As Deep as the Ocean

by Serenity Woods

  If James wasn’t his father, Mac wasn’t sure why James hadn’t refused to acknowledge him at all. He might have been a bad father, but he’d still called Mac his son.

  It was a puzzle, and now he had the idea in his head, he needed to know the truth.

  Fred had asked him to stay at the house, but that decision needed more discussion and thought. They’d made big steps forward tonight, but they weren’t there yet, and neither of them were ready to move in together. He needed to get this sorted first, so he’d left her with a goodbye kiss and a promise to let her know what he’d found out, and headed down the hill to Russell.

  The town was its usual lively self, the bars and restaurants spilling light out onto the pavements. The tables outside were half full, customers now wearing jackets or shawls to keep off the cool evening breeze. Autumn had truly arrived, he thought as he drove along the sea front toward his mother’s house. Winter would be a few months yet, and even then, up here, it would be mild, but he could smell it in the air.

  He reached the end of The Strand and turned into Wellington Street, drove a little way, then pulled up outside his mother’s home. This wasn’t where he had grown up—that had been right in the middle of town. Megan MacDonald had moved here after her divorce, when a bitter James had all but forced her out of the family home. Another move that puzzled Mac. If a marriage failed, even if there had been arguments and sadness, it took some doing for a man to make life so unpleasant for his wife and two-year-old that she felt the need to move out.

  Leaving his stuff in the ute for now, he let Scully out of the back, and they walked up the garden path, past the hostas and begonias growing in pots, to the front door, and rang the bell.

  “I’ll have to get you a key,” Megan said as she opened the door. “Can’t have you waking me up at all hours of the night. Hey, Scully-dog.” She ruffled the dog’s ears.

  “Yeah, because I’ll be out at all the nightclubs until the early hours.” Mac gave her a wry look as he passed her.

  “You’re a babe-in-arms,” she said, following him into the living room. “You should be out partying the night away.”

  “Mum, I’m thirty-two. And anyway, I’m married.”

  “Ha! How is Fred, by the way?” She walked over to the cabinet where she kept her alcohol, took out a bottle of Islay malt, and showed it to him.

  “No, thanks.” He wanted a clear head for the conversation.

  Raising her eyebrows, she replaced the bottle. “Tea, then?”

  “Sure.”

  She went into the tiny kitchen and started sorting out the mugs. “You didn’t answer me—how is Fred?”

  Fantastic. Sexy. Beautiful. “She’s good.” He scratched behind Scully’s ears, thinking about how he’d taken Fred on the floor. He definitely had to get her to the bed next time, and he had to slow things down. Fast and furious was fun, but she deserved better than that.

  Megan cast him a glance before putting the teabags in. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  His heart began to race again. “About what?”

  “About you and Fred?”

  He blew out a breath. “No. But I do want to talk to you about something.”

  “Oh?” She took out the teabags and poured in some milk, stirred the mugs, then brought them into the living room. “That sounds ominous.”

  “It kind of is. It’s serious.”

  “Oh dear.” She sipped her tea. “Is Fred pregnant?”

  His eyes widened. “No! Jesus. Nothing like that.”

  She just smiled at him over the rim of the mug.

  He tried to thrust away the idea of Fred at his side, pregnant and barefoot, and concentrated on his mother. “No, this is about you—about us.”

  Her smile faded and she sat back. “Okay.”

  “Mum, there’s something I have to ask you.” He paused, suddenly embarrassed. He respected his mother, who had brought him up almost single-handed, and who had remained his most loyal advocate through his life.

  “What is it?” she prompted.

  “I don’t want to insult you,” he said softly.

  She tipped her head to the side. “Come on, sweetheart. Nothing you could say would insult me. You’re my boy—you always will be. Is this about your father?”

  “Kind of. Mum... I need to know... before I was born... did you have an affair?”

  Her eyes widened so fast it was almost comical. “What?”

  “Only I’ve been thinking,” he said, the words tumbling out fast now he’d said it, “how I don’t really look like Dad, and we’re not similar in character at all. And how it took him so long to get you pregnant. And I wondered if he’s not my father, and that’s why he’s resented me all these years. I’m sorry to ask, but I was thinking about it, and I had to know...”

  She held up a hand. “Sweetheart, it’s okay. I’m not offended. I understand why you wanted to know. I’m not sure why you’re asking now. I expected this years ago.” She looked into his eyes, and he saw realization dawn. “Ah,” she whispered. “Fred.”

  He swallowed hard. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he waited for her to answer.

  She looked at her mug for a long time. Then, finally, she said, “I’m sorry to tell you this...”

  He held his breath.

  “...But no, I never had an affair. James MacDonald is your father. There’s no doubt about it.”

  He stared at her. He couldn’t believe it. It had made perfect sense, and now it all came crashing down around his ears.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  Her lips curved up. “Am I sure that I didn’t have an affair? Yes, Mac, I’m sure.”

  He closed his eyes. What a stupid question. But he couldn’t believe it. “Then... why did the two of you break up when I was so young?”

  “Because of his drinking. He was such a jealous man, and he was jealous of the attention you demanded of me when you were a baby. He drank too much even then, and one night he got drunk when he was supposed to be looking after you, when I had a rare night out with a friend. He left you crying in the cot for hours. I was so angry, I walked out with you that night. We hardly said two words to each other after that.”

  “Why have you never told me any of this?”

  “Because you never asked, and Mac, I’ve always tried hard not to put your father down in your hearing. He was far from perfect, but he was your father, and I never wanted to come between the two of you.”

  She moved to sit on the sofa beside him. “I can see how it would have been the answer to some of your problems if James hadn’t been your father. But it is what it is.”

  “I hate it.” Leaning forward, he sank his hands into his hair. “I hate having his blood in my veins. It’s like poison—I can feel it coursing around me, tainting everything it touches.”

  “Mac.” Her voice was sterner this time. “You have to learn to deal with this. You can’t spend the rest of your life hating him.”

  “Can’t I?” He threw a glare at her. “I’ve had him hanging around my neck like a millstone all my life. He spent years putting me down, telling me I was worthless, that I’d never amount to anything. Why? If he really was my father, why did he do that?”

  He’d thought she would get angry, but instead she just smiled. “Because you were better than he was. Can’t you see that? He was jealous of you, Mac. You were more intelligent, warmer, wittier, better looking... You worked hard. You weren’t lazy. You were determined to make something of yourself. He fell into working at Blue Penguin Bay because Harry persuaded him to. James wasn’t into the vineyard. He didn’t give a damn about the estate. He saw a chance of an easy job, and he took it.”

  Mac stared at her. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Of course, over the years he picked up some knowledge about it just by watching Harry and the other guys around him, but how do you think he felt when you went to university and got a degree, then spent years learning your trade at different vineyards across the world? He hated it wh
en you came back with new ideas. It made him feel stupid and out-of-date. And he wasn’t the sort of man to say ‘hey son, show me what you know.’ He was far too old school for that.”

  “I never thought about it,” Mac whispered. He’d just wanted to show his old man how they could make the place better.

  She sighed. “Something you should know is that Harry told him near the end that he considered you the son he’d never had. Harry loved you, and you shared a bond that James envied—both in the sense of a relationship, and in the sense of loving Blue Penguin Bay. I think that may have been behind what James did at the end.”

  “I never knew that.” He felt a surge of fondness for Harry, who had always treated him with kindness and respect. In another world, they might have been closer, and maybe Harry might have named Mac as his heir, but the man had possessed his own demons, and his family in the U.K. had obviously never been far from his thoughts.

  Megan squeezed her son’s fingers, bringing his attention back to her. “James was weak, and petty, and he could be spiteful, but he did have some good attributes. He was faithful to me while we were married. And I loved him for many years. When a woman is young, she often finds a particular type of male confidence sexy, until she realizes it’s not just confidence, it’s arrogance. But he was fun and flirty when we were young. He wasn’t all bad. And you must remember that just because you’re his son, it doesn’t mean you have to be like him. His weaknesses don’t run in your veins, Mac, only his blood.”

  Mac stood and went over to the window. He looked out at the Pacific Ocean, which churned, thick and dark like treacle, under the cloudy sky.

  His emotions were churning in the same way, stirring up lots of feelings he’d hoped to keep buried. What his mother had said made sense, and cleared up some of his frustration behind not knowing why his father had seemed to dislike him so much. It didn’t make it any easier to bear, but at least he felt as if he understood it now.

  But it hadn’t solved his main problem. He was still James MacDonald’s son. The son of the man who had betrayed Harry Cartwright. Who had tried to take away Fred, Sandi, and Ginger’s inheritance.

  What if his mother was wrong? If James’s character did run in his veins? All his life, Mac had striven to ensure he wasn’t like his father, but there had to be some similarities, didn’t there? He didn’t feel as if he had alcoholic tendencies—he liked a drink the same as the next man, but he didn’t have that urge to keep drinking, to keep filling up his glass. But what if deeper, nastier things lurked beneath his skin, like the Loch Ness Monster under the lake? How did he know they wouldn’t surface in the years to come?

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter what he thought. The fact was that Fred had difficulty looking at him without thinking of what his father had done to Harry, and he wasn’t sure that would ever go away. She was attracted to him, and the attraction felt fierce and strong, but he didn’t know if it was powerful enough to overcome the deep sense of betrayal she felt toward his family.

  “She’ll come around,” his mother said behind him. “She won’t want to lose you.”

  But Mac wasn’t so sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE NEXT DAY DAWNED bright, but clouds were gathering on the horizon, promising rain.

  Eleven o’clock found Fred sitting on the garden seat at the front of the house, overlooking the vineyard with the Pacific Ocean in the background, when her sister walked up to her.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Sandi said, sitting beside her. “I found a nice aerial photograph of the vineyard in the back cupboard, and I wasn’t sure if you’d want it for the house.”

  “Oh lovely, thanks. I’ll take a look at it in a little while.”

  Sandi nodded. Then she gave her sister a shrewd look. “You okay?”

  Fred looked down at the phone in her hand, then slid it into her pocket. “Not really.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Fred let out a long breath. “Mac and I were talking last night about why his parents broke up, and we started thinking that maybe his mother had had an affair. She’d been married to James for fifteen years before Mac was born, and it just seemed odd that she’d suddenly get pregnant, and then they’d get divorced. Mac started to think that maybe he wasn’t James’s son.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “He was so excited. We both were. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I hated that James was his father, and what a shadow it cast over us.”

  “And? What happened?”

  “He spoke to his mum last night. She said she’d never had an affair. He’s definitely James’s son.”

  Sandi surveyed her for a long moment. Then she sat back, looking out at the view.

  “I wanted someone else to be his father so badly,” Fred whispered.

  “What difference would it have made?” Sandi asked.

  Fred frowned at her. “You really have to ask that?”

  “I do. How would it have changed how you feel about him? What difference would it have made to your relationship?”

  “It would have made all the difference!” Fred couldn’t believe her sister didn’t understand. “I like him, Sandi. And he likes me. Against all the odds, I think we could have had something going. But what James did... It hangs over us all the time. I can’t get rid of it. It’s always in the back of my mind.”

  Sandi turned on the bench to face her. She had a curious look on her face. “And you’re saying that you won’t consider a relationship with him because it didn’t turn out that he had a different father?”

  “How can I?” Hot tears filled Fred’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. How could she explain to Sandi the burning disappointment at the news that he was, after all, James’s son? When he’d gone, she’d hardly been able to sleep, so excited at the thought that they might be free. And then she’d got his call, and it had all come crashing down.

  “I hate James,” she said, breathing heavily. “I can’t bear to think of Dad entrusting everything to him, only for James to stab him in the back. He was here, alone, thinking his daughters didn’t want anything to do with him, and yet he still left us his vineyard. He still loved us. He would have been so upset if he’d found out what James had done.”

  Sandi nodded slowly. “That’s true. I’m not saying that what James did wasn’t a terrible betrayal. But sweetie, we know that Mac violently disagrees with what his father did. It would have been far easier for him to say nothing, to keep the estate for himself, and never admit what had happened. But he didn’t. Even though he was convinced we’d be furious with him, he told the truth and prepared to face the music. That was an incredibly courageous thing to do, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “We could have taken him to court, demanded some kind of retribution for any profits we’d lost.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You’re punishing him for what his father did,” Sandi said. “Do you really think that’s fair?”

  Fred opened her mouth, then shut it again. She thought for a moment. Then she said, “That’s not what it’s about. I’m not punishing him.”

  “No? You don’t think he’s partly responsible for what James did?”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know, in any way? Do you think that he should have paid more attention to what was going on at the estate, forced James to show him the books?”

  “No. I don’t blame him for that.”

  “Then...”

  “It’s like James is a ghost hovering over him,” Fred said softly. “In just the same way that I feel Dad’s watching over us.”

  “Do you?” Sandi’s eyebrows rose.

  “All the time. And I can’t help but think that he’s furious with me.”

  Now Sandi was looking pained. “Why?”

  “Because I should have pushed more to get in contact with him. And... I should have known when he died.”

  “How should you have known?”

&
nbsp; “I should have felt it. In my heart. I can’t believe that he’d been dead for so long when we found out.” A tear finally spilled down Fred’s cheek. “That’s just awful. He had none of his family here—he only had James, and that makes me feel as if someone’s pushing a sword into my heart.” Her voice shook.

  “Hey, it’s all right.” Sandi put an arm around her and hugged her. “Why have you never told me before that you feel like this?”

  “I don’t know, we just never got around to it. We all focused on how angry we were, and of course there was Mum...” Fred leaned forward and put her face in her hands.

  “Sweetie...” Sandi wrapped her other arm around her and hugged her tightly. “You have to let go of this guilt and blame, otherwise it eats away at you, and I’m talking from experience here. We’ve all had such an awful time over the past few years—it’s not surprising that we’re desperate to find someone to blame for all the hurt we’ve suffered. But look, life happens. Some of it’s good, and some of it’s bad. People aren’t perfect. Some of them are mean, and nearly all are selfish. But few people are truly evil. Did James do wrong by changing the will? Of course he did. Was he evil? I don’t believe that. I doubt he sat there planning it for years. He and Dad were friends—I can’t imagine that Dad would have worked with him for so long if he thought James resented him deep down. I think James saw an opportunity and took it. Who knows why? Jealousy, envy, greed... These are age-old emotions, and none of us are free of them.”

  Fred wiped her face, then looked out at the Pacific, which was the color of Mac’s eyes. “I know you’re right...”

  “Maybe James was desperate to hurt us,” Sandi continued, “but I doubt it. I doubt he even gave us a second thought. He was only thinking of himself. And we don’t know what he would say if he were here now. He might say that he hated Dad and his family and we got everything we deserved. But we don’t know that. He might see what his actions have done, and he might say sorry.”