Chapter Fifteen
Darby was beside herself with all kinds of emotions she didn’t quite know how to process. She had an extra sister she’d never known about. Sunshine had still been married to their father all this time and no one knew, not even Sunshine.
Victoria stayed behind in the parlor with their father’s lawyer, Miles Lang. Clearly, there was something going on between the two of them. She knew it. She wondered how long that had been a thing. But she approved of the match. They looked good together and Victoria deserved to be happy.
While not as shocking as the other news that had been revealed today, it was surprising to see the two of them huddled together. As Darby thought about the minutes before the reading of the will, she realized she had seen them sending each other a couple of meaning-filled glances.
Looking back with a more critical eye, she thought they had done the same thing throughout the reading of the will. Did they even know they’d done that? Probably not.
Darby hoped things worked out for them.
She knew from Aunt Lily that Victoria had been widowed for quite a number of years. Having her eldest half-sister start a new romance on Valentine Key seemed wonderful, even with all the shocking news that had been revealed today.
She herself had been married for over twenty years. While her marriage certainly had its ups and downs, like every marriage on planet Earth, Darby didn’t know what she would do without Nate. She loved him dearly.
Darby was grateful that they were still happily together after all this time. She considered herself lucky that her husband was a good man. Not perfect, but certainly a good guy, a family man and devoted to her and their girls. Nate never once whined that she hadn’t given him a son. From the beginning, he’d thrown himself into being the best father he could be to their girls.
She wished he’d been able to come to the reading of the will with her, so he could have heard all the shocking details in person, but he’d had a meeting he couldn’t get out of.
Who knew the town council vice-chair of such a small place as Valentine Key would be required to attend so many meetings? No doubt Colleen’s fiancé would have appreciated the company of his future brother-in-law in the crowd of Lovelock women, by blood or by marriage.
As soon as they’d left the parlor, Colleen had hurried to Alex’s side to fill him in on everything that happened. Since he wasn’t named in Horatio’s will, he hadn’t been permitted to stay for the family-only portion of the reading.
Darby remembered Victoria as a quiet girl, but a good person. What she knew likely came from Aunt Lily, along with all the pictures and video she’d ever seen of her eldest sister. Lord knew that one day ago, she hadn’t seen her in person since she’d been about two years old.
And it wasn’t just Victoria but Jessica and Jacklyn, too.
Darby only knew what she did about any of her half-sisters because of what Aunt Lily shared when she and Colleen and Evaline visited while she was growing up.
Since then, because she’d been the only one of them to live on Valentine Key for all these years, Darby had garnered quite a lot of information about all her sisters that she had tucked away in her brain. She certainly knew more about their half-sisters than either of her full sisters knew.
It was possible it would be useful in the coming year, if they all picked up their father’s challenge to move to the key and run some businesses. That, or whatever knowledge she thought she had about her sisters would be disproven.
She knew her aunt wouldn’t out-and-out lie, so she suspected her half-sisters would be exactly what she thought they were.
The only mystery was Marigold, Mari, as she preferred to be called. The poor woman was visibly overwhelmed by what had happened today, but she seemed like a good person. At least that was the impression Darby had from meeting her as all the sisters, the two ex-wives and Aunt Lily rallied around the newcomer to welcome her to the family.
Well, Sunshine had been married to their father all this time, so she wasn’t technically an ex-wife. Yet another surprise.
The biggest surprise of all was the challenge she was going to have to undertake in running a preselected business to compete against her sisters for a year so she could have some small, one-seventh share of their father’s personal wealth. And she figured she wouldn’t find out what that sum was until the year had gone by and she’d participated in the competition.
Her first thought had been, Really? I have to start another business and run it for a year? When is that going to happen? I guess I can give up sleeping every night, if I want to take part in the rivalry. And would it be worth it to receive one-seventh of an absentee father’s personal wealth after decades of neglect?
Darby didn’t know the answer to that final question. Heck, she was already running ninety miles an hour in her life, with four busy daughters and a full-time business she operated with her husband. She couldn’t even contemplate adding a second business to manage with everything else going on.
Even so, it did intrigue her. She wondered what business her father had selected for her to manage.
Darby knew for a fact that Colleen would be intrigued enough do pick up the challenge. She’d already proven to herself and anyone who knew her that she could run a business perfectly well. Probably with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. Colleen had been running, managing, and creating a full-time skincare line for a decade or longer. At least she had until she sold the business for megabucks.
Darby was interested to see what their father had chosen for Colleen to do. Whatever it was, she had no doubt her sister would ace it.
The mystery of which business each of the sisters would get to run completely tantalized her. She couldn’t wait to find out what each of them would be doing all year. If they participated, that was. Darby was leaning in that direction, even though she had no earthly idea what it could be and where she’d find the time.
Another thing Darby knew to be true had to do with Aunt Lily. Darby suspected her aunt was struggling with the Lovelock Inn. She kept vowing to herself that she would step in and help her just as soon as she could.
But that was an empty promise, because she was going to have to top ninety-one miles an hour to add anything else to her plate. And now she was facing a new business to manage for a year. It was a lot. Would she have time to help Aunt Lily on top of that?
Deep down inside, she hated running the Heart’s Desire convenience store. She had some thoughts about another business she’d rather run. Would her father have figured that out? Or was she about to be cutting fish bait at the marina and facing a truly miserable year?
She hoped not, because it would be nice if one of her deep-down dreams could possibly come true. If she could run a bookstore with a little coffee shop on the side, that would be her dream come to life. So that was probably out. Still, she could dream.
She wondered if she was up for this challenge at all. Would she be able to balance everything in her life to make it happen or would she simply topple her carefully stacked life and ruin everything?
As if unconsciously, the people in the dining room had clustered in two groups. Mari was with Aunt Lily, Sunshine and the twins, while Darby was with her mother and two sisters, along with Colleen’s fiancé, several feet away in a circle.
By the time Victoria and Miles joined everyone in the dining room for drinks and refreshments, there had been very little discussion about anything but the coming businesses and how the sisters would manage them.
What would they have to do? What were the details? When were they going to find out? Where would everyone live once they got to Valentine Key? Would any of them bow out? Who would take up the challenge?
Darby didn’t know, but curiosity was about to take her down.
“I know that everyone has a lot of questions and I’m delighted to answer them,” Miles said after getting something to drink. “To start off, I will give you each a packet with the general information about what will be required and the benchmarks by which you’ll be rated at the end of the year. You can all read these at your leisure. You don’t have to do it now.”
He took another swig from his bottle of water and continued. “There will be a clear, definable winner for this challenge and everyone will know what that challenge is upfront and what it will take to get there for each of your businesses.”
Darby said, “Are you going to meet with us individually? Or should we all be together in the same room when we discuss our businesses, once we learn what they are? I for one would consider a group meeting at the outset, and then we could split off and talk individually, if it was needed. Thoughts, everyone?”
“I agree,” Victoria said. “While it’s possible that our father wanted to pit us against each other—or, as he called it, ‘have a healthy competition’—I find that I’d rather work together so that we all succeed regardless of the outcome and who is the actual winner of this unexpected challenge.”
No one said anything, but there were a lot of nodding heads. Darby agreed and was glad there didn’t seem to be any cutthroat sentiments from any of them. It was refreshing and likely would have disappointed Horatio.
Miles asked if everyone could meet the next day at ten o’clock in the morning. Again, everyone nodded.
“Lily, would it be okay if we use your parlor again for these meetings?” he asked.
Aunt Lily looked up in the air as if she had to think about it, then nodded. “I guess the parlor can remain the family business center for another day. No problem.”
“Excellent.” Miles retrieved his briefcase, opened it, and handed out seven plastic packets, each with a handwritten name across the center front, carefully enclosing what looked like a gold envelope that would hold letter-sized paper.
As he called out their names, each sister walked to Miles to retrieve her packet of information. Darby ended up being last in line, walking the length of the dining room to retrieve her envelope.
Standing next to Miles, Darby opened her packet and the envelope and peeked inside. She couldn’t see any specific words that told her what her business would be. She was about to haul all the papers out and take a look when she thought better of it.
She truly hated it when Nate brought any paperwork to the dinner table while they were all eating. Inevitably, a drip or stain from their food would wind up on at least one sheet of paper. She didn’t want to be that person.
She glanced around the room, noting that no one else had even cracked their packet open. She resealed her envelope, put it back in the plastic packet and tucked it under one arm. Clearly, everyone was going to wait. Maybe that was best. Perhaps she needed to be all alone to discover her fate and decide how she’d handle it.
Darby would most assuredly want to be all alone if she found out that her new business venture for the next year would involve cutting bait at the Valentine Key Marina. There might be quite a lot of howling in frustration if that was her fate.
Her mother was standing between Evaline and Colleen, so Darby made her way over to the three of them and Alex, who had his arm around Colleen.
Once in their little circle, her mother got a look on her face that Darby predicted heralded an anger-fueled diatribe regarding why she’d been told to attend the will reading. She was not disappointed.
“I cannot believe your father held onto my property for all these years. I knew he had that painting! And I know he kept it on purpose, too!” Kelly kept her voice low so as not to allow anyone other than her three daughters and Colleen’s fiancé to hear her, but her tone was filled with fury.
Evaline, ever the soother of hurt feelings, said, “Now, Mom, he probably forgot he had it.”
“I will never believe that!” Their mother crossed her arms and got that pinched look on her face that said she was particularly perturbed.
For years, the story of their mother’s “stolen” painting had surfaced on occasion if the topic of art ever arose.
The three of them all knew the story verbatim.
As Kelly told it, she and Horatio had been on their honeymoon in Liechtenstein when they saw the painting in the front window of a very exclusive art gallery. Kelly had wanted it and Horatio had bought it for her.
It had hung in their home until she’d redecorated after Darby was born and it went into the attic, because it didn’t go with the motif of the new décor.
After they’d had the big fight at Christmas when Horatio insisted yet again that Kelly try to have a fourth child, hoping for a son, she had packed the three little girls up and left him. Apparently, the painting had remained behind, likely in the attic where she’d put it after her decorating binge.
However, when Kelly requested its return, Horatio claimed he couldn’t find the piece and it must have gotten lost.
Their mother never believed it. She insisted he’d held onto it to be spiteful and now she was vindicated. One would think she’d be happier about it.
Darby said, “Well, at least you will have it back after all this time. Clearly, it was very important to you.” She didn’t really believe that it was an important item to her mother. What was important was that Horatio had kept it from her for all these years and told her he didn’t have it.
Kelly’s response was to frown and lift one shoulder in a half-shrug. Darby noticed that her mother’s piercing gaze seemed to constantly go to Sunshine, especially whenever she moved around the room.
According to Aunt Lily, Sunshine Lovelock had always been a very warm and gracious person. Kelly, while not a terrible person, was not really a warm and gracious person. She felt like Horatio had wronged her. Maybe he had.
While Darby could certainly understand how and why she felt that way and agreed with her mother on that score, her dislike of Sunshine simply because she’d married Horatio was something Darby didn’t support.
Kelly was wrong to blame her in any way for what happened after her bitter and long divorce from Horatio was finally over. It had taken almost a year for their attorneys to finalize Kelly and Horatio’s separation and custody agreement.
Horatio had not been kind to their mother in the years after their divorce. Their relationship had been contentious before, during and after the final papers were signed. In the years after the final decree was issued, Kelly rued the day she married him at all. She never seemed to remember that she at least got three daughters out of the deal.
If the inconceivable were ever to happen and Darby and Nate separated, she would be forever grateful to him for her children. She had always had a different approach to motherhood than her own mother. Her children were everything to her.
So much time had gone by since that particular hurt in Kelly’s life, Darby wished her mother could get past it. It wasn’t like her mother was sitting at home doing nothing all alone in her grief over the dissolution of her marriage.
She had remarried five years after her divorce from Horatio. Clifton Abbott was the polar opposite of Horatio, and Cliff and her mother were better suited. At least Darby had always thought so. They had both been brought up in the wealthy high society of Philadelphia and understood all the rules and vagaries of that lifestyle.
Horatio had the same upbringing, but his personality was too strong for Kelly to bend. Cliff’s was not.
While Horatio had always seemed larger than life, Cliff could melt into the wallpaper of any party and no one would even notice. He was the very definition of mild-mannered and that was likely why he and Kelly had remained married all this time. Cliff was never going to argue with Kelly. If he didn’t agree with something she was carrying on about, he typically left the room to avoid any difficulties.
That wasn’t to say Cliff was a bad guy. He wasn’t. He’d been a nice enough stepfather to the three of them. He’d let Kelly handle any and all discipline from the get-go.
Darby appreciated that, although there were times when she thought Cliff might have been a lighter touch than Kelly regarding some of the more severe punishments when they’d been teenagers. He’d rather be liked than feared.
Across the room, Sunshine moved from chatting with her daughters to Aunt Lily, striking up a conversation with her. Darby noticed that her mother’s pinched expression had returned as she watched her perceived rival.
Kelly had been quite emotionally wounded when she found out Horatio had been celebrating his divorce from her in Las Vegas when he met Sunshine. Darby never understood why she was so against Horatio’s new marriage and wife.
It wasn’t a secret why he’d married a third time. He wanted a son. Since Kelly wasn’t going to give him one, he moved on to someone who would at least try.
Over the years, Darby had heard some unkind rumors on her father’s side of the family about Sunshine and her occupation while in Las Vegas. Quite a few terrible aspersions had been heaped on her in Philadelphia’s social circles in the name of anger, jealousy and all the other feelings her mother had way back then. Darby and her sisters had tried not to listen, but inevitably, those angry talking points had been shared between the three of them.
Aunt Lily was the one who set things straight whenever Darby and her sisters visited the Lovelock Inn on Valentine Key when they were younger. Aunt Lily was not a gossip, and she didn’t abide people saying lies about someone and not correcting those lies if she knew the truth. And, usually, she did.
Darby had adopted that practice throughout her life from Aunt Lily’s example. On the one hand, she understood why her mother was so bitter about the divorce. On the other, Sunshine Lovelock had never done anything to Kelly Lovelock Abbott except fall in love with her recently divorced ex-husband.
It was time to change the subject.
“Why don’t we go out for dinner just the four of us, like old times?” Darby asked, jarring her mother from the evil stare she cast upon Sunshine whenever she moved to a different place in the room.
“That would be great,” Colleen said. “Why don’t we go to the fancy Italian restaurant in downtown Valentine Key, like we use to whenever Mom would pick us up after our summer adventures with Aunt Lily?”
Evaline nodded. “I would love to do that.”
Their mother glanced at each one of them and finally nodded. “Sure. I guess so. Let’s do that. For old time’s sake.” She glanced at the very expensive and fashionable watch on her wrist, noting the time. “I will call and make us a reservation. How about eight o’clock tonight?”
Everyone agreed and a plan was made. Perfect.
Darby would have to head home for a little while and stop by the convenience store on the way to ensure all was quiet on that front before she went out to dinner with her mother and sisters. That was fine. That was the way Darby’s life worked. Ninety miles an hour on a small island in the Keys.
She was also going to take a few minutes to take a little peek at the contents of her envelope and see what was in store for her over the next year.
If both of her sisters did the same thing, and she assumed that they would, they could discuss that at dinner. Unless their mother didn’t want to hear about it. Then they’d have to get together later tonight to discuss things before their ten o’clock meeting tomorrow with Miles Lang, the possible romantic interest for their eldest sister, Victoria.
That turn of events made Darby smile.
Darby cast a thought to what Nate might think when he found out what Horatio wanted her to do regarding the management of another business. It wasn’t like he would begrudge her an inheritance or anything, but this coming management venture was definitely going to complicate their lives.
While Nate was a reasonable person on any given day, Darby expected he would not be as excited about this possible new venture as she was. She was not looking forward to telling him about it.