Chapter 2
The next morning, almost midmorning, Gail reached out and dialed the phone number she used to know by heart.
When he answered, there was surprise in his voice, “Gail?”
“Yeah,” she replied quietly. “I happened to be driving by your mom’s place and saw you getting home. I had no idea you were coming to town.”
“Well, I didn’t know either until a few days ago.”
After a moment of silence, she asked, “Could we meet?” She knew it wasn’t exactly smooth, and it sure as hell didn’t sound calm and collected, but she couldn’t help but feel a sense of eagerness, one that she couldn’t begin to suppress. “Please?” she murmured.
“Fine,” he replied. “When and where?”
“How about the coffee shop? I don’t know what your schedule is like or what you’re up to, but I could meet you there in an hour if that works.”
He hesitated and then confirmed, “Fine, I’ll be there.” And, with that, he was gone.
There was no give in his tone, but she had probably shocked him as much as anything.
And who was she kidding? It’s not as if she deserved anything sweet and forgiving in his voice.
He had been many things in her life, but it’s not as if her family had treated him well.
As a matter of fact, her family had treated him as badly as anybody could.
She was kicking herself for not asking if he could meet right away because, for the next hour, she would be touch-and-go for temperament—as she figured out what to wear, what not to wear, and what to say.
It was the what to say that was the problem.
She knew that she needed this for her own sake, for her own closure, but, damn, it was already harder than she expected.
When her mother called soon afterward, she reminded her, “You have your wedding dress fitting later today.”
“Yeah, I know,” she stated, her tone careful. Yet her mother was not somebody she could ever really get things by.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her tone sharp.
“Nothing. I’m just busy, and I’m tired.”
“Not having second thoughts, are you?”
She must have asked that very question once a day for the last, well, let’s be honest, since she’d gotten engaged. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
Her mother hesitated before sharing, “I want to know that you’ll be happy.”
“Right,” she replied, her tone almost mocking.
“Of course that’s what you’re all about.
I’m fine, and right now I’m really busy, so I’m going now.
” She quickly ended the call, knowing that even that much rebellion would cause her mother to have an anxiety attack, thinking something was seriously wrong. And maybe there was.
Most people would say that absolutely no way Gail should meet Riley for coffee, but she felt that she owed him and herself that opportunity.
She had never apologized. She had never in any way, shape, or form stepped up.
She hadn’t even talked to him after that godawful way she had left him in the middle of her mess, and she wasn’t proud of herself for any of it.
She had gone through a lot of therapy to try and sort through the mess of her life after her sister blew up her world, and that had helped a lot but not enough.
She’d only started dating after her father’s insistence that she couldn’t sit there and let something like that ruin her life.
Though, at the time, she had just looked at him and had walked out.
She was not the same person anymore. Her father didn’t rule her life. Her father didn’t get to have any say in what was going on, and he seemed to know that things had changed between them. He also didn’t quite understand how it had happened or what to do about it. Neither did her mother.
All of a sudden Gail had grown up—something that her parents hadn’t really expected, had never really planned for. Then how do you plan for the events Debbie had conjured up that blew apart Gail’s world as quickly as they had?
At the time, her mother had seemingly been sympathetic yet had been trying to mold Debbie and her life into some semblance of cooperation that would keep peace in the family.
That had been her mother’s prime goal at the time—hell, it was always her prime goal.
Yet Gail had made Debbie her prime goal, while her family decided what had happened to Gail was her problem to deal with on her own.
Her mom hadn’t even been happy with Gail going to therapy, as if worried she would be airing the family’s dirty laundry, and somehow it would all get out into the world.
So Gail had never shared any details with her mother about what she was dealing with.
That her mother didn’t want to, or chose not to, care that Gail had been so terribly hurt just added to her feelings of betrayal and isolation.
Besides her grandmother, the only personal family contact she’d had for the longest time was with Debbie, and that had only been because her sister just wouldn’t leave Gail alone, calling her up and constantly apologizing all over herself, yet it lacked sincerity.
So, Gail had very little contact with any of her direct family, outside of working for her parents.
Thankfully Gail’s PR job for the family company got her away from the office and said parents, showing up at Career Day in the local schools or at a client’s new project to shovel out the first dirt to make room for this development, meeting perspective and current clients for dinners just to shmooze, even taking some special clients to sports games—box seats, food, and booze included.
She didn’t much like that part as the drunken men got handsy.
She had already reallocated that part of her duties to one of her trusted assistants—a male.
That made her job better, at least for a while.
When she’d gotten engaged, Debbie had sent her a text. Congratulations. Then she added, I still think you’re making a mistake. That had been a nice little line to share with Gail.
Coming back to the present day, Gail quickly dressed and got ready, refusing to question her choice to meet with Riley.
She wore a simple white T-shirt, yoga pants, and sandals.
Grabbing her purse, she walked down to her personal car—refusing to use the company car with its big Montoya Ltd logo—hopped in, and drove slowly to the little coffee shop and café she used to frequent with Riley.
The fact that she’d even asked to meet at this restaurant revealed something about her still needing closure, still needing to find some level of comfort with how things had ended up. She didn’t know how to do that or how to think about it all.
She pulled in and parked, and, before she could get out, her girlfriend Selene called and asked, “Hey, did you hear about Timothy?”
“Well, if you mean about the accident, of course. We’ve talked about that.”
“No, his father is trying to get the case reopened because he says it wasn’t an accident, and he’s brought up that dog again.”
“What about the dog?” she asked curiously.
“I know it went missing around that time. It was Timothy’s dog, and he really, really loved him, but Derek apparently thought that the dog wouldn’t have left him and that something must have happened to the dog as well, for anybody to have hurt Timothy like they did.
And that’s presuming that somebody did hurt Timothy. ”
“I heard all that too,” Selene confirmed, with an audible sigh. “I was talking to Jackson about it.”
Gail sighed and added, “You and I both know that, as much as your husband’s on the inside track of the Beltran family, he’s not exactly getting the inner scoop because ultimately his granddad won’t let it happen.
His grandpa Beltran has to keep the business free and clear of all that adverse publicity. ”
“I know,” she agreed, “but he’s also very concerned about Dad. Says Derek’s starting to lose it, just the thought of what happened to Timmy, and, even though he’s alive, he’s—”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. Timmy and Jackson were always so close as brothers, even when they were little. I guess Jackson being like ten years older made him more protective of Timmy. … Timmy was a good kid.”
“He really was. He is,” she corrected herself immediately. “Damn, it’s so hard to even think of him as still alive when there’s just so little of him left in there.”
“And yet something of him is in there, and if people would give him a chance to heal and recover—”
“Yeah, but he was without oxygen too long, and that really damages the brain.”
“Maybe, but you also know that I’m a firm believer in people having an ability to heal where it seems impossible otherwise,” she murmured. “Are you working today in the pub?”
“No, no, not tonight, not for a while,” she shared in a lazy tone.
“Honestly, after all this, a part of me just wants to get a different job. Jackson’s the same.
He’s never really wanted to have a whole lot to do with the family business.
The Beltran family is full of hard-asses. That’s why it was all going to Timmy.”
“And yet that is a lot of money and inheritance going in one place. The pub appears to be quite successful.”
“It’s a gold mine. Seriously it’s an icon in the city, and it has done well over the years.
It’s worth millions, I’m sure. And that is where the problem is.
The pub is doing well, but the waterfront land and the access to the tunnels is a bigger part of the Beltran family’s legacy—which comes with a lot of shadowy rumors and folklore, as it is. ”
Selene continued. “Plus everyone is roped into helping out at the pub, even carrying on the tunnel tours, but some of the family doesn’t want to be involved, and that’s been an ongoing fight,” she noted.
“I was okay with the pub work. You get to interact and see so many different people. I would like to think an equitable way can be found to handle it, but it’s been hard to see the family so divided over it all.
And Grandpa Beltran is lighting that fire by marking the family as from the paternal line or the maternal. He’s just making it all worse.”