Beachcombing in the Bahamas (Once Again #11)

Chapter 27

27

E ven as she climbed the stairs, Yvette wondered if this was the right time to talk to Kacey. Perhaps she should wait until after they knew what would happen to Darryl.

But waiting was the coward’s way out. She should have gone to Kacey last night. And now, she couldn’t let it go on for even another hour.

Upstairs, she strode to the only room with a closed door and knocked.

Kacey’s reply was immediate and harsh. “Go away.” She didn’t even ask who was knocking. Yvette tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. She called out, “It’s me, Kacey. I’m coming in.”

Before the door was even halfway open, Kacey hissed, “I told you to go away.”

The words and her daughter’s tone scraped across her skin like steel wool, but she said, “I can’t do that. You’re my daughter, and I love you. We need to talk.”

Kacey lay on the bed, her legs pulled up in the fetal position, her hair a tangled mess, her clothes the same she’d worn yesterday.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” The pillow she clutched to her chest muffled her words.

As much as the situation hurt her—she’d never experienced an argument this bad with either of her daughters—Yvette walked to the bed and sat down next to Kacey’s feet. “I realize you don’t want to talk. I know you’re angry. But we can’t let this fester between us.”

Kacey scrunched even tighter into her fetal ball. “I hate you. I can’t believe what you did. Get out.”

Yvette wanted to scrunch into that same fetal ball, the pain of her child’s words worse than even the harshest memory of Adeline’s most callous remarks. But she was here, and she wouldn’t stop now. “I’m sorry about Darryl.”

Kacey didn’t let her go on. “I’m not talking about Darryl,” she snapped. “It’s what you did.”

What had she done? Fallen in love? Kept her relationship secret from her daughters? Made love to Brock in her bed with the door unlocked so her daughter could walk in on her?

It wasn’t the crime of the century. It was just life. She’d known all along that her daughters would hate her. Jodi had astounded her by not hating her.

She didn’t touch Kacey. But she didn’t back down either. “I’m sorry you had to find out under those circumstances.”

Kacey verbally jumped on her. “It was disgusting. And now everyone knows what you’ve been doing.”

Yvette couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes against the pain of her daughter’s words.

But she had to deal with this now. If she let Adeline talk to Kacey before they worked this out, Yvette would lose everything. She gathered her courage from deep in her belly. “What bothers you the most? That I fell in love with another man. Or that the man is your uncle?”

It sounded so sordid. And yet there was nothing sordid about it. What she and Brock had found was beautiful. Didn’t she deserve that beauty after all the years with Pierce while he’d grown to hate her?

But Kacey snapped, “All of it. At least you could’ve had the decency not to do it when we were on vacation and everyone was here.” Her voice was so caustic it stripped a layer of skin from Yvette’s body.

But she admitted the truth. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.” Then she drew in a deep breath and gave her daughter another truth. “But it doesn’t change how we feel about each other.”

Kacey shot out question after question. “How long has it been going on? Were you cheating on Dad? Did you always want Uncle Brock more than you wanted my father? Did you always want to marry him instead? I mean, honestly, if you thought everything was okay about it, why were you sneaking around? Why didn’t you just tell us?”

If she told Kacey none of that was her business, it would be all over. So she spoke the truth. Her truth. “We’ve been together for nine months. I never cheated on your father. I never even wanted to cheat on your father, not with anyone.” She didn’t say that Pierce had no compunction at all about cheating on her. But impugning him now would only make things worse. “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of how you’d react.” Exactly the way Kacey had reacted. But Yvette didn’t say that either. And she didn’t say that she’d been afraid of how Adeline would use the relationship to turn Kacey and Jodi against her.

“It makes my skin crawl to think of the two of you together.”

Yvette’s skin crawled hearing that tone in her daughter’s voice. It was more than anger. It was disgust. It was hatred.

A part of her wanted to shrivel up and die, to drop on the rug and creep out of the room like a beaten animal. But she’d started this. She had to finish it. No matter how it ended. She had to say what needed to be said. “I love you. My relationship with your uncle—” She could have called him Brock, eased the tension by not stressing the familial relationship. But maybe Kacey needed to feel a little stress. “If I have to, I’ll give him up.”

Hadn’t she already given him up? Hadn’t she already told him this was all his fault? Hadn’t she refused to let him into her cottage last night, let alone into her bed?

Kacey didn’t know any of that, and she said in a low, angry voice, “I don’t care what you do. You can fuck him all you want.”

That word on her daughter’s lips sliced her straight through the middle, cut her in half, and left her bleeding right there on the edge of the bed. When Brock said it in the throes of passion, it was sexy.

But from her daughter’s mouth, it was a travesty.

“That’s not what we do.” Risking her daughter’s wrath, she added, “And don’t ever call it that.” She loved Kacey. She understood her anger. But even from her daughter, she wouldn’t take that.

Then Kacey spat, “I’m not sorry I said it.”

“But I am,” Yvette whispered, loud enough for her daughter to hear. Then she said, “You and I are both adults. And neither of us has the right to question or criticize what the other does. I don’t question you about Darryl and?—”

Kacey sat up straight, the pillow hugged to her chest, her eyes blazing, tear tracks down her face. “Don’t you dare talk about Darryl.”

“I’m not. Because you have to make up your own mind about him. You have to decide if he’s telling the truth. That’s not up to me.”

Instead of hurling more insults the way Yvette feared, her beautiful daughter suddenly burst into tears. Throwing herself against the pillows, she sobbed.

There were no more words after that. Yvette sidled closer on the bed and stroked her daughter’s hair until she fell asleep. Just the way she had when Kacey was a child.

Brock knocked on Yvette’s door.

It had been a bitch of a day with Darryl’s team. They’d gone to the jail to talk to the kid. After the lawyers asked several times in several ways, Darryl finally stated exactly what he’d done. He’d asked the girl for a hand job. When he rolled over, he was very erect, and her hand accidentally touched him. Then she started screaming.

The story the cops had given them yesterday was far more dramatic, that Darryl intended to force himself on her. The real question was Darryl’s intention. If she hadn’t screamed, would he have stopped?

“I swear,” Darryl had said, “I wouldn’t have touched her. If she didn’t want me to, all she had to do was say no. She didn’t have to scream.”

But would he have stopped? It was a question Brock would never know the answer to. None of them would. The only one who knew for sure was Darryl. And the poor deluded kid, sure of his own omnipotence, maybe even he didn’t know.

He waited so long, Brock was sure Yvette wouldn’t answer his knock. Again.

He almost fell to his knees when she opened the door. “I know you went to see Darryl. What happened?” She didn’t invite him in.

“He said he asked her, that she accidentally touched him when he rolled over, that he never made her touch him, and that he wouldn’t have done anything if she’d said no. But she started screaming.”

“Do you believe him?”

He rubbed his temples, then he looked at her. “Honestly, I do.”

She stood in the doorway, blocking his way. But at least she’d opened the door. “Did he sound remorseful?”

Brock had thought about that on the way back from the jail. “He wasn’t his usual swaggering self. And he was definitely scared. But whether he was sorry for what he’d done or because he’d gotten caught, I can’t be sure.”

“What do you think they’ll do to him?”

Again, he shook his head. “I don’t know. The lawyers say it all comes down to his arraignment tomorrow.”

“I talked to Kacey today.”

Now that surprised him. Kacey had been so angry.

“I don’t think she believes he did it.”

“Well, she’ll have to face that he asked the girl to sexually gratify him. That he did for sure.”

“If he gets out of this without having to do jail time, he could sound remorseful,” she said thoughtfully. “And she might believe him.” She let out a sigh. “She might even take him back.”

He shot her a humorless smirk, one eyebrow raised. “If she does, she’s not as smart as I’ve always thought she was. And I do think that girl is smart.”

She looked down, concentrating on the pavers at his feet. “She is smart,” she said softly. “But women have deluded themselves before.”

He wondered if she was talking about herself and Pierce. Or about him.

He stepped into the void after she spoke. “Can we talk now?”

She looked up and gave him one simple word. “No.” Then she closed the door.

Yvette stood a long time with her back to the door, leaning against it in case he tried the knob. But he wouldn’t. She knew that.

Just as she knew that if she let him inside, she would throw herself at him. She would make love with him.

But where that would get them? She wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. Jodi seemed accepting, but Kacey was still so angry. Yvette didn’t know if she could ever get past that wall of anger.

Until she could figure it all out, until she knew what the girls truly needed from her, until the fallout had passed, she couldn’t let Brock into her bed. Which meant she couldn’t let him into her room. Or her heart.

Just as Kacey had fallen asleep after that long, hard cry, Yvette’s eyes were wet and red with pain as she finally fell asleep.

The next morning, Monday, was a repeat of Sunday. Brock, Trevor, and Garth were with the lawyers again, Darryl’s arraignment scheduled for the afternoon. The kids went snorkeling, and this time Jodi had gone with them. When Yvette went up to Kacey’s room, she found the door locked. And it stayed that way.

Now she sat on a lounge chair watching the waves beat against the sand and thinking about how they’d pummeled her life in exactly the same way.

She almost jumped when Olive said, “Madame would like to speak with you.”

For a moment, Yvette didn’t understand. “Madame?”

Olive’s smile was full of mirth. “The old lady. I am not disrespectful. She is old. And she is a lady.”

Yvette chuckled. “She’s also very autocratic.”

Olive nodded. “She wishes to speak with you up in her room.”

Yvette followed the woman inside. On a table near the foot of the stairs, Olive pointed to a tray. “Here is her tea. And a glass of fruit punch for you.” She leaned close to whisper, “It has a shot to ease the pain,” she said in perfect American slang. “I think you will need it.”

In little more than a week, Olive had figured out Brock’s mother. And maybe she’d figured out Yvette as well.

“Bless you.” She carried the tray, not bothering to climb the stairs in a rush. Whatever Adeline wanted, it couldn’t be good. She decided not to even speculate. That way might very well lay madness.

Adeline’s door was open, and Yvette didn’t bother to knock. Passing over the threshold, she found Adeline in a chair by the window, her smile prim, her feet propped on a footstool, her legs uncrossed. Adeline said that crossing the legs caused varicose veins and swollen ankles.

The chair next to her was empty, and Yvette set the tray on the table between them. “Would you like me to pour the tea?”

Adeline snapped, “Absolutely not. You’ve never known how to pour a proper cup of tea.” Adeline poured for herself.

Yvette noted it was no different from the way she would have poured, but she didn’t say a word. What would be the point? “Olive said you wished to speak to me.”

“Will you make sure the girl doesn’t allow that boy back into her good graces?”

She didn’t need further explanation. “Kacey is a grown woman, and she makes her own choices.” Not that Yvette wouldn’t have a talk with her daughter if she took Darryl back. Though it wouldn’t do much good, not coming from her. She wasn’t sure Kacey would ever listen to her again. But she wasn’t about to admit that to Adeline.

“I’m not surprised you’d say that.” Adeline sniffed. “After your disgusting behavior.”

Yvette didn’t allow herself to reel from the verbal slap. It was trademark Adeline.

Then she stepped right into the fight. It had been coming a long time. Not just since the day Kacey had walked in on them. And not just the last nine months when she’d been sleeping with Brock. But for years.

“And what disgusting behavior would that be?” she asked, her voice so calm, even sweet.

“You seduced my son and got him into your bed.”

Yvette asked, “Which son?”

Adeline exploded then. “Both of them. You’re a harlot. Just like your mother.”

“Yes, I’m just like my mother. And neither of us were those things.”

“I knew your mother far better than you did, girl.”

Yvette tipped her head, not sure where this was coming from. “You mean when my grandfather was Harris’s chauffeur?”

“Of course I do.”

It was family lore. Her grandfather had been the Donnelly family chauffeur for years. Until Harris married Adeline. She’d hated that a mere chauffeur could be her husband’s good friend. Harris had always enjoyed talking with Yvette’s grandfather. And for years, even after Adeline had fired him, Harris had often dropped by to visit her grandfather. Harris said her grandfather was a wise man. And he had been.

She stood then, not willing to listen to one more moment of Adeline’s vitriol. She knew exactly why the old lady had summoned her. “If you’re going to tell me to stop seeing Brock, then I have only one answer for you.”

She stood her ground, stared Adeline down. And she was done. Finally and completely done. She’d let fear get in her way far too long. She’d given Adeline far too much control over her life. But now her daughters knew her secret. Jodi approved. And Kacey would either accept or she wouldn’t. Adeline couldn’t do another thing. All the control she’d had for years was over.

And Yvette smiled. “My answer is no. I will not stop seeing Brock. I will not stop loving him. I will not stop sharing his bed. And this time, Adeline,” she said with a sharp edge that chewed her former mother-in-law’s name to bits, “you aren’t getting in my way.”

Then she left the room.

She hadn’t even needed Olive’s spiked fruit punch to give her the courage.