Chapter 15
15
Dylan and the kids returned to their room after lunch to find that Tasha had worked a minor miracle. The furniture in the sitting room had been rearranged to make room for a beautifully decorated Christmas tree that now stood in front of the window. The red and gold theme of the decorations had been carried on throughout the room with new cushions and throws on the sofa and armchairs. Red bows and golden lights weaved through a garland draped over the mantelpiece. Three stockings hung in front of the fireplace, and a large golden bowl sat on the grate full of baubles, pine cones and gold fairy lights.
‘Who did this?’ Avery gasped.
‘Do you like it?’ Dylan asked, feeling a little overwhelmed by the transformation. Whatever they were paying Tasha it wasn’t enough because she’d wrought a miracle in a few short hours. ‘I figured since we’d be waking up here on Christmas morning, it would be nice to get more into the spirit of things.’
‘I love it!’ Avery ran over and hugged him one-armed, the hanger holding her party costume held out of the way so they didn’t crush it. ‘It’s perfect.’
Dylan glanced over at Theo to find his son beaming. ‘It’s really great, Dad.’
‘Now we have a tree, I suppose we’ll need to get some presents to go under it,’ Dylan mused. ‘Perhaps one of you should check the closet in my room.’
Avery thrust her costume into his hands with a squeal and dashed towards his bedroom. Dylan grinned at Theo and tilted his head towards the master bedroom. ‘She’s going to need help.’
Letting out an excited whoop, Theo draped his costume over the back of the sofa and ran to meet Avery as she struggled back into the room clutching several bulky carrier bags.
Once the kids had finished placing their presents under the tree, Dylan held out the costume he was still holding for Avery. ‘You might want to hang that up so the fringe doesn’t get messed up.’ After much consideration and mind-changing, she’d opted for a pretty emerald-green flapper-style dress with a long fringe that took the short skirt to almost knee length. She’d also chosen one of the feathered headdresses and enough bangles for her wrists that Dylan’s pockets were weighed down with them. She had black tights and a pair of ballet pumps, which would work well with it. Dylan had chosen a navy velvet tuxedo jacket so dark it was almost black until seen against the trousers, with a strip of satin running the length of the outside seam on each leg, a crisp white shirt and a black bow tie – a proper one, not pre-tied. He had his dress shoes with him as he’d brought a suit to wear on Christmas Day. Theo had opted for the Peaky Blinders look with trousers and a matching waistcoat and a flat cap. He’d been surprisingly enthusiastic about the idea of dressing up and Dylan had been happy to go along with it once he’d seen how excited the kids both were about it.
‘Okay, Dad.’ Avery came over and hugged him. ‘Thanks for the gifts and the decorations, oh and, well, everything!’
Laughing, he bent to kiss the top of her head. ‘It’s my absolute pleasure. You’ll have to remember to thank your mom later because she helped me choose what to buy.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’ Avery grabbed her costume and ran towards her room, giggling.
‘Cheeky brat!’
‘I’ll go and hang mine up too,’ Theo said, pausing beside him. ‘You didn’t need to go to all this trouble, Dad.’
‘It’s never any trouble to do something for you and your sister. Let’s hang our stuff up and then we can chill out for a bit. Don’t forget it’s probably going to be a late night tonight.’
Avery appeared in her doorway. ‘Can I still go and get ready with Charlie?’ The three younger women had offered to take her under their wing and help with her hair and make-up.
‘Of course you can, but try and have a bit of a nap first, okay? Charlie took your number, so I’m sure she’ll text later when they’re ready to start.’ It was a relief to Dylan, to be honest, as although he’d mastered the pigtails and plaits Avery had needed for school when she was little, anything more complicated than that was firmly in Jen’s realm of expertise. ‘I’ll send your mom a message while you’re resting and see if we can fix up a time for you to chat to her before we go to dinner. You’ll want to show her your costume once you’re all dolled up.’
Avery grinned. ‘Thanks, Dad, but don’t tell her we’re dressing up. I want to surprise her when we call!’
‘I won’t say a word, I promise.’
With both kids settled, Dylan escaped to his own room. Having hung up his outfit, he flipped off the main light, pulled the curtains and took off his jeans, shoes and socks before sliding under the quilt. Hawaii was ten hours behind but they weren’t due downstairs until 7p.m. so he sent Jen a quick message for when she woke up, saying the kids would like to arrange a chat around 8.30a.m. her time. Setting his phone aside, Dylan picked up his book and managed about half a dozen pages before he realised he’d read the same paragraph three times and still wasn’t following the plot.
Replacing his book on the nightstand, Dylan reached for the lamp and turned it off, casting the room into a shadowy gloom, and let his mind wander. It should be a fun evening, especially if everyone got into the spirit of things and dressed up. He found himself thinking about Sadie. He’d lost track of her in the busy lounge and she hadn’t been in the dining room when they’d stopped to grab a light lunch. Would she be dressing up tonight? So far he’d seen her only in jeans or trousers and a variety of mostly shapeless tops. She didn’t seem to go in for make-up, which was fine by him, but he couldn’t help wondering what she’d look like all done up to the nines.
The way she’d deflected his compliment earlier had sparked something protective inside him, because it had been clear from the way she’d immediately resorted to self-deprecation that she was either unused to them or had been made to feel actively uncomfortable about accepting praise. He hadn’t missed the comment she’d made the previous evening about wanting to avoid her mother and he wondered if that was the root of it. Having an asshole for a husband who’d junked her for a younger model couldn’t have helped her confidence either. What an idiot the man must be, chasing some stupid fantasy of his own youth. Well, his loss might just be Dylan’s gain. It had been a long time since Dylan had felt this kind of attraction and he couldn’t deny being eager to spend more time with her.
Hopefully, she was going to enter into the spirit of the evening, which would give him the excuse to dish out a compliment or two more and maybe earn him another one of those beautiful smiles that warmed him from the inside out. He rolled onto his side, a hint of a smile playing about his lips as he drifted off to sleep.
The nap had left them all refreshed and while Avery headed off with Charlie, who’d very kindly come to collect her, Dylan and Theo had a bit of guy time sprawled side by side on Theo’s bed shooting zombies in one of his computer games. They came to an agreement over screen time and Dylan decided he trusted Theo enough to let him keep the controller in his room. By the time the party finished tonight they’d hopefully all have burned off enough energy to go straight to sleep afterwards and their body clocks would finally be over the last of the jet lag.
Showered and dressed apart from his jacket, which was folded over the back of the sofa, Dylan waited for Theo to emerge from his room, which he did a few minutes later holding his own bow tie in one hand. ‘Can you help me with this stupid thing?’
With a laugh, Dylan rose and crossed the room. Taking the tie, he looped it around his son’s neck and then realised he didn’t know how to do it backwards. ‘Come with me into the bathroom.’
They stood in front of the mirror with Dylan reaching around Theo from behind, watching their reflections in the mirror. ‘You’re getting almost too tall for me to do this,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘What happened to my little lad?’
Theo blushed, a shy smile on his face as he replied, ‘I’m still here, Dad.’
With patient hands, Dylan showed Theo how to tie it. ‘I remember when my brother taught me how to do this.’
‘Not your dad?’ Theo’s eyes were curious as they met his in the mirror.
‘No. He wasn’t around much when I was growing up. He never got on with his father – your great-grandfather – so he stayed away from the estate a lot.’
‘So your grandfather raised you, instead?’
It was no wonder the boy had questions, given how little information he’d shared with them about his past. ‘He laid down a lot of rules we had to live by, but we were raised mostly by our grandmother, who was kind in her own way but not very tolerant of noisy children charging about the place. I was left to my own devices and it was my brothers and sister who had most of the care of me together with the few servants my grandfather could still afford to pay.’
‘Is that why you stayed away for so long?’
Dylan pulled the two loops of the bow at his son’s neck, teasing them straight until they matched each other, then stepped away. ‘Juniper Meadows doesn’t hold a whole lot of happy memories for me, and once I had a new life with your mother and then with the two of you, there was never any reason to come back. I had everything I needed.’
‘Are you angry that we wanted to come here?’ Theo’s final question was very quiet.
Dylan stepped forward and gathered him in his arms. ‘No, not at all. I’m glad you wanted to know where you came from, and don’t let my experiences taint yours. Your uncles and your aunt are wonderful people, your cousins too from what I’ve seen of them so far. I still have some fences to mend, and in order to do that I’ve realised I have to let a few things go. It’s time to forget about the past and focus on the future and that’s what my aim is while we are here, starting with dinner with everyone tomorrow.’ He pressed a kiss to Theo’s cheek. ‘You and your sister have given me a chance to get my family back and I’m not going to squander that with old memories that don’t matter any more.’
There was a knock on the suite door and they broke apart so Dylan could go and answer it. Avery stood there, almost all traces of the little girl hidden beneath a layer of dark kohl eyeliner and bright red lipstick. Her hair had been coaxed into thick waves held back from her forehead by the sparkling feathered headband. Dylan had to swallow for a moment before setting his features in a mock frown. ‘How can I help you? I think you might have the wrong room.’
Avery broke into giggles, the little girl still there behind the sophisticated mask. ‘It’s me, Dad!’
‘Oh, of course it is! I almost didn’t recognise you, you look so grown up. Did you have fun?’
Avery nodded. ‘It was brilliant. Charlie even found some varnish to match my dress.’ She held out her hands to display glittering green nails.
‘They look fantastic. And did you behave yourself?’ He raised his gaze to where Charlie and her friends were watching, indulgent smiles on their faces.
‘She was a delight,’ Charlie said, stepping forward. The movement made her silver dress shimmer and catch the light, casting dazzling sparkles everywhere. ‘We had a great time.’
‘Well, thank you for taking such good care of her, and I must say you all look wonderful.’ He glanced back down at Avery and nodded to the open door behind him. ‘Why don’t you and Theo see if you can get hold of your mom?’
‘Okay.’ She turned to the others. ‘Thank you!’
‘Our pleasure,’ Anna said, a vision in a red silk drop-waisted dress paired with some sort of cape around her shoulders studded with beads of jet. ‘We’re going to go down to the bar, because we promised to meet Sadie.’ She looped arms with Jane, who had eschewed a dress for a pair of wide-legged striped trousers, a white shirt, thick braces and a trilby tilted at an angle that could only be described as jaunty. ‘We’ll save seats for you guys, okay?’ Anna continued as she offered her other arm to Charlie.
‘Sounds good. We won’t be far behind you.’ He watched the three women head towards the stairs before he returned to the suite and closed the door.
Bright laughter greeted him as Avery twirled in front of the tablet Theo was holding up. ‘You look gorgeous, baby girl,’ Jen said from the screen. ‘So beautiful! Eric, come and see!’
Her image on the screen shifted slightly so Eric could peer through the camera. ‘Wow, Avery, look at you, sweetheart!’
Dylan moved closer so he was also in their eyeline. ‘Hey, guys, sorry for the early start but I knew you’d want to see them.’
‘We were getting up early anyway as we have a hiking tour booked this morning,’ Jen said. ‘But thanks so much for your message because I would’ve hated to miss this.’ She eyed him with a grin. ‘You’re looking pretty fine and dandy yourself there, mister.’
Dylan laughed. ‘Well, I couldn’t let them have all the fun, now, could I? Here, give me that,’ Dylan said, circling around to take the tablet from Theo. ‘What do you make of our very own Peaky Blinder, then?’ he asked as Theo moved to join his sister. The British TV show had become a cult classic in the States.
‘So cool,’ he heard Jen say. ‘That cap really suits you.’
‘You look great, Theo, man,’ Eric said. ‘Just like you’ve stepped out of the TV screen.’
Theo fiddled with the brim of his cap, looking pleased if a little shy at the attention. ‘I might get one of these to bring home.’
They chattered on for a few more minutes until Dylan checked his watch. ‘We need to be downstairs in about five minutes, guys, and your mom and Eric have a busy day planned so say your goodbyes, okay?’
Avery did a final twirl, sending the fringe on her skirt fanning out while she blew kisses towards the screen. ‘Love you guys!’
‘Love you too, baby. Message me tomorrow and tell me all about it, and don’t forget to take lots of photos.’
‘Bye, Mom, bye, Eric.’ Theo clasped the brim of his cap between thumb and forefinger and tugged it in a gesture that made them all laugh.
Dylan packed away the tablet and reached for his jacket. ‘Pee if you need to pee,’ he reminded the kids. ‘It’ll be easier now.’
‘Geez, Daddy, we’re not five years old any more,’ Avery grumbled while Theo took the hint and dashed off to the bathroom.
Dylan raised his eyebrows at her. ‘I’m just saying…’
‘Well, you don’t need to, okay, I’m fine,’ she insisted.
‘Okay, then.’ Dylan crossed to where a large mirror hung above the fireplace and checked his reflection. He shrugged his shoulders to settle his jacket just right and tweaked his bow tie so it sat straight. Theo returned and Dylan eyed them both. ‘Got your phones and whatever else you need?’ They both nodded. ‘Let’s go, then.’ He tucked his own phone in his trouser pocket, picked up the room key and pulled open the door. ‘It’s party time!’
They got five steps down the corridor before Avery let out a groan of frustration and held her hand out to him. Dylan placed the key on her palm and couldn’t help grinning as she marched back to their room and let herself in. Theo laughed. ‘She hates it so much when you’re right.’
‘She sure does,’ Dylan agreed. ‘But she’ll get over it.’