Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (29 page)

“Yes,
sir.”

“And
you didn’t stop her?”

“I
didn’t know she was going!
 
The maid just
told me she had gone.”

Charles
ended the call, grabbed his keys and wallet off the nightstand, and hurried for
the exit.
 
“Let’s go,” he said to Jenay.

“Go
where?” Jenay responded.

“Let’s
go,” he said again, although he was already out of the room.

“Go
where?” Jenay asked again, although she was already hurrying behind him.

He
stopped his car illegally at the curb, jumped out, and ran into the
clinic.
 
Jenay jumped out behind him and
ran in too, although she wasn’t quite sure what he thought he was going to do.
 
It wasn’t as if he could stop her.
 
It wasn’t as if it was his body.
 
But she couldn’t reason with Charles right
now.

“Abigail
Ridge,” Charles said to the nurse behind the desk as soon as he walked into the
waiting room.
 
“Where is she?”

“I’m
afraid, sir--”

“Where
is she?” Charles asked again, his heart pounding.
 
And then he began hurrying for the backrooms,
to find her himself.

“Sir,
you can’t go back there!” the nurse insisted.
 
“Sir!”

But
Jenay could have took her she was wasting her breath.
 
Charles had already gone back there.
 
The nurse hurried behind him, and so did
Jenay.
 
He was opening and closing the
doors to exam rooms, until he opened the right door to the right exam room.

And
there was Abby.
 
Lying on the hospital
bed.
 
Charles stopped in his tracks.

“It’s
done, sir,” the nurse said behind him.
 
“It’s done.”

Charles
stared at the woman he never loved, but at least used to respect.
 
“How could you?” he asked her.
  

Abby
looked from Charles to Jenay.
 
Then back
at Charles.
 
“How could
you
?” she asked.
 
And then she smiled.
 
“Payback is a bitch.
 
Isn’t it?”

Jenay
held onto Charles’s arm.
 
Her man wasn’t
about to go to anybody’s jail today because of that woman on that bed right
there.

But
Jenay was worrying needlessly.
 
Charles
wasn’t enraged with Abby.
 
He was in pain
for his child.
 
A child he would never
know.
 

He
stared at Abby, and then he looked at Jenay.
 

“Let’s
go,” he said, and then they left.

But
that next day, when Abby Ridge left the clinic in Lenmark, Maine, and made it back
to her home Jericho, she encountered a shocking scene: everything she owned was
outside, and an attorney, Charles’s attorney, was waiting for her.

Reeva,
who was standing guard over her items until she arrived, walked over to her as
Abby stepped out of her BMW.
  
She was
stunned witless.
 

“What
is this about?” she asked her assistant.

“Mr.
Sinatra,” the attorney answered her, as he approached her, “has ordered you to
vacate his property.”

“What
are you talking about?” Abby responded.
 
“I live here!
 
He can’t just kick
me out!
 
He has to give me at least
thirty days to get out.”

“Actually
he doesn’t,” the attorney said.
 
“You
were not under any lease agreement.
 
You
were not paying him any rent.
 
You were,
essentially, a guest in his house.
 
He
now wants you out of his house.
 
You are
a guest no longer.”

Abby
was stunned.
 
She expected him to be
angry.
 
She expected him to be upset with
her for days to come.
 
But she never
expected this!
 

“Is
that all he said to you?
 
To kick me out
like this?
 
To knock me out when I’m
already down?”

“Yes.
 
Oh, and he also told me to tell you . . .”

Abby
looked at him.
 
“To tell me what?”

“That
payback is a bitch,” the attorney said.

Abby
seethed with anger.
  
“That asshole!” she
yelled.

The
attorney stared at her.
 
“May I ask you a
question, Miss Ridge?”

“What
now?” Abby wanted to know.
 
“Another cute
little way to tell me off?
 
Another way
to put me down?
 
What?”
 
She was now displaying that hatefulness Reeva
and everybody else who knew her personally was accustomed to.

“What?”
Abby asked again.
 
“Ask your question!”

“You
apparently got on his wrong side.”

Abby
sneered.
 
“No shit?” she responded.

“Which
isn’t unusual,” the attorney went on.
 
“We are always getting on somebody’s wrong side every day of the
week.
 
But what I don’t understand is . .
. Who did you think you were dealing with, ma’am?”

Reeva
looked at Abby too.
 
She had been
thinking the exact same thing.

One
month later, and the noise was still loud.
 

But
they refused to let it out-sound them.

They
were out on Charles’s boat, just he and Jenay, and the waters were a calming
contrast to the craziness in Jericho.
 
Charles had expected vicious phone calls from Abby, and he received them
repeatedly after her ouster.
 
Her voice
mail messages were legendary in their vile.
 
But he never returned not one of her calls.
 

Donald
was calling him constantly too, to beg him to bribe the prosecutors or the
judge or whomever he had to bribe to get him out of the fix he was in.
 
But he didn’t answer his calls either.
 

The townspeople
declared him an evil and hateful man for what he did to Abby, and what father
would treat his son the way he treated poor Donnie, they surmised.
 
But he didn’t give a damn.
 

Jenay
heard the talk too.
 
She heard the harsh
words and the gossip that had no foundation in facts, and no one seemed
interested in hearing the full story.
 
Just Abby’s version, and Donald’s.
 
She was surprised, shocked even, when Charles didn’t react.

But
he didn’t.
 
He held his head high and continued
to do his work and get it done.
 
He
didn’t respond to their harshness, and didn’t correct their lies.
 
He was Big Daddy Sinatra to them.
 
He was the most ruthless, heartless man in
Jericho to them.
 
And he didn’t seem to
care.

But
his lack of concern began to concern Jenay.
 
She accepted it, but she didn’t understand it.
 
Until she looked over at him, as he sailed
his boat, and she realized he was happy.
 
Truly happy.

He
was behind the wheel, and she was seated in the passenger seat, as he glided along
the soft waves in a playful, relaxing fierceness.
 
“Wanna take the wheel?” he asked her.

“Jesus
will take that wheel,” Jenay responded, “before I do.”

Charles
laughed vigorously.

But
his joy wasn’t contagious.
 
Jenay still
wasn’t there yet.
 
His beautiful black
hair was blowing in the wind, and although his shades hid his gorgeous eyes,
the tanning of his skin as the sun beat down against them highlighted the lines
of age on the side of those eyes.
 
He was
not a kid anymore, but he was acting as if he had recaptured his youth.
 
And she couldn’t figure out why.
 
Especially after what Abby, and Donald, had
put him through.

He
continued to laugh, and enjoy himself, and then he glanced at Jenay.
 
She was smiling, but not nearly as grand as
he knew she could.
 
“What’s wrong?” he
asked her.

“Nothing’s
wrong.”

“Except
that it is.
 
What is it?”

Jenay
hesitated.

He
considered her.
 
“You don’t get it, do
you?” he asked.

Jenay
lifted her own sunglasses onto her hair.
 
“No,” she admitted.
 
“You’re the
most hated man in Jericho right now.
 
Even more hated than you used to be.”

“That’s
true,” he said with a grin.

“And
it doesn’t bother you?”

“It
bothers me.
 
But I can’t be bothered by
it.
 
I’m not getting any younger,
Jenay.
 
And guess what? You aren’t
either.”

She
laughed.

“We’ve
got to live,” he continued.
 
“And that’s
what we’re going to do.
 
They can hate
me.
 
They can declare I’m the worse human
being since Hitler.
 
I don’t give a
shit.
 
What I care about is what you say
about it.”
 
He looked at her.
 
He looked at this beautiful black woman who
had his heart in the palm of her hand, and didn’t know it.
 
“What do you say about it, Jean?
 
What kind of man do you say I am?”

Jenay
continued to stare at the mighty river in front of them.
 
Then she looked at him.
 
“I say you’re a ruthless sonafabitch,” she
said.
 

His
heart fell through his shoe.
 
Not her
too!

“You’re
a ruthless sonafabitch,” she repeated, “who treats me like his queen.”

His
heart soared.
 
Just like that.
 
And then he smiled.
 
And then he said the words he thought he
would never say to another woman as long as he lived.
 
“I love you, Jenay,” he said.
 
“I have fallen in love with you.”

 
Jenay looked at him.
 
“I think I’ve fallen too, Charlie.”

He
smiled.
 
“And you can’t get up?”

Jenay
remained serious.
 
“And I don’t want to
get up,” she said.

His
smile left too.
 
And he leaned over and
kissed her.
 
When they opened their eyes
again, they were heading straight for a sandbar.
 
He swerved, and missed it completely, and
then they laughed.

“Good
move,” Jenay said with a laugh.
 
“Very
good move, Charlie!”

And
Charles nodded his head.
 
That was what
she did for him.
 
She didn’t make him
feel complete.
 
He already felt complete.
 
But she made him feel relevant.
 
And special.
 
And the kind of man who could do anything he set out to do.
 
With her by his side.

EPILOGUE

Seven Months Later

Everybody
was there.
 
Jenay’s parents.
 
Charles’s sons.
 
Megan, Norm, and Denise.
 
Everybody came.
 
It was the event of the season in
Jericho.
 
But Charles only had eyes for Jenay.

Her
father walked her down the aisle.
 
She
wore a gorgeous mermaid dress that highlighted her slender waist up top, and
wrapped around in waves of pleats below.
 
Charles never dreamed any dress could be so beautiful.
 
And the woman behind the veil.
 
He was mesmerized by her.
 
He stood there, with Brent at his side, and
Tony and Robert there too, and he finally knew what perfection looked like.
 
It looked like the woman walking toward
him.
 
It looked like the woman who still
made his heart pound when she entered a room.
 
It was Jenay.

Jenay,
too, was staring at him.
 
Not the
guests.
 
Not her employees who were
thrilled to attend.
 
Not even her mother.
 
She was staring at Charles.
 
He looked so uncomfortable, standing there,
as if he was a man about to be given his last rites.
 
She smiled at his awkwardness.
 
It endeared him to her.
 

But
by the time she made it up to him, and her father gave her to him by placing
her hand in his hand and stepping back and away, she realized it wasn’t
awkwardness at all.
 
He was trying to
contain his emotions.
 
Because as soon as
he saw her, he cried.
 
Charles Sinatra,
the man who supposedly had no heart, was nothing but heart and soul and raw
emotions to Jenay.

And
when they clasped hands, and said their vows, and the preacher pronounced them
husband and wife, it was over for both of them.
 
They were in tears as he kissed his bride.
 
Tears of exceeding joy.
 
The room went wild.
 
Even his sons and her parents were in
tears.
 
But they didn’t feel half the
love, nor happiness, that the newlyweds felt.

Five
months later, three days after Donald was finally released from prison, there
was more joy.
 

They
were sailing again. It had become their weekend, get-away-from-it-all
ritual.
 
Jenay found out yesterday, but
Charles had been out of town.
 
He
returned late last night, while she was asleep.
 
Now was the time, she felt.
 
Now
was the perfect time.

“Donald
phoned me yesterday,” she said.

Charles
was sailing the boat, and she was in her usual perch on the passenger
seat.
 
He looked at her.
 
“Did he?”

“He
did.
 
He wanted to make sure I knew, and
I told you, that the paternity test confirmed what you had suspected all
along.”

“That
the baby Susan delivered was not Donald’s child,” Charles said.

“That’s
what he wanted me to know, yes,” Jenay said.
 
“I told him I already knew.
 
Tony
had already told us.
 
But he was proud of
the fact that it wasn’t his kid, as if the beating he put on her was now
justified.
 
He was glad it wasn’t his
child.
 
And, quite frankly, given what he
did to Susan, I was pleased too.”

“As
was I,” Charles responded.
 
“That boy
does not need to be anybody’s father right now.”

“You
know it’s true,” Jenay agreed.
 
“But that
wasn’t all he wanted to tell me.
 
He also
wanted to know if I would allow him to manage the Inn.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“You’re managing the Inn.”

“I
told him that.
 
But he seems to think I’m
doing it because I can’t find anybody else to do it for me.
 
I told him that wasn’t the case.
 
I enjoy working.”

“What
happened when you turned
 
him down?
 
He took it like a man?”

“He
became angry, as usual, and hung up in my face.”

Charles
tightened his grip on the wheel.

“Don’t
confront him, Charlie,” Jenay said.
 
“It’s not worth it.”

“I
won’t,” Charles responded.
 
“But he will
be apologizing to my wife.”

Jenay
smiled.
 
She was still getting used to
that lovely phrase.
 
His wife.
 
Mrs. Charles Sinatra.
 
“I do think, however,” she said, “that I will
need some additional help soon.”

Charles
looked at her.
 
“You want more help?”

“I’ll
probably need it, yes.
 
Especially when I
go on maternity leave.”

Charles
stared at her.
 
Then he stared at the
river in front of him.
 
Then he literally
turned off the engine right where the boat stood.
 
And he looked at her again.
 
“What did you just say to me?” he asked her.

She
smiled.
 
“We’re having a baby, Charlie.”

Charles
couldn’t believe it.
 
He smiled.
 
Then his heart began to soar.
 
“But I thought you couldn’t . . . I thought
you weren’t able---”

“I
did too,” she said.
 
“I tried for years
and years with Quince.
 
But it’s been confirmed.
 
I am pregnant with our child.
 
My first child.”

Charles
hurried to her and wrapped her in his arms. He was so happy that he nearly
squeezed the life out of her.
 
When he
stopped embracing her, he looked at her again.
 
“Oh, Jenay,” he said.
 
“I don’t
know if my heart can take such wonderful news!”

She
laughed and placed her hand on the side of his handsome face.
 
“And they claim you don’t
 
have a heart!”

He
laughed too.
 
And wrapped her in his arms
again.
 
He never dreamed, at this late
date, that life could be more meaningful now than it had ever been in the
entirety of his years on this earth.
 
All
because of this woman, this marvelous woman, he held in his arms.

And
he continued to hold her.
 

He
was not going to let her go.