by Kay Correll
“Oh, I don’t want to leave Bobby.”
“How about I watch Bobby?” Eddie chimed in. “Boys’ night. You and Tally go and have a girls’ night out.”
“Perfect. That’s what we’ll do.” Tally patted her hand on the table in decision.
Camille’s eyes flashed in annoyance, and she plastered her fake smile on her perfectly made-up face. “Well, won’t that be nice?” she said without a trace of sincerity.
“Well, come on, darlin’. We should go and leave this fine family to their game. We’ll see you Saturday night, then, right?”
“Right. We’ll be there,” Tally assured him.
As soon as they left, Courtney leaned over and whispered to her, low enough so Bobby wouldn’t hear. “Why did you say yes? I don’t want to go. AJ is probably going to be there.”
“Oh, you think so? Perhaps. Oh well, it will be a big party. If he’s there, you can just ignore him.”
Courtney didn’t look convinced.
But maybe if they went, Courtney would get a chance to talk to AJ. Maybe he’d just been scared. Tally didn’t blame him. So much had happened that day.
And Courtney didn’t fool her one bit. She liked AJ. Liked him a lot.
And Tally liked AJ, too. Her instincts told her he was a good man. She thought he was a good match for Courtney and the first man she’d ever shown an interest in.
This party would be the perfect opportunity for them to have another chance to talk. Maybe they could work things out. Tally was a firm believer in second chances. She glanced over at Eddie, and he looked up and smiled at her. A now-familiar contentment flowed through her, and she smiled back at him.
Chapter 22
AJ walked downstairs, dressed in the business casual his grandmother would expect him to wear to Camille’s party. He’d spent the last few days sulking in his room and missing Courtney and Bobby, not that there was anything he could do about it. He’d made his decision. It was the best thing for everyone. Especially Courtney and Bobby.
“Ashton, there you are.”
“There I am.” He walked over and kissed her cheek.
“We have a bit of time, and there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?” He eyed her suspiciously.
“It’s about you and your father.” She patted the couch beside her.
He sat down, dreading the conversation that was sure to come.
“I know you two don’t see eye to eye. He’s a hard man to please. He expects a lot from everyone, but even more from himself. He needs that control in his life now.” She paused and looked at him. “But he used to be different, you know. Before your mother died. He tried so hard to save her, but it was out of his control. Now he wants to control… everything.”
AJ frowned. He’d never really looked at it from his father’s angle, but honestly, he’d never been able to please the man. Ever. He wasn’t sure what his grandmother wanted him to say.
“He does love you.”
AJ didn’t know about that. He was pretty sure his father didn’t love anyone.
“He’s just afraid to care that much about anyone ever again and get so heartbroken. I’ve tried to talk to him, but… well, I haven’t gotten through. I know you’ve had a hard time. I know you acted out, causing trouble and running with a fast crowd. But I don’t for a minute believe that’s the real you.” She rested a hand on his. “I would really like it if you and your father could work things out. You could even work for him again.”
“I don’t think that will ever happen.”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “But I can hope.”
“Why are you bringing this all up now?”
Granice looked directly at him. “Because your father called, and he’s going to be at the party tonight.” She then stood and picked her purse up from the table. “Well, I don’t want to be late.”
He sat there in stunned silence, wondering if he could call a cab for his grandmother and send her to the party without him.
“Ashton?”
He slowly pushed off the couch, a mountain of dread crushing down on him.
Courtney and Tally walked up to Camille’s enormous beach house. Tiki lights lined the long walk up to the house. Lights were strung along the railing of the immense front deck.
“Look, they actually have valet parking.” Courtney pointed to a threesome of young men by the entrance to the driveway.
“Well, there isn’t much parking space here. They must have arranged to park the cars off-site. Can’t say that I’ve been to a private party with valet parking before, though.” Tally shrugged, and they knocked on the front door.
“Welcome.” A man in a suit—which was strange for a beach house party in Florida—motioned them in. “The Montgomerys are on the back deck by the pool. Someone will come by and get your drink order.”
“Fancy,” Courtney whispered to Tally then looked down at her own simple cotton dress. She smoothed the skirt with a nervous stroke, wondering if she was woefully underdressed.
“Let’s go outside.” Tally linked her arm in Courtney’s, and they headed out to the pool area.
As they stepped out on the wide deck surrounding the pool area, she looked around quickly to see if AJ was there. She couldn’t spot him in the crowd, but then the place was packed full of people. Some of the crowd spilled down onto the beach under a large tented area.
Delbert saw them and hurried over. “Welcome. We’re really glad you came.” He turned and waved Camille over. She didn’t look like she wanted to come but pasted on her now-familiar artificial smile.
“Darlin’, look, Tally and Courtney are here. Isn’t that nice? I do so love your restaurant, Tally.”
“Why, thank you. We love having you there.” Tally smiled at the compliment.
“Yes, we are so glad you came.” Camille flashed perfect white teeth surrounded by a perfect fake smile. “I doubt if you know anyone here, but, well, why don’t you grab some drinks?”
“We’ll do that.” Tally smiled her naturally warm smile, not letting Camille’s obvious snub get to her.
Courtney wasn’t quite having as much luck. She’d like to get a drink and toss it in the woman’s face. She didn’t like people acting superior to Tally.
Delbert and Camille walked away to greet other guests, and she and Tally got glasses of white wine from a passing waiter. Courtney took a sip of her drink. “Want to go down on the beach? Maybe it’s not so crowded down there.”
“Good idea.” They headed down the long walkway.
Courtney slipped off her sandals and dropped them at the end of the walkway. She wasn’t sure if going barefoot was acceptable at a party like this, but she just didn’t care. She hated wearing shoes on the sand. Tally followed her lead and dropped her shoes next to Courtney’s.
They wandered under the large white tent. Bar-height tables were scattered around under it with people standing with drinks and appetizers and chatting.
Camille had been right about one thing. Courtney didn’t see even one person she knew. Which was fine with her, because she really, really didn’t want to run into AJ. For all she knew, maybe he’d left town. Which was fine with her, too. Or at least she was trying to convince herself of that.
“Courtney, Tally.”
She whirled around and came face to face with AJ. Her heart immediately began galloping at such a pace she could barely catch her breath. He stood there in casual khaki slacks and a light blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She swallowed, unable to deny the pull he had, the undeniable attraction she felt.
No, she wasn’t attracted to him. She wasn’t. He’d made their relationship perfectly clear…
They didn’t have one.
So she felt… nothing… toward him.
“AJ, so nice to see you. I’ve missed you at Magic Cafe. Hope you haven’t tired of my grouper and hushpuppies.” Tally smiled at him as if it was perfectly fine for him to be standing here talking to them.
“Not a bit.
I’ve just…” He looked at Courtney. “I’ve been busy.”
“Well, come by soon,” Tally insisted.
AJ didn’t answer her but sent her a look that was half smile, half wistful, and tinged with sadness.
“Ashton, there you are. Mother said you’d be out here.”
They all turned toward the man who’d come up behind them. He was dressed in dress slacks with an impeccable crease ironed into them. His freshly shaven face had a hard edge to it. His dark hair was streaked with gray.
“Father.” AJ said the word with less enthusiasm than even Camille had displayed when welcoming them to the party.
AJ stepped closer to Courtney and draped his arm around her shoulder. She almost dropped her drink. “Father, this is my girlfriend, Courtney, and her grandmother, Tally. This is my father, Jacob Hamilton.”
His father’s eyes narrowed, then he nodded at them. “Nice to meet you.” A perfect, business-toned reply.
Courtney was getting a bit tired of all the insincere tones at the party. She turned and looked right into AJ’s eyes, wondering what in the world was going on with him. She couldn’t miss his pleading look, but she wasn’t ready to play his games. Not after he’d left her standing alone in her bungalow. Not after he hadn’t even said goodbye to Bobby.
“I’m not exactly his girlfriend…”
“Yes.” His father just said the one word, and she was unclear what a single word meant in reply to her correction to AJ’s claim.
“I need to talk to my son,” AJ’s father commanded all of them.
“We’ll wait until later. I don’t think this party is the right time.” AJ stood his ground against the formidable man. Courtney couldn’t help being a bit impressed.
“Now.” The man didn’t back down either.
“Later.” AJ’s tone was just as insistent.
“Well, if you want me to talk in front of your girlfriend, fine. I saw your photo in the paper. We had an agreement. I’m so disappointed in you.”
“Of course you are.” AJ dropped his arm from around her shoulder and slipped his hands in his pockets.
“I said that your trust fund was going to be shut off if you got into any more trouble. I sent you to this island, away from… well, away from everything. You still managed to get in trouble with the law and hit the gossip page.”
Courtney waited for AJ to explain that he’d been helping the woman at the bar, but he stood in stony silence.
When AJ didn’t say anything, she turned to his father. “Sir, it wasn’t—”
AJ held up a hand. “No.”
“But—”
“It doesn’t matter, Court.” His voice left no doubt. She should drop it.
She looked at AJ in bewilderment. Of course, it mattered. He’d done a good thing. A heroic thing. And he’d helped her get away from Kurt, too. He wasn’t someone his father should be disappointed in, he was someone his father should be proud of, even if she was angry with him for just walking out of her life and Bobby’s.
Though, she knew exactly how AJ felt. Sometimes no matter what you did, you couldn’t please someone. That was exactly like how it had been with her maternal grandmother. She didn’t know the dynamics going on here, but if AJ wanted her to drop it, she would.
But she didn’t have to like it.
Chapter 23
AJ’s pulse burned through him at the public dressing-down his father had given him in front of Courtney. Though, it was his own fault. He should have known his father wouldn’t take “we’ll talk later” for an answer. He could feel Courtney stiffen at his side, but he didn’t want her to come to his rescue. Nothing would change his father’s opinion of him, and maybe the man was right, anyway. He’d certainly let down Courtney and Bobby.
Just then, as if things weren’t complicated and awkward enough, another man and a young woman approached. He looked closely at the woman who looked vaguely familiar.
She walked up and kissed him on the cheek. “Daddy, this is the man I was telling you about, the man who saved me from that drunk at the club.”
He recognized her then. Lynn Miller from the club in Sarasota.
“Jacob?” The man with Lynn turned to his father.
Much to AJ’s surprise, the two men embraced and clapped each other on the back. “Ron Miller, I haven’t seen you since our days at Harvard Business School.”
“Good to see you. So, this young man is your son?”
AJ watched as his father slowly nodded.
“Well, he saved my girl here from a run-in with a lousy drunk at a club in Sarasota a week or so back.” The man turned to AJ and put out his hand. “I’m forever grateful for your protection. She ended up with a nasty bruise, but it could have been so much worse. If I can ever, ever do anything for you, you let me know.”
AJ’s father stared at him in amazement. “You were protecting her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you say…” His father’s words trailed off, and though AJ had never once seen this look on his father’s face, he’d swear the man was embarrassed, possibly even sorry.
But that didn’t fit in with his reality of the man who was his father. Not at all.
“What do you say, Jacob? Let’s go grab a drink and catch up on the last… well, on a lot of years.”
“Yes.” His father started to walk away with the man but paused and looked back at AJ. “We’ll talk later.”
Lynn smiled at him. “Well, I’m going to catch up with my friends over there.” She waved to a group of women. “But I wanted to say thank you again.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was to me.” She turned and headed over to her friends.
Courtney and Tally still stood next to him, watching the conversations, not saying a word.
“Sorry about the girlfriend remark, Court. I was just trying to avoid that whole ugly scene here at Camille’s party.”
He thought he saw pity, or at the very least sympathy, in Courtney’s eyes. The last thing he wanted to see.
“Well, you two excuse me, I think I’ll go track down another drink.” Tally started to walk away.
“No, I’ll send a waiter over.” He waved down a server who headed their direction. “I was leaving anyway.” He turned and fled the party, walking rapidly down to the shoreline and along the water’s edge, not caring that the waves were splashing water all over his slacks.
He just needed to escape. Escape his father. Escape Courtney’s pity.
The moon ducked behind a cloud, plunging him into near darkness. If only it was possible for him to hide behind a cloud forever.
Courtney watched AJ walk away. A heaviness draped over her heart. She knew exactly how he felt about disappointing his father. About someone you cared about thinking the worst of you, and it hurt. It hurt deeply.
“That was quite a scene.” Tally stood by her side, also watching AJ walk out onto the beach. “His father was kind of harsh, wasn’t he?”
“He was.”
“You know, it looks like AJ has had a long time of hearing he’s done things wrong. That’s a hard litany to get out of your brain.”
“I know.”
Tally put a hand on her arm. “I know you do. I’m sorry you went through the same thing with your other grandmother. I’d give anything if I could change that.”
She nodded.
“I think that AJ’s father, and the way the man talks to him… well, it might have factored into his decision to stop seeing you and Bobby.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if someone has always said that you’ve screwed up, you start to believe them. When AJ lost Bobby and he couldn’t protect you from Kurt, well, those words that have been pounded into him probably took over. He thought he did wrong. Took responsibility for what happened. Thought he could have done something—I don’t know—better or different and things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.”
“I do still hear my other grandmother’s voice playing over a
nd over in my mind.”
“Well, I certainly hope you don’t listen to it. You’re a fabulous young woman, a wonderful mother, and you are mightily loved by Eddie and me.”
Courtney hugged Tally. “I love you guys, too.”
She looked at the woman who had been more a grandmother to her in the last few months than her maternal grandmother who had raised her had been through all her childhood. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“I… I wondered if… could I call you Grams like Bobby does? And call Eddie, Pops?”
Tally leaned forward and grabbed both of her hands. “Of course you can. We’d love that.”
Courtney didn’t miss the hint of a tear in the corner of her grandmother’s eye. She squeezed Tally’s—Grams’—hands.
“I’ve waited my whole life for this and never thought I’d get it after your father died. You and Bobby have brought so much happiness to my life.” Her grandmother’s face glowed with joy.
“Eddie’s probably responsible for a lot of that happiness, too.” She smiled.
“That too.” Tally looked around the party. “What do you say we blow this place? Let’s go back home and have ice cream with Eddie and Bobby, what do you say?”
“I say that’s a wonderful idea.” They linked arms and walked back through the house and out down the tiki torch-lined walkway.
But Courtney couldn’t erase the look she’d seen on AJ’s face when his father had berated him in front of them. A look she was sure had been on her own face many times over the years.
AJ needed someone like Tally in his life who gave him love unconditionally. Everyone needed someone like Tally in their lives.
Chapter 24
The next morning, AJ briefly considered hiding out in his room and avoiding his father and grandmother, but he decided he was finished with that.
AJ tromped down the stairs and into the great room. His father stood at the window, sipping a cup of coffee. He turned when he heard AJ enter the room. “Morning, son. I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”
