Dragon Tamer

by Jane Bonander

  Dante came up behind her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Butterfly says that as soon as she returns from the garden, she’ll have lunch ready out on the patio, Ellie.”

  She raised her face for a real kiss, which he happily gave her. Eleanor’s heart still raced at her husband’s touch and embrace. “And the twins?”

  “Horace has taken them fishing off the dock of the cottage. They’re to have a picnic.”

  Upon returning from the Galapagos, Dante had built them a big, new home on Nahant, set back and to the south of the cottage, which they kept for visitors. On occasion, he went into his office, but Percy was a trusted right-hand man and ran the place beautifully.

  They sold the townhouse, but Dante had recreated his den in the new home, almost to the millimeter. The only change was an enormous window that looked out over the ocean. It was still his favorite place to work.

  She stood and went into her husband’s arms. “Aren’t the twins a bit much for Horace to handle?”

  “Not when they’re fishing. I think those two could sit with a pole in the water all day, if we let them.”

  “Whatever do you suppose they talk about when they’re with Horace?” she wondered.

  “I’d almost be afraid to ask,” Dante responded with a smile.

  Their seven-year-old sons were a handsome handful. Fraternal, not identical, Eleanor swore one looked just like Dante and the other resembled the sketch Dante had drawn of his lost brother.

  “Geoffrey has more patience than Phillip,” Dante mused, “but Phillip will not be outdone. I believe he’s the more determined of the two, wouldn’t you say so, Ellie?”

  Eleanor put her arm around her husband’s waist, which was still firm and trim. “He’s lively and roguish, and absolutely detests taking orders from anyone. Probably very much like you were as a child.”

  “Hogwash! I was nothing like that,” he argued.

  Eleanor chuckled as they walked out onto the patio and sat, waiting for Damien to join them. She gazed at her husband, who had only grown more handsome in the past ten years. “From what Sister Mary Francis says, you were exactly like that,” she reminded him.

  He made an impatient sound in his throat and studied the sea.

  There was so much more to her husband than Eleanor had ever dreamed. Shortly after they were married, she learned that Dante had paid the nuns to allow her to teach piano to the orphans, thereby assuaging his guilt at her predicament.

  She was glad she hadn’t learned about it before; she’d been quite resistant to him in every possible way. She might have refused to take the job, thus walking a different path altogether, which meant her life would have been different. She loved her life; she couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  She also learned that years before she even met him, he had set up a large trust fund to be used toward educating the children at the orphanage. And any time one of them appeared interested in college and serious about his schooling, Dante paid for that, too. Once while they were on Charles Island he had confessed that he wished he could adopt every child there. In many different ways, they were his, regardless.

  “I love you,” she murmured with a smile.

  He looked at her, grinning in spite of his pique. “I love you more every moment of every day, dear Ellie.” He took her hands in his. “You have put up with more than any woman should have to.”

  Before she could argue, he continued.

  “I dragged you, our baby son, and two adopted children off to Ecuador and the Galapagos, forced you to live on the ship like a sea hand, and I don’t believe I heard you complain once.”

  “There was nothing to complain about, dear. It was the adventure of a lifetime.” She had loved it. Being with him and knowing that he truly loved her was more than she had ever hoped for. Even having the twins there in less than ideal surroundings had been an adventure she would never want to change, as difficult as it had been.

  She bit her lower lip, her eyes filling with emotion. Dante had guarded his family well, always having a fully armed crew aboard when they moored off the islands, just in case there was trouble. And none of them went anywhere without an escort, especially the children. He was always alert, ever vigilant. And she only grew to love him more.

  “All in all, darling, it was a wonderful experience. Perhaps Damien and the twins won’t remember much about it, but Victor and Lydia certainly will, especially now that Lydia is writing her book.”

  “They’re almost adults, Ellie.” He frowned. “Haven’t you noticed how the boys from the area seem to flock here when Lydia is home?”

  Dante had been overprotective of Lydia from the beginning. Eleanor sensed that it was because he knew from experience what the boys were thinking about when they looked at her, and it made him want to shield her from the world, and men like he had been.

  Lydia was a beauty. She was vivacious and bubbly, intelligent and sweet, never lording it over the others that she was brilliant. In fact, there were times when she downplayed her aptitude too much, Eleanor thought. Perhaps it was because the young men found her charming and she no doubt enjoyed the attention. Eleanor just hoped Lydia never compromised her intelligence in favor of her beauty.

  “Victor keeps an eye on her, dear.” Though it took a while for Victor and Lydia to adjust to their new lives, they eventually became close, and although they still competed strongly as brother and sister, Eleanor knew they would always be friends.

  “Yes, but his eye is wandering, too, I have no doubt. Hell, by his age I had already—”

  “No need to remind me of your early sexual peccadilloes, my darling,” she teased, squeezing his knee.

  She remembered the day Victor had been rummaging in the attic at the townhouse and discovered Dante’s cache of erotica that Butterfly so carefully packed away when Lydia had come to live with them. He had been fourteen and had pocketed a few of the smaller pieces and hidden them in his wardrobe.

  Eleanor still smiled when she thought about how Butterfly had found the pieces and had scolded Victor, then confiscated them, keeping them for herself. The remainder of the collection had been donated to an art museum in Boston.

  Butterfly waddled toward them, carrying a pail of fresh vegetables. Sweat beaded her face and she mopped it with her apron. “Is ‘Horse’ and the twins joinin’ you for lunch?”

  “I thought you packed them a picnic,” Eleanor answered.

  “Well, hell, I did. But them boys, they prob’ly ate it before they reached the water.”

  She swung the basket toward them, “Just wanna wash off these radishes so’s we can have ’em with lunch,” she announced as she slowly made her way toward the house.

  Eleanor swallowed a laugh, and Dante chuckled. A carriage rattled up the drive and stopped, startling both Eleanor and Dante.

  “Mama! Papa!” Lydia jumped from the conveyance, the skirt of her fashionable blue foulard suit nearly to her knees and the feathers on her mauve hat flapping in the wind as she raced across the lawn.

  Eleanor stood, thrilled to see her daughter. “Lydia, sweetheart, you’re home a week early!”

  Lydia ran into her mother’s arms, and they hugged, then she went to her father and was enveloped in his embrace.

  “My princess,” he murmured against her hair. “How I’ve missed you!”

  Eleanor looked up in time to see Victor slowly leaving the carriage, a cast on his foot. She gasped, hurrying across the lawn toward him. “Victor! What happened?”

  “It’s nothing, Mother, don’t worry.”

  “Nothing?!” Eleanor’s heart raced. “Dante! Victor has broken his foot!”

  Dante ran to his son, Lydia right behind him. “What in the hell happened, Vic?”

  “He was playing soccer, and some big bully stepped on his ankle when he fell,” Lydia announced.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Victor argued glumly.

  “Yes, it was,” she protested. “He’s been picking on you all season.”

  Ele
anor was concerned. “Victor? Is this true?”

  Victor took the crutches from the coach and slowly made his way toward the house. “He’s just trying to get a reaction out of me, that’s all.”

  “Some reaction,” Lydia said with sarcasm. “I thought the least you could have done was grab his leg and flip him onto his back.”

  “That would have served no purpose, Lyd, and you know it,” Victor answered patiently.

  Eleanor and Dante exchanged glances. Victor, the boy who bullied every girl at the orphanage and even Lydia for the first few months they were together, was growing up.

  “What did you do to make him feel this way?” Eleanor asked, wincing each time he took a step.

  “He took the bully’s girlfriend out for a stroll along the Charles,” Lydia answered with a sly smile.

  “We went down to the river to feed the ducks, nothing more,” Victor snapped as he collapsed into a chair by the table.

  “But you knew they were sweet on each other,” Lydia argued.

  “That’s what he said. She said no such thing,” Victor explained, lolling his head back against the chair, appearing exhausted.

  Damien came racing to the patio. “Vic! Gosh, what happened?”

  The entire incident was explained all over again, but not before Butterfly came outside with a tray heaped with food.

  “Git that boy’s foot up,” she ordered, shooing everyone away so she could pamper him.

  Victor grinned, his white-blond hair gleaming in the sunshine. “Thanks, Butterfly, I knew you’d take good care of me.”

  Eleanor hid a smile. For some reason, the moment Victor had come into their lives, Butterfly had adopted him as her own. If anyone had done any spoiling of the Templeton children, it was Butterfly herself.

  Lydia removed her bonnet, her lustrous cinnamon hair escaping down her back. “He couldn’t wait to get home and have Butterfly coddle him.” She placed her fists on her hips and stared at her brother. “Sometimes I think you’re glad you broke a bone. Now you’ll get all the attention you want.”

  Victor screwed up his handsome face. “Aw, Lyd, that’s the dumbest thing you’ve said today.”

  “No dumber than you asking the driver if he knew where he was going,” she countered.

  “Well, he—”

  “What about your lessons?” Dante interrupted, appearing anxious to stop the arguing.

  Lydia waved the question away. “We both finished up early. Classes were a breeze, right, Vic?”

  “More for you than for me,” he groused.

  “How’s the book coming, Lydia?” Eleanor asked.

  Lydia’s expression became pensive. “Well, all right, I guess, but…I’m wondering if people will believe any of it.”

  “You’re writing fiction, dear, you want to entertain your readers. They don’t necessarily have to believe it.”

  “But all of it’s true, Mama. Every adventure my young heroine has, I experienced myself on the islands and in the waters around them. Especially swimming with the dolphins and the sea lions. And who would believe that those big, ugly iguanas and the giant turtles would be so mild-mannered, that a person could actually hand-feed them?”

  Lydia’s book, which she had titled Fantasy Island, was intended for young adults. It was a concept that both Dante and Eleanor had encouraged from the onset. And not so surprisingly, she took to writing as easily as the marine iguana took to the ocean.

  And when they worried that they were impressed merely because she was their daughter, they sent chapters to Dante’s editor, who assured them that once the book was finished, he would see that Lydia found a publisher.

  It was all very, very exciting.

  Eleven years before, Charles Darwin had published his On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, and although both Eleanor and Dante had read it and found it fascinating, Dante had admitted his interest was still in cataloguing, identifying, and somehow saving the kind of world that both he and Darwin had explored.

  “Well,” Eleanor began, her thoughts returning to Lydia, “I think you should put a letter in there to your readers, explaining the premise and where it all came from.”

  Lydia appeared thoughtful. “That’s a wonderful idea, Mama. Thank you.”

  “And you’d better mention me in that book, Lyd,” Victor warned. “Without me, the story would be a total bore.”

  Lydia’s laughter tinkled in the air. “My heroine has a troublesome nemesis of a brother, Vic, and I’m patterning him exactly after you.”

  Dante took Eleanor’s arm and drew her away from the clamor. No one seemed to notice that they had retreated.

  “We have one damn fine family, Ellie Templeton, even if our children do sometimes butt heads.”

  Eleanor’s heart was full. “Yes, we have been blessed.” Victor and Lydia’s bickering had never bothered her. In fact, she enjoyed it because it was something she didn’t have with her own brother. It had been ten years since Calvin had left, and she hadn’t heard from him.

  It hurt, but Eleanor refused to let it eat at her. Weak and cowardly, he was a grown man who had abandoned his child, and she couldn’t forgive him for that. But she also thanked him, because raising Lydia was a gift he had unknowingly given her.

  When they formally adopted both Victor and Lydia, Dante and Eleanor had asked them what they wanted to call them, since, by all rights, they each had had a mother and a father before. It wasn’t long before they were “Mama” and “Papa,” to both, but as Victor grew older, he became more sophisticated, referring to them as “Mother” and “Father.”

  Eleanor also learned that after the deaths of his parents, Victor had inherited quite a sum of money. With Dante’s acumen for business, he had been instrumental in making Victor’s wealth grow, although Victor, himself, couldn’t touch it until he was twenty-five.

  They watched as Horace and the twins appeared from the shore, the twins dashing over the grass when they saw that their older siblings had returned.

  “Horace has been looking tired lately,” Eleanor noticed.

  Dante hugged her close. “As have you. When were you going to tell me about the baby?”

  Surprised, she looked up at him. “How did you know? I’m barely two months along.”

  Dante shook his head and smiled. “My darling wife, I know every nuance of your luscious body. You are pregnant, and you will have a daughter.”

  She rested against him, content. “I don’t care if it’s another boy, or a girl.” And she truly didn’t. But she knew that when the children found out, Lydia would pray that she would get a baby sister.

  Dante nuzzled Eleanor’s ear. “I’m feeling a bit randy, my sweet.”

  Eleanor experienced an instant reaction, as she always did when her husband suggested they make love. True to his word, he had made love to her long into her pregnancies, constantly reminding her of how beautiful she was, how desirable, how perfect she was for him.

  “Tell Mr. Johnson to take a nap, sweetheart. We can’t do anything with all the children right outside our bedroom window.”

  Dante glanced up at the small balcony off their bedroom on the second floor. “We can if we’re quiet,” he whispered.

  She turned and gave him a knowing look. Although over the years she had learned to quell her out-and-out screaming during orgasm, she was still a noisy bed partner.

  He laughed. “I hope you never change, my love.” He stood behind her, pressing her close, his arms under her breasts. “All right. You win for now, but just you wait until tonight, Mrs. Templeton. We’re going to take a little trip to the cottage.”

  Eleanor rested her head against Dante and clasped her arms over his, already looking forward to the tryst. “Tonight, Mr. Templeton, I will be more than ready, and even more willing,” she promised.

  She gazed at her family, at the children who were brought into the world by them, and those whom they had taken in, and knew there wasn’t a woman alive who was luckier than she.

  She had
tamed the dragon, and they had made a wonderful, happy home together.

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