Tempest Relief: Chapter Three (standard:drama, 3210 words) [4/4] show all parts
Author: Ari Walker	Added: May 09 2002	Views/Reads: 2641/2041	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Three sisters must put aside their differences to carry on the family legacy.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Jade looked down at his hand, his fingers trailing softly between her
shoulder and her neck. Like a spider, she thought viciously, goose 
bumps covering her arms. She pushed his hand away. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

He cocked his head. "No? I'll refresh your memory. Last night you said,
and these were your exact words, 'I must have fainted again.'" 

She didn't say anything, just pursed her lips. " 

The word again leads a person to believe it's something that's happened
before." 

"I can't deal with this right now. Just shut up," she threw her hands up
into the air, pivoting and quickening her pace. His legs were longer 
than hers were though, so it was no hardship for him to catch up. 

"Come on, Sleeping Beauty, tell me your name. Please?" 

She sighed and looked up at him. He was the most annoying male she had
ever met. His bottom lip was sticking out, his eyes sad and pleading. 
She laughed in exasperation. 

"You are like a big puppy." 

He grinned, nodding happily. 

"I'll be your big, loyal puppy forever," he promised. 

"Oh brother!" Biting her lip to keep from laughing again, she ran a hand
through her hair. "Fine. My name is Jade Spencer." 

Jade, Arthur mouthed. Then smiled. It was the first time she had seen
him do anything but grin and she almost turned and ran. The full-blown 
smile transformed his face from puppy to shark and was enough to make 
any sensible girl tuck tail and run. His teeth were even and white 
against his tan skin, his lips full and promising. The twinkle in his 
eyes was disturbing. He was entirely too dangerous, she realized. There 
was no way she could handle a man like this; she didn't have the 
experience. 

"I'm Arthur Schiller," he took her hand and bowed over it with a
flourish. She blinked. "Art. And I am so very pleased to meet you." 

"Charmed," Jade murmured. Oh damn am I ever charmed, she though to
herself. 

Art smiled again and tugged on her hand. "Have you had breakfast yet?" 

Her lips opened and closed like a fish and she hated herself for being a
ninny. But... Breakfast? She thought dazedly. What was that? Allowing 
him to pull her through one of the paths between the Victorian shops to 
the other side of the highway, Jade trudged through the sand to the 
tall, narrow house painted blue and green. 

**** 

The first floor consisted of a screened porch and a spacious sitting
room with plush sofas and two different televisions. The kitchen and 
dining area was on the second floor, along with a bedroom. The third 
and fourth floors were made up of bedrooms that the 
Brown-Elliot-Donahue-Joskeff-O'Reilly family rented out to people who 
couldn't afford, say, to stay at the Tempest Relief. 

In truth, the Bed and Breakfast was run by Rose Brown, the matriarch of
the family, and her granddaughters, Cody and Lori. But all of Rose's 
grandchildren helped out when needed. 

Her twin daughters, Grace Elliot and Jessica Donahue, weren't
interested. Grace, though, lived in a mental institution, and so was 
obviously excused from it. Jessie, who lived in the attic with her 
husband, ran her own jewelry business and insisted she simply didn't 
have time. 

Jessie's 31-year-old daughter, Scarlett, had joined her mother in the
jewelry business, but her grandmother bullied her into helping out 
around the B & B from time to time. Rose Brown's two grandsons, Ian 
Elliot and Theo Donahue, helped out even less than Scarlett did. And 
even when they did help, they complained the whole time. 

But that doesn't stop the scoundrels from eating my food, Rose thought,
looking around the table fondly, where her noisy, loving family was 
eating. 

Not that she was ever serious about making them help out. She knew her
family had their own lives to lead, and really, she, Cody and Lori 
could manage all by themselves. Zachary O'Reilly, Cody's husband, was a 
general handy man around the house, of which Rose was grateful. But she 
knew that she could figure out anything that needed figuring. She had 
raised two girls herself, hadn't she? 

"Oh grandma, this is the woman staying in the suite," Cody said when Art
and Jade walked in, hand in hand. 

"Wow, getting serious?" Lori leaned back in her chair, smiling. Jade
blinked and then looked down at their adjoining hands. How'd that 
happen? She wondered, yanking her hand away. 

"Jade Spencer, meet the owner of the B & B, Rose Brown." 

Jade smiled politely and reached out a hand. 

"How do you do?" she asked. Rose stared at her. 

If the girl wasn't an Ayala, Rose thought, then she wasn't a woman. The
sea crashing against the rocks right now wasn't the Pacific. The- 
Realizing she was thinking too much Rose smiled back at the young woman 
and wiped a hand on her pants before shaking. 

"Hello. Hope you slept well? Have a seat; you're late for breakfast.
Hello, Art." 

"Oh, it was heaven," Jade assured her, sitting down to the chair Art
pulled out for her. "And I'm sorry for being late. I went for a walk 
and got distracted." 

Sitting on the far end of the table beside her cousin Scarlett, Lori
snickered. Cody sent a warning look and Lori widened her eyes 
innocently. 

"Hello, Rose darling," Art said with a smile. Rose raised one eyebrow,
and turned back to the stove to add eggs to the frying pan. 

"Jade, this is our only other guest at the moment, Mrs. Edwards," Cody
gestured to a woman in her early forties, with a wide smile and 
bleached blond hair. Jade smiled in return, her dimple flashing. 

"Beside her is my oldest cousin, Theodore Donahue. He's the town
sheriff," Cody said proudly. Jade looked at the big man with the 
piercing black eyes and jet-black hair, his face serious and firm. She 
nodded. He looked like her idea of a sheriff. "Beside him is his wife, 
Fayrene. She used to be a paramedic in New York City, and now she's 
Mermaid Point's librarian. The baby is Angel." 

"Hello," Fayrene said with a friendly smile. She had a cute face with a
pointed chin, dominated by huge blue eyes, fluffy red hair surrounding 
her like a cloud. The baby girl in her lap had her father's black hair 
and her mothers blue eyes. As she shifted, Jade noticed the woman was 
pregnant. "Call me Fay." 

"Hello, Fay," Jade answered, liking her immediately. She looked down at
the heaping plate of food Rose had set before her. Eggs and sausage and 
bacon and French toast. It was more than she usually ate for breakfast 
in a week. 

"The next one over is Nico Joskeff, my cousin's oldest son. He's nine,
and late for school," Cody explained as the dark skinned boy wolfed 
down his breakfast. Beside him was a small boned woman with wheat blond 
hair, a trusting, round face and tilted eyes. "That's his mom, 
Scarlett, and her little one, Stefan." 

"And of course you're not expected to remember all of our names,"
Scarlett laughed, balancing the baby and patting her other son on the 
back as he choked on some food. Jade murmured something unintelligible 
as she took a bite of food. The food in her mouth was a miracle. 

"You've met Lori, last night," Cody said. Jade turned her attention to
the teenage girl. Her sun-streaked brown hair was short and choppy, her 
features pretty. She had the aqua-green tilted, cat like eyes Jade had 
noticed in all of the women of the family so far. And, Jade had also 
noticed, enough sass to go around the table twice and still have some 
leftover for others. 

"Standing in the doorway is Scarlett's husband, Alex Joskeff." 

Jade looked up at the man watching her with black eyes. His skin was a
warm brown, and he was the only one dressed formally. He was wearing a 
pinstripe suit. 

"He's the family blood-sucker," Scarlett said fondly. Alex laughed, his
teeth piercing white against his dark skin. 

"A lawyer," Art explained to her. 

"Oh." 

"And this is my husband," Cody finished, patting the arm of the man
beside her. He was tall and lean, with short light brown hair and 
rather serious brown eyes. In his arms was a baby girl with a goofy 
smile and brown pigtails. "Zach O'Reilly, and my oldest child, Zoey. 
Aaron, my son, is still sleeping, thank God." 

"God had nothing to do with it," Lori said, standing up looking up at
the clock. She was late for first period, again. "I drugged him." 

She hurried out of the room before anybody could say anything. 

"That girl is gonna be the death of us," Theo spoke up for the first
time, carefully cutting his sausage into smaller pieces. There was a 
round of agreements around the table. Mrs. Edwards, she noticed, seemed 
to be one of the family. 

"My Aunt Jessie and Uncle Kaleb are still asleep," Cody added. "And my
older brother Ian and his family haven't stopped by yet. You'll meet 
them later though." 

Jade wondered if she would. She had paid her room for a week, but she
really did need to get back to work. 

As if reading her mind, Art leaned closer to her, stealing a piece of
bacon while he was at it. 

"What do you do for a living, Sleeping Beauty?" 

She glared at him before answering. 

"My best friend owns her own magazine in the Bay Area," she said, "and
I'm her managing editor." 

"What does that involve?" Mrs. Edwards asked, resting her chin on her
hand. 

"Well, basically I'm second in command. I take care of stuff she doesn't
want to hassle with." 

"Like what?" Art asked. 

"Hiring and firing, for one," Jade shrugged. "I do some of the page
layout, although we now have a graphic designer who does most of it." 

"What kind of magazine is it?" Rose asked, sitting down at the table
with her own plate of food. Jade noticed it wasn't filled with even 
half the food she had been served. Which explained how Rose had managed 
to keep a figure, she supposed. 

"An arts and literature magazine. It's called Mental Visions. Original
artwork and poetry from people around the area. It's grown considerably 
since we started," her face became animated as she spoke. 

Mental Visions was Natalie Carlisle's spoiled baby, and Jade was proud
to be a part of it. It wasn't often that an illegitimate girl who had 
been raised in a crack house could rise above her life and make a place 
for herself in society. 

Which was exactly what Jade had done. She had figured out when she was
very young that her ticket out of her mother's life was school, and 
Jade had thrown herself into school with a passion her teacher's had 
never seen. 

She had done every extra credit project she could, not because she
needed to, but because she wanted to. 

Her extracurricular activities in high school had included Varsity
Basketball, Student Body President, Peer Counseling, Track, and being 
editor of the newspaper; along with her Honors classes. It had been a 
heavy load for her to juggle, but she had poured herself into it. She 
had graduated valedictorian, and been accepted to the Academy of Art in 
San Francisco with a full scholarship. 

She had met Natalie Carlisle when she had interned for Mental Visions,
which Natalie had been struggling to start. Jade had graduated from the 
Academy at 22, and gone straight to work for Natalie as a Graphic 
Designer. In the almost three years that she'd been there, Mental 
Visions had doubled in size, and was now distributed throughout Marin 
and Sonoma County. 

"I used to be poet," Rose announced, pouring ketchup on her scrambled
eggs. 

"Really?" Scarlett looked up from wiping Stefan's nose. "I had no idea
grandma." 

Rose nodded her head several times, chewing her food. 

"The creative gene runs in our blood," Rose said to Jade. 

Jade tilted her head, interested. She ignored Arthur, who was stealing
more of her bacon. 

"My daughter Jessie and my grandbaby Scarlett design jewelry. They sell
it in San Francisco, you know. You've probably bought some of their 
stuff," Jade nodded. Perhaps she had. "And then of course there's Ian. 
I know you've read his books. Ian Elliot?" 

"Ian Elliot? The Ian Elliot who has a best seller on the stands every
time I go into a bookstore?" Jade was impressed. She loved his books; 
they were dark, twisted horror novels critics compared to Dean Koontz 
and Stephen King. 

"That's him," Cody flashed Jade a huge smile. "That's my big brother." 

"Wow." 

"Lori does pottery and sells it at the Treasure Cove, Gwen Mogler's
store." 

"Speaking of which," Cody leaned forward, resting her elbows on the
table. "Did Arthur tell you he carves things out of driftwood and sells 
them at the Treasure Cove?" 

"No," surprised, she turned to look at the man beside her. "That's
pretty neat, Arthur." He shrugged it off. 

"Then of course there's Cody herself," Rose continued, patting her
great-grandson Nico on the back as he rushed by to go get his backpack. 
"Cody has always been an artist. She had her first showing seven months 
ago. It was a sight to behold." 

"Are the paintings in my room yours?" Jade asked. She had been
mesmerized by the art in her room, one in particular of a young girl 
sitting on the sand with the waves rolling over her legs. 

Blushing, Cody nodded. 

"They're beautiful. Absolutely beautiful," Jade sighed. "It must be
wonderful to have such an artistic family." 

"And Theo won't admit it," Fay dug a sharp elbow into her husbands
muscular stomach. "But he's a poet as well." 

"Fay," Theo warned. 

"What?" she asked innocently. 

He shook his head and then smiled. 

"I love you," he said, standing and kissing her forehead. He ran a hand
down his little girl's smooth cheek and then picked up his plate. "I'm 
off," he said. 

A round of good-byes followed him out the door. 

Art, who hadn't taken his eyes off of Jade, saw her eyes fill with tears
before she reclined her head. His forehead creased as questions filled 
his mind. What was she doing here? The resemblance to Callie was 
uncanny, and had him worried. Who was she to the Ayalas? 

"I'll be leaving now, also," Mrs. Edwards stood up, smoothing her
checkered skirt. "Thank you, Mrs. Brown, for that delicious breakfast." 


A chorus of agreement went around the table, and soon everyone stood up,
leaving the room to Jade and Art. Alex, who was still standing in the 
doorway, his arms crossed over his chest watching Jade, came up and put 
a hand on her shoulder. 

"Ms. Spencer?" he gave her a polite smile. "Your presence has been
requested at the Ayala residence at one o'clock this afternoon. I'm 
their attorney and will be there as well. I could take you there, if 
you'd like." 

Jade kept her face expressionless as she nodded. "Alright. I'll meet you
on the porch at quarter till. In the meantime, I think I'll go on up to 
my room." 

So saying, she stood, carrying her plate over to the sink, and then
quickly exited the room. Art's frown grew deeper, as did his curiosity. 


Copyright2002 by Ari Walker 


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