Destiny Bay Boxed Set Vol. 1 (Books 1 - 3)

by Helen Conrad

  “Tell you what,” she said, remembering his passion when he was in college, “I’ll play old folk songs, and you try to name them.”

  He grinned, and she felt her heart lighten. “The last time I heard you play, you were trying to adapt a Michael Buble song to a reggae beat. ‘Feeling Good’, wasn’t it?”

  He slid a sideways glance her way. “When did you become an expert on folk music?”

  She lifted her nose in the air. “I was young and foolish then. Believe it or not, I’ve matured.”

  “In your own inimitable fashion.” His voice was full of amusement. “But where did the folk music come from?”

  She shrugged, settling in to get more comfortable, glad to have hit upon something he approved of. “I’ve met a lot of interesting people in the last few years, including some old hippies and a couple who were beatniks in the fifties. They turned me on to the Weavers and Woodie Guthrie and all those people.”

  He seemed bemused. “Wow, the real thing. I’m afraid I’m not quite that esoteric. My background runs more along the lines of Peter, Paul and Mary . . . and the Kingston Trio ... but go ahead. Try me.”

  He was just being modest, she soon found out. She played a few notes, and he murmured, “Joan Baez, ‘Plaisir D’Amour.’”

  She nodded, impressed, and began a new tune.

  “ ‘Buy for Me the Rain,’ Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, 1967,” he shot back before she had a chance to get into it.

  Her jaw dropped. “Hey,” she cried, “you’ve played this before!”

  “Do another,” he urged, like a gambler on a roll.

  She did another. Or at least a note or two of it. And he guessed it again. “You ought to go on that game show,” she grumbled when he’d guessed the tenth in a row without a hitch. She grimaced and put on a baritone that attempted to mimic his. “ ‘I can name that tune in half a note.’ “

  His mouth twisted in a mocking sneer. “Listen, honey, we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of my many talents,” he teased back. And for just a moment, she caught a hint of the old Reid.

  The old Reid. He’d always been a little stuffy, but the “kid” had always been lurking below. What had happened to change him? she wondered. She didn’t bother to ask. He would just claim maturity, and once again they’d have to discuss how maturity seemed to have eluded her. But it was more than maturity that had given him that wary look, that dark, deep line between his brows.

  She looked out at the blackness. There were fewer cars on the road now. It was getting late. They seemed to be going faster and faster, chewing up the miles— the miles between freedom and pain. She bit her lip.

  “San Feliz,” she read on the freeway sign as they whizzed by. “The place all the swifts fly back to every year, like the swallows to Capistrano.”

  I wonder if they’re ever as scared to go home as I am, she thought.

  Her mother’s face seemed to loom in the black sky, and then her father’s appeared beside it. Their faces were sad. Their eyes were full of disappointment. Disappointment in her.

  That feeling whipped through her again. Halfway between dread and melancholy, it made her shiver. She used to feel it all the time that last year at home.

  “What were we thinking of, to adopt this child? She’s not at all what we wanted.” Those must have been the thoughts behind her parents’ sad expressions. But despite their disappointment in the way she’d turned out, despite their unhappiness with her, she loved them. They’d raised her. They’d loved her, in their own way. And she saw no reason to hurt them. How could she make Reid understand that seeing her would do exactly that?

  She strummed the guitar and tried to sing “Country Roads,” but the words stuck in her throat, and she gave it up.

  “Reid?” She put the guitar away and sank back down in her seat, staring at her hands clutched together in her lap. “I can’t do this, Reid. Please . . . please turn around and take me back.”

  His ice-blue gaze stabbed her in the darkness of the car. “Sorry, Jennifer,” he said simply, “this is one time you’re going to shoulder your responsibility.”

  He couldn’t have said anything calculated to make her more angry. Her head snapped up, and her dark eyes burned.

  “Just who do you think you are, Reid Carrington? Who the hell do you think you are?” She ran a hand through her soft curls, tumbling them wildly. “What makes you think you know so much about what I need and what my parents need? If you really knew ...”

  She choked, stopping herself, closing her eyes against the red tide of anger rising in her. She was about to go too far, say too much. She mustn’t let herself do that.

  She went on carefully, her voice lower. “You came roaring back into my life, ripping it apart. I didn’t ask for this. You—you came into my apartment . . .”

  You made me think you wanted me, she thought, but didn’t add aloud. It was by far the worst of his sins, as she saw it now. He made her think he wanted her—when all he really wanted was to manipulate her.

  “You whisked me off before I had time to think things through. What gives you the right to do all this?”

  Her voice quivered with emotion, and he glanced at her, a little alarmed. “Calm down, Jennifer. I’m only doing what’s best.”

  “What’s best!” Her laugh had a hollow ring. “You missed your calling. You should have been a minister. Or perhaps the dictator of a small Latin American country. Then you could go around telling everyone what to do—for their own good, of course!”

  He didn’t answer, but from the set of his jaw, she could tell he didn’t appreciate her rantings.

  “You can drive me back to Destiny Bay, if you like,” she said hoarsely. “You can even drag me up to my mother’s door. But you can’t make me speak. And you can’t watch me every moment.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll go back to L.A. if I want to.” She cringed at how childish it sounded.

  Again he didn’t answer—and why should he? she thought. She was acting like a child. He was probably embarrassed for her. She rubbed her forehead and tried to think of a way to make him understand.

  The car pulled off the freeway and she looked up, startled, but they were only stopping at a filling station. Reid pulled up to the pump and got out. When Jennifer got out on her side, he demanded to know where she was going.

  “Where do you think I’m going? Out to hitch a ride on the freeway? Even I’m not that dumb.” She stalked angrily toward the ladies’ room.

  Once inside, she went straight to the sink, pulled down a handful of paper towels, wet them, and mopped her face, patting the cool towels down around her neck. Her trip with Reid had started out hopefully, but it was taking on a nightmarish quality. It was a journey to nowhere. Why on earth had she let him talk her into coming?

  She opened her eyes and stared into the mirror. She looked tired. And why not? It was well after midnight.

  Should she run away? Disappear through the bathroom window like the heroine of a detective film? She glanced at the tiny window and groaned. So much for that plan.

  She sighed, knowing she would continue to Destiny Bay with Reid. But what would happen once they got there was anybody’s guess.

  A tiny, snuffling sound turned her head. She’d thought she was all alone in the bare room, but now she saw someone crouched in the corner.

  “Hello there,” she said to the dark-eyed child. “Is something wrong?”

  The eyes were huge. Stringy black hair fell down over her forehead. Dressed in raggedy jeans and a pajama top, she couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. Jennifer stopped a few steps away so as not to frighten her.

  “What is it, honey? Did you lose your mama?”

  Suddenly she realized that there was no look of comprehension on the sweet little face. Groping for her high school Spanish, Jennifer tried, “Donde esta su madre?”

  Relief washed across the child’s expression. “No se,” she whispered. “Estoy perdida.”

  Perdida. Lost.

&nb
sp; “Oh, sweetheart!” She looked at the child and saw another little girl with satiny brown curls and chocolate-brown eyes, just as lost, just as scared, but with a sense of desperation even deeper. All little ones get lost at some point. The lucky ones are soon found again. Some spend the rest of their lives searching but never finding a home. Her heart went out to this lost one.

  “Me llamo Jennifer. Como te llamas?” she asked the girl.

  “Nita.” One fat, dirty thumb went into her mouth, and she stared at Jennifer, eyes huge as saucers, hanging on to the thumb as though it were a lifeline.

  Jennifer smiled and reached out a friendly hand, stopping inches away from the little girl. “Will you take my hand, Nita? We’re going to find your mother.”

  Reid watched the crimson end of his cigarette glow in the dark. He’d filled the tank and pulled over to the side and gotten out to lean against the car and wait for Jennifer. She’d been gone for an inordinate amount of time, but he wasn’t worried. Not yet.

  His mind was much too full of other things. Questions. Suspicions of his own motivations. What the hell did he think he was doing, anyway?

  Ever since that afternoon earlier in the week when he’d found her again, dressed in that ridiculous jumpsuit, with mud all over her, it was as though he’d been seized by a fever he couldn’t shake. She filled his thoughts, his dreams—he was acting like an obsessed idiot.

  But he was a rational man in a rational profession. He’d been trained to be objective. He would approach this with his usual calm intelligence. There was a promise that needed to be kept. There was a problem that needed to be solved. It was time to divest this situation of all its emotional impact and deal with the facts.

  Fact number one, he’d made a promise to Tony. Bringing Jennifer home would finally fulfill that obligation.

  Fact number two, the Thorntons were miserable. They’d lost a daughter, then a son. They needed Jennifer back. Whatever might have caused the rift between them, surely it couldn’t be as important as the parent-child tie and its potential for nurturing the soul.

  There it was. His entire justification for forcing Jennifer back to Destiny Bay. It held up. The logic, the problems, the solution. It all fit.

  He stubbed out what was left of his cigarette angrily and immediately lit another. It all fit. But was it all really relevant? Or was the bottom line the simple truth—that he’d seen Jennifer, and the old longing for her had swept over him, crippling his cognitive powers and rendering him incapable of rational thought?

  He’d told her something of the truth the other day in the park, of how he’d been attracted to her when they were younger. But he hadn’t admitted how deep those feelings lay. He hadn’t told her of the nights he’d lain awake thinking of her.

  It hadn’t been right for him to love her because she’d been much too young. In some ways she still seemed too young. Something about her was so open and innocent, and he felt as old as the hills.

  He wanted her, and like any caveman, he’d simply forced his way into her cave, grabbed her by the hair, and stomped out again.

  “So which is it, Reid Carrington?” he muttered, still not sure of the answer. “Logic or lust?”

  It suddenly occurred to him that she’d been gone too long. He glanced at his watch and frowned, then eyed the door of the ladies’ room she’d disappeared into. She’d made a crack about hitchhiking. Surely she wouldn’t do anything that silly and dangerous. Would she? Concern lengthened his stride as he made his way to the door of the ladies’ room. Just as he arrived, a middle-aged woman emerged.

  “Is there anyone still in there?” he asked, and she looked startled at the harshness of his tone.

  “No, no one I could see,” she said before hurrying off to her waiting car.

  The station was the only one still open for miles, so despite the late hour, there was plenty of business from passersby on the freeway. Reid turned quickly, surveying each car to see if it contained a new passenger, but there was no sign of her. Walking quickly, he went around to the back side of the station. It was deserted.

  “Dammit to hell,” he breathed, gritting his teeth. His mind conjured up a mental picture of her standing on the highway with her thumb out, the wind tumbling her curls over her eyes. He could see her accepting a ride from some creep in a souped-up car with flames painted on the sides. The only thing left to do was to get out on the freeway himself and beat the creep to her.

  He spun on his heel, ready to hurry back to his car, but something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated for a moment, staring down a lonesome, unlit dirt road that led away from the station toward the hills. Someone was walking his way.

  He took two quick steps toward her, then stopped and waited for her to come to him. It was Jennifer. Anger mingled with relief as he watched her approach.

  “Hi,” she said brightly as she came close. “I was

  just—“

  Only seconds after telling himself not to overreact, he did exactly that. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “Don’t do that again, Jennifer. Don’t try to hide from me.”

  “I wasn’t—“ she began, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “Don’t try to get out of doing what you have to do with any of these childish tricks.” His silver gaze raked over her. “You’ve got more integrity than that, Jennifer.”

  She opened her mouth to explain to him that she’d just been returning a little girl to her mother, but then she closed it again.

  “I was just taking a walk,” she said stiffly. The heck with him! If he wanted so badly to believe she would run, let him. She should have told him before she left, but she hadn’t realized Nita’s people would be so far down the road.

  It had turned out that Nita was staying in a trailer parked in a dirt lot with other itinerant pickers. She’d been sent to the bathroom at the station, but when she came out, she had lost her way and had gone back to the bathroom as the only hiding place-she could find. Her mother had been overjoyed to see her. The scene of the reunion had been heartwarming, as had been the earnest thanks the family had bestowed upon Jennifer. Too bad Reid had missed it.

  She was angry with him and not about to try to explain herself. She let him lead her back to the car, but she didn’t speak. And in a moment they were back on the freeway again, getting closer to Destiny Bay by the minute.

  It was so dark she couldn’t see the emerald-green hills or the sapphire-blue ocean. Everything was masked by the same blanket of darkness. Neither one of them said another word as they sped up the coast. Finally, they reached the outskirts of town, and Reid turned off onto the road that led right into the exclusive area, La Bahia, which was their destination. Jennifer’s heart was thumping as she began to recognize landmarks. This was home. How could she have forgotten?

  They stopped in front of the Carrington house, and she stared across the green belt to where her own parents lived. The house was dark. It was very late. She was tired. Maybe that was why she didn’t feel anything, not even love.

  “Are your parents here?” she asked Reid.

  “No,” he said shortly. “They’re in Europe.”

  She nodded.

  Reid watched her, and the look on her face made his heart ache. He wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her and let her cry, but he wasn’t sure she wanted that. After what he’d done in her bedroom, he was going to be extra careful not to give her the idea he’d just brought her down here to get her into his bed. So he didn’t touch her. But he spoke, softly, urgently.

  “This isn’t going to be easy, Jennifer. I know that. But you can do it. I’ll be here for you, right behind you ... all the way. Whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.”

  He reached a hand toward her before he could stop himself, but she’d already turned away and didn’t see it. He drew it back again and gripped the wheel.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do—and what I’m not going to do,” she told him, her voice so low he could barely m
ake out the words. “I’ll stay with you for a few days, Reid. But I’m not making any promises.”

  “I know that. We’ll take it one step at a time.”

  He got out and came around to open the door for her, reaching inside to help her with her suitcase and guitar. Then he led the way into the house, using his key rather than ringing to wake the servants. Jennifer followed behind, peering into each familiar room as they passed. He led her up the stairs and right into his old bedroom.

  She entered behind him and looked around at all the old school pennants and Rotary Club awards on the walls, then nudged the single bed with her knee.

  “Are we going to take turns, or what?” she asked, referring to the obviously narrow proportions of the sleeping accommodations but also probing to find out just what he expected from her.

  He put down her luggage and looked up to see what she was talking about, then he smiled as he realized her point. “You’ve got the whole thing to yourself,” he assured her. “I don’t use this room anymore. I’ll be across the hall.”

  She felt disappointed, and she turned away, opening her suitcase and fussing with the contents to hide it from him. God how she wished he would take her in his arms, take her into his bed, hold her all night long! She needed him.

  “ ‘I Will Survive,’ “ she whispered to herself with a self-mocking smile.

  “What?” Reid asked, turning.

  “Nothing,” she murmured. “Nothing at all.”

  He walked to the window. She followed him. Below, she could see her parents’ house. Some exterior floodlights were left on all night, and it lay below, cold and impersonal.

  “I used to have my desk right here by the window,” Reid told her softly. “I did all my studying here. And so often I would look down and see you and Tony playing around.”

  “Playing around,” she echoed ruefully. “That was what Tony and I both did best, wasn’t it?”