“You’re not sure?” Claire had told her about that as well. Tuyen, an Amerasian and a complete unknown to them before last spring, arrived with a wild story about BJ being her father. He’d been a Navy pilot, shot down, MIA, alive for years but unable to escape. When Tuyen was little, he and her mother had been killed by Communists.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think, Skylar.” Ben looked at her, his twinkle snuffed out by a dark gaze. “I can’t believe my son survived for years in that country and had a child out of wedlock. I can’t believe it because of one reason. And she’s coming here today.”
Obviously he referred to Beth Russell. She, too, must be a humdinger to still have the old man’s devotion after so many years.
In a way, Skylar was glad that, like the odd mar across the stone’s carved letters, the Beaumonts had a few smudges in their history. Such imperfections could mean a longer stay for her own scruffy self.
C
laire stood near the parking lot, on the railroad-tie steps. Heated by the afternoon sun, they gave off the tarry scent of creosote. Its pungency played tag with the softer odors of sage and cedar mulch.
A car approached, dust swirls trailing it. Aside from the pavement in front of the house, the lot was still mostly dirt and gravel, as was the incline leading up to the yard, bordered by more ties. Asphalt and bedding plants would come, in time.
Max stood a step below Claire, and Tuyen one above. Indio and Ben were in the parking area. Claire felt part of an odd receiving line. They all waited to greet Beth Russell.
The car stopped now, and the long-ago fiancée of Max’s brother emerged. Claire had met her on a few occasions, years before. She remembered a petite honey-blonde, down-to-earth, a quick smile, a little-girl voice. That described the woman in blue jeans and oversized white shirt whose ponytail swayed as she cried, “Indio! Ben!” and embraced each one tightly, for long moments.
They hadn’t seen each other in at least twenty years. Tears flowed freely from all three. Claire looked away.
She heard Tuyen’s sharp intake of breath.
Claire turned and smiled up at her. “It’s okay.”
Her blue eyes—so incongruous in the tall girl with her Asian features—were wide. “It okay? Me here?” Her accent had thickened steadily throughout the week, her words often indecipherable. She dreaded meeting her father’s former fiancée—the woman her dad had betrayed by staying in Vietnam with her mom. Surely the woman would hate her, she’d said.
Claire took Tuyen’s hand. The young woman wore her sun-yellow
ao dai
, traditional Vietnamese slacks and long, embroidered, slit tunic. She’d had her dark hair cut recently. It flowed in its elegant chin-length style.
Claire squeezed her hand. “It is very good that you are here.” She looked again toward the others.
Max stepped forward. “Beth. Hello.” He hugged her, his older brother’s best friend, the one who had been like a sister to him during his teen years while she was dating BJ.
“And Claire.” Beth smiled and moved to greet her.
“Welcome.” Mutual emotions held them in a long hug. There was so much to say, but that was for later.
Beth let go of Claire, a gentle smile on her lips and in her glistening eyes. Holding out her arms, she spoke in a foreign language, an Asian ring to it. Claire heard her say, “Tuyen Beaumont.”
The frightened woman moved stiffly down the steps and into Beth’s embrace.
Claire crossed her arms and cried almost as hard as she did the day Tuyen arrived. She felt Max’s hand caress her back, heard his own snuffles.
Beth cupped Tuyen’s face in her hands. She said more in the foreign tongue. Tuyen murmured replies. The worry seams across her forehead quickly smoothed out.
Claire recalled that BJ and Beth had studied Spanish in college; they’d planned to live as missionaries in South America. He would fly planes, she would teach. Then Vietnam erupted, and he enlisted. Like Kevin, he could not stand by and watch others go. Since BJ’s disappearance, Beth had gone back to school, studied other languages, and become a linguistics professor, wife, and mother.
Beth slid an arm through Tuyen’s, holding the taller woman close, as if she did not want to let her go. “That’s all I know how to say in Vietnamese.”
Tuyen giggled in her shy way.
Beth looked straight at Ben. “This is BJ’s daughter, Ben.”
He moved his head, a subtle shake of disagreement.
“Ben, listen to me.” Beth’s tone grew urgent, but her voice remained soft and high-pitched. “I have a wonderful, godly husband. I have three beautiful children, all in college. And still sometimes I feel guilty for abandoning my fiancé declared missing in action thirty-five years ago. For letting him go. For moving on with my life.”
Ben bristled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You were so young. We never thought you shouldn’t marry someone else.”
“I know, and I always appreciated your support. But the guilt is there nonetheless. My children’s hearts soaked it up. They carry around my brokenness. They sometimes can’t receive God’s blessings. I recognize it now. I’ve asked their forgiveness. God is healing. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to preach at you.”
Ben lowered his head. Indio smiled.
Claire thought how her in-laws knew firsthand about asking a son for forgiveness. They were no stranger to brokenness and healing.
Their sons were opposites. BJ was the ideal kid; Max was the rebel. Years later, Ben and Indio realized how they’d hurt Max by comparing him to BJ. Beth squeezed Tuyen’s arm. “BJ would have been happy for me. And I am so happy to know that he was loved and that he knew the joy of fatherhood. I only wish he could have seen Tuyen grow up.” She looked at the young woman. “Do you understand any of this?” She added a phrase in Vietnamese.
Tuyen touched her own chest and nodded.
A sob burst from Ben. He stumbled to the edge of the lot and sank onto a bordering railroad tie. He buried his face in his hands and cried so very hard.
Indio raised her hands for a split second, her typical quick gesture of thanksgiving, and went to him.
Claire sidled up against Max. Tears seeped from his eyes, but he smiled. Like her, he knew Beth’s words had given Ben permission to finally surrender . . . his crazy grip on BJ’s moral innocence, his anger at a world that conspired against his son, his hostility toward Tuyen.
Claire thought she heard music, like a distant choir singing.
Maybe it was just her imagination.
Or maybe not.
A
t the far end of the great room, near the dining table, Skylar silently observed the Beaumonts. The entire clan was there, including even the golden retriever, Samson, and the yellow cat, Willow. Seated in various positions by the stone fireplace, everyone listened with rapt attention to the stranger talk about BJ, the missing one.
Danny broke from the circle and approached Skylar. Uptight as his mannerisms could be, his gait was an effortless glide. His mother said he spent more time on a surfboard than not. Perhaps it came from that.
His mouth split in a bona fide Wally Cleaver grin. “Let me guess,” he said in a low voice. “You’re a fly on the wall.”
Skylar shrugged a shoulder. “Does that bother you?”
“Would it matter if it did?”
“Nope.” She refused to explain that his mother had invited her into the room. As a matter of fact, Claire told her the hacienda was her home. She was welcome to enter into family life however she chose.
Skylar would sooner tell Danny to go jump off a cliff.
Evidently unaware of her abusive thoughts, he leaned against the buffet beside her.
The guy annoyed her to no end. He’d been in her kitchen countless times since her first day, probing for information—personal, menu-wise, and everything in between—fidgeting all the while like a hyperactive kid.
At the moment his behavior was atypically calm. He must have skipped his Wheaties that morning.
She turned her attention back to the Beaumont drama unfolding across the room. The presence of Beth Russell might explain Danny’s changed demeanor. The whole family seemed a bit subdued.
Beth. The woman was as soft as her name. Skylar deduced that tidbit after exchanging only a few words with her. Although she had to be in her late fifties, she was fresh faced as a little girl, peaches and creamy, cosmetic free. Her eyes were luminescent.
It was something else though, an intangible, that attracted Skylar. With every gesture and spoken word, Beth sent out vibes. It was an aura of—Skylar had no other word for it—
goodness
.
Danny shifted his weight. “For the record, it doesn’t bother me that you’re here.”
She muttered, “Like I care.” Thoroughly frustrated with his interruption, she pushed herself away from the buffet. “Excuse me.” She walked out the side door and quickly made her way into the courtyard.
So much for learning how the Beaumonts dealt with family smudges. Smudges like a fiancée meeting her dead beau’s out-of-wedlock, grown-up daughter no one even knew existed until a few months ago. It would have made a great tabloid headline.
Earlier Skylar had slunk into the sala in time to note Ben’s red-rimmed eyes and Jenna’s trembling chin. Tuyen sat close to Beth Russell, who often reached over to touch her arm. It was a curious picture.
Whipped right off the page by Danny.
Skylar climbed onto the bottom rail of the fence that enclosed the horse corral. Bending over the top rail, she clicked her tongue. Two palominos stood in languid beauty in shade cast from the barn. They swished their creamy tails and ignored her.
She made another clucking noise. “Hey, Reuben. Moses.”
An ear twitched on Reuben’s golden head. Moses winked.
“Aw, guys.”
It was a hot afternoon. They were avoiding the sun.
As diligently as she avoided the heat of Danny’s search beams.
The other week, when Claire went into her “just part of the wallpaper” act with the first guests, Skylar had easily recognized what was going on. It was a trick she herself had mastered in the recent past.
Eighteen months past, to be exact, but who was counting?
Disappear in plain sight and no one cares who you are.
Except nerdy dudes who had no life.
Like the one who most likely belonged to the footsteps now approaching from behind her.
Skylar threw a scowl over her shoulder, but he missed it. A moment later he hoisted himself up beside her.
He remained quiet for all of three seconds. “Do you ride?”
“Do you play ‘Twenty Questions’ with everyone or is it just me?”
He chuckled. “Mom says I bug you too much.”
“Your mother is a wise woman.”
“I guess that means you agree. Okay, I admit I probably do bug you and interfere with your work. I apologize.”
She squinted at him sideways. “Why?”
“Why apologize?” He shrugged. “Forgiveness is in the air today. I’m hoping to grab some for myself.”
“You say it’s in the air because of all that going on in the house?”
“Mm-hmm. Do you know the story? About Uncle BJ and Beth? About Tuyen?”
“Yes.”
“Sticky wicket, as Erik calls it. My grandfather has not been able to accept that Uncle BJ would do such a thing. Stay in Vietnam and have a child? No way.”
“Holy cow! BJ was in a war. How could Ben judge—” Too late she heard the barrage and stopped herself.
“Exactly.”
They exchanged a glance.
Of connection?
He said, “And now, lo and behold, Beth believes BJ probably did exactly that. She totally accepts Tuyen. Totally forgives BJ.”
“Forgives BJ? How can it be his fault? I mean the guy didn’t try to get shot down and survive in some foreign jungle he couldn’t possibly escape without being killed or captured.”
“I totally agree. But people were hurt. Call it forgiving him or the Viet Cong or our government. Whoever or whatever. The choice to forgive simply releases a stranglehold on someone’s heart. My grandfather’s, in this case.”
Oh, man.
“I suppose you’re one of those, you know,
vocal
Christians.”
He laughed. “I suppose I’m still bugging you.”
“You suppose correctly.”
“So do you.”
“Easy call. It was either that type of Christian or you’re part bulldog, and since you don’t walk on four legs . . .”
“I’ve been tagged worse names.”
She gave him a mean smirk. “You have no idea how much I hold back.”
“I might.” He looked at the horses. “So do you ride?”
Skylar felt like she’d been thrown off a horse and had the wind knocked from her. His swing of mood and topic was going to give her whiplash.
She blurted, “Yeah. I love riding.”
Uh-oh.
She’d already decided fatherless kids from Ohio with drug-addicted moms did not ride horses. It was a rich person’s hobby, not even a remote possibility under the scenario she’d presented.
“I mean,” she said, “I got to go. A few times. As a kid. Big-sister program or something.”
Shut up, Skylar. Shut up.
“Your grandfather said he’d take me sometime.”
“Or I will. Moses and Reuben here are the best choice. The others are unpredictable. I think they’re still spooked from the fire.”
A wave of homesickness nearly bowled her off the fence.
It wasn’t an ache for
home
. It was an ache for moments, for the freedom of those moments.
She did ride. She loved to ride. She loved the wind in her hair. The keen sense that the powerful animal could whisk her to the ends of the earth at her command.
Skylar stepped down from the fence. “I have work to do.”
Without a backward glance, she hurried away.
Danny Beaumont was not a nuisance. He was a danger, the hound that would sniff and sniff until he caught scent of her true identity. He would make it impossible for her to remain in the Kansas, the home she’d just found.
L
ocating a pay phone was a major hassle. Skylar spent most of the drive down from the hacienda cursing cellular technology. It pigeonholed Americans, forcing them to carry phones on their hips, thereby eliminating convenient public phones for all those people who could not afford or simply did not want to carry phones on their hips.