“Don’t let him boss you around,” Rosabel added with a smile before turning and rushing out of the office. Urgency paraded through her, not so much at a crawl but a march. What she intended to tell him needed to be spoken in person. She wasn’t sure how long he’d be in Arkansas, but Rosabel needed to get back—as quickly as possible.
* * *
Duncan’s childhood house looked the same as it always had, but the atmosphere within was even more strained. His mom had never shown much emotion, but from the way her lips pinched tightly together, he guessed how hard she was trying to keep from falling apart.
Sitting at her usual place on the living room’s floral love seat, Mother wore a fitted blouse with tan slacks. Any spark of life that’d resided in her eyes was snuffed out.
Duncan removed his shoes and positioned himself on the step leading down to the living room’s gray carpet. He’d been in this position many times before, during daily check-ins from school. No wonder he felt like he was a teenager living under their roof again. The only thing that differed this time was his father’s absence. Where was his dad?
They exchanged a few pleasantries about his flight, and then, to Duncan’s surprise, Mother mentioned Rosabel. “I thought you might have brought her, after making such a show over her.”
Duncan held his hands behind his back, but he gripped one wrist tightly with the opposite hand. He’d talked himself through this during the flight, prepping himself on exactly what to say when Rosabel was mentioned. Too often, snide comments were his family’s way to avoid awkward subjects. The regret he’d been swimming in for days made things more than clear. He determined to make sure this was a topic that never got disregarded. The only way change would happen was by addressing it. He’d learned as much from Rosabel herself.
“You shamed her. She came to support Grandmother. She helped me pick out that hat, Mother. I wanted you to accept her—I hoped by having you see me holding her hand, by hearing me tell you that I loved her, that you would. Instead, you and Grandmother preyed on her like a pair of cheetahs.”
Mother curled her upper lip. “You moved away, and the first time you come back, you bring some low-class assistant with you? I thought she was actually your assistant, Duncan. Instead, you lied about her from the start.”
“I didn’t lie.” He balled his hands into fists at his sides. As a child, he’d rarely ever argued with his parents. He’d never dared to, but now, without invitation, he sank onto the couch across from her. “I told you the truth the first time you met her. She was my assistant at the time, though I did want her to be more. She wasn’t ready to be, not until we grew closer together and she agreed. I didn’t handle everything the way I should have—I know I’m to blame for that. But you pushed her away, Mother. I’m angry at you and Grandmother for that. But I’m here.”
She released a derisive noise. “Maybe you shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Maybe not,” he amended. “I know things have been cold between us for some time, and I keep hoping we can figure out how to thaw them out again. Maybe it’s not possible, but I’d like to think it is.”
“That’s all I need to hear,” his father said, stepping into the living room from the adjoined hall. He wore a white polo shirt and slacks. “I forgive you, Duncan. I have for some time now, but it’s time I said it. I know you didn’t mean for your grandfather’s heart attack to happen.”
Mother folded her arms, preparing to disregard her husband as per usual. The two of them had despised each other for years. They’d stayed together because it made financial sense, but they were only married on paper. They hadn’t slept in the same room since Duncan could remember.
Slowly, Mother’s posture relaxed once more, as though she no longer had the energy for this fight.
Since Rosabel had stayed at his lake house, the thought had crept to Duncan time and time again. If he were to ever marry, he would want his wife to be her. And if they ever married, he wanted a better marriage than what his parents had.
Rosabel had held a mirror up to his face. She’d forced him to see exactly what she didn’t like about him, and then she’d given him the chance to change it. If that wasn’t what it took to make a marriage work, he didn’t know what was.
And now he’d lost her.
“Do you need any help with the funeral?” Duncan asked, needing to focus on what he could control. He hadn’t come here to argue with them. He’d come to help.
“She made wise investments,” Mother said, waving him off. “You should know that better than anyone.”
Duncan’s eyes widened. He remembered a conversation with Rosabel where she’d accused him of only caring about money. He’d never considered his parents shallow before, but he saw them in a new light as his dad scrolled on his phone and his mom fiddled with the tassels on one of the love seat’s decorative pillows.
What would Rosabel do in this situation? A wave of compassion washed over him. He strolled to his mother and put a hand on her shoulder, hoping the gesture would be enough to transfer her attention from the pillow to him.
Mother glanced up at him in surprise, and he couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure the last time they’d touched.
Slowly, he crouched before her, so they were at eye level. “I wasn’t talking about financial assistance, Mom.” He ditched the formal way he’d been taught to address her. Sometimes tradition was better when it ended. “Do you need any help? Are you okay? Your mother-in-law just died.”
“I’m fine, Duncan. We knew her death was going to happen. She was ninety-five.” She said this so pointedly, it stung him. Had he ever been this callous? What made his parents be this way? He wondered what his mom’s love language was.
“Leave things be, son,” his father said from behind him, swiping a finger along his cell phone.
Duncan felt more like a stranger or a business associate than a part of their flesh and blood. The loneliness raged, filling every crease in the curtains and every molecule in the air. A chill swept down his spine as he remembered moments in this room, moments he’d repressed for far too long.
Sitting in silence. Being pushed away or punished for speaking out of turn. Derided for reading comic books instead of schoolwork. Brusquely denied things like sports teams and other things his classmates were involved with. Had he realized how isolated his childhood was before now?
“How do you stand this?” he asked.
“Stand what?” Mother’s foot kicked in its heeled shoe. Even relaxing, she never really let herself go.
“This. This coldness. I’ve been around it my whole life, so I thought it was normal, but thanks to Rosabel, I know it’s not. She said her parents would sit and talk with her about her day.”
His mom’s mouth dropped. She uncrossed her legs, and both heels impaled the carpet. His dad cleared his throat and, brows raised, lowered the phone to his lap.
“All right. Let’s talk,” Dad said.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Duncan said. “You have to … I don’t know, you have to want to.”
“What should I want to know about you, Duncan?” Mom said. “I already know you’re successful in your investments. I know you’re living in a town thousands of miles away. I already know you’ve settled for some working-class girl.”
“Give her a chance,” Duncan pleaded in a way he hadn’t done since he was a young child. They’d quashed hope from him then and probably wouldn’t stand for his boldness now, but he had to try. He wished he’d defended her earlier, before things with Rosabel had ended.
Other things his mother said struck him. He’d never been good at reading between the lines, but he heard the truth now, with her mention of him living thousands of miles away. Mother didn’t like that he’d moved. Maybe she didn’t resent him as much as he thought.
“You know what?” he said, trying a different tack. “Let’s all take a trip together.”
His mom sat a little straighter. “What?”
“Once the funeral is over. C
ome visit me in Vermont. Leave work behind and let’s get to know one another. What do you say?”
Mom blinked, but his dad stared at him with a pensive expression. He could practically feel the tension between them thinning out.
“I don’t know,” his mom said with a castaway smile. “We’re settled here, and things can get so busy—”
“We’ll think about it,” his dad added.
Duncan tried to think of another way to smooth this over and convince them. “I know I made a mistake when I lost my temper over Grandfather selling that house. I should never have behaved the way I did.”
Hands clasped in her lap, Mother didn’t take her attention from him. “Thank you for saying that,” she said quietly.
Dad rose from his place in the chair by the window and joined his wife on the love seat. It’d been his father who’d passed on, after all, but Dad had always been the kindest to Duncan after the fallout had all happened.
“We don’t blame you, son,” Dad said. “Or at least I never did. I know how much that house of theirs meant to you. Your grandfather’s heart failure under the stress of the moment was an unfortunate coincidence.”
His mom cleared her throat and clapped her eyes to a spot on the floor, but she didn’t contradict her husband.
Duncan’s limbs tingled, and his chest expanded in a way it hadn’t done in years. Bolstered by their forgiveness, by the closure building around them, Duncan went on. “Did you know I tried to buy that old house? The woman who owns the Painted Lady wouldn’t sell the property to me.”
“Why not?” Mother asked. Dad settled onto the love seat beside her, relaxing into the cushion.
“Rosabel,” Duncan said with a smile, resting a hand on his bent knee. “Because she wasn’t afraid to tell me what I needed to hear. She did me a favor that day, and it’s changed my life. I want to do the same for you.” Forget Vermont. The decision struck him in an instant. “That’s why I’ve decided to move back to Eureka Springs.”
“Now wait just a minute.”
He cut off Mother’s arguments. “I never got the chance to reconnect with Grandmother. I don’t want to make the same mistake with either of you. I’ll see you at the funeral. And thank you for inviting me home.”
Surprising even himself, he rose to his feet, bent, and kissed his mom’s cheek. He shook his dad’s hand and then showed himself out.
Hands in his pockets, sunlight casting all around him, and with their forgiveness in his breast pocket, Duncan smiled. Genuinely smiled. “Thank you” came easier to him now, and the shock from his mom’s face at being kissed by her son was enough to make him want to do something silly and foolish, like whistle. Was it just him, or was the sun shining brighter than usual?
Rosabel was infectious. She’d changed him—for the better. And who knew? Maybe she’d help him connect with his family again. He just had to get her to talk to him first.
A plan formed in his mind the entire drive back to the mountain cove. He would spend more time with his parents. He would get them talking. He’d find out things he’d never known about them. How they’d met, what had made them fall in love. What they enjoyed doing besides fashion design, crunching numbers, and consulting business owners.
And then he would tell them about Rosabel. He would tell them about the first time he’d seen her in his office, the first time he’d heard her laugh, the first time she’d crept into his thoughts as he’d attempted to make his own coffee at home.
He’d tell them how Rosie had charmed him every time she used her quick wit to shoot down his arguments, how the fury in her gaze had been adorable and made him want to irritate her again just to see it. Or the first time she’d fired her full smile at him after he’d made a joke in the office about the new couch that hadn’t come as ordered.
He needed healing from a lifetime of being love-starved. Only then could he freely love another. So, he would start with repairing things with his family. And then he’d appeal to Rosie through her love language. Not only sending flowers or tickets to the ballet, or giving every gift he could think of so she would read into it the way she read into everything.
She’d been the one to point out gift-giving as his love language, and he wanted to shower her with as much love as she deserved. Compliments were her love language. He would add a note to the flowers, expressing how he loved the way they were the same color as her blush. He would send tickets to the ballet and tell her how she reminded him of the graceful dancers, how his heart swelled like an orchestra’s rising climax every time she was around.
It would take time, but he’d have to allow that. He needed to win her back.
19
Duncan wasn’t ready for the indoors. After the cascade of emotion during Grandmother’s funeral—brought on by reflective commentary on her life, the touching memories shared, and the surprising warmth from his parents—he needed the open air, the exposure that only nature could bring him.
Even Mrs. Simmons had attended. After speaking with her, he discovered they were indeed distantly related. She’d grown up in the Painted Lady before it’d been passed on to Duncan’s grandfather, Horace, who was her cousin.
Beaver Lake was the ultimate escape. It had everything in a retreat he hoped for: semi-seclusion, rustic scenery, and luxuries he refused to live without. His fully stocked fishing arsenal awaited, and the lake’s glistening allure called him to relax away his sorrows after realizing how much he’d miss his grandmother.
He only lacked one person’s company.
“Give it up, man,” he told himself as he changed into jeans, a T-shirt, a fishing vest, and hiking boots. She wasn’t going to reply. She’d said she never wanted to see him again, and like losing the Painted Lady, he needed to accept it.
“Yet another reason to get out of this house for a while,” he added, traipsing his way to the garage, where a series of fishing poles hung on the north wall above a stash of tackle boxes and shelves stocked with lures, line, spare reels, and corkies of assorted colors.
She was everywhere he went: the kitchen, turning beet red at the sight of him with wet hair in his suit; at the base of the stairs, filling his arms with her sweetness; near the door; down the hall; on the couch; and in the windows and every glimpse of the rose garden. He couldn’t escape her. But the lake held no memories of her; they’d never made it to the boat to fish. That was a regret he would carry forever.
Duncan selected the top pole hanging from a suspended set of braces on the wall. He checked his reel, hook, and line, grabbed the first available tackle box, and pushed out into the sunshine.
The dock’s access required a stroll through the rose garden. He gritted his teeth and jaunted toward the gazebo and the first of several verdant arches. If he kept his gaze on the pavestones, he’d pass through quickly enough. This was what Maddox would call madness, avoiding places around his own house just to escape memories of her.
He needed to head back to Vermont so he could facilitate his move to Arkansas, but that would be no better. She’d torment him there too. Lingering memories of her were one of the reasons he’d decided something the night before. He’d mentioned it to his parents, but now the choice was settled.
He was going to stay in Eureka Springs. He could run his company from here. It was well established back in Vermont. He would hire an on-site manager and handle what he needed to from his lake house.
Footsteps crunched the gravel. Duncan couldn’t believe his eyes.
Rosabel was there, standing beneath the archway that led to his rose garden. Her dark hair draped past her shoulders. It framed her face and emphasized the chocolate of her eyes.
His heart picked up speed. She was here, and she’d never looked more beautiful.
Duncan lowered his fishing pole. “What are you doing here?”
She clutched her hands before her, a nervous habit she’d had during her interview with him a year and a half ago. Funny, he’d thought she’d lost that timidity.
“I have someth
ing I need to tell you. It’s the kind of thing an email won’t do justice to.”
Was she taking a stab at the email he’d sent? Had she read it? “About that email, I—”
“I love you,” she said, cutting him off. “I needed you to hear me say it, since I never did the last time we were here. I know words aren’t your thing, but they’re mine and I … Why are you looking at me like that? This isn’t a goofball-smile moment. Yet there’s Daphne, making an appearance.”
“Daphne?”
“Your dimple, remember? Anyway, I’m telling you I love you.”
“I heard the first time, although I wouldn’t mind hearing it a few more.” Duncan crouched to set his fishing pole and tackle box at the archway’s base. He closed the distance, wanting to hold her but keeping himself back. “You were saying?”
A hint of pink colored her cheeks. “I know gifts are yours, but I couldn’t think of anything to give you that you didn’t already have. Except for this.” She removed her hands from behind her back. Between her fingers was the stem of a single red rose.
“You picked a rose from my own garden to give to me?”
“I never said I picked this here.”
Duncan took the offered rose and tipped it to his nose. The smell was reliably rosy. “I can see why your dad liked these flowers the best. I can’t say I have a preference on flowers.”
“Did I tell you why they were his favorite?”
Duncan sniffed the rose again before lowering it. “No. Why?”
She inhaled, casting her gaze appreciatively around before returning her eyes to him. “My father loved how a rose could stand for so many different things. Romans used them to imply the need for secrecy. Different-colored roses can send a different message depending on who they’re being given to, and even the number of roses being given can mean different things.”
“Okay,” Duncan said. “He likes roses because they’re complicated.”
Rosabel And The Billionaire Beast (Billionaire Bachelor Mountain Cove Book 6) Page 16
