2
His Lucky Day
Ashe had no doubt that getting his hands on the illustrated book would take some effort, even if it had survived the fire all those years ago. He didn’t want to ask Paige about it if he could help it.
Though Riley spent one afternoon a week with her nephews, five-year-old triplets, Thomas, Trey and Trevor, the sisters were still estranged after Riley had discovered that Gareth had fathered her sister’s children.
Riley had realized that she couldn’t punish her nephews for what had happened and deprive them of her company; Paige, on the other hand, was a different matter. Someday the two sisters and Paige’s husband, Clint, would be friends again; Riley just needed time to come to terms with it. Ashe thought Riley would find it difficult to be friends again with the family who had betrayed her and hidden it for years, but he understood why she would want to; Riley had no one else.
Ashe had to admit that he was too busy to be there for her all the time. Even though he’d decided to play the lead role in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus on Broadway so he could spend more time with her in New York, this meant endless rehearsals until opening night in two weeks’ time. Already ticket sales had exceeded expectations. Ashe had learned from the box office that the show was ninety per cent sold out, with no plans to extend the run as he was due to fly to Australia to shoot his next movie after a short break.
But Ashe wasn’t the only one with a busy schedule; Riley did, too. She certainly wasn’t sitting at home waiting for him all day. She attended business classes two afternoons a week in addition to managing the Library Café, and that didn’t include the time she set aside for studying and homework. She’d sacrificed her college education to work two jobs when she and Gareth lived together so he could go to his auditions, but now things had changed. Ashe wanted her to pursue whatever she wanted.
Still, if it weren’t for Lance Purefoy and Ben Stafford, his best friends and new managers, Ashe wouldn’t know what he was doing next. Riley said it sometimes felt as if Lance lived with them, his phone call every morning waking them up with Gran’ mornin, ‘a eur theur!
Riley had got used to her daily dose of Ashe’s native accent, along with the realization that it wasn’t an easy matter to run the business that was Ashe Hunter. Behind the image of the affable actor and the deep voice that sold everything from luxury cars to cognac, it was all business all the time.
Now, as he stood in front of a run-down two-story house in Jackson Heights an hour after landing at JFK, there was nothing of the actor in Ashe’s bearing. He was simply the Yorkshire sheep farmer who had done well and was about to do something he’d never thought he would do, at least not without Riley beside him.
Gareth had orchestrated the meeting through his father, who was still friendly with Sid Eames. He wouldn’t tell Sid who was visiting, just that someone wanted to talk to him; it would be up to Ashe to do the rest. Gareth would have liked to give him more information about Riley’s father, but Ashe refused; if there was anything he needed to learn about Sid Eames, he would find out himself. He was grateful to Gareth but didn’t want to owe him any more favors.
For a few moments, Ashe stood outside the door, his finger on the doorbell. He should have called to let the older man know he was coming, he thought as he withdrew his hand. Despite Gareth’s insistence that Sid would be open to talk about the book, it might be best to give him more notice. As Ashe turned away, the door swung open and a tall man appeared, his belly straining at the buttons of his thermal checked shirt.
“Hey, kid! Saw your nifty car out in front and figured you might as well come in and get out of this cold. Guess you’re after information just like the rest of them, right?”
Ashe stared at him, baffled. “What information?”
“Come in and make yourself comfortable and you can ask me whatever you want,” Sid said, not hearing what Ashe had said. “It’s cold out here.”
As he spoke, Sid stepped aside and Ashe walked in, shut the door and sat down on a worn armchair facing a flat-screen TV. Empty beer cans overflowed from a plastic trash can next to him, and on the coffee table were two cold cans of beer.
“Want one?” asked Sid.
“No, thanks,” Ashe replied in an American accent, an impulsive decision. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen not to speak in the accent he’d acquired when he’d made London his home, but learning that other people had been here seeking information had caught him off guard. Who had come by, and what had they wanted to know?
It was evident that Sid didn’t recognize him, with the wool cap hiding his hair and the beard he was now sporting. He’d also donned thick-rimmed glasses after he’d removed his contact lenses at the airport lounge to avoid being followed by any paparazzi.
“Well, what do you want to know, young man?” Sid asked, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he coughed. “I really shouldn’t be talking to you about Ri, but as long as you’re paying, why the hell not? Everything costs so much these days.”
Ashe stared at him. Paying for what?
He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his lap. “I heard that her mother made a book for her. I wonder if I could see it?”
Sid stared at him quizzically. “Now, how the hell did you know about that?” Then he waved his hand. “What does it matter, anyway? How much will you pay for it?”
Ashe suddenly wanted to hit ‘rewind’ on the whole scene and start over. He wanted to introduce himself properly and tell Sid that he’d heard of the book from Gareth, but it was too late for that. Just how many souvenirs had Sid sold to reporters?
“That depends on its quality.”
“Oh, it’s good quality, that’s for sure. I confiscated it from her when she misbehaved. She was always getting in trouble,” Sid said, shrugging. “Didn’t know her mama made it for her until I saw it up close, so I brought it with me to the garage to show it off to the guys. I must have left it there because that’s where I found it, inside my office, and finally brought it home on account of my retirement.”
“I’ll need to see it.”
“All right,” Sid grunted as he pushed himself off his chair and Ashe stood up to make way. He watched Sid disappear into his bedroom, listened to the sound of a closet door opening and closing, before seeing the man reappear with something in his hand.
“Here.” Sid pulled the book from a grocery shopping bag and handed it to Ashe. “You tell me how much you wanna pay for that. Don’t even think of running off with it. I’m still fast, you know, even if I don’t look it.”
Ashe was surprised to see his hands tremble as he slowly opened the book. It was one thing to remember how Gareth had described it and another to see for himself that it really did exist, something a mother had lovingly made for her daughter. The only things that Riley had left of her mother were the old books recovered after the fire. They still smelled of smoke and mildew, but nothing in the world would make Riley part with them.
The handmade book was bound together with neon green yarn, stitched through punched-out holes along its left side. The front and back covers were of thick cardboard, cut from the lid of packing boxes. The inside pages were of construction paper and on each page were four lines of prose, accompanied by a drawing of what appeared to be little Riley and a teddy bear named Boo. One page showed them climbing up a mountain, the next page had them sledding down its snowy slope. Another page showed little Riley with even wider eyes in the semi-darkness and then sitting on the lap of a woman in a wheelchair as they flew over Manhattan.
Ashe’s chest tightened at the sight of the Empire State Building; in the distance, symbolized by two gray vertical lines, were the World Trade Center towers. Millie Eames was an artist, and Ashe could imagine each page framed behind protective glass. Forgetting Sid standing in front of him, Ashe allowed himself to soak up each story, imagining Riley as a child listening to her mother relate them night after night. On the back cover was a hand-drawn red heart and beneath it the word Forever.
He had to have it.
“It’s just a simple storybook, really, and if she weren’t seeing that actor guy everyone’s talking about, it wouldn’t mean anything,” Sid remarked as he grabbed the book from Ashe’s hands. “But since she is, this amounts to something after all; so I guess it’s my lucky day, huh? I could use a few bucks.”
When Ashe said nothing, Sid made a face. “Look, kid, if you aren’t gonna give me a price—”
“How much do you want?”
“How about ten grand and it’s all yours? Cash only, of course.”
Ashe almost laughed out loud. The man was really pushing it. How could he sell the picture book for ten bloody grand?
“What if I pay you nothing for it?”
The return of Ashe’s accent made Sid stare at him, eyes narrowing as he coughed again, this time covering his mouth with his shirt sleeve. “Well, what do you know? The man himself comes marching in here, telling me he won’t pay me for something that he wants; something that’s valuable to him.”
“It’s not yours to sell. Offering it to the highest bidder is beyond shameful; it’s despicable.”
Sid’s lower lip trembled, but he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders back, like a dog puffing up its fur to appear more threatening. He held the book in front of him, flipping the pages carelessly, each crisp turn of the page making Ashe’s chest tighten.
“What if I were to tear this thing up? What then?” Sid asked, continuing to flip the pages until he reached the end of the picture book. He turned it over so that he was looking at the hand-drawn heart. “How dare you tell me this isn’t even worth a dime to you? You’re nothing but an arrogant—”
“I didn’t say it’s not worth a dime, I said it’s not yours to sell,” Ashe snapped. Did Sid deserve an apology for the way Ashe had walked into his house without divulging his real identity? He felt a slight pang of regret, quickly replaced by fear at the realization that the picture book would be torn to shreds if the older man called his bluff, and that it would be Ashe’s fault. Holding it in his hands and then having to let it go only made the fear worse.
“Finders keepers, kid,” Sid said, chuckling. “That’s what this is. Either you want it or someone else will. Too bad you’re sitting on your high horse and can’t be bothered to put in an offer on it. You obviously think it’s important enough to come over here and pretend to be someone you’re not, but then you end up being a cheap son of a bitch after all. You broke or something, or are you just cheap? I heard your movie cleared a hundred mil. the other day, or was it two hundred? Do you really expect me to believe that the studios shafted you and paid you nothing? Riley deserves better.”
“I’m far from bankrupt, Mr. Eames. In fact, I could pay you ten grand for that book. I could even pay you fifty,” Ashe said slowly as Sid’s eyes widened. “But what would Riley say when she found out about this financial arrangement between us? One that I made with her own father behind her back? Instead of making Riley happy, you’re selling a childhood memento to the highest bidder because you can.”
“You’re so fucking arrogant, I should tear this thing apart right here in front of you. What then, huh? You still gonna be cheap about it?”
As Sid spoke he held the book in front of him, one hand gripping each end, and Ashe felt his panic rise. Things had gone from bad to worse, he thought; while he could easily pay the older man the money, something held him back. Pride? Arrogance? In the end, did it matter what it was? The book was not Sid’s to sell, morally at least.
“Would you really tear up something your late wife created with her own hands, just to prove a point to me? Surely it must have taken her a long time to make that book, especially with MS slowing her movements; yet, faster than I can count to three, you can destroy everything she made to show that you’ve got the upper hand,” Ashe said slowly, his voice cold.
When Sid didn’t say anything, Ashe walked toward the door. He’d said more than he’d planned to say and the last thing he wanted to do was stand there and watch Sid destroy the book, so Ashe bade him goodnight and saw himself out, heart sinking. As he made his way down the steps, the door opened.
“Just because you’re screwing my daughter doesn’t give you the right to barge in here and lecture me. You don’t know a thing about my family,” Sid yelled as he stood between the front door and its frame.
“I don’t know everything about your family,” replied Ashe, “but I know your daughter, Mr. Eames, and I would do anything for her.”
Sid frowned and opened his mouth as if about to speak but stopped himself, his face set in a grim expression as he slammed the door shut.
As Ashe strode to the town car idling at the curb, one of the things he loved about Riley began to make sense. She always managed to find the good in everything, which made her appear too kind-hearted and weak to some people. Growing up with a father like Sid Eames, it must have been that or despair.