by Adrianne Lee
He wasn’t like Uncle Luis at all.
Oh, Lord, had he learned it too late for Nikki and him? “Oh, please, God, no! No! Nikki!”
The air should have tasted of seawater by now. Instead he caught an unfamiliar acrid stench. Smoke. His throat clogged with terror. “Nikki!”
He heard it then, the roar of fire, the explosion of fireworks, and the terrified cry of the woman he loved and couldn’t reach.
Chapter Eighteen
Smoke fogged the inside of the boathouse, a smothering, blinding blanket Nikki choked, coughed and ducked, covering her head with her hands as fireworks ignited and zipped unseen through the compact space. Sparks burst around her. Over her. Rained down on her. Singed her clothing. Her hair. Her flesh.
It was a war zone. The sounds, the smells, the throat clogging fear.
The fire, fed by creosote, crackled as it devoured the old building with a speed she hadn’t imagined possible. She had to get out before the roof collapsed. Before one of the Roman candles found her.
Killed her.
The only way was through the boat slips. She inched along the flooring, groping as she moved, recalling the first time she’d gazed into those bottomless black pits and thought that someone could die dropping into one of them. Now, she’d give all she had to find one and plunge into it. If she had to die, let it be swift.
Another burst of fireworks threatened to give her her wish. She darted ahead and found the edge of a slip. She cried out in relief. Water. Ice-cold water. The tide was in. She dove in headfirst, gasping as the cold engulfed her overheated body. She surfaced, pulled in air, but couldn’t get a lungful. Too much smoke. She gulped and ducked below the surface.
A loud crack resounded overhead. The roof. She kicked out and away. She wouldn’t be able to hold her breath her usual three minutes. Terror grabbed her belly. Could she make it past the collapsing boathouse and into safe waters?
Driven by panic and the will to live, she scissored her legs as hard as she could. Something heavy bumped her foot, threatened to drag her down. She felt a surge and was lifted, then dropped. She needed air. Now. She scanned the surface, gazing toward the light. Over her, the water was alive with burning timbers.
She turned left. Right. Left again. Which way was out? Nikki’s lungs ached to bursting, but she couldn’t find a safe place to surface. Something grabbed her from below. Horror shot through her. She kicked at it. Wanted to scream. Couldn’t.
Then a face hovered near hers. Chris. She stopped struggling.
Seconds later he lifted her up and out of the water. Nikki gulped air. Glorious salty air. She hugged Chris, clung to him as he carried her onto the lawn. Black smoke blotted out the blue sky. Fire trucks, firefighters and fire hoses seemed everywhere, trying to contain the flames and what was left of the cabana. Police officers seemed to be in abundance, too.
She gazed at Chris and choked out, “Luis.”
“I know.” He nodded. “They’re taking him away now.”
“Olivia?”
“She’s going to the hospital. And so are you.”
THE CAR STARTED down the drive through the tunnel of maples, the last leg of the drive back from the hospital, and Nikki’s stomach tightened with the same uneasy sensation she’d suffered the first night she’d traveled this lane. Although that journey had been a little over a week ago, it felt like a year.
Beside her, Olivia sat in stony silence. Her smashed cheekbone had been mended with what she called wizardry surgery, some wire and plastic, the incisions hardly visible. She would be as good as new in a matter of time.
The aftereffects of Nikki’s concussion, headache and dizziness were lessening, her bruised ankle no longer swollen but still achy, and myriad bums, tender but healing.
The car emerged onto the flat, open area laid in brick, and Nikki had her first glance of the devastation. Her breath caught. Only the blues and greens and golds of the rolling hillside, sparkling bay and velvet sky were as she remembered.
The De Vega Mansion hadn’t caught fire, but its white stucco, black wrought-iron trim and crimson roof tiles looked scorched, smudged and dirty—as though its true colors showed for the first time.
Wedding House.
She shivered. Had a mansion ever been more inappropriately named? This was not a house of romance and love. It was the site of betrayal and murder, thriving on lies and secrets, destroying the emotionally wounded.
But at last the veil had been stripped away, and now the healing could begin.
“Oh, Christopher.” Olivia spoke for the first time since leaving the hospital. “It’s awful.”
“It’s all repairable, Liv. Never weep for a building. People are what count.” Chris smiled at his sister, then at Nikki, a warm lingering look full of promises they’d yet to make, a future they’d yet to discuss.
“I guess it does give a better view of the bay,” Olivia conceded, climbing out of the car.
Chris helped Nikki into the house, even though she insisted she could maneuver on her own. In spite of her protests, she adored his attentiveness.
“Welcome.” Diego Sands held the door open for them. His manner was more subdued than ever, resigned even, as though the events of the past days had somehow affected him as deeply as the trio he was greeting. “Mrs. Grissom has lunch prepared. It’s just the four of us now. Ms. Wolf left yesterday—said she was anxious to get home and finish her book.”
“Holy Joe,” Chris groaned, but there was no anger in his eyes, just acceptance.
“She left this for you.” Diego handed Chris a prescription bottle. It was Dorothea’s missing painkillers. Chris raised his brows questioningly.
Diego said, “Ms. Wolf claims she found it in the hallway the night Dorothea died. In the confusion and shock, she picked it up and put it in her pocket, then later wasn’t sure what to do about it. So she hung on to it, but now she thought you should have it.”
The four retreated to the dining room and sat across from one another. “Before we eat, Nikki, Olivia and I have something to say to you.”
“Please, Christopher, may I?” Olivia twisted her hands together. “I want to apologize to you again for my behavior, Nikki. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I hope someday you will find it in your heart. I am going into therapy for my bulimia. Meantime our plans to open a bed and breakfast are being disbanded. Chris and I are relinquishing all claims on Wedding House. As Theresa’s daughter, it rightfully belongs to you.”
Nikki was overwhelmed. She hadn’t expected this, didn’t even want it. If she had her way, the mansion would be imploded, the property allowed to revert to its original wild condition.
Diego choked on his coffee. “Ms. Navarro is not Theresa’s daughter.”
“She’s not?” Chris gaped at the architect.
“I’m not?”
“No,” Diego said. “Theresa had no children.”
Nikki’s throat dried. She’d been ready to claim the whole Aznar clan in Texas. Claim them, meet them, love them. She felt the foundations of her life slipping once more, the old coldness looming, pinching. “But...”
“How do you know?” Olivia demanded. looking offended that her generous offer was about to be squelched.
“You once asked me how I knew Theresa Aznar.” Diego scooted his chair back and faced her. “You do look so like her.”
Nikki clasped her hands on the table, trying to stop the quaking. “I asked how well you knew her.”
“And where I knew her.” His eyes were not unkind, but his words were slicing away her life. “We grew up in the same tiny Texas town near the Mexican border. On opposite sides of the tracks. Theresa was the elder daughter of the wealthiest man in those parts. A daughter someone from the Sands family had no business even noticing.”
“But you and she...” Olivia encouraged as though sensing a real love story unfolding.
Diego glanced at Olivia, then back at Nikki. “She and her sister occasionally came into the ice-cream parlor where I
worked. Theresa would make excuses to talk to me. She had a crush on me.”
“And you on her?” Olivia sighed.
“Oh, no. No. Though until I came here looking for... until I came here, I didn’t realize she thought I returned her feelings. When Theresa realized I hadn’t come here for her, she began flirting with Jorge Rameriz, to make me jealous. But I wasn’t the one driven insane with jealousy. Luis must have been aware Theresa had given her heart to another. I’m sure now that he thought the man was Jorge. From what I could glean from the diary, he must have suspected they were having an affair. I’d say that was why he killed them both.”
“Then you’re the one who found the diary after I stuffed it into the chair?” Nikki asked.
Diego nodded.
“Why did you leave that page in my room?”
“What page?”
“The diary page?”
“Ah, er, he didn’t.” Olivia’s face was beet red. “I found the diary when I was cleaning Diego’s room. I took it and left the page to spook you away from here, Nikki.”
“Why did you come to see Theresa if you didn’t love her?” Chris went to the sideboard, filled a cup with coffee and sat back down.
Diego sighed. “Ramon Aznar, Theresa’s father, arranged for her to wed De Vega. After the wedding Theresa moved here, and her sister came to the ice-cream parlor alone. From the first, I had only had eyes for her. I could never dare hope that she would love me in return. But she did. We both knew her papa would see me imprisoned if he discovered what we’d done. When she found out she was pregnant, I had to risk that. I went to Ramon. I begged for her hand in marriage.
“As we’d feared he would, he had me thrown in jail on trumped-up charges. To hide his shame, Ramon sent Carmella here to her sister. As soon as I was out of jail and had saved enough money, I came looking for Carmella and our child.”
“My mother’s name was Carmella.” The breath jammed in Nikki’s throat. Her pulse thrummed. “Are you telling me you’re my father?”
He pulled a framed photograph from his pocket and passed it to her. “If this woman was your mother...”
“That’s the photograph you had on your bedside table,” Chris stated.
“Yes.” Diego nodded.
Nikki took the frame in both of her shaking hands. The dark-haired beauty staring up at her was the woman who had raised her. Tears sprang into her eyes, fell freely down her cheeks and her heart thumped with joy. Carmella was her real mother. And, at long last, Nikki had found her father. She gazed at Diego Sands, seeing him in a whole new light.
Olivia said, “But you and Carmella both had brown eyes, and dark hair, how could you have a blue-eyed, blond-haired daughter?”
Diego shrugged. “It happens. A throwback. If you’ve any doubts, a simple DNA test will—”
“No.” Nikki stopped him. “I don’t have any doubts. But why didn’t you come for us?”
“When Theresa found out I hadn’t come here for her, she refused to tell me anything. And since Carmella had changed her name, I had no way of finding you. But you must know, I’ve never stopped looking. Hoping.”
He reached across the table, and for the first time in her life, Nikki took her father’s hands in hers. Heat spread through her fingers, up her arms and straight into her heart, scattering the teeny chips of ice that had lingered from the cold spot.
“But why didn’t she ever try to contact you?” Olivia sounded outraged.
“I can only guess. Ramon must have told Carmella her baby would be given away the moment it was born. My Carmella would never have given our child away. I now suspect she probably never told Theresa where she was going. Any contact with anyone from the past would have brought Ramon and his vengeance down on her.”
“Why did you take the diary, Diego?” Chris asked, in a tone that suggested he would keep on protecting Nikki whether she’d found her father or not.
Diego made a face. “I’d hoped there might be something in it that would tell me where to find Carmella or Nikki. There wasn’t.”
“Well, I am happy for you, Nikki. And you, too, Diego. This is wonderful news.” Olivia sank back in her chair, the look of expectation that had been in her eyes fattened. “And it still means Wedding House is yours, Nikki.”
“I don’t want it,” Nikki said. “As far as I’m concerned, it belongs to you and Chris, and I’ll sign any legal agreement to that effect.”
“Are you sure?” Chris studied her intently. “It’s worth a lot of money. You could sell—”
“I don’t want a penny from this place,” Nikki interrupted him. “It has brought my family nothing but unhappiness.”
“Mine, too.” He caught his sister’s hand, his expression glum. “We’ll have to deal with it, Liv, along with Mother and Uncle Luis.”
The silence in the room expanded. Nikki, sighed. “Did anyone ever figure out how Lorah managed to make all those things happen during the séance?”
Again, Olivia’s cheeks went crimson. “Dorothea and I helped Lorah. We sneaked her assistant into and out of the master suite via the passageways. When everyone was downstairs after the ambulance left, he removed his equipment.”
“You knew it was a sham all along?” Chris scowled.
“It seemed so important at the time.”
“How did you manage the shadowy images I saw of Theresa? Holograms or something?”
Olivia looked completely confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There was never a shadowy image.”
Nikki’s breath snagged in her throat Olivia had no more reason to lie. Then who? What?
Theresa?
Had the bride actually haunted this house all these years, waiting for her secret to be revealed? Nikki felt suddenly certain of it, and she prayed Theresa had finally found peace and the power to move on, now that her killer no longer stalked Wedding House.
Nikki AND HER FATHER sat alone in the library, discussing everything from favorite colors to Carmella. She learned he’d never married, never given up hope of finding his beloved and their child. They made plans to visit Texas, to introduce her to all the relatives on both sides of her extensive family. Nikki couldn’t wait. She e-mailed her editor for an extension on her book deadline.
On the way back to her room she found Chris standing in the master suite, staring at the portrait. He looked so handsome and so lost, she yearned to comfort him. The days ahead would be tough on him and his sister, perhaps some of the toughest they’d ever faced, and God knew, they’d had their share of difficulties. She sidled up to him.
He lurched around. “I thought yours was the only secret she was keeping.”
Nikki looped her arm through his, feeling a protective instinct of her own. “Are you avoiding me?”
He glanced down at her. His black hair was mussed, as though he’d been digging his hand through it. His gaze warmed as it reached out to her, and her pulse fluttered. “I didn’t want to intrude on you and your dad.”
“‘My dad.’ Doesn’t that sound great?”
“Yes.” He pulled her close. “You’d have liked my dad. He’d have liked you. I wish he were here today.”
He didn’t say it, but she guessed he was thinking if his father hadn’t died when he was young, his mother might never have gone along with Luis. Might not be in such dire trouble now.
“We make our own destinies, Chris. You can’t change the course your mother chose.”
“She’s facing prosecution as an accessory to murder—Theresa’s, Jorge’s, the maid and cook’s, and for harboring a criminal, Luis, which led to Dorothea’s death, perhaps Lorah Halliard’s.” He sounded bitter and deeply sad. “Despite the garbage she thrust on Liv and me, hell, despite everything, I can’t desert her.”
“I didn’t expect you to. And I won’t ask you to.”
“But I want to. At this moment I want nothing more than to walk away with you and never look back. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.” He kissed her long and hard,
but looked even sadder as he pulled back. “But right now I’m not sure I can make anyone happy.”
“You’re not doing too badly...”
His smile was melancholy. “I’ve been weighing my options, Nikki. Liv isn’t the only one who needs counseling. I’ve spent so many years suppressing my emotions, I feel like a dam splitting its seams. I don’t like the feeling. I need to find a balance, to understand and accept myself.”
Sorrow raked her soul. Once again she was losing this man she loved with such desperation. But as much as it broke her heart, she knew they couldn’t be together until they were both whole. They were mending, but they needed to face their feelings for each other when they could do it honestly and openly, to see if his passion was based on more than rage. To see if hers was based on more than need. “And I have to get to know my father, my family in Texas.”
It would have been too easy to fall into bed, to make love and pretend the rest didn’t matter. But neither wanted that. Chris held her throughout the night.
As THEY SAID GOODBYE the next morning, Nikki hugged Chris tightly. “I’ll call the minute I know where we’re staying.”
“You’d better,” Chris whispered in her ear. “Because as soon as this is over, I’m coming for you.”
“I’m holding you to that.” A sob welled inside her. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand being parted from you. I love you so much it’s breaking my heart.”
“No, no. Don’t be sad. You are my future. I won’t let you down.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Nikki, with every ounce of my being. We’ll talk every day. Twice a day.”
She laughed, then they kissed to seal their loving pledge, and she climbed inside the car next to her father. As the taxi edged away, Nikki glanced back at Chris through the rear window, wondering if she would see him again, if they really had a future. She made a silent promise, to Chris and to herself. “If you don’t come for me, Chris Conrad, I will be back for you.”
Epilogue
