Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Daisy
God. He’s such a control freak.
I was so intent on proving that I’m nothing like my mother that I went to bat for him.
But I should have known he’d find a way to turn things around and come out on top.
Even more disturbing was that almost-kiss.
You wanted me to kiss you. And you would have kissed me back and begged for more.
He’s delusional.
Okay, so maybe a tiny part of me wanted him to kiss me. To grab the back of my head, fist my hair, and crush his lips against mine.
The air crackled with electricity, like we were hooked up to a power grid and I could feel him everywhere. The heat emanating from his skin. His large hand grasping my chin. His thumb brushing my lips. His hard length pressing against my stomach.
But I would have quickly come to my senses and remembered why he’s the last man I should want to kiss.
So it’s for the best that the kiss never happened. Especially now that he’s declared himself my new boss, conveniently forgetting that I hold just as much power as he does.
But isn’t that just like him?
So what if he has abs of steel and looks really, really good without a shirt? I can still envision him, hot and sweaty, swinging that axe. And the way he wrapped his arms around me from behind and showed me how to do it…my whole body tingled with awareness.
God . That was sexy.
But he’s still a dick and we still have to live under the same roof and work together. Which is what we’ve been forced into doing for the past week. So I’ve banished all thoughts of that almost-kiss and that sexy woodchopping scene from my head and focused on the job at hand.
“Sorry about this,” Pete says when we gather in the driveway to say our goodbyes.
He’s been apologizing all week but none of this is his fault. Harold completely misrepresented it. While it’s true Pete was planning to leave, he had every intention of staying until after the harvest. Until Harold told him he was no longer needed.
“I think this place will benefit from new leadership. I’m old and tired,” Pete says with a chuckle. “But you kids are still young with plenty of energy, and I’m willing to bet you’ve got plenty of ideas for how to change a few things around here.” He’s speaking to both of us, but he’s looking at Beckett. My new boss.
“So you think it’s time to stop doing things my father’s way,” Beckett says.
Translation: I’m going to do the opposite of everything my father did .
Pete strokes his jaw. “I knew your father for a long time. He was always fair with me. Treated me right. But that wasn’t the case for everyone. There were a lot of things your father did that I didn’t agree with. Things I would have changed if I were in charge. But at the end of the day, this was his vineyard, and his word was final. I stayed because I love this place and I didn’t want to see it ending up in the wrong hands.”
He looks at Beckett. “I’m hoping you’ll reconsider selling. I understand why you wouldn’t want to keep it. The way your father set this up is just plain wrong. Just like the way he treated your mother. Never got to tell you how sorry I am about that. She was a good woman.”
It takes a moment for Pete’s words to sink in but when they do it feels like I’ve been sucker punched in the stomach.
Was?
Beckett’s mother is dead?
From the corner of my eye, I watch Beckett. Back ramrod straight. Shoulders squared. Expression stoic. He tips his chin in thanks but remains silent.
“Good luck to you both,” Pete says. “I’m only a phone call away. But I doubt you’ll need me. I think you kids know what you’re doing.”
I’m not so sure about that. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive but now we’re being entrusted with hundreds of acres of grapevines, orchards and a vegetable garden.
Pete shakes Beckett’s hand and gives him a clap on the shoulder then turns to me with a soft smile on his wizened face. He’s been fatherly toward me and I’m going to miss him. A handshake doesn’t feel right so I give him a hug. “What’s next for you?”
He grins, looking more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. “I’m taking my wife on a long overdue vacation. And then I’m gonna kick back with a glass of wine and watch my grapevines grow.”
“You planted a vineyard?”
“Sure did. A few years back. Nothing as grand as this but it’s mine. Got a nice vegetable garden too. The grandkids love it. They all want to be farmers when they grow up just like their pappy,” he says with a chuckle, and with a final goodbye he climbs into his truck and drives away, leaving me and Beckett to our own devices.
I watch until Pete’s truck disappears down the long driveway before turning to Beckett who’s squinting into the setting sun, lost in his own thoughts.
His dark hair is messy and disheveled. His skin is bronzed from the sun. And there’s scruff on his jaw like he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days.
He’s beautiful , I think.
And his mother is dead.
I’m trying to find the right words, but I don’t know if there are any.
“Beck?” I touch his arm, and he looks down at me as if just realizing I’m standing right next to him. “I didn’t know about your mom. I’m sorry.”
His brow furrows. “You didn’t know?” He sounds skeptical.
“I had no idea. I just thought…” I release a breath. “What happened?” I shake my head. “You don’t have to tell me. I just…I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.”
“Yeah.” I almost say it again but stop myself. “Was it recent or…?”
“No,” he says tersely.
My stomach sinks. I’m not sure why it would have been better if it had been recent. Either way, she’s still gone. He still lost his mother.
“Where did you go after you left here?” I ask.
He gives me an annoyed look. “Why does it matter?”
“I don’t know.” It just does. It feels like the key to everything. “One day you were here and the next day you were gone. All I was told is that you moved to a new house with your mother. And I found my drawings in your trash can…” I let my voice drift off.
Why did I even mention those stupid drawings?
“Your drawings,” he says like he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Yeah.” I lower my eyes. “The ones I used to slip under your door.”
My cheeks burn with embarrassment. I don’t even know why I brought it up.
But I remember plucking one of them out of the trash and ripping it to shreds. A picture of myself with hearts for eyes and flowers blooming from my chest. At the top I wrote I LOVE YOU.
I remember it specifically because I’d worked so hard on getting the letters right.
When I saw it so carelessly tossed aside, my eight-year-old heart was crushed.
“Didn’t have much use for a little kid’s drawings at boarding school.”
My brows shoot up. “You went to boarding school?”
“It was your mother’s idea. She thought I needed discipline.” He laughs harshly. “The truth was that she didn’t appreciate me meddling in her affairs. I had the audacity to tell her to stay the hell away from my family. In the end, she won. My mother was forced to move in with my grandmother because my father left her with nothing. Once again, your mother’s fault.”
His jaw tenses. “She moved all the money into an account in her name. Creative accounting at its finest. Gold star for Astrid. But hey, my father went along with it so I guess she can’t take all the credit.”
My heart squeezes. I had no idea that any of this had been going on.
How could Robert have done that to his wife and son? How could he allow my mother to get away with all that?
“What happened to your mom?” I ask quietly. Now that I’ve gone down this road, I need to know the whole story. “Was it an accident?”
His eyes darken briefly and I can see the turmoil in the blue depths. “No. She spiraled into a deep depression she never emerged from. She couldn’t hold down a job. Gave up on basic hygiene. The antidepressants didn’t help. Nothing did.”
He’s staring at the sunset, and I’m waiting for him to finish, but the knot in my stomach twists tighter and I’m barely breathing.
I have a bad feeling that I know where this story is headed.
“When I was fifteen, she overdosed on prescription painkillers,” he says finally.
I swallow hard and try to speak past the lump in my throat. “I’m?—”
He holds up his hand, cutting me off. “Don’t. Just don’t,” he says sharply. “You’ve already said those words and they’re useless anyway. They don’t change anything.”
He’s right. It’s true. But what other words are there other than I’m sorry?
I’m picturing a teenaged Beckett being shipped off to boarding school and coming home to find his mother in the depths of depression.
He must have felt so helpless. He couldn’t save her. Couldn’t make things better. But I know he would have tried. Because that’s who he was back then.
A natural caretaker who patched up my bruises and helped me take care of a bird with a broken wing.
When the bird died, he helped me bury it. And when I cried over that bird’s grave, he told me that the bird had soared up to heaven and was flying above the clouds now.
That boy deserved the world.
“Are you okay?” I ask. It’s a stupid question. Even worse than telling him I’m sorry. But I feel the urge to comfort him somehow. To let him know that he’s not alone. “Do you need a hug?”
He gives me a look that clearly conveys he’d rather get stung by a scorpion than be hugged by me. “It was a long time ago, Daisy.”
Even though it was a long time ago, there’s so much repressed sadness in him that I wonder if he ever took the time to grieve.
“But there you go,” he says. “Now you know the story and can’t claim ignorance. And no, I don’t need a fucking hug.”
“Not much of a hugger, huh?”
With a shake of his head and a loud sigh, he turns on his heel and strides away.
God. This guy. He’s so closed off. His walls are high. An entire fortress protecting him.
When was the last time he gave or received any affection? I think he could have used that hug.
When the door closes behind him, I sink down onto the top step and stare blankly at the arbor of mature oaks flanking the driveway.
The first time my mother and I drove up that lane, I thought this was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen.
“It’s a palace!” I shouted from the back seat.
My mom laughed. “And you’re going to be the princess of this palace one day soon.”
I was so excited my stomach was doing cartwheels. “I am?”
“Play your cards right, baby, and this will all be ours.”
When my mother rang the doorbell, she held my hand and told me to look sad. I thought it was a game, so I played along.
The door swung open, and Beckett’s mom stood on the threshold. I remember that her hair was dark like Beckett’s and that she was beautiful and kind, the benevolent witch to my mother’s wicked one.
She welcomed us with a smile and offered us a place to live, completely unaware that my mother was going to ruin her life.
I had no idea what was going on at the time. Astrid never confided in me. She preferred to keep me in the dark and paint the picture the way she wanted it to appear. She always left out the finer details. Namely, the role she played in destroying people’s lives.
So I didn’t fully comprehend the extent of the damage until just now when Beckett told me his mother died of an overdose.
All this time, I pictured Diane Heyward alive and healthy, thriving without Robert. Maybe she’d remarried. Maybe she lived in an even bigger, grander house than this one. That was how my mother made it sound. As if they’d gone on to something better. A fresh start. A new life. But that’s obviously not what happened.
The two people Beckett should have been able to count on weren’t there for him.
His father abandoned him, and through no fault of her own so did his mother.
Beckett lost his home. His friends. And his mother. While I got to live the life he should have been living.
I stole his life. I lived in his home. I moved into his old bedroom. And I was raised by his father until I was thirteen.
When his mother died, I was ten years old and none the wiser. No one mentioned it. Not his father. Certainly not my mother.
Is it any wonder that the hopeful, optimistic boy I remember became a man who trusts no one?
Is it any wonder he treats me with disdain? I’m just another reminder of everything he’s lost.
Robert should have done right by his son. He shouldn’t have waited until it was too late to make amends, only to turn around and play such a cruel trick. And he never should have left half of everything to me.
I no longer care what Robert Heyward wanted. As far as I’m concerned, he can go to hell.
Love him or hate him, I’m Team Beckett now.