The Millionaire's Homecoming

He’d felt the dilemma of it; his best friend was staking a claim, had a prior claim. Since his own father had died, David had practically lived at the house next door. He and Kevin were more than friends. They were brothers. Plus, what had Kayla been doing kissing David when she’d agreed to go with Kevin to the prom?

David had done the only possible thing. He’d backed off. In truth, he had probably thought he might have another chance to explore the electricity that had leaped so spontaneously between him and Kayla.

He had thought the thing between her and Kevin would play itself out. Kevin never stuck with anything for long.

But then the little girl had drowned. On Kevin’s watch. And the days of that summer had become a swiftly churning kaleidoscope that they all had been sucked into. A kaleidoscope of loss and of pain and guilt and remorse and sadness. And of anger.

And somehow, when the kaleidoscope had stopped spinning and had spit them all out, Kayla and Kevin were engaged.

It occurred to David that he had been angry at Kevin long before that child had drowned.

“You need to go.”

Kayla said it again, more firmly.

David wanted to get away from her, and from the anger in her eyes, and the recrimination, and the pain that shaded the green to something deeper than green.

She dismissed him, turning her back on him, marching through the doors of the clinic.

The easiest thing would have been to let her go.

But when had David ever done what was easy?

He had promised to see to her dog and her things, and the fact that his word was solid gold was part of what had allowed him to go so far in the world. Blaze Enterprises had been built on a concept of integrity that was rare in the business world.

He followed her through the doors of the clinic.

The ancient nurse, Mary McIntyre, insisted that Kayla take one of the beds in the empty clinic, and so, even though Kayla had dismissed him, he followed them as Mary fussed around her, asking questions, taking her pulse and her blood pressure and listening to her heart.

“We’ll just keep an eye on you, dear. There’s a doctor three minutes away if we need him.”

“Okay,” Kayla said, settled on the cot, her arms folded across her chest. She glared at David. “Why are you still here?”

“Just making sure.”

She raised a comically puffy eyebrow at him. “You don’t need my pity. I don’t need your help. I’m chaperoned. I can’t possibly get into any more trouble. The neighborhood kids are out looking for my dog and are retrieving my purse, so you can go.”

It was like coming through a smoky building fraught with danger, and finally catching sight of the red exit sign.

“Do you want me to pick you up in a couple of hours?”

David contemplated the words that had just come out of his mouth, astounded. He wasn’t even planning on being here in a couple of hours. A quick check on his mother, a consult with her care aides and gone.

The urgency to get back to his world felt intense.

Especially now that he’d had this run-in with Kayla.

But in a moment of madness he had promised to look after her dog, and bike and purse. He had tangled their lives together for a little while longer. But escape was just postponed, not canceled.

And apparently, she was just as eager not to tangle their lives as he was.

“I’ve got the neighborhood kids on the case of my dog. I mean it would be nice if you checked, but no, don’t feel obligated. And no, definitely don’t come back. I’ll just walk home. It’s not far.”

She had been riding her bike on Sugar Maple. Did she live close to there?

“Where are you staying?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “I thought your mom would have told you.”

“Told me what?” he said cautiously.

His mother, these days, told him lots of things. That someone was sneaking into the house stealing her eyeglasses. And wine decanters. That she’d had the nicest conversation with his father, who had been dead for seventeen years.

That was part of the reason he was here.

One of the live-in care aides had called him late last night and said, in the careful undertone of one who might be listened to, You should come. It may not be safe for her to be at home anymore.

He had known it was coming, and yet been shocked by it all the same. Wasn’t he back in his hometown hoping it was an overreaction? That if he just hired more staff he would not have to take his mother from the only home she had known for the past forty years?

It seemed to David, of all the losses that this town had handed him, this was the biggest one of all.

He was losing his mother. But he was not confiding that in Kayla, with her all-too-ready sympathy!

“You thought my mother would tell me where you lived?”

“David, I’m her next-door neighbor.”

His mouth fell open and he forced it shut. That was a rather large oversight on his mother’s part.

“The house was too much for Kevin’s folks,” Kayla said.

He’d known that. The house had been empty the last few times he had visited; he had noticed the Jaffreys were no longer there the next time he’d returned to Blossom Valley after Kevin’s funeral. It probably wasn’t the house that was too much, but the memories it contained.

David had his fair share of those, too. He’d felt a sense of loss, to go with his growing string of losses that he felt when he came home, at seeing the house empty. He had practically grown up in that house next door to his, he and Kevin passing in and out of each other’s kitchens since they were toddlers.

Both of them had been only children, and maybe that was why they had become brothers to each other as much as friends.

There was no part of David’s childhood that did not have Kevin in it. He was part of the fabric of every Christmas and birthday. They had learned to ride two-wheelers and strapped on their first skates together. They had shared the first day of school. They had chosen David’s puppy together, and the dog that had been on their heels all the days of their youth had really belonged to both of them.

They had built the tree fort in Kevin’s backyard, and swam across the bay together every single summer.

When David’s dad had died, Mr. Jaffrey had acted like a father to both of them.

No, maybe not a father. More like a friend. Had that been part of the problem with Kevin? A problem David had successfully ignored for years?

No rules. No firm hand. No guidelines. An only child, totally indulged, who had, despite his fun-loving charm, become increasingly self-centered.

The Jaffreys’ empty house had looked more forlorn with each visit: paint needing freshening up, shingles curling, porch sagging, yard overgrown.