The Cliff House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Louie was gone. The sweet, uncomplicated, adoring little creature who had wriggled his way into her heart.

  And he had taken Gabe with him.

  The sobs came then, noisy and harsh. She buried her face in her hands and cried until she was utterly drained from it.

  For Stella’s poor little baby, for Louie, gone forever, and for Gabe. The man she only now realized she loved with every ounce of her heart.

  When the tears began to slow, she scrubbed at her face and inhaled a long, cleansing breath.

  Gabe was right about one thing. She was tired of secrets. She needed to tell the truth, to stop hiding and let Marguerite come out into the light.

  The first step in the process, she knew, was to tell Stella and Bea. Not this moment, when Stella was grieving, but soon.

  She had to reveal the truth. No matter how difficult.

  32

  STELLA

  At some point she was probably going to have to get out of bed.

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay right here, tucked under the crazy quilt she and the girls had made during one particularly rainy January when she had been trying to teach them how to sew.

  She remembered that time with such longing, sitting by the woodstove and going over the stitches with them. They had found peace inside this house, the three of them together.

  She wanted to go back, to the time when she had known her role. She had been filled with purpose, to raise the girls and provide the secure and loving home for them that she and Jewel never had as children.

  She had been good at it, she wanted to think. She had taken two broken, scared and—whether they wanted to admit it or not—angry girls and helped them begin to heal.

  Because she thought she had been good at it, she decided to foster another child when Cruz had needed a place to stay. And then Bea got pregnant and ran off with Cruz to LA.

  For a while, she had considered that a failure but had decided to try again.

  She had been good at providing a warm home to children in need. At least she wanted to think so. She was fairly certain the foster children she had housed here at Three Oaks would agree. She had showered them with kindness and love, had provided a sounding board, had helped set them on a better course.

  Hadn’t she been a good person? Hadn’t she sacrificed enough? She always recycled; she was kind to the elderly; she paid her taxes on time. She had tried to live a good life. Apparently, that wasn’t enough to ensure she would receive the one thing she wanted more than anything else.

  Life, unfortunately, didn’t work that way. She didn’t believe there was some cosmic ledger where good people only ever received good things in return.

  If only that was true.

  While she stayed here in her bed, she could keep the vast ocean of grief at bay.

  Her heart felt as fragile as a thin, ancient glass wind chime, as if the slightest breeze would send it tinkling against her lungs and shatter it completely.

  It was raining today, which seemed only fitting. She rolled over and watched Mother Nature’s tears streak down the window.

  Eventually, she had to go back to work. It had been a week since she lost the baby and she knew she couldn’t continue with substitutes handling her classes. A few more days. She would go back on Monday.

  She also still had the Arts & Hearts on the Cape Festival to get through. The very idea of it filled her with dread, having to smile and pretend her heart wasn’t broken.

  She still had a few more days before the festival kicked off with Cruz’s concert. A few more days where she could lie in bed and gaze at the rain and try not to feel.

  She was doing exactly that a few moments later when her cell phone rang.

  She wanted to ignore it but her phone was set so that only those she had designated as emergency contacts could get through, which meant this was either Bea, Daisy or Mari.

  She hadn’t put Ed as an emergency contact. His pity was harder to endure than anyone’s.

  She had to at least look to see who was calling. With a sigh, she picked up her phone. Daisy, the caller ID read.

  She placed the phone back on the bedside table and rolled over. Daisy could leave a message. It wouldn’t be an emergency. Daisy never had emergencies. Her life was too carefully orchestrated for that.

  The phone went to voice mail but started ringing again a moment later. With a sigh, Stella picked it up again. Daisy was persistent. She knew Stella was here, probably knew she was in exactly this spot, blankets tugged up to her chin, and would keep calling until she answered. And if she didn’t answer, Daisy would stop by the house to see what was going on.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded raspy, raw, as if she hadn’t exercised her vocal cords in weeks.

  She hadn’t spoken much since her baby and her dreams died, but one would think all the tears she had cried would leave it well lubricated.

  “Aunt Stella. How are you this morning, my dear?”

  An unusually stupid question, coming from Daisy. How did she think Stella was?

  “Fine,” she lied mechanically. “How are you?”

  “I’m bringing lunch today,” Daisy said without answering her question. “I would like to ask Bea to join us. I need to talk to you both. Would 12:30 work for you?”

  Stella looked at the clock. It was almost noon now. How long would it take her to shower away the grime and grit that had accumulated over the past several days?

  “Today is not good for me,” she said.

  No day would be good again, she was very much afraid.

  “I know, honey.” Daisy’s voice was gentle. “Can we come anyway? You need to eat and I want to check on you. Plus, I have something to tell you. It’s kind of important.”

  She was going to have to shower eventually. It might as well be today.

  “I suppose. You said Bea is coming, too?”

  “I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m sure she will if she can arrange it. We’ll see you in half an hour.”

  She ended the call and set the phone back on the bedside table. It took every bit of strength she had not to pull the blankets over her head.

  When had the world become so gray and ugly?

  A week ago she might have been curious about Daisy’s news. Her older niece was not the sort to call out of the blue to share things with Stella or Bea.

  More than likely, it had something to do with the fund-raiser auction that was part of the Arts & Hearts celebration. Maybe Open Hearts had received another big donation from their mysterious benefactor.

  She wanted to care. She did care, somewhere deep inside. Right now, though, it was hard to focus on other things when the world seemed so relentlessly bleak.

  33

  BEATRIZ

  She wasn’t sure if she was more frustrated with Daisy right now or with Cruz.

  Both were on her list. Maybe the two of them had conspired to drive her crazy on a day when she still had three pieces she was trying to finish for the art auction, opening in only two days.

  First, Daisy had called her to a family meeting she insisted was important, as if Bea had nothing to do but come when she snapped her fingers.

  Then, as she was driving to Stella’s house, Cruz had called and showed no sign of wanting to hang up, despite her broad hints.

  “You’re coming to my concert tomorrow night, right?”

  Bea tightened her grip on the steering wheel to keep from tearing out a few hanks of hair. Cruz had called her four—repeat four—times that morning, using various excuses. The same question had come up each time, however.

  “Of course we’ll be there. You know Mari wouldn’t miss any chance to see her dad perform.”

  “You wouldn’t, either, right?”

  “Sure. I’m looking forward to it.”

  They had been through the same conversation
already that day. Did he even hear her?

  She didn’t think so. No matter how many times she told him she wasn’t about to get back together, Cruz heard what he wanted to hear. She had no idea how to convince him.

  He didn’t listen to her. Nobody did.

  She was the problem. Nobody believed she meant what she said. Okay, maybe she’d been a little fickle and flighty when she was a teenager. Maybe she had been focused on the wrong things, like partying and listening to loud music and wearing cool clothes.

  She was a mother now with a daughter on her way to being a teenager herself. Did no one think she could grow and change over the years?

  Shane certainly didn’t. He thought she still wanted Cruz, despite all the times she had told him otherwise.

  She sighed as she pulled up in front of Three Oaks and parked behind Daisy’s old BMW.

  Daisy didn’t listen to her, either. Bea had tried to tell her sister she didn’t have time for lunch today but Daisy had begged her to come. Something in her sister’s tone had told her this was important to Daisy. Her projects could wait.

  “I have to go,” she told Cruz now as she grabbed her slouchy bag and climbed out of her car.

  “Where are you? Want to meet for lunch?”

  “I can’t. I have plans.”

  “With Shane?”

  She fought the urge to bang her head against the car door a few times. Shane was hardly speaking to her, but Cruz didn’t need to know that.

  “Shane teaches school, remember? He can’t just drop everything and go on lunch dates. I’m at Stella’s.”

  To give Cruz credit, he quickly lost his jealous tone and his voice became much more concerned. “Give her a hug for me, would you?”

  “Yes. I’ll do that.”

  “And tell her she’s not that old. She can probably try again. Those fertility clinics can do great things.”

  Something told Bea that wouldn’t be the most comforting thing she could say to Stella. Her aunt was grieving the specific child she lost, not only the pregnancy in general.

  “Thanks, Cruz. I’ll see you later,” she said firmly.

  When was he leaving town? Surely, he had recording contracts or show dates to meet. Whenever it was, she was sorry to realize she couldn’t wait.

  “I really do have to run. I’m here at Three Oaks and it looks like Daisy is already here. I don’t want to keep her waiting. You know how busy she always is, making money for you.”

  “She’s good at that,” Cruz said. “All right. Bye, babe. I’ll call you later.”

  She really didn’t want him to, with her full to-do list. With any luck, he would get busy with something else and forget.

  “All right. See you.”

  She hung up, feeling the familiar frustration she always did when she talked to Cruz. This alone should have convinced her that they could never have a chance for the joyous reunion he wanted. The constant phone calls and texts she had found sweet when she was sixteen and seventeen were not nearly as attractive now that she was almost thirty and needed a man who could survive a few days without her.

  Three Oaks was locked when she tried the doorknob but she had her own key. Plus, she knew where Stella kept her extra. She unlocked the door in just a moment and slipped inside to the cool, lofty house that had been so important to her childhood.

  The house had been a tumbledown wreck when Stella bought it, barely inhabitable. It had taken them years of elbow grease but now the place was a showpiece, tastefully and lovingly restored.

  She had loved living here with Stella.

  Where would she and Daisy have ended up if not for their aunt? Stella had rescued them, just as she had rescued all the other foster children she took in after her job with them was done.

  “Daisy?” she called.

  “In here,” her sister replied from the kitchen. She followed the sound and found Daisy there, setting take-out bags from The Ocean Club on the table.

  “Sorry I’m a little late. I was on the phone with Cruz and I couldn’t quite get him to hang up.”

  “Is he still trying to push for reconciliation?” Daisy asked.

  She really didn’t want to talk about her romantic failures with her sister right now. “He is. I’m standing my ground. We are not getting back together.”

  “Cruz wants to get back together?” Stella stood in the doorway, pale and fragile-looking.

  “Yes. But it’s not happening. I had solid reasons for divorcing the man and little has changed.”

  Stella came farther into the room. “I think that’s a good decision, my dear.”

  She stared. “You do?”

  Stella adored Cruz. Sometimes Bea thought her aunt loved him even more than she loved her.

  “You’re not in love with him anymore. You’re in love with Shane.”

  Bea just about spilled the teakettle. “What makes you say that?”

  “It’s obvious when a person sees you together. It’s about time you figured it out. And he’s in love with you, too.”

  She did not want to talk about this. Not when Stella was so very wrong.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about Shane. Daisy called a family meeting. What’s so important?”

  “Why don’t we eat first?” Daisy suggested. She lifted a shaking hand to shove back a couple of strands of hair that had fallen from her ruthless updo.

  She looked nervous. Now, that was strange. Bea never saw Daisy flustered.

  Stella said little. She picked at her food, mostly moving things around on her plate, lifting her fork to her mouth and setting it down again without taking a bite. Did she think they wouldn’t notice?

  “Eat,” Bea said sternly.

  Stella pushed away her plate. “I’m not hungry. I really feel like I need to lie down again.”

  The miscarriage had been more than a week ago. She knew physically her aunt was probably healing. Emotionally? That was another story.

  “What’s this about? Why did you need to call a family meeting?”

  Daisy started fiddling with her napkin. Like Stella, she had eaten little. Only a few bites were gone from her plate. Apparently, Bea was the only one in the family with an appetite today.

  “I have to tell you something. Something I should have told you both a long time ago.”

  Secrets from her staid, boring sister? Bea could hardly believe it. “Don’t tell me. You’re going to marry Gabe Ellison and run off to Papua New Guinea with him.”

  She had only been teasing and had never expected the wild, raw emotion that flashed across her sister’s features. Daisy looked...destroyed.

  “No. That’s not it. Not at all,” she said quickly.

  She was so shocked at that reaction, she had to quickly make another joke. “You’ve lost all our money and we’re going to have to start busking in the streets.”

  “Bea, stop teasing your sister,” Stella said sharply.

  Stella so rarely spoke in that tone that both Bea and Daisy looked at her in surprise. Their aunt certainly had plenty of cause to discipline them after she took custody, but she had usually done it with kindness and patience, as she did the students in her classroom.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. What do you need to tell us?”

  “I wish this were about running off with someone or...or even losing your money.”

  Now Bea was becoming concerned. Whatever it was, this was serious. Daisy wasn’t sick, was she? No. She couldn’t bear that. Her sister could be as frustrating as Cruz in her way but Bea loved her.

  She reached a hand out and covered Daisy’s fingers with hers. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “You know we’re here for you, whatever it is, right? The Davenport girls stick together, no matter what.”

  If she thought her words might comfort her sister, she was wrong. If anything, Daisy looked more distresse
d. “I should have told you. It was wrong to keep it a secret. I don’t...I don’t even know why I did.”

  “You’re beginning to scare me,” Stella said with a frown.

  If nothing else, whatever Daisy’s big secret was, it was yanking Stella out of the despair she had slipped into after losing her baby. Nothing was guaranteed to distract Stella from her own pain than someone else needing her.

  “Are you sick, honey? Are you...dying?”

  “No!” Daisy looked genuinely shocked by the suggestion. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just...” Her voice broke off. “Oh, this is so much harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Just tell us. Rip off the old Band-Aid. That’s what Stella used to say whenever we were fighting about something as kids.”

  Daisy released a deep breath. “It...it might be easier if I show you.”

  She left the room and returned a moment later with one of Stella’s prized possessions, a small, intricately painted side table that usually held pride of place in the front room. Daisy had given the original work of art to her aunt a few years earlier and Stella liked to show it off to everyone, telling them her niece discovered Marguerite before Marguerite was a thing.

  “Be careful with that,” Stella said. “That’s priceless to me. You shouldn’t be hauling it around like it’s something you bought at a yard sale.”

  Daisy looked at the table and then back at the two of them. “Don’t worry. If something happened to it, I could always paint you another one.”

  Bea laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Sure. No problem. Can you pull off a Picasso, too? Is that your big secret? Are you an art forger?”

  Daisy curled her hands together and looked down at the table. “No. But I am Marguerite.”

  This time Bea’s laughter was even louder but it quickly trailed off when she realized no one else in the room appeared amused.

  Stella was staring at Daisy, eyes wide as if she’d never seen her before. Daisy was looking at both of them like a dog that had been kicked repeatedly and expected every encounter to result in another boot to the side.

  “Marguerite,” Stella breathed. While her eyes still looked haunted, there was dawning wonder in them. “You are Marguerite. Are you serious?”