Back Where She Belongs Read online

  He’d felt the same heat, the same bone-deep commitment to do whatever it took to soothe the tough, tenderhearted girl who let herself be weak only in his arms.

  Seeing her so devastated had torn him up inside. He knew how much she hated breaking down. When was the last time he’d held her?

  When he told her he couldn’t go to NAU because his father was falling apart, bitter, broke and about to sink every penny he had into a pointless lawsuit against Abbott Wharton, her face had blanched, her eyes filled with tears. She’d trusted him and he’d betrayed her. That was a big deal, since the only other person she counted on was her sister. He’d hated letting her down.

  It wasn’t fair to make him choose between his father and her. They’d said ugly things to each other, stabbed at the most tender spots, hurt each other as only two people who’d been as close as they’d been could.

  She’d cut all contact after that—ignored his emails and calls, shut him down completely. He’d been angry, but he should have known. With Tara you were in or out, friend or foe. He’d had this childlike belief that their love would outlast this trouble. He been so caught up in their love, so enmeshed with her, that the breakup had almost killed him.

  He hadn’t seen her since. He’d missed Faye’s wedding, sending a gift in his stead. Tara had been a pretty girl. She was a beautiful woman. Her eyes were the same startling blue, even through her tears, but they had more power, more ability to assess and evaluate. She knew what she wanted now.

  She was curvier, too, and he liked that. She wore her hair in a sleek style, not wildly spiked with color like in high school. She smelled like an expensive perfume, not patchouli and vanilla oil.

  He was glad he’d fixed the funeral for her, though he hadn’t appreciated Tara’s amazement that he had the town job or her assumption that he was just his father’s employee, not his second in command, the guy who’d practically put the place together, who’d set the company on the path that would lead to steady profits and a solid future.

  Rachel’s dig about him being part-time manager hit him wrong. It was true the town needed full-time leadership. Dylan planned to provide it. It was his dream. Within a year, he’d have completed his mission at Ryland Engineering and he could go for it. He intended to build up the town, bring in new business, more housing, boost tourism for the river area with its bird sanctuary. He’d pulled together a decent leadership team already. He needed to write some development grants, and do some outreach. All he needed was time.

  And time was at a premium with the recent headaches over the Wharton Electronics deal. The contract had been the linchpin on his plan and now it was at risk.

  He drove over to the Ryland Engineering plant. When he got out of his car, he paused, taking in the new sign he’d had done by a local graphic artist. The sleek sign, the dark brown gloss paint and the chrome accents gave the building a modern, streamlined look.

  Inside, the redone reception area had white-leather furniture and apricot walls that subtly suggested Ryland’s logo. It wasn’t a showcase like the reception area at Wharton Electronics, but it was respectable.

  Anticipating the increase in clients, he’d decided they’d needed a more polished public face. The sculpture he’d commissioned looked like an abstract fountain using Ryland circuit boards, curving up and out, wired so they seemed to float in the air.

  His father had fought him on the renovation, but his father fought him a lot. It felt like he’d dragged his dad every step of the way to success.

  Now that Dylan was near the finish line, he’d become weary of the struggle. He longed for the time when he could be friends with his father, when he could admire his brilliance and passion, instead of fighting to harness it.

  “Your dad’s asking for you,” the receptionist called to him.

  “Got it.” He walked down the hall and entered his father’s office.

  His father looked up from some papers. “Where have you been?”

  “Arranging to use the high school for Abbott’s funeral.”

  “With all we’ve got going on here, you don’t have time for that town-manager crap.”

  “I can handle it.” He took pride in being a problem solver. He was good with difficult people—his father being a prime example.

  “It’s thankless work. You’ll be begging for your job back in six months.” His father thought his dream of becoming a town leader was foolish. “So did you get the funeral set?” His father held his frown, but he was clearly concerned. He’d been shaky and red-eyed since he heard that Abbott was dead. The two men had been fraternity brothers at MIT, then business associates for almost thirty years, with Ryland Engineering supplying parts to Wharton Electronics.

  Then his father’s business had failed. Abbott bought it, retooled the plant and turned it around, making a fortune. Believing Abbott had had insider information and had robbed him, his father sued, lost, then appealed.

  The ten-year feud between the two men and their companies had ended six months ago, thanks to years of work on Dylan’s part, when Ryland Engineering signed a contract to provide the drive circuitry assembly for the Wharton battery for electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

  “I found town funds to pay for the buses, yeah.”

  “You tell Rachel?”

  “Yes. I saw her at the hospital. Tara was there, too.” His face felt hot. He hoped to hell it didn’t glow red.

  “I’m surprised that one even showed.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “She walked away from her family. Shook them off like water from a dog’s back.”

  “She did what she had to do for herself.”

  “For herself. Exactly. I’m glad we raised you better. Though I blame that on her mother, who spoiled her rotten. That’s what comes of thinking money makes you better.” Dylan had felt the friction between his father and Tara’s mother even as a kid when the families got together for picnics and card games. His father had always been sensitive about status and wealth.

  Now, he turned a framed photo away from himself.

  Dylan picked it up, recognizing it as the shot of his father and Abbott posing with a jet turbofan they’d first collaborated on. His father had designed the components and Wharton Electronics had assembled and sold it, back when the company engineered aeronautics equipment.

  The photo usually sat high on a dusty shelf. His father had taken it down to reminisce, no doubt, though he would likely deny that to Dylan.

  “Look at you two,” Dylan said.

  “We look like fools,” his father said.

  “It was the eighties. Everyone wore leisure suits.” The men’s expressions captured their personalities. Dylan’s father looked dazed and humble. A scholarship student at MIT, he hadn’t been able to believe his good fortune. Abbott looked relaxed and confident, knowing success was his birthright.

  “Give me that.” His father looked at the picture. “I was the real fool. I should have known he would cheat me blind.”

  “He saved you from bankruptcy.”

  “He took advantage of me.” Dylan’s father, a dreamer caught up in his ideas, had gone into debt on R&D, failing to boost production to cover costs. Abbott had bought Ryland Engineering at a fair price, not a generous one. Abbott Wharton was a businessman first.

  “Abbott knew how to spot trends, Dad.”

  “Now you take his side?”

  “I’m being realistic.”

  Growing up, his father had lectured Dylan, pride ringing in his voice, about how he himself was proof that hard work and intelligence overcame wealth and privilege.

  Abbott making a killing on his father’s failed business had destroyed his father’s belief, convinced him that wealth and class always ruled.

  “Your mother wore the same blinders. I was a failure, while Abbott could do no wrong.” Dylan’s mother left—went back to her family in Iowa—because she couldn’t live with his father’s bitterness, though his father believed it was the shame of his failure. />
  His parents’ breakup at Christmas his senior year had shaken Dylan to the core. Love was supposed to last. His parents hadn’t even tried. They drew lines in the sand and folded their arms, stubbornly blaming each other.

  They’d forced him to choose, too. He’d stayed with his father, the one who needed him most. His mother claimed to understand, but she’d been hurt.

  “And, still, the man’s trying to cheat me from the grave.” His father stabbed a finger at the papers on his desk. “These specs are impossible.”

  “We knew there would be kinks to smooth.” To reach this moment, Dylan had watched their profit margin like a hawk, held the line on R&D, no matter how hard his father pushed, and kept tabs on developments at Wharton.

  When Abbott nailed the federal energy alternative grant to build the cheaper, lighter, more stable lithium battery his engineers had devised, Dylan made sure Ryland Engineering was positioned as the best provider of the crucial part.

  “You know damn well they’re scheming for a price cut,” his father said.

  “It’s our bottom price. I made that clear.” They’d gone with a razor-thin profit margin to seal the deal, buying components from a new plant in Tennessee with rock-bottom prices. Once the Wharton batteries hit the market, demand would skyrocket, and Ryland Engineering would be rolling in orders. He hoped to hire some of the workers Wharton had been forced to lay off two months before. Talk about coming full circle. His father wanted that, too, no matter how much he groused.

  All along, Dylan’s mission had been to redeem his father in his own eyes and, if possible, end the feud between the two men. They’d finally begun to warm to each other. Now Abbott was gone and his father was dredging up the old resentments to ease his grief and loss.

  Dylan longed for the father he’d known growing up—a kind and patient teacher, a brilliant engineer with boundless curiosity and a total reverence for science. Dylan’s best memories were the hours they’d spent in the workshop on projects—building a battery, a potato radio, a fighter kite, even a hovercraft, which took top honors at a science fair.

  He hoped that once he had some distance from his father, he could go back to admiring the man, appreciating him for his good points.

  His father looked up at him. “Any change with Faye?”

  “She’s still in ICU, still unconscious.”

  “That’s got to be hard for a mother, though with Rachel, you’d never know she’s suffering. She’s prickly as a cactus.”

  “Maybe you could give her a call. Express your concern.”

  His father frowned, shaking his head. “It’s on her to reach out. I’ll pay respects at the funeral.”

  “Up to you.” His father was as uncompromising with people as Tara had been. That wasn’t Dylan’s way. People were flawed. You accepted that and made the best of the good in them.

  “It’s a damn shame about Faye. She’s the best of the bunch over there. Smart and fair and she works hard. Without her, the place just might fall apart. Her husband’s useless.”

  “Joseph’s good at what he does. They’ve got good people. They’ll bounce back.” Dylan was concerned, though. A lot was riding on the success of the batteries for both companies. Deadlines were approaching. The too-tight specs were only part of the problem. For the past six weeks, Wharton had reported high test failures on the Ryland units. Dylan had to resolve the problem and quickly.

  “And while we’re on the subject, there’s not a damn thing wrong with those units,” his father said, glaring up at him. “You tell those Wharton thieves that in that meeting. I put one on my own car.”

  “I will. Don’t worry. Did you look at the data Victor collected?” Victor was their factory operations manager, the man Dylan was grooming to take over for him.

  “Haven’t had time. I’ve been looking at the new circuitry they’re working on in R&D. This could be big—a totally new direction for us.”

  “They’re a long way from a prototype, Dad. Manufacturing is our bread and butter. You have to keep your eye on the target.” Dylan worried that Victor wouldn’t be able to keep his father on track once Dylan left. That might be the fly in the ointment of his plan.

  “You’ll pick me up for the funeral?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. He hoped to skip the reception, wanting to minimize his father’s contact with the Wharton managers who’d be there. There was no telling how his father’s grief and frustration would play out in a public setting. He’d be damn glad when he could stop managing the man.

  He’d see Tara again at the funeral. His heart thumped at the prospect. Tara had been his port in the storm of his parents’ breakup. He’d been so wrecked, he’d made his relationship with her seem better than it was, ignoring their differences, her all-or-nothing personality, the superhuman standards she set that he could never meet. If they’d stayed together, they’d have battled constantly. The hell of it was that holding her for that moment in the hospital, all he could remember was the wonder of love, of pure desire, the miracle of intimacy, and he’d wanted it, no matter how temporary, no matter how false, no matter the whiplash of pain that would follow.

  Looked like his father wasn’t the only one who should keep his exposure to the Whartons to a minimum. They should definitely skip the reception.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS SHE TURNED onto the brick driveway that curved up the hill toward the Wharton house, Tara glanced at her mother, who’d been quiet on the drive home. She hadn’t even grilled Tara about her choice of casket and flowers, which wasn’t like her mother at all. “You okay?” Tara asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” her mother said, jerking her gaze from the side window to the front, chin high.

  So much for a tender moment of support. “No reason, I guess.” Tara looked up at the huge colonial on the hill. Laughably out of place in the desert, it was still home, and she felt a rush of tenderness seeing it again.

  She was ridiculously emotional.

  As she pulled under the porte cochere, Judith Rand, the longtime housekeeper, came down the terrace steps to meet them.

  “You came,” Judith said to Tara in the same sarcastic tone her mother had used.

  “How are you, Judith?” The woman had mirrored Tara’s mother’s attitudes toward Tara’s rebellious ways, but she’d always done Tara secret kindnesses.

  “Sheets are fresh on the bed,” Judith said, helping Tara’s mother out of the passenger seat. “Park in the garage. The Tesla’s gone and the Mercedes is in the shop.”

  Her mother gasped and sagged, no doubt remembering what had happened to the Tesla. Judith caught her arm and glared at Tara, as if Tara were the one who’d brought it up. She started up the steps with Rachel. “Breakfast is at seven,” she said over her shoulder. “If you sleep in, you’re on your own.”

  “I run at five, so I’ll just grab some fruit,” Tara called out. She assumed Judith was still making the hearty breakfasts Tara’s father preferred—biscuits and gravy, steak and eggs or huge, cheesy omelets.

  The gardener opened the garage and Tara parked, then rolled her bag along the path to the kitchen door.

  The kitchen smelled of tomato soup, a Judith staple, which added to the homey effect of the buttercup walls, pale soapstone counters, stone fireplace and copper pots hanging over the dark-wood island.

  Tara crossed the gleaming oak floors and lifted the suitcase’s wheels onto the Persian rug in the sitting room, which was painted dove-gray with white molding.

  Growing up, Tara found the antique furnishings, the elaborately carved staircase and mantel fussy and old-fashioned. Now it comforted her—especially the steady tick of the grandfather clock that had been in her father’s family since the Civil War.

  The grand piano gleamed in the light from the many-paned arched windows. As a girl, Faye had been an accomplished pianist, starring in every recital and playing for the high school jazz ensemble. Tara had taken lessons, but quit after three months. No one had objected. No one expected much from
Tara. Faye had been the perfect daughter. That gave Tara the freedom to make her own way. It had been a gift, but a lonely one.

  Moving closer to the window, she could just make out the hummingbird terrace tucked to one side of the property. She and Dylan had spent hours there, lost in each other arms. When she got a chance, she’d go out there for a break, to breathe easier, to watch the birds and listen to the fountain.

  And remember Dylan?

  What would be the point of that?

  Reaching the wooden staircase, Tara rested her hand on the square newel post, as she’d done a million times bounding up or down the steps, her mother snapping at her to walk like a lady, not gallop like a horse.

  The stairs creaked. She’d memorized which to avoid when sneaking in or out at night.

  Her bedroom at the end of the hall was decorated like a luxury hotel room. As soon as Tara had left for college, her mother had thrown out Tara’s band posters, social-issue bumper stickers, stuffed animals, crazy jewelry and the clothes she’d left. Her mother used to shudder over the vintage looks Tara created from the Lutheran church’s used-clothes store. Tara had liked supporting the charity, being frugal like her father and, yes, irritating her mother.

  She winced. She used to do things just to get a reaction. Born ten years after Faye, Tara had clearly been an accident her parents wanted to pretend hadn’t happened at all. Faye had done her best to make up for her parents’ neglect. She swore that they’d treated her just as absently, but Tara knew better. Even as a kid, she’d been good at reading people, and her parents plainly adored Faye.

  Should she unpack? She didn’t know how long she’d be here. It all depended on Faye. How soon she recovered. What if she...died?

  That idea took Tara’s breath away. Don’t die, Faye. Please don’t die. She got out her phone to call Rita. She’d convinced the nurse they should exchange numbers since Tara lived an hour from the hospital, and Joseph, the official family contact, wasn’t big on sharing news.