Vivien sat at the Salacia’s bow and stared up at the stars. It was a cloudless sky, and the low light of the quarter moon made the sky an awe-inspiring blanket of twinkling lights. Kai had told her to relax while she fixed dinner and to call Franklin back and smooth things over. Kai had seemingly figured out what made her tick in a very small amount of time.
Her father was pissed she’d taken off, but she wasn’t eager to go back. What Kai had offered and that she’d come into her life at all were so out of the norm for her, she’d questioned her sanity for coming along, but her skin itched with a feeling of being alive.
“Is he sending help thinking I’m going to chop you into little pieces and chum the water, or is he okay?” Kai asked when she reappeared with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
“Frankie’s fine, and he said thanks for taking me away from the cluster the office is right now. Seems my father’s on a work binge, which means he lives to give orders and the world is supposed to fall at his feet to get everything done.” She held both glasses as Kai opened the bottle. “Do you have experience getting away from overbearing parents?” she asked, realizing Kai had given away very little information about her life.
“My parents expect a lot, but we get along fairly well.” Kai placed her glass on the deck and lay down close to her. She appeared at ease, and Vivien vowed to work on reaching the same state. “You can put that Palmer rock of responsibility down out here. This is supposed to be fun,” Kai said as if she’d read her mind with the accuracy of having a cartoon-text balloon over her head.
“Do you always say the first thing that pops into your head?” The other strange phenomenon she was experiencing around Kai was her sudden attraction to Kai’s physical attributes. Up to this point in her life she’d experienced only the opposite extreme in that she could tell when someone like Steve was near her. That innate sense was her one trigger to avoid uncomfortable contact.
“Sorry. I’ll keep my mouth shut and enjoy the night.”
“You don’t have to, since you’re exactly what I’m not used to. It’ll be good for me to put my normal aside for a little while, since I complain about it enough.” She tried the wine and hummed because it was so good. “Need any help with anything?”
“Give me fifteen minutes and you can help me bring up the stuff I’ve got in the oven.”
“So how do you want to do this?” she asked, and smiled when Kai moved closer.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Kai said, and she believed her. “But I thought we could start tonight after dinner.”
“After dinner?”
Kai laughed, she assumed at her tone. “Still prescribe to the hour after a meal before swimming, huh?” Kai said and laughed. “Let’s stay dry and try to do some mapping before we get in the water.”
“Do you want me to guess?”
Kai pointed to the very front of the bow, where she saw something under a red-and-white tarp. “It’s got enough lights to navigate at night, and the cameras will do a good job of spotting abnormalities on the bottom.”
“You’re like a scout—always prepared. I’m glad you asked me, so if I haven’t said it before, thanks.” Partnering with someone like Kai might advance her own search for answers, if she was willing to have a little imagination when it came to investigating these kinds of hard-to-believe stories.
“You’re welcome to come with me whenever you like and you’re free.” Kai stood and went down to retrieve dinner. When she joined her in the small galley, her mouth watered as Kai put what looked like lobster mac and cheese on the counter.
“Keep feeding me like this, and I’ll take you up on that offer whenever you make it.” She leaned forward when Kai held up a forkful of the dish and closed her eyes as she took a bite of the almost decadent meal. “You really are something else.”
“I’ll settle for something different,” Kai said, smiling.
“Mission accomplished then.” She helped take everything up to the deck and sat to watch Kai drop what seemed to be a very light mini-sub into the water.
Once it was below it wasn’t hard to see where it was since it was like a glow worm under them. Kai set a laptop between them and set the rover into motion. Unlike the ones on their rigs, Kai’s moved on its own in a grid-like pattern that the cameras attached recorded. So far all it showed in the forty feet or so of water was the flat, sometimes grassy bottom typical of the Gulf’s bottom.
“You really think anything will be here after all this time?” she asked, wishing like a little kid that something would pop onto the screen. “We’re at the cusp of the dead zone, and it’s hard to guess what the melt from up north has done to the currents over that many years.”
“There’s no way to know for sure, but I tried to factor that unknown in and put it all into the track I came up with.” Kai’s attention was on the monitor, but she seemed aware of everything else near her since she’d flick her eyes around every so often like a good sentry. “My worst nightmare is that someone has already found what I’m looking for and it’s part of a fence or filling a pothole in their yard.”
“Hopefully you’ll have better luck than I’ve had over the years.”
“I’m sure you’ve found your share of stuff.”
She gazed at Kai’s profile and wished she could read her as well as Kai seemed to be able to do with her. “How would you know?”
“You strike me as not only someone who plans but follows through,” Kai said as she glanced away from the monitor and looked at her.
The scrutiny hit her in the gut, and the warmth in Kai’s smile made her drop her fork and put her plate down. It was crazy—she wanted Kai to reach for her, to make some connection no matter what it was. She never craved being touched by anyone, and when did she start using words like crave? “You must get people to go along with you a lot,” she said and snapped her mouth closed, not wanting to sound combative.
“Not really. You seem pretty immune to my charm.” Kai laughed. “How about you watch this for me and I’ll clean up? Could I interest you in dessert or a night swim?”
“Do you usually swim at night even when you’re alone out here?”
“I’m not alone now,” Kai said in a way that sounded like a challenge. She wondered again how Kai knew her so well after such a short time. She definitely didn’t like to back down from anything.
“Should I bother with a suit?” she asked, giving herself away from the first night.
“Miss Palmer, oil baron and Peeping Tom,” Kai said with an expression she could only describe as playful. Slowly Kai turned around and put the dishes down and dropped her shorts. Her T-shirt hit the deck as she went over the side. The splash made her laugh.
If she didn’t join Kai, and considering she was a Palmer employee it wasn’t a good idea, she’d regret acting like she always did. Her normal routine was to act like a rebel but never to venture too far outside the life her parents had given her. That Vivien would’ve stayed aboard and been happy she was there at all, so she stood and undressed, shedding her inhibitions and fear along with her clothes.
The water was cool but not overly cold, and it completely alerted her to the world around her. Usually she didn’t swim at night since the ocean became a different world then, a world she didn’t have too much experience with and wasn’t ashamed to admit she feared. Like in some places around the world, the larger, more deadly predators came out at night, but one glance at Kai and she forgot that fact.
“Did I pass the test?”
Kai was treading water and appeared almost roguish when the corners of her mouth turned upward. “Hopefully I didn’t bully you,” Kai said.
“Now what?”
“I’m not sure why you keep thinking I’ve got an agenda—I don’t.”
“Should I be insulted that getting me out of my clothes isn’t part of your agenda?” she asked as she swam closer to Kai. Eventually she’d figure out what had come over her and when she’d stop surprising herself with her actions and the things popping out of her mouth.
“That’s more of a plan than an agenda,” Kai said, and she couldn’t control her laugh.
This was either part of an agenda or Kai really didn’t care about anything she or anyone else thought. “Are you falling behind on anything regarding your grand plan?”
“Depends on how much fun you’re having.”
“You mean you can’t guess?” She moved a little closer and tried not to blush at the fact she was naked. She didn’t think she had a problem with modesty, but she wasn’t usually naked with a near-perfect Amazon either. “And if you can’t, I’m having a blast.”
“Then tomorrow I’ll kick it up a notch on my evil plan to get you to like me.”
*
“You do that, and I can’t guarantee she won’t resent you for the rest of time,” Cornelia Palmer said to her husband over the breakfast table. She was mindful of the servants milling around, but sometimes Winston needed a dose of reality and not the instant giving in everyone else around him did. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but the way you’ve handled all this so far will take months to cool off.”
“It’s no different than what my father did to me,” Winston said, whacking his hardboiled egg so hard it cracked the cup it was sitting in. “Vivien’s too old to be coddled, so I gave her a good shove in the right direction to get her moving.”
“And she shoved right back,” she said and caught herself before she rolled her eyes. “That didn’t surprise you, did it?”
“Do you want her working on rigs until she starts spitting at the table and scares someone like Steve away? He’s in love with her, for Christ’s sake, and she treats him like a leper.”
She stayed quiet, having no desire to be drawn into this conversation again.
“What, no comment on that one? Good. You know I’m right.”
“Winston, you’re a great many things, but right when it comes to Vivien or Franklin, that is seldom the case. You resented your father for years for bullying you in every aspect of your life, but you’ve not only become him. You’re much worse.” She quickly pointed at him, having had enough of his intimidation tactics like staring her down. “I’m not an intern, darling, so lower the glare a few notches.”
“With time you’ll see I did the right thing.”
“With time she’ll go to your funeral because it’s expected of her, just like when your father passed on, but then all she’ll feel is relief and not an iota of grief. I refuse to bring my children to the point that all they think when it comes to me is a welcomed conclusion to a nasty part of their existence when I drop dead.” She seldom spoke this way, but she’d gotten up with a new sense of herself that morning. She missed being a mother, and Winston was standing in her way of that. “If that’s really what you want, now’s the time to say so I can stop wasting my time.”
“Did I miss the memo where it said take potshots at me, it’s really okay?” Another eggcup cracked under Winston’s lethal spoon and she sighed—loudly. “I expect you of all people to understand and be on my side about this.”
“No, you expect me to fall in line like every other lapdog in your life so you can act however you want.” She was about to continue when she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
“Am I interrupting?” Steve Hawksworth asked, and she came close to losing another eggcup when she had the urge to throw hers at Winston’s head. “I can come back,” Steve said, sounding as if he was offering because it was expected and not because he had plans to do so.
“I’d think you’d have better things to do than to join us for breakfast,” she said as she shook her head slightly at her husband.
“Winston insisted, and there’s so much going on I thought we could get some stuff done without the phones and constant interruptions at the office.”
“Yes, Mom, like that irritating pest on wheels. Such a dead weight, that one,” Franklin said as he pushed himself in. “I hope I haven’t missed anything.”
“Not yet, but don’t blink,” Steve said and laughed, but he was alone in that joke.
“Do you have time to check out the roses? It’s why I called you,” she said to Franklin. “The older bushes are in full bloom and I think you’ll enjoy them.”
“Sure,” Franklin said, and she had no trouble hearing his confusion. She’d called him, but not for that. “Lead the way.”
“I’d like to talk to you before you leave,” she said to Winston, getting only a grunt of acknowledgment.
“Are you okay?” Franklin asked when they were out of the house.
“Your father’s being your father, but eventually I’ll get over it.”
Franklin laughed and stopped close to the bench she’d mentioned inside. She sat and took a moment to remember Franklin as the little boy who loved being out here with her digging in the dirt. She used to lift him from his chair and give him a trowel so he could get as dirty as he wanted. Why hadn’t she noticed before now how big a hole the absence of not having a close relationship with her children had left in her psyche?
“He can be somewhat overbearing when he wants to, but it’s never seemed to affect you.” Franklin reached for a branch and bent it closer so he could smell the blooms.
“That’s an awfully nice way of saying someone’s an asshole, isn’t it?” she asked, enjoying Franklin’s shock. “I’m sorry for not acknowledging that fact sooner, and it’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
“This isn’t a new twisted version of good cop bad cop, is it?”
The accusation hurt but she’d expected it. “I’ve been both of those in the last few years, so maybe I should start with an apology. It’s the weirdest thing, and I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s like I woke up from a fog recently. As excuses go, it’s not a very good one, but I also don’t want this distance between us to get any worse.”
“What do you mean fog?” Franklin asked, still sounding wary.
“That’s the best way to describe it.” She raised her hands and let them drop to her knees. “For a while I’ve been so focused on getting you and Vivien to do certain things and act a certain way that I lost sight of why I had children in the first place.”
“I thought perpetuating the Palmer name and legacy was the main reason for that.”
“All I can do is give you my reasons and it’s up to you whether to believe me. I had you because I wanted to bring children into the world and teach them to be happy. That wasn’t exactly a priority for mine and your father’s parents, but I wanted to be different.”
Franklin came closer and reached for her hand. “You were exactly that until a few years ago, and then you turned into Dad.”
“You’re being kind,” she said and couldn’t help the tears the admission caused. “The fact you are makes me think I haven’t been as horrible a mother as I thought.”
“I wish I could forget about it all,” Franklin said, his eyes glassy as well, “but some of what you’ve both said and done has really hurt.”
“Can you forgive me?” She grasped his hand with both of hers and squeezed. “The words I’m sorry are so easy to say, but if you give me another chance, I’ll prove to you how sorry I am.”
“You don’t have to try so hard,” Franklin said as he kissed her knuckles. “You’re my mother and I love you—I never stopped even if I didn’t like you very much. What brought all this on?”
“Like I said, I realized recently that you and Vivien were getting out of reach, and it panicked me. I didn’t even realize I was acting so poorly until your father started this relentless campaign to mold you two into the perfect Palmers. The more bizarre he got, the more I woke up. It sounds crazy but it’s true.”
“If you need to hear me say it, then you’re forgiven.”
She put her arms around him, loving his solidness. “Thank you for a generosity I don’t deserve.”
“You gave us a good foundation so you deserve that and a lot more, Mom. Maybe you can work on Dad so he can come to the same conclusion.”
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” She kissed his cheek and released him. “Do you think your father’s a little off? I don’t mean completely insane, though some days I’m not so sure, but he’s not himself, and I can’t really reach him anymore. At least not often.”
“I agree with you, but I’m not sure what good it’ll do to admit it. Even if he was a raving lunatic, the board would ignore it because calling attention to his insanity would hurt the stock price, and they’d never tolerate that.” Franklin’s shoulders slumped as he spoke. “He became more like what you’re describing after Steve started working for us, but that’s just my own prejudice against that guy talking.”
“Your father’s fixated on Steve and his family, so I can understand your feelings.” She shook her head at her own misgivings for the bright young man her husband was so infatuated with. “I’m sure Vivien’s feelings toward him haven’t changed, right?”
“Viv would rather date me than Steve, and there’s a major ick factor there. Dad’s pushing them together is starting to creep her out in more ways than the obvious. The world where parents sell their daughters off in marriage ended a long time ago.” Franklin stopped talking and put his finger up when she started to say something. “How about lunch when Viv is back in town? We’ve both been so busy we haven’t had a chance to catch up.”
The change of subject made no sense to her, but Steve’s sudden appearance was explanation enough. “I’d love to.”
“You’ll have to let me know when, Mrs. Palmer. I’d love to come along as well,” Steve said, clearly not concerned at his invasion of their privacy. “Mr. Palmer wanted you both to know he had to go, so he’ll see you tonight.”
“You’d make a great assistant, Steve,” Franklin said, and she smiled at the dig.
“Funny,” Steve said with a neutral expression. “I look forward to that lunch,” he said to her before bending and kissing her cheek. “Maybe Vivien, you, and I could make it a date so we can all talk.”
“Vivien makes her own dates, so I wouldn’t count on that anytime soon since she’s so busy.” She stood and placed her hands on Franklin’s shoulders. “Don’t let us keep you.” Steve hesitated but plastered on his smile before turning and leaving. “If Vivien never forgives me I can’t blame her.”
“All you can do is ask, and if she refuses, offer to buy her a new boat.”