Each picture was captioned with Van’s name, the woman’s name, the event, and date. The names of the women came from many well-known families, all with socialite names such as Nichole, Lena, Celeste, and more.
If Van was a reclusive, eligible bachelor ten years ago, when did he marry?
I went back to my laptop and pulled up his most recent biography. There was the date he was born and his parents’ names.
Donovan Sherman was born in Austin, Texas, to Michael and Eleanor Thomas.
I reread the sentence.
Why isn’t Donovan’s last name the same as his father’s or his mother’s?
Another search on my computer told me that there were too many Michael Thomases and Eleanor Thomases in Austin, Texas, to even start to figure out which ones were his parents, if that was even where they still lived. For some reason, Skylar’s and my wedding invitations came to mind. I remembered that more than a few of our invitations went to Texas addresses.
Closing my eyes, I contemplated going online to our wedding website. The thought of pulling the site up and seeing Skylar’s and my engagement picture made the brunch Paula had prepared for me percolate in my nearly empty stomach. Another look out the window told me that night had fallen. This time of year, darkness came earlier than when the clock proclaimed it was nighttime.
The clock said only ten until six.
The one place I hadn’t looked was Van’s bedroom suite or up onto the third floor.
Beyond the windows the lights around the entrance to the house, garages, and driveway had turned on, shining their golden light. As I stepped from the library, I noticed the numerous lights now illuminated throughout the first floor. “Hello?” I called.
The only answer was the echo to my own voice.
No doubt there were timers or light sensors.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I took my time gazing out through the front windows. With the nightfall, I couldn’t see much beyond the snowy yard. However, during the day, I’d noticed how the blanket of white appeared to be covering levels, as if his yard went down level by level until it reached the bay’s shore.
Unlike the side of the house with all the lights, this side was relatively dark with only the illumination from the inside polluting the sky. Dimmed by the interior lights, I could see that the sky was peppered with stars and a low moon shone above some distant trees, giving the entire scene a blue hue.
I was about to go into the kitchen to choose which of Paula’s dinners we would eat when I remembered that she said other than the holiday turkey breast, the rest were Mr. Sherman’s favorites. Her eyes had glowed with excitement as she mentioned getting different ingredients for the dishes I liked.
As I turned on a few more lights, I heard the sound of doors opening.
The back entry, or entry from the garage, was similar to the front in that there were two sets of doors, one from the garage to what Margaret called the mudroom, and one from the mudroom to the house. It wasn’t unusual in cooler climates for homes to be constructed that way. The middle room basically stopped the cold air from outside or the garage from rushing into the warm house.
Despite my recent findings and millions of questions, as the leaded-glass French door opened, I couldn’t stop my smile. Van must have left his overcoat in the mudroom. I would be hard-pressed to answer the question of which Donovan was sexier, the GQ-suit-wearing man who was stalking toward me or the mountain man with the tight thermal shirt stretched across his wide chest.
Van didn’t stop until he had me in his grasp, his arm around my waist, pulling my hips to him. Not a word was spoken as his lips took mine.
My questions momentarily disappeared as his fingers splayed behind my head, pushing my face toward his as his lips consumed mine. All the while the fog of his expensive cologne clouded my senses. It was as his tongue joined the pursuit that I reached for his chest and my body melted against his, electrified by his touch.
My nipples beaded beneath my sweater and my core twisted.
Once our kiss separated, Van’s lips turned upward as his green gaze captured mine. “I’ve wanted to do that since I left your suite this morning.”
“I missed you.”
“Is the memoir complete? Did you run out of things to do?”
I shook my head and took a step back. “The memoir is most definitely not complete. It’s not started. I’m trying to figure out who you are.”
Something momentarily changed in his smile. “I’ve told you before. Don’t try. Just write what they want to read. Give them enough that the questions will be satisfied. Talk about what I did to build my businesses and my fortune.”
“Is that who you are?”
He took a step forward and lifting my chin, gave me a soft kiss. “I told you, I’m the wolf.”
“What happened around ten years ago?”
Van’s expression became stoic, statuesque. “In my businesses? I’d need to check the timetable.”
“No, with you.”
He feigned a smile. “Come, Julia, can you tell me what happened to you ten years ago?”
I thought for a moment. “I can tell you exactly what happened. I was a cheerleader in the eighth grade and Bobby Gerard refused to go to the dance with me because Skylar told everyone I was taken. The same thing happened every year.”
“The redundancy makes it easier to remember.”
Van shrugged off his suit coat and hung it over the back of one of the breakfast-bar high stools. I watched as he loosened his dark blue tie, removed his cuff links, placing them in his pocket, and rolled up the sleeves of his blue and gray striped shirt.
There was something about a man with his sleeves rolled up that made my stomach do a flip-flop. It was probably why so many models wore their shirts that way. As Van finished the sleeves, I licked my dry lips. A smile bloomed on my face as our eyes met. “I talked to my father today.”
Van went to the counter and retrieved the bottle of wine we hadn’t finished last night. As he brought two glasses down from the holder over the lighted counter, he sighed. “Wade is having problems. I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”
“You weren’t sure how to tell me that my family’s entire destiny will be sold or dissolved if something doesn’t happen?”
He turned, handing me one of the glasses now containing the red wine. “It’s better you heard it from your father.”
I swirled the red liquid around the globe of the glass. “Why is that better?”
“Because you know what can turn this all around. If I were the one who told you about the plummet of Wade Pharmaceutical’s value, you’d think I planned it to get you to change your answer.”
My answer to marry Van.
I hadn’t thought of that. “Did you?”
“No, Julia. My plan was to stop Marlin Butler from selling Wade out from under you and your father. I didn’t plan on the devaluation. In hindsight, that was wrong of me. I should have seen it coming.” His green orbs came to mine. “I suppose for once I was less focused on the business futures and more on a beautiful distraction.”
“Is that what I am, Mr. Sherman, a distraction?”
He nodded. “Yes. I was distracted all damn day, thinking about the way you come, the way your body trembles just before your legs stiffen. Thinking about the sweet taste of you and the mark I left on your breast.”