet today, have you, Beth?”

“Nah. Just wait here. She’s bound to show up soon,” said another girl as she balled up the wrapper from her sandwich and stood. “You coming, Tara?”

Tara and Beth left me with the other two nameless students who followed shortly. One of them said, “What’s your name? If I see Dawn I tell her you’re looking for her.”

“Uh, thanks,” I mumbled, “but I really would like to surprise her. I’ll just wait around for a bit.” The girl just shrugged and left with the guy who was still glued to his phone. I watched them walk away marveling at the guy’s ability to walk and text like that. I’m just not that coordinated. I’d be face first in a fountain and be YouTube’s next viral video

The lunch crowd thinned out quite a bit over the next hour. I checked my phone; it was just a few minutes after one. I’d give it another fifteen minutes before I gave up. Maybe I’d wander campus afterwards but I felt I needed to be back in Manhattan by three-ish. Dylan’s meeting would undoubtedly be over by then and the last thing I wanted him to do was call and offer to meet me at the MoMa.

I was crunching the last bit of ice from my cup when Dawn Cruz came through the lunchroom’s double doors. She was alone and went straight to the Asian station. I watched her back as she waited while the guy behind the station threw ingredients in an electric wok and stir-fried her lunch.

Dawn was at least five ten, possibly five eleven. She had a slim figure, not too generous in the hips. Even with the modest denim skirt she had on I could see that her legs were killer. She had chocolate brown hair that had been generously streaked with blond. It looked good on her and swung in healthy waves just above her shoulders.

She turned and I studied what Dylan would look like if he was a girl. Her face was more or less perfect. Even across the room I could see those stunning cobalt eyes that captivated me so in her brother’s face. Her nose was a little thinner than Dylan’s, but still regal and straight. Her jaw was strong in a feminine way and her high cheekbones were positively model worthy.

Like her brother, she moved gracefully. Naturally choreographing her transit to a table near the windows, she managed to get most of the phone-stuck faces, male and female, to look up. Yes, she was
that
striking.

I was suddenly very nervous. I hadn’t really thought through what I intended to say if I found her. I’d been all caught up in the thrill of playing detective. Now the heat was on. I walked past her on my way to refill my drink. On my way back I took a good look at her as she ate her veggies and brown rice with one hand and tapped on her tablet with the other.

Not wanting to interrupt her lunch, I took my drink outside and waited on the steps to catch her when she left the building. She must have wolfed down her meal, because I didn’t have to wait long.

“Dawn Jackson?” I asked when she passed the step I was sitting on. I figured I’d use the name she went by.

“Yes?”

I stood up and offered my hand. “I’m Rene Waters. I’m a friend of your brother Dylan.”

She just stared silently at me for a moment. “My brother’s been dead for more than fifteen years,” she said without emotion.

“No, he’s very much alive.”

Dawn sat down on the step and I sat next to her. “Does this have something to do with my father’s death? What are you after? My brother died. My father told me so. If my brother was alive, don’t you think he would have told me by now?”

“I can’t tell you that. You’re parents are too strange for me to figure out. I can tell you that up until your father’s attorney revealed that you were alive, Dylan thought you were dead too.”

“Is this some kind of joke? What do you know about my parents? Who the hell are you?”

“I told you, I’m your brother’s friend. Well, more than friend actually. Dylan and I are in love.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. I suspect it’s some scam related to the bizarre will Spencer told me about.”

“It can’t be the one that Dylan knows about. If Spencer had told you about
that
will then you’d
know
your brother is alive. Because Dylan’s version of the will orders him to keep away from
you
for three years or risk both of you losing the inheritance.”

Dawn looked a lot more interested and a lot less skeptical when I explained how her brother had thought that she was dead just as she now thought he was dead.

“Spencer told me I had to keep quiet about the fortune and my real name for three years! But he didn’t say anything about Dylan.” She knit her brows and narrowed her eyes. “Why should I believe you? You could be making up some bizarre tale about my brother for . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Okay, I’ll prove I know your brother. Elf ears.”

I didn’t have to wait long for her expression to change from skepticism to joy. Her lips quivered and tears poured out of the corners of her pretty blue eyes. She put her face in her hands and cried loudly. “No one would know that. Not a living soul. I can’t believe he’s alive!” She jumped to her feet and pulled me to mine. “Let’s go. I want to see him. Now!”

“Not so fast. I told you that your father’s will expressly forbids contact with your brother for three years. You’re risking a pretty huge fortune if you act impulsively.”

“But the version of my father’s will that
I
was given only demands that I live as I have been—as Dawn Jackson—for three years time and not reveal my identity or my inheritance.”

“Were you sent an actual copy of the will or did Spencer simply tell you about it?”

“Spencer called me with the news of my father’s death. A few days later I got an email with a rendering of the will that Spencer told me was ‘in layman’s terms’. Later he phoned me and explained it all to me.”

“I smell something funky in all this. There can’t be two versions of the will. And why would your father structure it so that Dylan was told you were alive, but not vice-versa? The structure of ‘your’ will is designed to keep you incognito.”

“How much do you know about my family?”

“A lot. Dylan told me the story.”

“He told you? Everything?”

“Not every detail, but he told me about the medical abuse. Munchausen’s by proxy.”