“I am sorry for what I did to you,” he said heavily as they reached the end of a row and stopped. “I was wrong, I see that now. I was acting from a point of fear, when I should have been acting from a point of compassion. Worse, I made Finn keep his word to me even when I knew it was destroying him inside. I was a desperate, foolish old man and I hope that one day, in time, you can find it in your heart to forgive me, to forgive Finn, for what we both did. Once he got to know you, he was not a willing partner in our deception, believe me.”
“I…I don’t know if I can forgive, Mr. Fabrini. I really don’t.”
“I understand,” he said, closing his eyes and bowing his head. “I have something for you. I wanted to be sure you had this before you go home to The Masters again.”
He reached in his pocket and withdrew a fat bundle of envelopes tied with a length of faded ribbon. Lorenzo’s thumb played along the narrow band of light purple-colored satin for a moment before he drew in a deep breath and passed the packet to her.
“These are your mother’s. More correctly, they are from her to you and your brother. She wrote the letters inside over many years but never posted them. She’d promised your father she would never make contact with anyone at The Masters again, but it didn’t stop her from writing what she needed to say. Here.”
Tamsyn’s hand shook as she took the envelopes, as she saw her mother’s handwriting for the first time, scrawled in lilac-colored ink across the fine linen stationery. Tamsyn smiled a watery smile. Her childhood room had been decorated in shades of purple—that obviously had been her mother’s hand at work. Knowing that now brought a flicker of warmth to her heart that had been missing for days.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome. I hope her words can bring you some peace, show you the kind of woman she was before she became ill.”
“I’ll treasure them.”
He nodded, his eyes filling anew with tears. He sniffed loudly and turned his head, too proud to let her see his tears fall. “I’ll go sit over there in the sun. I am in no hurry to go back to that crowd up there. When you are finished, I will answer anything I can for you if you still have any questions. Take your time, eh?”
“I will,” she promised. She watched as he settled himself on a wooden bench seat that gave a view over the vineyards and down to where his and Ellen’s cottage nestled against the bottom of the hill.
She lowered herself to the ground and put the letters in her lap before carefully undoing the ribbon and lifting the first envelope to her face. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to catch the scent of her mother, to see if there was anything that still remained of who she’d been.
There it was, ever so faintly. A fragrance that reminded her of childish giggles, of summer sunshine, of the warmth of a woman’s embrace. Her mother’s embrace.
Tamsyn lowered the envelope, slid a nail under the flap and began to read.
Twenty-Three
She cried many tears over her mother’s words, words threaded with guilt that she’d failed to protect her children from her own weakness. She’d been running away from The Masters—from her marriage and the failures she’d struggled to live with—to Lorenzo, who waited for her at the airport with tickets for all of them to travel to New Zealand, when she’d crashed her car.
John, her husband, had arrived, distraught to find his children injured and furiously angry to find his wife under the influence of alcohol and sobbing on the side of the road. He’d used the weight of the Masters name to see the police suppress their evidence against her, and eventually drop all charges, on her promise that she’d leave, without her children, and never return. Plus, he’d arranged to pay her a stipend to ensure she stayed away, out of all their lives forever.
Ellen had battled with her guilt, and her drinking, for years after that, but had continued to accept the money from John Masters month after month, year after year. Lorenzo hadn’t wanted Masters money to touch the life they’d rebuilt for themselves in New Zealand, so she’d saved it in a separate account, eventually using it to buy some land, which was being held in trust for Ethan and Tamsyn. While her biggest regret in life had been not fighting harder to maintain a relationship with her children, she’d at least ensured she had something to give them, something definite and valuable to remember her by.
She closed the last letter with the name of the legal firm in Auckland that oversaw her and Ethan’s inheritance.
Tamsyn struggled to her feet, easing the stiffness out of her muscles as she walked toward Lorenzo, who rose to greet her.
“We don’t need the land, Lorenzo,” she said after explaining what Ellen had done. “It should be yours. We already have far more than we need at home, you especially should know that.”
“I do know that. I worked for your family for many years and I know what your family land means to you all. This is why you should know what this meant to Ellen to give you something that is purely yours, from her. You and your brother may do with it whatever you want, but remember, it was her only way of leaving you something of her. Think on it, and make your decision once you have talked to your brother, yes?”
Tamsyn nodded. “Okay.”
Back at the house, after everyone had gone, she gathered her things together for her flight away from here. Away from the pain, away from the memories, both good and bad. Finn waited at the door as she approached, a wrapped rectangle in his hands. She’d done her level best to avoid being alone with him since Ellen’s death and with her spending so much time with Alexis, it hadn’t been difficult. Finn, too, had been out of the house a lot—helping to coordinate the funeral as well as being a constant support for Lorenzo. Tamsyn had told herself she was relieved he hadn’t had the opportunity to wear down her shaky resolve to leave, but right now she felt so raw it was as if she was bleeding inside.
“Before you go, I’d like you to have this,” he said, handing her the parcel.
She looked at the bright Christmas wrappings and shook her head. “No, Finn. Please. Not a Christmas gift. We’re not…I can’t…”
“It’s yours, you have to take it.”
“Fine then,” she said, grabbing it from him and shoving it under her arm as she pushed past and carried on to her car.
She wouldn’t open the gift, she decided as she got into her car and, without a backward glance, drove down the hill toward the road that would take her to the airport.
* * *
Once she reached Auckland, she could have stayed with either of her cousins. Judd Wilson, who had grown up with her and Ethan at The Masters, lived in the city with his wife, Anna. So did Judd’s sister Nicole, who’d grown up in her father’s custody in New Zealand and who Tamsyn had only gotten to know in the past year, with her new husband, Nate. But the prospect of having to explain what she’d been through this past month or so was more than she could bear. The anonymity of a hotel was just what she needed and she’d been fortunate when a last-minute cancellation had secured her a room in one of Auckland’s most prestigious hotels.
The next morning Tamsyn checked with the airlines several times. Nothing was available, not even taking a more circuitous route through Sydney or Melbourne. It seemed everyone wanted to go to Australia for Christmas. To take her mind off the unsettled feeling that she’d left something vital behind in Marlborough, she phoned the lawyers her mother had mentioned in her letter. To her surprise, she was able to get an appointment immediately.
Later, sitting in a café on the waterfront, Tamsyn sipped a latte and let the news she’d just received sink in. She needed to talk to Ethan and dialed him up immediately.
“Have you got a flight yet?” he asked as he answered his phone. “We’re looking forward to having you back where you belong.”
Did she really belong there, back at The Masters? Sure, it was where she’d been brought
up, but she had been restless, unsettled, for a long time. That feeling had begun to lift while she’d been in Marlborough, while she’d been with Finn. She stubbornly pushed that last thought aside before answering her brother.
“No luck with flights yet but I’m on the lists. Just keep your fingers crossed, okay? In the meantime, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?”
“Our mother. She left us property here in New Zealand. Apparently she had been putting the money Dad sent her into some land close to where she was living. Once she’d paid it off, the balance went into an account that’s been held in trust in both our names.”
“Seriously? She did that?”
“There’s more. She wrote us letters, lots of them. They explain everything.”
Tamsyn gave him the full rundown on the letters’ contents. There was a long pause before Ethan answered.
“And do you feel better about everything, about her, now?”
Did she? Had reading the letters brought her any closer to understanding, to making peace with the myriad of answers she’d sought?
“I think I understand her a little more. She was miserable inside, before. She made some stupid, totally wrong, decisions and she paid for them dearly. I still wish we’d had a chance to know her, but I can’t pin the rest of my life on something I can never have or change. So, yeah, I do feel better, stronger even.”
“Should I be scared?” he teased and she smiled in response. The first genuine smile to stretch her face in almost a week.
“Funny, Ethan, very funny. Now, about this land. Obviously I don’t expect you to make a decision right now—but we’ll need to think carefully about what we want to do.”
“I don’t think we need it, Tam. Do you?”
“I agree. I said as much to Lorenzo, but he was insistent that Mom wanted us to have it, to do with it whatever we wanted.”
“Hmm. Then how would you feel about selling the land? Maybe donating the money toward a charity or something in her name, something that might help other people going through what she went through.”
Tamsyn felt herself nodding. “That’s a good idea. I’ll put some thoughts together and we can discuss it when I get home, okay?”
They said their goodbyes and Tamsyn decided to walk back to the hotel as a vague feeling of disquiet still niggled at her. Saying “home” hadn’t felt quite right. For some reason, it felt as though the vast tract of land encompassing The Masters, including the imposing ruins of Masters Rise on the hilltop, belonged to another Tamsyn, another time, another world apart from what she’d begun to think of as home now. Did she even belong there at all? Did she belong anywhere?
From her harbor-facing hotel room window she watched as seagulls lazily circled in the air. She felt displaced, and wasn’t that what had led her to try to find her mother in the first place? The only time she’d felt as though she truly belonged anywhere was when she’d been in Finn’s arms. The past couple of weeks, working with him, just simply being with him, had felt so very right.
Her chest ached with a definite physical pain. She missed him already, even though he’d hurt her, even though he’d lied. As Alexis had stressed, Finn had acted with the very best intentions—not just toward Lorenzo, but toward her, as well. Perhaps not immediately, but certainly within the first week of knowing why she was there.
On the table beside her, her phone chimed with a new text message. Idly, she picked it up, surprised to see it was from Alexis and contained a link to a clip in a national current affairs show.
Hi sis. Hopefully ur still in NZ. U HAVE to see this! Luv Ax.
Tamsyn swiftly texted back asking what it was about but only received a watch it! in response.
She thumbed the link, hoping it wouldn’t be a total waste of her data allowance, and watched as the show advertising scrolled across the screen. The presenter’s words immediately made her sit up and take notice.
“Tonight we have well known philanthropist Finn Gallagher with us, to tell us about his exciting new project. Finn, what led you to this project in particular?”
Tamsyn watched, enthralled, as Finn filled the screen of her smartphone, as his measured voice came from the tiny speakers. She recognized the suit he was wearing as one he’d had on when he’d returned from a day trip to Wellington last week, so the interview itself was very recent.
During the interview he spoke eloquently about the respite center and about the families and children he hoped it would serve, and why. It seemed to take a toll on Finn, putting such a public face on one of his very personal projects, which fit in with what Alexis had told her about him and how much he supported those less fortunate in the community.
It hurt to watch him, yet it filled Tamsyn with a deep sense of calm as well. He was, essentially, a good man with a heart that beat for those he loved. He’d told her she was one of those people, but with everything that had happened afterward, she’d been too angry, too wounded and too scared of making herself vulnerable again to believe him.
Thinking back now, she remember how he’d sounded when he’d said the words before he went to be with Ellen as she died. He’d obviously been distraught at the knowledge that the mother figure, who’d been there for him while he was growing up, was leaving them all for good, yet he’d taken the time to call Tamsyn. To give her that piece of himself.
The current affairs piece was wrapping up and Tamsyn forced her attention back to the screen.
“And do you have a name for the center?” the presenter asked.
“Yes, I do. I’m naming it for a very special woman. To honor her strength and my love and admiration for her, I’m calling it, Tamsyn’s Place.”
Tamsyn didn’t hear whatever it was the presenter said next. All she could hear were Finn’s words repeating in her head as she tried to comprehend the enormity of his action in wanting to name the center after her. She didn’t deserve the accolade. She would have thought, after all they’d been through, the last thing he’d have wanted would be the constant reminder of her in his life. But it seemed she was very wrong. And if she was wrong about that, maybe she’d been wrong about other things as well.
She looked at the documents poking out from her handbag lying on the hotel bed—the copy of legal title to the land her mother had left her, and realized why looking at it caused that niggling sense of familiarity. It was the land Finn had tried to get for the easement—the one he needed for the road to Tamsyn’s Place. And as she stared at the papers, she knew what she needed to do.
More, she now knew exactly where her place was. And maybe in going to claim it, she could stand to be spontaneous just one more time after all….
Twenty-Four
The persistent hammering at the front door woke Finn from his slumber on the couch where he’d collapsed last night. The racket matched the hammering in his head.
Last night, all his duties to everyone else behind him for a while, he’d done some serious damage to a bottle of whiskey and now he was paying the price. Still, it had been worth it for the brief oblivion it had given him. He mourned Ellen, but he was dying inside for what he’d done to Tamsyn and for how his choices had lost her from his life for good.
He caught sight of himself in a wall mirror and made a sound of disgust. He looked terrible. Hair unkempt, clothing slept in, face unshaven. Maybe he could just scare away whoever was at the door without having to speak—something he was sure would make his head ache even more.
Finn swung the front door open with a growled greeting and felt the world tilt at his feet when he saw Tamsyn standing there. He rubbed his eyes—clichéd, he knew, but he couldn’t quite believe what he saw.
“You look like hell,” she said, walking past him and into the house before he could say anything. “We need to talk.”
“By all means, come in,�
�� he said, closing the door behind her and following her down the hall to the kitchen.
He stood there, saying nothing, just drinking her in as she moved around the kitchen preparing a fresh carafe of coffee. She was a sight for sore eyes and he was glad those sore eyes didn’t deceive him, but what the hell was she doing here?
Once the coffee was brewed, she poured them each a mug and handed one to him.
“Drink,” she ordered then went to sit at the casual dining table in front of the French doors.
He joined her and took a long draw of the life-sustaining brew. She’d made it strong. Good, he had the feeling he’d really need his wits about him for whatever came next.
“I have a proposition for you,” she said, pulling a sheaf of papers from her voluminous handbag and setting them on the table.
“A proposition?”
It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected to hear from her lips. He sat up a little straighter. She was a far cry from the desperately unhappy and wounded woman who’d driven away from him two days ago. Something had happened to change her, but what? Whatever it was, he was grateful it had brought her back here, to him, even if only for a short time. Grateful enough to give his full attention to whatever proposition she wanted to make, no matter how badly his head hurt.
“A business proposition, actually. I don’t know if Lorenzo told you—”
“I haven’t spoken to him since the funeral on Monday,” he interrupted.
Tamsyn nodded. “Okay, well, it seems that my brother and I are the proud owners of this.”
She pushed a copy of a title plan toward him, and her finger pointed at the acreage adjoining his own. The very acreage he needed a slice of to complete his dream for the respite center. His headache grew to new proportions. How on earth had she and Ethan gotten possession of the land? And why was she telling him this? Was it so she could have the satisfaction of rubbing his face in it, in telling him that for what he’d done to her he could wait until hell froze over before he could have that easement?
The High Price of Secrets Page 17
