“What the hell?” Sean skipped the preliminaries as he pulled up the bottom of his sweat-drenched T-shirt and wiped his face with it. “First you ditch me at the reception, then you bail on our run. Luckily, this little berg is easy to navigate. Otherwise I’d be out for your blood. What’s going on with you?”
Daniel shrugged. “It’s Saturday morning. I slept in. Not a big deal.”
“I spent half an hour looking for you last night,” Sean continued, showing no signs of letting it go anytime soon. “You said something about hitting the head and then we were supposed to take off. But you ghosted me. No text. Nothing. I had to hitch a ride with your crazy brother Isaiah.”
“Yeah, well, you made it. Congratulations.”
Sean gaped at him. “The brother hooked up with some woman at the reception. I’m pretty sure she was giving him a hand job while he drove. You think that shit’s easy to ignore when you’re in the backseat?”
Daniel shuddered at the image. “That’s the kind of shit you need to keep to yourself, man.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“My bad. I owe you one.”
“Where were you?”
“I was, ah...”
A plausible lie evaded Daniel, again because of the lack of sleep. Sean narrowed his eyes, craned his neck and cocked his ear at him, waiting for an explanation, but, really. Why bother?
“Look.” Daniel sighed wearily. His head was already spinning from last night’s shocking turn of events. He didn’t need a lecture from Sean right now to make it spin any harder. “I don’t want to get into it. If you’re going to back me into a corner, I’ll make up a lie. Out of respect for you and our friendship. If that’ll make you feel better, fine. Otherwise, let’s don’t and say we did.”
Sudden comprehension dawned across Sean’s face, followed by a disbelieving snort. “Come on. Really?”
“I said I don’t want to get into it,” Daniel said, trying to maintain eye contact and willing the tips of his ears not to turn red.
“Unbelievable,” Sean muttered, shaking his head. “You’re here ten minutes and you can’t self-destruct fast enough over that woman. Just don’t come crying to me when this shit blows up in your face. You’re a big boy. You want to play with fire, knock yourself out. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you—”
“Enough!” Daniel’s temper, fueled as it was by lack of sleep, a slight Scotch hangover and the gut-deep knowledge that Sean was right, took no time at all to ignite. “If I wanted a lecture about my life, I’d head into the kitchen and ask the Emperor his opinion. But since you’re not my father, how about you shut the fuck up?”
As usual, Sean remained unperturbed by the shouting and had no problem telling the truth as he saw it, which was probably why he was Daniel’s best buddy. “Yell all you want. I’m tired of seeing you walk around like a kicked puppy.”
A kicked puppy.
Funny.
That was exactly how Daniel felt on this morning after.
“But, hey.” Sean held his hands up. “None of my business.”
He headed for the converted carriage house, where they’d spent the night in the spare bedrooms.
“You’re not coming for breakfast?” Daniel called after him.
“Nope. You Harpers haven’t seen each other for a while. You need to bond. I already told your mom before my run.”
“Great,” Daniel muttered. Well, this was bad news. He’d counted on Sean’s buffering presence to keep the pending family meal from devolving into the usual threats, recriminations and general chaos. Just because Daniel had been gone was no reason to believe that had changed. God knew they’d had plenty of indigestible meals over the years out on the West Coast, when his parents came out to visit. “What’re you about to do?”
“Some more exploring after my shower,” Sean said. “This is a nice little town. Lots of restaurants and shops and whatnot. I might grab lunch.”
“I’m supposed to meet a real estate agent at Java Nectar at noon. Why don’t you meet me?”
“Deal.”
Sean took off for the carriage house. Daniel headed for the main house.
He kept his head turned, focused on putting one foot in front of the other on the brick path and tried not to see the pool as he skirted it.
It was covered this time of year, with the deck chairs and loungers stacked and hidden beneath a tarp, so that helped.
But he could never breathe very well through this area. The smell of chlorine always overwhelmed him, whether real or imagined, and phantom fear kept him in a stranglehold.
He noticed that his hands were shaking and walked faster, but memories refused to be left behind. As he knew from painful experience.
Fourteen-year-old Daniel kicked as hard as he could, breaking the water’s surface and gasping for air.
“Dad!” he screamed, trying to swim to the ledge. Knowing he’d probably be unable to heft himself out at this rate, much less his sister. “Help me!”
His sneakers had turned to cinder blocks on his feet. His waterlogged jeans seemed determined to return him to the bottom of the pool’s deep end, from whence he’d just come.
And Caroline’s little eight-year-old head dangled at a funny angle over the crook of his elbow, with her braids trailing in the water. One of her beaded hair thingies had fallen off—he could see the bright green balls way down at the bottom and knew she’d be pissed about losing it when she woke up.
“Dad! Where are you?”
“Daniel?”
“Dad! Out here!”
Nigel, in his swimming trunks with a towel slung around his neck, sprinted through the French doors and out to the pool, losing one of his flip flops along the way.
The look on his face—the wide-eyed, twisted, shrieking anguish—scared Daniel worse than anything else had.
And confirmed what he already knew.
The heaving sobs that had been collecting in Daniel’s throat refused to be denied any longer. He hacked and sputtered, crying as he tried to get both the water and the words out of his mouth.
“I yelled at her, Dad! I told her not to horse around on the diving board—”
“Caroline?”
“—but she didn’t listen to me. And I told her she shouldn’t dive when you’re not here, but I was way over there. She didn’t listen, but I told her, Dad!”
“Caroline!”
“I reminded her about the rules, but she didn’t listen, Dad. I told her!”
Nigel, also sobbing now, reached down, lifted Caroline out of Daniel’s arms, cradled her close to his body and rocked her as he feverishly kissed her face. “What did you do, Caroline? What did you do?”
Daniel heaved himself out of the pool and reached for his father’s arm. He wanted to comfort. To be comforted. To make sure his father knew that Daniel had taken his older brother duties very seriously.
“I told her not to, Dad—”
The second Daniel made contact, Nigel jerked away, well out of his reach.
“I was gone for one minute!” Nigel raged, palming Caroline’s head as he looked to the sky. Daniel was never sure whether his father was yelling at him or at God. “I went to use the toilet!”
“I told her, Dad. Now her hair thing is at the bottom of the pool. We’d better get it—”
Nigel looked to Daniel, his face contorted with equal parts fury and bewilderment. “I asked you to watch her,” he said, a long rope of spit falling from his mouth as he cried and yelled. “I expected you to watch her!”
“I tried, Dad!”
“I expected you to watch your sister!”
“I did the best I could, Dad!” Much as his father’s accusation stung, there was a tiny, defiant part of Daniel that railed at the injustice. He was only fourteen! This wasn’t his fault. Caroline never listened when people (especially her brothers) told her what to do. Everyone knew that. Why had his father put him in charge?
A small corner of Daniel’s soul— two percent at most�
�rejected the blame.
The other ninety-eight percent of him knew that his sister would still be alive if it weren’t for him.
“I expected you to—”
“I did the best I could, Dad!”
Stop it, man, Daniel told himself sternly. You don’t have to go there.
He stopped walking. Rubbed his temples and shuddered with the effort of resetting his thoughts and yanking himself out of the darkness. Took a deep breath, making sure it went all the way down to his belly. Then another, and another.
That did it.
With his pulse rate approaching normal again, he continued up the path to the main house, where the comforting smells of his mother’s unbelievable cooking greeted him, bringing him fully back to the present. Bacon. Sausage. Waffles. Coffee. And there were probably Bloody Marys and mimosas. Not quite enough liquor to compensate for the inevitable family tensions, especially with Isaiah around, but enough to take the edge off.
“Morning, Ma.” Daniel went to the kitchen, where his mother was pulling a tray of blueberry muffins out of the oven (score!), and stooped to kiss her. A petite little thing, about Zoya’s size, with salt and pepper hair cut short, Ada Harper looked bright-eyed and ready for the world. “How’d you sleep?”
“Danny Boy!” Beaming at him, she put the muffins down, yanked off the oven mitts and pulled him in for a fierce hug. “It’s so great to have you home! I’m so happy to have so many of my boys with me this weekend! I can’t even—”
“Don’t start crying again,” he said gruffly, turning her loose with a kiss to the top of her head as he grabbed a sausage. “Pace yourself.”
“Wasn’t that the most beautiful wedding?” She dabbed her eyes on the edge of her chef’s apron. “I’ve never seen James so happy.”
“Miranda seems great. Her twins are characters, aren’t they?”
“You have no idea. It’s so good to have little kids around the house again.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said vaguely, his attention snagged by the framed pictures of Caroline on one of the end tables. A mini shrine of a little girl with luminous eyes, a wide smile and long braids with the beaded hair things on the ends. Caroline with her favorite yellow bathing suit. Caroline hugged up to Jake, the family’s long-suffering cocker spaniel. Caroline, forever eight when she should have been there with them for breakfast this morning and for James’s wedding last night.
Ada slid an arm around his waist and squeezed him tight. Daniel cleared his throat. Much as he wanted to offer his mother a reassuring smile, he didn’t trust himself to look her in the face right now without falling apart.
“You okay, Danny Boy?” she asked gently.
He nodded. Pressed his lips together to hold back some of the hot emotion. There were times, like now, when he wondered whether his decision to leave home had as much to do with running away from Caroline as it did with running away from Zoya.
“It’s, ah…” He swallowed. Started again. “It’s hard sometimes. I don’t like the pool.”
“I know.” She rubbed his shoulder. “How do you think I feel?”
“Why did you never move?”
“This is our home,” Ada said simply. “This was her home.”
“I saw Ella at the wedding last night. I was surprised how much she looked like Caroline.”
Ada’s face, predictably, lit up at this mention of her granddaughter. “I know. And that tells me that Caroline’s still with us. Don’t you think?”
There was no good answer to that, but he nodded anyway, turning away from the pictures and, hopefully, the past.
At least long enough to get through breakfast.
“So. Where was I?” His mother took a deep breath and pointed at the spread. “There’s orange juice and fruit over there, and I’m just about to start on the scrambled eggs—”
“Don’t put too much salt in them this time,” boomed an unwelcome new voice. “You know how you like to do.”
“I think I know how to scramble a few eggs, Nigel,” she said tartly.
“I think that’s up for debate, dear.”
Nigel Harper strode in, bringing his mood-killing wet blanket with him, as always. After twenty years in the Army (he’d graduated from West Point, right down the river), followed by thirty years overseeing the family businesses, Harper Rose Bistro and Harper Rose Winery, he no longer believed in casual clothes, relaxing or, evidently, anything that showed the potential for breaking out in fun.
From everything Daniel had seen thus far since his arrival back home, the massive heart attack he’d had a few months back had done nothing to change the Dictator’s personality.
Accordingly, he wore his best Brooks Brothers flannel shirt and wool trousers, all creased and pressed with the precision of a Mars landing, and surveyed the kitchen from the other side of his wireless glasses, looking for things to criticize.
It wouldn’t take him long to find something. It never did.
“Daniel, did you track this leaf into the foyer?” he asked, holding up the offending red maple leaf.
Sure enough.
“Not that I know of,” Daniel said through gritted teeth.
His father regarded him with narrow-eyed suspicion. “You just make sure you wipe your feet.”
“Nigel...” Ada’s anxious gaze shifted between father and son. If she suspected that Daniel was beginning to regret his decision to uproot his California life and come back here to run the winery, she was right.
“I don’t know what goes on out in Napa,” Nigel continued, “but around here, we wipe our feet when we come inside. Don’t you let me down. You know what I expect from you.”
Daniel absorbed this cutting-edge information with annoyance and the familiar sinking feeling in his gut. He was thirty-six freaking years old. Hadn’t he heard a lifetime’s worth of this nonsense already?
“I did the best I could. It’s a leaf,” he said. “Not a pile of elephant dung.”
This rational reminder was met with the glinting eyes and flared nostrils that had no doubt made his father a great major, but made him a royal pain in the ass in all other walks of life where he had to deal with humans who might have their own opinions.
“Are you taking a tone with me, young man?”
“I’m merely pointing out that no actual damage has been done,” Daniel said.
“Who’d like a mimosa?” his mother asked brightly.
They both ignored her.
“I like to keep a clean house,” Nigel said.
“I’m aware of that,” Daniel muttered, selecting a plate. “Everyone who’s ever met you is aware of that. Don’t need the reminder.”
“Apparently, you do.” The Dictator reached for the coffeepot, his color high. “Because you didn’t wipe your feet.”
Daniel clanked his plate back down and squared off. In the entire world, no one could push his buttons like Zoya and the Dictator here, and wasn’t it just his rotten luck to be confronted with both of them in the last eighteen hours?
“You can’t let me settle in for ten minutes without coming at me?” Daniel snapped. Nigel put down his mug and folded his arms over his chest, hiking up his chin. “Are you for real? And you wonder why I didn’t come home more often?”
Ada elbowed her way between them and stood firm, dividing her glare evenly. “I have made a delicious breakfast for my family. You two clowns will not ruin it. Do we understand each other?”
“Who’s a clown already?” Ethan appeared in the kitchen, followed closely by Edward as the front door slammed shut behind them. “How’d you manage that, D? Leave fingerprints on the fridge again?”
“Don’t slam my door,” Nigel told the newcomers, neatly diverted. “Jangles my nerves.”
Daniel opened his mouth, ready to blow like a volcano waking from its dormancy, but Ada raised a finger to stop him. Fuming, Daniel clamped his mouth shut and reached for his plate again.
And, nope, he couldn’t just let it go.
“Just as long as we’re
clear about how things’re going to go down at the vineyard,” he warned his father. “You might run this house like one of your units, but you’ve given me carte blanche at work. That was part of the deal. I’m not going to be micromanaged on every decision.”
“Here we go,” Edward muttered to Ethan. “Couldn’t even choke down a slice of bacon first.”
“I don’t need running commentary from you two,” Daniel said, pointing at them. He’d forgotten how his two E-brothers, the babies of the family, could stir the pot when they put their heads together. “So just zip it.”
“Is he talking to us?” Ethan said, pouring some orange juice and topping it off with champagne. “Did someone put him in charge of something while I wasn’t looking? ’Cause I don’t think he’s in charge of anything.”
“I don’t see a badge.” Accepting the drink from Ethan, Edward gave Daniel a pointed once-over. “So I don’t think we have to respect his author-i-tay.”
“Badges? I don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” Daniel deadpanned, doing a horrific job of imitating the bandit’s accent from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
There was a pregnant pause.
Then everyone, including Nigel and Daniel, burst into laughter.
“The band is back together!” Ada said, glowing with happiness as she clapped her hands together over her heart.
“Don’t get carried away, woman,” Daniel said.
From out in the hallway came the sound of feet thundering down the steps— “Don’t run down my staircase!” Nigel called. “We walk around here!”—and Isaiah, the last of their non-honeymooning brothers, appeared.
“What’d I miss?” he asked.
The laughter trailed off while they all eyed him warily and gathered their thoughts. Edward cleared his throat. Ada smoothed her apron.
Nigel, whose face was now firmly contracted in disapproving lines, recovered first. “That’s what you’re wearing to breakfast?” he asked Isaiah.
Daniel wasn’t sure he’d have led with Isaiah’s attire, but...whatever. They had to start somewhere.
Isaiah, who’d paused to set his open laptop on the table before coming to the buffet and grabbing a glass, frowned down at himself, then up at Nigel. “What’s the issue?”
Unforgettable Page 7
