“And Ramsey repairs them regularly,” Mrs. Dressler added dryly. “It is a silent battle of wills between Thorne and his father.”
“Do not call him my father,” Thorne said stiffly. “He is a sperm donor, nothing else.”
“Wait,” Sarita said now, sitting up straight and trying to pierce the shadows around Thorne with her eyes as she asked, “How did you know who we were, or that we were headed here to the house?”
“You were talking when you came out of the water,” he said with unconcern. “But even if you hadn’t mentioned wanting to see your grandmother, I would have recognized you at once from your pictures,” he said quietly. “Except for the color and style of your bathing suit, you could have stepped out of the one you sent Maria of you and your friends at the beach celebrating your getting into the police college.”
“Right,” Sarita said and sagged back on the couch, reminded of the skimpy suit she was wearing. She was suddenly grateful the light wasn’t that great in here. Forgetting that her grandmother had already seen her, she said, “Don’t have a heart attack when you see my swimsuit, abuela. It wasn’t my choice, it was what Dressler left at the house for me.” She grimaced and added, “Although I suppose I shouldn’t complain—at least I had a change of clothes, even if I don’t care for how revealing they are. Poor Domitian has been wearing the same boxers for three days.”
“Oh dear, well we can do something about that at least,” Elizabeth Dressler said, and suddenly wheeled her chair around the couch and toward the kitchen. “Come along Sarita, Maria, we’ll raid my closet and see if we can’t find something a little more suitable.”
Sarita stood when her grandmother did, but glanced uncertainly to Domitian.
“Thorne,” Mrs. Dressler said then. “Will you see if you have something Sarita’s ‘friend’ can wear?”
“Of course,” he murmured.
Mrs. Dressler nodded with satisfaction and then smiled at Sarita’s grandmother when she took up position behind her chair and began to wheel her from the room. “Thank you, Maria,” she murmured and then said again, “Come along, Sarita.”
“Go. I will be fine,” Domitian said when she still hesitated.
Nodding, Sarita turned to follow the two women. It turned out she’d been wrong. There might be three bedrooms upstairs, but the room she’d assumed would be a dining room turned out to be Mrs. Dressler’s bedroom on the main floor. Still, Sarita suspected it had originally been a dining room, but had been converted to accommodate the elderly woman in her wheelchair.
“Here we are. Now, let’s see . . .”
Mrs. Dressler’s words drew her attention to the closet the woman had opened. It was a good size, running the length of the room, but the clothes all hung high enough that there was no way the woman could reach them. Sarita had just decided her grandmother must fetch the clothes she wanted for her, when Mrs. Dressler snatched up a long rod hanging amid the clothes and used the hook on the end to lift down a lightweight cotton peasant blouse.
“What about this?” she asked, holding it out to Sarita.
“It’s beautiful,” Sarita assured her, taking the top.
“Oh, yes that would look lovely on you, Chiquita,” her grandmother said happily. “I have just the skirt for you to wear with it. And it is new, I just finished making it. Wait here and I will fetch it.”
Sarita watched the little woman hurry from the room with a smile that faded slowly as she thought of what Mrs. Dressler had said earlier. Turning back to the woman, she said, “You suggested you were all prisoners here. Including my grandmother?”
“Yes,” the woman said simply.
“Why?” she asked with a frown. “From what I understand when she was first employed by you, Grandmother came to work in the mornings and was allowed to leave at night. At least she did while you lived on the little island. Why did that not continue here?”
“It did for the first couple weeks after we moved here to the big house,” Mrs. Dressler said, hanging her hooked pole from the clothes rod again. Sitting back in her seat then, she sighed and added, “But then I went into early labor with Thorne.” Mouth tightening, she explained, “I had made arrangements to move to the mainland for the last month of my pregnancy in case there were complications. Ramsey was going to fly me out the next day, but suddenly I was in the throes of it. What I didn’t know then was that Ramsey had no intention of letting me have my son on the mainland and had put something into my drink at lunch to induce labor.”
Sarita’s eyebrows rose at that. She was surprised he’d take the risk with his own child. If complications had occurred he might have lost both his wife and child.
Huffing out an angry breath, Mrs. Dressler continued, “I should have realized something was amiss when he cancelled his classes for the day and was home in the middle of the week. He said it was because he wanted to spend time with me, and I thought it was sweet and even fortunate that he was there when I started having contractions. I hurried to him, sure he’d put me in the helicopter and fly me straight to the mainland, but he said everything was fine. It was too early, these were probably just Braxton Hicks contractions. He said I should just relax and breathe, and they would surely go away. He kept saying that right up until my water broke.”
Her mouth tightened and anger crossed her face. “And then he showed his true colors. The sweet man I thought I’d married became a cold hard monster. He flat out said he’d never had any intention of my going to the mainland to have the baby. He’d brought the labor on early to ensure that didn’t happen, so I might as well resign myself to the fact that I was having the baby here on the island, and stop whining and crying at him. I’d be in labor for hours. Go lie down and leave him alone. He’d check on me later and help if necessary.”
“I was young then,” Mrs. Dressler said sadly. “And I was shattered by his behavior. I burst into tears and stumbled back to my room and locked the door. And then I decided I wanted that man nowhere near my baby and stuck a chair under it to make sure he couldn’t get in.” Clucking her tongue she shook her head and added, “And with that one action, I sealed your grandmother’s fate.”
Sarita’s eyebrows rose at the words. “How?”
“Because Maria was in the room,” she explained quietly. “I didn’t realize it until I finished jamming the chair under the door and turned to see her frozen with the bed half-made, her eyes wide.”
Mrs. Dressler shook her head sadly. “If I’d known what my actions would mean for your poor grandmother, I would have moved the chair and ordered her out at once. But I didn’t know, and I was grateful to have her there. I was scared and feeling more alone than I had in my life and she was all I had.” Smiling wryly, she said, “We weren’t exactly friends back then. While your grandmother knew a few words of English, I knew not a single word of Spanish. There was a bit of a communication barrier there, but Maria was kind and gentle and supportive and helped me through the darkest hours of my life. She is the one who saw Thorne into this world.” Mrs. Dressler sighed. “And the moment she laid eyes on him, Maria was doomed to remain on this island for the rest of her days.”
“Why?” Sarita asked with confusion.
“Because she saw what I am.”
Jerking around, Sarita peered toward the doorway at that grim comment and got her first really good look at Thorne Dressler. The man was breathtaking. With high cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, pale golden eyes, and hair so fair a blond it was almost white where it lay flat against his head. Towheaded, she thought, that was what they called it because it was the color of tow—flax or hemp fibers.
Sarita stared at him blankly for a minute and then shook her head slightly. “I don’t understand why seeing you would—”
The words died in her throat as he stepped into the room and out of the shadow that had hidden the humps at his back. Still staring at his face, she’d barely noted the humps when he suddenly swung his arms out and up. Immediately, the two humps dropped and swung out into two huge chocolate-brown wings. They stretched out at least six feet to each side of his back, touching the walls at either end of the room.