One Perfect Moment

by A. C. Arthur

  When Ava opened her mouth to speak, her mother held up one elegant hand.

  “If you had told Gage about the show for his family from day one, he might have said no and sent you away. Or he might have listened to you and let you speak to his family, and they might have all made a decision. But that time has passed. You cannot determine what the outcome would have been at this point any more than I can. But you still have the opportunity that I missed.”

  Ava shook her head. “I don’t know what to do now. I mean, I do. I should just go. I betrayed him, all of them.”

  “You were doing your job and you fell in love. That’s life. But you are no quitter,” Eleanor told her. “You’re not like me. Don’t miss the opportunity to say something, do something, that might change the course of these events. If you really love this man, you need to grab hold of that love and don’t let go.”

  She heard what her mother was saying, and she knew what she meant, but Ava was tired, and she was certain that she never wanted to see Gage looking at her the way he had just a short while ago again. Her heart couldn’t take it.

  “We’re going home tomorrow, Mother,” Ava said and crawled to the head of the bed to sit next to her mother. She took her hand and laid her head on Eleanor’s shoulder. “Thank you for talking to me about Dad and what really happened. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out better.”

  “Not as sorry as I am, my baby. Every day I wonder and I hurt. Well, every day until I met Otis.”

  That made Ava smile. “Wow. You and Otis.”

  Eleanor chuckled. “I know. There’s just something about this town.”

  That was something else Ava and Eleanor could agree on. There was something about Temptation and the people here. Especially the Taylors. But that something would soon be in Ava’s past. It had to be.

  Chapter 14

  Two weeks later

  Gemma Taylor sat at the head of the formal dining room table in Gray’s house. She was a tall woman, at five feet ten inches, with a heavily creamed coffee complexion and ink-black hair that fell in perfect soft waves past her shoulders. She sat with her shoulders squared, brown eyes searching and assessing everyone in the room with her. She looked, to Gage, just like their mother.

  “This is ridiculous,” Gage said. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

  “That’s not your call,” Gemma told him calmly. “This involved all of us, so we should have all been consulted.”

  “I agree,” Gray, who was sitting across the table from Gage, said. “This is how it should have happened from the start. All of us here, listening to what the network has to say and then deciding how to proceed.”

  “I don’t want to be on a television show,” Gage insisted.

  “And neither do I,” Garrek chimed in from the Skype call he’d been connected through. “But I don’t think I can make that call for anyone else.”

  “He can’t,” Gia replied.

  She and Gen had once again been connected to the meeting via FaceTime calls, with Harper and Morgan sitting at the table holding the phones.

  “And you’re certain Ava never mentioned this to you, Gage?” Gemma asked. “You could have simply dismissed it because you’re so firm in your answer.”

  Gage stared at her blankly for a moment, and then he fumed. This was all Ava’s fault. Now she was pitting them against each other.

  “I definitely would have remembered her telling me that she was here to spy on my family for the sake of a new show,” he said.

  “It could have been after those steamy bouts of sex on your lovely yacht,” Morgan said and then looked across the room as if she hadn’t just aimed those words at him.

  The doorbell rang, and Harper set her phone on the table, saying, “I’ll get it.”

  Gage could have sworn he heard her chuckle as she walked out of the room and headed to the door. He wisely remained silent and sat back in the chair. He rested his hands on his thighs and decided to play this as cool as he possibly could. It wasn’t going to be easy. Not like handing in his resignation to the hospital and packing up his condo had been. That was a surprise to him, because he’d spent his entire life striving to get to those places. It shouldn’t have been so easy to walk away. But he hadn’t wanted to examine the reasons for that. He’d just wanted to get back to Temptation and to get started on his new dream, even if a huge part of it had fallen through.

  “Everyone, this is Ava Cannon. She’s here on behalf of Donovan Network Television and would like to present a business opportunity to the family,” Harper said.

  Gage heard his siblings speaking to Ava and thanking her for coming. He did not turn around to look at her, nor did he say a word to her. He couldn’t. There were no words to describe what these last two weeks had been like for him. And heaven help him, he couldn’t figure out the words to make things better.

  “Thank you for inviting me,” Ava said.

  From the sound of her voice, and because he could see her movement out of his peripheral vision, he could tell she’d entered the dining room and followed Harper to stand at the other end of the table.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’ve heard a lot about you from...your family, and then I’ve done some research,” Ava said.

  “You should probably focus more on what the family says,” Gemma joked. “Even though they can embellish a bit, too.”

  Everyone around the table laughed. Except Gage.

  “Well, I’ll get right to it,” Ava said. She pulled out a laptop and placed it on the table. After tapping some keys, she turned it to face everyone.

  Gage couldn’t help but look. On the screen was a purple-and-gold logo that read The Taylors of Temptation. In seconds, that screen dissolved and in its place was Lemil Mountain Lake, the words “A Whole New World” appearing in shimmering letters over the water.

  “Awww, it’s the lake,” Gia said. “You remember playing softball there, Gage? You were always begging Mom and Dad to take us there on pretty summer days.”

  “I hated swimming,” Gen said. “But Gage loved the water.”

  “He still does,” Gray said frankly.

  Ava cleared her throat.

  “I was first approached by producers at my former network to create a show surrounding the Taylors. It would have been a thirteen-episode reality show following each of you and your new life around Temptation. Marketing and scheduling were already in place. I didn’t ask why in the beginning, but I should have. As it turns out, the producers had already worked out a deal for this show with Theodor Taylor. They’d even paid him an advance in the amount of seven million dollars.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “I’ve since gathered additional information,” Ava continued. “The advance money was wired to an account in the name of S. Frank Brewster. He was a carpenter who worked on the houses on Bond Street. S. Frank Brewster died last month, and his son, Tobias Brewster, has a Christmas tree farm just south of Temptation. Tobias was kind enough to let me go through some of his father’s papers, and I found email receipts of when Frank set up an account in Grand Cayman Island with 6.8 million dollars. The remaining money was reported as a fee to Frank from Theodor, and Tobias inherited it upon his father’s death.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Gemma said, resting her elbows on the table and staring at the laptop screen.

  “So Dad decided we were doing this show without conferring with us either,” Gia said. “Ain’t that something.”

  Gray shook his head. “It’s something, all right.”

  Gage remained speechless. He’d said he didn’t care about where the money had come from, but it was nice to finally hear about the money trail and receive the full story.

  “When the executives came to me about the show, it was because upon Theodor’s death, the signed contract they had became null and void. But they were out seven million dollars,” Ava t
old them.

  “So they needed you to come here and make it happen. They needed you to get the show on air because you’d done such a great job with Doctor’s Orders,” Morgan stated.

  “And they knew that Gage had been working on the show with me,” Ava said.

  This time her voice—which Gage had been trying to convince himself he hadn’t missed hearing—cracked a bit, and guilt settled into his chest like a pile of hot rocks.

  “All of this was happening in LA,” Harper said. “How did Millie find out?”

  “I can explain that, too,” Ava said. “My agent found out that Miranda Martinez, one of the actresses from Doctor’s Orders, was sleeping with one of the execs at the network. She wanted to be involved in the reality show as a possible love interest.”

  Gage frowned at those words. He recalled Miranda’s not-so-subtle advances when they’d been at the awards show.

  Ava continued. “When they turned her down, Miranda threatened to leak the show idea to another network. To counter her threat, the execs hurried to release a preliminary announcement about the show to a few key press contacts. We assume someone from the press contacted Millie in the hopes of a background story about the town.”

  Gemma shook her head. “This is unbelievable,” she said. “The things that go on in the world of television and celebrities.”

  Which was exactly why Gage had wanted nothing to do with this world. But hadn’t he already been involved in the world? He was working on a television show, even as a consultant, and he’d been sleeping with a writer/producer.

  “So what happens now?” Gen asked.

  “I am no longer working with that network,” Ava told them. “Their idea for the show and what I was willing to present to you were different. They weren’t open to a compromise, and neither was I.”

  Gemma leaned over and pinched Gage’s knee.

  “Soon after I severed ties with the station, I went to Miami and met with Parker and Savian Donovan from Donovan Network Television. They asked about you, Gage,” she said.

  When all eyes fell on him, Gage looked down the table to Ava. She looked amazing in a black pantsuit and teal blouse. Her hair was pulled over to rest on one shoulder, and that spot he loved to kiss—the hollow of her neck—beckoned him. He cleared his throat.

  “Why would they ask about me?”

  “You met them when we were at the awards show, and they remembered,” she replied.

  “Oh, yeah. Right,” Gage said, and after a pause continued. “What happened at the meeting?”

  “I’m not sure if any of you have heard of them, but the Donovans are a very large and prestigious African American family. They have their hand in just about everything, from oil to television to casinos. Anyway, the Donovans are all about family first. So when Parker and Savian asked about Gage, I took that as a sign, and I pitched my revised idea for the Taylors of Temptation show. And they loved it!”

  Gia squealed. “What’s the revised idea?”

  Ava explained the four-hour, two-night special and that they could decide which siblings appeared and how their story would be told. She talked about payment and contracts and negotiable points. She suggested, if they were considering it, that they should each get an agent or a lawyer to look over their contracts and advise them further of their rights before they commit.

  And then she said, “I never meant to exploit any of you, or what your parents went through. I was reluctant about even taking the job at first. But then I came to Temptation, and I saw Gray and Morgan and the kids. I met Harper and I listened to how she talked about Garrek and falling in love with him. I listened to Gage talk about your childhood and the things you lost because of the show. And I changed my mind. I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt any of you. I should have told you all from the start, but I didn’t know how.”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s not true. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want my time with this family and with...” She paused, her gaze resting on Gage. “I didn’t want any of it to end. So I pushed it off, and I worked on an idea that I thought would suit you better. But believe me, I understand completely if you don’t want to take it. If you want to remain a family outside of the spotlight, I get it. I do, and I envy you for it.”

  “I’m in!” Gia yelled. “It’ll be great exposure for my new restaurant.”

  “I think you’re right,” Gen added. “We could get some great advertising for our businesses out of this.”

  “I’m not sure what my schedule will be like,” Garrek said. “But if you want to get in on the advertising possibilities, Harper, I’m okay with it.”

  Gage looked across the table to see Gray staring at him.

  “Morgan and I have to talk about this,” Gray said. “We’re the only ones who have children involved, and I don’t want to risk them in any way,” he said.

  Morgan reached out to take his hand. “We’ll talk about it and figure out what works best for us.”

  Gemma smiled. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve got a lot going on right now and...I just don’t know.”

  Gage looked at his sister. He’d been wondering why she’d shown up in Temptation six weeks before their scheduled Christmas dinner, but he hadn’t found a moment to ask her about it.

  Conversation about the show and questions for Ava continued, but Gage didn’t want to hear any of it. He’d heard enough and now...well, now he was right back to being unsure of what he should do or say. So he opted to leave instead.

  He couldn’t help it; he looked at Ava as he stood. She was in her element, talking about shows and episodes and advertising blocks. She was great at her job; that had never been a question to him. It was everything else. How she felt in his arms. How it felt to have her sleeping next to him, writhing beneath him, laughing beside him. All of that had been amazing and he’d fallen for it. Hard.

  Now, he needed to figure out how to pick himself up again.

  * * *

  An hour later, Gage stepped out of the First Unity of Temptation Bank and looked up to the sky. That’s where his mother was, and he wondered if she were looking down on him, curious as to what his next step would be. And if his father were in heaven, too, was he standing beside his wife—the woman Gage had once heard Theodor say was the love of his life—watching to see what their fifth-born child would do about his future at this moment?

  Gage held the key his father had left for him in one hand, his cell phone in the other, and stood in the middle of the sidewalk on Crane Street for another few minutes. He looked up and down the street to the people moving about. The two male tourists who walked hand in hand looking into the window of a gift shop specializing in Lemil Mountain Lake memorabilia, and the grandfather across the street holding his young granddaughter’s hand while they waited for the traffic light to change. Cars drove past, at a much slower speed than they traveled in New York, and the coffee shop just a few blocks down served coffee, sticky buns and much better conversation than the coffee place on the main level of Nancy Links Medical Center.

  He smiled as he turned to walk toward where his car was parked, because in this moment Gage knew that he’d made the right decision. Although none of this had been part of his original plan, he felt with every fiber of his being that this was what his life was meant to be.

  He drove for almost half an hour before parking his car on a grassy spot. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the papers he’d retrieved from the safe-deposit box in the bank—the one that his special key had opened. He checked the address on the papers and then looked at his GPS. He had arrived at his destination, but there was nothing here.

  Gage stepped out of the car and stuffed his keys into his pocket. He kept the papers in his hand, but rolled them up as he walked across the grass. There were acres of grass to one side, and to his delight, mountains on the other side. He continued to walk because he heard a familiar
sound—the rustling of water over rocks and sand. The lake was about twenty miles ahead. Folding his arms over his chest, Gage stood and simply stared, enjoying the sight before him.

  “Patsy and Jebediah Johnson built a house here sixty-two years ago,” a woman said from behind.

  Gage turned abruptly to see her standing there, wearing a long purple dress fringed in lace that looked as old as the years of which she’d spoken. Her gray hair was pulled up in a neat stack, pearl earrings at her ears that perfectly matched the color of the wool coat she wore. Her gloved hands were clasped in front of her while gray eyes stared directly at him.

  “You don’t remember me,” she continued. “I’m JoEllen Camby, and I remember you very well. Patsy was beside herself with joy the moment she found out her daughter, Olivia, was pregnant. Teddy and Olivia had tried for so long, Jeb had begun to believe he’d never get grandchildren. But Patsy, oh, she was a praying woman. Yes indeed. She and I used to stay at the church long after Sunday service was over, and we’d go down to the altar and get on our knees. We prayed until times got better, yes, we did.”

  The woman talked with the old lyrical voice of someone who had seen and experienced a myriad of events, and nothing but her faith had brought her through. Her honey-brown skin was wrinkled and sagged a bit at the cheeks, but she stood straight and strong. She sounded wise and knowledgeable, and Gage was instantly captivated by her words.

  “You and my grandmother prayed for the in vitro treatments to work,” he stated.

  “Yes, we sure did. Some silly folk in the church thought it wasn’t godly, but we knew that the good Lord made a way for his faithful children. And if the only way Olivia and Teddy were going to have a baby was with the help of science, then so be it,” Mrs. Camby said with a swift nod. “And, oh, when Teddy announced it at the town council meeting he was attending one night, we all cheered. We couldn’t wait until the babies were born. Then those TV people came, and the devil went to work.”