Chapter Three #3
A weird sense of giddiness filled Rachel, one she didn’t want to examine too closely. Oakley wanted her and was willing to pay big-time to keep her. “Well,” she began, “you’re not going to believe who just dropped by.”
* * *
She’d said yes. Oakley thanked his lucky stars as he climbed out of his car and handed the keys to the valet.
He’d been driving home when his sister Cheyenne had texted, and after such a crazy day, he’d taken her up on her suggestion of meeting for a drink.
He’d turned around and headed for The Green Door, a speakeasy in the Emerald Ridge Hotel.
With the hotel having a variety of other places, such as Captain’s, Cucina and the Emerald Ridge Café, the Green Door was a hidden gem.
To enter, one had to ask for the password at the front desk.
After getting that, he went down the hall and entered through a nondescript door with green molding.
Once inside the five-by-five antechamber, he picked up the handset, spoke into the receiver and then someone buzzed him through an actual door painted an emerald shade of green.
The speakeasy itself was dimly lit with warm golden lamps and brass sconces.
A bar ran along one wall, and the others displayed an eclectic collection of framed photographs and vintage memorabilia.
Rich emerald-green velvet armchairs and a deep brown leather sofa surrounded small brass tables, and these created various intimate seating areas.
Oriental-style area rugs in jewel tones defined various spaces, while flickering, flameless candles added ambience.
Low conversations hummed, and he found Cheyenne texting on her phone, cocktail on the table in front of her.
“Hey,” he said. He bent down and kissed her forehead before dropping into the armchair perpendicular to the love seat on which she sat. “Thanks for suggesting this impromptu get-together when I called.”
She sipped some of her martini. “Why not? I’m right upstairs and wanted to get out of my room following a conference call I had about the wedding.”
“The one you still plan on attending?”
“Hence the martini. At least I’m not driving.” As part of her relocation to Emerald Ridge, his twenty-six-year-old sister was staying in a suite on one of the upper levels.
“That rough?”
“One way to put it.” She lifted the lemon drop martini and took a sip.
“I’m glad you’re here. Better to drink with you than alone, and…
” She let the rest of the thoughts go in a resigned exhale.
“I keep reminding myself they’re my friends and that the bride is one of my best friends, even if it doesn’t feel like it since she asked me to step down as a bridesmaid. ”
If it had been up to him, Oakley would have cancelled attending and told the bride to take a hike.
The wedding was in St. Thomas, and Cheyenne would travel to the Virgin Islands at her expense.
Even after being asked to step down from the wedding party, she’d insisted on going.
Oakley hated that his sister suffered. Her ex had dumped her a few months ago, and since said ex happened to be the groom’s best man, the bride had clearly lost this round to her fiancé.
Cheyenne had been dumped twice, once by her ex and then by the bride.
“Well, you look great, and he’ll be sorry he lost you,” he said. He reached for the menu. “You’ll be the best-looking one there.”
“Minus the bride.” She fingered the thin stem of the glass.
“Including the bride,” Oakley insisted, for his sister was a curvy, petite blonde who often didn’t realize how pretty she was.
“I know she feels terrible,” Cheyenne said, proving she also had the biggest heart of all the siblings, which is why it hurt him that the bride had dissed Cheyenne this way.
Had it been Oakley, he would have already exorcised the best friend from his life, same as he had his cheating ex-wife.
But not his sister. She thought the best of everyone.
This was one reason she was so good as a volunteer in the geriatrics department at Emerald Ridge Memorial Hospital.
She had a heart of gold. After a stint in the NICU, she assisted with the comprehensive care for those sixty-five and up.
While she figured out her next steps career-wise, she’d discovered she had a particular affinity for senior care.
Oakley hoped it worked out for her. As he ordered a cocktail from the roving server, he wished there was something more he could do for his sister.
“Tell me more about the guy you found on the riverbank,” Cheyenne urged. “You were kind of vague when we chatted yesterday before everyone got online with us.”
“Yeah. Dad actually saw him first.” Oakley filled her in on the details, including Clemons’s rifling through the man’s pockets. “Crazy. Big gash on his head. We have no idea what the stuff in his pockets meant.”
She leaned forward. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I know you won’t violate privacy laws. The ER docs had to race him to surgery. I left before I found out the results.”
“I hope he’s going to be okay. I feel a little protective since I found him.” And also because his father had read the letter and showed Oakley a photo that had given him the strangest sense of déjà vu.
“There’s more.” She scooted forward and waited while the server delivered his smoked old-fashioned. She lowered her voice, and Oakley strained to hear. “My friends told me he didn’t have any ID on him. No one knows who he is. He’s in the system as Johnny Doe.”
“Really? That’s what the cops said when they were at the scene, but I thought they would have identified him by now.”
“Nope. He’s still unconscious.” She eased back. “Calling him Johnny Doe is better than Patient Alpha. Sounds more personal. I could text someone and get an update, if you want.”
Oakley sipped his drink. The bourbon warmed his chest. “Nah. Let’s leave it be for now. Maybe I’ll go visit him tomorrow. I’d like to check on him and see how he’s doing.”
“If you wait until afternoon, I could meet you,” Cheyenne suggested. “Maybe I can help, since I do have access to the ICU floor. That’s where he’s been moved.”
“That’s a great idea. And afternoon is fine. Let’s say after 1:00 p.m.? I want to make sure my admin shows at noon.”
Cheyenne waved off the server’s offer of another martini and let him take away the empty glass. “Why wouldn’t she show? You said she was great the last time we talked and that you were pleased with her work.”
“Why? Because of our father.” He quickly explained about the lawsuit.
Cheyenne leaned against the back of the couch and crossed her ankles. “Wow. You didn’t mention that earlier.”
“I was still processing it. What are the odds? Does everything our father touches have to come to ruin?”
As Daddy’s girl, Cheyenne was the one who was always quickest to defend Clemons, and she didn’t fail to rise to the occasion now. “It’s a terrible coincidence, but it’s not Dad’s fault.”
“Cheyenne, even you can agree that he didn’t need to level a hundred thousand dollar lawsuit against a single mother whose baby puked. Come on, sis. You must admit that’s going a step too far.”
To his irritation, Cheyenne once again jumped to Clemons’s defense. “I’m sure he had his reasons. He’s not without his flaws, though. Even I can see them. But surely he wasn’t simply being cantankerous. He wouldn’t do that.”
Oakley chose not to disillusion her. His father had rifled through an unconscious man’s pockets.
And he’d almost bankrupted Rachel. Oakley wished that his baby sister wasn’t so naive at times.
But, since Clemons was their father, he didn’t belabor the point by reminding her about the returned bottles of wine or the haircut their dad had refused to pay for.
She’d simply tell him to suck it up where their dad was concerned, which was what the siblings often did, if only to honor their late mother. Oakley didn’t like doing it.
Instead, he shifted the conversation back to Rachel. “Because of him, I had to pay a pretty penny to get her to agree to work for me again. I went to her place to apologize. She’s got a nine-month-old daughter, so now I’m paying for childcare, too.”
“I love babies,” Cheyenne gushed. “Is her daughter cute?”
“Adorable. I got to hold her.” A smiled tugged at his lips. “You’d love Allie. Rachel’s raised her well. She’s a good mom.”
“She must be something. You didn’t even chase your last admin when she said she wasn’t moving from Dallas.”
“Susan was also sixty and ready to retire, so no matter how much money I offered, it wouldn’t ever be enough.
She was done. I’m hoping that Rachel and I can work together for a long time—she’s that good,” he admitted.
“People in my Dallas office like her already, and it hasn’t even been that long. She won them over that fast.”
Cheyenne leaned slightly to the left, tilted her head and studied Oakley. “High praise indeed. And you like her, too.”
He gave a nonchalant shrug that seemed forced. “Why wouldn’t I? She’s my admin. It’s a two-person office. We have to get along.”
Cheyenne puckered her pink-stained lips as she called his bluff. “I meant that you like her, like her.”
“I do not.”
His denial came too hard and too fast. His sister straightened and pushed some of her long hair behind her ear. “Liar.”