Like One of the Family

by Kimberly Van Meter

  But Grams was gone—the problems facing Larimar were in the here and now and that’s why she’d come.

  Her lids flipped open and she purposefully walked toward the front counter where a dark-skinned woman she didn’t recognize sat in reception.

  “Welcome to—”

  “Not necessary.” She cut the woman’s spiel in half with a wave of her hand, ignoring the startled look at her abruptness. Glancing around, she looked for someone she knew. “My name is Lora Bell. Can you tell me where my grandfather or my sister Lilah is? I need to see them at once.”

  “I know who you are,” the woman said, her voice thick with the local Crucian accent common to the island. Her stare narrowed and the judgment in her expression caused Lora to pause. “You finally come to help Mistah Bell? ’Bout time.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Mistah Bell needed ya and ya too busy to make time for him.”

  She was being schooled by the receptionist? What next? Lora made a mental note to start looking for a replacement right away. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I know very little about you,” Lora said coolly. “What is your name?”

  “Celly,” the woman answered, her chin rising. Her dark brown stare neither flinched or shifted away, and Lora knew this woman felt fairly confident in her position and wouldn’t scare easily. Fabulous. With the luck Lora was having, her grandfather had probably written this Celly into the will. Good gravy. She felt a cloud at her back and her pessimistic attitude certainly wasn’t helping.

  She forced a brief smile. “Can you tell me where to find my grandfather?”

  “Mistah Bell in de back,” the woman answered with a small sniff. “You know your way?”

  Lora ground her teeth, irritated. “Of course. I did grow up here, you know,” she muttered, gripping her luggage handle, then said over her shoulder, “We’ll be talking again soon, I’m sure.”

  “I look forward to it, missy,” Celly called back.

  Oh, I bet you will, she thought blackly. She had a feeling if she didn’t put finding a new receptionist on top of her list, Celly was going to give her an earful that Lora definitely wasn’t in the mood to hear.

  The back terrace was attached to the part of the resort that was reserved for the Bells and afforded a breathtaking view of the ocean. Larimar was a spacious four-plex with access to a secluded private beach via a short walk but the Bells’ section of the resort opened to beachfront property right off the terrace. It’d been Grams’s and Pops’s favorite part about Larimar; they’d often eaten their breakfast of papaya and coconut right there, followed by a quick dip in the water. Grams had been a water dog. Pops had often joked that he’d married a mermaid without her tail.

  There, sitting at his wicker breakfast table, sat Pops, the empty chair opposite him pricking unexpected tears from Lora’s eyes as the loss of Grams hit her hard all over again. Maybe it was because her life was a mess and Grams had always known how to settle her “Little Miss Type A” as she’d lovingly called Lora, or maybe it was because her cycle was near and she was prone to bursts of emotion at the oddest moments, but sadness swamped Lora before she could guard against it. Thankfully, Pops was oblivious and simply grinned his jack-o’-lantern smile and exclaimed with pure pleasure at the sight of her, “There she is! Come here, my sugar bird.” He rose and gathered her into his embrace as if she were still a child and not a grown woman of thirty-two. But God bless him, her grandfather was her lifeline to sanity and she clung to him as if she was afraid to let go. He drew away, his blue eyes brimming with pride and not the least bit unclear—maybe they were all wrong about Pops and his supposed dementia—and she felt a bit of the tension ebb from her shoulders. “So good to see you, Lorie,” he said, his use of her nickname causing her to smile. No one but Pops was allowed to call her Lorie. She purposefully eschewed nicknames in her business life for fear that it might weaken the lines she drew to keep business and personal separate. Not that she had much of a personal life to keep separate but it was a good policy. Of course, all that went out the window the minute she saw Pops. He could call her whatever he liked.

  “You look the same, Pops,” she said, somewhat relieved. When Heath had told her Pops was beginning to suffer mentally, she’d imagined a diminished shell of the robust man she’d known her entire life. But the man standing before her looked the same as he always did, like someone who still rose with the sun and worked as hard as he played. Lora smiled, straightening her tight skirt before taking a seat opposite her Pops. “You don’t age. Must be the clean island air. Or the rum,” she teased.

  Pops winked and whispered conspiratorially, “Well, I have a secret but don’t tell your Grams…” Lora’s breath caught painfully in her chest and her smile froze but Pops didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward, saying, “I slather on a bit of that pricey lotion your Grams buys from her catalogs. That stuff really works. Keeps my skin looking smooth as a baby’s behind. And smells good, too. But let’s keep that between me and you. If your Grams found out she’d never let me live it down.”

  Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them. She swallowed and forced a smile, gentling her voice as she said, “Pops, remember…Grams died ten years ago.” Lora placed a hand on his, squeezing in a show of support, hoping he’d snap into reality with the reminder.

  But Pops didn’t snap or bounce or any such thing. He broke.

  His expression faltered, confused, and Lora tried to mend things with more logic. “Pops, she’s in a happy place now. And she wouldn’t want us to waste tears when she’s no longer in pain and—”

  “I just saw her this morning,” Pops said, his voice shaking, his eyes darting as if trying to find the truth in the memory. Turning accusatory, he looked disappointed in Lora and that nearly crushed her. “Lorie, why would you say that? Your Grams is fine. She’s doing just fine. Clean bill of health.”

  “No, Pops,” Lora said, her own voice clogging with tears. “She died of breast cancer ten years ago. She found a lump and it had already moved to her lymph nodes. Grams died—”

  “Stop saying that!” he demanded, his voice roughening as he rose from his chair to get away from her. Lora’s heart hammered hard in her chest and she didn’t know what to do. Her Pops had never been short with her in her entire life. She didn’t recognize this man and it broke her heart. “Lana,” he called out, going in search of Lora’s grandmother and leaving Lora to stare in horror and dissolve into tears.

  And that’s how Heath found her.

  * * *

  THE WORDS DANCED ON HIS tongue, I told you so, but he wasn’t that big of an ass. He ought to walk away and leave Lora to soak in her own misery. Although his brain told him to go, he couldn’t quite get his feet to obey. He sighed, knowing he was about to try and console a wolverine of a woman and was likely to get his hand bit off, but he couldn’t just walk away when she was clearly heartbroken.

  “As long as we play along that Lana is still alive…he’s the same old Jack. It’s when reality is forced on him that he balks and freaks out. Lilah makes sure to keep Grams’s things clean, even going so far as to put a load of folded laundry on the bed for Pops to put away like she used to. Lilah also started replacing some of the lotions and stuff that Grams used so that Pops wouldn’t get thrown off.”

  Lora wiped at her face. “You’re continuing an elaborate farce? Doesn’t that seem the slightest bit inappropriate?”

  He flung his arm in the direction Pops had gone, growing angry all over. Damn the woman. Didn’t she see that Pops needed that illusion? “It’s a small price to pay for his happiness. The man means everything to me. I’m willing to play along for his sake.”

  “This is awful,” she said, shaking her head in horror. “You can’t keep pretending Grams is going to walk through the front door because she’s not going to! She’s gone. He needs t
o come to grips with that.”

  “He doesn’t have the mental agility to do that any longer. The harder we push, the worse his dementia becomes. Lilah and I agreed, it was best to let him have his fantasy. Besides, who’s it really hurting?”

  She stared. “Who’s it hurting?” she repeated incredulously, but even as she said the words, she stalled, and he knew the truth of it. It hurt her to pretend Grams was alive. Lora had never truly dealt with the pain of losing Grams. She just stuffed it down in that locked box where she put everything that was painful in her life and then never opened it again. “It’s not right,” she finished lamely.

  He softened in the face of her subtle vulnerability. He knew that Grams had always been Lora’s safe haven, her voice of reason. Losing her had been a blow to her emotional foundation. “The good news is, it doesn’t last long,” he said, trying to reassure her. “By dinner, he’ll go back to thinking Lana is here and she’s just out shopping or taking care of Larimar business.”

  Lora’s head shot up and her look of open distress at being caught in such a vulnerable position robbed her of words for a moment. But that moment didn’t last long. Soon enough her mouth tightened as her stare narrowed. “That’s the good news?” she said, grinding any residual moisture from her eyes and smoothing the tiny skirt as if the motion alone could release the wrinkles that a long plane ride and the humidity had created. “This is a nightmare. There is nothing good about it. How long has he been like this?”

  He shrugged. “A year, give or take a few months.”

  “A year?” She stared. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

  “We did. Remember?”

  Her blank stare may have fooled someone else but he knew right at this moment she was searching her memory, looking for some way to refute his blunt statement. Heath knew as much as she did that she was wrong. She’d flat out ignored every bit of correspondence that’d come her way when it’d come from her sisters or himself. He knew it—and better yet—so did she. Still, he was curious how she planned to wiggle her way out of that knowledge.

  He waited, one brow lifting in question and she had the grace to flush. Unable to hold his stare, she looked away. “Fine,” she conceded grudgingly, eager to move on. “What’s being done about it? This pretense isn’t a long-term solution.” She pressed her fingers to her temple, and he remembered her mentioning a headache earlier. For a second, she seemed to waver on her feet and Heath started forward but she shooed him away with a murmur of annoyance at her own reaction. “Damn humidity is getting to me. I need to change and get something to drink before I can think straight.”

  “Your room is in the same place,” Heath said, his mouth firming. Still the same hard-nosed woman she ever was. He held back the irritation that swelled when he remembered how he’d once thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. What a fool he was then. Things had certainly changed. “I assume you remember how to find it?”

  She shot him a look that said his sarcasm wasn’t appreciated, then gripped her luggage handle and trudged past him, her back ramrod straight.

  He didn’t know why Lora had been the one that’d always caught his eye. Even though her sisters were pretty in their own way, there’d been no one prettier than Lora in his opinion. When he thought of all the ways he’d tried to catch her attention, to get her to see him as more than the poor island boy who did odd jobs for her Pops…ugh, it twisted his gut in disgust.

  The first thing he remembered about Lora Bell was that impossibly dark hair streaming down her back like a waterfall at midnight. Lora, her sisters and their mother had arrived by ferry to St. John wearing sadness as plainly as their summer tanks. Except Lora—no, in her little face, he saw a cold knot of anger that twisted beneath the layer of grief. Whereas her younger sisters were wide-eyed with apprehension at their new surroundings, Lora had taken it in with the air of a soldier grimly going to battle. Looking back, he suspected Lora had been a different child before her father skipped out on them and her mother had died of cancer a year later. As they’d grown closer during those first few months, he’d known a different side of her, a softer side, so he’d been doubly shocked and brokenhearted when she’d given him the cold shoulder on his return. It hadn’t been his choice to leave the island; his parents had abandoned him and he’d gone looking for them. It wasn’t exactly a typical situation but Lora knew none of that. He’d never told her and she’d never been interested enough to ask.

  That’s not true, a voice whispered, reminding him of that day…

  Stop! Resurrecting a childhood memory wasn’t going to help him deal with the Lora Bell of today, he growled to himself. Annoyance at his own useless mental sojourn down Useless Memory Lane, made him want to do something reckless, like give Lora a piece of his mind for neglecting her family when they needed her the most. But as much as it would feel good to abrade her for her actions, he knew the satisfaction would only last a moment. The Bells would stand by Lora—as they should—and he’d lose out on the only family he’d ever known.

  He drew a deep breath but his chest remained tight. Lora had only been back for less than an hour and already she was turning his life upside down. The smart thing would be to keep his distance. If they weren’t around each other, they couldn’t rub each other the wrong way. Sounded like a plan—even if Heath knew following through was going to be damn near impossible. What Lora didn’t know was that Heath had been running the resort in a shadow capacity since Pops had started to show signs of dementia creeping on. He knew more about the day-to-day operations of Larimar than any of the Bell girls. And as soon as Lora found out, he was willing to bet his firstborn, she wasn’t going to like it.

  * * *

  THE FOG IN JACK’S MIND scared him. Why would Lorie say that her Grams was dead? Why would his sugar bird say something so mean-spirited? He’d known Lorie to be a little on the no-nonsense side, unlike her sisters who were happy-go-lucky most times. “Lana?” he called out again, the silence bouncing back at him scared him more. “Lana? Where are you?” he said, rounding the corner to her favorite sunning spot. Maybe she went to town to get supplies, or even Lorie’s favorite beef pâté from Simon, the guy who made them from scratch in his kitchen and sold them out of his cooler. A smile found him as the explanation for Lana’s absence made sense. Lana always went out of her way for her sugar birds. Of course, that’s where she was. Relieved, he let his fear and confusion melt away and detoured to the shop where he could hear Heath tinkering on something. Jack had known Heath since he was a skinny, starving boy hanging around the resort looking for work.

  He entered the shop, smiling as he saw Heath pounding out some nails from a board he was going to repurpose for something else needed for the resort. Heath was no skinny boy now. The boy had morphed into a strong, able man whom Jack and Lana considered family even though they didn’t share a drop of blood. If only Lorie saw what they saw in the man. “Whatcha working on, son?” he asked, forgetting his earlier moment and eagerly looking to Heath. The man was a whiz with his hands. If it could be built, Heath could build it. If it needed fixing, Heath found a way to fix it. Larimar was lucky to have him and Jack knew it.

  “Just a new mailbox. I found this in a stack of wood being tossed out. Thought I’d fix the mailbox out front,” Heath answered, his focus on pulling the nails from the wood. But Jack knew the man pretty well and could sense something was eating at him.

  “Lorie’s home,” Jack said, brightening. “You ought to see her. She’s pretty as the day is long. You remember, Lorie, don’t you?”

  Heath jerked a short nod and continued to work but Jack wanted to chat. The boy worked too hard. “Let’s take a break,” he suggested, smiling. “What’s the drink of the day today? Is it that vanilla rum and banana drink that tastes like a banana smoothie with kick? I love that drink. Very refreshing, yah?”

  “You go on ahead, Jack. I’ve got to finish
this and then get on home.”

  “Stay for dinner at least,” he said, liking the idea of Heath seeing more of Lorie. He and Lana thought the two would make a great couple. Although Lana said Lorie was too focused on her career to ever consider the slow, laid-back life on the island but Jack held out hope. His sugar bird had island in her blood. She just needed to be reminded what made it special.

  Heath gave the offer some consideration before shaking his head. “Sorry, Jack. Another time, maybe.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Jack said with mock seriousness. “All right, I’m off to find out if Lana brought home an extra pâté, or two. I’m starved.”

  Heath gave him a tight smile and short nod, then went back to pounding nails.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LORA CLOSED THE DOOR behind her, leaning against the wood. Pops was losing his mind. There was no getting around that fact when the evidence had just slapped her in the face. Her breath hitched in her chest as the pain spiked in her heart. How could she pretend for Pops’s sake that Grams was still alive when she’d worked hard to put that grief behind her so that she could cope with the loss?

  No, Grams, no…I can’t pretend you’re still here…it’ll kill me… Lora sank to the floor and clutched her knees to her chest, hating how lost she felt. Losing Grams had been far more painful than losing her own mother, if that was possible.

  She remembered her mother’s funeral as if watching a scene from someone else’s life. The memories she had of Lisa Bell were fogged and distorted, snatches of a life she barely recognized. At one time, her mother had laughed with joy but the Lisa Bell Lora remembered had tears in her eyes from her husband’s abandonment. Lora hated her father for that. Cancer had taken her mother, but Lora always believed that a broken heart had been the true killer.