[Ladera by the Sea 01] - A Wedding for Christmas Page 16

  “Almost ready,” Andy promised, adjusting some of the settings at the last minute. “Ready,” she announced. She pushed the timer and made a beeline for the perimeter of the gathered group. Releasing a long breath, she faced forward and instructed, “Okay, everyone, say cheese.”

  “Four years in college for a degree in fine arts with an emphasis on photography and ‘say cheese’ is the best you can come up with?” Stevi asked, feigning wonder.

  “How about ‘say Camembert’?” Andy cracked.

  “One need not say anything,” Ms. Carlyle interjected. She was being unusually loquacious, Cris noticed, wondering with affection what had set the woman off. “One need only hold back one’s smile until the proper moment, such as now.”

  The tiniest hint of a smile curved the woman’s small mouth just as the timer went off, causing the camera shutter to click and a small flash to go off. “Well, another year commemorated,” Ms. Carlyle said, beginning to move away from the group.

  Andy held up her hand. “Wait. One more photograph for luck,” she reminded the woman, all but begging.

  “Ah, yes, the ‘lucky’ photograph that is always identical to the one that came before it.” With a resigned sigh, Ms. Carlyle got back into position and held herself the exact same way she had previously, with her back ramrod straight. “Set the timer, Andrea,” the woman instructed.

  Ricky wasn’t the only dictator in the group, Cris couldn’t help thinking, glancing toward Shane to see how he was holding up.

  “Eyes front, Cris,” Andy ordered, pressing the appropriate button and then dashing back to the group and her position.

  This time the flash went off just as she was turning around. Andy looked dismayed and frustrated.

  “Something different,” Cris said with an encouraging smile as she assessed the situation.

  “A spontaneous, live-action shot,” Wyatt told his future sister-in-law, adding his two cents. “Those always end up the best,” he assured Andy before turning back to Ms. Carlyle. “May I escort you back to the veranda?” he suggested since that was where he’d found her sitting when he’d been dispatched to bring her to the main room for the photograph.

  “I’ve gotten enough sun today. Don’t want to look too tanned. Nothing worse than appearing like one of those poor, misguided young women who think that darkening their skin and partying hard is the proper way to live.

  “‘Beauty is as beauty does,’ is not just something to stitch on a pillow. It still means as much these days as in Ben Franklin’s when he was writing Poor Richard’s Almanack.”

  Doing his best to follow what was being said, and hearing his grandfather’s name mentioned, Ricky looked from the elderly woman to his grandfather. “Are you poor, Grandpa?” He had never thought of his family in those terms.

  “Not when I have you, your mother and your aunts in my life,” Richard responded with a wide smile. “Taking all that into consideration, I’d say I was one of the richest men around.”

  In response to the last words, Ricky’s eyes lit up. “Grandpa, I saw this really neat bicycle on TV,” Ricky began.

  “Really walked into that one, Dad.” Alex laughed.

  “What kind of a bicycle?” Wyatt wanted to know, pausing a moment before escorting Ms. Carlyle to wherever she felt like going.

  “Don’t you dare,” Cris warned. “The tricycle Ricky has now is just fine.”

  “What’s money if you can’t use it to spoil your nephew once in a while?” Wyatt asked, ruffling Ricky’s hair.

  “Yeah, Mama,” Ricky piped up. “What’s money if you can’t spend it that way?”

  She supposed it was never too early for a lesson in practicality. She didn’t want her son to grow up to be one of those men who thought that the world owed him something. He needed to know that most people worked hard for their money, not just had it rain down on them every time they wanted it. A man could easily lose his self-respect that way.

  “It’s something you save so that when you need it for important things, it’s there.”

  “Bicycles are important,” Ricky told her with complete sincerity.

  There was no talking him out of it now, she thought. It would be best to resume this discussion at another time. “We’ll talk about this later,” Cris informed her son crisply. “Right now, I’ve got lunches to get ready for our guests.”

  “Sorry,” Wyatt apologized. “I guess I just get carried away a little.”

  “You meant well,” Cris acknowledged, softening toward her future brother-in-law. “And it’s hard not to give in to Ricky and spoil him when he’s the only child in the family.”

  Wyatt laced his fingers through Alex’s and said, “We’ll see what we can do about that after the wedding.”

  “Wyatt,” Alex chided, embarrassed.

  Shane took that to mean it was his presence that had embarrassed her, since everyone else in the room—even Ms. Carlyle—was considered family.

  “I’d better get back to work, too,” he said, addressing the gathering in general. “I’ve got a crew coming in next week to help put up the plasterboard and they won’t be able to put up anything if I don’t have the area ready for them.”

  He turned just as an older, exceptionally well-dressed couple walked in through the front door. Their refined apparel made them look out of place in a mostly beach atmosphere. But what set them apart for Shane was the couple’s almost palpable aloofness.

  Who were these people?

  Cris found her tongue first. Taking a deep breath, trying to will away the numbness that had set into her limbs, she forced herself to step forward. “Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald, you’re here.”

  “Don’t look so surprised, I did leave you a message,” Marion MacDonald said to her coolly. “I assumed you checked your messages.”

  “Yes, I checked,” Cris answered, feeling herself losing ground right on the spot. “Your message said you were coming within a week.”

  “Well, dear, unless I’ve forgotten how to read a calendar, this is within a week.” The woman smiled a smile that never reached her eyes, which narrowed as she focused on her former daughter-in-law.

  “We’ve come to have that talk, Cristina.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ALTHOUGH EXPECTED, the arrival of Cris’s former in-laws still managed to stun them all.

  But as reality sank in, Richard stepped forward, sincerely hoping that whatever had prompted this trip to San Diego and his inn could be dealt with, with common sense and civility.

  He wore his very best innkeeper/unofficial mediator smile. “Why don’t we get you settled in first and then we can all talk and catch up?”

  Marion MacDonald raised her ice-blue eyes to his and fixed the man before her with what seemed to Shane a barely veiled look of superiority.

  Though the woman and her husband had met Cris’s father at Mike’s funeral, she regarded him now without a trace of recognition.

  “I’m sorry,” she said formally, “and you are?”

  “Richard Roman,” Richard replied, taking no offense at her unconscious snub. “We met at Mike’s funeral. This is my inn and Cris is my daughter,” he told her.

  It was both an introduction and a warning. Though he was an incredibly friendly man given to being low-key, he was not about to tolerate rude or condescending behavior toward any member of his family, intended or otherwise. From what Cris had told him, Mike’s parents behaved as though they belonged to the privileged class, a class he and his family were clearly not a part of. He had a feeling that at best, he and his family were politely tolerated.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Richard,” Marion replied. “However, there is no need for either of us to ‘settle in.’” She repeated Richard’s words with disdain, as if he had used a quaint regionalism. “Arthur and I are actually staying
in a suite at the Hilton.”

  “We would gladly have put you up here,” Richard told her, indicating there was no need to pay for accommodations some distance away when the MacDonalds could just as easily have stayed at the inn free.

  “Yes, well, we’ve already checked in there and are quite comfortable, thank you. There would be no point in uprooting and coming here. We won’t be staying that long. Just long enough to have a few words with your lovely daughter here.” She said the words without feeling, as if she knew that some sort of compliment was expected and she was living up to her part of the social covenant.

  Cris shifted uncomfortably. The woman was as cold and distant as she’d always been, Cris thought. Instinctively, she placed her hand protectively on her son’s shoulder.

  Stomach tightening, nerves almost at the point of snapping, Cris couldn’t stand not knowing any longer. “Exactly what is it about Ricky’s future that you want to discuss?” she asked, trying her best not to let fear enter her voice.

  She could see that Mike’s mother took the question as a challenge to her authority. Cris hadn’t meant it that way, but she knew that if she continued being mild mannered, Marion would see that as weakness and walk all over her.

  If she were the only one involved, maybe she would have allowed it.

  But there was Ricky to think of and she wasn’t about to have her son go through what Mike had confided he had endured at that age.

  Although it was obvious the woman neither liked being questioned nor cared for having to explain herself in any fashion, apparently to keep matters civil she made an effort to smooth things out just a little. “His education,” Marion said, answering Cris’s question. “Richard will be starting first grade in the fall and we—Arthur and I—have certain ideas about where Richard should go.”

  Cris had named the boy after her father, but no one had called him by his full name since he’d been baptized, and even then, only on that one occasion.

  “He prefers to be called Ricky,” Cris informed the woman as she closed her arms around the boy while never taking her eyes off Marion.

  The woman seemed unwilling even to repeat the nickname. “Yes, well, he’ll grow out of that. A year at the San Francisco Boys Academy will see to that, among other things,” she told Cris in no uncertain terms.

  “Definitely,” Arthur agreed in a raspy voice.

  Cris looked from one to the other, stunned. What were they talking about? “Excuse me?”

  This had all the signs of turning ugly, Richard decided. “Stevi, why don’t you take Ricky outside to play a little?” Richard suggested.

  Stevi was about to protest her father’s request, pointing out that it was getting dark, but then she realized why she was being dispatched with the boy. Stevi put her hand out for Ricky’s.

  “C’mon, I need to show you something outside,” Stevi coaxed.

  The expression on the boy’s face clearly indicated he was torn between his desire to play outside at night—a rare treat—and remain here, listening to the adults talk. There were moments when Cris thought her son had an old soul. He had the ability to fit right in with people four times his age.

  But not at this moment.

  The second Ricky allowed himself to be led off, Cris picked up the conversation where she’d dropped it.

  “Just what are you talking about, Marion?” Cris demanded, tapping into courage she hadn’t realized she had. “Ricky isn’t going to any academy.”

  “Oh, but he must. You don’t expect him to go to a public school, do you?” As far as the woman was concerned, it was a rhetorical question.

  She wasn’t prepared to hear Cris say, “That’s exactly what I expect. His kindergarten has a very fine school attached to it.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps for the children in the area, but Richard is a MacDonald. There are certain expectations he’ll have to live up to,” Marion pointed out.

  “The only expectation he has to live up to is to be a good, decent human being,” Cris said.

  “Oh, my dear, you have so much to learn,” the woman said, laughing and shaking her head.

  “Maybe,” Cris allowed. “But not about Ricky. I’m his mother and I know what’s best for my son.”

  There was contempt in the older woman’s eyes. “Apparently not. Arthur and I can give him things you can’t, provide him with opportunities you would never be able to provide him with. You can’t seriously want to deny him the world we can introduce him to.”

  Had Mike not told her how lonely he’d been, how unloved he’d felt in this world Marion was talking about, she might have been induced to put her heart aside and give Ricky to these people. But Mike had told her and she was convinced that love trumped money every time.

  “I can, and I do,” Cris replied. “I’m not giving you my son. He doesn’t even know you.”

  Marion looked at her as if she was spouting gibberish. “What does that have to do with my proposal?” she demanded.

  “That’s my whole point,” Cris cried. “It has everything to do with it.”

  “Young woman, you’re talking nonsense. I am talking about giving Richard the world on a platter and you are talking about—well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is that you are trying to deprive my grandson.” Marion took a breath, then, before anyone else could say anything, she tried another approach. “Look, be reasonable. I’m sure you can see that Arthur and I can provide far better for our grandson than you, with your meager funds and abilities, could ever dream of doing. We can give him all the creature comforts he’d ever possibly want, introduce him to the finer things in life. What can you do for him? Train him to be a bellhop?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cris saw Alex struggling not to tell the woman off. Cris deliberately waved her back. “Ricky doesn’t need creature comforts. What my son needs is love—something that was, according to Mike, and most likely still is, in extremely short supply in your museum of a house.” Fighting to keep her fraying temper in check, she told the couple, “If you aren’t here to spend the holidays with your grandson or begin building some sort of decent relationship with Ricky, I suggest you go back to where you came from. Now,” she concluded with emphasis.

  Marion’s carefully made-up face turned ugly right before Cris’s eyes. “We’ll go for the moment, but we are not leaving San Diego without the boy. I’m afraid you leave us no choice. If we cannot make you see that this is in the boy’s best interest, then we will have to file for sole custody of Richard.”

  Alex could not stand it anymore. “Why?” she demanded, moving forward. Her very stance was confrontational. “It can’t be because you love him. If you did, you’d leave him with his mother.”

  “For your information, we have tried to get your sister to move into our house, but she refused. Twice,” Arthur underscored, speaking up at last. “We understand that she’s attached to this place, but we have an obligation to make sure our son’s boy is raised properly.”

  Cris clenched her hands into fists at her sides, fervently wishing she could take a swing at each MacDonald. But that would only give them ammunition to have her declared an unfit mother. So all she could do was repeat, “He’s not going with you.”

  The steely look on Marion’s face said she was confident they had already won the battle and there were merely some formalities to go through. “If you choose to fight us on this, we will take you to court—and you will lose. If you like, we can just, say, make a sizable donation to the inn in exchange for your cooperation in this matter.”

  “This ‘matter’ is her son,” Shane interjected, surprising the others. “She’s the boy’s mother.” He’d tried to hold on to his temper as long as possible, feeling it wasn’t his place to say anything. But he couldn’t stand by and watch Cris being bullied this way. “Mothers are awarded custody of their children all over
the country.”

  “Perhaps in general,” Marion allowed, then gave them all a preview of how the case would go. She had come prepared. “But she is a single mother, working in a dead-end job at a quaint motel that has trouble staying in the black. We’ve done our research, you see—just in case,” she told Cris. “We, the boy’s grandparents, on the other hand, are quite well-to-do and well regarded in the upper circles of society. What that means in simple terms is that we have the money to keep fighting this until we win.”

  Marion delivered her summation fully expecting to overwhelm the woman her son had so irresponsibly selected as a mate.

  “Be reasonable, Cristina. We can give Richard everything. By your own admission, all you can give him is love—which wears thin after a while. If you were to keep him, as he grows up—doing without so many things—he will resent you for it,” Marion predicted solemnly.

  But Cris could only shake her head. “You don’t know the first thing about raising a child,” she told the couple, and there was actually a touch of pity in her voice because clearly they couldn’t see. “Ricky will resent me if I give him up without a fight.”

  “Then by all means, fight for him—a little,” Arthur counseled, about to offer what was obviously a compromise. “Make a show of it—then be gracious and step away. We all want the best for the boy and only one side can provide that for him. Be smart. Accept the money, leave the boy. You’ll both prosper,” he concluded with a smile.

  His wife took the lead again, striking what in their estimation should have been the victory blow. “Now this can go peacefully, and the boy will be left without scars. Or it can be dragged out in the courtroom, where Richard will be subjected to rigorous cross-examination and an experience he will not look back on with fondness. He will grow to hate you for the turmoil in his life as well as for keeping him away from the finer things—because we will win. If you are truly interested in his welfare, step away. Otherwise, this court battle will hurt him,” Marion emphasized.