Beachcombing in the Bahamas (Once Again #11)

Chapter 1

1

“ I want her out of the gatehouse now.” Brock’s mother tapped her fingers on the big oak desk.

It had once been his father’s desk, and this darkly paneled room had been his study.

But Harris Donnelly had been gone over fifteen years. And Brock’s mother Adeline had taken over. Not the shipping business—that was Brock’s—but everything else at the manor house was her domain. Including the gatehouse at the bottom of the quarter-mile drive.

Nestled in the Fremont Hills on the east side of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, the family estate was like a kingdom unto itself. And Adeline Donnelly reigned as its queen.

Seated on the other side of the desk as if he were a minion, Brock said, “I’m not kicking Yvette out of her home,” with as many clipped words as his mother had used.

Adeline didn’t like saying Yvette’s name. And now she winced at his use of it. Weak November sunshine leaked through the sheers over the latticed windows, turning her skin sallow, and her pursed lips melted her too-red lipstick into the tiny lines around her mouth. At eighty years old, she prided herself on being an elegant older woman, with snowy hair she had permed regularly and styled every day. She probably didn’t know about the lipstick or she’d have stopped making that expression years ago.

“Your brother and his wife are about to have a child,” she declared, as if Brock didn’t know. “They need the space.” Narrowing her eyes at him accentuated Adeline’s crow’s feet, something else she probably didn’t know, because his mother would never practice those looks in front of a mirror. “Since her children are now in college, Yvette doesn’t need that big house anymore. And your brother does.”

Brock resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the armrest. They’d had this argument the first time last year, when his youngest niece had finally gone off to university, turning Yvette into an empty nester. “The gatehouse has been Yvette’s home—and the girls’ home,” he said, “since she married Pierce.” Over twenty years ago. Though to be correct, his brother hadn’t moved the family down to the gatehouse until Yvette’s oldest daughter was almost five.

“Your brother has been dead for five years,” Adeline snapped.

He found it hard to believe that his mother could say the word so easily. Pierce had been the golden boy, five years younger than Brock, and only forty-eight when he crashed his car into a tree a hundred yards from the manor house driveway. The autopsy had found his blood alcohol level way over the limit. Adeline had fought vehemently against that autopsy, but she’d lost the battle, one of the very few she ever had, mainly because Pierce had clipped another car ten miles away and sent it off the road. Thank God the driver and his wife had suffered only minor injuries. Brock wouldn’t call it an accident, because an accident implied no one was at fault.

Pierce was an alcoholic, something Adeline had never wanted to admit. He’d been driving drunk, as usual, on his way back from the casino. That was another of Pierce’s addictions, gambling, and another thing Adeline didn’t want to admit.

Unless she was blaming Yvette for what happened to him. According to Adeline, he only drank and gambled because he wanted to get away from his harridan of a wife.

Yvette was the furthest thing from a harridan. In fact, she’d stood by Pierce their entire marriage. But Adeline blamed her, because she’d gotten pregnant and Pierce had to marry her. Although Brock didn’t think there was any “had to” about it. Pierce had wanted out of his engagement to an actual harridan, the one Adeline had chosen for him because the woman came from good stock. Whereas Yvette was nothing more than a gold-digging secretary, a chauffeur’s granddaughter. That had been his mother’s refrain ever since.

Adeline’s first words upon hearing of their elopement were, “How can a thirty-year-old woman allow herself to get pregnant unless she’s trying to trap a Donnelly?” And she’d never wavered from that notion in the past twenty years.

“Just get her an apartment in the city,” Adeline insisted. “She can even walk to work from there.”

Yvette was now Brock’s executive assistant. And she did an amazing job keeping his work life in order. She knew all his appointments, got him to wherever he needed to be on time and equipped with everything he required.

“Tell her we’ll pay for the apartment, even at the exorbitant cost of San Francisco real estate.”

That was Adeline. Out of sight, out of mind, exactly where she wanted Yvette.

He said mildly, in contrast to Adeline’s irritated tone, “She wants to stay in the gatehouse until both the girls have graduated from university and have their own apartments. It’s important to her they can come back to their own home on holidays, school breaks, and summer vacation.” He tried guiding the conversation back to an even keel. “Just like they’re home now for Thanksgiving.”

But his mother said, “They can each have a suite here in the big house when they’re home. They’d love that.”

Yvette wouldn’t. And for reasons of his own, Brock wouldn’t either.

His great-great-grandfather, shipbuilding magnate Liam Donnelly, had built the mansion in the Fremont Hills right after the 1906 earthquake. Although there was damage all over the Bay Area, he’d felt the East Bay would be safer. The gatehouse had four bedrooms and had been used by an actual gatekeeper before the automatic gates went in.

Liam Donnelly had laid out sod on the scrubby earth, planted trees and flowering shrubs, hydrangeas and rhododendrons and azaleas. Which were now massive after more than a hundred years of growth. The mansion had eighteen suites, because the Donnelly patriarch had loved to entertain and wanted to provide for any guests who stayed overnight. In later years, he’d rivaled Randolph Hearst, inviting movie stars, and even the kings and queens of small principalities, to his home.

And Liam Donnelly had built this study. The thick carpets had been shipped from some far-off country, the lamps special-ordered from Tiffany’s, and the furniture hand-crafted by the best manufacturers in England and New York. The massive fireplace could turn the room into an oven on winter days, the perfect spot for a young boy to curl up on a window seat and read the latest adventure book. Built-in bookcases housed first editions from the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck, the books purchased and signed even before the authors had made names for themselves. Liam Donnelly had prided himself on picking the next Dickens or Poe.

Though a family-held corporation, Donnelly Shipping still had a board of directors and shares owned by far-flung family members. Brock held the largest share block, and being this generation’s eldest son, he was in charge. The board had never overruled him. Trevor, his younger brother, was Chief Financial Officer, and his salary matched Brock’s. Donnelly Shipping had been in business for two hundred years. In the early days, their primary market had been shipbuilding, but when Brock took over after his father’s death fifteen years ago, he’d expanded into cruising and cargo shipping. The cruise subsidiary had taken a huge hit during the pandemic, when everyone stayed home, and it had taken over two years to recover. But there’d been enough cash in the company to float them. Shipbuilding had taken a hit, too, but nowhere near what happened to the cruise industry. But Donnelly Shipping had recovered well, and was now even bigger than before.

His mother was looking at him, her eyes gleaming with plans. “That’s a perfect solution. The two girls can each take a suite in the big house when they’re home from school. It’ll be good for them. They won’t want to stay in the city in a cramped flat with their mother. They’ll be much better off here.”

Right, exactly what Yvette feared, Adeline having the girls under her thumb where she could fill their heads with all their mother’s misdeeds according to Adeline.

“You can stop all the scheming,” he said sternly. “The gatehouse is Yvette’s home, and she can stay as long as she likes.”

Adeline flashed him a dark look. “But it wasn’t Pierce’s home. They only moved down there because of her.” The tone in which she said her could have flayed flesh from bone. “His place was up here at the big house.”

“Pierce liked the gatehouse too.” Where he wasn’t under their mother’s thumb. But Adeline would never see that.

“That’s what he told you,” she said snidely. “But moving down there was when all the trouble began.”

The trouble had existed for as long as Brock could remember. Pierce always drank too much, always gambled away his allowance. He’d had a job at the company, one where he could do little harm. Their father had chosen it for him, and he’d hand-picked Yvette as Pierce’s assistant. If anything, Yvette had kept Pierce more on the straight and narrow than he would otherwise have been. But Adeline was right, things had deteriorated with Pierce after the girls were born. Brock had bailed him out of his gambling debts more than once.

But Adeline had rewritten history, turning Pierce into the golden boy with just a few minor problems. She raised an imperious eyebrow. “The big house seemed just fine for you and your wife and the boys.”

“That’s because Corrine was different. And we had our own suite of rooms with a separate entrance. It was like having our own apartment. We were separate.”

She sniffed. “If that were true, then why did Corrine always want to come down for dinner with me and the rest of the family?”

His wife had treated the house as if she were its lady of the manor. And his mother had let her. Maybe it was because she liked Yvette far less. And she liked Corrine far more. Corrine had the proper breeding.

His three sons had all left the house now. Garth, his oldest at twenty-four, was employed by the company and lived in his own apartment in the city. Malcolm, the youngest, was a college freshman, and Ethan would graduate from UC Berkeley in June, when, if he chose, he’d also take his place at the company. Not that Brock wanted to force any of his sons into a slot they didn’t fit. They were free to make their own choices.

As kids, they’d loved racing through the house or playing hide and seek in all its nooks and crannies. In a house this size, there were many.

Living here had never been a problem for his family. The problem had been between him and Corrine. Maybe he’d never loved her. He was no longer sure. How did you remember what you’d felt in your twenties? He’d wanted her, that was true. But over the years, he’d realized she was too much like his mother, all about appearances. And maybe that was why the two of them had gotten on so well.

At fifty-eight years old, he’d now been divorced three years. Right after Ethan went to university and Malcolm had his school sports and was rarely home, Brock and Corrine found they had nothing tying them together except this big mausoleum of a house. Corrine brought up divorce first, but he’d quickly gotten on board.

His mother had fought the divorce as vehemently as she’d fought against Pierce’s autopsy results. But Adeline hadn’t won that battle either, both he and Corrine wanting the divorce, each for their own reasons.

So his wife was gone. Their sons were gone, too, coming home only for holidays and breaks.

“If you think your sons and grandchildren belong in the big house,” he asked, “why do you want to send Trevor down to the gatehouse so badly?”

She paused a moment, obviously not expecting the question. His mother didn’t like to be questioned, but she always had an answer. “Because he and Lorna deserve a space of their own.”

“Then why don’t we get them an apartment in the city?” he countered.

Both her eyebrows went up this time. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “That wasn’t what I was saying at all.”

What she meant was that she wanted Yvette out in any way she could throw her out. And if she had to use her youngest son to do it, she would.

“They have a baby coming,” she said imperiously. “And I can’t abide hearing a baby cry all over again. It’s been years since I’ve had to endure that.”

It was another of her excuses. She would love taking over or constantly telling Lorna what she was doing wrong with the baby. Just as she had with Yvette. Between his mother and his wife, they’d made Yvette’s life miserable.

Wanting all the attention, Corrine had hated that Yvette stole the spotlight from her second pregnancy. After all, Yvette was carrying Pierce’s child. And Pierce was the golden boy, even if his wife wasn’t his perfect match.

Brock hadn’t truly seen what was happening all those years ago, at least not then. Corrine was always moody when she was pregnant, and he’d tried to be understanding. Although really what it meant was that his office hours grew longer.

In the end, Pierce’s family had moved into the gatehouse.

The memories churned in Brock’s gut. He hadn’t stood up for Yvette. He hadn’t been able to help his brother overcome his addictions. And now he was harsher with his mother than he meant to be. “This discussion is over. Yvette stays where she is until she chooses to leave. Her daughters can come home from university to stay in their childhood bedrooms for as long as they wish. And that’s final.”

He stood then, towering over his mother behind the desk. Of course, that never cowed her. Nothing ever had. He forced his voice to a milder tone. “They’ll all be waiting for us downstairs.” The aroma of roasting Thanksgiving turkey wafted through the house. “We should go down now.”

He turned on his heel, leaving his mother behind, her harrumph carrying out the door after him.