Authors: Mariah Stewart
“What I have to say, I should have said before.” She swallowed hard. “Early this morning, I rehearsed what I was going to say but then Jesse called and I went to his office … and …” Her hands fluttered in the direction of the beach.
“She really is your sister?”
“Half sister. I learned this morning that my father had had an affair that resulted in … Gabi.”
“You didn’t know about the affair?” Cam had read a lot about Clifford Chapman, but he didn’t recall reading that he had an illegitimate child somewhere. He was pretty sure he’d remember that, if for no other reason than that he’d find it hard to believe that
anyone in their right mind would cheat on Lynley Sebastian.
“I had no clue,” Ellie said.
“So why is she here all of a sudden?”
“Her mother was killed in a car accident two weeks ago. It was here or foster care.”
“Tough all the way around. Tough situation for her, tough decision for you.”
Ellie stared at him for several seconds, one eyebrow raised. Finally, she said, “You didn’t ask about her father. Our father. You didn’t ask why she didn’t go to live with him.”
For a brief moment, Cam considered saying something like “I was just about to ask,” but he figured the farce had played itself out. But before he could say, “Because I know he’s in prison,” Ellie surprised him.
“Our mutual father is Clifford Chapman, the King of Fraud.”
“I know,” Cam said simply.
“You know?” Ellie frowned. “How could you know?”
Admitting that he’d read everything he could find on the Internet about her was not going to be easy. It might sound as if he’d been stalking her, and that wasn’t behind his quest for information.
“You guessed because of my middle name, right?” She went on. “I thought I was being so clever, going by my middle name. Who’d have thought that Ryder was so well known here?” She paused. “Then you know who my mother is.”
“Yes. Lynley.” Time to fess up. “But it wasn’t because of your name.”
“Then what …?”
“I did an Internet search.”
“You … you looked me up on the Internet?” She looked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “You did a search on me?”
Cam nodded. “Magellan Express. When I couldn’t find Ellie Ryder, I looked up Carly Summit and I looked up the school she said you attended. There was a picture of the two of you at some reunion a few years ago. Carly Summit and Ellis Chapman. I looked up Ellis Chapman, and
bam
… everything anyone would want to know.”
“But why did you search in the first place?”
“Because something just didn’t add up, Ellie. I can’t explain it, but there was just something about you that …” He struggled for the right words. “I knew the minute I met you that you would be important to me. That you were going to mean something in my life. I needed to know who you were, and my gut was pretty sure you weren’t going to tell me, so I had to find out on my own.”
“How long have you known?”
Cam shrugged. “Awhile.”
“The conversations we had about my mother …”
“I didn’t know, at first.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me you’d figured it out?”
“I figured if you wanted to talk about it, if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me. The bottom line is that it really wasn’t any of my business. I didn’t feel it was my place to try to force your hand. That’s how I felt at first, anyway. Lately, I’ve just been wishing that you’d trust me enough to tell me.”
“I was going to tell you. I was afraid of how you’d
react. I came here as Ellie Ryder because I was afraid of how everyone would react when they found out that Clifford Chapman was my father.”
“You need to understand that your father doesn’t matter.”
“Tell that to the thousands of people he defrauded.”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. My father is one of the biggest crooks in the country.”
“Did you help him?”
“Of course not. My fiancé did, though.”
“Yeah, I read about that. If you don’t mind me saying, he looked like a dick.”
Ellie smiled. “You’re extremely perceptive.”
“No one’s going to judge you by your father’s crimes, Ellie.”
“A lot of people have judged me over the past year. I can’t tell you how many friends turned their backs on me.”
“And you call them friends?” He scowled. “Friends don’t turn their backs. Friends ride the storm with you. Like Carly did.”
“She was the only one.”
“With a friend as good as she is, maybe you only needed one. But you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not to have people here like you.”
“I was tired of explaining.” She threw her hands up.
“I can understand that. For years I went out of my way to avoid meeting new people so that I didn’t have to explain where my parents were or how they died. I felt responsible for so long. Like somehow it must have been my fault. My fault that my mother was an
alcoholic, my fault that she wanted to hurt us. My fault that she killed my father …”
Ellie reached across the table and took his hands.
“You know that none of that is true.”
“I do. As a rational adult, I do. As a child, though, I wondered. It took me a long time to understand that we’re not responsible for the actions of others.”
She sat quietly, playing with his fingers.
“As a rational adult, you know that you are not responsible for what your father did. You know that, right?” He grabbed her fingers and held them still.
“I do know. I don’t feel guilty because of what he’s done. What I do feel is anger that he and Henry could act so normal while all the time they were finding ways to steal money from people who trusted them. Whole pension funds were wiped out, people lost everything they owned because of them, and all the time, they thought they were so damned clever.” She swallowed hard. “And I admit that I am angry, too, over the fact that I was judged so harshly, especially by people who’d known me for years.”
“I think you’d find that people here would be different.”
“People are people.” She shrugged. “Why would I expect people in St. Dennis to be any different from New York or anywhere else?”
“Because no one around here cares about Clifford Chapman. No one ever did. The story was all over the news last year, as you very well know, but hardly anyone around here talked about it except for the occasional ‘You hear about how Lynley’s husband bilked all those people out of their money?’ Now, if Lynley’d still been alive last year when all this broke,
it would have been different, because it would have involved her, she’d have been at the center of it, and it would have hurt her. But your father’s a nonentity here. Lynley, on the other hand, was very much admired. She was ours, and you’re her daughter.”
Ellie nodded. “I get it. I do. But it isn’t easy to tell someone that you are not who they think you are.”
“Oh, but you’re exactly who I thought you were.” Her eyes had welled with tears and he reached over to wipe them away with his thumb. “Changing your last name isn’t going to change who you are. I don’t like you any more because you’re Lynley’s daughter, and I don’t like you any less because you’re Chapman’s.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want it to come out wrong. I didn’t want you to get up and leave.”
“That will never happen.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before we …” She stopped. “Well, actually, at one point last night, I did come into the living room to tell you but I got distracted.”
“I’m hoping to get you distracted again very soon.”
The front door slammed.
“Ellie, can we come in now?” Gabi called. “We’re getting cold.”
“Of course. We’re in the kitchen.” Ellie smiled at Cameron. “To be continued.”
Cam shook his head. “Nothing more to say on the subject, unless you do.”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“Feel free to revisit whenever you need to.”
Ellie squeezed his hands and got up to meet Gabi in the doorway.
“We’re just having coffee,” Ellie told her. “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you.” Gabi unhooked Dune’s leash and took it to the back hall to hang up. When she returned to the kitchen, she said excitedly, “We saw an eagle. At least, I think it was an eagle.”
“Very large bird, huge wingspan, white head?” Cam asked.
Gabi nodded. “I didn’t know they were that big. I never saw one before. It took my breath away.”
“You’ll see them from time to time around the Bay,” he assured her.
“I was afraid it would come after Dune, so we came back.” Gabi addressed Ellie. “Is it okay if I unpack some of my clothes and put them in the dresser and the closet?”
“Of course,” Ellie assured her.
“Thanks.” She turned back to Cameron. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, too, Gabi.”
Gabi’s footsteps padded down the hall and up the steps.
“She seems to be adjusting awfully quickly,” Cam noted. “Is that normal?”
“I think she’s trying really hard to make me think she is, but she has to be hurting. She’s tried to act as if this is all very normal when it decidedly is anything but. No one adjusts that quickly when their life is turned upside down. But I have to give her a lot of credit for the effort she’s making. I don’t know that I was as strong at her age.”
“Well, I should probably go and give you some time to be with her. You have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“You’ve been doing okay so far. The two of you will figure it out.”
“What about us?” she asked solemnly. “Are we good?”
“We haven’t
not
been good. We were good yesterday and last night and this morning. We’re good now, and we’ll be good tomorrow and the day after that.”
He took a strand of her hair, wrapped it around his finger, and used it to gently pull her closer to him. He brushed his lips across hers, then kissed the side of her mouth. “We’re good, Ellie.”
The rain began as misty drops that showed up silently on Cam’s windshield as he made his way home. By the time he pulled into his own driveway, it was a steady beat against the hood of the pickup. He jumped out of the truck and ran to the side porch. Once under the overhanging roof, he fitted the key into the door and pushed it open. The house was quiet, as if too well mannered to greet him with anything other than the hush from the hot-air vents. Usually he appreciated it. Today he could use a little more than white noise to drown out the cacophony in his head.
All he’d been able to think about all day was Ellie. He’d never experienced that kick to the gut he’d heard other guys talk about, but the first time he saw her, he felt sucker punched. Still did. She was everything he’d ever looked for and never thought he’d find. Funny that the two things he wanted most in life were so deeply entwined. The woman and the house.
How ironic that, to have the one, he’d have to say good-bye to the other.
Not for the first time, Cam wondered why life couldn’t be less complicated and more simple.
The Cavanaughs’ house had been a sanctuary to Cam, the calm in the midst of the storm. It had been a refuge for him and Wendy that terrible day when the whole world had shifted and they were suddenly cast out from their family—such as it had been—and became “the O’Connor orphans.” It had been their first taste of what a normal home life might be like, their first up-close-and-personal with consistently rational adults. Meals were at the same times every day and everyone was expected to be at the table at six o’clock every night. Homework was expected to be completed, and if there was a problem understanding something, Lilly or Ted would be there to offer help. People spoke kindly and listened when others spoke and engaged in real conversations, no shouting, no screaming, no slamming doors or loud cursing. The Cavanaughs’ house was definitely a no-drama zone. Even as an adult, when things bothered him or he felt confused or conflicted about something, he’d stop by the house at the end of Bay View Road. When Lilly was still alive, they’d sit and talk, and Cam would always feel better—calmer—just for having spent some time with her. After she passed, sometimes he’d let himself in and he’d sit for a while, sometimes in the living room, sometimes in the kitchen, and he’d let the memory of her spirit and loving heart soothe him.
Cam believed that if he’d grown up to be a good man, he had Ted Cavanaugh to thank for being the
role model he’d needed, when he needed it, and Lilly to thank for loving him and Wendy when they’d most felt unlovable. The Cavanaughs’ house represented all that was good in St. Dennis to Cameron, and knowing that it would be his by summer—when Ellie said she’d be ready to sell—should have gladdened his heart.
But that was before he’d acknowledged his feelings for Ellie, before he realized just how deeply those feelings went. Before he understood that he’d gladly give up the house if only the woman would stay.
E
llie took her time washing the coffee cup that Cam had used, drawing out the process by rinsing it first in hot water, then in cold. She wanted to curl up in the corner all by herself and sort out the events of the past twenty-four hours but there simply wasn’t time. Any sorting or thinking she was going to do would have to wait until she crawled into bed that night and could go over it all: the night spent with Cam and the new direction their relationship was taking; the fact that he’d known who she was and didn’t tell her that he knew; the revision of what she’d believed to be her parents’ love story from that of total mutual devotion to a husband who’d cheated. Gabi …
Ellie wondered if her mother had known that her father had strayed. Had she known about Gabi? Was Clifford’s infidelity the reason Lynley began spending less time at home and more time working, accepting modeling jobs that would find her on any given day in some exotic place far from home?
Ellie had to accept the fact that those were questions that most likely would never be answered. The
questions about Cameron and their relationship—those were very different. Her feelings for him left her totally confused. She’d thought she was in love with Henry, but Henry had never ignited her whole being the way Cam did. When she was with Cameron, she felt totally alive, totally engaged in whatever they were doing or talking about. Her mind didn’t wander onto mundane things like a pair of shoes she’d seen in the window of a shop earlier that day or which trendy restaurant they’d go to for dinner. Cameron was always in the present, and he brought her with him and kept her there.