Read The Year Everything Changed Online
Authors: Georgia Bockoven
Lucy stood and came around the desk. “It’s been a pleasure seeing you again. As I said, if I can be of any help, or should you have questions that didn’t occur to you today, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Lucy shepherded them out the door, closed it behind them, and let out a deep sigh of relief to have passed the first hurdle. Rachel would run the will by her attorney—if she found time. Christina and Ginger assumed a will was sacrosanct and wouldn’t take the chance of losing everything by challenging the terms. It was Elizabeth whom Lucy hadn’t been able to read. She was the wild card, her anger a volatile and unpredictable fuel. If she couldn’t be contained, everything Lucy hoped to accomplish would blow up in her face.
This was the hard part—waiting. Something Lucy had never done well. She wasn’t a sit-back-and-bide-time kind of attorney, something Jessie had considered her greatest asset and her partners a pain in the ass.
Lucy was back at her desk, her mind focused on working on a solution to the last stumbling block in a merger between the two largest independent grocery chains in Northern California, when she was distracted by a knock on her door so soft it took a second to realize what it was. Puzzled, she went to the door instead of calling out an invitation to come in.
“I . . . can . . . come . . . back . . . later . . . if . . . you’re . . . busy,” Christina said, pausing on each word to make sure she was understood.
Lucy opened the door wider and waved Christina in, trying not to show her surprise. She was carrying a suitcase she hadn’t had earlier. “What can I do for you?”
“I . . . don’t . . . know . . . how . . . to . . . ask . . . this.” She dipped her head, her long, black hair covering her face. When she looked up again, she met Lucy’s gaze and then quickly looked away. “Is . . . there . . . any . . .”
Lucy put her hand on Christina’s arm. “You don’t have to speak like that. Just say what you have to say, I’m sure I can understand you.”
She looked relieved, but still embarrassed. “I’m broke,” she said in a rush. “I hate to ask this, but is there any way I could get a small advance on what my father left me?”
Lucy had considered the possibility this could come up and had decided there was no way she could accommodate such a request out of Jessie’s account. It was critical to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. “How much do you think you would need?”
“No one is going to hire me to wait tables like this, and the wires don’t come off for another two to three weeks. So, whatever it would take to get me to L.A. and enough to eat and pay the rent until I get a paycheck.”
“You’ll need money to get back and forth to the meetings up here, too,” Lucy said, mentally calculating first and last month’s rent, food, and incidentals at L.A. prices. “Do you have a car?”
“Not anymore. I sold it to get here.”
“You can’t get around in L.A. without a car.”
“I’ll use the buses.”
The statement startled Lucy. Christina wasn’t just looking for an easier road, she truly was desperate. “Why L.A.?”
“That’s where the jobs are.”
“What kind of job are you looking for?”
“Something in the production end at a movie studio. It’s where I want to end up, and it’s time I got started.”
“What if I could find you something here?” Lucy didn’t have a clue how she’d pull it off, but there had to be someone she knew who had connections.
“How would you do that?”
“There are video production companies in town, some of them first-class.” If Christina stayed she would act as an anchor to the others, eventually drawing them to Sacramento to see her because they wanted to, not simply because they were being forced to hear their father’s story. “And if you do stay, you could live in your father’s house and use his car.” Christina would add life to the house, someone who was there to greet the others as they arrived.
“As for Sacramento being a long way from L.A., I’m sure you’re aware that several independent film producers have launched careers from here. I’m always reading about them in the newspaper. As a matter of fact, Dixie Reid is a reporter for the paper who does most of the feature stories for new films and happens to be a friend of mine. I could ask her for a recommendation.” Before Christina had a chance to comment, Lucy went on. “As for the rest, I’ll arrange a small loan against your inheritance to see you through to your first paycheck.”
“I guess I could stay until I could afford to move myself.”
A wave of guilt washed over Lucy. She was manipulating Christina to remain in town not only because it would create a more home-like base for the sisters to meet, but because it would be more convenient for Lucy to set up those meetings. It was one thing to coerce them into doing things for Jessie, another for herself. “It was only a suggestion. If you’d rather not stay, I’ll make sure you have enough money to set yourself up in Los Angeles and to get back here to meet with your sisters.”
Christina didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, “Can I stay at Jessie’s house a couple of days and think about it?”
“Of course. I’ll call Rhona and tell her to expect you.”
“I guess all I need now is the address and some directions.” She smiled sheepishly, her mouth a jungle gym. “Never mind, I just remembered you said all of that was in the packet your assistant had for us.”
Lucy glanced at her watch. “I have a meeting in that direction in a half-hour. I can drop you by. Just give me a minute to get my briefcase and let my assistant know I’m leaving.”
Christina was quiet on the way to her father’s house. Nothing she had to say was worth the effort to be understood. Lucy didn’t want to know that the more Christina thought about Jessie being richer than God the more pissed off she became. She’d been closing in on forgiving him for letting her think he was dead, rationalizing how an old man might think he couldn’t properly take care of a kid. Now, knowing he could have hired Mary Poppins for the day-to-day stuff, it was obvious he’d had a choice and the choice he made didn’t include her.
“How long did it take my father to make his money? He told me he was broke when he left me.”
Lucy gave Christina a quick smile. “The only thing Jessie had when I met him was an ability to get people to believe in him. That’s what got him the loan to build his first warehouse.”
“Why warehouses?”
“He looked around and saw the need. He could do that better than anyone I’ve ever known. More important, he wasn’t afraid to fail. It made him bold. He took chances when others took a wait-and-see attitude.” Lucy stopped at a red light and turned to Christina. “I have a feeling he passed on more than a little of that trait to you.”
“I’m not there yet,” Christina admitted. “But I’m working on it.”
Minutes later Lucy turned onto a street of two-story houses, large by middle-class standards but not the walls and gates Christina had expected. Lucy pointed to one on her left. “Ronald Reagan lived there when he was governor.”
Lucy was taking her on a tour?
Puzzled, and not knowing what else to say, Christina simply nodded.
“Jessie wasn’t a fan.”
Another contradiction. Weren’t capitalists supposed to be Republicans? “On personal or political grounds?”
“Pardon?”
Christina shook her head. “Nothing.”
Lucy pulled into a driveway. “We’re here.”
The house wasn’t much bigger than the one Christina had grown up in. Where had Jessie spent his money, if not on himself?
A woman came out to greet them. Lucy introduced Christina and explained her communication problem, saving Christina the effort. Rhona responded with surprise and sympathy but not enough to make Christina concerned that it would become the focus of her time there. She could pull off the lie as long as she didn’t have to build a fictional world to support it.
Lucy told Rhona she was waiting to schedule the first meeting at the house until Christina’s jaw was unwired and that Christina would be using Jessie’s car. “Is that it?” Before Rhona could answer, Lucy added, “Oh, no, I just remembered you had something that you wanted to show me.”
Rhona put her hand on Lucy’s arm. “It can wait.”
Christina noted the familiar gesture and wondered about Rhona’s role in her father’s life. Was housekeeper a euphemism for mistress? Certainly no servant in her mother’s household would have been anything but subservient when dealing with a woman of Lucy Hargreaves’s position.
Lucy smiled her thanks. “I’ll stop by tomorrow morning on my way to work.” To Christina she said, “If you need me for anything—you know how to reach me.”
Rhona smiled at Christina and held her arm out in a welcoming gesture. “Come in. I’ll get you settled, and then I’m off to my book club. I’ve actually finished the book we’re discussing, so I’d really like to make this meeting.” She closed the front door. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Christina shook her head.
“I thought you’d feel more comfortable in the back bedroom.” She glanced at Christina. “Unless you’d rather stay in your father’s room?”
“The . . . back . . . bedroom . . . is . . . fine.”
Rhona led her across the circular foyer and then left down a short hallway. The walls were soft brown and bare. Expecting more of the same, she was taken aback at the bedroom. It was as if it had been decorated with her in mind. Blue and cream toile covered the window and the canopy of the four-poster cherrywood bed. The accent colors were bright yellow and navy blue, used in a profusion of pillows, the bedskirt, and matching chairs.
“Nice,” Christina said.
“You’re the first to use it. Your father would come in here to read once in a while. He liked the colors.”
Blue and yellow were her favorites. How easy it would be to let herself think he’d known that. “Did . . . he . . . tell . . . you . . . about . . . us?”
“I worked for your father for a long time,” Rhona answered without elaborating. She went to a door on the opposite side of the bed and opened it, revealing a full bathroom. “If you need anything, please let me know. Also, if you have any food preferences, please leave a note in the kitchen. I’m going shopping tomorrow.”
“Blender?” She pointed to her mouth.
“Yes, there’s a blender. There’re also several protein drinks in the refrigerator. They’re pretty awful, but I haven’t felt much like cooking since your father died.” She smiled. “It will be nice to have someone to do for again.”
“You . . . don’t . . . have—”
“I know, you can take care of yourself. It’s exactly what Jessie would have said. But I’m going to tell you what I told him—taking care of people is my job. I like it, and I’m damn good at it. So you let me do what I do, and I’ll let you do what you do, and we’ll get along just fine.”
Oh, great, someone new to boss her around. Christina knew if she didn’t take a stand now it would be impossible to take one later. She started to protest, saw the challenge in Rhona’s eyes, and backed down. Besides, what was she going to say? She was standing there with a broken jaw, homeless, penniless, and with little more to wear than the clothes on her back. Yeah, it was pretty obvious that she could take care of herself all right.
Ginger offered to drive Rachel into the city, but Rachel convinced her that taking BART from the El Cerrito Del Norte station and walking the four blocks to her office would be as fast as fighting the traffic on the Bay Bridge.
She made it to her meeting in plenty of time but was hard-pressed to stay focused on the latest round in the insurance fraud case the company had been pursuing for the past two years. It was one of the quarterly FYI updates that only concerned her division but would eventually involve the entire company and how they did business. She was supposed to find a way to let the information trickle down without alarm or liability. Thankfully, she’d dragged Maria along with her to take notes.
After the meeting, alone for the first time since hearing the details of Jessie’s will, Rachel opened her mind to the ramifications and possibilities.
Ten million dollars
. Even at three percent it would earn more than she was making at her job now.
She wouldn’t have to work ever again. She could be a stay-at-home mom, learn to cook, even become one of those women who helped out in their children’s classrooms. She and Jeff—
But there was no she and Jeff. How could she live with that fact every minute of every day and still make that kind of mistake?
Damn you, Jeff
. She thought it so often it had become automatic, losing its impact. Almost.
Everything she did, everything that happened to her, affected him and would for the rest of their lives. Cassidy and John bound them through graduations, weddings, grandchildren—all of life’s noted events where they would be expected to be civil, even cordial, to each other, their accomplishments accumulating over the years like ribbons on a battle-weary soldier’s chest.
Rachel reached for the phone and dialed Jeff. “I need to see you,” she said to his hello.
“Now?”
“Tonight. Can you have Mary watch the kids and meet me at my apartment?” Mary, their next-door neighbor, and Jeff exchanged spur-of-the-moment babysitting on a regular basis.
“What time?”
She glanced at her calendar. There was nothing to keep her past five. “Seven.” It would give her time to pick up the apartment a little, maybe even dust. All her life she’d thought of herself as compulsively neat. Living alone she’d discovered she cleaned for the impression it gave others. She was terrified what other revelations were in store down the line.
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks.” She hung up without saying good-bye, unreasonably annoyed that he hadn’t asked why she wanted to see him. She’d never understood his ability simply to go with the moment while she questioned everything.
Her driver dropped her off at her apartment at six-thirty. An accident in the Caldecott Tunnel had tied up traffic for more than an hour, leaving her with the choice of meeting Jeff with a clean body or a clean house. She went inside and walked out of her shoes, bending to pick them up as she moved toward the bedroom. In six months she could hire a live-in housekeeper—hell, with ten million dollars, she could hire someone to do everything.
She should be happy. If not happy, relieved. They no longer had to sell the house and uproot the kids and worry what effect it would have on them. She could buy another house for herself, something close, within walking distance. It would almost be as if. . . .
Rachel sat on the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. Within seconds she was sobbing. There was no way she could live down the street from Jeff. It would tear her heart out to see him healing and going on with his life, leaving her behind even in this. She needed distance, a thousand miles might do it, but there was no way she could leave John and Cassidy, not any more than she could expect him to be willing to move away.
The doorbell rang. She wiped her face with her hands and pinched her cheeks to add color the way she’d seen her mother do a hundred times when she wanted to convince someone she hadn’t been drinking or crying or sleeping in the middle of the day. Anna Kaplan had been a master of emotional deception, Rachel a captive pupil.
But she’d never been able to fool Jeff. He saw the minute she opened the door that something was wrong.
“You’re early,” she said, cutting him off before he could question her.
“I finished the meeting with John’s new teacher earlier than I expected. You want me to go away and come back later?”
“What happened to his old teacher?”
“She had her baby.”
Inexplicably, Rachel was crying again. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.” In their division of parental duties, Jeff had taken responsibility for the day-to-day schooling. He told Rachel what he felt she wanted and needed to know and handled the rest without involving her.
As easily and naturally as he had done for the past fourteen years, Jeff put his arms around her. It was a mistake, she knew it right away, but instead of resisting, she moved closer and laid her head against his chest. A hundred thundering heartbeats sounded against her ear before he softly asked, “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”
At that she finally moved to step away.
He held on. “It’s okay, Rachel. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll just listen.” He looked down at her and offered an encouraging smile. “No advice. And I promise I won’t make more out of it than it is.”
She stiffened. “It’s not what you think.”
After several seconds he shrugged and let go, disappointment a curtain shadowing his eyes. “All right. So what is it?”
“We’re rich,” she blurted. “Or we will be in six months. We don’t have to sell the house.”
“You got another promotion?”
“What? No—” Her lips formed a smile, plainly surprising him as much as it did her. “If it all happens the way it’s supposed to, I’m going to quit my job. Can you imagine? Me unemployed?”
“As a matter of fact, I can’t.”
His answer surprised her. “Why?”
“You live for that job.”
“No, I don’t. I work because I have to. How else would we—”
“Let’s not do this, Rachel.”
“You’re right.” They’d careened down that narrow road too many times, their destination predetermined. Rachel went to the sofa and sat on the arm, her legs stretched out in front of her, her arms crossed. “I went to Sacramento today for the reading of my father’s will. Turns out he had one last manipulative surprise for his daughters—ten million dollars.”
Jeff let out a long, low whistle. “He had that kind of money and he never gave you or your mother a dime?” He was more angry than surprised. “Are you going to take it?”
“Of course I’m going to take it. It’s the answer to all our problems. We won’t have to sell the house. The kids won’t—”
“There is no ‘we,’ Rachel. The money is yours. Inheritance isn’t considered community property.”
“I don’t care about that. All I care about is getting through this without hurting the kids any more than they have to be hurt. If it takes Jessie’s money to do that, then so be it.”
“Stop it, Rachel. You know none of that matters. We’ll find a way that doesn’t involve taking that man’s two and a half million.”
“It’s not two and a half million, Jeff. It’s ten million—each. Tax-free.” She pinned him with a stare. “Still think I should give it back?”
He didn’t flinch or hesitate. “Yes.”
The incredible thing was that she believed him. He knew what it would do to her to live under the cloud of compromising her principles to accept money from a man she despised. “I have six months to think about it.”
She told him about the tapes and the meetings.
“So, you’re supposed to listen to him ramble on, making excuses for what he did, when none of you can call him on any of it?” Jeff said. “He’s controlling you from the grave. Why would you let him get away with it?”
The obvious answer, the money, was too easy—the truth, too painful. “Maybe I want to hear what he has to say.” The admission humiliated her.
The fire in Jeff’s eyes turned to sorrow. “Aw, Rachel, I’m sorry.” He knelt down in front of her and took her hands in his. “I should have known.”
He was the only one who would, and now he did. They were tied by so much more than history. Jeff knew her like no one ever had or ever would. He’d unmasked the lonely girl she’d kept hidden inside the self-assured woman, shown her love and constancy—and then betrayed her. She would walk away from Jessie Reed’s money, she would gladly give it all away, if doing so would give her back what she’d lost with Jeff.
Emotionally exhausted, she leaned forward and touched her cheek to the top of his head. “I miss you,” she whispered. The admission came from the depth of her soul, the haunting call of the swan left behind by a hunter’s bullet.
Jeff stood and brought her with him. He combed his fingers through her hair, holding her still for a kiss. She didn’t fight or try to turn away. Instead, her lips parted and she moaned with a fierce release. Her reasons for holding back no longer mattered. She abandoned all she knew for what she felt. She wanted him. She wanted all they had had, all they had been, even if only for that moment and only in her imagination.
Jeff took her arms and put them around his neck. Her emotional defenses collapsed. She became the aggressor, thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth, bruising her lips in her eagerness. She ground her hips into his, moving hard against the bulge in his jeans.
“Oh, my God, Rachel,” Jeff said. “I’ve dreamed—”
“No—don’t say anything,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to do it.” She slipped her hand into his jeans and held him, squeezing and releasing until he let out a cry of pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. “I need you to make me forget, Jeff.”
He tried working the buttons on her blouse, gave up and ripped the fabric open. He unhooked the closure at the front of her bra and swept the cups aside, capturing her breasts with a rough urgency, pinching her nipples between his thumb and finger.
“Harder,” she demanded. He bent and pulled a nipple into his mouth, sucking, lapping, nipping her with his teeth. She lifted a leg and wrapped it around him, rubbing herself against his erection. In a tangle of arms and legs he removed the rest of her clothes, stopping to kiss and touch and caress until her entire body became an erotic organ that screamed for release.
He picked her up and laid her on the sofa, then stood over her to shed his own clothes. His hands on her knees, he pushed her legs up and open. He tested her readiness with his fingers, massaging her clitoris then thrusting his fingers deep inside. She moaned and moved against him.
“Now,” she demanded and reached to pull him down. He took her arms and pinned them to her sides, then did with his mouth what he’d been doing with his hand. She cried out, rocking her hips and arching her back. A sweet tingling ache spread from her clitoris to her stomach and thighs, then contracted to a hard, throbbing urgency deep inside. Her need for release grew, each tongue stroke sweeping her deeper and deeper into a sensual one-way current until she was hit by wave after wave of a climax so intense she tried to curl into herself to contain the ride.
Jeff released her arms and lowered himself, entering her while she was still in the throes of orgasm, thrusting hard and deep and fast. Rachel wrapped her legs around his waist. He reared back and grabbed her buttocks, pulling her closer, rhythmically matching his thrusts.
Rachel had never experienced multiple orgasms. She and Jeff had tried, she’d even tried alone, but it had never happened. She’d finally decided it wasn’t possible and gave up. Which was why she didn’t recognize what was happening when the sweet ache in her loins at having Jeff inside her changed to something more. She was back in the current, the ride swifter this time, the water deeper.
She looked at Jeff, her eyes wide. He must have guessed what was happening because he smiled and then did something he’d never done before, reached between them to touch her, prolonging the climax longer still. She caught her breath in surprise. Confusion at what had been an automatic reaction turned to anger. She tried to pull back, but it was too late. She’d reached the edge and tumbled over, sent on a sensual ride she resented more than enjoyed. Oblivious to her thoughts, Jeff followed with his own climax, pounding deep until he was spent, then collapsing beside her and pulling her into his arms.
Rachel listened as his panting slowed to deep breaths and then a long sigh. He brushed the hair from her forehead and kissed her. “I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” She turned away from him but didn’t get up. She was crying and didn’t want him to see.
He put his hand on her shoulder to turn her back, but when she resisted he stopped trying. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ve never done that—never touched me that way.”
“What way?”
He knew what he’d done. He only asked because he thought it was expected. “Did she teach you to touch her like that?” Before he could answer she sat up and reached for her blouse. “Was it better for you with her?” God, why was she humiliating herself this way? “Is that why you kept going back—because making love to me wasn’t exciting anymore?”
“I give up.” Jeff reached for his jeans. “I’ve told you I’m sorry in every way I know how. I can’t give you what you need, Rachel. I can’t turn the clock back. There’s no way I can make what I did go away.” He finished dressing in silence, then headed for the door. “I made a mistake. A huge mistake. It didn’t mean I don’t love you or that I’m not in love with you.” He looked at her for a long time. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I never stopped loving you, Rachel. If I’ve really lost you, then that’s my punishment. I don’t know what else to do. Where we go from here is up to you.”
She could have stopped him with a single word but instead watched as the door closed behind him with an indifferent finality.