Searching for Sea Glass: BEST-SELLING AUTHOR (Sea Glass Secrets Book 1) (23 page)

How was she supposed to sit there and make polite conversation with JD’s lover? For all she knew they might be married by now. So Sunny might be sharing a table with his wife, while she herself carried the man’s baby. It was not a good start to this visit.

“Elizabeth, Elizabeth come join us.” Helene waved her over.

Nobody had called Sunny, Elizabeth since she’d attended Vacation Bible School at the Baptist Church when she’d been six-years-old. She did her best to paste a smile on her face and sat in the empty chair.

“It’s Sunny. My name is Sunny,” she corrected the older woman with a smile.

Helene made a moue with her lips. She shared a look with Leanne before she answered the newcomer. “Sunny’s just a nickname and so very plebian. And the way you’re dressed just adds to that impression. So inappropriate my dear, at the very least you could have worn a skirt. We don’t want to give the others any more reason to form strange ideas about you. Now do we? So I prefer calling you Elizabeth. You don’t mind, do you dear?”

Leanne snorted into her drink. It was clear more was going on than met the eye. Before Sunny could answer Helene that she did indeed mind, the hostess was calling out again.

“Oh, good. It’s JD. Come over here, darling and say hello to our guest.” The woman turned again to Sunny. She trilled, “You remember my son JD, don’t you Elizabeth?”

Awkward did not describe the situation. Painful came close. But catastrophic was much more accurate. Sunny knew she’d have to see him. She was prepared for that. What she was not prepared for was the way she was being blindsided almost at the moment of her arrival. Sunny swallowed hard. She forced herself to look up at him. His gaunt face surprised her. And the haunting emptiness of his eyes made her ache with despair. Was JD ill? Was that why he’d secluded himself as Sam said he’d done?

“Miss Murphy,” he said and bowed his head with perfect courtesy.

“Mr. McIntyre,” she responded in kind.

To all the world they looked like two polite strangers greeting each other.

“I thought ya’ll were old friends.” There was a distinctly malicious sound to Leanne’s words. “Why be so formal?”

The question hung in the air between them. Neither ventured to answer. Sunny took a long sip of her iced tea. The movement made her sea glass necklace jingle as the colorful stones rubbed together.

“I see you’re wearing that cute piece of jewelry again. I do
so
wish you’d sell it to me,” Leanne said with an arch look in her heavily made-up eyes.

“I’m sorry I can’t. It’s sentimental to me.” Sunny said. As she looked around the pool, she realized every eye was trained on her. It was as if they all knew something was about to happen. Something bad.

“I hate to interrupt, but I do believe our guests of honor have arrived,” Helene said. She cleared her throat to get the party’s attention. “Everyone, I know you’ve all been waiting to help me spring this little surprise on Elizabeth. So now let’s welcome our special guests to this charming, much-needed family reunion.” She led the others in a round of applause.

Sunny had no idea what Helene was talking about until she heard two familiar voices. Ones she hoped never to hear again.

“Hey, baby sister. Looks like you sure landed in high cotton this time.” It was her brother Lee. And he was either high or very, very drunk. He shambled over, knocking a lady’s elaborate off as he passed her.

“Sunny, why haven’t I heard from you in so long.” That pitiful whine could only belong to her mother.

“Lee, Mama, what are you doing here?” Sunny stood and asked even though she had a pretty good idea how and why they’d suddenly appeared in her life once again.

“Is that any way to greet your brother and your mama?” Lee’s voice was thick and mean.

“He’s right girl, you ought to be thanking your lucky stars Mizz McIntyre took a notion to find us,” Martha Murphy agreed.

“Oh, it wasn’t me who found you, Mrs. Murphy. It was my son, JD. He had all the pertinent information in a very convenient file, right on his desk,” Helene cooed.

Martha nodded towards the cold society matron. She picked at a sore on her face before continuing to harangue Sunny. “You owe us both, girl. And we’re here to collect.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Sunny was both confused and horrified.

“I want my part of the café,” Lee demanded.

“So do I,” her mother added. “Now that it’s going good again, I want my fair share.”

“It weren’t right the way you cheated us Sunny. You know it weren’t,” her brother kept talking.

“He’s right. You’re a downright cheat is what you are. And I’m still thinking you was the cause of your poor daddy’s going to jail and dying like that, so sudden.” The raggedy dressed woman sniffed hard. “I’m about to bring charges against you for all that.”

“What, no. You’re lying. Both of you are lying,” Sunny tried to defend herself.

She looked wildly around for support. She found none. Even JD eyed her with detachment. Almost like he knew exactly what was unfolding, and that was the very worst. Because it meant he
was
a part of this cold-blooded character assassination. Maybe that’s why he’d been staying to himself lately. He’d been busy planning her downfall. Planning a way to force her to give up Billy. Planning a way to show her just how very insignificant she and what they’d done together truly were. It all made a perfect, horrible kind of sense. She’d say one thing for JD McIntyre. He was very good at taking his revenge.

“Sunny you always was a cheat and a thief. I shoulda been running our restaurant all these years myself.” Lee pointed his finger at her.

“He’s right. He shore is. If you hadn’t got him run out of Murphy’s Point he’d never have ended up in that farm jail over in Baton Rouge. He’s always been innocent as a lamb. But you,” Martha snarled and pointed at Sunny. “You was the one who was always sneaking out of the house late at night to sell dope.”

A sudden icy calm settled over Sunny. It was almost an out-of-body experience. Yes, she knew exactly what was going on. She knew and a small part of her was not surprised. The McIntyres had paid her foolish relatives to humiliate and slander her in front of half the Social Register of Dallas. This time, when her eyes scanned the leering crowd, she saw them for what they truly were, a bunch of ugly-minded people who delighted and fed off the despair of others. They were emotional vampires. And she wasn’t going to stay here and provide them with their next meal.

“I feel sorry for you, all of you,” she told them in a clear dignified voice. “I may not be rich. I may not have the money to dress as well as you do. But I do know how to treat people. And it’s not like this. You should all be ashamed.”

She started to walk off, but Leanne stopped her.

“Give me that necklace, you little bitch,” the blonde hissed as she grabbed at it.

Sunny gasped when the strand broke. A cascade of beautiful sea glass clattered to the cement surrounding the pool. The stones lay there still lovely, but now broken. She smiled when she realized they were a metaphor for her life. There was a whole lot of beauty in her life. Her friends, Billy, the café, and the passion she’d developed for teaching little ballerinas were part of that beauty. As was the sweet baby growing under her heart. She might be broken right now, but she still had a lot to be thankful for.

And it was right, somehow, that the remains of the necklace Willie had so lovingly created would stay here with her family. Maybe one day they would realize how much Sunny’s friend had loved them. Maybe one day they’d be able to look beyond the building of their image and realize they needed to save their family. She hoped the McIntyres could do that one day.

Stepping over the broken sea glass, Sunny kept on walking. She didn’t stop until she was out in the driveway. She saw the cowhand named Bower. She called out to him, “Can you fetch my son, please. We’ll be leaving.”

“Will you need a ride back to the airport, Ma’am?” he asked.

“No, I’m calling a cab right now,” she answered him. By the time Bower walked back up with Billy, the taxi was waiting at the gate to the McIntyre ranch.

Taking Billy’s hand, she started down the long drive. She didn’t explain to the boy why they were leaving. And she didn’t slow her step to accommodate his shorter legs.

“Sunny! Sunny!”

She heard a man’s voice call out to her. Her broken heart wanted to make her believe it was JD. Even so, she refused to look back or even slow down. She was well and truly done with the McIntyres.

Sea Glass Point

Four Months Later

“Sunny I found one!”

The young woman with the heavily pregnant belly, smiled at her son. Her walk these days was more of a lumber. And she’d had to give up her teaching role for Maude Evelyn, but otherwise her life was sweeter than she’d ever thought possible. Her progress over the sandy beach was slow. But she finally made it to where Billy stood in the surf holding a piece of sea glass in his hand.

“What color is it?” she asked her.

“It’s pink!”

“Pink?” She looked at the pale translucent stone in his hand. It was smooth and very delicate.

“Yep, do you think that means you’re going to have a girl?” Billy had a lot riding on the gender of his unborn sibling. Of course he was hoping for a brother.

“I don’t know.”

Sunny picked the glass out of his palm and put it into her bag. Ever since they’d come home from Dallas, they’d spend at least a few minutes every day at the beach searching for sea glass. She wanted to make another necklace like the one Willie had given her so long ago. But finding the glass in the right colors wasn’t easy. And finding a pink piece was very rare.

She’d been plagued by a constant low ache in her back all day. She knew it couldn’t be the baby. Her due date was a full two months away. But she was afraid all the same. And she had ample reason for that fear.

“Let’s head back home Billy,” she said as she turned to make the long slow trip back to the car. She got about twenty feet when a sudden hard cramp made her catch her breath. Another had her crouching to the ground. The third saw a thin, steady line of bright blood trickle down to be absorbed into the white sand.

“Billy!” she screamed.

Her son ran up to her. “What’s wrong, Sunny? Why are you bleeding?” he asked with a scared look on his face.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to call Trinity at the café to come get us.”

She fished her cell phone out of the bag. As she started to punch in the number, she began seeing tiny stars dancing in her peripheral vision. She knew she was about to black out. She only had a very few seconds to give Billy instructions. She hated to think of him out here alone on the beach without the benefit of an adult.

“Billy Boy, you’ve got to do something for me, OK?”

“What Sunny?”

“I want you to take my phone and call 911.”

“But my teacher says you’re only supposed to call 911 if it's a real emergency,” he argued with her. “If it’s not a real emergency, you can get in big trouble.”

“I know, Billy Boy, I know. You won’t get in trouble. I promise. This
is
a real emergency.” She managed to say the word
emergency
just before she fell into the darkness.

Waiting Room

Tri-County Hospital

“Somebody needs to call him.” Trey Dunn was so tired. He’d been coming off a twelve hour shift when he’d gotten the call from his wife to meet her at the hospital.

“Can we not have this conversation right now,” Trinity asked with a hint of irritation. “Sunny may be dying back there. I think that’s a little more important than getting in touch with that jerk. I don’t care if he has been trying to call her every single day. We all know what happened in Texas. And we all know how Sunny feels about the man.”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with him,” Maude Evelyn said.

Harry nodded. “That’s right. And if I ever see that creep again, I’m going to have a little talk with him about his behavior.” He cracked his knuckles to accentuate his threat.

“I could run over him with my bus, you know, sort of accidentally,” Maxine grumbled.

“But what if she doesn’t make it? Who’s responsible for the baby?” Trey asked. He rubbed the grit from his tired eyes.

“If you’re going to be spreading around that kind of terrible energy, you can just go on home.” Trinity gave him the evil eye. “Sunny will be fine, just fine. And so will her baby.”

“Have they stopped the bleeding yet?” Maude Evelyn asked for the hundredth time.

No one answered. It was because they all knew the truth about how Sunny’s precarious situation. Even if some of them didn’t want to admit it.

“I’m calling McIntyre.” Trey was done with asking their permission. He was taking charge. He got out his cell phone. He called information and got the number for McIntyre Industries. “If any of you would rather talk to him, now’s the time to speak up.”

“I’d like to do more than
talk
to him,” Trinity sarcastically mumbled under her breath. No one else said a word.

“Fine, I’ll take care of it.” Trey listened as the thing rang four times. He was almost about to give up when a cool professional voice answered.

“McIntyre Industries, how may I direct your call?”

“I need to speak with Mr. JD McIntyre.”

“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. McIntyre does not take unsolicited calls. Can I direct you to some other person?”

“He’ll take this call,” Trey said grimly.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m not authorized to send any calls to his office. But I can take a message, if you’d like to leave one.”

“Tell the bastard his baby’s about to be born two months prematurely. And tell that no-good son of a bitch, the child’s mother, Sunny Murphy is dying.”

He didn’t wait to hear the woman’s response. Nobody in the waiting room had anything to add.

An hour and a half later JD McIntyre strode in. His face was hard. His hands were tight fists at his side. He was alone.

“How is she?” he demanded of the folks still sitting there in a troubled group.

“I didn’t think you cared what happened to Sunny or your baby,” Trinity sneered at him. “If you had, you’d have gotten your sorry ass here sooner. Like seven months ago. Or even after that last time you forced her out to Texas.”

“Yeah,” Harry got up and walked over to McIntyre. “We all know what you and your family did to Sunny. If this wasn’t a public place, I’d knock your block off.”

“I don’t care what you think you know. I don’t care if you hate me. I don’t care if you want me dead. I’ve wanted the same damn thing for the last seven months. I just want to know if Sunny’s still alive.” He faced them all down.

Only Maude Evelyn had the grace to answer his tortured question. “She was ten minutes ago. But she’s losing too much blood. They’re giving her plasma. But they can’t give it to her as fast as she’s losing her own. And they can’t stop her blood loss. The doctors want to do a C-section to try and save the baby. A normal delivery is out of the question. But Sunny condition’s is so dire, there’s little chance she would survive the surgery.”

If anything his face became more stiff, more rigid and forbidding as he heard the news. “I want to see her, Now.”

“You can’t,” Trinity told him. “They only let one of us go back every hour. And then only for a few minutes.”

“If you’re wanting to talk to her, you most likely won’t be able to. They’ve got her highly sedated. And the blood loss has her fading in and out,” Trey spoke with precision. He was the only one among them who regularly dealt with life threatening circumstances such as the one in which they now found themselves.

“Watch me,” JD snarled. He strode to the double doors that led back to Sunny. He shoved them with so much force they flew apart and slammed against the walls on either side of the opening. They all heard the alarm go off as JD prowled out of sight.

“What should we do?” asked a suddenly meek Trinity.

“Nothing,” answered her husband. “He may be the catalyst she needs to fight for her life.”

“Officer? Can you come help us. We’ve got an unauthorized intruder.” A nurse panted as she ran out of the back.

Trey sighed. He took his own sweet time getting up. But he did follow the frantic woman, eventually. Coming around a corner, the sheriff’s deputy saw what looked to be a standoff between the Texas billionaire and a doctor who had placed herself between the glowering man and the curtain to Sunny’s cubicle.

“Is there a problem?” Trey smirked.

“There damn well is,” JD bit off each venomous word.

“He can’t go in there,” the young doctor said at almost the same time.

“I
am
going in there to her. And you’ve only got about thirty more seconds to get out of my way,” JD’s tone was soft and deadly.

“Officer, arrest this man,” the doctor demanded.

“He can try,” JD mocked as he looked over at Trey.

“Dr…,” Trey read her name tag. “Benning. I think we can bend the rules on this one occasion, don’t you? He’s the baby’s father.”

“Then why hasn’t he been here sooner. We’ve been monitoring Miss Murphy’s placenta for months. I’d think he’d have the decency to have shown a little more concern earlier on. Even if they’re not married.”

“I never said I was decent,” JD rasped. “If I’d been a decent man, Sunny would have answered her phone so I could explain. But she didn’t. I’ve called her every damned day for the last four months, Dr. Benning. And I didn’t even know she was carrying my child. I stayed away because I thought that’s what she wanted. But I can tell you straight up, I’ve been a damned sight
more than a little concerned
. So do yourself a favor and get out of my way before you get hurt.”

He pushed her aside with as much gentleness as he could muster. It wasn’t much. The doctor let out an exclamation as he charged past her. She pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. She blew at the hair that was now falling in her face.

“I’ll give him five minutes. Then I want him hauled out of here,” she told Trey.

Inside the cubicle, JD’s heart clutched in his chest when he saw how pale Sunny was. She looked so white, for a terrifying moment he feared she’d already died. But the constant quiet beeping of the machines reassured him. He put his hands on the pillow on either side of her head and just looked at her. She was asleep. She was thin, so very thin. Her little mounded belly protruded under the sheet that enveloped her. His child lay safe within her failing body. His child. How she must hate him to keep such knowledge from him. He wanted to howl and bellow to whatever deity might be listening. The injustice of seeing vibrant, kind, unselfish Sunny here in this bed, her life leaching away, tore at his soul.

If anybody should have to pay the consequences for what had transpired between them, it was JD. Sunny was the guiltless. JD was the man whose sins and transgressions were too numerous to count. He was the animal who had ripped through her innocence with all the care and finesse of a raging bull. Bereft, he could the delicate blue veins of her arm with one shaking finger. He tenderly brushed the hair from her forehead.

“Sunny?’ he called to her. His low voice was hoarse and thick with emotion. A world of anguish and regret was in that a one word. “Sunny, can you wake up, just for a minute, love?”

The still girl in the bed remained silent.

“I just need to tell you something, something I should have told you that night. The night we made this baby. But I was a coward. I was afraid. Afraid of a lot of things. But mostly, I was afraid I’d hurt you.” His low laugh was bitter. “I guess I ended up doing that anyway.”

She didn’t respond. He picked up her limp hand. He placed a sacred kiss in her palm. He laid it over his hammering heart.

“I tried to call you to explain, but you know that already. About the calls. And then, when you never answered, I told myself you hated me. It’s alright if you do. I deserve your hate. But I did want you to know I had nothing to do with that damned tea party. I didn’t know my mother and Leanne were planning to spring your relatives on you that way. I admit I did have a file on you. But Sunny, I’d never have used it to hurt you. My mother must have found it on my desk. When you looked at me, remember how you looked at me? I wanted to kill them all right then. Your folks included. But I knew you wouldn’t want that. So I waited. Maybe I waited too long. And you didn’t need my help, not really. Because the way you handled it was magnificent. I was so proud of you that day. You stood up to them. And you called them all out. Damn, but you were something that day.”

He smiled, remembering. “But by the time I had called the police to come haul your folks away, you were already marching down the drive dragging Billy behind you. I tried to stop you. I know you heard me, but you ignored me. I don’t blame you for that either. After the way you’d been treated, by me and my family, you had the right to be angry. I thought maybe you’d talk to me after you’d thought things over. But you didn’t. It was then I knew I’d lost the only person who would ever matter to me. And I’d done it by being stupid and selfish… and by being a coward.”

He stopped for a minute. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. He knew there was more he had to tell her. “About…, about the scars. I’ve never told anyone how I got them, but I want you to know. My father was broken. I guess that’s the best word for him. He wasn’t just mean or a drunk. He was evil. And I was his whipping boy. His target of choice. As a kid, I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping his secrets. I know now, I wasn’t. What he did made me cynical, brutal. Especially towards you.”