Like One of the Family. Kimberly Meter Van

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СКАЧАТЬ ’Bout time.”

       “Excuse me?”

       “You heard me. Mistah Bell needed ya and ya too busy to make time for him.”

       She was being schooled by the receptionist? What next? Lora made a mental note to start looking for a replacement right away. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I know very little about you,” Lora said coolly. “What is your name?”

       “Celly,” the woman answered, her chin rising. Her dark brown stare neither flinched or shifted away, and Lora knew this woman felt fairly confident in her position and wouldn’t scare easily. Fabulous. With the luck Lora was having, her grandfather had probably written this Celly into the will. Good gravy. She felt a cloud at her back and her pessimistic attitude certainly wasn’t helping.

       She forced a brief smile. “Can you tell me where to find my grandfather?”

       “Mistah Bell in de back,” the woman answered with a small sniff. “You know your way?”

       Lora ground her teeth, irritated. “Of course. I did grow up here, you know,” she muttered, gripping her luggage handle, then said over her shoulder, “We’ll be talking again soon, I’m sure.”

       “I look forward to it, missy,” Celly called back.

      Oh, I bet you will, she thought blackly. She had a feeling if she didn’t put finding a new receptionist on top of her list, Celly was going to give her an earful that Lora definitely wasn’t in the mood to hear.

       The back terrace was attached to the part of the resort that was reserved for the Bells and afforded a breathtaking view of the ocean. Larimar was a spacious four-plex with access to a secluded private beach via a short walk but the Bells’ section of the resort opened to beachfront property right off the terrace. It’d been Grams’s and Pops’s favorite part about Larimar; they’d often eaten their breakfast of papaya and coconut right there, followed by a quick dip in the water. Grams had been a water dog. Pops had often joked that he’d married a mermaid without her tail.

       There, sitting at his wicker breakfast table, sat Pops, the empty chair opposite him pricking unexpected tears from Lora’s eyes as the loss of Grams hit her hard all over again. Maybe it was because her life was a mess and Grams had always known how to settle her “Little Miss Type A” as she’d lovingly called Lora, or maybe it was because her cycle was near and she was prone to bursts of emotion at the oddest moments, but sadness swamped Lora before she could guard against it. Thankfully, Pops was oblivious and simply grinned his jack-o’-lantern smile and exclaimed with pure pleasure at the sight of her, “There she is! Come here, my sugar bird.” He rose and gathered her into his embrace as if she were still a child and not a grown woman of thirty-two. But God bless him, her grandfather was her lifeline to sanity and she clung to him as if she was afraid to let go. He drew away, his blue eyes brimming with pride and not the least bit unclear—maybe they were all wrong about Pops and his supposed dementia—and she felt a bit of the tension ebb from her shoulders. “So good to see you, Lorie,” he said, his use of her nickname causing her to smile. No one but Pops was allowed to call her Lorie. She purposefully eschewed nicknames in her business life for fear that it might weaken the lines she drew to keep business and personal separate. Not that she had much of a personal life to keep separate but it was a good policy. Of course, all that went out the window the minute she saw Pops. He could call her whatever he liked.

       “You look the same, Pops,” she said, somewhat relieved. When Heath had told her Pops was beginning to suffer mentally, she’d imagined a diminished shell of the robust man she’d known her entire life. But the man standing before her looked the same as he always did, like someone who still rose with the sun and worked as hard as he played. Lora smiled, straightening her tight skirt before taking a seat opposite her Pops. “You don’t age. Must be the clean island air. Or the rum,” she teased.

       Pops winked and whispered conspiratorially, “Well, I have a secret but don’t tell your Grams…” Lora’s breath caught painfully in her chest and her smile froze but Pops didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward, saying, “I slather on a bit of that pricey lotion your Grams buys from her catalogs. That stuff really works. Keeps my skin looking smooth as a baby’s behind. And smells good, too. But let’s keep that between me and you. If your Grams found out she’d never let me live it down.”

       Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them. She swallowed and forced a smile, gentling her voice as she said, “Pops, remember…Grams died ten years ago.” Lora placed a hand on his, squeezing in a show of support, hoping he’d snap into reality with the reminder.

       But Pops didn’t snap or bounce or any such thing. He broke.

       His expression faltered, confused, and Lora tried to mend things with more logic. “Pops, she’s in a happy place now. And she wouldn’t want us to waste tears when she’s no longer in pain and—”

       “I just saw her this morning,” Pops said, his voice shaking, his eyes darting as if trying to find the truth in the memory. Turning accusatory, he looked disappointed in Lora and that nearly crushed her. “Lorie, why would you say that? Your Grams is fine. She’s doing just fine. Clean bill of health.”

       “No, Pops,” Lora said, her own voice clogging with tears. “She died of breast cancer ten years ago. She found a lump and it had already moved to her lymph nodes. Grams died—”

       “Stop saying that!” he demanded, his voice roughening as he rose from his chair to get away from her. Lora’s heart hammered hard in her chest and she didn’t know what to do. Her Pops had never been short with her in her entire life. She didn’t recognize this man and it broke her heart. “Lana,” he called out, going in search of Lora’s grandmother and leaving Lora to stare in horror and dissolve into tears.

       And that’s how Heath found her.

      * * *

      THE©WORDS©DANCED©ON©HIS tongue, I told you so, but he wasn’t that big of an ass. He ought to walk away and leave Lora to soak in her own misery. Although his brain told him to go, he couldn’t quite get his feet to obey. He sighed, knowing he was about to try and console a wolverine of a woman and was likely to get his hand bit off, but he couldn’t just walk away when she was clearly heartbroken.

       “As long as we play along that Lana is still alive…he’s the same old Jack. It’s when reality is forced on him that he balks and freaks out. Lilah makes sure to keep Grams’s things clean, even going so far as to put a load of folded laundry on the bed for Pops to put away like she used to. Lilah also started replacing some of the lotions and stuff that Grams used so that Pops wouldn’t get thrown off.”

       Lora wiped at her face. “You’re continuing an elaborate farce? Doesn’t that seem the slightest bit inappropriate?”

       He flung his arm in the direction Pops had gone, growing angry all over. Damn the woman. Didn’t she see that Pops needed that illusion? “It’s a small price to pay for his happiness. The man means everything to me. I’m willing to play along for his sake.”

       “This is awful,” she said, shaking her head in horror. “You can’t keep pretending Grams is going to walk through the front door because she’s not going to! She’s gone. He needs to come to grips with that.”

       “He doesn’t have the mental agility to do that any longer. The harder we push, the worse his dementia becomes. Lilah and I agreed, it was best to let him have his fantasy. Besides, who’s it really hurting?”

       She stared. СКАЧАТЬ