I'm back. It wasn't really a pleasure vacation so much as a work/charity sort of thing that brought pleasure. Helped some people, made some connections, yada, yada … good Lord it is hot down there. The humidity is near 100% all day long here but down there it is like hell's back door plus humidity despite it only being 85 degrees or so. Not even walking on the beach was pleasant … in my opinion. You take two steps and you are winging wet. St. Maarten was a bust for us … too many people still sitting around waiting for someone else to take care of their problems. They're also waiting for insurance checks to do the repair work at the larger venues … and will likely be waiting so long that the places will never reopen simply because they've been allowed to deteriorate too far. San Juan was nice though even if the higher end areas the repairs are hit or miss. And La Perla is quite frankly still a disaster area … that's the land between the sea and the old city wall that has the forts on either end. But the place has lots of potential if people would just invest themselves and stop waiting around for the government to fix their problems. Haiti was a mess, 'nuff said but we were there for charity so we didn't expect any different. We were on the coast rather than the interior so didn't see any violence and in fact the people were extremely nice and appreciative of every little thing.
So … here is what I've been trying to post. Sorry you had to wait.
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Chapter 72
Clint was still in my face when he exclaimed, “You’re here! Thank god!”
I was trying to find enough oxygen for my lungs not to act brain damaged. Responding with what little intellect I was able to muster I answered, “Uh … yes … yes I am … here.”
He was pale when he told me, “I got your text that you left Asheville. Then I heard there was a bad accident on I-40. I called and called but …”
And then I saw it. Real shock and fear. Not made up. Not something to distract me or roll me. Nothing the least similar to what Kirk would have done in the same circumstances to avoid talking about what needed talking about. This was Clint being Clint. To stave off some of the worry he’d been feeling I told him, “We’re fine. The phones have been acting funny since Friday.”
“We?”
Slightly perplexed that he’d ask I responded, “Carra and I.”
He was obviously startled. “Carra is here?! Wait, that wasn’t the plan even yesterday. What about Thanksgiving with Keller?”
I gave him the general outline of what occurred and how Robert thought it would be better all around if Carra cut her visit short. “Carra was ready to go by then.” I didn’t mention why I was also ready to go by then.
“Where is she?” he asked, looking over his shoulder like he expected Carra to simply materialize.
“Over at Lindy’s catching up on the school she missed. And before I forget, call your Aunt Daffy to let her know whether you are going to the family Thanksgiving dinner.”
“I’ll call in a while. Right now …”. He stopped for a moment took a deep breath and said, “We need to talk.” I waited him out, putting into practice what I’d learned in counseling. He stuttered, “You … saw a … er … file … folder.”
I didn’t even bother denying it. Nonchalantly I said, “You must have dropped it when you dumped your briefcase, and everything fell out. I found it under the coffee cabinet after you left.”
“And you read it.”
“Yes.”
“Dammit.”
I stepped away and tried to distance myself but Clint stepped in front of my exit. “Wait. Shanna I swear, I’m not cursing at you. I’m … I’m cursing because I should have talked to you about it before and now I’m not … dammit I’m not quite sure you even want to hear me try and explain.”
Trying to respond calmly and not go off on him the way I was half-way tempted to I said, “Clint, you could have asked. I wouldn’t have … enjoyed … answering the kind of questions that came up in the file … or any question you might have had about that part of my past … but I would have been honest. You … you never even gave me a chance.”
He sighed. “Sit with me? But not here. It’s like ice in here. Let’s go to my office and I’ll light a fire. Please.”
So I did. One way or the the other I needed to know where I stood. The worry that Clint didn’t truly cared for me was gone but as Keller had said that night, I’m too old to think that love conquers all. While I’d seen the look in his eyes when he thought I might have been in that car pile up, I knew we needed more than just raw emotion. And it hadn’t been about Carra either as he thought she was till in Asheville so that was at least a little reassuring. That at least made me feel like there was something to work with. I followed him into the office and then waited him out again as he lit a fire that drove the chill out of the room if not out of my heart.
“Sit with me?”
So I sat and then waited for him to start. I also tried very hard to control my anxiety.
It looked like he was trying to control his own anxiety but he finally started. “Some of the family went to Reave to ask wether he could determine what was true and what wasn’t as far as the rumors that were flying. It was right around the time that we discovered the extent to which some of the outside agents were willing to instigate problems in the family with innuendo and financial blackmail. Reave said it wasn’t retaliatory on his part – that he swears to and I believe him – but they put him in a difficult position and Reave only knows one way - his way - of figuring things out. Complicating that is this was all done without going to or through George Crocker whose job this sort of thing is supposed to be. He’s … upset. Strike that, he’s royally pissed off that the questions were handled the way they were. He said your references had all panned out as had everything on your resume. He was offended that they thought he would do such a poor job of weeding out any undesirable applicants.”
More relieved than I had realized I was I asked, “Mr. Crocker didn’t know?”
“No, he didn’t. He wants to talk to you about that part of it.”
Setting that part aside for the moment I said, “If he said he didn’t, then he didn’t. I trust him. He’s always been very upfront, even when he had a concern of some type.”
Clint winced like I’d struck him. “Well, that will make him feel some better at least.” He cleared his throat then continued. “Reave can be … a damn lawyer in how he approaches things. Sometimes that is good and sometimes … not. I’m not making excuses for me or him. It’s just we are the way we are for a reason. And some of the things the PI found were … they appeared …”
I was perhaps blunter than necessary when I finished his sentence by saying, “It made me sound like either an idiot or that I had to be a mercenary bitch.”
I managed to shock him. “Shanna!”
“Are you telling me you read it some other way? Because if so then you don’t have half the intelligence I’ve always credited you with having.”
“Er …”
Continuing to be bluntly forthright I told him, “I’m going to say this once. Yes, at one point I was completely blind to Kirk’s … less than stellar personality traits. It took a long time to get where I was with Kirk and a long time to escape what my life had become … both because of Kirk and because of my own shortcomings. I neither saw nor experienced the negatives while we were dating, he was always very supportive. I still believe his actions then to be honest and true … and will continue so until concrete proof can be shown me otherwise. The cracks started forming after his mother died, but then again I don’t think I was prepared for what life threw at us either. When exactly it was that things started to … deteriorate beyond normal wear and tear I don’t know; sometime after his mother’s death is all I can tell you. Before that everything was still fresh and new; we were both still fresh and new. What I can tell you is that most of those stories the PI heard are either false or exaggerated, but I wasn’t an angel and I’ve already copped to that multiple times.”
“Sweetheart …”
Then I got down to the nitty gritty. “Please let me finish. I found out things about Kirk in that file that I never knew. I didn’t know that he was engaged to a girl before me. I didn’t know about the inheritance from his grandparents. I didn’t know about some of his … activities … while we were separated. And I certainly didn’t have any contact with him after the divorce was final until right before I accepted the offer to come here to work. That night in Asheville has been the one and only time that I’ve had any contact with him since coming here to work. Same for Maria – or Sophia or whatever she is calling herself now. I didn’t know about his second wife or the child. And quite frankly none of the above that occurred after the divorce is any of my business. I left everything and everyone behind, just like I said I did. I’m shed of him in more ways that one, but I would like to know why you felt it necessary to investigate me rather than trust me to be honest with you.”
He ran his hand through his hair in angry irritation. “I knew … KNEW … that is how you were going to feel. That’s why when I found out about the investigation Reave did I demanded he turn it all over to me. I should have just chunked the damn thing in the burn barrel but … I read it and … and then … dammit Shanna … I knew the person he described wasn’t the woman that I held in my arms at night.”
“But?”
“No buts.” I just looked at him. “Okay, there were buts in my head but not in my heart. I … I needed to know, and then that final report from the PI came to Reave retracting or correcting many of the stories and I felt vindicated. And of the remaining ones he said he couldn’t find any supporting evidence and they were meaningless to begin with. He did include a few tidbits about the Jackass and then after Asheville I felt it necessary to find out what I could about the guy. I asked for everything he had on him but I wanted facts, not innuendo. And … as you saw, I got it. Honest to god Shanna, I wouldn’t have dumped that on you like that. I wasn’t even going to tell you, I was … I had … dammit I guess I just had some idea that I would be able to protect you from it all.”
We both fell silent. I felt like I was at a crossroad. I could believe Clint and move one direction, or I could choose the other path and the destination would be quite different.
“Clint …”
It must have cost Clint some pride to admit where his motives came from instead of expecting me to choose him regardless of his motives. “Shanna … Sweetheart … I should have spoken to you but you were so … terrified of him. But you didn’t seem to realize how scared of him you were. I didn’t understand it then and to be honest still don’t.”
“I …”. I stoped the automatic denial and restarted. “Fine. I’m … more than just mildly uncomfortable when Kirk is around. He triggers a response in me that I can’t really quantify or explain. I wasn’t lying about the fact he never got physically violent against me … except for that one night. Regardless of that I am no longer with Kirk. I don’t even live in the same state. And no matter what happens here between us I’m fairly certain I don’t even plan on moving back to Florida. There’s nothing left me for there, not even a past I can hold onto. It’s all gone. I thought, at least after a time I thought, that I was building a new life here. A life without constantly having to watch my back in quite the same way.”
I got up and would have paced except for all of the furniture in the way. I did step away from the fire and it was cold. It made me wonder if cold was what I had to look forward to for the rest of my life. I was exhausted and emotionally wasted. I’d battled myself several times out of an anxiety attack while in Asheville and been on the edge of one since being back at the Big House. It was like going back to where I had been. I thought I had dealt with the past but it looked like all I was doing, yet again, was keeping it at bay.
I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and in one of my passes by the desk I wrapped my foot around one of the legs and I started to go down. Clint caught me but when I tried to step back he wouldn’t let go. He held me uncomfortably tight and just stared into my eyes.
“We can work through this Shanna. There’s no reason for you to run.”
Given my state of mind he was lucky I wasn’t sprinting in the opposite direction. Instead I said, “Does it look like I running? I’m right here. I could have left Carra in Asheville. I could have left Robert and Susan to deal with their little disaster on their own. I could have chucked it all and left after bringing Carra back to you. I’ve done none of that.”
“Given the way you’re pacing, if you were going in a straight line you’d be half way to the Estate gates by now.”
“But I’m not.”
“But do you want to be?”
I snapped my eyes up to his ready to give him what for but stopped short when I saw the look in his eyes that he was trying to hide. And I realized yet again that I wasn’t the only one coming off of a bad relationship that had left marks. Mine were all out for too many people to see. Clint had learned to hide his, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
“No. I don’t want to leave,” I told him quietly.
He didn’t relax as I expected him to.
“But?”
I shook my head. “No buts. I just have to learn to live with the fact that my past is also part of my present whether I want it to be or not. There’s no escaping it, there’s only learning to live with it … over and over and over again.”
“That’s … that’s not what I mean to happen.”
“Fine.”
A little hesitantly, like he was afraid to believe me, he asked, “You … believe me?”
I shrugged. “If I expect you to believe me then I need to give you the same courtesy. All … look all I ask is that … if you have questions … if other people have questions … just ask me outright. Don’t go behind my back and talk to people about a problem or concern or whatever. That’s the thing I … Clint I’m not comparing the two of you or anything … just that’s what Kirk would do. It was a way to control me, change me … as if he couldn’t talk to me and expect that if something was that important to him that I wouldn’t find a way to compromise. Or maybe he wasn’t after compromise but total capitulation and wanted as many people on his side as possible. I don’t know. Just I really don’t want to live that way again. If you need something from me just tell me.”
His hug was gentler than his hold had been. He whispered into my hair, “Damn, you’re a forgiving woman.”
I pushed him away enough to tell him, “This isn’t about forgiving though I suppose it could be seen that way. I’m just asking if something I do creates a problem, situation, question, or whatever that you give me first dibs on trying to address it.”
“Sweetheart I told you I knew …”
I forestalled him by saying, “Not just you. If your family has questions, or has a problem with me or with something I do or the way I do it, I would prefer they deal with me one or one. You don’t need to run interference all the time. One, you are in a position that … that might not … look, I just need to be able to hold my own. My life has been like one Sword of Damocles hanging over my head after another, and I’m just tired of living like that. I may never be the best possible partner you could have when dealing with everything that goes on here on the Estate, but I’d like to have the chance to be the best I can be at being your partner. And I know there are things that I have to learn so I can be the best I can be. You can’t learn it for me, and sometimes the best lessons come from mistakes, even unintentional ones. And given your position, your family needs to see that I mean them no harm, mean you no harm, that I don’t mean to usurp power or anything anachronistic like that … in fact only want the best for them, for you, for us. That won’t happen if I’m not willing to prove myself. I can’t hide away from the present anymore than I can the past.” A little hesitantly I asked, “Does any of that make any sense?”
“Yeah it does,” he answered before adding. “I really didn’t not tell you to hurt you … I meant the opposite.”
“One of the hardest lessons that has come out of the insanity that has been my life is that nothing gets better, no problem gets fixed, by hiding my head in the sand. I may not be very good at being me, but I’m the only me there is and …”. I forgot what I was going to say because he kissed me again. Not the panicked kiss that he’d given me when he found me at the piano but one, if possible, that rattled me even more with its promise.
Like he was swearing an oath he told me, “We’ll work on things. I’ll work on things.” Then he added a plea. “Just don’t shut me out. I know it probably took a lot to … to force the issue … and to be willing to let it go. Just … don’t shut me out because I screwed up. And this may be crass as hell and you can say no … but I need to go lay down. I’d like us to do it together. Upstairs. In my bedroom … that I want to be our bedroom. Not for sex but because I need to Sweetheart.”
“Clint?”
“My head has a damn jackhammer in it. This has been a hell of a week. I’m relieved more than I can explain.”
“So the meetings went well?”
“Not the damn meetings Shanna … you … me … us. I … I thought you wouldn’t want to come home.”
“Oh Clint.”
“Let’s just go lie down for a bit. Until Carra comes home? Please?”
I reached around him and turned off the gas to the fireplace and then started leading him out of his office and up the stairs.
A little surprised but relieved he asked, “Sweetheart? You’re sure?”
“You aren’t the only one that has had a few sleepless nights.”
At the landing he whispered against my neck, “Let me make it up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up. And besides, you have a headache. Where is your ‘medicine’?”
He pulled it out of his pocket and I noticed it was still just as full as it had been when I gave it to him the morning he left. “I had to be careful during the depositions. They wanted to make sure that Reave and I weren’t on any kind of medication or homeopathic remedies or anything that could possibly influence our statements and be used against us.”
Having experienced lawyers more than I ever cared to again, that still sounded strange. “Going a bit far on that. It’s peppermint oil for heaven’s sake. What were they after?”
“Anything to throw us off. Eventually though the judge involved got tired of their hijinks and surprised everyone by giving a summary judgement and ordering immediate liquidation of all assets. Then bankruptcy judge threw their case out and the judge overseeing the other stuff … man it was wild. You should have heard all of the crowing and squawking. And supposedly they pierced the corporate veil somehow and some of the plaintiffs are going after the personal assets of the investors. I don’t know if they’ll get anything, but the judge paved the way for them to try. Reave and I cashed their check as fast as we could because I have a feeling that those that don’t may find their remittances aren’t worth the paper they were written on, even with them being cashier checks if someone freezes their accounts.”
“Doesn’t that sort of thing normally take weeks, if not months?”
“Yes it does,” he answered with a wince as he tried to bend down to take his shoes off. I pushed his hands away and bent down myself to do it because frankly he looked like he was about to topple over. He didn’t make a fuss which told me how bad he felt. Instead he explained, “In lieu of some of the monies owed, I negotiated to take that sliver of land … the Estate is now whole once again … but I got them on it.”
At my questioning look he grinned wickedly. “They used a lowered property appraisal in their documents to try and lower the fees they were going to reimburse us with. Plus, they had already done some improvements on the land for drainage and fencing at the corner boundary with the forestry land and the highway.”
“So are you completely finished with them or is there anything left to deal with?”
“As finished as I can make it. Reave is paid back and made whole. All of the family that donated personal savings above and beyond any loan payments have been made whole. And I’ve got three-quarters of my liquidity back plus Reave saw to it that I have a personal stake in that bit of land. Cody knows a guy that wants to selectively harvest some of the non-indigenous trees out of the land for his craftsmen guild … they are going to pay top-dollar for the trees because of their size … and there are several groves of fruit trees in there that Cody is asking to go in shares with me to harvest for his personal use and to send down to the co-op. All of that extra cash will hopefully go a ways toward giving me seed money for any projects we decide to do around here. And remember the old hotel that the investment group had purchased in town?”
“Yes. Is the family going to look for a new venue for selling their wines locally?”
“Even better. My cousin Grady … he’s a grandson to Aunt Florence … is retiring from the military and moving home but he wasn’t exactly wild about moving in with his parents or grandparents until he could get his own place. His wife has a degree in hotel management and is former military herself. They’ve decided to take over the lease and have been offered an option to buy the location outright if it turns out to be as successful as they are saying it can be made into being. The Estate will provide the river and horseback riding experience, they plan on it be a venue for weddings – local and regional – and they are also going to have a restaurant and possibly even a Sunday buffet type thing. And …”
The fireplace had finally taken the chill out of the room and we were laying down – Clint asking me to wear one of his flannel shirts until my clothes could be moved upstairs. I turned to see that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of his portfolio of plans and I gave a small shake of my head. There were very dark circle under his eyes and I suspected he would sleep the remainder of the day and possibly the night away. I set my watch to vibrate an alarm in a couple of hours so that I could get up and make dinner and take care of other things delayed by my unexpected stay out of town.