Given (Give &Take) (16 page)

God. Rachael was right. This was only the beginning of a lifetime of Gina and Nadia. Hell, they’d fly Enzo in next and really drop a bomb in my lap.

“Well,” she said, and patted the countertop. “Let’s get going. I want to see everything there is to see here.”

“Sure. Is Nadia coming along?” I needed a buffer. We walked down the hall into the lounge.

“No. She’s calling her friend Paul. They have a budding romance, I hear. Do you like him?”

Paul? Hadn’t they spoken about him this morning? Nadia hadn’t seemed anxious to talk with him again. “Yeah, Paul’s a good guy.”

“Good family?”

“They’re very nice.” I was sure she was referring to their bank account, but I wasn’t going to play into that line of questioning. “We’ll take the golf cart.” The faster we got this over with, the better.

We crossed the patio and climbed in the cart I’d left parked by the gate. I took off toward the orchard in front of the hotel. According to Nadia, the point of her coming was to apologize for making me think she’d died in childbirth all those years ago. When was that going to come up? “So,” I said, figuring I’d air out the dirty laundry, “you’re alive.”

“I’m alive.”

I waited for more, but she said nothing else. “You’ve been in Europe, I hear.”

“Yes.” She pointed out of the side of the cart. “Are those key limes trees?”

“They are.” We rode along in silence for a few minutes.

“Was Nadia incorrect then,” she said, “about the reason I was to come here?”

All I could do was blink. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was a reason she’d given you. I was told you wanted to come to apologize to me.”

She turned her body toward me, gripping the seat with one hand and bracing the other on the windshield. “Apologize!
To you? You were the one who was supposed to be doing the apologizing!”

“For what?”
I slammed my foot down on the break. “I’m not the one who played dead for twenty years and didn’t tell me we had two kids. I missed everything with them, Gina. I carried around the guilt of your death all of those years.” I tore my hands through my hair. “Jesus. Apologize to you.”

“No! You’re not the one who had to go into hiding and care for a newborn and lose her family and her entire life. You’re just the one who knocked me up!”

I pounded my hand on the steering wheel. “I didn’t make that decision! I didn’t pay your family off! I had no idea—Enzo said he handled it when he found out you were pregnant. Nobody asked me what I wanted to do.”

She sat back, stared straight ahead, and crossed her arms. “So you’re not sorry then.”

“As sorry as you seem to be.” I slammed the cart back in gear and pressed down on the accelerator.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this irritated. It was a waste being mad. What was the point? I didn’t care enough about what she thought to be pissed.

Nadia was a different story. Trying to get her mother and me together again was bad enough. Doing it by manipulating us was out of line.

I could only imagine what Rachael would think. Should I even tell her? I didn’t want to keep things from her, but
she was already in a bad place with this situation. Why add fuel to the fire? Of course, if she found out and I hadn’t told her, she’d never forgive me.

All I wanted was to have a peaceful life on Turtle Tear with the woman who would soon be my wife. Was that too much to ask?

M
errick came storming in through the patio door and strode through the lounge, not stopping for a second. I got up and followed him down the hall into the entryway and up the stairs to our bedroom.

“Didn’t go well?” I shut the door behind me. He collapsed back on the bed and rested his forearm over his eyes.

“Are you talking to me now?”

“Did you expect me to be happy about Gina coming here?” I stood beside the bed and looked down at him. He didn’t move his arm.

“Did you expect
me
to be happy about it?”

“You could at least tell me why she’s here!” I shoved his arm off his face, making him look at me.

He scowled. “I sure as hell didn’t invite her if that’s what you think.”

“I didn’t say I thought anything. Why are you pissed at
me
for this?
I’m
the one who gets to be pissed!”

He shot up off the bed. “You get to be pissed, huh? Because all of this is happening to you? Nothing is affecting me? I’m just here to play peacemaker with you and Nadia.
Now Gina shows up and you completely turn on me. That’s really fucking fair, Rachael.”

“Don’t you dare act like I’m not supportive!” He turned away. I grabbed his arm and tried to yank him back around, but he resisted. “Look at me! You don’t think I know what this is doing to you?”

He glanced back over his shoulder. “You know. You’re more concerned about what it’s doing to you.”

I was stunned. “You know what? Fuck you. I’ve done nothing but hold my tongue around you. Nadia is a conniving little bitch who’s trying to get you and Gina together.”

“I know,” he said, like it was no big deal.

“You know? And you still don’t think I have a right to be pissed? She’s encouraging you to rebuild your company and get with her mother so she can inherit it when you die. What do you think of your precious daughter now?” I flung the words at him like spikes.

His eyes flamed. “I think she’s troubled, and being brought up how she was, I’m not surprised. She wants a family who she can depend on. I know how that feels.”

I stared right back with equal heat in my eyes. “Where do I fit into this perfect family, Merrick? Or don’t I?”

Tiredness washed over his face. “That’s up to you. I can’t make you want to be a part of my life with Nadia and Gina in it. You said it yourself—this is how it’s going to be. It will never be over.”

My heart clenched. “You think I don’t want to be part of your life?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. I know I can’t force you and Nadia together and keeping the two of you apart is exhausting. Just when I think things are looking up and you two have a spa day, she has Gina show up here with the intention of getting us together.” He shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed looking down at the floor. “I can’t win. There’s no coming out of this without hurting one of you.”

Hope drained out of me, leaving a gaping hole of emptiness. “So it’s going to be me that gets hurt, isn’t it?”

“I told you. Don’t make me choose.”

“What are you saying?” I whispered.

“I’m saying you need to decide what you want, Rachael.” He looked up at me with dark, miserable eyes. “Until you do, we need to postpone the wedding plans.”

The ring around my finger felt like a brand, digging into my finger, burning and leaving a band of scar tissue. I moved to take it off, but he grasped my hands. “I’m not saying take the ring off. I’m saying we need to put things on hold until you’ve had time to think about if this is what you want.”

I wanted to scream,
Of course this is what I want!
But what I wanted was for him to realize that Nadia was trying to manipulate him somehow. I wish I knew what she was up to, but even if I did, I didn’t think it would matter. He knew she was trying to get him and Gina together and he identified with how she felt. Would he go along with it to make her happy? Was that where this was leading? “Do you want to be with Gina?”

He let out a sad chuckle, like he’d given up and was pacifying me by answering my idiotic question. “No, I don’t want to be with Gina.”

“Will you do it anyway? To make Nadia happy?” I shouldn’t have asked it. I didn’t want to know the answer.

He licked his lips and looked away. “Only if you leave me. You’re the only woman I’ll ever love. If I don’t have you, I might as well. It won’t matter. It’ll make Nadia happy and she’ll be the only woman left I care about.”

So if I was out of the picture, Nadia would get the family she wanted and Merrick would get to make her happy. “And you’ll get to make it up to Gina for having to pretend she was dead all those years while she raised your daughter, right? I’m sure that factors into your martyrdom.”

“Martyrdom? Jesus Christ, Rachael, you don’t get it at all, do you?” He blinked his eyes, incredulous. “That one event in my past—one sexual encounter with Gina—had an enormous domino effect on everyone. Me, her, MJ, and Nadia—”

“Enzo. Don’t forget him. He was behind everything, not you. You didn’t make her leave and pretend to be dead. You didn’t even know she was pregnant. He told you he took care of the situation.”

“He did. In a very fucked-up way.”

“Yeah.” I felt like an old shirt left out on the line to blow in the wind. Where the hell did this leave me?

Merrick scrubbed his face with his hands. “Tomorrow, I’m going to take Gina and Nadia to the Weston Plantation.
MJ’s never met his mom. I’m sure Mr. Simcoe will want to go. You’re welcome to come, too, if you want.”

What was I, an afterthought? “You’re doing it again,” I said. “Pushing me away when you should be keeping me close.”

“I’m not pushing at all. You have a lot to think about. I love you with my entire heart. You’re my life. You know that. But the future looks different for me now, and I don’t want to assume you wish to be a part of it.”

Something happened on the tour of the island with Gina to set him off like this, to unravel everything he’d wound so tight inside. Now the cord was wrapping around my neck and making it hard to breathe.

My future had been so clear. Merrick and I together and happy here at Turtle Tear, our home that we’d share with the occasional group who came for a special event, like the Nelsons and their family renewing their vows on their fiftieth anniversary. I thought that would be us someday, our grandson walking me down the aisle, Beck old and gray, but still with his long hair pulled back, playing his cello. Merrick, dashing in his tux with his salt-and-pepper hair, tall and tan, handsome as ever, watching me walk down the aisle toward him, ready to vow to love him another fifty years—an eternity if I had it to live.

And now… nothing. The wedding I’d been planning was on hold, possibly indefinitely. The world was upside down, and I had to find the strength to right it.

I walked. It always helped Merrick when he had a lot on his mind. Unfortunately, I only wanted to curl up in a ball under one of the key lime trees and sob. That was where I was when Mr. Simcoe found me.

He sat, slowly easing himself down the tree trunk. “I’m not blind to what’s going on here, so I know what the tears are about.”

I wiped my eyes and tried to smile, but there was no smile inside me. “I don’t know what to do. Everything’s falling apart.”

He put an arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “No. It just seems that way. Trouble comes and trouble goes. My wife and I weren’t strong enough to get through ours, but I can see the strength in you and Merrick’s relationship. This is a bump—a mountain—but you two will get over it together.”

“I don’t know if that’s true anymore. All we’ve done is fight for weeks. Nadia has torn us apart.”

“No. She hasn’t. She doesn’t have the power to do that. Your relationship comes apart when the two of you let go and don’t care anymore. You care. He cares. You love each other. She can’t change that.”

“I don’t know. He feels so guilty for not being around when she was growing up. She wants him to get together with Gina. She wants her family. I can’t blame her for that. Who doesn’t want their mom and dad together?”

“You know,” he said, leaning back against the tree and looking up through the branches, “Maddie always wanted me and her mother to get back together, but the truth is, we
would’ve been miserable. We weren’t meant to be together. We had a beautiful daughter out of our short-lived marriage, but we were too different. Wanted different things. Maddie wouldn’t have been happy with us together, and Nadia will have to realize Merrick and Gina don’t make the family she’s always envisioned.”

That was it.

Mr. Simcoe was a genius.

All I had to do was get Merrick and Gina together in the same room with Nadia and she’d see how ill fit they were.

At least I hoped it would work that way.

I hugged Mr. Simcoe. “Thank you. I feel a lot better.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice talking to young women, you know. Maddie might not always confide in me, but I know what’s going on in her head. You don’t raise a daughter on your own without learning a few things.” He kissed my forehead. I stood and helped him up.

“As a father,” I said, “Merrick’s never going to see the fault in Nadia, is he?”

He placed his hands on my shoulders. “He sees it. It’s hard to admit your princess is acting like a toad, though. Merrick’s a smart man. Trust him. He’s more perceptive than he lets on. This will all work out, so don’t hide and cry under any more trees.”

The next afternoon, Merrick flew us to the Weston Plantation. We landed on the back lawn, where a flagstone
walkway had been laid and led to a three-tiered fountain gurgling water. Mums were blooming in explosions of yellow, white, and burgundy in planters lining the walkway up to the big white plantation house.

It would be a beautiful spot for a fall reception. I twisted my ring on my finger and clenched my teeth. I would not tear up.

Beck came out of the large outbuilding that was being turned into a guest house and met us on the walk up to the main house. He glanced from Merrick to me, his brows lowered in concern, but then he held out a hand to Gina. “Beck Tanner.”

“This is Gina Montgomery,” Merrick said. “MJ and Nadia’s mother.”

“Nice to meet you, Gina,” Beck said.

“Nice to meet you, Beck,” she said, her white teeth gleaming in the sun under her dark sunglasses. “Do you work for my son?”

“He’s an independent contractor,” Merrick answered. “He used to work for me. Now he’s my best friend and works with MJ when he needs him.”

“Oh! Then you’re like family, aren’t you?” She hooked her arm through Beck’s as we walked.

I’d never seen Beck so uncomfortable. He kept darting apologetic glances my way, like he was consorting with the enemy. I knew Merrick had to have given him the rundown from the day before.

“I know Maddie’s cooking up a storm,” Mr. Simcoe said,
steering the conversation in a different direction. “She told me this morning she was making ham and corn bread.”

“Joan made dessert,” Beck said, grinning. “Do me a favor. Pretend it’s good and choke it down.”

“Is Joan your girlfriend?” Gina asked.

“I, um—yeah.”

I wondered if Beck would ever give in to the fact that he actually had genuine feelings for Joan. It was clear to everyone else that he wasn’t going to break up with her.

“I can’t wait to meet her then,” Gina said. “I’m sure we’ll get along wonderfully.”

I almost laughed out loud. Gina meeting Joan was going to be one of the highlights of my life, I had a feeling.

“Well, everyone’s in the kitchen,” Beck said as we stepped up the front porch stairs. He opened the front door and ushered us inside the large foyer. “They’re here!” he called out.

Maddie came rushing around the corner wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “Hi!” She gave her dad an enormous hug, then gathered me into her arms. “He loves
you
,” she whispered before moving on to give Merrick a hug. I needed Maddie’s reassurance. It bolstered me a bit.

Maddie told Nadia hello, but before she could be introduced to Gina, MJ walked through the double French doors from the living room. He stopped when he spotted Gina. Everyone was silent and still while Gina stepped forward and the two stared at each other for a moment.