Beverly Barton - The Rebel's Return

While nibbling on a Caesar salad, served to her at an umbrella-shaded table on the patio adjacent to the club’s outdoor swimming pool, Maddie went over her checklist for the Mystery Gala coming up in only a few more days. Everything was set. The menu had been approved by Chef Tomas. The jazz band from New Orleans was due to fly in on a charter plane on Friday afternoon at one. Actors from the local Little Theater had been hired to play the murder victim and the police detective, and both had been sworn to secrecy on the mystery plot. Mrs. McKenzie, the talented designer who owned Mission Creek Creations, had whipped up a perfectly divine little black satin gown for Maddie, and a matching satin shawl with pearls and Austrian crystals dripping from the edges. She’d wear diamond earrings and a couple of her diamond bracelets, but no necklace. Understated elegance was the style she preferred.

One of the things Maddie enjoyed most about being filthy rich was being able to afford the best clothes money could buy. Some people called her a clotheshorse; maybe she was. Well, actually, no maybe about it. Her walk-in, fourteen-by-sixteen closet was a dead giveaway.

A young waitress who was part of the staff that rotated shifts in the Empire Room, the Yellow Rose Café and the temporary Men’s Grill replenished Maddie’s iced tea, then asked, “Would you care for dessert today, Ms. Delarue?”

“I’m not sure.” What was the young woman’s name? Maddie tried to remember. Daisy something or other, wasn’t it? “Maybe some fruit. Let me think a minute, please…Daisy.”

The waitress smiled. Ah, Maddie thought, I must have gotten her name right.

Wearing a modest one-piece dark green bathing suit, Josie Carson stopped by Maddie’s table on her way to the pool. “Working hard, I see.”

“Just going over things for the Mystery Gala Friday night. You and Flynt are coming, aren’t you?”

“We wouldn’t miss it.” Josie smiled, her face alight with a surreal glow. “Unless I have another serious bout of nausea and wind up in bed again.”

“Nausea? Have you been sick?” Maddie asked, thinking the young bride looked the very picture of health.

Josie laughed. “I’m not sick. Not the way you think. I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, Josie, how wonderful!” Maddie shot up out of her chair and hugged Josie. “Flynt must be ecstatic.”

“He’s so attentive that he’s driving me crazy.” Josie’s emerald eyes sparkled. “You’d think no other woman had ever had a baby.”

“The man’s madly in love with you, so just relax and let him pamper you. That’s what prospective fathers are supposed to do. Right?”

“I guess so. By the way he acts with Lena, he’s already shown me what a wonderful father he’s going to be.”

“How is little Lena?”

“Growing bigger and prettier every day.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any news about her real parents?”

Josie shook her head, swinging her shoulder-length, platinum-blond hair about her face. “I’m really torn about Lena. I know it’s selfish of me to want to keep her. Flynt and I adore her so much. But somewhere out there she has a mother, possibly both parents.”

Maddie suddenly remembered the waitress who stood attentively waiting for her to decide about dessert. “Oh, Daisy, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I’d like a bowl of strawberries. No cream.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Daisy turned to Josie. “Mrs. Carson, may I add my congratulations about your pregnancy? This must be a wonderful time for you and your husband. And I imagine having a child of your own will help y’all give up little Lena when…if her real mother shows up to claim her.”

“Thank you, Miss…Daisy, is it?” Josie smiled at the young waitress.

“Yes, ma’am. Daisy Parker.” Daisy turned her attention to Maddie. “I’ll bring those strawberries right back out, Ms. Delarue.”

“Thank you,” Maddie said, then when Daisy hurried off, Maddie hugged Josie again. “Give Flynt my love and tell him how happy I am for the two of you.”

Josie nodded, then headed toward the pool. Maddie slumped down in her chair and glared sightlessly at her planning book lying open on the table. Josie Carson was pregnant. How did it feel, Maddie wondered, to be carrying the child of the man you loved—a man who adored you. She’d probably never know. Not all of her billions, not even all the money in the world, could buy her the kind of happiness Josie and Flynt shared.

Dylan and Carl sat up until nearly midnight. Father and son talked—really talked—for the first time in Dylan’s life. They reminisced about the years before Dylan’s mother died, when they had been a family. Then they caught up on the years they’d lost during Dylan’s self-imposed exile, each cautiously sidestepping any discussion of the events directly prior to and following Dylan’s two-year term in the Reform Center. Twice during the evening, Carl had received phone calls that obviously upset him, but he assured Dylan that it wasn’t anything to worry about, simply legal matters that he was having a slight problem solving. And since he was just getting reacquainted with his father, Dylan didn’t press Carl to disclose the particulars.

As the evening wore on, they shared a pot of coffee and kept talking. Carl wanted to know everything about Dylan, all the details of the years they had spent apart. And Dylan found himself questioning his father about Mission Creek and some of the people he remembered from his youth.

“So, whatever happened to Maddie Delarue?” Dylan asked.

Carl sighed. “Jock’s dead, you know. Died a few years back.”

“Yeah, I’d heard. When a man as important as Jock Delarue dies, the whole state knows about it.”

“Maddie inherited everything, except for some sizable charitable donations and the trust fund he’d set up for his second wife, Renee,” Carl said. “You know he divorced Nadine and married a girl not ten years older than Maddie, whom he’d been having an affair with for years.”

“When did that happen? The divorce?”

“Oh, about a year after…” Carl paused, then looked Dylan square in the eyes. “You were still in the Reform Center, so I suppose Maddie was seventeen.”

Seventeen? He’d been seventeen when he’d received that strange letter from Maddie, the one telling him that life could throw you some cruel punches. Hell, she’d probably written to him around the time of her parents’ divorce. Back then, he’d been too self-absorbed to have considered that maybe she needed him to write back to her, to be a strong shoulder for her to cry on. God, what a terrible time that must have been for a girl like Maddie, who’d always been the center of her parents’ lives.

Carl sighed. “There was a big scandal and a messy divorce. I don’t think Maddie spoke to her daddy for quite a few years after the divorce. And of course, Nadine was a basket case, so Maddie wound up taking care of her instead of the other way around.”

“So, what’s she doing now?” Dylan asked. “Running all of Jock’s business interests, or is she leaving that up to her husband?”

Carl shook his head. “Maddie’s never married. She’s been engaged twice. To that Newman boy first. But it didn’t work out. And then to some English count or duke or something. He turned out to be a penniless phony. Don’t guess it’s worked out too well for her. A woman with that much money could never be sure if a man was marrying her or her bank account.”

If Maddie the woman was half as fabulous as Maddie the girl, Dylan couldn’t imagine a man wanting her for anything other than herself. She’d been pretty and smart and had done a real number on Dylan’s teenage hormones and his young heart.

“Then I guess Maddie’s the big businesswoman, huh?” Dylan wondered if she’d cut that mane of golden-red hair and started wearing severe, nondescript business suits.