by I. T. Lucas
Unease crept up Turner’s spine. What could Nancy want that couldn’t be discussed over the phone?
Across from him, he saw Bridget frown.
“When?”
“I can be there in half an hour.”
“Bridget and I are having breakfast. You can join us.”
There was a moment of silence. “I need to talk to you alone. I’ll come in an hour, after you’re done with breakfast.”
“I’ll meet you in the lobby at eleven sharp.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know what Nancy wants to talk to you about?” Bridget asked.
Naturally, she’d heard every word.
“She didn’t say. I hope she doesn't plan on lecturing me about dating a much younger woman.”
Bridget chuckled. “If she only knew the truth. Perhaps it has to do with who pays what for the newlyweds’ house.”
“Could be. I wish they would just say thanks once and drop the subject. They make me uncomfortable with all their arguing. I know, and they know that it’s just posturing and that they are going to accept the gift.”
Putting her coffee cup down, Bridget patted his hand. “They are trying to save face. Let them.”
Turner took her hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m glad you came. You make everything easier.”
“You’re so sweet.”
“I’m truthful.”
“I know.” She smiled. “That’s what makes it sweet.”
“Are you okay with me meeting Nancy alone?”
She arched a brow. “Are you asking me if I’m jealous of your ex?”
“You have a jealous streak. We’ve established that already.”
“I do. But not in this case, I just wish I could be there for you.”
That was an odd thing to say.
Did Bridget expect Nancy to deliver bad news?
Turner looked into her eyes, checking her pupils for dilation. She had her super hearing; he had his ways of discerning the truth. “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
She shook her head. “Whatever it is Nancy wants to talk to you about must be important. She didn’t ask to meet you alone to discuss the weather.”
Bridget’s pupils had dilated a little. She knew something or suspected something, but she either didn’t want to steal Nancy’s thunder or didn’t want to speculate.
Pushing his chair back, Turner took the napkin off his lap and put it on the table. “What do you want to do in the meantime? Do you want to go up to the room, or do you want to go for a walk?”
“I’ll go to the room. Otherwise, I’ll be too tempted to eavesdrop from a safe distance.”
“Right. I’ll escort you.” He got up.
Bridget rose to her feet and stretched to kiss his cheek. “I know the way. Stay.”
As if it had anything to do with anything. He was a gentleman. “I’ll walk you to the elevators.”
“Okay.”
As Turner watched Bridget enter the elevator, she smiled at him, but he caught the smile slipping off her face a moment before the doors closed all the way.
Bridget was worried, and it was stressing him out.
With her super hearing, she might’ve overheard something at the rehearsal dinner. Or perhaps she’d picked up some clues with her other enhanced senses.
However, speculating was pointless when he had no clues to go on. Besides, he was going to find out soon enough what it was all about.
The most likely suspect was the damn house. He should have said nothing and just bought the thing. It would have prevented all the fuss.
Scanning the lobby for a private place to have a talk, he walked over to the bar area and sat down at the furthest table out of the four.
It would do just fine.
That early, the place was practically deserted, with only two guys sitting at the bar and none of the tables occupied.
Turner ordered another coffee and waited.
When he saw Nancy come in through the main entry, he got up and waved.
A tight smile on her thin face, she waved back and walked over. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“Sure thing. Please, take a seat.” He pulled out a chair for her. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He motioned for the waiter and ordered.
“Are you excited about the wedding?” he asked when the silence between them had stretched uncomfortably.
“Yes. It’s going to be beautiful. Melanie did a great job organizing everything. The only task she assigned to me was ordering the invitations, but there was no time to order, so I had to print them myself.”
“You made them? They looked so professional.” Vaguely, he remembered that Nancy was into arts and crafts.
Her smile was genuine this time. “Thank you. It was an emergency project. But you know how I enjoy making things like that.”
“I do.”
When her coffee arrived, Nancy stirred in a packet of artificial sweetener and a bit of cream, took a sip, sighed, and put the cup down.
“This is so hard.” She sighed again.
Turner didn’t respond.
Looking down at her hands, she started, “I just want you to know that I didn’t deceive you intentionally. In the beginning, I really didn’t know. And later when I started to suspect, I didn’t have the heart to tell you. But now with all that house business, I feel so guilty. You deserve to know the truth.”
Turner’s gut twisted. On a subconscious level, he’d known what she was about to confess, but he had chosen to ignore his suspicions.
It seemed that the time of reckoning had arrived.
“Douglas is not mine,” he stated.
She lifted a pair of wide eyes at him. “You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What was there to say? Douglas doesn’t know, right?”
She shook her head. “No, and I don’t plan to ever tell him unless, God forbid, he needs a kidney transplant or something like that.”
“That’s what I thought. Douglas thinks of me as his biological father and of Peter as his dad. There is no reason to shake up his world.”
She nodded. “When I found out I was pregnant, I panicked. How was I supposed to support myself and a child and finish college? Then there was the question of who would sign the birth certificate. There were two potential fathers; you and the guy I dated right after. I called you both.”
She smiled a sad smile. “The other guy brushed me off. You didn’t. So I just convinced myself that it was you and went with it. For years, I held on to that belief, but when Douglas reached puberty and started to look exactly like the other guy, I had no choice but to acknowledge the truth.”
“I understand.”
“You do? Really? You’re not angry?”
Turner smoothed his hand over the back of his head. Was he?
Nancy hadn’t set out to deceive him. And in a way she’d given him a gift. Having a son, even one he hadn’t raised and hadn’t been close to, had added meaning to his life.
One thing Turner was sure of. The only reason he wasn’t devastated by the news was that he had Bridget in his life. Without her, he would’ve felt completely alone in the world.
“I’m not angry. Disappointed, yes. But that being said, I’m glad you came to me when you needed a father for your child. Perception often means more than reality, and for all intents and purposes you’ve given me my only son.”
Nancy let out a long breath and leaned back in her chair. “You have no idea how much lighter I feel having this thing lifted off my chest. You’re a great guy, Victor. I don’t know anyone who would have taken the news as calmly as you did. And as to the house, Peter and I will come up with the down payment. Douglas and Melanie can do monthly mortgage payments just like everyone else.”
“Nothing has changed, Nancy, I’m still buying them a house. As I said before, for all intents and purposes, Douglas i
s my son, and I’m going to keep taking care of him and my future grandkids for as long as I can.”
21
Bridget
Bridget had a pretty good idea what Nancy wanted to tell Victor, and she dreaded his reaction to the news. Waiting for him to come back was nerve-wracking. Would he be angry? Sad?
Probably both.
Trying to put herself in his shoes, Bridget imagined she would’ve cried and screamed and thrown things around. But Victor wasn’t like her, or like anyone else for that matter.
Pacing around the living area of their hotel suite, Bridget wondered if he would still want to attend the wedding. If he decided against going, it wouldn’t be out of some need for vengeance, but because he would be too angry to be around people.
Then again, his lack of strong emotions could be advantageous in a situation like that. Chances were he wouldn’t exhibit any outward signs of rage. Instead, he would probably come to some logical conclusion and convince himself to move on.
What troubled her, though, was what the silent ticking bomb would do to his insides once it exploded and when.
The more she got to know Victor, the more Bridget was convinced that he wasn’t emotionless. He’d become so adept at bottling up his feelings that by now the process was on autopilot and didn’t require any conscious effort on his part.
The problem with bottled-up feelings, though, was that at some point the pressure would grow beyond Victor’s ability to contain it, and they would erupt to the surface with such a destructive force that they would leave burn marks on his insides—if not incinerate them completely.
Hopefully, that wasn’t going to happen today. Because if it did, Bridget had no tools to deal with it. She was good at healing broken bones, and sewing closed torn flesh and skin. But she was not good at mending broken hearts or resuscitating shriveled souls.
Perhaps she should call Vanessa and ask the therapist’s advice?
When the door opened, Bridget sucked in a breath and prepared for the worst. Whatever emotional state Victor was in, she would do her best to shore him up.
“Ready to go get some decent breakfast?” Victor asked. “I asked at the front desk, and they told me that there is a salad and juice place around the corner. We don’t even need a taxi. It’s walking distance.”
That was so far off from what Bridget had been expecting that she was momentarily rendered speechless. Her breath leaving in a whoosh, she plopped down on the couch. “Frankly, I have no appetite.”
In fact, she was nauseous from the adrenaline rush and then its sudden drop. “We can get lunch later.”
Maybe she’d been wrong about the whole thing, and Nancy had come to talk about some inconsequential wedding stuff like speeches and who sat where and with whom.
“As you wish.” Victor sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Give me those lush lips of yours.” He hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up.
If he was looking for distraction, she was more than willing to provide it. Closing the rest of the distance between them, she pressed her mouth to his and without much preamble pushed her tongue past his lips.
The kiss went on for long minutes, until at some point Bridget remembered that Victor couldn’t hold his breath as long as she could and let go.
He took a couple of shuddering breaths and leaned back, letting his head drop back against the sofa’s cushions. “Douglas isn’t mine. At least not biologically.”
Bridget’s heart filled with sorrow for Victor, but she didn’t respond. What was she supposed to say?
In the movies, the therapist would ask. “How do you feel about it?” But that was a stupid question, and it wouldn’t help ease the pain he must've been feeling.
“You don’t seem surprised,” he said.
“At the rehearsal dinner, I smelled a lot of guilt coming off of Nancy. I suspected it might be something like that. Especially since Douglas doesn’t look like either of you.”
“I was never sure he was mine, but I liked the idea of having a son, and I didn’t want to lose him. Maybe it would’ve been different if I had a family of my own, but other than Douglas, I had no one. Not until you came into my life.”
She squeezed his hand.
“I didn’t want to find out for sure. I could’ve asked for a DNA test, but I didn’t. I preferred the illusion.”
“And now?”
He shrugged. “I thought it would matter to me, but it doesn't. I still feel as if he is my son. Douglas doesn’t know, and Nancy is not going to tell him. To him, I’m his father, and I don’t want that to change.”
“Are you mad at Nancy? Why did she do it? Was it for the child support?”
Victor sighed and closed his eyes. “She said she didn’t know for sure either, not until Douglas reached puberty and started looking more and more like the guy she’d dated right after breaking up with me. By then our lives were too entangled, and she didn’t want to cause either of us grief. She only told me now because of the house.”
Bridget understood. For years, Turner had paid support for Douglas, and later he had paid for his higher education as well. Nancy must’ve felt guilty about that from the moment she started suspecting Douglas wasn’t his. Turner’s offer to buy the young couple a house had eclipsed everything he’d paid for before, and Nancy could no longer live with the guilt.
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing has changed. I still think of Douglas as my son, and I’m not going to start thinking differently because genetically I’m not. The other guy does not exist as far as Douglas is concerned. He is no more than a sperm donor. I’m still going to give my two-sentence-long speech at the wedding as the groom’s father, and I’m still going to buy them the fucking house that started all of this mess.”
“Do you regret knowing?” Bridget asked softly.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know. It seems idiotic and cowardly to prefer the lie. Except, I would’ve preferred the illusion even though deep down I knew the truth. What does it say about me? Where is that logic I pride myself on?”
Bridget wrapped her arm around his middle and put her head on his chest. “You’re a good man, Victor, and I’m so proud of you. You made the right choice for Douglas, for Melanie, and for yourself.”
“It felt right. But is it?”
“Think of it this way. Let’s say you and Nancy were married and she couldn’t conceive. You decided to go for artificial insemination, but then things went south, and you divorced before the child was born. You would have still supported him and thought of him as yours, right?”
“Of course. I would’ve been legally obligated to.”
“But you would have done it regardless because that would’ve been the right thing to do. I know that this is not the same, but it’s close enough.”
“I suppose so.”
“Family is about more than blood, it’s about connection and about caring. You’ve been connected to Douglas and cared for him in your own way since he was born. That makes him yours.”
22
Ruth
“Ruth, what are you doing? Come back into the water.” Nick lifted her leg by the ankle and gave it a tug, trying to drag her off her beach towel.
She planted her elbows firmly in the sand. “I’m tired. I need to rest. This is way more exhausting than I thought it would be.”
Next to her, Sharon flopped from her front to her back and snorted. “I told you so. It’s more fun to watch the surfer boys from here.”
“No, it is fun. But it’s also hard work. I swallowed so much sea water my throat is sore.”
Nick finally let go of her ankle. “Half an hour, that’s all the rest you’re getting.”
He turned to Robert, who was standing next to him and dripping water from his wetsuit. Ignoring Nick, the guy was openly ogling Sharon’s cleavage in the skimpy bikini she had on.
Nick gave him a shove. “Let’s go. It seems we are on our own.” He
glanced at Roni and shook his head. “Are you going to spend the whole day on your phone, dude?”
Roni lifted his head. “I’m waiting for you guys to get tired so we can go get lunch. I’m hungry.”
“He is always hungry,” Sylvia said.
Nick slapped Robert’s back, hard, breaking the guy’s lock on his girlfriend's breasts. “Ready to chase some waves?”
Robert shook his head as if to break the spell Sharon had cast on him. “I am.”
“That’s the spirit. You’re doing good for a Barney.”
“My name isn’t Barney.”
Nick clapped his back again. “That’s surfer lingo for a newbie.”
“Oh.”
As the two walked over to where they’d left their boards, Ruth's eyes followed Nick’s swagger, admiring his muscular build. He wasn’t as tall as Robert, or as broad-shouldered, but he was nicely made.
Besides, what she liked most about him were his shoulder-length wavy hair and his intense blue eyes.
“He is handsome, don’t you think?” Sharon asked.
For a moment, Ruth considered pretending she hadn’t understood who Sharon had meant, but then implying that she thought Robert was handsome was inappropriate even though he certainly was. He belonged to Sharon.
She opted for a noncommittal response. “I guess.”
“Come on, Ruth, admit it. You like him.”
As a newly turned immortal, Sharon’s sense of smell would tell her all she needed to know. Ruth couldn’t deny her attraction to Nick.
“I do. But I thought he was taking me out on a date. Instead, he made it into a fun day on the beach with friends. Not that I don’t like it. It’s really fun to hang out with you guys.”
In fact, this was the most fun Ruth had ever had with other people. Other than Nick, they were all young immortals, and they had accepted her into their circle despite her limitations.
They were probably doing so for Sylvia’s sake. Ruth could only imagine what they were whispering behind her back. She was the clingy mother who was preventing her daughter from living a full life.
