Thorns on Wildflower Island Read online

  “I gotta go check on Zach.” Eliza kissed her husband on the forehead and left the room to go check on their son, who had been napping during their conversation.

  Marshall had told his wife what she wanted to hear. But, the whole thing still bothered him. He needed to find out if he had been watched. Not that they would have seen him doing anything wrong, but just to make himself feel better. He just needed to know, once and for all.

  But how? He certainly couldn’t just walk up to them and ask. Could he? Marshall wondered. Would that be crazy? Probably. Besides, who would ever admit to spying on him? The kids never would. And it was the middle of the night after all. They were probably sound asleep, completely unaware of his presence in the backyard next door. If anyone was out there in the backyard, it had to be the mother. He was sure of it. Well, mostly sure. Hell, Marshall didn’t know. He never actually saw anyone and had no earthly idea who was there. Or if anyone was been there at all.

  As he sat there at his kitchen table thinking about the whole situation, Marshall heard a car start up, and he turned in the direction of the neighbors’ house. He knew it was Lindsey’s. Her old car had a distinctive chug, chug, chug sound whenever it was first started. It happened every single time. He could easily keep track of the family’s comings and goings based on that car.

  Without thinking about what he was doing, Marshall bolted toward the front door, grabbing his car keys from the key bowl on the table in the foyer on his way out. As Lindsey’s car turned the corner down the street, he backed out of his driveway and followed her path. He was certain that the kids would be with her during her errands. They were much too young to be left at home, unattended.

  Marshall trailed her, at a safe distance, so as not to be noticed. Lindsey pulled into the parking lot of the large discount department store in town. Marshall parked across the parking lot from her, in a shady spot, and waited for the trio to walk into the department store. This particular store also had a grocery department. Marshall followed them through the store, taking great care to not be seen by any of them. That was a more difficult task than he expected. Both kids were quite squirrelly, causing Marshall to duck several times into the nearest aisle. He was satisfied that he had not been discovered.

  He watched as Lindsey retrieved a shopping cart and began walking toward the grocery section. As soon as the kids realized what they were there for, they started complaining. And then the whining started. Marshall could hear them from several aisles back. Shopping for groceries was the last thing they wanted to do that afternoon. Lindsey knew that she would never get anything done in peace if they kept it up. The toy section was only a few rows over, so she sent them over there. She hoped that it would entertain them long enough for her to grab what they needed for the week.

  “Why don’t you two go over to the toy aisle while I get the groceries,” she told her kids.

  She didn’t have to tell them twice. Both of them took off like a shot in that direction. They had been in the store enough times to know their way around quite well.

  “Hey! Don’t leave that area!” their mother called after them. “I’ll be back to find you as soon as I’m done!”

  “Yeah, we know!” her daughter responded.

  Marshall made a beeline for the toy section. He stood at the end of one of the aisles, pretending to look at some board games, so as not to be obviously standing there watching them. He didn’t want to come across as some creep hanging out where the kids were. Lindsey’s two children, as well as several others, played with various toys, right there in the middle of the aisle. Xander and his sister were both like crack addicts needing a fix. They bounced around from toy to toy. Nothing was left untouched. It made Marshall wonder about all the germs that must be multiplying by the millions all over the toy section. Did germs even multiply? he wondered. Either way, the whole idea made him shiver with disgust. He would never let his son touch any of the toys at any store until he had a chance to disinfect them. He was lost in thought when he felt a tug on the green polo shirt he was wearing. Marshall looked down at the neighbor girl.

  “Don’t you live next door to us?” the little girl asked Marshall when she noticed him standing there, watching them. Marshall didn’t know her name.

  “Um, yeah. I was just here shopping and had to stop to make a phone call.” Marshall was caught and had to come up with a plausible explanation fast. After a moment he realized that he had no idea why he thought it was important to explain himself to a 5 year old.

  “I don’t see a phone. How can you call someone without a phone?” She put her hands on her hips as she spoke.

  Oh this one is a troublemaker, Marshall said to himself.

  “Um…I already put it in my pocket. Where’s your mother? Should you be here all alone?” Marshall didn’t know how else to respond to her.

  “She’s getting food and told us to play over here. And I’m not alone. My brother’s here. See.” The girl turned and pointed toward Xander.

  Marshall looked up at the boy, who caught his eye at that exact moment. He didn’t think Xander had noticed him until just then. The boy then looked down at his sister.

  “Shelby! Come over here. You’re gonna get in trouble.”

  Aw, her name is Shelby, Marshall thought to himself. I need to remember that.

  Xander looked up at Marshall again and their eyes locked. Marshall couldn’t quite read the boy’s face, but thought he saw just a touch of fear in it. After a few moments, Xander lowered his eyes, and walked over to where Marshall and Shelby were standing. Shelby hadn’t budged an inch.

  “Come on.” He pulled at his sister’s shirt to get her started in the right direction. “Let’s go find Mom.”

  Marshall never said a word to the boy as they walked away. But Xander turned to look at him one last time just as they were rounding the far corner of the aisle.

  “Yep, that was definitely fear in his face,” Marshall said out loud. He then quickly looked around him to make sure no one heard what he said. No one did.

  Chapter 7

  “Come on, let’s get going. I want to drop Zach off at the sitters before I drop you off at work. I have a bunch of errands to do!” Eliza yelled upstairs to Marshall.

  “Be right there,” he replied, calmly.

  Marshall didn’t see the need to be in a hurry. Work would be there when he got there. His boss was pretty easygoing about those things. Unfortunately, all that accomplished was to make Marshall more of a slacker when it came to his job. If his boss had been more on top of things, such as expecting him to be to work on time, then Marshall would be the better off for it.

  When the phone started ringing, Eliza frowned. She didn’t have time to talk to anyone that morning and seriously considered ignoring it. She quickly realized she couldn’t do that. It would drive her crazy not to answer the phone. What if it were something important?

  “Hello?” she said, trying to mask her annoyance at the disruption.

  “You have a secret, don’t you?” she heard the voice on the other end say.

  Eliza was clearly confused. “What? Who is this?”

  “Don’t worry about who this is. I just want you to know that I know.” It was a male voice that she didn’t recognize immediately. It sounded somewhat muffled, as if he had the phone covered with something.

  “What exactly is it that you think you know?” Eliza decided to play along. She twisted the diamond stud earring in her left ear as she spoke.

  “Think about it. You know what I’m talking about. I’ll call you back later.” The phone went dead.

  Eliza pulled the phone away from her ear, almost dropping it, and looked at the receiver, as if she half expected to see the person that just called her. She wondered what he was talking about. She certainly wasn’t perfect, and perhaps had a few skeletons in her closet, but what in the world could he have meant? And why would he call her acting so strangely?

  A thought jumped into her head. “Oh!…No, it couldn’t be that,” Eli
za said out loud, shaking her head back and forth as she spoke.

  “What couldn’t be what?” Marshall asked her as he walked down the stairs.

  With a small yelp of surprise, Eliza turned to Marshall. “Oh, nothing. I was just talking to myself. Let’s go,” she said much too quickly.

  Marshall looked at her for answers, but Eliza just shook her head and waved her hand dismissively, as if to say ‘never mind, don’t worry about it.’ He decided that he would ask her later. She picked up their son and headed out the front door, hoping that Marshall would not press her to explain what she was talking about. He wasn’t one for letting things go.

  Eliza took Marshall to work, as they only had one car. She then dropped Zachary off at the babysitter’s house for a few hours, so she could run errands. The phone call was at the forefront of her thoughts all day.

  That afternoon Eliza headed over to the Wildflower Inn to talk to her friend, Cecily. Though Cecily was a few years older than Eliza, they had been good friends for a while.

  “Hey Eliza, what’s going on?” Cecily greeted her as she walked in. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

  “Oh, not much really. I just thought I would come by and say hi. Oh hi, Javier,” Eliza said, hugging him. Javier was there hanging out with Cecily. He did that a lot when he was between movies.

  Luckily for Cecily, Tim and Roxanne didn’t mind when Javier hung out at the Wildflower. In fact, they encouraged it. What better way to get people into your place of business than have a top notch celebrity there? And Javier was always approachable. He never minded when fans asked for photos and autographs. He knew that one day people might not care about him anymore. So he was going to eat it up for as long as he could.

  “Hi girl. Good to see you,” Javier replied, hugging her back.

  “What can I get you?” Cecily asked her friend.

  “Um…just a cola is fine. I’m driving,” Eliza answered.

  The three of them sat there for a few minutes exchanging idle chit chat, when Javier noticed a pensive look on Eliza’s face.

  “Eliza, what’s the matter?” Javier took her hands. “Is little Zach okay?”

  “Oh no, he’s fine. I wasn’t going to…well, okay…” Eliza didn’t know whether she should say anything or not. “Sorry, I’m not making any sense.”

  “It’s all right,” Cecily said. “We want to know what’s going on with you. Hold on a second.” She held up her index finger. “I’ll be right back.”

  As Cecily walked over to refill a couple of beers, Eliza and Javier sat there in silence. They weren’t good friends. Mostly friends by association, through Cecily. Javier was the same age as Cecily, and Eliza had not hung around him much, mostly just at the bar when she was there visiting with her friend.

  When she walked back over to her friends, Cecily leaned on the bar. “Okay, spill.”

  “Okay, fine. But, you both have to swear not to breathe a word of this to anyone.” Eliza looked back and forth between Cecily and Javier, who were both nodding their heads.

  “Cecily. You especially need to swear.” Eliza pointed at her friend. “You sometimes don’t know when to keep things to yourself.” She gave Cecily the ‘I’m dead serious’ face.

  Cecily knew her reputation and she knew that this was Eliza’s nice way of saying that she had a big mouth.

  “Yes, okay, I swear.” Cecily responded by holding up both of her palms, facing Eliza. It was kind of a surrender pose.

  “I mean it.” Eliza smiled when she said it, but the others could tell that this was going to be serious. And juicy.

  “Yes, I get it. I won’t repeat anything you say here today,” Cecily responded. She was beginning to get a bit irritated at Eliza. “Would you get on with it already?”

  Eliza wasn’t worried about Javier blabbing. He knew better than to spread gossip. He had been the subject of many rumors over the years, being as famous as he was, and he had sworn never to do that to anyone else. She trusted him.

  At that moment, Tim and Roxanne walked through the bar and stopped to say hello. Though they were technically separated, the two of them still had a business to run together, and they made it work. The fact was that the Carmichaels got along much better once they separated, than when they were still together. Tim still adored Roxanne, but things just weren’t working for them.

  “Tim, I hope I’m not being rude, but you don’t look well at all,” Eliza told him. “Are you all right? You’re so pale.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s just the flu. It’s been hanging on for a while. I’m sure I’ll feel better soon. No worries,” Tim replied.

  “Come on, we have a lot of work to do,” Roxanne intervened.

  “See all of you later,” Tim told the group as they went about their day.

  “So, where were we?” Eliza asked her friends as she turned back around to finish their conversation.

  “You were about to tell us something. Get on with it.” Cecily was beginning to get impatient. It was driving her crazy that there was gossip right in front of her and she didn’t know what it was.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Eliza took a deep breath. What she was about to say was not going to be easy to say out loud. She had never told another human being her secret. Ever. But she needed to get it out. She needed to tell someone before she exploded from the stress of it all. Though she chided Cecily about her gossipy ways, Eliza trusted her completely with her secrets. She knew that she didn’t have to worry about Javier and Cecily. Besides, if it did get out, she would know exactly who to go to. They would be the only two people on the planet that would know.

  “It’s about my son, Zachary.”

  Cecily furrowed her brows. “What about him? I know you just got him back not that long ago. He’s okay, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, of course, he’s fine. It’s not that,” Eliza replied. “It’s that I’m pretty sure…oh god this is so hard to say…that Marshall is not his father. His biological father anyway.” She said it so quietly that Eliza wasn’t entirely sure that they even heard her confession.

  They heard.

  “What?” Both Cecily and Javier asked simultaneously.

  “Wait.” Cecily put up her right palm and stopped Eliza’s confession, just as she opened her mouth to explain. “We all need a drink. A real drink.”

  Cecily carefully chose a bottle of her favorite bourbon from the plethora of bottles on the counter and shelves behind her. Eliza’s eyes grew big. She wasn’t even old enough to drink, though that usually didn’t stop her when the need arose. Cecily grabbed three glasses and placed them gently on the bar in front of Javier and Eliza. She filled them with two shots each.

  “Wow, that’s a lot of bourbon,” Javier smiled.

  “I know. I think this is the exact amount required for a story like this. Don’t you?” Cecily asked him.

  “I’m good with that,” Javier nodded and looked over at Eliza, who didn’t respond.

  Once they all had alcohol in front of them, “You may continue now,” Cecily told her.

  “Are you sure about this?” Eliza asked her. “I don’t want you to get into trouble for serving a minor.”

  “Aw, don’t worry about it. There are no cops in here.”

  Instinctively, all three looked around the bar. Confirmation of Cecily’s statement was necessary.

  “Besides, I know all the cops on the island. No one will care that you had one drink,” Cecily told her.

  Eliza shrugged her shoulders and took a long drink, downing both shots in one try. The others just watched her intently. She was working up the courage to tell them the rest of her story. She sat the empty glass down on the bar in front of her. Her friends followed suit.

  “Well, right after we got married, Marshall and I were fighting a lot. I mean a whole lot. We were having money problems and it just caused a lot of stress.” She paused, looking down into her empty glass.

  “Yeah, and…” Javier prompted her to finish. This was the juiciest
gossip he had heard in a long time.

  “Okay, okay, I’m getting to it.” Eliza playfully smacked him on the shoulder.

  “Anyway, I ran into Sebastian one night when I was sitting in the park crying.”

  “Oh no,” both Cecily and Javier said at the same time. They both looked at each other and smiled.

  “Would you two stop doing that?” Eliza didn’t smile that time.

  “Sorry,” Javier replied. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, Marshall and I had just had a really big fight and Sebastian was really nice to me and let me cry on his shoulder.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Cecily interrupted.

  Eliza glared at her.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. We just all know how Sebastian is. He’s a charmer. There aren’t many females in town that haven’t succumbed to his charms at one time or another.”

  “I know. I’m well aware of his reputation. But I was in a bad place and he made me feel better.” Eliza was embarrassed that she had let Sebastian, the town playboy, seduce her.

  “You can’t really blame a girl, can you? I mean he is really hot,” Javier said out loud. “I’d do him.”

  Both of the girls just chuckled his way. Even though it was pretty much a secret to the rest of the world, Cecily and Eliza knew about Javier and his boyfriends. Though Sebastian was not one of them.

  “That’s not helping, Jav,” Cecily said, still smiling at his comment.

  “Sorry. Please go on,” he said to Eliza.

  “It’s okay. I needed a laugh.”

  “So Sebastian is Zachary’s father?” Javier asked her, getting back to the seriousness of their conversation and rubbing her left arm in a comforting manner.

  “I’m ashamed to admit it, but the truth is that I really don’t know for sure.” Eliza looked down at the bar as she said it, avoiding eye contact.

  “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”

  Cecily walked around the bar and hugged her friend tightly. Tears were running down her own face after hearing what her friend was going through. The story she just heard was something that she would never repeat. Not ever.