Dylan gave her a weak smile. “Let’s take it one step at a time for now. Keeping you and Sarah safe is the first priority. Right now, Connor taking a DNA test for any reason is down the road. I’ll say it again, try to unwind while you’re here. You deserve a break. I’m not suggesting that you lower your guard.”
“I know what you’re saying.” She took a deep breath before puffing it out. “I’ll try. That’s all I can do.”
Kit looked at her watch. “I’m meeting Jake at the harbor at one-thirty. He took the ferry over from the mainland. I’ve got to get going. I don’t want him wandering around Avalon looking for the house. Can you two behave yourselves while I’m gone?”
Plucking Sarah from Baylee’s arms, Dylan looked wide-eyed and innocent at the comment. “Hey, we wouldn’t think of doing anything in front of the b-a-b-y. Shame on Aunt Kit for thinking like that. She has a dirty mind, doesn’t she, Sarah?”
“Oh please,” Kit shot back. “I’m trusting the two of you to act like mature adults and not like the naughty teens I caught standing on the porch earlier. I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Do you think you can keep your hands to yourselves for that long in front of the b-a-b-y?”
Baylee laughed. The intense mood lifted. “Get out of here and go make out with Jake. You aren’t fooling anyone. So go. You’re on the clock.”
Kit had just disappeared out the front door when Sarah started rubbing her eyes like she was sleepy. “Okay, somebody’s ready for a nap. Let’s get you all tucked in, sweetie.”
Baylee headed upstairs and Dylan trailed behind her carrying Sarah. “Do I need to set up the port-a-crib?”
“Nope, all taken care of,” Baylee told him as she approached the bedroom down the hall, one of the smallest of the guest bedrooms upstairs but the one that used to belong to her. The room suited Sarah perfectly. The walls were painted a cheery yellow and decorated with some of Baylee’s own artwork, colorful paintings of different kinds of animals she’d done in high school and hung years earlier to brighten up the room. She reached over, plucked Sarah out of Dylan’s arms, and put her down on the twin bed to change her diaper before sitting down in the wooden rocker. Baylee looked around the room. “Could you maybe find her baby monitor so we’ll hear her when she wakes up?”
While Baylee fed Sarah, Dylan dug around in several bags that had already been brought upstairs until he found the monitor. By the time Baylee put the baby down in her crib Dylan had it up and running. He stood in the doorway patiently waiting for her to back out of the room. As soon as she closed the door, Dylan pulled her into his chest, kissed her full on the mouth.
“Mmmm, you taste good. We’ve got twenty minutes before Kit comes back. Let’s make the most of it.”
His touch, his kiss, sent her reeling. She covered his mouth. Dylan cupped her rear, picked her up. and whirled around, leaning his back up against the wall. She pressed her body into his. They were both on fire
But then they heard the front door burst open. Even with the need hanging between them, they recognized the voices downstairs in the entryway. Kit had returned with Jake.
“Damn, that was fast,” Dylan protested. “I thought we’d have more time.”
“We might have if I’d been quicker putting Sarah down.”
“Couldn’t be helped. We have the next few days.” He touched her cheek. “I think I understand now why you were so upset that first night at my house about moving so many times. It takes a lot out of you―out of Sarah. I see that now. We’ll get through this, Baylee. I won’t let him hurt you.”
Baylee smiled. This was what she liked about him, his ability to pick up on how she felt, see her predicament, and appreciate the circumstances. The mention of “him” made her breathe out a sigh. But she was determined not to let Connor wedge himself into her thoughts. “I know how uncomfortable my meltdown the other day made you. But you handled it very well.”
He chuckled, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m getting used to having women around. You and Sarah are growing on me.” He looked further down the hallway wishing the two of them could make use of one of the bedrooms. “Which room is yours?”
“The one with the balcony, the one closest to the ocean.”
“Tonight then.” He gave her a mouthy kiss and rested his head on her forehead. “That will have to hold us both for a while,” he whispered, as they both started moving toward the stairs, hand in hand.
For the rest of the day, the four of them stayed busy getting Baylee and Dylan settled in their new digs for the long haul. That meant a thorough cleaning and dusting of the place from top to bottom.
Even though Jake and Kit weren’t staying, they did their part unpacking boxes, scrubbing down the kitchen, putting away the groceries they’d ordered, and unpacking stuffed-to-the-gills suitcases.
Kit had not underestimated the amount of junk William had stored in the closets. To cover more ground, the four of them split up, each taking a bedroom to strip the sheets off the beds and prepare for a massive laundry detail.
But no matter the bedroom, each of them encountered the same problem. The bedrooms were cramped, crowded with furniture.
There was no way to clear anything out because every closet was in the same condition, stuffed to the brim with years of outdated clothes or stacks of old magazines, everything from ancient copies of Life to Reader’s Digest to Harper’s Bazaar, along with a ton of old hardcover books and just plain junk. It soon became clear they couldn’t unpack anything until they’d made room in the closets for all the stuff they’d brought.
Baylee had taken the master suite at the end of the hall near Sarah’s room for her own. She opened the windows to let in some much-needed fresh air. The breeze right off the ocean felt cool as she stood there a moment enjoying the view of the glistening water and the pristine sandy beaches below before turning to strip the sheets off the bed.
After choking from the dust, she took the linens and dumped them in the hallway.
It was time to tackle all the useless stuff in the dreaded closet. The minute she opened the door, she scanned the overflowing mess inside and groaned. She stared at her father’s old clothes. Every stitch of clothing smelled like mothballs. But she had to make room for her things. And if Dylan decided to put his clothes in here they’d definitely have a storage problem. One by one, she started taking down shirts and pants still on hangers. She toted them into the unoccupied bedroom, which had become the staging area, and tossed them on the bed for now. She’d deal with them later.
On her third trip back to the closet, she eyed a couple of boxes stored on one side of the shelf and plied back the lids. One contained more magazines. Another held an assortment of men’s tennis shoes. She shook her head. Going through these would take a while. She didn’t have that kind of time to waste. She decided to move these into the catch-all bedroom. After making a couple of trips back and forth, she stood just inside the walk-in closet appreciating the space she’d created. But there still wasn’t enough room for Dylan’s stuff. She turned her attention to the other side of the walk-in closet.
It was then she noticed some clothing hanging in the back that looked out of place. There were women’s dresses hanging at the end of the rack.
Curious, Baylee stepped further along the rod holding hangars to get a better look. Instinctively, she started going through each piece of clothing, one by one, pulling back each dress, each blouse, each sweater, giving them the once-over. As she studied the outfits, she decided they were from at least two decades earlier, probably the 80’s.
When she plied back a section of dresses, she suddenly spotted what looked like a crease in the wood hidden behind all of the clothes. To take a closer look, she had to remove several outfits from the rod. Creating a sizeable gap, she took a step toward the crevice in the wall.
Feeling along the seam, she realized it was a recessed panel that was supposed to slide. She tried moving it to the left then the right. It was rough going at first. The track seem
ed to have rusted from lack of use. When she finally managed to work the piece of wood all the way open, she saw what looked like an old, dusty, leather-bound book propped up at an angle. Tentatively, she picked it up, swiping off cobwebs and dust with her hand. She felt the gold embossed words on the cover that read simply, My Diary.
In the warmth of the small space, chills ran down her arms.
Feeling a little like an intruder who’d just stumbled on someone else’s hidden, forbidden treasure, she took her find over to the bed and dropped down on the bare mattress to get comfortable. With a sense of dread, she sucked in a breath and slowly opened the book to the first page.
She realized the book belonged to her mother.
The first entry was dated the day she’d married William Scott.
Curious, Baylee flipped through more of the pages, skimming each daily entry. At first, her early writings covered the mundane, ordinary reflections of a young woman in love. Then she realized some of the statements referred to the seventeen-year-old girl’s obvious smitten state with a much older man. It seems Sarah Moreland had been infatuated with William Scott from the minute she had walked on to that first movie set years earlier. The entries revealed that the teenager had obviously fallen in love with him long before they’d actually gotten together.
Reading her mother’s heartfelt words, Baylee discovered William had taken Sarah’s virginity on her eighteenth birthday, three years before they’d tied the knot at the altar.
Some of the paragraphs painted the picture of a naïve, young woman who had poured everything she had into building the relationship with him from the beginning, even when it meant trying to please his every whim in bed. A little disgusted with some of the detailed descriptions, Baylee read on about how frustrated Sarah had grown at what he insisted she do. Who knew her father had been into bondage?
As she read more, she discovered the marriage had been in trouble almost from the start, especially since William’s proclivity for kinky sex became more of a demand. According to Sarah’s own words, a mere two months into the marriage, she had suspected William was seeing someone else.
That confirmed what her aunt, Karen Nash, had said about her father’s wandering eye. It seems William’s infidelity hadn’t fooled his naive wife for a minute despite her young age.
As Baylee flipped through more pages, she learned her mother had eventually come to the conclusion that there was one woman in particular, an actress, that William couldn’t seem to stay away from, even during the course of his wife’s pregnancy, which apparently had happened by accident, certainly had not been planned, a mere month after their marriage.
According to the entries, William had not been thrilled to discover he’d soon be a father. In fact, Baylee read in no uncertain terms how unhappy he’d been about the prospect. At one point, according to Sarah, he had demanded she end the pregnancy.
A disillusioned Baylee sat there on the bed, feeling her mother’s pain. As she read the words, tears welled up in her eyes. As young as Sarah had been, she had stuck to her principles and had refused to give in to William’s wishes.
As a woman, not to mention Sarah’s daughter, Baylee felt particularly outraged at her father’s callousness and infidelity. His betrayal during his wife’s pregnancy had to have been especially hurtful, since more than likely Sarah had been at her most vulnerable.
As Baylee continued to read further, the journal left no doubt the cheating had never stopped. Instead, there were nights when William hadn’t come home at all.
Totally absorbed in the story, Baylee thumbed forward through the book, looking for a name. Surely, Sarah had discovered the name of the woman that had played such an integral part in ruining her marriage. When one name finally jumped off the page, stunned, Baylee flew off the bed. She tore down the hallway so fast she turned over several cartons of old books, spilling the contents all over the hardwood floor. She didn’t even stop to pick up the mess but rather took the stairs two at a time, looking to share what she’d found with everyone else.
“According to what my mother wrote, the entire time they were married he was caught up in this affair with Alana. There wasn’t one day that he actually spent trying to make his marriage work. He was playing around from the start,” Baylee railed, as she paced back and forth in front of the stone fireplace in the living room.
“Your father and Alana were involved,” Dylan stated again, incredulously. “I thought they hated each other. You said there were times when he tried to keep you and Kit apart because they had some kind of private war going on between them and you two kids were caught in the middle,” Dylan pointed out, genuinely perplexed.
“The war obviously came later. Like you said, they must have had a falling out at some point. According to her journal, the two of them were hot and heavy during the entire course of the marriage. Read some of her entries; read how many times he saw Alana over the course of three years. Some nights the man didn’t even bother coming home. It’s disgusting, he’s disgusting. He even spent time with Alana when my mother was pregnant. It’s obvious to me he never even made an effort to make the marriage work. And when he found out she was pregnant, he badgered her to end it. Poor Sarah.”
“But why would she leave her journal behind?” Dylan wanted to know. “That makes no sense. And why leave it hidden here instead of the house in Beverly Hills?”
“Maybe by the time she made the last trip to Catalina, spending any time in this house, she probably thought, ‘Okay, it’s over for good. There’s no need to bring my diary along because it reminds me of the lousy, cheating bastard I’m married to.’” Kit shot a compassionate look at Baylee. “Sorry.”
“Why? That’s exactly what he was, a lousy, cheating bastard and with Alana of all women. I feel sorry for my mother. All these years I blamed her for walking out, for leaving him, for leaving me. Now, I know why. Could you just imagine how that made her feel knowing she never really had his attention, not even from day one? That he was never really committed to the marriage. No wonder she turned to someone else.”
But Dylan wasn’t convinced. He thumbed through the journal. “So far, I haven’t found any mention of Luc Delaine at all.”
“This book only covers the first year of marriage.”
“It still doesn’t make sense. Are you sure this was the only book inside that hidey hole?”
Baylee looked bewildered for about two seconds before she took off like a shot out of the room and raced back upstairs. By the time she reached the master bedroom, Dylan was hot on her heels.
“I didn’t even consider there might be more, didn’t even look,” she admitted to Dylan as she stumbled around in the closet, stepping over some of the clothes now strewn all over the floor before falling to her knees and reaching into Sarah’s cubby-hole, hiding place.
She took a deep breath. Sure enough, there in the back were two more leather-bound books, one covering the second year of marriage, the other, the third.
As Dylan thumbed through the books, he commented, “I’ll say one thing for your mother, she was meticulous in detail.”
“She was. She obviously poured her heart and soul out in these.”
“Where do you suppose the last one is? By my calculation, she kept these starting the first of every year she was with William. She was five months into another year when she went missing.”
Baylee gaped at him. She hadn’t even thought of that. “Good question. I guess I’ll need to turn Dad’s house upside down to find out.”
“Maybe it’s somewhere in this house.”
She kissed him on the mouth. “Dylan, you think of everything. I guess we start here and tear this house upside down first.”
But after several hours of clearing out closets, tearing through drawers, rearranging book shelves, none of them discovered the final journal belonging to Sarah Moreland.
Although they didn’t locate the last diary, it was clear in the ones they had read that Sarah cared for Luc Delaine. Time and agai
n, she had declared her love for him, but never as a lover.
Because it seems Luc had hoarded a secret.
Luc Delaine, the tennis player ranked number four in the world, had been gay.
CHAPTER 19 Book 2
“So if Luc was gay, that pretty much puts William’s story in the fictional category,” Dylan said as he flipped a burger on the outside grill while Baylee whirled together frozen margaritas a few steps inside the patio door of the kitchen.
“Maybe she ran off with him in spite of that just to get away from William? Maybe it was her only opportunity to escape,” Baylee offered the minute the noise from the blender ceased.
Dylan sent her a dubious look. After believing a lie which her father had propagated for twenty-two years, what did he expect? He’d known she might be resistant to the truth, but he didn’t think she’d continue to hang on to her father’s phony story when faced with hard facts.
As soon as Baylee appeared outside with the pitcher, Kit got up to pour the mixture into goblets. She handed one off to Jake as he sat at the outdoor table, holding the baby on his lap.
“I’ve got a ton of questions about William’s story too,” Kit said, eyeing Baylee the same way Dylan had. “But first, how did William and Alana come to despise each other? Because they did.”
Dylan flipped another burger and pointed out, “Not only that, but how did the man come to purchase a home five houses down from her then switch gears and decide she was off-limits to his daughter? Sometimes going off the deep end so much about it, he’d forbid that child from stepping foot inside Alana’s house.”
Maybe now was his chance to get Baylee to see how William’s story didn’t add up. “I just don’t buy the fact that Sarah’s married to the guy for three years, puts up with his cheating ways and then one night she decides to pack up and leave her daughter behind with him. Plus, she leaves those journals behind, especially when she makes it clear in between those pages that the only reason she didn’t divorce his ass in the first place was because of you, Baylee. She’s trying hard to make the marriage work in spite of William’s infidelity because of you. She’s doing everything she can, putting everything into the marriage.”
Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set Page 65
