Chapter 9
“Traci?” A man’s voice echoed in the high-ceilinged barn. Ric Eddings stood in the cart barn doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Can I speak to you for a minute? Outside?”
“Uh-oh,” Javi said in a low voice. “This can’t be good, chica.”
Ric’s face was rigid with barely suppressed anger. As always, seeing him gave Traci a momentary startle. In passing he looked so like his younger brother: brown-blond hair, deep-set hazel eyes set beneath a high, wide forehead.
The brothers were only sixteen months apart, and Helen, their late mother, had told Traci that until the boys were eight or nine years old, people often mistook them for twins.
As they grew older, the similarities lessened. Ric, short for Frederic, named for his father, was taller and heavier, and his hair was much blonder—helped along, Traci had always suspected, by peroxide. Ric was an extrovert, the life of every party and the star quarterback at the private prep school he had attended, while Hoke was quieter and preferred hiking and fishing to organized sports. Hoke, Traci thought, was Eddings Classic, while Ric was Eddings XX.
And right now, Ric was seething. “Goddammit, Traci,” he said, once they were outside. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Me? I’m building a dorm so the summer staff will have a place to live.”
“You know what I’m talking about. Going behind my back and pressuring Parrish to cancel her summer abroad and work here instead. How dare you?”
“I didn’t pressure her. I explained the bind we’re in, with Mehdi and Sammy leaving so close to our opening weekend, and I pointed out the problem we’re having finding help. I offered her a free place to live, a hundred-dollar signing bonus, and the best pay on the coast.”
“You know just the right buttons to push with that kid,” Ric said. “She wants to please her aunt Traci. Always has. She told me you also offered to pay for her program in the fall.
“You bribed her to do what you wanted, without even having the courtesy to discuss it with me.”
Traci had to bite back the retort she wanted to give. “Your daughter is twenty-one. She’s an adult, Ric. Anyway, Parrish doesn’t have to be bribed to do the right thing. She’s keenly aware that this business is her heritage, and she wants to make sure the Saint survives so that her generation of the family can continue to run it.”
“With you leading the charge. Right, Traci? No kids of your own, so you have to lean on mine.”
He’d struck a nerve and he knew it. She and Hoke had tried almost everything, including four rounds of IVF, but nothing had worked. They’d begun discussing adoption when the twin-engine jet he’d been a passenger on went down following a fishing trip to the Bahamas. There were no survivors.
Traci wouldn’t let herself react to her brother-in-law’s ugly taunts.
“Help me out here, Ric. Seriously. Why are you so pissed about Parrish working for the family business? Isn’t this why you paid for her to go to business school at Georgetown?”
He shook his head, as though that might physically shake her away.
“Parrish has a perfectly good home, right here on the island,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. “I don’t want her living in some dorm with whatever random strangers you’ve hired for the summer. I know the kind of crazy, dangerous stunts kids get up to in the summer, when they’re away from home.”
“Is that a shot at me? Because your brother and I started dating the summer I lived in the dorm here? Are you afraid Parrish might mix with townies like you and Hoke did back then?”
“This is different,” Ric insisted. “Parrish has gone to private schools her whole life, she’s been sheltered. She’s never been around…” He faltered, realizing how he sounded.
If only he knew the truth about his daughter,Traci thought. About the pregnancy scare Parrish had her senior year of high school, about the boyfriend who’d turned abusive, and the minor brush with the law during Parrish’s freshman year at college, all of which she’d confided to Traci. Ric had no idea just how un-sheltered his daughter really was.
“What? Poor white trash? Just another Ain’t, like you considered me to be?”
He rolled his eyes. “Talking to you is a waste of time. Obviously, I can’t stop Parrish from working or living here. But I’m putting you on notice, Traci. If something happens to her…”
“It won’t.” Traci stopped him. She looked over her shoulder to see that Javi was waiting to finish their punch list. “Are we done here? I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Yeah, we’re done,” Ric said. “Oh. One more thing. I got a call from Spencer Parkhurst yesterday. He mentioned his son KJ is taking some time off from Wake Forest, so I told him to send him down here and we’ll put him to work.”
“Who gave you the right to make my hires?” Traci demanded.
“It’s a family business, remember?” Ric taunted. “Spencer Parkhurst is a longtime friend and business associate of our family. If his son needs a summer job, you’d do well to give him one. He’s a good kid. Plays lacrosse. Polite, respectful.”
“Great. Let him work for you at Saint Holdings.”
“His dad doesn’t want him at some cushy desk job. He wants to give him a taste of real life. You keep talking about being shorthanded, here’s your solution. Make KJ a lifeguard, or put him on a grounds crew, or make him a caddy. I don’t give a shit. Just put him to work.”
Traci sighed. She knew this was Ric’s way of paying her back for hiring Parrish.
“Fine. I assume he’ll live at their family cottage on Sand Dollar Lane?”
“Nope. His dad thinks it’ll be good for him to live in this new dorm of yours. I think he’ll be down here in the next couple days.”
“Swell,” she said. “If it’s not too much trouble, tell him to report to me by Friday.”