“So, Dad,” I ask after I’ve finished my breakfast. “What have you and mother been up to for the last few years?”
“The usual, son,” he says. “When are you getting back into the office? The stockholders have been asking about you. Jack’s been doing a fine job but we’re all eager to have a Bradford back at the helm.”
Smiling, I sip my coffee as he waits for my answer. Bruce had been outraged when I took his place as CEO of Bradford Enterprises. I was supposed to wait in the wings until my father decided it was time for him to retire. I was supposed to smile for the cameras, marry a pretty blonde, and spend my days fly fishing with investors.
I saw a different future for the company and for myself, so as soon as I finished business school, I gathered the necessary votes and assumed the role of CEO. Profits soared and the board loved me for it. But now I’m not the same man and I have little interest in reclaiming that part of my life.
“Why don’t you talk to Noah about that, Dad,” I offer.
Bruce scoffs. He won’t dignify my suggestion with an answer. Noah has never had the discipline for a day job. My father made him the Vice-president of Bradford Enterprises’ charitable trust as soon as he graduated from Yale. Noah has a title and a paycheck, but none of the actual responsibilities that might earn them.
I’ve always thought that if he’d been born into a family that valued hard work rather than disparaging it, my brother might have found some sense of purpose. But Bruce and Sharon always made sure we knew that the only purpose in life for a Bradford was to accumulate more. More money. More social capital. More expensive toys. More of everything we’re entitled to and none of anything that would require actual work.
“Tell them I’ll let them know what my plans are soon, Dad.”
Eyes narrowing, he lets the paper drop to the table.
“Young man, you have an obligation to this company and to this family. We expect you to get back in line now that you’re… well…”
“Back from the dead, Dad? Or maybe you were going to say healed?”
One corner of his mouth curls up as I smile at him and take another sip.
“You haven’t changed at all, Jeremy.”
“On the contrary, Dad,” I say rising to my feet and pushing in my chair. “I’ve changed quite a bit.”
I leave the opulently furnished breakfast room and my shoes echo as I make my way through the long corridors past moulded walls hung with priceless art and a dozen elaborately decorated rooms that rarely serve any function. Deciding to walk the three acres of carefully landscaped gardens and walkways, I head for the front door. When I step outside, I find Carter bringing in a box from the car.
“They have you hauling boxes now?”
Chuckling, Carter stops and puts the box on the cart beside the car.
“It’s just some of your old stuff. Mr. Chambers told us he and um…” Carter swallows before he continues. “Mrs. Chambers had put it in storage. I thought that since you were here you might want some of your things, so I picked it all up for you.”
He smiles, offering sympathy for my losses in a way that tells me even my servants pity me. I nod.
“Thank you, Carter,” I tell him. “I appreciate it.”
Opening the top box, I grimace when I see my hiking boots nestled among the other odds and ends. I remember the long hikes and camping trips Sylvie and I used to take. She’d loved walking through the redwoods. She said there was something about the smell deep in the woods that made her feel like everything was right in the world.
* * *
“You don’t get that kind of smell around the edges,” she said. “You have to be so far into the woods that you can’t see anything but trees for miles and miles. Then you can take a deep breath and feel the way things were meant to be.”
“How were things meant to be?” I always asked her.
“Innocent,” she’d answer. “Pure and unmarred. Devoid of anything synthetic or ugly. Just woods.”
* * *
She used to close her eyes when she recited the last bit. I can picture the look of contentment that relaxed her features as she thought about it.
“Carter, is there a car I can take for a bit?”
“Sure. There’s a Range Rover in the guest house garage that your dad bought last year. He only uses it when he’s going fishing. No one will miss it. Where are you going?”
“Muir Woods,” I answer as I grab my boots and head into the house to change.
Chapter Twenty-four
Listening to the birds calling between the trees, I wish I knew what they were communicating. Jeremy could tell the difference between mating calls and threat calls and a whole host of other types of bird talk. He tried to teach me. Why hadn’t I listened then?
“…so then I told him that the hydrangea he was planting was not only not native, but it was a water-hungry varietal that would never survive the type of xeriscaping I planned to do,” Phoebe says.
“Are you feeling frustrated because you needed to be heard?” asks Immy. “Were you needing more respect and honesty?”
“Yes, I was,” answers Phoebe. “He was totally trying to gaslight me!”
“You didn’t let him get away with that, did you?” asks Blythe.
“Of course not,” Phoebe answers. “That jerk had the audacity to try to mansplain hydrangea hybridization to me. I had to get the nursery on the phone to explain to him the water needs of the plant before he took it away and went to get the varietal we’d agreed on. What an ass.”
I hear Blythe and Immy expressing their empathy as I try to pinpoint the trees from which the chattering avifauna chitter. When the sounds of my friends fall away from the ambient noise I turn back to them. All three women are staring at me with brows raised.
“Sorry, Phoebe.” I offer a guilty smile. “Did you get the plant you wanted?”
“Yeah,” she says. “But maybe you have something you need to discuss more than my landscaping.”
I open my mouth to tell them I’m fine. I don’t need to talk. I’ve got everything under control. But a stray tear falls before I can say anything and all three women reach for me. Their looks of accusation have been replaced by tenderness and empathy in two seconds flat and it’s enough to make me burst into laughter. Eyes changing again, they glance at each other with quizzical concern.
“I don’t even know why I’m laughing,” I say between cackles and bouts. “Maybe my situation is kind of funny in a dark ironic way, but…”
“You’ve been through a lot the last few weeks, sweetie,” says Immy. “It makes sense that you’re overwhelmed and maybe a little confused.”
Looking into her dark brown irises, I wipe the tears from my face and nod.
“I guess I am confused,” I breathe as a few stray chuckles escape. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I thought I knew what the right thing was. I thought I knew who I could trust and what I wanted for my future, but now… It’s like everything I thought I knew is now a big vortex of doubt and confusion and it’s getting closer and closer and I just don’t know if I should turn and run or move forward into the unknown; and if I run, which direction do I run? And how do I know that I’m not making a huge mistake, because it’s the rest of my life and not just my life, Levi’s life too…”
“Okay, you need to breathe, Sylvie,” says Blythe.
I turn to see her no-nonsense face and I take a deep breath without thinking. After a couple more she continues.
“When Jeremy came back, you didn’t want to talk about it. You had everything figured out and you didn’t need anyone confusing you. Now you’ve finally realized that your pretty little head is stuck so deep in the sand that you’ve got the stuff in your lungs.”
“Blythe, I don’t think this is a good time to scold…” Immy starts but one look from the blue-eyed brunette shuts her down with a swallow.
“Sylvie, you can’t ignore the fact that you still have very
strong feelings for Jeremy. He’s Levi’s biological father and before he disappeared you were very much in love with him. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You can have feelings for Jeremy and still be faithful to Silas. And if you need to reconsider your marriage, then you should. If you’re looking for permission from someone. Permission granted.”
“It’s not that simple,” I tell her.
“I don’t believe I used the word simple,” she states, her eyes locked on me.
She holds my gaze as the birds continue their songs around us. Eventually, I nod.
“You’re right. I’m not sure Silas and I can survive this.”
Slinging a sweaty arm over my shoulder, Blythe exhales.
“Of course I’m right. The question is, what are you going to do? Can you tell Silas that you need some time to figure things out? That you want a trial separation?”
“I don’t know? I certainly have cause to ask for a separation, but it would kill Silas and… I don’t know if I could do that to him.”
The bounce of Immy’s tight curls catch my eye as she takes my hand and squeezes.
“Maybe,” she says, “you need to think about yourself right now. Silas is a strong man and he has to know that this situation is difficult for you.”
“Is this about the trust?” asks Phoebe.
Meeting her gaze I hesitate. I don’t know how much I can say without causing more harm.
“You were very quiet on the drive back from St. Helena and during lunch you only wanted to talk about the new editing job that Immy got for you and you haven’t mentioned the investigation since.”
Deciding that no good can come from sharing my suspicions with my friends, I shake my head.
“I can’t talk about it. There is so much that I want to tell you all, but until I have more answers, I have to be careful about what I say and…”
“It’s okay,” interrupts Immy. “You don’t have to give us details. But just remember that we’re here for you.”
Looking up at the clouds darkening the canopy above, she purses her lips.
“We should head back. It’s supposed to storm in a few hours. First storm in months. I promised Nora I’d watch the lightning with her.”
Everyone agrees and we discuss the drought and the joy of watching the rain with our children on the hike back to our cars.
Chapter Twenty-five
The drive into the woods is quiet. The summer crowds are well behind us. Autumn in the redwoods is perhaps the most under-appreciated beauty on the West Coast. My phone rings just as I’m parking. My investigator’s number flashes on the screen.
“This is Jeremy,” I answer.
“I found your brother,” says a female voice with which I have become familiar of late. “He’s been staying at a hotel by the airport. Do you want me to bring him back to your estate?”
“No,” I answer, shaking my head.
Noah had always been one to lay low when things were hard. He used to hunker down with a twelve-pack of beer and a couple of bottles of Belvedere. He usually came back to the world when he got hungry or bored. He didn’t need to be in the office for the job Bruce gave him; no one else would miss him for a while.
“Has he been using his phone?” I ask, wanting to know if he’s just dodging my calls or if he lost it.
“He’s been making regular calls from the number you gave me. My records indicate he’s been in daily communication with someone named Silas Chambers.”
“Of course he has,” I mutter.
Why am I not surprised that Silas is deep into whatever is going on? What I don’t understand is why my kid brother is avoiding my calls in the first place. Has the stress of my return driven him back to old habits? Hell I haven’t been around. Maybe he’s been boozing it up all these years? I was always the only one who cared enough to try to keep him sober. Maybe he feels guilty that the investigator he’d found for Sylvie had been negligent?
“What about the other investigators I asked you to look into? Have you been able to locate either of them?”
“No. They’ve both disappeared. It’s like they never existed.”
Frustrated, I scratch my head.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Bradford?” she asks.
I consider asking her to look into Sylvie. I’ve been calling her for two days and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. Part of me wants to drive over to Silas’ house again and demand to see her, but the nagging suspicion that she’s deliberately dodging my calls has compelled me to take a more reserved approach.
“No,” I tell the investigator. “I’ll be in touch again soon.”
Hanging up, I toss my phone into the glove box. I trek into the underbrush hoping that the sounds of nature will help me recover those missing memories. As I replay that last day again, I remember the taste of her, the smells, the way she sounded when I made her come. How she’d milked my cock riding me as her ass cheeks bounced in my hands. Shaking off my hard-on, I will myself to think beyond laying her out on my office desk. She left. She said she’d see me at home, our home together. I picture the way a loose curl had fallen into her face when she smiled at me over her shoulder. I remember watching her hips sway as she moved through the doorway.
Then what? There was the image of my helmet. A flash of buckling a seat-belt. The spreadsheets. Growling into the bounty of the woods, my guttural expulsion echoes and then fades.
“Why don’t I remember the rest?” I mutter as I forge deeper into the brush.
I lose myself in the rhythm of my footsteps. I breathe deep, waiting for that first great breath, the one Sylvie always used to talk about. And after I’ve walked for a couple of hours, I find it and I fill my lungs with the purity that I could never hope to generate on my own.
I hear voices in the distance and I look around searching for evidence of other hikers. There is nothing for a while, so I continue forward. Then I see them, four women each carrying a light pack, probably with water and first aid kits. Three of them I’ve never seen, but one of the women is more familiar to me than any other person on the planet.
I don’t move as they approach, They’re still pretty far away and they’re headed southeast so our paths might not cross. I smile as I watch her laughing with her friends. A scrub jay cheeps and I search the tree line for it. That’s when our eyes meet. She’s close enough to recognize me and the way she freezes suggest that she does.
Her friends step away as I approach, but her eyes never leave mine. Her breathing is quick and her eyes blink rapidly.
“Hi, Sylvie,” I say when I’m close enough to reach out and touch her.
I don’t reach for her. I wait as she swallows and I watch her lips part.
“Jeremy. What are you doing here?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Jeremy’s stormy eyes don’t match his affable smile. I can’t tell if it’s the clouds above or the tension here on the ground that darkens them, but the guilt from avoiding his calls forces me to avoid his gaze.
“I needed to get away from the Bradfords,” he answers. “You know how they can be.”
I resist the urge to wrap my arms around him the way I used to when the Bradfords were making him envy my orphan status. Lifting my gaze back to his, I smile tightly. We always had that in common. I resented my parents for abandoning me as a baby and he resented his for abandoning him emotionally every day of his life.
“I remember,” I reply. “I hoped that they’d be more grateful to have you back, but…”
Chuckling Jeremy shakes his head and bites down on his thick lower lip. The way it pillows around his teeth sends a familiar tingle down my spine.
“The Bradfords don’t do gratitude. If you think you’re entitled to everything, there is nothing to be grateful for.”
Phoebe snickers behind me and I remember that we’re not alone. Turning to my friends, I swallow my embarrassment and brush a stray hair off my brow.
“Jeremy, these are my friends. Imogen, Blythe, and the giggler is Phoebe. Everyone, this is Jeremy, Levi’s biological father.”
A round of warm but slightly awkward handshakes and nods are exchanged before Immy clears her throat.
“We should really get back to the cars, Sylvie. Remember?”
Her chin and eyes gesture skyward and I nod. There is a storm coming and no one wants to be stuck in the woods for it.
“You all go ahead. I’m just going to say goodbye. Don’t wait for me. I’ll call you when I get home.”
Blythe and Phoebe exchange a look before everyone smiles and says goodbye.
“Your friends seem really great,” Jeremy says. “I don’t remember you ever having girlfriends before.”
“Things change,” I tell him.
Narrowing his eyes, he steps closer.
“I also remember you calling me back when I left you a voicemail or when I texted. Maybe that’s changed too?”
He’s musky from walking and his rough masculine scent invades my senses as he invades my space. Blythe was right. I can’t pretend that I don’t still harbor feelings for Jeremy. But she was so wrong about how I should handle them.
“I don’t think I can help you investigate your disappearance anymore.”
The words come out more quietly than I intended, but he’s close enough to hear me whisper. Maybe he’s close enough to hear my heart hammering in my chest or the way I’m straining to take in the air I need without drinking in his nearness.
Tipping his chin up, he studies me.
“What did you find at the hospital?” he asks.
“Nothing new,” I reply.
Jeremy’s head jerks back slightly.
“You’re lying,” he says. “I can’t believe you’d lie to me.”
Looking down, I swallow. I can’t believe I lied to him, either.
“You found something in St. Helena and you don’t want to tell me.”
Everything Stolen Page 13
