Chapter Nine
Alicia
“Dearest, you have to know this will take months. You can’t possibly undertake such a project on your own.”
This was the second man to have said such a thing to me in a twenty-hour period and I wondered if I had something stamped on my head that said I couldn’t do things for myself.
I understood where Gray had been coming from yesterday. He didn’t know me and hence wasn’t aware of my capabilities.
But my father knew better.
My lip stiff, I tossed down a blouse I had gotten from my bag and switched it out for a floral dress. I was in the process of unpacking all my stuff and putting it in the closets, but was still currently living out of a bag. Going over to the mirror, I put the gown in front of myself, tugging out the fabric to see where it’d sit at my hips. I didn’t have a lot of options since I’d only packed long enough for a week’s stay, but I would have to make do until the rest of my stuff came in. I had a service pack up some of my things from home and ship it down to Kansas just this morning. Gray and my father were right. This project would take months.
Sitting on the soft seat of the armoire my aunt had in her guest room, I adjusted the phone I had lodged between my ear and shoulder.
“I get that, Daddy,” I told him. “But I need your support. I didn’t call to ask for permission. I just wanted to let you know what I was doing and where I’ll be for a little while.”
I had to do this. I had to be here for a woman who did have family. I was Josephine Bradley’s family and I was going to take care of her and her legacy.
“But this isn’t your crusade, honey,” Daddy said, sighing into the phone. I caught him in the middle of a meeting in which he stepped out of to take my call. He always did though I told him not to. My dad was a good man and I came from a good family. He and my stepmom took care of all of us. My brothers and I went to the best schools and had the best lives because of it.
In my silence, I played with the hem of the floral dress that currently sat in my lap.
“At least let me use my resources,” my father went on. “I’ll send people down there and you won’t have to do a thing. You come back home and can be involved in the decisions via email and video chat.”
“You know good and well if I go home I’ll bury myself so much in my life and work that I won’t have time for anything down here.”
Daddy laughed a little. “I do know that, which was why I suggested it,” he said, laughing more. “I was counting on you and your work ethic.”
He wasn’t sly at all and I would roll my eyes at him if he were here to see it.
“You get it from me,” he chimed.
“And my stubbornness?” I questioned.
He laughed again.
“That you actually get from your mother,” he said, serious now and I went quiet. He didn’t say my mama. Mama was my stepmom, the woman who had been my mom over half my life.
Mother was my birth mom, a woman I wished I had the pleasure of knowing longer than I had. She passed when I’d been so young. I only recalled glimpses of her now, the same ones that connected me to this place.
Looking around, the room bare with nothing but the essentials, I stood. My bag was on the bed so I started putting everything in it but the dress I planned to wear today, chatting with my dad more as I filled my bag back up, then wheeled it down the hall. I had decided to move rooms, going to my aunt’s room.
“I suppose I’ll let everyone know your status then,” Daddy said, finally understanding that yes I would be doing this and yes I would be staying here. “You’ll call us if you need anything, though?”
“I promise,” I told him, opening the door. Inside, a room very similar to the one I’d been staying in resided.
I stepped into the wonderland, a wide window leading out to an exquisite veranda. Filled with light, the room glowed like an iridescent heaven with the way the sun played through the sheer curtains on the windows and the white bedding.
I stood there, ready for this.
“You better,” my dad went on. “And when you come back we’ll meet that boyfriend of yours.”
I told Daddy what he wanted to hear in regards to that last bit. He knew full well about Bastian, my entire family did, the young CEO who’d made his way into my life. What they hadn’t gotten to hear about was how he’d been married—albeit separated—for the majority of our relationship.
As well as how he’d broken my heart and I boozed myself to sleep recently because of it.
Sitting on my aunt’s queen bed, I pushed my hand into my hair. I had no idea what would happen between Bastian and me. I did know I had been trying.
But that took two people in the end, didn’t it?
I took the time to dress a couple hours later, my Internet provider had come and gone. He’d finished up the job he started yesterday after Ava dropped me off at home. The serviceman arrived severely late and had also come with the bonus of being underprepared on top of that.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with the cables,” he’d said yesterday, literally leaving one of the most important things back at his company’s base a few towns over. Mayfield didn’t have an
Internet provider so I had to outsource. The man was back as promised today, but needless to say, I hadn’t gotten much done in regards to work prior to that.
Not that they needed me there anyway.
I called in earlier that morning informing them of my leave of absence. I was basically being dubbed the task of organizing my cases enough to pass on to the other attorneys as well as being on call for my particularly special and more affluent clients. The latter in itself would always keep me busy. I took the time to make sure my clients were always cared for and their needs met.
Pushing my hands down my dress, I made my way through the house, foolish I knew, to make sure things were tidy and clean before Gray came over. I mean, he’d been here just a few days prior.
I tended to clean when I was nervous.
And the situation, what was about to happen, was definitely making me nervous. Last time Gray’s little girl had seen me she ran and she’d be here with him today. He apparently didn’t have a sitter for her, as she didn’t take to many people. He explained to me she’d be with him on the majority of the days he’d be here.
He also explained a few other things.
He’d emphasized her shyness and had been adamant that she should do the approaching if she did any and that I shouldn’t expect her to say anything to me.
He literally said she wouldn’t say anything to me. I had no idea if that meant she wouldn’t be talking to me in particular or didn’t talk at all. Either way, I figured she had special needs, autism or maybe something else.
I supposed in the end it wasn’t my business.
I employed her father and that’s the only exchange that really mattered. I understood the need for child care and I, of course, was okay with it though I had no children myself. I guess lately I figured I’d be inheriting Bastian’s, their own mother nonexistent in her globetrotting and international excursions. She was apparently an international buyer and businesswoman.
My lip pushed across the other, all other thoughts lifted from my mind at the sound of a pickup truck pulling into my aunt’s driveway.
Exhaling breath, I messed with my hem again. I wore nothing flashy. Autistic kids could be easily over-stimulated I’d read on the net that morning.
Angling my head to gaze through the curtains downstairs, I made no sudden movements, letting the pair come to me. The slam of a truck door sounded and I moved away from the curtains, standing into the middle of the hallway until that telltale door knock entered the hall.
It hadn’t been loud, not surprising.
Braving up, I knew it was just a little girl behind that door, and her father.
Eyes of a crashing blue displayed before me, a child underneath Gray’s palm as his hand was on her tiny shoulder.
His daughter truly was angelic. Her face China-like and round, she had a haunting glow about her, her hair dark and messy like her father’s. It pooled down past her shoulders today, her dress that of a t-shirt with a printed cartoon on it and shorts that matched the same blue of her worn tennis shoes. Her hand gripped Gray’s pocket beside her. Her skepticism was abundant in her gaze. She slid an arm up to Gray’s waist and he pushed his across her shoulders.
She really was a skittish little thing.
I stood stationary, waiting to be presented and Gray didn’t disappoint. Looking down, he spoke to her, saying, “This is Alicia.
“We talked about how this is her house now,” he went on, his voice kind of rough in its usual tone but incredibly soft despite. I heard him sound that way before when he’d helped guide her from under the couch. He faced me. “Alicia, this is my daughter, Laura.”
She did look like him from those high and slightly hallowed cheekbones to that messy, dark hair on their heads. She was quite darker than him though and I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have that Latina in her as I assumed before.
Then there’d been her big brown eyes.
Someone else was there inside her, Gray only half the piece of the puzzle. He himself was a maze of mystery but I didn’t hire him to know his life story in the end.
“Nice to meet you, Laura,” I said subtly squeezing my hands together. I smiled. “I’m Josephine’s niece.”
Laura gave no reaction to that, at least not with her expression. She simply let go of her dad.
Then she walked past me.
Giving herself a wide berth, she made soft steps into the house and I turned, watching her disappear into the living room. Like she knew what to do, she lifted an ottoman, taking out what looked to be a book and some colored pencils.
Venturing inside a little, I watched her open up a coloring book, while getting on her belly and using those pencils I saw her retrieve.
“Please don’t be offended.”
Gray had apparently flanked me in my strides to see what his daughter had been up to.
Closing his eyes to her, he opened them to me. “She’s used to milling about this place. She knows the house well.”
The obviousness of that statement rang true.
The little girl flipped to her page of choice, doing her thing by doodling in the book.
His bearded jaw moving, Gray breathed deep. “She’ll no doubt do that most of the day. When she’s not doing that she’ll probably nap.”
“Will she need food?” I asked, closing the door behind us. “I can go to the store.”
“You really won’t have to worry about her. I’ll take care of everything in regards to her care. You’re doing me a huge favor by letting her be here.”
I nodded, pushing my hands over my arms. “Well, I’m out of the guest room. She can sleep in there if she needs to.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
As if on autopilot his daughter took our attention, the soft etches of color wearing down on paper before us. After a while of staring at her, Gray pulled down the pencil he had secured behind his ear.
He pulled out a notepad from his back jean pocket. He had arms the size of most men’s thighs, generally built all over.
“I figured I’d use today to make notes. I’ve already got a crew in line and they’ll be coming in the next few days. I’ll alert you when people start coming through here, no surprises.”
Appreciating that, I smiled. “Well, you’ll have whatever you need from me. Just let me know.”
“Thank you.”
Rocking on my heels, I moved my lips. “I guess I’ll leave you to it then.”
He watched me venture to the staircase, my hand on the railing.
“And do you personally need anything?” I asked, shrugging a little. “If so…”
All he had to do was ask.
His bottom lip lowered from the other and the smallest crease in the corners of his eyes could be made out in the hall of my aunt’s house.
“I’ll let you know,” he said. “But really both of us should be fine.”
I supposed I had to take his word for that and guessed this could be considered day one.