by Owner
Jon wasn’t sure how he was going to pull off not strangling the old man, but he would. Neither his sister nor his niece was going to suffer over the prick’s irresponsible ways or Jon’s hard feelings over them. He’d bury his differences deep, and the old drunk with them if he fell off the wagon.
“Will do,” Craig said. “Making plans for the christening party might cheer her up. You know how Sarah loves a party. It will be good to see you.”
“I’ll wrap up here and leave for home by four. Anything else before I go?”
“Yeah, something strange. I was hoping you’d call. It’s about the mayor.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Maddie veered the Jeep toward Tidewater. The tinny labor of an engine caught her ears before she saw a motorbike kick up dirt on the roadway leading away from the house. Elmer? No, his bike was bigger, louder, greener. Besides, he was at the clubhouse.
Who would visit the Bains on a motorbike?
That question flew from her mind as the next one popped up. Who stood near the drive, shaking a fist after the speeding bike? Ben and Rita both had the day off. Her father was at the golf lodge. So was Fred, the gardener.
She gave the Jeep gas and sped up the lane, only to slam on her brakes a few moments later when the figure stepped out into the driveway. The startled look on Barb’s face froze in front of the windshield as the wheels skidded across the stony shell drive, coming to a complete stop several feet from where her mother stood.
Barb stood. Maddie’s eyes widened.
“Bastard,” Barb spat out.
Maddie was unsure if Barb meant her or the biker.
Her mother rubbed her wrist, glared after the last speck of the disappearing motorcycle, then turned on her heel and stormed up the front steps.
“Wait.” Maddie shook off her shock and jumped down from the Jeep to race after her. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“I owe you nothing.”
Maddie caught up with her inside the foyer and grabbed her arm. “You can walk.”
“Obviously.” Barb tugged away, but Maddie held on with her ballplayers’ grip.
“How? When? Why the secrecy?”
“I have my reasons. They’re complicated. The less you know the better.”
“Who was on the motorbike? Chambers? Sneaking in for a visit.” Maddie flung the suspicion at her, seeking an answer to one of her questions while she held her mother in her grasp.
At the mention of his name, surprise flashed in Barb’s eyes.
“I can see in your face my hunch is right.”
“Let go of my arm,” Barb demanded, her tone emotionless.
“Not until you come clean about everything.” Maddie stared into her cold eyes.
A long minute dragged on.
Barb shrugged. “If you must know, he rented a boat, used our dock, and rode up on the cycle while everyone was out. He made all of those elaborate arrangements just to see me.” She chuckled deep in her throat. “Don’t be so naive.”
“And after one visit from the crook you can miraculously walk again. How romantic.” Maddie released her mother’s arm and turned away. She’d heard enough. Whatever Barb was up to she could damn well wallow in it alone.
“Don’t leave now, young lady. You wanted details. Listen, and listen good.” Barb’s voice was shrill. “My hard-learned lesson might save you grief someday.”
“Right, Barb. I’m sure you did all this for my benefit.” Maddie sucked in a deep breath. She might as well hear her out once and for all. She had a few things to say as well. Hands on hips, she turned and faced her down.
“Okay, as a mother I stink. You think I don’t know that? It’s in my genes.”
“Excuses, not reasons, but go on.”
“My mother and hers before her all had the maternal instincts of popsicles. Right of passage. End of story. Live with it.” Click, click, click. Barb’s expensive Italian leather heels paced the marble hall punctuating her rationale. It seemed strange to see her without her wheelchair when in reality she’d only been confined to it for such a short time. “At least you had a loving father,” she said when she pivoted. “That’s more than I had.”
“You used my father’s love for me to keep him here so you could desert Bain Island and me to find your happiness elsewhere.” Maddie’s voice quavered. “In the arms of Charles Chambers.”
“Happiness?” Barb smirked. “I had my career and a social life. Still that’s more than my mother had. But happy…the Bains don’t aspire to it.” She waved her wrist about the foyer and the surrounding rooms of the mansion. Her diamond bracelet caught a sunbeam and singled Maddie out.
She shook her head. “I’m not like you.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“What about Chambers? He obviously loves you to go to so much trouble.”
“Don’t romanticize him.”
“Oh, I guess he came here so you could serve him with papers for the lawsuit against him,” Maddie spat.
“The bastard didn’t come here to see me but to steal this, too.” Barb held up her reddening wrist, her diamond bracelet glittering even in the dimness of the hallway.
“Did he hurt you?” Concern tinged her voice.
Barb shook her head. “He’s not a brutal man, just a desperate one. He has debts, bad investments, bad stocks, gaming notes. The money he took from the islanders wasn’t enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Maddie said automatically. But for what? For her mother’s lack of good judgment?
“Don’t pity me.” Barb’s spine stiffened. “And don’t think the consultant sniffing after you is any different from Charles. Men like them use women and move on.”
“Jon’s not like that. He loves me.”
“And you believe him.” Barb targeted her with an icy blue glare. “Charles swore he loved me. He used me to get the Bain Island account and then stole their money. He left me holding an empty bag.”
Had Barb’s friend in Tinkerport been right? “Don’t tell me you deliberately hit a cement pillar?” Maddie studied her mother’s eyes trying to read the lies behind the coldness.
“Of course not.”
But she didn’t sound convincing or look appalled. “You did, didn’t you?” Shock froze Maddie where she stood.
Barb refused to reply, but her silence shouted of guilt.
“How could you?” Maddie whispered. She couldn’t imagine anyone that gutsy. Then shock faded and realization sunk in. Barb had plenty of nerve.
Her mother shrugged, not looking indignant or innocent, but justified. “Being infirm gave me an excuse not to deal with the repercussions of the theft. The island’s isolation hid me from prying eyes and questions.” She pointed to her state-of-the-art wheelchair, empty at the foot of the staircase. “This way, I didn’t disgrace the firm, the island, or your father.”
“As if you care about him,” Maddie mocked. “He’s been trying to reconcile with you while you’ve been sneaking Chambers into your bed.” With a squeak, she dug her sneakers into the marble floor. Time for Barb to own up. Maddie didn’t picture them having another heart-to-heart again in her lifetime.
****
“I damn well didn’t know the mayor was V. I. Powell, the CEO of VIP Industries.” Jon gripped the receiver to the pay phone tighter.
“How could you know?” Craig said. “We’ve only dealt with their junior executives.”
“But you can bet your ass he knew who I was. He not only hires us to handle Bain Island’s crisis but turns out to be a major player in my biggest account. Plus, he keeps his business association with us a secret. Why?” Jon looked around, to make sure he wasn’t overheard.
Good, he was still alone in the Pinewood locker room.
“This reeks of batmobiling. Why the shield?”
“I plan to ask him before I leave this island,” Jon vowed before he said goodbye and hung up.
But as questionable as the mayor’s actions were Maddie came first. How much, if anything, did she
know about the mysterious business connection between her father and him?
Climbing behind the wheel of the mayor’s Land Rover, he steered toward Tidewater and some answers. While he waited for the mayor to return home, he’d talk to Maddie. Not so much about business, but about love and the future.
When he pulled up at the mansion, the driver’s door to Maddie’s Jeep hung open. Curious. Perhaps there was an emergency or an accident with Barb home alone. He broke into a jog, slamming the rusty door of her vehicle as he passed. When he got closer to the house, he heard shouting. He sped up. The great oak front door gaped open. What in the hell was going on?
“You and your sainted father. Always defending each other,” Barb screeched. “Sticking with each other. Always pushing me aside.”
Maddie’s back was rigid and toward him. Barb was standing. What a surprise, the bitch could walk. Her eyes were colder than usual and aimed at her daughter.
“I’m not the only one who’s had affairs,” Barb accused. “I know about your father’s other woman. The whore he sees every year. You think I don’t know he sent you to Rose Island to see Grace on his behalf while he was stuck here with me and the deadline for my messy legal suit?”
A dull pain hit Jon in the gut like a punch.
“I never knew about her until two weeks ago,” Maddie defended.
Hell, they were all hiding something. Every last one of them. Even Maddie. He bolted.
The confidences she’d shared on Rose Island were nothing compared to what she withheld. She’d deceived him from the beginning.
He scrambled down the rocky path to the beach, needing space to cool down. No wonder Maddie didn’t want him on her island, on Bain Island. Powell had shared the details of his love life with his daughter. She’d known all along Jon was Grace’s son.
He tripped over a piece of driftwood, kicking it out of his way as he reached the shore. His heart thudded loud and painful in his chest. Shoving his hands into the tight pockets of the jeans he’d bought to please her, he tried to come to terms with his anger before he confronted her and her father.
****
Barbra had heard enough. Maddie’s loyalty to her father was churning in her stomach. It was time to set her up for the kill. She stalked closer to her daughter, until her designer shoes were toe-to-toe with her daughter’s high-top sneakers.
“Don’t be so childish. Your father and I aren’t reuniting. He was pacifying me so I could get back to work and he could get back to his whore.”
Maddie flinched. “Dad was trying to help you get well. Which is a moot point as you are well.”
“You think your father’s affair is merely tit-for-tat. His affair versus my affair, and that mine is the bigger disloyalty.”
“Yours is the bigger disloyalty,” Maddie said matter of a fact.
“But your father withheld an important fact.” She paused, relishing the blow she was about to deliver. “I’ve known the bitch’s name for years, and it’s Grace Matthews. She’s Jon’s mother.”
“You’re a liar.” Her daughter’s voice cracked.
Just then, the door slammed. They both jerked about to face the man responsible for the betrayal.
“Why are you shouting and why is Jon down on the beach?” For a change, her ex-husband looked pale instead of tanned and healthy.
Barbra narrowed her eyes and gloated. “Tell her, Victor. Jon is Grace’s son.”
He nodded, slow and sorrowful. “Maddie, I had my reasons for not saying anything.”
“Oh no.” Maddie pushed past him toward the door. “Jon hates the water. If he’s there instead of here, he must’ve heard us arguing. He knows.”
“Maddie,” Victor called out, but Barbra grabbed his arm to stop him from going after her.
Digging her nails in, she said, “Now who’s the rotten parent?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jon sucked in the salty air and stared out at the sea, bracing himself against the wind and the surf blowing in. He’d made his decision. He’d leave right after his showdown with the mayor and Maddie.
Hell, on second thought, he didn’t owe Maddie and her lying, cold, Bain heart even that much. He propped his foot on a rock, watching the house up above for movement. Gusts pummeled him and stood his hair on end.
He pushed off the rock and strode across the gritty beach when he saw Maddie coming down the path and the mayor not far behind her. Shoving his clenched fists into his pockets, he stopped and stood his ground.
Over on Rose Island, he’d wanted to loosen the teeth of his mother’s lover. Now, knowing the mayor and his daughter and their deception, it made the act even more justifiable.
The man was old, he told himself. Probably wore dentures. Jon could harm him permanently. He didn’t want that. He just wanted to hurt him, like he’d hurt his mother by not doing right by her. Like the father and daughter had hurt Jon with their lies.
He sucked in a deep breath and counted to ten and then twenty, while they put their heads together, briefly, and then kept coming. Stern faces neared.
“Bad news?” he asked, knowing already that everything had gone bad.
“Unexpected,” the mayor said. “Barb can walk.”
“A miracle?”
Maddie stood between them and took Jon’s arm. When he stiffened, she let go. He ignored her stare. “No,” she said. “Her paralysis was temporary.”
He glared at Maddie. “Temporary or faked?”
She looked away. He nodded. More lies.
“She’s been in touch with Chambers,” Victor said. “He paid her a visit this afternoon. We may have more damage correction to do.”
“She’s had a busy day.” He glanced at Maddie, wondering if either she or her father were going to come clean with the complete truth.
“Charles Chambers bilked Barb as well as the islanders. She thought his interest in her ran deeper than it did. He played on her affections for him.” Maddie’s violet eyes pleaded with him.
For what? Understanding for her cheating mother. Sympathy for an equally wayward father. Jon cocked his head at the mayor and waited.
“My wife and I have an unusual relationship. Distant. We share an unspoken agreement,” he paused, “an open type of marriage.”
Jon gritted his jaw and flexed his knuckles. “Open enough for an annual meeting with my mother.”
Maddie flinched.
The mayor rocked back on his heels. “Jon, I didn’t expect you to show up on Bain Island. To ever meet you. It wasn’t my place to tell you about…about us.” He turned to Maddie.
But Jon didn’t give him a chance to enlist her aid. “Too bad for you Barb didn’t feel the same when she shouted out names earlier. Otherwise, I’d have never known who you were, Mayor Powell. CEO of VIP Industries.” Jon didn’t bother to glance at Maddie. One enemy at a time.
“Let me explain,” Powell said.
Jon shook his head. “No need now. You and my mother. That’s the reason you acted so odd when I showed up in your office. It also accounts for your interest in Sarah and baby Gracie.” His head buzzed. “Why invite me into your house?
But he guessed at the answer. To hear news of Grace. Powell probably thought she hadn’t shown up because of Sarah giving birth to her first grandbaby.
“Barbra insisted on inviting you,” the mayor said. “She was suspicious.”
“As much as I hate to side with her, she was wise to be. How do you excuse your major oversight in not disclosing our VIP business dealings?” His voice rose. The mayor backed up another step. Maddie grabbed Jon’s arm again, but he shook it off.
“I didn’t want Grace to know.”
“Why?” Jon shouted, letting loose all of his pent up anger, at his father for leaving, at Grace for dying, at the mayor for not making it right during her lifetime, and at Maddie for lying, for not loving him enough.
“Because she never wanted help from me.”
“I was your way of helping her.” His shoulders sank.
&
nbsp; “She worked too hard, raising you kids alone, while keeping house and holding down a job. I wanted her to enjoy some luxuries and leisure.”
“She did.” Jon kicked at the sand and strode for the path, away from the mayor and Maddie. “Before she died.”
He didn’t look back.
“Died.” The word was a faint whisper on her father’s ashy lips.
Maddie clutched him around the waist. “Stay calm, Daddy.” She sat him down on a nearby rock. “Do you have any pain? Your chest? Your arm?”
“It’s not an angina attack,” he murmured. “My heart’s fine in that respect,” he answered her fears. “It…it’s Grace.” He put his head between his usually capable hands and sobbed.
“I know. I know.” Maddie knelt on the gritty sand beside him and stroked his back while he mourned his dead lover and while, through her glimmer of tears, she glimpsed Jon walk away with determined strides up the winding pathway and eventually out of sight.
As she listened to the surf pound, and circling gulls squawk, and to her father’s heartbreak, she heard Jon’s Jag roar down the driveway.
Deep inside a cold spot warned her he wouldn’t be there next year. Too much had happened today. His mother and her father. The shock had knocked her speechless. What had the knowledge done to him?
The hardness around Jon’s mouth and his reluctance to meet her eyes summed it up without too much thought. Not to mention his apparent need to distant himself from her touch. What must he think of her and her family?
She intended to find out. In that endless moment, she made up her mind to go after him, all the way to the mainland, all the way to Pennsylvania if she had to. Once a year wasn’t enough. She’d have Jon or she’d have closure. Either way he was in for a nor’easter.
She held her father until her knees ached and her arms became stiff.
With a heavy sigh, he flexed his back muscles and slowly stood. He patted her hair. “Please, go up to the house now. I’ll be fine. I want to be alone for awhile.”
When she got up, she dug into her pocket and handed him a tissue. After he wiped his eyes, she said, “Can I ask you something, Daddy?” She needed answers before it was too late and Jon was lost to her forever. Her father nodded, but his head stayed bowed, his eyes focused on nothing really but the pebbles near their feet. “Why didn’t you warn me that Jon was Grace’s son? Especially once you asked him to stay in our house?”
