Legal Legacy 2 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles Book 10) (7 page)

“Step out on the back deck if you like, the view
of the stars reflecting off the lake is amazing. It’s nature’s very own light show. I’ll just grab that bottle of Patron from the freezer and then I’ll join you,” he said and it sounded more like a command than a suggestion.

Normally she would have bristled at his tone of voice, ordering her around as if he
had every right to do so. She didn’t care for overbearing men, Holden was as manly as they came but he wasn’t tyrannical about it. Holden knew how to settle back and let Hadley run the show but when it came to sex he was excellent at taking over and making her body hum and vibrate and sing a very happy tune.

“Red or white?” He asked, appearing in the open doorway with two glasses in one hand and two bottles of wine in the other.

“Red, I suppose. It’s cold out tonight so room temp is probably best. You’re right, the brightness of the stars seems to be magnified by the dark mountains all around; it really is a spectacular sight.  And all this pristine land as far as the eye can see belonged to your grandparents. That’s a pretty cool inheritance,” she said and they clinked their glassed of red wine and each took a sip.

“
So, I don’t keep up with celebrities but I am acutely aware of who you are. I live in Malibu and there’s an enormous billboard with your face and body plastered for all to see and admire right by the exit to my house. Normally I would drive past without ever giving it a second glance… but you, Hadley Hale are difficult to ignore,” he said and somehow it didn’t sound like a compliment.

“You live in Malibu? I kind of figured you for a northern California type, like not into the pollution and traffic of L.A. But y
es, there are a few of those behemoths scattered around the world I’m told. One in Times Square and I think in Tokyo and London… It’s the Hollywood ‘fame machine’ and all that goes with it. I hope you didn’t see the movie because I had a pretty intense…”

“Love scene? Or should I say sex scene? You’re a good actor, Hadley, there’s no denying that. I don’t normally go to movies but I enjoyed your work in the film very much. Reef tells me you have an awards ceremony to go to and
he intends to be your escort. I think he and Skyler have hit it off so you might want to see if some other lucky man might want the honor.”

“
I can see something brewing between Sky and Reef and I’m sort of hesitant about it, their getting involved I mean.” Hadley said, sipping her wine and pulling her faux fur jacket more tightly around her. “I have a childhood friend who offered to escort me, I’ll probably give him a call. Unless you were about to offer to go with me. I should warn you,” she laughed, the wine warming her blood and loosening her tongue. “These events are not that much fun, there kind of a pain in the ass to be truthful. I have to stop and sign autographs and have my picture taken and answer the same questions about who designed the dress I’ll be wearing. But, that’d be great if you’re up for going. I mean since Reef’s probably gonna dump me for Sky!”

“Oh, I see. You wanted Reef to take you?”
Stepping toward her but stopping himself from touching her by leaning against the porch railing instead.

“No no, it’s not that at all. I have a boy
friend… a serious boyfriend. Reef was just filling in for him since he’s away right now. No, I’m just over-thinking it because Sky and my brother are in love with each other but…. It’s complicated. My father passed away last year and my brother won’t let himself be happy now. He has some perverse need to go up against death and I’m not sure what he hopes the outcome will be. I do know that he’s in love with Sky but he has insisted that she get on with her life and not waste her time waiting for him. I didn’t expect this attraction to happen between her and Reef and I think it’s the best thing ever on one hand but on the other hand I know my brother will wake up one day and he’ll want the woman he loves to be his and only his. You know how men can be… or not.”

“Hmm, yeah I see what you mean. Reef sa
id your brother is seriously into the SEAL teams and intends to devote himself to military service until he turns thirty. That’s another point of contention, Hadley, you’re part of Alexander Bly’s family and your brother is his heir, its common knowledge. Atticus Hale or Atticus Bly— it doesn’t really matter, the name Bly attracts attention. My family is all about avoiding attention, we stay under the radar, we offer protection to those who want and have the right to disappear from society. Now your mother is married to Alex Bly
and
she’s the infamous American Jock centerfold…” He said, looking out toward the lake to avoid the wary look she was giving him.

“My mother was not a centerfold, and if
I’m not mistaken your father is a common criminal who doesn’t do very well keeping his name out of the headlines. Not to mention that I went with Reef to his clubhouse and he had my mother’s magazine pictures blown up bigger than Dallas and framed on the wall!”

“Yes well, my father maintains a certain distance from our philanthropic work but his reputation serves to keep many undesirables at bay. Men who might come to the farm in search of fugitives usually think better of it because they know the Four Horsemen Motorcycle Club feels an obligation to offer their full protection to those we take under our wings. I hope you don’t mind if I’m blunt, Ms. Hale— my mother’s farm is not suited to celebrities who draw attention by simply being who they are. As well, my father has a certain element of secrecy that is better left uncovered. You are obviously a nice young woman, but I don’t agree with Reef’s decision to bring you into our world. Nothing personal you understand, we’ve always kept a low profile for ourselves and for those who depend on our absolute discretion.”

He reached out just then with one long-fingered hand and brushed a drop of wine from her lower lip w
ith his thumb. He let it linger against the soft seductive fullness longer than necessary and finally turned away to hide the massive erection that had sprung to life just that quick.

Hadley Hal
e. How had he become so enamored just by seeing her face on a billboard and her body on a film screen
? It simply wasn’t like him at all. Reef had mentioned in passing that he knew her and that she was totally down to earth and not at all caught up in the celebrity hype, which Cade had found impossible to believe. Celebrities craved the limelight and surely she was no different from the rest, conceited and vain, narcissistic and shallow. But Cade had gone to see her first movie at a little art-house cinema in Santa Monica and he was hooked. It was ridiculous and shameful for a twenty-eight year old man to have an adolescent crush on a girl he had never even seen or met. And she was young, not yet twenty from what he’d managed to unearth about her personal life. The truth was that she kept a fairly low profile, her mother had been famous years before and there were rumors that her father had been much more than just an average attorney.

“
Your brother was right about you. You are a self-centered arrogant egomaniac. How dare you even begin to think you can just toss me into the basic ‘Girl goes to Hollywood and drinks the Kool-Aid’ mold? Celebrity means nothing to me, I’ve wanted to be an actor,
a serious actor
, since before I can even remember. I want to
act
, that does involve a bit of posturing and posing for the media and excuse me for being blunt, but fuck you for thinking you know me. You’ve seen my face on a billboard and most of my body on a film screen, well guess what? You don’t know jack-shit, Mr. Townsend. Take me back to your mother’s house, please. I can easily get back to civilization from there, you are way too fucked up for your own good.” Hadley drained the wine glass and tossed it over the porch rail and into the lake and then she walked through the cabin and slammed the door as she left.

“
Hey. Hey! Hadley get in it’s freezing out there, you can’t walk back to my mother’s house. Come on, the entire family will kill me if I let you get sick… please get in the car,” Cade said and he pulled in front of her as she walked along the road so that she had to stop. He got out of the car and stood in front of her with his hands planted on his hips. They were both illuminated in the car’s headlights and Hadley could see an array of emotions play across his face. He was stunningly handsome and sexy as all fucking hell as he stood there broad-shouldered and narrowed-hipped with his jacket pushed back and his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his baggy jeans. He stared down at her with those disarming eyes and the emotion that settled on his face was not judgment or disregard— it was an animalistic need to possess her. “I wish you would get in the car… I wish I could trust you… I want to be the one to go with you to that awards bullshit… and I want to take you places you’ve never been before.”

“I’
m freezing.” It was all she could manage, so he held the car door open for her and his hand caught in her hair as the wind blew through the long tosseled strands.

*

The main house on Alice-Anne’s Farm was large and sprawling in the 1930’s hacienda style that was well suited to the California landscape. It had been built during the Great Depression with money from crops harvested by the poorest of poor iterant farm hands. The Kincade family who owned the land and passed it down to their granddaughter, Alice-Anne, had made buckets of money from their prodigiously fertile land when most Americans were starving to death. But they had been philanthropic even then, feeding and housing their workers well and providing the latest in healthcare and medicines. Alice-Anne’s grandfather, Traeger Kincade, was of German and Irish decent and he had come to California with a hardy work ethic and a dream. He made it his life’s mission to establish a farm and a way of life that could exist independently, giving back to and enriching the land and the people who worked to harvest its bounty.

“Well that took long enough,” Alice-Anne said when Cade and Hadley returned with the t
equila. “And there you are, Pedro. Come on over here and meet Hadley’s friend Skyler.

“I know you somehow, where did
you come from?” Sky said the moment she saw the young man with his tosseled dark hair and wide green eyes. She knew him, there was no mistaking it… somehow.

“You look just like my mother,” Pedro whispered and his brow knitted as tears sprang to his eyes and he tried to make sense of this vision of a girl.
“What’s this all about, Alice-Anne, I don’t understand, is she a relative of my mother’s?”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as Pedro
and Skyler sank down into a pair of leather chairs and stared at each other. Cade handed the bottle of tequila to his mother and suggested that Reef and Hadley take a seat and that they might want to take care with the exchange of information since Pedro was a fugitive from his own life.

“
Whoa! Those two are brother and sister without a doubt, so I’m just gonna say goodnight and the rest of you enjoy your evening in the twilight zone!” Traeger said, as he left them with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

“Who is your mother?” Skyler asked Pedro, she was sitting on the edge
of her seat holding her breath and she was both thrilled and afraid that she knew the answer.

“
I don’t know if I should say. I don’t want any bad shit to happen to my mom. She risked her life, you know, when she sent me here, it was a dangerous move for her to make. I was water skiing off the coast of Cabo… oh fuck, I probably shouldn’t have said the name of a place. Anyway don’t repeat that please— so anyway, I cut my thigh on the boat propeller and at the hospital they gave me a transfusion. My father, or my mother’s husband I should say, he always kinda had his doubts about me so he must’ve told the doctor to keep it quiet and do a DNA test. The results proved I’m not his biological son. He went insane and said he wanted me dead. Thank God he’s afraid of my mom so she had the men who are loyal to her smuggle me out of the country and they brought me here. My mom is unbelievable, you know, like, charismatic. People look up to her and trust her, mostly they fear her husband and wish he was dead. But I don’t know what has happened to her now…” Pedro said and his wide green eyes shone with the tears he was desperately trying to hold back.

“
Your mother sent you here from Mexico? That’s where you’re from? Is your mother’s name Lizzie?” Sky felt the cold all the way to her bones suddenly and maybe all the way to her soul. This boy was her brother, she knew it with absolute certainty and their mother must love him enough to risk her life to save him. Lizzie loved this boy as she had never loved Skyler or Beau, but why? And if Lizzie was so incredible why had JP been killed when he went to look for her? There were so many questions….

“My father calls her Elizabetta, but Liz
zie is what everyone else calls her. How did you know that? Do you know my mother, do you know if she is still alive?” he asked standing up quickly and towering over Sky and then leaning down to face her with his hands planted firmly on the arms of the chair where she sat.

“No, but I have an idea who she is or…
was. Look at me Pedro, look at our eyes. They’re her eyes aren’t they? My mother’s name is Lizzie, I don’t know much about her except that she had blonde hair and green eyes and she loved to surf. She was in some trouble here in California when she was pregnant with me so she ran to Mexico and sent me to my father as soon as I was born. I think your mother is
our
mother. But who is your father?”