Winona looked around at the festivities. “This could’ve been us, Quentin. We could’ve christened Bradford House and made a bold statement.”
Wearing a suit and tie, Quentin gripped his grandmother’s hand. “Too many things going on. Maybe next year.”
Charlotte overheard that and squeezed Beckham’s hand. “Never wait too long to have a party.”
Beckham looked over at Quentin with sad eyes. The two settled the weak and pale woman close to the fire and made her as comfortable as they could.
“You okay, Gram? You aren’t cold, are you?”
“I’m fine, honey. You go visit with your friend Faye.”
Sydney gave Beckham a little push. “Your heard your grandmother. Go. Quentin and I will fix her a plate of food. We’ll see to it she has a good time.”
Charlotte waved them all off. “I’m not very hungry. You guys don’t have to hang around me all evening. Go have yourselves a good time.”
Quentin took the woman’s hand in his. She’d lost most of her hair. But for the joyful occasion, Abby Bonner had shaved off the brittle strands that remained, leaving Charlotte’s head shiny as one of the ornaments dangling from the tree. Although tonight, Charlotte had donned a knit stocking cap in bright red to keep her head warm. Beckham had used his own money to buy it.
Sydney was persistent. “You should probably eat something. How about a cup of hot soup?”
Logan came up, stretched his hand out to Quentin. “We can make that happen.”
“Don’t go to any trouble,” Charlotte murmured.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Logan assured her. “I’ll go rustle up some.”
“I’m here for the music,” Charlotte admitted with a little smile. “I want to watch the people dance.”
Quentin exchanged a knowing look with Sydney and smiled. “Why didn’t you say so? Come on, Charlotte.” He helped her up out of her wheelchair. “I bet we can show these people a thing or two about dancing to Christmas music.”
Quentin helped her get to her feet as bells jingled and trumpets blared in the background. “If you get to feeling woozy just lean on me. I won’t let you fall.”
“If you knew what this meant to me…to dance…to be around people tonight…”
“I think I do,” Quentin said as he swayed with the woman in his arms. Her bones were so frail, he could feel her ribs through the sweater she had on. “Two dances, and then I want you to eat some of that soup Logan offered. Deal?”
“You’re such a nag, Dr. Blackwood.”
“I know. But you love me anyway.”
“So does Sydney.”
“What?”
“I might be an old woman, but every time that girl looks at you, I see love in those eyes of hers. Don’t ignore it. Don’t pretend like it isn’t there. Love’s a gift. Don’t waste it.”
Across the room Beckham had found Faye. Dressed in a red sweater and a white skirt, the teenager looked like a ribbon of warm sugar candy. She’d tied her brown hair back with a silky rope Beckham recognized as coming from her homemade decoration project.
Beckham sidled up to her from behind and sniffed her hair. She smelled like vanilla and orange blossoms. “How’s the party so far?”
She jumped at the question and whirled around to face him. “Where’d you come from?”
So much for his hope that she’d been watching for him, waiting for him to make a grand appearance. “Same place as always. You look nice tonight.”
“Thanks. Now that Andy has a job he said I could have one early Christmas present so I ordered this new sweater online.”
“What we need in this town is a place to buy clothes.”
“You’re always so much more perceptive than the other guys. Why is that?”
Beckham shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I notice things. I’m thirsty. Why don’t we go get some punch?”
“Sure. And maybe take it outside on the patio. With so many people crammed in here, it’s kinda hot and I’m in this sweater.”
For the first time, Beckham noticed Faye’s cheeks flushed. “We need to get you some air and something cold to drink.”
Troy and Bree were working their way to the buffet, set up in the dining room. But after Bree spotted Quentin she steered her husband to where the doctor stood with Sydney.
“How are you guys tonight? You both look so spiffy all dressed up.”
Sydney looked over at Quentin and stuck her arm through his. “We made a conscious effort to not wear jeans and to spruce ourselves up. You two look wonderful and relaxed and ready for that baby.”
Quentin agreed. “Definitely not as nervous as you seemed at your ultrasound appointment.”
Bree sipped her soft drink. “We’ve had more time to process the good news and get our minds wrapped around having a little girl. We’re sorting through names like mad but haven’t settled on one yet.”
Troy sent Quentin a questioning look. “I noticed you at the hospital this morning giving us a onceover. So, after three weeks of steady work, what do you think about the progress we’ve made so far?”
“It’s coming along faster than I’d hoped. I couldn’t believe you’ve already finished walling in the reception area and moved on to the exam rooms.”
“I want it ready for when Bree delivers the baby. Did you happen to walk into the other wing on the east side? I’ve been hanging drywall in the patients’ rooms with the expressed intent on getting those ready first.”
“I did see that and it’s nothing short of amazing.”
Pleased that the doctor approved, Troy went on, “Right from the start, it seemed to me that being part of building the hospital where Bree would deliver our daughter was an extraordinary opportunity that doesn’t come along every day. I want it ready for other people who need it.”
Quentin slapped Troy on his shoulder. “For a small town, that place puts all the other hospitals I’ve been in to shame. That’s the truth. The view alone isn’t like any I’ve ever spent time in.”
“Have you settled on a name for it yet?” Bree asked.
Quentin grinned toward Sydney. “We thought long and hard over this. We know we’ll need to run it by the rest of the investors first, but the plan right now is to call it…” he lowered his voice. “The Charlotte Dowling Memorial Hospital. That’ll be our recommendation anyway.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s mainly because of something Beckham said. Without Charlotte, I might not have gone this route. It certainly wasn’t something I considered when I took this job. And now, because of a cancer patient, it seems the right thing to do.”
“You’ll have to hire a staff,” Bree suggested. “You and Sydney can’t run the place by yourselves.”
Quentin sipped the club soda he’d taken from a tray. “We’re looking at surgeons first. That way no one has to go over to Santa Cruz unless it’s something we can’t handle.”
Troy raised his glass. “To you, Doc. We’re forever grateful you showed up here.”
“Amen to that,” Sydney chorused.
Around midnight, they were getting ready to leave when Quentin’s cell phone dinged. He didn’t recognize the number but knew the three-ten area code belonged to Los Angeles.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Blackwood, this is Detective Adamson. We talked the other day, remember? I hate to bother you this late, but I thought you’d want to know what I found out.”
Christmas music droned in Quentin’s ear in the background. He held a hand over one side of his head, hoping that would help him hear the conversation better. “Wait a minute, let me step outside on the patio. I’m at a party and there’s a lot of noise.” Quentin eased past the slider until he stood midway in the backyard. “That’s better. Did you talk to Byers?”
“You did say you wanted to know when I confronted him about the Dowling murder.”
“And did you?”
“Yeah. Sat down with the dickwad for about six hours this afternoon. It was on my own time, too, so I just let him talk. I onl
y now got back to L.A. But I’m glad I went. Byers confessed to two more murders. I got him on tape. One of them was William Dowling’s. Byers told me how it went down. He followed Dowling from a convenience store at the corner of Century Boulevard and Western. It was about ten-thirty at night. Dowling was walking back to his cheap motel room with a couple of hot dogs he’d picked up for two bucks and a soft drink. Byers cornered him in an alleyway, shot him dead for the twenty dollars he had in his pocket and for the food. I’m truly sorry, Dr. Blackwood. That kid lost his father over what amounts to chump change.”
“There’s no doubt this Byers is the right guy?”
“No doubt in my mind. This was typical Byers, killing, doing what he had to survive on the streets. He murdered one man for his shoes. Plus, Byers knew things that no one else was privy to, like the exact spot where we found Dowling’s body. I’m sorry,” Adamson repeated. “This is never easy.”
“Okay. I’ll pass the information along to the son. At least he knows who did it. Is there any chance this Byers will ever get out of prison?”
“No way. He’s doing life without parole. He’ll be there until they carry him out on a stretcher.”
“That’s something, I guess. Thanks, detective. I appreciate the effort.” Quentin turned to see Beckham and Sydney watching him from five feet away. As joyous as the night had started, it would end like this, in bitter resignation that life could end without warning. “I guess you heard. Come on, let’s go back to the house.”
Sydney stretched her arm around Beckham. “We should probably tell Charlotte. Do you want Quentin to do it?”
“No. It should be me. Are they sure this jerk is in jail for good?”
“Adamson thinks so,” Quentin said. “I’m sorry, Beckham.”
The boy tightened his jaw. “At least I know what kind of bottom feeder took him away from us.”
Thirty-Seven
During Christmas break Beckham worked at the tree lot from ten in the morning to six at night.
But two days into his vacation, Sydney went in to check on Charlotte around noon and found her not breathing.
“Quentin, get in here! Now!” she yelled out into the hallway.
When Quentin rushed into the room, he found Sydney performing CPR on an unconscious and unresponsive Charlotte. They worked on her for twenty minutes, taking turns using chest compressions before turning to the ventilator. But nothing they tried brought Charlotte back.
“I don’t understand. I just checked on her thirty minutes ago and she was sound asleep. Her breathing was okay. She had a pulse, Quentin!”
He wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders, kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. It isn’t your fault. Her body was simply too ravaged by the disease to fight any longer. She probably slipped into a coma sometime after you checked on her.”
She’d gone peacefully, thought Quentin. But it was little comfort. Her fight with cancer had lasted less than eight weeks.
From the time she was diagnosed, Beckham had known what was coming. Eventually. But Quentin had hoped to prolong her life for as long as he could.
“I’ll call Caleb, let him know what’s going on. Then I’ll head over to the nursery and tell Beckham the news myself,” Quentin managed. “But don’t expect us back anytime soon. Call Barton Pearson. Tell him it’s urgent. I don’t think Beckham should be here when the funeral director comes to carry Charlotte out of the house. Text me when it’s done.”
“I will. I’ll start taking care of all the arrangements. And Quentin?”
“What?”
“I don’t envy you one bit. But you should be the one to tell him. There’s no doubt about that.”
He rubbed his forehead where a dull ache had formed. “Yeah. I know.”
Instead of driving, Quentin decided he needed to walk. He thought back to when he was twelve. It wasn’t hard to bring up that sickening feeling of what he’d had ripped away at such a young age. He knew exactly everything Beckham was about to go through. Anger. Resentment. Sadness. Loss. An emptiness inside so huge that it couldn’t be replaced or filled.
And it angered him that with all the advancements in medicine, people still got sick and couldn’t be saved.
He chewed his lip and stared at Beckham from a distance. The kid kept working his tail end off, each and every time he stepped onto the lot. Today was no exception. Quentin watched Beckham zip from one tree to the next doing his sales pitch to convince Margie Rosterman she should buy a nice blue spruce.
Quentin waited for Beckham to finish loading Margie’s purchases before he took a deep breath. “Hey, Beck. How’s it going?”
Once Beckham looked up into Quentin’s face, it was as if the boy already knew—the look in his eyes, the way his shoulders slouched, the way he bit his lip. “What are you doing here? You don’t ever come here in the middle of the day.”
“It’s about your grandmother—”
“No. No. It’s too soon yet. It’s not even Christmas yet.”
“I’m sorry, Beckham. I’m sorry. Sydney and I did everything we could—”
“Then you didn’t do enough.”
“I hope you don’t really believe that. Because I did everything my training told me to do, everything I knew how to do. Come with me.”
“No, I can’t just walk off the job and leave here.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve already talked to Caleb. Come on. Take a walk with me back to the car and we’ll go for a drive.”
“Where?”
“We’ll drive along the coast until we find us a nice spot where we can take a leisurely stroll along the beach.”
They started heading down Ocean Street toward the pier, neither one of them saying a word. Once they reached the wharf, Quentin pointed to a bench. “Let’s sit down for a minute.” He gazed out over the water, glimmering bright and blue in Smuggler’s Bay. “I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. Exactly. There’s not a damn thing I can come up with to make you feel any better, not a damn thing. So I won’t even try going that route.”
For the first time, tears began to trickle down Beckham’s face. “You…you called me son at the ceremony that night. Was that just symbolic or did you mean it?”
“I called you that because I already think of you as my son. And then about a week ago Charlotte signed the papers giving me full guardianship over you. Everything’s already been filed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz. I was your legal guardian a week ago.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“None of us wanted to upset you or scare you or make it seem as if we’d given up. Kinsey and I decided we wanted to be ready, prepared, that if the worst happened, we needed to have a plan in place so that no one could cart you off to a foster home. That wasn’t gonna happen on my watch.”
“I get to live with you? I’m not going into the system?”
“Yep, you get to live with me, and no, you were never going to end up in foster care.”
“As your son?”
“Yep. But there is one more step we need to take. And that’s me officially adopting you, giving you my last name. Or not. It’s entirely up to you.”
“It’s a big decision. I’m a little scared.”
“That’s okay. I’m scared, too.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Because when you become a father a man tends to freak out a little. I’m told it’s a normal reaction. At least that’s what Logan told me. If I adopt you, I’ll become your father for real, not just your legal guardian. That’s a lot of responsibility. I’ve never been a father before. Am I ready to be one? I don’t know. What if I mess it up? Mess you up? It’s a scary prospect.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been anyone’s son.”
Quentin held out his hand. “Then what do you say we make this leap together? How would you like to be known as Beckham Dowling Blackwood?”
Beckham swiped at his runny nose, scrubbed a grubby hand over his face to wipe away a tear.
He finally reached for Quentin’s hand. “Beckham DeWitt Dowling Blackwood.”
Quentin bumped Beckham’s shoulder. “DeWitt? Really?”
“It’s an old family name,” Beckham said with some embarrassment.
“It’s a good name. You have plenty more family now. Tomorrow we’ll ask Kinsey to petition the court for a name change, make it permanent, official. How’s that sound?”
“I know this might sound like I’m a little kid, but is there any way I could call you Dad?”
This time it was Quentin’s turn to keep the tears at bay. “That would be…more than I deserve. Dad. Wow.”
“What about Sydney?”
“What about her?”
“Will she live with us?”
“Uh, I don’t know yet. It’s something I’ll have to work on.”
“Work on it fast so we can be a family. A real one.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but women don’t exactly like it when a man pushes them into a big decision like that.”
“Maybe we could do something special for her. You know, like make a big, bold statement she’d never forget. One where she’d have to say yes to living with us.”
“I like the way you think. Figure out a way to announce our presence with authority? I like it.”
“Is that one of your lame movie quotes? Announce our presence with authority?”
“Taken from Bull Durham. You shouldn’t knock lame movie trivia. You never know when you’ll be locked in a tight game of Trivial Pursuit and that question comes up. What statement should we make?”
“I might have an idea.”
For the next several hours they got to work.
By the time the text came in from Sydney that it was all clear up at the house, Quentin and Beckham were already on the grounds. In fact, they’d snuck around behind the Fanning Rescue Center and parked themselves down at the beach. They’d spent their time digging and carving out the sand, using buckets and square molds to build what they had envisioned.
Sandcastles Under the Christmas Moon Page 33
