Here With Me (35 page)

Read Here With Me Online

Authors: Beverly Long

Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #romance napa valley time travel

BOOK: Here With Me
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The room felt hot and stiff and George
desperately wanted to take Melody away from all of it. But he knew
the time had come for all of them to know the truth.

“So he stayed,” Bernard said. “I called him
Father and she called him husband while the two of you had no one
to call Father and your mother had no husband to share a life with.
Before he died, he told me about you and I swore that I’d somehow
make amends.” He turned to Pearl. “Your dream, all of this, became
my dream. Your joy—” he nodded his head at Melody—“became my joy. I
gave some but I received so much more in return. There’s no need
for payment now.”

Pearl shook her head. “You are my brother, in
every sense of the word, and I am honored to share this with
you.”

“Bullshit,” Louis said.

George who had stayed standing up in case
Louis tried to do something else stupid, walked over and grabbed
Louis by the shirt collar. He yanked him up. “You’re done. Get
out.”

Louis tried to push him away. “It’s not your
house yet,” he yelled.

Pearl stood. “No, but he’s right. There’s no
place for you here any longer. I’m hoping my daughter has the good
sense to divorce you, but if she doesn’t, once again that’s her
choice. But I’m not going to let you ruin everything that I’ve
worked a lifetime for. So, you either go to the door nicely or I’m
going to ask George to help you find it.”

George felt mildly disappointed when Louis
picked up his pack of cigarettes and walked out the door. Tilly
stood up, moving slow like an old woman. Pearl motioned for her to
sit down. “We’re not quite finished here, Tilly,” she said, her
voice gentle.

“It sounds to me like we are,” Tilly said.
She didn’t sound angry or bitter, just very sad.

“Please continue, Will,” Pearl said.

“To my daughter, Tilly, I leave the sum of
three hundred thousand dollars,” he read.

Pearl stared at her daughter. “Here’s what I
suggest you do with that money. First, pay off your gambling debts
and your credit cards.”

Tilly’s face reddened. “But how. . .”

“I know you tried, but really, you can’t
think you were successful in answering every phone call and
intercepting every piece of mail that came for you?” Pearl asked.
Her voice was kind, almost consoling. George thought it sounded
like she might have been angry at one time but was now just sad for
her daughter.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Tilly said. Her lower
lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

“I know you are. I am, too. But you made
choices along the way that were bad choices. And there are always
consequences. You should have enough left after you get your
affairs in order to hold you over for a couple months. Find a job,
Tilly. Use some of the talent and brains that God gave you. In
time, I hope that you’ll forgive me and understand why I made this
decision. It has been the hardest decision of my life.” Pearl
smiled at her daughter. “You don’t need to leave tonight. Why don’t
you go back to your room and start making plans. Tilly, I really
think that the best part of your life is ahead of you.”

Tilly kissed her mother on the cheek. “I love
you,” she said.

“And I love you,” Pearl replied.

Pearl waited until she’d left the room, and
then said, “You should all know that I have reserved some
additional money for Tilly. It will remain in Will’s capable
control until such time it can be determined as to whether Tilly
has taken my advice to heart. If she does, then she will receive an
additional two hundred thousand dollars. If not, then Will has been
instructed to donate it to one of the worthy causes that I have
favored through the years.”

Neither Melody nor Genevieve seemed surprised
at that news. No doubt they’d realized how difficult it had been
for Pearl to make her decision. While George had no way of knowing,
he thought maybe Tilly would find her way out of the darkness.

Pearl looked at her lawyer. “Thank you, Will.
I appreciate all that you’ve done for me. And I appreciate you
driving out here on such a wicked night.”

Almost as if on cue, there was a bolt of
lightning, clearly visible through the big windows and it seemed to
split the sky. Will gathered up his papers quickly. “I think I’ll
be going before it gets any worse,” he said.

“Me, too,” Bernard said.

Pearl shook her head at Bernard. “Please
stay.” She turned to her attorney. “I’ll show you out.”

He held up his hand. “No need. I can find my
way out. Goodnight.”

Once he was gone, Pearl glanced around the
room, looking rather expectantly at each of them. George wondered
what could possibly be next. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been
for her gaze to settle on him.

“George,” Pearl said, “I like you. I might
even love you. And I can see that you have made my granddaughter
happy. But I can’t leave this earth without knowing that you’ve
told her the truth, the whole truth.”

He felt the room start to spin. “What?”

Melody looked from her grandmother to him,
then back to her grandmother. She was clearly confused,
concerned.

No sudden shocks or other stressful
situations.

He looked at Genevieve. She didn’t look
confused but neither did she look happy. She stared at her sister.
“Pearl, some things are better left unsaid.”

Pearl shook her head. “I used to think so,
too,” she said. “But if I have learned anything over the years,
it’s that the truth, as ugly and scarred as it may be, must be
dealt with. If Bernard had told us the truth years ago, we would
have had a brother to share our lives with. If years ago, I’d have
been more truthful with Tilly, had forced her to see the truth
about herself, about Louis, then tonight could have been a very
different night. I won’t keep making mistakes like that.”

He couldn’t think. What did she know? What
was she expecting him to say? “Pearl,” he said, keeping his voice
low. “Now is not the time or the place.”

She smiled. “Interesting choice of words,
George. That’s what I’m interested in hearing. Is exactly how
you’ve come to be at this particular time and place?”

Melody got to her feet. “I don’t understand
what’s going on,” she said. No one answered.

He knew he should be a man, he knew he should
tell her. But he was scared. She’d been lied to once by a man that
she’d thought she’d loved and it had hurt her. Would she understand
why he’d lied as well? “Melody, it’s a difficult thing to
explain.”

“Somebody tell me. . .”

She stopped, her face paled. She was looking
past him, toward the door. Before George could move, she said,
“Louis?”

George turned and he saw the man. He was
drenched, his clothes sticking to him, and water ran off his bald
head. He waved a rifle around, his motions as wild as his eyes.

“Put down your gun, Louis,” George said.

“Shut up,” the man screamed. He waved the gun
and stepped into the room. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It
should have never happened like this.” He paced back and forth,
swinging his rifle. “This should have been mine. All of it should
have been mine.”

He whirled toward Genevieve. “You got your
share,” he screamed. “All those years ago, you got yours. And now
more. It’s not fair.”

Pearl reached out her hand. “Louis, you need
to leave. Now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’ve been
telling me what to do for years. I should have been the one giving
the orders.”

Bernard stepped forward. “Louis, it’s over,”
he said. Bernard looked somewhat apologetically at Pearl. “I didn’t
want to say anything until I had all the proof.” He turned back to
Louis. “I know that you’ve been having an affair with Mickey
Maloni’s wife. I know about the men who are trying to blackmail
you.”

The late-night visit to the tasting room
suddenly made more sense. George looked at Melody and could see by
the look on her face that she was also putting the pieces
together.

“Shut up,” Louis screamed.

Bernard shook his head. “Mickey Maloni is one
of the most powerful men in Reno. And he doesn’t play nice.”

“You’re not going to be telling anyone,”
Louis said, pointing his gun at Bernard.

George shifted and got ready to move.

“I don’t need to tell anyone. The men who are
trying to shake you down are not the only people who have a copy of
the photos, Louis. I’ve got a set, too. They’re locked in a drawer
in my office. I’ve given instructions to my own attorney that upon
my death, the drawer should be opened.”

Louis made the kind of sound a cornered
animal makes.

Genevieve stood up. “You’re a desperate man,
aren’t you Louis?” she taunted. “A man like you is probably
desperate enough to pay someone to run my sister and my great-niece
off the road?”

“Damn you,” he said, his eyes darting back to
Pearl. “I couldn’t wait any longer. It was taking too long for you
to die.”

Now it was Melody making sounds, like she was
gasping for air. Louis swung his gun toward her.

George charged him. And there was a terrible
sound, a mixture of screams and storm and the crack of a rifle. And
terrible pain as a bullet tore into him.

Melody. Melody.
He struggled to hold
on, had to. But the pain and the darkness and the evil grabbed at
him and it took him. And as he slipped away, he heard another
gunshot and he knew he’d failed again to protect the woman he
loved.

***

He woke up to a soft whiteness and he
wondered if it was heaven. It took him a minute to take it all in.
He was in a room, in a bed. The walls were white, the curtains on
the windows were white, even the sheets he lay on were white.

But yet the room was almost dark, lit only by
a small light on the far wall. He could hear a terrible wailing
that seemed to come from outside the window.

He moved and pain streaked from his shoulder
to his arm.

“I’d move a little slower than that if I were
you.”

Jesus. He turned and saw Genevieve standing
next to his bed.

What the hell? “Where am I?” he asked.

She looked amused. “Calm down. You’re in the
hospital. The power is out. They’re working off emergency
generators. And by the way, you’re going to be sore for a couple
weeks but your shoulder is going to be fine. The bullet nicked an
artery—that’s why you lost consciousness so fast.”

“Melody?” he asked. His throat was dry and it
hurt to talk.

She patted his hand. “She’s fine. You know
you save her life.”

That couldn’t be right. “I heard another
shot.”

Genevieve nodded, no longer looking amused.
“Louis is dead. Tilly shot him in the back. None of us, including
Louis, I’m sure, even knew she’d been carrying a gun in her purse
for months. She came back when she heard Louis yelling.”

Oh, God. It was all so senseless. But what
mattered was that Melody was safe. Her child was safe. “Melody
wasn’t hurt?” he asked again.

Genevieve shook her head. “No. But she
knows.”

He jerked his head around, causing his
shoulder to move and a whole new pain almost took his breath away.
He struggled to sit up. The room started to spin and he felt like
he was going to be stomach-sick. But none of that mattered.
“What?”

“She knows everything. Who you are and where
you came from. Pearl and I told her.”

He had a thousand questions but none of them
mattered. “I have to see her.”

Genevieve put her hand on his arm. “There’s
no time,” she said, her voice serious. “Or you won’t be able to
go.”

“Go where?”

“Back. Back to your time, your place.” She
pulled back his sheet. He was wearing the same kind of gown they’d
put on Melody when she’d been in the hospital. When he pulled at
the neckline of the gown, he could see the thick white bandage
taped around his shoulder.

“You need to get dressed, now. I know it
hurts like hell but you’ll make it back. I’ll see you through.”

“See me through? You told me before that you
couldn’t help me go back.”

She sighed. “I lied. I’m sorry about that.
And while you have every reason not to trust me, you’re going to
have to go on faith. I can do it. I can get you back to your
time.”

“How?”

“People like you have the ability to
negotiate the portal but not at their will. There are only a few
like me, who can choose to go and come back.”

His head was reeling and he didn’t know if it
was the pain of being shot, the worry about Melody and her child,
or the craziness of what Genevieve was saying. “So you’ve been to
my time?”

“Yes.” She handed him a sack. “Put these
clothes on.”

He waved the sack away. “You brought me
here?” he accused.

“I did not,” she said. “I didn’t even know
about you until you’d arrived and then I realized what my sister
had done.”

“Pearl?”

“Yes. She’s never traveled although I suspect
she could if she tried. We are, after all, sisters. She limits
herself to helping those who need it.”

He
had
needed the help. He would not
have made his way out of the darkness without Pearl’s strength
pulling him to the light. “I’m grateful,” he admitted. “But why
me?”

Genevieve smiled. “Pearl and Melody are very
close, connected in so many ways. Last Christmas, Pearl knew
something was very wrong when Melody didn’t come home. And when
Melody told her about the pregnancy, Pearl knew that she was lying
about having a husband. She guided you to Melody.”

“So all this happened because Pearl made it
happen? Melody and me?”

Genevieve shook her head. “No, my friend. You
and Melody did it. Pearl helped you get here and then she was done.
When she told me, I went back to your time. That’s where I was the
night you came to my room. I should have told you right away. I had
no right to keep what I knew to myself. I did it for Melody but it
was wrong.”

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