Jackson sputtered, as if aghast—an act, obviously.
Meg’s animated brown eyes opened wide, and she turned her head, gazing up over her shoulder at Priscilla. “It’s an amazing idea, actually.”
Priscilla shook her head. “Uh, thank you, but no. Wade is a good man, I’ll give you that. But, to be very honest, he reminds me too much of my curmudgeonly ex-husband. Goodness! I’ve had enough of that attitude to contend with for a lifetime.” Meg stepped back as Priscilla unlatched the neck of Jackson’s cape and removed it from him, careful not to dump freshly snipped hairs onto his suit. She shrugged as she folded the cape. “I was just curious about him. That’s all.”
Meg gave her a sweet side hug. “Aw, because you just don’t like to see anyone unhappy.”
Priscilla nodded and caught eyes with her friend. “Beneath that crust is a lost soul, I’m thinking.”
After Meg and Jackson had gone, Priscilla set about the mundane task of sweeping around her chair. She liked this part more than others in her position did. In fact, many salons left this for their assistant to handle, which she often did as well.
But she also found that as her arms worked to tidy her space, her mind had opportunity to expand. She came up with some of her best ideas during mindless, circular sweeping. A smile curled on Priscilla’s face. Wasn’t she sweeping up a mop of curly hair when the idea to move west popped into her mind?
The recollection churned within her. She’d had a full life in Virginia. A job. Clients. A routine. But something ... something was missing. She’d heard about a writer at the inn—Meg’s inn—who wrote an entire novel from inside one of those gorgeous suites overlooking the ocean, and she had to come. To find her own happiness.
She slowed the broom, her fingers holding it tighter. Was she happy? She asked this of herself, just as Wade had the day before. She had deftly sidestepped his question then, wondering, was this all she wanted? To be happy? And really, what did that entail?
The broom stopped. She had come here to find her life again, but maybe wholeness was more than pasting on a happy face while running away from the deep ache of severe wounds.
Maybe ... it was something deeper.
Priscilla inhaled and blew out a slow, deliberate breath, glad that, for the moment, she was alone in the salon. Her mind drifted to Wade, her acquaintance and almost-friend. Though she questioned whether he had found contentment in his life, she knew he’d found purpose.
Slowly, she nodded, a dawning coming from a deep place.
Who knew what the future held? Whether her longing for love, for children, for something more would ever come to be? One thing she knew was that she would not be falling in love with Wade Prince. She could admire him from afar and that was fine with her.
But ... could it be that she might find her purpose in the charity he had helped to found? She began moving that broom again, ideas formulating that made her very, very happy.
Wade sat at his desk in the west wing of the second floor of his home, recalling the conversation he’d had with Priscilla the day before. For a long time he had kept his business and personal life private, tucked away from inquiring eyes. But last night, that all changed.
The large casement windows had been flung open, and even from up here on the hillside, the briskness of sea air could be felt. The report on his desk should have been done by now, but he had been lost in thought, ever since arriving home from EduCenter. A recurring picture of Rose, his former administrative assistant, kept drifting through his head. She was delivering a file to him—along with a coy smile.
He shut down the memory.
This was not like him. His mind did not wander. Especially when it should be keenly focused on getting the New York property sold and the money re-invested.
Wade scratched his head, noting the shorn feel of his hair. Sheepishness washed over him. He had dashed into the inn’s salon this morning, before Priscilla’s shift, and had Manuel cut his hair.
Now that some time had passed, he wondered if she would hear that he had stopped in. And if she did find out, would she think he was avoiding her? Would that matter?
He quirked his cheek, feeling quite surly.
Priscilla had been forthright and confident yesterday, kind to the girls she met, and downright inquisitive all the way home. Her questioning needled him, and yet, he wasn’t particularly bothered that she had spoken her mind.
He thought back on their conversation in the car. She had not answered his question to her, the one about being happy. Instead, she stated all the good. He admired her for looking on the positive, something he knew he should try to do more himself. But she was still somewhat of a mystery to him. Her story was a sad one, and he recognized her tenacity to pick up and move across the country for a new life. He thought on that. Perhaps he should have asked her if her move was all she had hoped it would be.
Some of her questions to him had dug into a place he didn’t quite feel like considering.
And suddenly he knew the reason his mind had drifted to Rose. When Priscilla began to press the notion that Candace showed some kind of interest in him, he had shut her down. First of all, he didn’t see it. The woman had been nothing but professional in his presence. But if truth be told, he had been involved in an “office romance” before, and the memory of that time was not particularly ... stellar.
He raked a hand through his newly shorn hair and blew out a sigh. Years ago, and against his better judgment, Wade had dated Rose, an admin in his office. She had loose curls of black hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose. A pixie who had captured him with homemade cookies and her love of driving along the coast.
She had never once complained about his driving speed.
That may have been the one thing she didn’t complain about. He recalled the time he had invited her to his home for a home-cooked dinner. He took a Saturday off, an unheard-of reality for him, and made a slow-roasted prime rib dinner.
When she walked into his home, modest by some of his contemporaries’ standards, she quickly scanned his kitchen. “Where is your cook?”
He had pulled her toward him, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re looking at him.”
Rose inclined her head, her mouth pouting. “You cook for yourself? I’m surprised.”
He’d laughed at the time, taking her comments as teasing. But after a while, he began to notice how she turned up her nose at venues that were anything less than high-end.
Like the time he pulled into the parking lot of an iconic shrimp and fish place near Malibu. A line snaked out the door as diners waited to place their orders. He killed the engine and unlatched his seatbelt, but when he turned to look at Rose, she was frowning.
“Doesn’t seem very appetizing,” she said.
He kissed her cheek. “Give it a try. I know you’re going to love the food here.”
They’d sat on a wooden bench eating fish ’n’ chips while taking in the blues and pinks of the coastal sky. Rose had hardly said a word all during their meal, and he had assumed she was tired. Until he overheard her complain to his bookkeeper, Tonia, about the low-brow place he had taken her. So embarrassing, she had said.
That was around the time he realized that cupid’s arrow had apparently pierced his heart and his head. It turned out that Rose was Tonia’s niece. And Tonia had, apparently, shared confidential information with Rose about his financial status.
Seemed that Rose’s interest in him went only as far as he could bankroll.
He had gazed into Rose’s eyes, expecting to see layers of love staring back at him, but all he found was betrayal. And it had ripped a hole in him.
After that, he fired both Rose and Tonia. Then he buried his head deeper into his work. Invested in a redevelopment property in Brooklyn. Helped form a first-time home buyer funding venture. Helped Riley Holdings, the company Jackson—and Sophia—inherited, get its firm footing back.
And right about that time, he fell hard again. As a fashion designer, Sophia
was a business owner in her own right. She had faced adversity with grace and a whole lot of dignity. To be fair, he’d known about her—and what she had been through—from her brother. Plus, he had known her father, William, a good man.
Suddenly, he couldn’t remember what he had against relationships in the first place. So, he pursued her. He pursued them—as a couple.
Wade rocked back against his chair, his arms folded in front of him. How long had he even given Sophia to settle in to her new life here in California before he chased after her like a besotted puppy?
He shook his head. Wade did not have time for this. Too many unfinished projects. Emails to answer. Calls to return. If he just put his head down and did his work, got on top of it all, he would find satisfaction ... his purpose. That was all he needed.
Chapter 5
Tepid sweat seeped across her brow and upper lip. To her fingers’ touch, her cheeks swam, clammy. Priscilla rocked her head side to side, a cry grappling within her throat as it attempted to become free. The dark, guttural moan scraped along the interior of her neck and emerged into the bright morning, waking her as it did.
She sat up. Priscilla held a hand to her cheek, caught between a memory that kept her anchored to her past and the new day that dawned before her.
She glanced out the window, remembering the minor surgery she’d had. If it had worked, who knew what her life would look like now?
* * *
“Are you almost ready?”
She nodded her yes.
“As a reminder, we’ll go in and make a small incision,” the doctor said. “With your good health and level of fitness, you should be up and back at life within a couple of weeks. Probably sooner.”
* * *
She remembered the hope that had ballooned within her at the thought of fixing her infertility issues. Not that anything had ever been proven in that regard. But when Leo had finally agreed to try for a child and nothing happened, the doctor had a hunch. She was hopeful that the procedure he was proposing would take care of it.
Priscilla closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and tried to shake off the memory. She slid out of bed, slipped her feet into a pair of furry slippers that she’d found on one of her excursions to Florida to visit her parents. The softness of those slippers invited her back into the present, the feel of them comforting against her skin.
She tucked a pod into her espresso machine, virtually patting herself on the back for splurging on this gift after she moved. Admitting her addiction to caffeine was the first step, she reasoned. So, instead of spending dollars daily at a high-end coffee house, she could make it herself.
With the espresso brewing, she padded over to the small window seat that overlooked a greenbelt and park. This rental condo was small and pricey—just about everything was by the coast. But what sold it for her was the seat that looked out onto a small park. There she saw everyday life: dogs and their owners, couples and solitary walkers, children climbing all over playground equipment.
The picture of idyllic living.
She retrieved her espresso, gave it a shot of cream, and returned to the window. If she were ever told she had to give up coffee in the mornings, her fallback would be to inhale it instead. Maybe the aroma alone would be enough to wake her up in the mornings. She laughed at the thought and admonished herself to drink up, and as she did, another less hopeful memory made its way back into her mind.
* * *
“You have a rare blood type. Do you have any family members with O negative who we could ask to give blood?” her doctor asked.
“I don’t understand. Why would they need to do that?”
“It’s just a precaution. If for some reason you needed a blood transfusion during the surgery, then we’d have it at the ready. I’d ask you to give us some of your own blood, but I’d prefer not to with the medication I have you on.”
“I see. Well, my husband has the same blood type as I do.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Ask him to come in as soon as possible. We’ll take some blood and test it, and if you don’t need it—I don’t think you will—then we will give it to the blood bank.”
* * *
Priscilla took a long sip of her hot coffee, drawing deeply of the memory of that time. She had gone home and asked Leo to go back to the hospital with her to give blood.
But he balked.
* * *
“Not my thing,” he said. He kissed her temple. “Hey, I’ll be there when you wake up and I’ll drive you home and fix us some dinner. Anything you want, babe, but”—he screwed up his face and stuck out his tongue like he’d just tasted cod liver oil—“you know I can’t stand needles.”
* * *
Priscilla took another look out the window at the lush park that teemed with life. Turned out, she had the procedure but never had a chance to find out if it had solved the issue—soon after, she learned of Leo’s infidelity.
She had come a long way, and not just in miles. As Priscilla took another sip, she determined to lock unfavorable memories away ... for good.
A week of deadlines, phone calls, and all-around burying his head in work had passed. As he drove out to the center for his weekly Money Smart class, Wade’s cell phone rang.
“Hello, Candace.” He purposely forced thoughts of Priscilla’s hunch about the woman out of his mind.
“I wanted to give you a heads-up about something.”
“Shoot.”
“Your friend, you know, Priscilla? Well, she’s here. I hope that’s okay.”
His pulse revved slightly before plummeting. “Did she say why?”
“Oh, yes, of course. She asked if she could come out to teach some of the girls to braid their hair—remember how some of them asked last time? I said yes, of course, and I want you to know she’s been fingerprinted.”
“I see.”
“Of course, there hasn’t been time for processing, and then I realized you were coming out today too, and, well, I second-guessed myself.” She paused. “Should I have called you or one of the other board members first?”
Wade pictured her in the lounge with the teens, her red hair flowing behind her, laughter on her face. The girls would likely be crowded around her. He pictured Amber, Morgan, Staci, and Mari as they clambered for Priscilla’s attentions.
Inexplicably, his thoughts faded to a dark shade. What did she want from him?
Candace’s voice cut in. “The board is always saying that the thing we’re lacking other than money is—”
“Volunteers,” they said in unison.
“No need to call me,” Wade said, finally. “If I introduce you to someone who I am also introducing to the kids, you can consider that my endorsement.”
Candace sighed, relief in her voice. “Thank you. That’s what I was thinking, truly. She seems to be doing fine without a lot of input from me, which is perfect since I have to meet with the drywall contractor this afternoon.”
“That’s right. The plumbing issue.”
“The leak in the kitchen has been taken care of, thankfully. But the damage to the wall is going to take some work.”
And money, Wade thought. He pulled the car into the lot behind the building that housed the girls’ lounge. Right now they would probably be talking about hair and other girlish essentials, and though he wouldn’t admit it readily, he had parked here on purpose.
“Thank you for your call, Candace. I will stop by your office after my meeting with the board.”
He hung up, but lingered. Rather than exit his car, Wade sat for a moment, watching Priscilla’s shadowy yet unmistakable figure through a window. One of the girls—Amber, perhaps?—sat still as “Cilla” worked with her hair like it was moldable art. Her hands moved with fluidity, one of them occasionally accenting the air with animated gestures. The other girls encircled her, yet gave her space. He smiled. Priscilla exuded confidence and poise, her lively demonstration drawing the girls out of their usual screen-induced trance.
Maybe her sudde
n interest in the center had less to do with him, and more to do about ... her. He couldn’t move, his mind turning his thoughts over as he watched Priscilla speak to the girls.
Suddenly and with a flourish he did not see coming, she grabbed Amber’s braid—or was it a ponytail?—and yanked. Hard. He squinted, jutting his face closer to his windshield. Was she ... was she really grabbing the young girl’s hair with all her strength? Yanking her upward, as if to make an example of her? Wade’s fist clenched. He exited his car and threw shut the door, questioning himself as he did. Hadn’t he just concluded that Priscilla’s presence at the center was perfectly natural? Welcome, even?
Had he lost his mind allowing a stranger such access to the girls?
He pushed open the front doors and stalked down the hallway toward the girls’ lounge. He should have told Candace that the drywall could wait, that she needed to keep an eye on things. Wade barreled through the lounge door, his lungs clenching, not bothering to knock, which was his usual protocol when entering the girls’ space.
The door, flung open now, hit the wall behind it with a thwack. Screams filled his ear, the girls crowded around Priscilla, and they were ... laughing?
Priscilla stood in the midst of them, a hand on her hip while her other hand held up a torso-less head by a long, thick braid, high in the air. She turned at the sound of him entering the room, a triumphant smile on her face.
That smile of hers assessed him somehow. Relief and a bout of nausea rolled through his gut. “What ... what’s going on here?” he said.
She tucked that body-less head into the crook of one arm and cocked her hip like she held a basketball. “I didn’t know you’d be here today, Wade.” She swept a gaze over the girls and back to him. “The girls and I were working on our styling skills.”
Beneath a Billion Stars Page 5
