Rest and Relaxation (Lesbian Romance)

by Rhavensfyre

  REST AND RELAXATION

  RHAVENSFYRE

  Rest and Relaxation

  Copyright © 2015 by Rhavensfyre

  This is a work of fiction-names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Acknowledgements

  To our lovely Beta Readers, Marion, Gail, Tammy, A. and Linda North (our final looks lady), you put up with the odd, the obvious, and the painful. Your humor keeps us going, and you reassure us when we start to worry that everything has gone all to Hell.

  To our readers who wait so patiently for the next book, who fall in love with our characters as much as we do—you are the reason we revisit these carefully constructed worlds.

  To the universe around us, and the people who looked at us strangely as we discussed our plots and plans in public. Our enthusiasm might cause some ear burning moments, but we hope you enjoy our banter.

  Rest and Relaxation

  Chapter One

  Allyse De Leon sank deeper into the butter soft leather seat and idly watched the passing scenery. The dark haired woman held a contained air about her that defied her surroundings, her mood, and her situation and did so with the same ease as a still lake held a reflection. It wasn’t something she affected, it was simply who she was, but so was the illusion. A quiet lake could still carry dangerous undercurrents, despite its mirror reflection, and Allyse’s mood was like that today, full of hidden activity that swam beneath the surface and made her calm exterior a lie.

  Her outfit was designer and from one of her own lines. Tailored to her and elegant, her choice of clothing was as out of place as she stepped outside of the sleek lines of the shiny black limo.

  Over that last few hours the familiar flat gray and black concrete and steel of the city gave way to the bold green and browns of fields and forests as the car steadily headed west out of New York. Allyse shook her head, allowing herself only the slightest frown before rubbing her temple to loosen the tension residing there. She sighed. The sound was barely louder than the A/C working steadily to combat the summer heat shimmering across the roadway, but it spoke volumes about her mindset. The goats and cows dotting the landscape were not Allyse’s usual audience, nor were the rows of corn and wheat swaying in the breeze beneath a pale blue sky. She was alone in a world that didn’t care who she was or what she could do for them, a thought that should have been liberating, instead it just left her feeling unsettled.

  She smoothed her palms across her sleeves, removing imaginary wrinkles from the sleek fabric, then closed her eyes so she could focus her tangled thoughts. The image of a small door slipping its lock and opening slowly appeared in the dark landscape beneath her eyelids, letting in just a wisp of a promise of what Erick said she needed the most—rest and relaxation. Allyse’s mood shifted and her smile faded. That small door wasn’t liberation, it was forced exile, and she wasn’t sure if she would survive something both Erick and her doctor said she needed. The idea of being in a position where she had nothing to do, day after day, made her twitchy. It was easier to stay busy, to be caught up in the “need to do’s” and “can’t waits.”

  With nothing to do but sit back and stare out the window, Allyse turned her attention back to the conversation from the day before, the one that sent her on this unexpected journey.

  ***

  “Good morning, Allyse,” Erick said, startling her. She had been so wrapped up in her work that she hadn’t heard Erick walk in and close the door.

  “Really, Erick? Why don’t you just come in and have a seat?” She asked, tossing her pen down on her desk. It bounced and rolled off of the yellow legal pad she had been scribbling notes on. Her sarcasm was purposeful, the question patently redundant since he had already taken the chair in front of her desk.

  “Allyse, we need to talk.” Erick hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck before looking her straight in the eyes. “You know I’m your friend, right?”

  She simply nodded, unsure where he was headed with his questioning.

  Erick cleared his throat before continuing. “Good because I can’t handle seeing you do this to yourself anymore.”

  “And what exactly is it that I am doing?” Allyse asked. Her voice went cold, clamping down around her emotions. Losing her temper was not what she wanted to do this morning. Her heart thudded dully against her breastbone, reminding her of its presence.

  “You are killing yourself with all this work. The girls are with their father for the summer, and since they left you have been here all the time.” Erick leaned forward and stabbed the desk with his finger. “I know that having the girls gone is hard on you, but you can’t work yourself to death just to stay occupied. It’s just not healthy.”

  Allyse narrowed her eyes at Erick, ignoring a big chunk of what he just said to focus on her girls. “Yes, I miss Kat and Stephanie fiercely.” She could admit that. She was their mother, and it was terribly hard to send them away each summer to their father as part of the custody agreement.

  “But I’m not talking about them right now, I am talking about you. You aren’t taking care of yourself. You’re exhausted, and it’s affecting your work. I know you think you are good at hiding it, but it’s becoming very apparent to me. You really need to get away and take some time for yourself before other people start to notice too.”

  “And where do you suggest I go?” She waved her hand dismissively. It was an idiotic suggestion. Did he think that she could just walk away from all of this and expect the company to run itself?

  “That’s easy. I want you to go to Dani’s place. It’s not that far away, it’s peaceful and I can email you every night with anything too important to put off. You need the break and some rest and relaxation would be good for you.”

  “You want to send me to your niece’s farm?” Allyse asked, arching one delicate eyebrow at her old friend.

  “Yes, she won’t put any expectations on you and as I said before, it’s very peaceful there.”

  “And when do you suggest I go? I have a desk full of work,” she asked, glancing down at all the paperwork gracing her desk this morning. “Not to mention meetings, interviews, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “Today. Leave all of this to me and just go. You’ll only be a telephone call away if something comes up you have to handle personally. The farm is only a couple of hours out of the city.” Erick jumped up, ticking off points as he paced in front of her desk. “You’re the boss. You haven’t taken a real vacation in almost three years. You have time, take it.”

  Then Erick rested the palms of his hands on the heavy desk and hit her with his best argument. “I’m your partner, Allyse. You can trust me to take care of things while you’re gone.”

  That hurt for Erick to remind her of that. He was her partner, not her employee, but over the years he had taken over the designing side of the business while she had slowly been sucked into the boring side of the corporate world. She looked down at her legal pad. She had been doodling again, neatly written notes and figures had been lost to the swooping lines of a design sketch. The urge to rip the page out and crumple it into a small ball bubbled up inside her. That part of her life was over, she was the corporate genius now, the one that kept
business booming and De Leon & Castille sitting at the top of the design world.

  It sounded so reasonable the way Erick put it. Why shouldn’t she be more spontaneous? Erick was right. With the girls gone all she had to look forward to was going to work and going home to knock around in an empty house. Maybe it was time for a vacation. Allyse frowned. She had a sneaky suspicion that Erick wasn’t going to let this go until she caved in. It was so unusual for him to go so pit bull on her, but it was that tenacity that helped her make her final decision. He was more than capable of taking care of everything while she was gone—she just had to let it happen.

  “And you’ll call me if anything comes up I should know about?” She asked, pinning Erick down with a sharp glare.

  “I promise.” Erick held up his hand in the familiar scouts honor position. The guileless expression on his face was almost enough to make her chuckle. Almost. A small muscle at the corner of her lip rebelled, twitching against her will.

  “Fine, but not today. I’ll leave in the morning,” Allyse grumbled. Despite her peevish tone, she found herself looking forward to the change in scenery. She couldn’t believe how easily she had caved in, agreeing so readily to Erick's suggestion. She must be more exhausted than she had even realized.

  Erick let out a sigh of relief. “Wonderful. I’ll set up a car for you and have it swing by your house at 9am.”

  “That’s kind of you Erick, but I can drive myself.”

  “Nope, you don’t have to do that. I want you in vacation mode the minute you wake up in the morning.” The message was clear. Erick wasn't going to give her a chance to change her mind. He was a smart man, and he knew her too well.

  “You should be good for at least a month, if you need it.”

  At the mention of a month, Allyse’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. How far gone was she that Erick believed she needed that much time to rest? She had asked the question silently but her body still answered her. Allyse suddenly felt tired all the way down to her bones. Somehow her conscious decision to leave had let her body feel everything she had been ignoring for so long. She was exhausted; she just hadn’t been willing to admit it until now.

  She stood up and walked Erick to the door. Patting her friends shoulder, she gave him an unexpected peck on the cheek in gratitude. “Thank you Erick, you are a true friend.”

  “You’re welcome Allyse, just get some well-deserved rest, okay? Who knows, maybe you will find something worthwhile out there?”

  What the hell did he mean by that?

  ***

  There was little to occupy her overactive mind while the miles passed by, so she wasn’t surprised to find her thoughts going farther back. Back to her one and only trip into rural Pennsylvania. The memories were less fresh but still held a sense of sadness and something else, half-formed impressions she couldn’t shake but held no true form she could easily grab onto.

  It was just after her divorce. Erick had come into her office and told her he needed to take some time off and she had asked why without even looking up from her computer.

  “A funeral,” he had said, so very quietly. “I have to go home for a funeral.” She remembered sinking down into her chair, as shocked by the announcement as by the level of grief marring Erick’s usually animated face. Darkly handsome and looking far younger than his years, Erick had always been the face and personality of De Leon and Castille. He could talk anyone into any outfit and equally convince them back out of it in a heartbeat, yet he never went farther than flirting. As good as Allyse was at ferreting out talent, he was equally gifted at convincing them their interests were best served working for their company. This was not an easy task when dealing with huge personalities that sometimes bordered on the grandiose.

  Allyse shifted her position, suddenly uncomfortable despite the luxury surrounding her. Erick was her closest friend, her oldest friend—yet she hadn’t known that his longtime partner, Jay, had been sick. True to form, Erick had kept his own problems to himself, offering his support to her while not mentioning that someone he loved was terminally ill. She had insisted on joining him and he argued with her. His argument was pretty much the same one she had just tried to use, they were too busy and someone had to be in charge, so it was no wonder she had no chance of winning. After a messy and very public divorce she understood why Erick had kept his personal life so far out of the public arena, but it didn’t alleviate her guilt. She should have known what was going on in his life.

  Erick had spent a good portion of the drive in silence, and when he spoke, it was to regale Allyse with humorous tales from Jay and Erick’s past. Allyse listened attentively. They were good stories, and it was important for Erick to tell them now. It was his way of remembering his and Jay’s relationship, of keeping it alive in his heart and she was honored that he chose to share them with her. That was when it really hit home with her. Despite their long distance relationship, Jay and Erick were life partners with a depth of mutual love that she had never experienced. Allyse realized that no matter how much he loved working in New York, his heart still resided and would always reside on that country farm with Jay and his niece.

  She had met Jay several times when the company was still new and struggling to grow. He was a quiet and earnest man that complimented Erick so perfectly it was almost jealousy inspiring. Unlike Erick, who was graced with a dancers build, Jay was solid and tall. A ruddy blond Viking born out of time and with an earthy vitality that made any room feel small once he entered. Being on the receiving end of an enthusiastic hug from him could have been bone crushing if he hadn’t been such a gentle soul.

  Jay had a huge farm out in the country and Erick had his budding career in New York City, but they had made it work somehow. They took turns visiting each other, traveling back and forth between their two homes until Jay took Dani in after her parents died in a car accident. Jay wasn’t the only relative Dani had, but he was the only one who willingly stepped up and took her in without a second thought. Jay stopped coming to New York after that, and Erick had started commuting on the weekends to visit his small family, adopting Dani into his life and treating her like his own. She had asked Erick once why Jay never visited anymore, and he had simply told her that Dani refused to leave the farm. She hated the city and flat out refused to go back to the place she associated with her parents’ death.

  The service for Jay was held on a cold and dreary day, an appropriate backdrop for such a somber occasion. She hadn’t met Jay’s niece before, but she recognized her from Erick’s photographs. As she stood next to Erick during the funeral, she had noted how Dani stood apart from the rest of the group, her face pale and drawn as she watched the casket being lowered slowly into the ground. Even in her grief, the younger woman’s appearance was striking. Her dark blonde hair danced wildly in the wind skating across the family plot. The unrelieved black she wore stood out in stark contrast to her face, which had gone deathly pale in the cold, crisp air. Unlike the rest of them, she refused to hunch up against the numbing wind. She stood, tall and unbending as she stared down at the ornately lacquered casket. The bare trees dotting the landscape stood out in charcoal relief beneath the overcast sky, but even they bent and swayed around Dani as if they mourned with her.

  It wasn’t until the funeral was almost over that the sun finally won its fight against the dreary day and burst out between two heavy cloud-banks, dowsing the somber group in the weak warmth of pale yellow sunlight. The light softened Dani’s features and brought out the golden highlights in her hair. Allyse was stunned for one silent moment as she was caught in the vision of Dani’s grief stricken countenance, standing there like some weeping angel as her uncle’s casket disappeared into the ground. She turned abruptly, and the sun fled with her, disappearing beneath heavy clouds that gathered behind her. She was tall, taller than Allyse was in heels, and her long legs swiftly carried her away from the waiting line of vehicles. She hadn’t let anyone approach her the entire time, and now she fled into the woods borderin
g the small cemetery, effectively removing herself from the expected niceties that followed every funeral.

  The small group descended on Erick instead, offering their condolences in quiet tones that expressed their sorrow for his loss. He was proper and polite, accepting the handshakes and embraces with barely contained reserve, but she could tell that his concern was with his niece. His eyes staying glued on her retreating back until she disappeared into the stark line of trees cresting the hillside. Allyse could tell that it had bothered him greatly, that Dani had left without speaking to him.

  So here she was now, heading to his niece’s farm, a young woman she had never even officially met.

  Allyse looked up when the driver made a last minute turn, then nodded to herself. They were almost there. Allyse remembered the long driveway dissecting an ocean of green bordered by white rail fences. That ocean seemed empty at first until you looked closer. Rolling fields laid out in geometric patterns held small dots here and there that grew larger as they drove closer. The animals grazing in their green fields raised their heads at the sleek black car driving by. Jay had bred horses and evidently Dani had continued that legacy. Other than that, she really didn’t remember any other details of a place she had only seen once before and for such a solemn occasion.

  Her thoughts kept traveling back to Jay and Erick’s niece. She seemed so young the last time she had seen her and with her uncle’s death she was in charge of running the farm on her own. From what she could remember, Dani should be around twenty eight now, still young for such a huge responsibility.

  ***

  Allyse was jolted out of her reminiscing when the town car came to a stop in front of a very large farmhouse. Looking up at the white clapboard monstrosity she couldn’t believe only one person lived there. She knew Erick still came up on the occasional weekend but still, it was an awfully large house for one young woman. It was an old house that had grown and morphed into a series of additions that was common in the earlier part of the 1900’s when families simply added onto the main house as each generation expanded and kids were born. There was also a smaller version of the main house set to one side, doll house size in comparison, with one entire side of the building covered in stone and ending in a tall chimney stack. She wondered what the purpose of such a quaint little building was for. Perhaps she would ask Dani after she was settled in.