Chapter Twenty-Seven
Only Lynette and Storm remained on the walk between the lodge and the parking lot.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Storm asked.
The need to know why Storm had repeatedly driven by her house overshadowed Lynette’s earlier embarrassment over her rescue. She looked back toward the beach. Two of the red Adirondack chairs sat on the sand not far off the walkway. She could hobble that far.
“Let’s grab those chairs over there.”
He nodded and walked beside her, keeping his steps measured. When she noticed the way his gaze snagged on Renee’s totem pole, Lynette nodded at it. “The woman who carved that promised us it represented her great-great-grandfather. He was a truth seeker, and anyone who gazes upon it will be forced to tell the truth.”
Storm pulled up short in front of the pole to stare at the carvings. “Seriously?”
Despite how nervous Storm’s presence made her feel, Lynette laughed. “No. We just thought the totem poles were cute when we saw them at a luau on our girls’ trip to Maui. Renee had one shipped here.”
Storm rolled his eyes, then motioned for her to precede him across the short expanse of sand to the chairs. “Be careful.”
“Obviously,” Lynette said, frustrated over having to maneuver across sand on crutches.
Once they were both settled in the chairs, Storm took the crutches from Lynette and laid them off to the side. Her eyes found the tiny butterfly tattoo on his inner arm, drawn to it like a magnet. She wondered if the butterfly she’d spotted on the sidewalk by the lodge had been a sign that she needed to clear the air, once and for all, with this man.
She cleared her throat. “Now, I need to know why you were at Owen’s the other day, and why you kept driving by my house.”
He sighed and faced the water. A pair of sunglasses hung from a strap around his neck. The strap probably kept them from flying off while fishing in a boat. Lynette felt a twinge of disappointment when he put them on against the glare of the morning sun. She wanted to look into his eyes to help gauge the truth of whatever it was he was about to tell her.
“I suppose Owen and I are like you and the rest of your friends here at Whispering Pines. We met when we were kids, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. We’ve even been business partners. I don’t get back to Ruby Shores much anymore, but I do still have that lake house I lived in, back when you and I dated.”
A shiver ran down Lynette’s spine at the mention of Storm’s old house. She’d never told Storm, or anyone else, the truth behind what she had been running from on that long-ago night when she’d crashed his truck.
“You cold?” he asked. She couldn’t tell through his sunglasses whether he was looking at her.
“No. Go on.” She had no intention of bringing up that night, and she hoped he wouldn’t either.
“I spend most of my time on Nantucket during the summer months. Bought a place out there about five years ago. It needs some pretty extensive renovations, and I finally got around to lining those up this summer. Since it isn’t really livable at the moment, I came back to Ruby Shores and finally got the old lake house cleaned up. I may sell. Owen gave me a hand out there with a project, so I returned the favor by helping him with his fancy deck.”
Lynette wasn’t sure why she’d assumed no one from Ruby Shores had kept in touch with Storm. He and Owen had gotten along when they’d all worked together at the pizza place, though Storm was two years older.
She would have loved to pepper him with questions about his life and career through the years, but that would make her look too interested. Instead, she’d let him drive the conversation.
He shifted in the chair. “I got sand in my shoes.”
She watched as he kicked off a pair of hiking shoes and socks. The man could use a pedicure. Not that Lynette treated herself to them often these days, but still. If he saw her grin, he ignored it.
“That was my truck you saw this summer. The windows are dark, so I hoped you wouldn’t see that it was me inside.”
“Trust me, you don’t look much like the old Storm I used to know. I doubt I’d have recognized you, even with the windows down. But maybe, if you want to stay incognito, you shouldn’t drive around in such a flashy truck.”
He kicked a little sand. “Touché. I guess you’ve always had a thing for me and my trucks. You were bound to figure out it was me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Lynette said. It was a valid point, but not one she’d ever own up to.
“I could say the same to you,” he replied with a quick tap on the arm of her chair. “Because, believe it or not, I was looking at the house, not you.”
She batted his hand away. “Ouch. Way to deflate a girl’s ego.”
He laughed. “Fine. I was looking at you, too. I knew who you were, and I wanted to see if you’d changed much. I’m human. But I’m being honest when I say that I was checking out the house. I’d hoped to buy it if it ever went on the market. But then my old nemesis swept in and bought it right out from under me.”
Lynette wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “You want to buy my house? But why?”
“No, I wanted to buy Raven Black’s house,” he said. “The house used to belong to Sybil Wall before she passed. I believe your mother worked with Sybil at the nursing home, right?”
She was having a hard time following. “You knew Sybil?”
“I certainly did. I even spent time in that house when I was a little kid. In your house,” he clarified. “This will probably come as a surprise, but Sybil was family. And so is Raven, of course, but she and my mom butted heads so badly that I never really developed any kind of relationship with her.”
“You’re related to Raven?”
Storm nodded. “I doubt she even remembers me. Her brother was my father. Sybil was my great-grandmother.”
Lynette sat up straight and leaned her body toward Storm. “Was Gideon Gage your father?”
Storm pushed his glasses up on top of his head. His eyes, still the same piercing blue, held hers. “My father died a long time ago. How do you even know his name? Did Sybil or Raven tell you or your mother about us?”
She could tell the answers to those questions were of vital importance to him, but she doubted her answers were the ones he wanted to hear. She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. I mean, if either of them told Donna about you, she kept that to herself. But how is it you never told me any of this when we were together?”
He shrugged. “Why would I? My father died when I was a kid. My mother’s family never accepted him. My grandfather on Mother’s side insisted, right until the day he died, that my father ruined any chances she had to build a family with a good Catholic boy. Truth is, Dad knocked Mom up when she was only nineteen. They married, but the hard feelings ran deep. How well did you know Sybil?”
Lynette could hardly believe the family ties between Sybil, Raven, and her old boyfriend. But she remembered the way her breath had hitched when she saw the headstone in the cemetery back in Ruby Shores. The last name of Gage had seemed like a coincidence. Just because she’d dated a guy named Storm Gage when she was seventeen didn’t mean it was the same family. A man named Kenneth was the only person she’d ever heard Storm refer to as Dad. His mom’s name was Delaney, and they’d divorced a few years before Lynette met Storm.
None of that matched with what little she knew about Sybil’s family.
“I found Sybil’s grave. And her husband’s. Donna explained to me that Sybil and her husband—I forget his name—only had one daughter. I think her name was Eleanor. There was a headstone marking the grave of Eleanor and her husband, too. The names Raven and Gideon were listed on the bottom. I knew Raven had a twin brother who died of cancer. I can’t believe you are Gideon’s son.”
Storm held up one hand to stop her. “Why would you be spending time in a cemetery looking at headstones?”
“We found some old pictures in a locked box, and Donna was trying to remember who was who in Sybil’s life.”
“You call your mother Donna?”
“We worked together for years. Habit.”
“Were there other things in the box?” he pressed. “Anything interesting?”
The sun was hurting Lynette’s eyes, and she wished she’d grabbed her own sunglasses. She held up a hand to block the sun and give her eyes a break. “Well, not money or anything else terribly valuable, if you were wondering why someone locked the box.”
“What can I say? I’m a practical man,” he said with a laugh.
“There were the two wedding pictures—it would have been your grandparents’ wedding then. Two locks of straight black baby hair. They tied one with a pink ribbon and one with blue. We think they had to belong to Raven and her brother. Come to think of it, you used to have straight black hair like that.”
He ran one hand over his shiny scalp. “The years haven’t been kind to me.”
She had to disagree—he still looked very fine to her—but she’d keep that to herself.
“What else did you find?”
“There was a ring,” she said. “The setting looked vintage to me. The center stone is probably a diamond. Donna told Raven about it—about everything we found—and she’s holding on to it for her. They’ll swing by Ruby Shores the next time they’re in Minneapolis.” She thought back to the other items, then chuckled. “There were a handful of small stones. I think they were probably crystals, because Sybil was a little woo-woo. She studied old religions and told my mom about them. We even found a deck of tarot cards. I actually brought those out here, to Whispering Pines, just for fun. Renee pulled the Death card and got all freaked out. I felt bad. But last night, when I thought I might drown out there after being so stupid, I wondered if that card was actually meant for me.”
She let out a nervous giggle, but Storm didn’t look amused. “Don’t joke about drowning. My dad’s parents drowned, leaving him an orphan. Believe me, that fact bounced around inside my head a few times when we were searching the dark water for you last night.”
She reached for and caught his hand in hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He sounded so despondent at that moment. The gesture was automatic, but she dropped his hand the second she realized what she’d done. He pulled his back and crossed his arms, tucking both hands in.
“Sorry,” she said. “Reflex.”
He shrugged. “Forget about it. Anyway, Sybil’s fascination with many religions, including the occult, was the main reason my mother’s family refused to acknowledge my dad’s family. Then, after my father died, that was it. Mother forbid me from having any contact with my aunt or my great-grandmother.”
Lynette considered this. “How old were you when your father died?”
“Ten or so. Mother never was the type of woman to survive long on her own. She married again and had another kid. That’s why there’s such a big age gap between me and my only brother. I’m fifty-two, he’s thirty-six now.”
Lynette was more interested in Storm’s connection to Sybil than his mother’s story. His mother had been horrible to her when they were dating. She still suspected the woman had been home on that terrible night when Lynette’s attack left her with no choice but to take Storm’s truck without permission.
She turned her attention back to Storm. “You were ten when Gideon died . . . Were you in my house before he passed away? In Sybil’s house, I mean?”
He rocked his head from side to side, as if he was trying to remember the details from so long ago. “I think it was after he died. Sybil wasn’t exactly someone who liked to follow the rules. She didn’t care that my mother didn’t want me to see her.”
“I guess that runs in the family, too,” she said.
He smiled. “I wasn’t supposed to go by Sybil’s. Ever. Of course, that was all the more reason for me to ride my bike past there when I was a boy. Once in a while, she’d be home and spot me. She’d invite me in and load me up on her famous chocolate chip cookies. In fact, I told Donna that when I was in your kitchen last week.”
“Donna knows you were Sybil’s great-grandson? And you were in my kitchen last week?” Lynette asked, shocked.
Was this yet another secret her mother was keeping from her?
“No, she didn’t recognize me. That must run in your family,” Storm laughed. “But seriously, she had no idea. Owen introduced me as Taran, because that’s what he always calls me. She was already upset about the water in your basement. I thought it might throw her off too much if I told her who I really was.”
Then Lynette had another thought. She pulled her phone out of a side pocket in her capris and opened her photos.
“Are you going to take a picture of me for her and tattle on me now?”
“Maybe I should,” she said, but then she shook her head. “No. I have an idea. The only other things in the box I found were pictures of a young boy. We had no idea who he might be. But now I’m wondering if it was you. I snapped pictures of the photos to share with Raven, so hold on a sec . . .”
Once she found them, she handed her phone to Storm.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“So, Taran Gage, are you the young boy in the photos?” she asked, as if he were on the stand in a mock trial.
“It would appear so,” he said, holding the phone closer for a better look.
She watched him struggle to see the picture. Maybe it was the bright sunlight, or maybe it was just because he’d, like her, passed the half-century mark.
“If you’d like the original pictures, swing by sometime,” she said. “But back to what sent us down this fascinating path. Why did you want to buy the house? You don’t live in Ruby Shores. Did you just like it that much as a kid? Or is it to get back at your mother and family for trying to alienate you from your father’s family?”
He flipped his sunglasses back down. “I wanted it for my brother. For Shane.”
“For Shane? You just said your brother is thirty-six years old. Isn’t he old enough to buy himself a house? I can tell from your fancy truck that you’ve had some financial success, but that seems overly generous.”
When he didn’t return her smile, she suspected she’d said something wrong.
“Storm?”
“Shane was born with developmental disabilities. He’ll never be able to live independently. Our selfish mother washed her hands of both of us years ago. His father, Kenneth, died a little over a year ago. I hated that man for the way he’d treated all three of us, but the one good thing he did was provide for Shane. Now I’m all Shane has left. I want to find a large enough home for him to live comfortably with a caretaker and that I can visit from time to time. Sybil’s house would have been perfect. I used to tell Shane about it when he was a toddler. I’d pretend it was a castle and our great-grandmother was a white witch. He’d have loved to live there.”
“But I stole it out from under you when I bought it from Raven before it could even go on the market. Believe it or not, sometimes my friends accuse me of being a witch. Ironic, isn’t it?”
He sat on the edge of his chair and rested his forearms on his knees. His thumb went to the small butterfly tattoo. “You couldn’t have known I wanted the house. It’s been decades since I last talked to my aunt. She wouldn’t have had any reason to think I’d want the house, either. I don’t think she would hold my mother’s appalling behavior toward her and Sybil against me, but we don’t have a relationship.”
“I still can’t believe we did that,” Lynette said.
As if he’d been miles away in his mind, her comment snapped his attention back to her. “Did what?”
“Got matching tattoos,” she said, nodding toward his arm. “I wasn’t even eighteen yet, but you convinced the tattoo artist to do it anyhow.”
“I’d given her plenty of business up to that point,” he said with a grin.
“And she thought you were sexy,” Lynette added.
He wriggled his eyebrows. “So did you. You asked her to place your tattoo in a much more private spot, I seem to recall. Did you keep it? Or did you regret it and have it removed?”
She expelled an exaggerated sigh. “That, Mr. Taran Gage, is no longer any of your business. By the way—”
Shouts coming from the lodge interrupted their banter. She’d been about to press him on the origin of his nickname, Storm, when Jackie’s voice yanked her attention away.
Even from their chairs in the sand, Lynette could see that Jackie was upset, and poor Owen must be on the receiving end of her tirade, since he was the only other person she could see.
Storm let out a low whistle. “Something has her panties in a bunch.”
Disgusted, Lynette pushed up out of her chair. Unaccustomed to her need for crutches, she started to topple to the side when her ankle couldn’t support her. Bracing for a mortifying collision with the hopefully forgiving sand, she slammed her eyes shut, preferring not to see Storm’s amusement over her clumsiness.
But she didn’t fall. He might be older, but his reflexes were still razor-sharp, and his chest wasn’t nearly as forgiving as the sand would have felt. It happened so quickly; she froze. He might have pulled her a hair closer before releasing her, but she couldn’t be sure.
He stepped back but grabbed one of her hands to help her balance on one foot while he picked up her crutches. “Careful. We aren’t as young as we used to be. A fall could cost you more than an ankle.”
His teasing helped break the tension, and she gratefully accepted the crutches.
But the tension between Jackie and Owen sounded like it might be escalating, and she stretched to see around Storm. “Think we should break the two of them up?”
“Or we could watch. It might be entertaining.”
She shook her head, then embarked on her trek back to the easier-to-traverse sidewalk. “I hate that saying, by the way.”
He followed, kicking sand at her heels. He was still barefoot and carrying his shoes and socks in his hand. “What saying?”
She grunted, frustrated with the physical effort it was taking to stay upright on the uneven sand, but also over her dislike of condescending, sexist comments, like the one he’d made about panties.
It was time for the men to get back to their fish.
She suspected Jackie was feeling the same way.