Harvest Moon

by Rochelle Alers

  It had taken Ernesto less than three minutes to confirm that Oscar was still controlling; he had become the master puppeteer, pulling the strings and manipulating lives from his grave.

  Regina rose to her feet, the two men also rising. Leaning across the table, she extended her hand to Ernesto. “Thank you for everything.”

  He grasped her slender fingers, coming around to stand next to her. “It’s been my extreme pleasure. If you need legal advice setting up the foundation I’ll be available for you.”

  She smiled. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll have someone at my father’s company do it. ColeDiz accountants are experts in setting up tax-exempt, not-for-profit foundations.”

  Aaron moved closer to Regina, curving his left arm around her waist, while offering Ernesto his right hand. “I want to thank you for the trust my father placed in you.”

  Shaking the proffered hand, Ernesto seemed genuinely surprised by Aaron’s approval. “It’s been my honor to have known a man such as your father.” He turned his attention to Regina. “I will need your power of attorney if you want me to manage the payment of wages for your employees.”

  “Thank you again, but I’ll continue to pay them.”

  He successfully concealed his disappointment behind a polite smile. Now that he had revealed the contents of Oscar Spencer’s will, there was no reason for his widow to continue their association. He did not blame Regina as much as he blamed Aaron Spencer. He did not know why, but since the man’s arrival he had felt as if he had waged an undeclared war with the younger Spencer. Within a span of days Aaron had appointed himself as his stepmother’s protector. Who did he expect to protect her from? Certainly not Ernest Morales de Villarosa.

  Regina picked up her handbag. “I will be in touch with you before I leave Mexico.”

  Ernesto flinched noticeably as his face paled under his deep tan. “You are leaving Mexico?” There was no mistaking his surprise.

  She nodded. “I’m going home to see my family.”

  “When—when will you return?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  His dark eyes showed disbelief and confusion. Regina Spencer’s decision to leave Mexico had turned his world upside down. “Please keep in touch.”

  “I will,” she whispered softly.

  Turning, she walked out of the attorney’s office, Aaron following closely behind her. He held her arm and escorted her to the parking lot. It wasn’t until they were seated in the rear of the car and their driver had maneuvered out of the lot that they stared at each other; both had elected to conceal their emotions behind a mask of indifference. Oscar Spencer had skillfully bound them together.

  Regina Cole-Spencer would become a part of Dr. Oscar Spencer’s future, and he hers.

  The return trip to El Cielo was accomplished in complete silence as she seethed inwardly, wanting to resurrect Oscar so she could scream at him for being a Machiavellian miscreant. She couldn’t sell El Cielo, she couldn’t sell the paintings—whose strange and macabre images disturbed her rather than soothed—and she would be responsible for disbursing and approving funding for a foundation named for Aaron Spencer’s late parents.

  She wanted to design gardens, not become a foundation administrator. Damn you, Oscar, she cursed silently. Damn him for forcing her to become involved with Aaron, because it had only taken two weeks for her to realize that her feelings for her stepson went beyond logic and reason. As she lay in bed before the sun rose to signal the beginning of another day, she knew she could not ignore the truth: she wanted to lie with Aaron; she wanted her first sexual encounter to be with him.

  The driver pulled into the courtyard at El Cielo, and she did not wait for him or Aaron to help her from the car as she stepped out and made her way to the garden. Ignoring the blinding rays of the intense sun, she sat on the low stone bench facing Oscar’s gravesite.

  “You had to do it,” she whispered angrily. You just had to force us to be together, didn’t you? she continued in a virulent, silent tirade.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she tried to fathom why Oscar would draw up a will with so many restrictions. Why had he made it so complicated, when their marriage hadn’t been?

  She shuddered, opening her eyes; she detected someone standing behind her. Without turning around she knew it was the man whose presence had disturbed her the moment he stepped from the taxi and onto the property of El Cielo.

  Patting the space beside her, she said, “What do you think, Aaron?”

  He sat, stretching his long legs out in front of him. His gaze was fixed on the headstone, which had been placed on the grave a week ago. “Oscar was a class act up until the very end. He didn’t have to leave me anything.”

  Regina smiled. As annoyed as she was with Oscar, she had to agree with his son. “He left it to your research institute.”

  “It’s the same thing. He knew how much medical research means to me. That’s all I ever talked about when I was in medical school.”

  “If you liked research so much, why didn’t you specialize in microbiology instead of pediatrics?”

  He turned and smiled at her. “At the time I loved pediatrics more.”

  Who or what do you love more now, Aaron? she mused, watching a tiny lizard making its way over the cool, pale pink marble marking Oscar Clayborne Spencer’s final resting place. His father had left him a considerable amount of money to continue his research projects, and she wondered if he would relax enough to make time for something or someone else in his life.

  “We’ve made a breakthrough in predicting cerebral palsy in newborns,” he continued, the pride in his voice clearly evident. “A team of neurologists at the institute detected that high levels of key markers in the blood of newborns may predict who will go on to develop cerebral palsy, a motor disability that affects a half million Americans.”

  “What is the cause of the disease?”

  “We’re not certain of the cause. There have been theories that cerebral palsy is linked to maternal or fetal infections during pregnancy, but there’s no proof of this.”

  Nodding, she smiled. “You’re very lucky, Aaron. You’ve executed a marriage of pediatrics and medical research with wonderful results.”

  “We have a long way to go before we can prove our theory.”

  “One of these days I’ll read about you accepting your Nobel Prize for Medicine, and I’ll tell everyone that I know that doctor.”

  He concealed a smile. “It’s not about prizes or awards. It’s about making human life worth living.”

  For the first time she saw Aaron Spencer as the healer he had been trained to be. It was the first time he had broached the subject of his research.

  “I’ll arrange for the transfer of El Cielo to you as—”

  “Don’t bother,” he interrupted. “You can’t sell the property for twenty years, so let it remain as it is. As long as you own it I know I’ll always be able to come back here.”

  “Twenty years sounds like a long time.”

  “It is, and then it isn’t.” And it wasn’t. The twelve years he had been estranged from his father seemed more like three. He still could recall everything about his last volatile encounter with Oscar as if it had been two weeks ago.

  Regina stared at his impassive expression. “When do you plan to leave for Brazil?”

  He turned his head slowly and stared at her, his gaze cataloging and committing to memory the exquisite features of her incredibly beautiful face. “I’ll wait for you.”

  “It may take me a month before I finalize everything.”

  He shrugged a broad shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll still wait.”

  “But what about your research, your plantation?”

  “They will be there when I get back.”

  She twisted the circle of flawless diamonds around the third finger on her left hand in a nervous gesture. “But you told me that you would not leave your research or your plantation. Not for anyone or for anything.”


  Aaron crossed his arms over his chest, resting the forefinger of his right hand alongside his jaw, his eyes narrowing as he quickly read the letters carved into the marble headstone. “That was then, Regina.” His voice was low, rumbling sensuously in his chest.

  “And now?”

  Her pulse was racing so uncontrollably that she doubted whether she could stand if called upon to do so. She knew what Aaron was going to say before the words left his lips.

  “Now there’s you.”

  Closing her eyes, she bit down hard on her lower lip. “What about me?” She jumped, startled, when his fingers curved around the slim column of her neck.

  He leaned closer, their shoulders touching. “I have to take care of you.”

  “I don’t need your protection. I don’t need any man’s protection. Not anymore.”

  Placing a finger under her chin, he raised her face to his. The bright sunlight illuminated the liberal sprinkling of gray in his close-cropped hair, and she wondered what he would look like if he allowed his hair to grow. Had he cut it short to conceal the fact that he was graying prematurely? It would not have mattered to her, because all of the men in her family were mixed gray before their fortieth birthdays—her father, uncles, and male cousins.

  His lids lowered over his expressive slanting eyes as he flashed the sensual smile that always sent shivers racing up and down her spine. “What if I tell you that I want to take care of you?”

  Her eyes widened. “Why?”

  The sound of her husky voice floated around Aaron like a cloaking fog, drawing him under and seducing him with its hypnotic timbre. How could he tell her that what he was beginning to feel for her was so different and foreign that it frightened him? That he did not know what drew him to her as if he had been caught in a spell from which there was no escape—a spell he did not want to escape?

  “I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.

  Reaching for his hand, she laced her slender fingers between his. “Everything will fall into place in its own time,” she predicted sagely.

  Will it? he wanted to ask her. Will you come to love me as much I think I love you at this time?

  The realization that he was falling in love with his father’s widow was not as traumatic as it had been when he first recognized the emotions which had not permitted him to feel completely at ease in Regina Cole-Spencer’s presence.

  He found her more secure at twenty-seven than most older women he had been involved with. She also challenged him in a way he had never permitted a woman to challenge him.

  He also realized that he was more like Oscar Spencer than he wanted to admit, because he, too, wanted Regina Cole for himself. Oscar had appointed himself her protector to keep her from the clutches of a perverted movie producer, while he wanted to protect her from anything seen or unseen which would cause her harm. And to do that he would have to marry her.

  He would remain in Mexico with her, hoping it would give him the time he needed to help her grieve, heal, and then love again.

  “I want you to understand something, Aaron.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m going to leave El Cielo,” she predicted quietly, “and when I do everything I will have shared with you here will end.”

  He successfully concealed a smile. She had challenged him again, and this time he would accept the challenge.

  “Point taken,” he replied in a dangerously soft tone.

  Pulling her hand from his, she stood up and walked out of the garden and back to the house. She did not tell Aaron that she had grown to depend on him more than she had thought she would, that she hadn’t wanted him to return to Brazil because then she would be alone—left to the demons who attacked relentlessly while she woke up screaming for someone to rescue her.

  He had offered to remain in Mexico with her until she verified a date for her return to the United States. She would take the time given them, then walk away from Aaron Spencer and not look back.

  Regina sat on a chair in the sitting room of her bedroom, staring out at the mountains as she spoke to her father. “I know he left me with a lot of responsibility, but I can handle it.”

  “Have your lawyer fax me all of the particulars and I’ll have Philip Trent set up everything for the foundation.” The soft-spoken, efficient attorney who had headed ColeDiz’s legal department for the past twenty years had been responsible for filing the legal documents changing Regina’s name from Simmons to Cole.

  “I also need another favor, Daddy.”

  “What else, Cupcake?”

  “I have fourteen paintings I want shipped to the States.”

  “What are they appraised at?”

  “In excess of a million.” Martin whistled softly under his breath. “I hate them,” she said. The lifeless looking subjects and dark colors depressed her.

  “Why did you buy them?”

  “I didn’t. They were Oscar’s.”

  “Why don’t you sell them?”

  “I can’t. Not as long as I’m alive.”

  There was a swollen silence before Martin Cole’s soft, drawling Southern cadence came through the wire again. “Oscar Spencer is lucky he’s dead, or I would break his neck. What the hell kind of life did you have with him where—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Regina snapped angrily, interrupting her father. “He’s dead, Daddy. Let him rest in peace.”

  “I’ll send a courier to pick them up, and I’ll have them stored for you. What else do you need?”

  There was no mistaking her father’s annoyance when his tone changed. His voice was softer, more controlled.

  “I need you to set up a payroll and a household account for El Cielo. Oscar made provisions for the permanent live-in staff for the next twenty years.”

  “That was very generous of him.”

  “I agree.” This time there was no evidence of facetiousness in her father’s voice. “How long do you project all of this will take?”

  “Hold on while I talk to Philip.”

  Regina ran a hand through the hair she had unpinned from its elaborate chignon. Twisting a black curl around her finger, she examined it; she realized her hair was too long. Unbound, it reached her waist, and the only styles she affected were a single braid, ponytail, or a chignon. The long, curly hair and her dimpled smile had become her trademarks when she was an actress, but that phase of her life had been over for years.

  A few times she had thought she would return to the stage, but changed her mind. Now she loved the entire process of designing gardens, from drawing up the plans to seeing the blooming plants harmonizing with the surrounding landscape.

  “Cupcake?”

  The endearment wrung a smile from her. Her father had not let go of his childhood nickname for her. “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Philip projects it should take about three weeks, give or take a few days.”

  She glanced down at the open desk diary on the round rattan table. “If that’s the case, then expect me back around the first of October.”

  “I’ll tell Philip to make this a priority.”

  “Thanks, Daddy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “I want you to promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you come back this time you’ll stay for a while. I’m getting too old to fly around the world searching for my firstborn.” She laughed, the low, husky sound reminding Martin of his wife’s voice.

  “You’re not old, Daddy. You’re only fifty-seven. Wait until you’re eighty-five, like Grandpa. Then you can say you’re old.”

  “Your grandfather has been asking for you.”

  “You tell him that I’ll be home soon.”

  “You know your mother is planning a big party for you.”

  “I figured she would. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again. Daddy, I love you.”

  “And I love you,” Martin stated quietly.

  “I’ll see you.”

  She
hung up, then closed her eyes. Everything was falling into place, and she looked forward to returning to her family with the same obsession which had made her leave Florida for Los Angeles two months before her seventeenth birthday. It had taken ten years, but she had finally come full circle.

  Chapter 11

  Regina met with the gardener, chauffeur, and housekeeper, informing them that they would be guaranteed a place to live while collecting salaries if they maintained a residence at El Cielo for the next twenty years. All were too stunned with their former employer’s offer to say anything as they stared at her with gazes filled with shock and gratitude.

  “I’m going to hire someone to oversee the property,” she continued. “He will be responsible for repairs and the general upkeep of El Cielo.”

  “Are you going away, Señora?” Rosa questioned, taking furtive glances at the others.

  “Sí, Rosa.”

  “Will you be back, Señora?” Rosa had appointed herself spokesperson for the group.

  “Sí,” Regina repeated. “I will be back, and so will Dr. Spencer. We may not come back at the same time, but I promise you both of us will return here many, many times.” This seemed to satisfy the housekeeper, and her lips parted in a warm smile. “Rosa, I’d like to talk to you,” she continued at the same time the gardener and driver walked out of the kitchen, patting each other on the back.

  “Señora?”

  Her dark gaze met the equally dark one of Rosa Galan. “You can take the rest of the day off.”

  “But, Señora, who will prepare dinner for you and Dr. Spencer?”

  “I will.”

  “Sí, Señora.”

  It was not the first time she had taken over the cooking duties. Regina shared her father’s love of cooking, but hadn’t indulged herself with concocting new and exotic dishes. She had spent so much time looking after Oscar, and whenever she cooked for him most times his sensitive stomach would not tolerate anything but soft, bland food.

  Once she returned to the States she would look for an apartment, decorate it, then plan her career as a landscape architect. Florida would be an ideal location because of its abundant sunshine and tropical conditions.