{"id":3800,"date":"2014-01-03T13:03:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T18:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?page_id=3800"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:24:33","slug":"weweregods","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/weweregods\/","title":{"rendered":"WE WERE GODS"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"eddsection\">\n<div class=\"eddfloat_dl\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"eddcover_dl\">\n<figure class=\"b10mwx\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/b10mediaworx.com\/covers\/gods\/gods-200x300.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"b10mwx\">Tales of Dunham #6<br \/>LaMontagne #2<br \/>\u00a92014 Moriah Jovan<br \/>108,000 words (290 pages)<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<article>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddtitle_dl\">Book 6 in the Dunham universe<\/p>\n<div class=\"linksbuyblock\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"Buy We Were Gods\">\n<p class=\"linksedd\">Buy direct:<\/p>\n\t<form id=\"edd_purchase_19703\" class=\"edd_download_purchase_form edd_purchase_19703\" method=\"post\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"edd_price_options edd_multi_mode\" >\n\t\t<ul>\n\t\t\t<li id=\"edd_price_option_19703_epub\"><label for=\"edd_price_option_19703_1\"><input type=\"checkbox\"  checked='checked' name=\"edd_options[price_id][]\" id=\"edd_price_option_19703_1\" class=\"edd_price_option_19703\" value=\"1\" data-price=\"4.99\"\/>&nbsp;<span class=\"edd_price_option_name\">EPUB<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_sep\">&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_price\">&#36;4.99<\/span><\/label><\/li><li id=\"edd_price_option_19703_pdf\"><label for=\"edd_price_option_19703_2\"><input type=\"checkbox\"  name=\"edd_options[price_id][]\" id=\"edd_price_option_19703_2\" class=\"edd_price_option_19703\" value=\"2\" data-price=\"4.99\"\/>&nbsp;<span class=\"edd_price_option_name\">PDF<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_sep\">&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_price\">&#36;4.99<\/span><\/label><\/li>\t\t<\/ul>\n\t<\/div><!--end .edd_price_options-->\n\t\n\t\t<div class=\"edd_purchase_submit_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<button class=\"edd-add-to-cart button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" data-nonce=\"507639079e\" data-timestamp=\"1775794746\" data-token=\"2d545af449863b7174cf1383182c2b10c5afed57f30a20f734e8c0628c957e84\" data-action=\"edd_add_to_cart\" data-download-id=\"19703\"  data-variable-price=\"yes\" data-price-mode=multi data-price=\"0.00\" ><span class=\"edd-add-to-cart-label\">Add to Cart<\/span> <span class=\"edd-loading\" aria-label=\"Loading\"><\/span><\/button><input type=\"submit\" class=\"edd-add-to-cart edd-no-js button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" name=\"edd_purchase_download\" value=\"Add to Cart\" data-action=\"edd_add_to_cart\" data-download-id=\"19703\"  data-variable-price=\"yes\" data-price-mode=multi \/><a href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/checkout\/\" class=\"edd_go_to_checkout button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" style=\"display:none;\">Checkout<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"edd-cart-ajax-alert\" aria-live=\"assertive\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"edd-cart-added-alert\" style=\"display: none;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg class=\"edd-icon edd-icon-check\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" viewBox=\"0 0 28 28\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<path d=\"M26.11 8.844c0 .39-.157.78-.44 1.062L12.234 23.344c-.28.28-.672.438-1.062.438s-.78-.156-1.06-.438l-7.782-7.78c-.28-.282-.438-.673-.438-1.063s.156-.78.438-1.06l2.125-2.126c.28-.28.672-.438 1.062-.438s.78.156 1.062.438l4.594 4.61L21.42 5.656c.282-.28.673-.438 1.063-.438s.78.155 1.062.437l2.125 2.125c.28.28.438.672.438 1.062z\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAdded to cart\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!--end .edd_purchase_submit_wrapper-->\n\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"download_id\" value=\"19703\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"edd_action\" class=\"edd_action_input\" value=\"add_to_cart\">\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t<\/form><!--end #edd_purchase_19703-->\n\t\n<p class=\"linksedd\">&nbsp;<br \/>\n\t\t<span class=\"small85\">Amazon<\/span> <a class=\"gods\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B00JYKH2DK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kindle<\/a> \u2022 <a class=\"gods\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0991189205\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">paperback<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<span class=\"small85\">Barnes &#038; Noble<\/span> <a class=\"gods\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/we-were-gods-moriah-jovan\/1119281943?ean=2940149433759\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nook<\/a> \u2022 <span class=\"small85\">paperback<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"gods\" href=\"http:\/\/books.apple.com\/us\/book\/id1147056482\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple iBooks<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"gods\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/books\/details?id=2ga5DwAAQBAJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Play Books<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"gods\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/us\/en\/ebook\/black-jack-tales-of-dunham-7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kobo eBooks<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"top30\">\n<p class=\"eddsum_dl\">After a 20-year marriage and five children, teenage sweethearts \u00c9tienne and Tess LaMontagne had burnt out. Tess, once a brilliant architect, was exhausted, drained of energy and vision, and no longer building with her engineer husband. \u00c9tienne was feeling trapped and frustrated by a life that had taken a direction he had not wanted and missing the vivacious, creative woman he had married.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddsum_dl\">Five years after their bitter divorce forced each to experience life on their own, \u00c9tienne is drawn home to rescue his oldest daughter. Tess, having brilliantly revived her career, is also dealing with a sick child. When her latest project and their children\u2019s crises bring \u00c9tienne and Tess face to face, they must decide whether they want to reunite, and if so, how to overcome the issues they\u2019d run from years before\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddsum_dl\">\u2014because even separated by distance and time, they never stopped loving each other, never stopped wanting. It\u2019s just that sometimes, love isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddsum_dl\">Until it\u2019s the only thing they have left.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"navblock\">\n<p class=\"leftnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/pasodoble\/\">\u2190 Book 5<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rightnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowbig\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/blackjack\/\">Book 7  \u2192<\/a><br \/>It would\u2019ve been a fun weekend fling\u2014<br \/>except for almost getting murdered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wingding\">\u203b<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">DECONSTRUCTIVISM<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">August 2005<br \/>\nKansas City, Missouri<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u00c9TIENNE LAMONTAGNE didn\u2019t look up from the table in his workshop where he <em>had<\/em> been assembling a component to go in his life\u2019s work. Then he simply continued to fiddle with it because he didn\u2019t want to gape at the young woman in the doorway.<\/p>\n<p>She was gorgeous: tall, blonde, curvy, with legs to her neck, and a face to launch a fleet of ships.<\/p>\n<p>And <em>he<\/em> was married, albeit in the middle of divorcing. He shouldn\u2019t even be thinking this way.<\/p>\n<p>He wanted her to go away.<\/p>\n<p>Now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGet me a Dr. Pepper,\u201d he barked without looking up.<\/p>\n<p>Out of the corner of his eye he saw her bottom lip go slack. And he wanted to kiss it.<\/p>\n<p>More than he wanted to build Whittaker House.<\/p>\n<p>If her blueprints were anything to go by, she was brilliant.<\/p>\n<p>And young.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d she said calmly.<\/p>\n<p>She shouldn\u2019t have done that. Now he <em>really<\/em> wanted to kiss her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh? You think you\u2019re my equal?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI<em> know<\/em> I\u2019m your equal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Damn. She had him. When was the last time Tess had talked to him like that?<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh, Tess<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>His heart was breaking over one woman and here he sat, suddenly and unexpectedly salivating over another. Maybe he really was as irresponsible and immature as Tess thought he was.<\/p>\n<p>He looked at her from under his brows to see her watching him speculatively and was not surprised to know she found him attractive.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFuck me,\u201d he muttered in French.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWas that an invitation?\u201d she said, still in that calm tone.<\/p>\n<p>He was in so much trouble.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d he snarled. \u201cBring me those plans and keep your hormones to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At least until his divorce was final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">TESS LAMONTAGNE sat at her vanity in her massive bathroom watching herself unpin her straight black hair from its sleek French twist. The lack of neon streaks still made her feel naked, and she hadn\u2019t had them in years. Her earrings\u2014one pair\u2014were simple gold studs. She had a short string of pearls around her neck, over the soft mint cardigan that made a sweater set a sweater set. The long sleeve of her prim white blouse hid her right wrist, tattooed with a circuit board bracelet, symbolizing her first building project, the one she\u2019d built with her husband when they were newlyweds, stupid in love.<\/p>\n<p>Who would soon <em>not<\/em> be her husband.<\/p>\n<p>She couldn\u2019t bear to look at that tattoo, which matched the one on his right wrist.<\/p>\n<p>It killed her, what she\u2019d done, in an effort to make him see what his constant hounding was doing to her.<\/p>\n<p>It was always the same: \u201cGo draw, Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A shadow crossed in the mirror, came out of the darkness of the bedroom and into the light of the bathroom toward her. He came to a halt behind her, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at her in the mirror.<\/p>\n<p>And he was naked.<\/p>\n<p>Well over six feet of Dunham brawn, hardened and shaped by lifting heavy pieces of machinery all day in his workshop and on build sites. Thick red-mahogany waves long past his shoulders, a cluster of tiny braids at each temple, pulled back and tied. Medium-sized gold hoops in his ears, and from behind his left earlobe, down his neck, across his jaw, stark rays of black ink symbolizing the first building they\u2019d built together. It matched the one beginning at the nape of her neck and radiating out and across her back like art deco angel wings. His nose was long and strong with a slight bump in the middle, his lips thin and carved, his cheekbones high. His ice blue eyes burned into hers.<\/p>\n<p>He looked like an eighteenth-century rogue standing there with his head lowered, looking up at her from under his strong brow, his jaw stubbled.<\/p>\n<p>He took her breath away.<\/p>\n<p>He always would.<\/p>\n<p>She couldn\u2019t do this. She didn\u2019t want to give him up, give up the life they\u2019d built together, devastate the children over their differing priorities.<\/p>\n<p>He looked at her clothing and sneered. \u201cGet that off,\u201d he said, his French accent thickening as it usually did when he was aroused. Or angry. Or both.<\/p>\n<p>Her mouth tightened. \u201cTell me why you don\u2019t value what I do for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He bared his teeth in a snarl. \u201cI have been telling you why for the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTell me a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve tried every way I know how and I\u2019m tired of trying.\u201d He reached out then, caught her pearls, twisted his hand until the string broke and sent pearls scattering and pinging everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>She rolled her eyes. \u201c<em>That<\/em> got my attention, all right,\u201d she drawled sarcastically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGet it off,\u201d he snarled. \u201cI cannot <em>stand<\/em> you looking like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t care for it much, either, but she wasn\u2019t a teenager anymore. \u201cOh, do you mean like an adult? I think it\u2019s rather flattering.\u201d It was <em>very<\/em> flattering, but that didn\u2019t mean she liked it. She raised her eyebrow. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to pick a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you\u2019re going to give me one,\u201d he shot back.<\/p>\n<p>The mirror made it easier for her to arrange her face to show the exact degree of snarky boredom that would drive him over the edge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCall off the divorce, Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed she would. First thing in the morning. And then she would call a marriage counselor. She didn\u2019t understand why he didn\u2019t like her in the supportive-wife-and-mother role, and he didn\u2019t understand why it was important to her to be that. But right now she\u2019d give him that screaming fight he wanted and then have angry sex all night and then go out tomorrow morning to start making it right.<\/p>\n<p>The appropriate tool was a marriage counselor, not a divorce lawyer, and she\u2019d never been one to use a hammer to drive a screw. Would that she had chosen the screwdriver to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>She pressed her palms into the vanity and arose slowly, her jaw tight, returning his hard stare with an equally hard one. She turned, her gaze going straight to his erection and his orange pubic hair and a tattoo of a raven\u2014a symbol of the last building she\u2019d designed, the one he\u2019d powered\u2014and was the companion to her own tattoo there.<\/p>\n<p>That generator had taken them from upper middle class to wealthy, and her building had made her one of green architecture\u2019s hot young darlings\u2014before her mother reminded her that children didn\u2019t get fed nor houses cleaned on the back of pretty little awards. That had to be dusted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have tried,\u201d she began calmly, \u201cto be the kind of wife I was supposed to be. I have done everything I was supposed to do to make your life as easy as possible because you are the breadwinner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That killed her.<\/p>\n<p>He snarled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd yet&nbsp;\u2026 you continue to say I have more important things to do than raising kids and keeping a clean house and doing the house books and making sure the yard and house are maintained so, you know, <em>it won\u2019t fall down on us<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do have more important things to do. <em>Design a damned building<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I don\u2019t have time<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have <em>plenty<\/em> of time!\u201d he roared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you <em>helped<\/em> me in the least bit, I might actually <em>have<\/em> time!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do help you. I have helped you. I have offered to buy you an entire <em>housekeeping service<\/em> to help you. But you refused. And yet, you tell me you don\u2019t have time. Why can you not find your way to your office? Your <em>office<\/em>, Tess! A whole room in this house dedicated to you and what you were <em>born<\/em> to do, and you can\u2019t manage to get your butt in that chair for the last I-don\u2019t-know-how-many years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t understand. He refused to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know all those flowers-and-sunshine, wavy-wheat-and-daisy-field, sappy-theme-song fantasies we had about having kids?\u201d His nostrils flared. \u201c<em>It\u2019s not real! Somebody<\/em> has to be the adult in this marriage, \u00c9tienne, and I\u2019m it and I\u2019m going to <em>stay<\/em> it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the problem,\u201d he said low, grasping her wrist to pull her into the bedroom. She bashed her shin on her vanity chair and stumbled after him because his grip was murder.<\/p>\n<p>But when she got her feet under her, she stopped and heaved backward. He barely noticed.<\/p>\n<p>She threw herself at his back, her elbow digging into a kidney. He fell forward on the bed with a grunt, but still had her wrist, so she went with him.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly her mouth was opened by his and her tongue found its way into his mouth with no hesitation whatsoever. She closed her eyes and breathed her desire into him, reaching up and grabbing fists full of his thick, coarse hair to pull him closer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou drive me <em>insane<\/em>,\u201d he growled as he left her to crawl to the middle of the bed. He sat, his knees up and wide, his erection standing proud, teasing her. He wrapped his big hand around her wrist and dragged her to him across the silk counterpane. She rose to her knees in front of him, daring him to rip her clothes off her.<\/p>\n<p>Knit sweaters and skirts don\u2019t rip so well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hate these,\u201d he muttered while his talented fingers deftly undid her buttons. \u201cTake it off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSay your right words,\u201d she purred.<\/p>\n<p>He leveled her a look of pure animal lust. \u201cHow you turn my world, you precious thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It only took a few seconds for her to divest herself of her adult clothes until she was as nude as he was. She stared down at him from where she knelt between his legs. He returned it right before he reached around her and jerked her to his body.<\/p>\n<p>He tilted his head back to welcome her kiss, which she gave him, tilting her head to get her tongue in his mouth as far as she could. It was his turn to moan softly.<\/p>\n<p>She was stupid to think she could let this man go. Twenty years. Five kids. And <em>this<\/em>. <em>Still<\/em>. Most people their age weren\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u00c9tienne,\u201d she whispered into his mouth, straddling his thigh, then his hips. She lowered herself on his erection, feeling it slide up into her still-tight sheath.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTess,\u201d he sighed, covering her butt with his enormous hands and stroking down, spreading her apart. He lowered his knees so she could move more freely over him, so she could rub her breasts against the coarse hair on his chest the way she liked, so she wasn\u2019t confined in whatever she wanted to do to him.<\/p>\n<p>She kissed him frantically while she rode him hard, her hands over his face to keep him to her. She felt his coarse hands slowly slide over her butt, up her back, into her hair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo back to your drawing board, Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d she sighed, not really caring.<\/p>\n<p>He pulled away from her and clasped her chin in his hand. Tight. Yet their mouths were a bare breath apart. \u201cGo back to your drawing board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A memory flashed through her mind, when they\u2019d been married for six months, and she had excused herself from the bed they\u2019d been in for hours and hours to draw.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yes<\/em>, she sighed.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d protested she could work on that later, but he didn\u2019t understand. She <em>had<\/em> to. What she had designed had been not just visionary, but divinely inspired, something she couldn\u2019t have drawn before she\u2019d become a woman in his arms. And when she was done twenty-four hours later, she had gone back to bed with even more to give her new husband.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease, Tess,\u201d he said. \u201c<em>Please<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot right now,\u201d she gasped, and threw her head back, breaking his grip, arching her hips harder into his.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings to do tomorrow,\u201d she breathed vaguely, because her orgasm was building, there, right&nbsp;\u2026 <em>there<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>She kissed him when she went over the edge because she wanted to scream and there were still kids in the house. He kissed her back, frantically, almost desperately, and continued to do so as he gritted his satisfaction and thrust up into her. She came again when he did, though it was a tiny orgasm.<\/p>\n<p>They stayed that way, their chests heaving, connected, in their favorite position, the one where she wasn\u2019t so much shorter than he was. The one where they could talk. The one where she was one of her buildings and he was one of his engines.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo draw,\u201d he growled, and suddenly his tone was piercing through her lust-fogged brain. It was a command, an order. A <em>plea<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>She pulled away from him slowly, but it was dark and the bathroom light didn\u2019t give her enough to see into his eyes. But his mouth was tight. His jaw tense. And he would not stop looking at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow?\u201d she asked carefully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui!\u201d he barked, but did not release her. \u201cNow! Now, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that. Go into your office and draw something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even if she hadn\u2019t had plans for the next day, even if she had any ideas, she wouldn\u2019t be able to draw because she had to be in the zone and she <em>never<\/em> had enough time for that to happen.<\/p>\n<p>But he wanted it so badly. Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t tomorrow,\u201d she began gently. \u201cI have to call my\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatever it is, it can wait!\u201d he snarled. \u201c<em>Go\u2014design\u2014me\u2014something\u2014to\u2014build<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She decided to not argue because he seemed to be on the edge of actually getting <em>it<\/em> out, whatever <em>it<\/em> was. \u201cWhy is this so important to you? I mean, why now? You\u2019re <em>begging<\/em>.\u201d And \u00c9tienne did not <em>beg<\/em> for anything. There had to be a catalyst. \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met a woman today,\u201d he hissed.<\/p>\n<p>Her heart dropped into her stomach and she couldn\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I want a chance to salvage what we had\u2014what we started out with\u2014before I go fall in love with someone else. I love you, Tess. I always have and I always will, but this\u2014 She slapped me in the face today, looking at her, hearing the you I married. So now I\u2019m telling you what I want, which is\u2014you design me a fucking building it\u2019ll take me a year to figure out how to power! And do it <em>tomorrow<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her chest was heaving. <em>Another woman<\/em>. No. It couldn\u2019t be. It couldn\u2019t <em>possibly<\/em> be.<\/p>\n<p>Could it?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t, I\u2019ll give you the divorce you want, and I will go hard and fast after this girl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGirl?\u201d she choked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwenty-four. An architect. One I\u2019ll be working with for the next two years to build a building you designed twenty years ago. Remember those plans? The ones with the concepts your professors said couldn\u2019t be done? The ones I swore I would find a way to power? And now it\u2019s twenty years later and it\u2019s not visionary anymore. Why am I so often the only one in the world who can build what people need? The one architects draw their ambitious plans for so often? Because I figured out how to power <em>your<\/em> buildings so long ago. Because of <em>you<\/em>, forcing me to work twenty years into the future. I could power Whittaker House\u2014a stupid niche hotel in the Ozarks!\u2014in my sleep, but now I\u2019m powering it for <em>her<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess thought her body would shatter into a million pieces. She stared at her husband, her lover, her best fr\u2014<\/p>\n<p>A best friend wouldn\u2019t do this to her, would he?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just saw those plans again\u2014 By an architect older than you when you drew yours. They aren\u2019t even her concepts\u2014they\u2019re her client\u2019s. And her client is a <em>chef<\/em>! A <em>chef<\/em> has more vision than this girl has. It\u2019s twenty years later. You <em>have<\/em> to have something left. Look into the future, Tess. For me. <em>Please<\/em> tell me it\u2019s not gone, that the housekeeping didn\u2019t destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another woman. Tears overflowed her eyes onto her cheeks. She couldn\u2019t have spoken if she wanted to. She could not physically speak to tell him her plans for tomorrow. She was hyperventilating, gasping for air.<\/p>\n<p>He was still talking, still pleading, still begging her for a design. She barely heard a word.<\/p>\n<p>Another woman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy am I not building this with you, Tess?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another <em>woman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy am I building it with a girl who can implement it but can\u2019t conceive it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Another <\/em>woman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we built together are <em>masterpieces<\/em>! And then&nbsp;\u2026 you just fell off the face of the industry. You trashed our business, our partnership, our reputations\u2014and for what?! Baking chocolate cakes! Tess! We made <em>art<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>And children. Don\u2019t forget the children<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>ANOTHER WOMAN.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made<em> children<\/em> together, Tess. Good ones. Smart ones. Why did we have to stop there? Why didn\u2019t we get back to building <em>masterpieces<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She pushed away from him, scrambling, sobbing, trying to catch her breath so she could speak and tell him what she needed to, but she choked, coughed, hacked on her own spit, and she slid off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom and slammed the doors and dropped to her knees in front of the toilet.<\/p>\n<p>She was still puking when the bedroom door slammed shut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">1: CRAFTSMAN<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">September 2010<br \/>\nKansas City, Missouri<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">TESS COULD NOT contain her good mood this Sunday morning as she walked from the church\u2019s parking lot to the front doors. Fall was in the air. Her church job was all caught up and her list of duties was in order for passing on to whoever her successor would be. Her middle daughter had been stable the last three days. And she had a meeting tomorrow that might be the final step in the vindication of her career\u2014and marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Even if the venture capital meeting in the morning didn\u2019t turn out as well as rumor said it would, after the phone call she\u2019d gotten early this morning confirming her suspicions as to the quality of Whittaker House, nothing could get to her.<\/p>\n<p>She grinned at the turning trees. The Little Hotel in the Ozarks was an utter disaster. Oh, it wasn\u2019t going to fall down on anybody\u2019s head. It did exactly what it had been built to do. And by all reports, Vanessa Whittaker, its owner, was ecstatic over it, but why shouldn\u2019t she be? She was a <em>chef<\/em>. She wouldn\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n<p>Tess did.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it did what it had been built to do, but it did not do what it <em>should<\/em> have been designed to do\u2014even then its architect hadn\u2019t done the job.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing that had saved that building was its engineer.<\/p>\n<p>Every architect older than forty who\u2019d been working in green energy their entire careers knew what Whittaker House <em>should<\/em> have been, even if the rest of the industry didn\u2019t. And that was its tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>But those architects were few and far between, and Tess was a villain in hipster green-energy circles, the one in which Whittaker House\u2019s young architect ran.<\/p>\n<p><em>I don\u2019t give a crap about the environment<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>She was infamous for that statement, its qualifier having gotten lost long before: <em>All I care about is the most efficient, cost-effective way to decouple the property owner from energy providers\u2014in a structure that\u2019s not so butt-ugly you\u2019d need eyeball bleach to look at it. It is incidental that everything I do is also good for the environment<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And her hus\u2014 <em>ex<\/em>-husband had to know exactly how big a screw-up Whittaker House really was.<\/p>\n<p>Not that she would ever ask, nor would he admit it to her, but if Tess had her name all over it like \u00c9tienne did, she\u2019d want to run away to hide from the shame of it, too. Nia Desmond was still riding high on her wave of fraudulent popularity because very few people would ever know how <em>average<\/em> Whittaker House\u2019s architect was, not even the architect herself.<\/p>\n<p>Tess could hardly blame her for that. The girl didn\u2019t know what she didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>Didn\u2019t matter. It was enough that <em>Tess<\/em> knew, that her firm knew, that a few key architects around the world knew, and, most importantly, that \u00c9tienne most certainly would know.<\/p>\n<p>Tess nearly bounced into the building, then into the chapel, and she couldn\u2019t stop smiling. She found her seat next to her cous\u2014 <em>ex<\/em>-cousin-by-marriage, the husband, and their toddler, and plopped herself and her tote down.<\/p>\n<p>Today, it only annoyed her a little bit that she still had to remind herself she wasn\u2019t married. Of course, the fact that she was still wearing her wedding ring\u2014but only because it was pretty and she felt naked without it\u2014didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell aren\u2019t you chipper this morning!\u201d Giselle said, then lowered her voice. \u201cDid you get laid or something?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess scowled at her. It wasn\u2019t funny, but Giselle didn\u2019t know that so she took Tess\u2019s scowl as a joke. Didn\u2019t matter. It wasn\u2019t enough to dampen her spirits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, Tess,\u201d said Giselle\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, Bryce. My life could not possibly be any better at the moment. You know that hemp project I\u2019ve been working on since forever? The four-twenty? We have a VC meeting tomorrow morning and if the rumors are right, it\u2019ll be fully funded and then some.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Giselle\u2019s face lit up. \u201cThat\u2019s great!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Tess couldn\u2019t explain further because other people came trickling into the chapel and interrupted the rest of her news, which was just as well. Tess needed a little weight hung on her buoyant mood before she popped of joy or started to cry, whichever came first.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTess!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At her mother-in-law\u2019s voice, she stood and turned to collect her hug. Harriet LaMontagne had always loved and championed Tess, even though Harriet and Soon-hee Chun, Tess\u2019s mother, should never have been put in the same room together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s Kelly?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Darcy\u2019s so Jeremy could take a break.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPoor boy needs one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess couldn\u2019t agree with that more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, Aunt Harrie,\u201d Giselle called.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood morning, Giselle,\u201d she returned. \u201cBryce.\u201d She smiled at Duncan, then got back to the thing Tess knew was most important to both of them. \u201cAnd Darcy?\u201d she asked quietly.<\/p>\n<p>Tess lowered her voice, too. \u201cLucid three days. Jeremy tried another OB, though.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe old one said he didn\u2019t have any drugs he could give her that wouldn\u2019t harm the baby, and they\u2019re still on the fence about when they can do a C-section.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harriet pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly. \u201cThis is going to be a long nine weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And they already had twenty-three weeks behind them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you talked to Tabitha lately? When will she be coming for a visit?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s as bubbly as ever. The girl\u2019s a born mother, but Dave can\u2019t get away and Tabby doesn\u2019t want to travel alone with a baby and a toddler.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I don\u2019t blame her.\u201d Harriet smiled, her happiness deep and warm, then looked at Tess\u2019s regular pewmates. \u201cGiselle,\u201d she called, \u201care you available Saturday to go to Darcy\u2019s? Can you pick me up at nine?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Giselle was being used as a jungle gym by her toddler, but she nodded. \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you,\u201d Tess breathed.<\/p>\n<p>Harriet patted her hand. \u201cI know you need time to do what you do, and I\u2019ll do what I can to make sure you get that time. I wish I had\u2014 Ah, before&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before \u00c9tienne and Tess\u2019s marriage had fallen apart.<\/p>\n<p>Harriet\u2019s eyes were moist. \u201cI learned my lesson with Victoria, then did nothing when you and \u00c9tienne needed help. I can\u2019t seem to do anything my twins actually need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d Tess murmured, taking and squeezing her hand comfortingly. \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault. You had a husband and a daughter who needed you, and my mother took the opportunity to edge you out. I wasn\u2019t about to ask you for more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTess, I would have, but I was conflicted. You are <em>her<\/em> child, not mine, and I didn\u2019t think it was my place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd my mother appropriated \u00c9tienne as her own, too. \u00c9tienne is <em>your<\/em> son, not hers. I should have grabbed hold of you and never let you go, and now I have and I am grateful for any help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harriet bit her lip and looked away. \u201cI wish I could bring \u00c9tienne back to you, but I still can\u2019t find out where he is. I thought he would go to Spain eventually, but Victoria hasn\u2019t seen him, hasn\u2019t heard from him, doesn\u2019t know how get hold of him. She says she hasn\u2019t sensed that he needs her, so she hasn\u2019t worried.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess really didn\u2019t believe that \u00c9tienne hadn\u2019t gone to his twin once in five years. \u201cWhat about Emilio?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harriet\u2019s mouth tightened. \u201cHe put his foot down and said he refuses to discuss \u00c9tienne at all and to quit asking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess and Harriet traded a <em>significant<\/em> look. That meant Emilio Bautista, Victoria\u2019s husband, knew exactly where \u00c9tienne was and what he was doing. Emilio was Tess\u2019s ally by dint of the fact that he was a LaMontagne in-law, too, and could handle both twins\u2019 personalities with ease. In fact, he\u2019d been Tess\u2019s only link to sanity in the very first days and weeks after \u00c9tienne left and headed to the Ozarks.<\/p>\n<p>But he was also \u00c9tienne\u2019s ally by dint of the fact that Emilio had his own sins to account for. After all, it wasn\u2019t every day a man\u2019s wife opened her front door to find his illegitimate son desperately in need of a family. Victoria\u2019s only consolations were that the child was quite a bit older than their marriage, and she\u2019d been prepared for the possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, Emilio was balancing his conflicting empathy for both Tess and \u00c9tienne, doing what he could for each of them without actually interfering\u2014while being married to the female version of \u00c9tienne.<\/p>\n<p>It was a wonder the man still had his sanity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey, Abu\u00e9la. Aunt Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harriet\u2019s face lit up at the seventeen-year-old\u2019s greeting. Tess was impressed with how sharp her nephew was and how much he looked like his father. \u201cYou came! Did you not have a rodeo today?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTonight,\u201d Manolete Bautista said as he hugged and kissed his grandmother, then Tess. He shook Giselle\u2019s and Bryce\u2019s hands when he was introduced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you find out how long you\u2019re staying?\u201d Harriet asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMiddle of November,\u201d he answered with alacrity and a slight Spanish accent. \u201cThere\u2019s a two-day wrap-up training session after the closing ceremony that I need to stay for. After that, I don\u2019t know. What I do know is while I\u2019m here, I need to find a tailor who can teleconference with my dad\u2019s to take measurements because I outgrew my costume. I can\u2019t just hop a plane to Madrid in the middle of the American Royal, and those things take forever to make.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll take you to mine,\u201d Bryce rumbled and dug into his suit coat for a business card. \u201cText me tomorrow. If he can\u2019t or won\u2019t do it, I\u2019ll find someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWill do, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen are you going to Colombia?\u201d Tess asked.<\/p>\n<p>He ignored that and looked at his grandmother. \u201cMom and Papa are coming for Christmas. Did you know?\u201d Harriet gasped in delight, then he looked at Tess. \u201cMy debut is at the end of January, but Papa wants to spend a month getting me out of the clown groove and back into the matador groove.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess\u2019s eyebrows rose. \u201cYou sound conflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He grimaced. \u201cI like clowning better. Not sure how to tell my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see your problem there,\u201d Tess said with mock sympathy. Emilio had spent time being a rodeo clown and he\u2019d known when Manolete left home to do the same it was a possibility, if not a probability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHi, Aunt Harrie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess\u2019s jaw swung out with disdain at the sound of that baritone. Manolete disappeared with a wave, and Tess began to steam.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood morning, Morgan. You need Tess?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>President Chun<\/em>, you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, ward business. Where\u2019s your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s coming,\u201d he drawled.<\/p>\n<p><em>This<\/em> <em>ex<\/em>-cousin-by-marriage (there were so many!) wanted as much to do with Tess as Tess wanted to do with him, which was less than zero. For him, the \u201cex\u201d part came so easily.<\/p>\n<p>But he was the second counselor to the bishop and she was the president of the ward\u2019s women\u2019s auxiliary, Relief Society. Or, well, she <em>had been<\/em> before she\u2019d asked the bishop to release her so she could concentrate on Darcy. It was the nature of the beast, to deal with people one despised to get the Lord\u2019s work done in the building of the kingdom of Zion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrother Ashworth,\u201d she said with airy contempt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI need to have a few minutes with you during Sunday school. Clerk\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTess\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the ward hierarchy, Tess was level with or a little above Morgan, depending on one\u2019s point of view, and she made sure he did not forget it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know my rule, Morgan. Three choices: We do this by email, Giselle comes with me, or I will go to the bishop and let <em>you<\/em> explain to him why I don\u2019t want to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He drew in a slow, deep breath that meant he was trying to keep hold of his temper. He looked over her head and spoke slowly. Stiffly. \u201cGiselle can\u2019t this time because it involves things we need to wrap up before you\u2019re released from the Relief Society presidency, which involves the needs of people in the ward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t fear Morgan; she just couldn\u2019t stand him. She <em>should<\/em> be meeting with the bishop, because he was her direct superior. Why Morgan insisted on performing this duty, she didn\u2019t know, but she wasn\u2019t going to cooperate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou tell the bishop I will meet with him and only him. You can frame it any way you want. I won\u2019t even mind if you make me out to be the Wicked Witch of the West. It should be easy enough to do since you\u2019ve had so much <em>practice<\/em> at it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He winced. Slightly.<\/p>\n<p>Giselle\u2019s snicker made him flush. Even Bryce chuckled.<\/p>\n<p>Tess could not have prayed for a more wonderful Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll email you,\u201d he said tightly and made his way to the dais.<\/p>\n<p>Tess sat down and smoothed her crocheted overskirt, a smile on her face. \u201cHe\u2019s still in denial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Giselle snorted. \u201cNo, he\u2019s not. He just doesn\u2019t like having his nose rubbed in his shi\u2014\u201d Tess raised an eyebrow. Giselle huffed. \u201c<em>Poop<\/em>\u2014especially when it\u2019s all \u00c9tienne\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Vindication!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">TESS WAS STILL buoyant the next morning when she headed toward the conference room at Roark, Cleland, and Howard, late, to keep her reputation of scattered-but-brilliant architect intact. She was, in fact, scrupulously organized and considered \u201cprompt\u201d to be fifteen minutes early.<\/p>\n<p>She shifted her blueprint bundles under her arm, palmed her presentation remote, and breezed through the great glass door, chirped a good morning and breezed down the long table occupied by some very important, <em>impatient<\/em> men all trussed up in business suits and ties. Poor guys. She dropped her plans on the table with a thud, pulled out her chair, and plopped in it.<\/p>\n<p>She looked around and granted the table a wide smile that had charmed and seduced more unamused people than these, and said, \u201cAm I late?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the seat next to hers, her boss pressed his hand to his mouth, but only to keep his laughter to himself. So did her office mate, across the table from her. The Cleland portion of Roark, Cleland, and Howard, sitting at the head of the large conference table, rolled his eyes. She pretended to be oblivious to these things and, well, everything else, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>You\u2019re<\/em> Mi-kyung Chun?\u201d said some dour, disdainful voice from down the table.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot if you ask my mother,\u201d she trilled with one of her well-honed smiles directed straight at the old curmudgeon.<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t work on him. That was all right. People she couldn\u2019t charm simply had bad taste or were determined to be unhappy, but the poor darlings couldn\u2019t help it, which was sad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow!\u201d she said breathlessly, clasping her hands together in front of her and looking around in feigned wide-eyed na\u00efvet\u00e9. \u201cWho\u2019s going to say the opening prayer?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her poor boss and office mate were shaking, but the money men in the room were gaping at her as if she had three heads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOops! Wrong meeting. Where was I? Oh, yes.\u201d She stood again, looked up the length of the table, stopped, and studied the tabletop the other way. She took a surprised breath. \u201cYou know that scene in <em>Kill Bill <\/em>where Lucy Liu hops up on the table in her kimono and minces down it with a samurai sword and chops off that guy\u2019s head?\u201d Surely they had to be thinking this architect was off her rocker. \u201cYeah.\u201d She gave a definitive nod as if talking to herself and tapped the table with a fingertip. \u201cThat. I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She clicked the presentation remote in her hand and suddenly plunged the room into darkness. While she\u2019d been distracting the venture capitalists with her antics, she\u2019d clouded the glass walls and pulled the shades on the windows, so the darkness was complete.<\/p>\n<p>Pitch.<\/p>\n<p>The video slowly faded in on the large screen at the end of the room, timed so their eyes could adjust to the darkness gradually and be more easily manipulated to see her vision the way <em>she<\/em> saw it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGentlemen,\u201d she said in a low, husky, seductive tone she hadn\u2019t used for anything but concept presentations since \u00c9tienne\u2014 No. She shook her head. None of that. \u201cWelcome to the eighteenth century.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">BY THE TIME her film wrapped up, the glass walls were unclouded, the shades had retracted, and the lights had come up so gradually most of her audience hadn\u2019t noticed.<\/p>\n<p>They had also not noticed the overhead acoustic and lighting platform descend slowly on cables from the ceiling, on which her pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance was laid out in all its miniature glory.<\/p>\n<p>She continued her presentation without interruption, using the remote as a laser pointer now, discussing what it could do with current technology and how she had accounted for future technological advances in the spaces she\u2019d left empty.<\/p>\n<p>Her audience\u2014venture capitalists not prone to being enthusiastic about a project on first blush\u2014all wore poker faces.<\/p>\n<p>Then the questions started coming, and she answered each one as if she were Wonder Woman holding up her bracelets to deflect bullets.<\/p>\n<p>And then&nbsp;\u2026 they were done.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMiz Chun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or not.<\/p>\n<p>The drawl, one she recognized, one she did not want to hear, came from the other end of the room. She looked down the table, all the chairs to the left of her swiveling so she had a direct line of sight to&nbsp;\u2026 Sebastian Taight, who was not on the invitation list and whom she hadn\u2019t seen because of where she was sitting.<\/p>\n<p>Tess was going to find whoever invited him and get them fired.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian was yet <em>another<\/em> ex-cousin-in-law, the second of three of \u00c9tienne\u2019s cousins he had used liberally as confidantes somewhere around the time Tess had decided she needed to be the adult in her marriage.<\/p>\n<p>It had gradually alienated Tess and the children from \u00c9tienne\u2019s large, close-knit family. It had suited Tess\u2019s mother just fine because she couldn\u2019t stand the idea that \u00c9tienne\u2019s mother thought Tess was wonderful. But Harriet and Giselle had struggled to keep Tess in the family loop, insisting that the fault <em>didn\u2019t<\/em> lie with \u00c9tienne\u2019s confidants, who felt wedged between their loyalty to \u00c9tienne and the loss of Tess and the children.<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t fly with Tess. They were grown men and they\u2019d been telling \u00c9tienne what to do for years. It would have been a simple thing for one or all of them to say, \u201cShut up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So now one of those confidantes was lazing back in his chair, his left ankle propped on his right knee, his left elbow propped on the table with three of his long fingers supporting his left temple.<\/p>\n<p>He was here to ambush her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m <em>told<\/em>,\u201d Sebastian began in a tone that let her know he\u2019d arrived angry and stayed that way, \u201cthat the technology you say you already have to power this project doesn\u2019t actually exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crap. Her boss stiffened.<\/p>\n<p>He shouldn\u2019t have known that. Nobody should have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she chirped. She chirped a lot in these meetings. \u201cBut you must have been misinformed. Why would we be seeking funding to build something for which the technology doesn\u2019t exist?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She, her boss, her team partner, and Cleland himself had been so sure it\u2019d be in existence by now that they\u2019d&nbsp;\u2026 well, <em>fudged<\/em> the truth a little, one could say. If one were saying. They\u2019d searched and interviewed and picked brains. All over the world. And here they were, almost four years later, and they still hadn\u2019t found anyone who could do it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy indeed,\u201d he said, his voice tight, but only she would know that. \u201cWhat <em>firm<\/em> do you have in mind to&nbsp;\u2026 <em>fulfill<\/em>&nbsp;\u2026 your vision?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She tried not to fidget. Well, honestly, there <em>was<\/em> one man in the world who could do what she wanted and she wasn\u2019t in a position to contact him.<\/p>\n<p>Even if she wanted to.<\/p>\n<p>And if she did want to, it\u2019d still take him two or three years to figure out how do it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really can\u2019t give you firm names, Mr. Taight,\u201d she said airily. \u201cWe have to maintain at least a <em>veneer<\/em> of competition, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve looked at these plans very carefully, <em>Miz Chun<\/em>, and I\u2019ve been involved in my share of such projects\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was a sweetheart for giving her that opening. \u201cOh, did you mean Whittaker House?\u201d she said with the sheer delight of someone who\u2019d just made a random association of some significance. \u201cYou chose the architect for that project, didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her boss and the other green architects in the room groaned audibly.<\/p>\n<p>But Sebastian\u2019s jaw tightened, which meant he knew what he\u2019d done. It shocked her that he knew, but he did. Somehow.<\/p>\n<p>She smiled sweetly at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTouch\u00e9,\u201d he gritted. \u201cNevertheless, let me call on that experience \u2014because that\u2019s really all any of us have to go on, isn\u2019t it, <em>Miz Chun<\/em>? I don\u2019t believe for a minute that you\u2019ve been able to find someone who can make this building do what it\u2019s designed to do. I would <em>hate<\/em> to back another project that didn\u2019t live up to its potential, much less recommend anyone <em>else<\/em> do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He had her dead to rights. His smirk grew as her smile stiffened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that true, Ms. Chun?\u201d asked another potential investor. \u201cAre any of the firms you\u2019ve spoken to capable of building an energy collection and conversion system to power your design?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her boss saved her. \u201cNot so far,\u201d he drawled with impressive insouciance. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t tapped the engineering programs yet. We\u2019re after <em>fresh<\/em> minds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhittaker House\u2019s architect was <em>fresh<\/em>,\u201d Sebastian pointed out. \u201cAnd she is <em>very<\/em> well regarded in your industry, is she not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMmm,\u201d hummed Cleland disdainfully. \u201cShe may have stirred up the <em>rest<\/em> of the industry with her&nbsp;\u2026 <em>brains<\/em>\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess laughed, but caught it in her hand. Sebastian shot her a glare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2014but those of us with a tad more experience know what she <em>didn\u2019t<\/em> accomplish. We are not impressed with Ms. Desmond or her work, and you seem to have been apprised of Whittaker House\u2019s shortcomings. So after that, I\u2019m not sure you should be counted on as having a sharp eye for innovation. Ms. Chun had the vision down cold twenty years ago, yet you passed her by.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, yes! Let\u2019s talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The immediacy of Sebastian\u2019s retort did not bode well for her, because she knew exactly what argument he was about to make.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the record, I can\u2019t choose an architect if she doesn\u2019t throw her plans in the ring. But let\u2019s say she did and I passed her over. If Ms. Chun had the vision down cold twenty years ago, but the technology <em>still<\/em> didn\u2019t exist to support that vision when we broke ground on Whittaker House five years ago, who\u2019s to say she isn\u2019t <em>also<\/em> twenty years ahead of her time <em>now<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was one heck of a backhanded compliment, but it also would be her downfall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe you should try writing science fiction, Ms. Chun, because while I am convinced that you are a true visionary, we\u2019re talking about <em>billions<\/em> of dollars here, and I\u2019m not waiting thirty years for a return on my investment.\u201d Tess\u2019s breath caught because that knife was sharper than she\u2019d expected. Then Sebastian speared her with those oh-so-familiar ice cold Dunham eyes. \u201cPlease answer the question. Does the technology you need <em>now<\/em> exist?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She was going to have to bite the bullet. \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And there it was, the expression of victory in his face. No one else would be able to see it, but before she\u2019d been edged out of the family by this man and two of his closest male family members, she\u2019d considered Sebastian a friend and family.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian Taight, Morgan Ashworth, and Knox Hilliard: the triumvirate of douchebaggery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would venture to say,\u201d he went on, never letting her gaze leave his, \u201cyou actually know someone who could build what you want, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This was a declaration of war. On her. But why <em>now<\/em>? Her divorce had been finalized five years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Her mouth tightened, but she didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn fact, if I were the <em>romantic<\/em> sort\u2014\u201d He looked at her wedding ring finger, stopped for a second, blinked, then began to smile. He never smiled while doing business. She didn\u2019t dare cover it up now. \u201cIf I were the <em>romantic<\/em> sort,\u201d he purred, \u201cit would seem to me this project was designed with <em>that one person<\/em> in mind. Is it possible you designed it <em>for<\/em> him?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only by the virtue of the fact that <em>everything<\/em> she designed she designed for <em>him<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Her hand clenched around the presentation remote until the plastic cracked.<\/p>\n<p>But then he released her attention and threw his pen across the table. \u201cI\u2019m in,\u201d Sebastian said flatly. The money men started, business suits rustling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaight, are you crazy? You just crushed her and you say you\u2019re in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn one condition: \u00c9tienne LaMontagne does the engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talked to him,\u201d the senior partner said. Oh? Tess was suddenly so oxygen-deprived she was dizzy. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t interested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She tried to shake that off, and the ensuing debate around the table gave her time. They had talked to \u00c9tienne? How? Without telling her? Her boss tugged at her sleeve until her ear was at his mouth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t faint. We <em>did<\/em> try to find him, but nobody\u2019s seen him in three years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She took a deep breath and straightened. \u201cGentlemen!\u201d She rapped her knuckles on the table until she had their attention, then pulled out her next weapon. \u201cMr. Taight, isn\u2019t LaMontagne Whittaker House\u2019s engineer?\u201d she asked coolly, because he could hardly admit that the hotel\u2019s engineer was the only reason it functioned at all.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s eyes narrowed a little, and she allowed herself a smirk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSay, Taight,\u201d yet another investor piped up, \u201cLaMontagne\u2019s your cousin, right? His work was all wrapped up in the Jep Industries\u2013Hollander Steelworks fiasco? Licensing agreements almost shut Hollander\u2019s operation down too?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Everyone looked at Sebastian, but the balance of power had again shifted in his direction.<\/p>\n<p>Darn it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy, yes,\u201d Sebastian drawled. \u201cHis work is so valuable neither company could survive without it, so the companies down the supply chain wouldn\u2019t have survived, either. We had to round up every intellectual property lawyer in the country to get that mess sorted out. But now we\u2019re all a lot richer for it, we saved an industry, and, most importantly, we saved thousands of jobs. All\u2019s well that ends well, eh? I think I know what I\u2019m doing here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcept for Whittaker House,\u201d Tess mused. She tilted her head. \u201c<em>Why<\/em>, precisely, did you take on a niche hotel to be built in a really crappy location?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The muscles in his jaw popped, but he didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a pet project for your mistress at the time, wasn\u2019t it? Does <em>she<\/em> know how flawed your and her&nbsp;\u2026 <em>baby<\/em>&nbsp;\u2026 is?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian was furious. She could see it in the set of his mouth, the line of his jaw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t think so,\u201d Tess said flatly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd yet,\u201d he shot back, \u201cWhittaker House\u2014however deficient you and seven other people in the world think it is\u2014has been in operation a grand total of three years and is already out of the red. Let\u2019s say it <em>was<\/em> a pet project for Vanessa, but it wasn\u2019t <em>billions<\/em> of dollars and it\u2019s paid for itself in record time. <em>Because<\/em> of \u00c9tienne\u2019s engineering, not <em>in spite<\/em> of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hm. He <em>could<\/em> admit it, after all.<\/p>\n<p>The investors rustled. There was, indeed, a bit of difference between a few <em>MIL<\/em>llion and a few billion. And none of the other money men really understood why they were arguing about a little hotel in the Ozarks, anyway, or why it mattered.<\/p>\n<p>But Tess had one more card to play. \u201cWhy,\u201d she asked calmly, \u201cmust you differentiate \u2018because of\u2019 from \u2018in spite of\u2019? The structure and the mechanicals are supposed to work together. Are you saying that a structure whose main purpose is to power itself\u2014and <em>still<\/em> needed propane, which was not called for in the plans\u2014is inadequately designed for the mechanicals? And that the engineer had to&nbsp;\u2026 <em>kludge<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every architect in the room winced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do this with \u00c9tienne or you don\u2019t do it at all,\u201d Sebastian snapped, and now everyone was looking between them, surely wondering how Sebastian and Tess knew each other well enough to get into such a <em>personal<\/em> argument and what <em>wasn\u2019t<\/em> being said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do you care?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI care about <em>him<\/em>,\u201d he shot back.<\/p>\n<p>She chortled. \u201cI have no doubt about that. The right question then becomes why do you think LaMontagne will care about this project?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s eyes narrowed and he looked at Cleland. \u201cYou\u2019re lying about talking to \u00c9tienne.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess didn\u2019t look back at Cleland. She didn\u2019t dare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know \u00c9tienne, and he would hop on this plan so fast it\u2019d make your head spin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yes, he would. She felt a little pain in her heart over so many things, not the least of which was that she wanted him to design the collection and conversion system in the worst way.<\/p>\n<p>She wanted to build with him again, something she couldn\u2019t have done five years ago for reasons she didn\u2019t quite understand herself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want him to see this. If that means I block all avenues of funding until he\u2019s found, then that\u2019s what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian could do it, too. No, he already <em>had<\/em> done it. They were dead in the water.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMi-kyung,\u201d said her boss from directly behind her. \u201cLet\u2019s wrap the meeting up, shall we? We\u2019ll take Mr. Taight\u2019s recommendation of Mr. LaMontagne under advisement, but since he\u2019s already refused to do the project\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Sebastian ignored that, pointed at her and snarled, \u201cYou <em>know<\/em> there is no other engineer in the world who can do what you want. You designed this specifically for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed. \u201cYou keep saying that as if I\u2019m supposed to know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was at that point he looked around at the table and realized\u2014<\/p>\n<p>His smile widened, which made many people in the room fidget nervously. \u201cWell well well, <em>Mi-kyung Chun<\/em>,\u201d he drawled with that victorious tone back in his voice. He steepled his fingers in front of him like Mr. Burns. \u201cDo your colleagues know <em>anything<\/em> about you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy work speaks for itself,\u201d she said with as much hauteur as she could muster.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian looked at Cleland. \u201cIf you want to build this, you get \u00c9tienne LaMontagne. And if he<em> still<\/em> says no, tell him Tess LaMontagne designed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">2: SPANISH COLONIAL<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">September 2010<br \/>\nAguas Corrientes, Uruguay<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u00c9TIENNE\u2019S PHONE buzzed and he groaned, peeling his eyelids open and seeing that dawn was just breaking. It buzzed again and he patted around his bedroll for it until he had it. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes so he could see who was texting him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you could please get your lazy ass out of bed and start a fire, that would be great,\u201d growled a young man from some twenty feet away on the riverbank, fishing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBossy,\u201d \u00c9tienne grumbled, but arose and began his morning routine. By the time he\u2019d answered the call of nature, taken a dip in the Santa Lucia with a bar of soap, braided his hair, dressed, started the fire, and gotten the spider hot, Kimber had their breakfast fileted and spiced. He poured olive oil in the pan and laid the planks in carefully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho needs to talk to you so early in the morning?\u201d Kimber asked as he tended the fish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKelly,\u201d \u00c9tienne grunted as he reached for his phone. It was seven-fifteen and the message didn\u2019t make any more sense now than it had forty-five minutes ago. He held his phone up for Kimber to see. \u201cShe\u2019s upping her game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber craned his neck and read the text: <em>I think something\u2019s wrong with Tabs<\/em>. He grunted. \u201cI <em>really <\/em>hate the supreme douchebag she married.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mouth flattened. \u201cHow do you know? Didn\u2019t even go to the wedding. You could have at least sent a card.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, look at you, remembering what Hallmark\u2019s for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEh. I <em>was<\/em> there and I don\u2019t like him. Had him investigated, but he checked out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLots of douchebags\u2019ll come up clean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was something \u00c9tienne had had to learn over and over before he\u2019d gotten better at paying attention to people instead of demanding they pay attention to him.<\/p>\n<p>With the ease of long practice, Kimber pulled four perfectly fried planks out of the pan and, while \u00c9tienne divvied them up, he laid in four more. \u00c9tienne eyed the pile of fresh fish marinating in olive oil and spices. They were going to eat well that day. They weren\u2019t always so lucky.<\/p>\n<p>They dug in, eating in comfortable silence. As he studied the countryside, \u00c9tienne vaguely noted, not for the first or fifty-first time, that his oldest son was one hell of a cook. This part of Uruguay was beautiful, but familiar: Green and lush farmland, fed by a pretty river, it looked like the rolling hills heading into the Missouri Ozarks, only with palm trees. The palm trees kept \u00c9tienne from tearing his hair out over the familiarity.<\/p>\n<p>If he never went back to the Ozarks, it would be too soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to get out of here,\u201d \u00c9tienne muttered around his food.<\/p>\n<p>Kimber just nodded. They\u2019d been here a month, which was about a week too long for what little work they\u2019d been able to find, but it had been a welcome respite after their last adventure had gone slightly awry.<\/p>\n<p>Where slightly awry equals almost killed by a jungle fire and-or guerrillas.<\/p>\n<p>But as \u00c9tienne ate, Kelly\u2019s text continued to bug him, and after three years of his vagabond lifestyle, he didn\u2019t really like it when something harshed on his Zen.<\/p>\n<p>He put his dish down and called his youngest daughter. \u201cTwo-thirty is a little past your bedtime, isn\u2019t it, <em>ma fille ch\u00e9rie<\/em>? Especially on a school night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was serious,\u201d she whispered. \u201cSomething is not right with Tabby. I talked her yesterday, but she sounded weird. Like, <em>too<\/em> happy. I called her back, and she didn\u2019t answer. Her landline number\u2019s not going through, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t mean anything. Everybody was mobile. Landlines were redundant if not obsolete. \u201cI talked to her three days ago,\u201d \u00c9tienne said, \u201cand she was fine. Where are you right now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Darcy\u2019s, but some people who are not me are sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That stopped him for a second. \u201cDarcy\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. And no, I\u2019m not going to get her out of bed so you can talk to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHrmph. Why don\u2019t you tell the person you live with about this? She\u2019s closer to you. And Utah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She ignored that. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d He sighed a pointed sigh. \u201cI won\u2019t say anything. I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, you will, you tattle-tale!\u201d Kimber yelled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTell him to shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKel, answer the question. Why aren\u2019t you telling your mom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She hesitated. \u201cShe\u2019s, um, dealing with&nbsp;\u2026 something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She huffed. \u201cNow, if I can\u2019t tell her stuff about you, then why do you think I can tell you stuff about her? I\u2019m demonstrating that I\u2019m trustworthy. I <em>keep<\/em> demonstrating this, but you keep not believing me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s got a point,\u201d Kimber mused while he dished up the next batch of fish and started the third.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne rolled his eyes. \u201cYou\u2019ve been after me to come home for three years now. Is this a trick?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeriously, Dad?\u201d she demanded in an angry whisper. \u201cI\u2019ve been <em>bugging<\/em> you. I haven\u2019t stooped to lying to you to get you to do what I want because <em>I don\u2019t do that! <\/em>But you left when I was twelve, so you wouldn\u2019t know me well enough to know that, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Direct hit. \u00c9tienne grimaced. She\u2019d never pulled that out, but it told him she didn\u2019t realize he had kept her in close contact for the last five years\u2014calls two or three times a week, constant emails and texts\u2014<em>because<\/em> he\u2019d left when she was so young.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat about your grandfather? He\u2019s right there in Salt Lake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, he\u2019s in Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t surprise him. The church\u2019s general authorities traveled a lot in order to oversee their areas. It was a big church in a much bigger world. \u201cHave you left a message?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat for? His assistant said he wasn\u2019t due back for another month. You can\u2019t possibly be farther away from Utah than Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two hundred fifty miles farther away, to be almost precise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s only been a couple of days. There is no reason to think anything\u2019s happened to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFine. I\u2019ll find a way to get there myself!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Call ended<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou going home?\u201d Kimber asked as if disinterested, shoving another forkful of fish into his mouth.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne looked up at his son, the angry one, the one with his mother\u2019s genius. Unlike his mother, whose mind worked like a precision timepiece, Kimber couldn\u2019t beat his mind into submission long enough to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He was pummeled with options that appealed to him, and he kept running, hoping he could either shed his crippling indecision or stumble over something that would eclipse all his other fascinations.<\/p>\n<p>Kimber had worked his way around the world in his quest to make one of those options choose <em>him <\/em>and had done so already once by the time \u00c9tienne met him in South Korea three years ago, where Kimber was trying to find his family\u2014or rather, figure out which Chuns were actually related to him.<\/p>\n<p>It was a bit difficult to get people to believe his mother was Korean, not with the mop of auburn waves he\u2019d had at the time. No one would give him the right time of day in helping him read Korean nor did he want to spend money on a translator. His mother didn\u2019t speak Korean, so he hadn\u2019t bothered calling. He couldn\u2019t call his grandfather for direct information without risking a gentle <em>I\u2019m-so-disappointed-in-you<\/em>\u2014and the only thing in this world Kimber feared more than \u00c9tienne\u2019s fury was Grandfather Chun\u2019s disappointment.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne looked down at his phone without seeing it, now half afraid Kelly wasn\u2019t bluffing. She was too insistent, and she\u2019d been willing to throw \u00c9tienne\u2019s absence in his face. That wasn\u2019t her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wonder if Dave had the potential to be a douchebag but his parents and the church kept him in line,\u201d \u00c9tienne said abruptly and looked over at his son to gauge his reaction. His expression was blank, but \u00c9tienne knew him too well. He was anything but disinterested; he\u2019d just learned to guard his emotions well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that really possible?\u201d \u00c9tienne pressed. Kimber understood more about normal human beings than he did. \u201cPeople don\u2019t change their spots, but how would you go from being a good kid to a bad one?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve always been a bad kid, but at least I was honest about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne sighed. Kimber\u2019s martyrdom wasn\u2019t quite as well developed as his anger, thank heavens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAddiction\u2019ll do it,\u201d Kimber finally said, \u201cyou know, you grow up in the church, you don\u2019t drink, and then you go out on your own and have a drink and you like the way it makes you feel and then next thing you know, you\u2019re at an AA meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou drink,\u201d \u00c9tienne pointed out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I can shut my brain down enough to get some sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was true.<\/p>\n<p>Kimber slid him a look. \u201cYou changed without chemical assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, oui. So he had, in the blink of an eye, and not for the better. Karma had smacked him down immediately, in the form of what was <em>supposed <\/em>to be a green-energy self-powered hotel in the Missouri Ozarks.<\/p>\n<p>That still needed propane.<\/p>\n<p>Vanessa Whittaker, the hotel\u2019s owner, didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne did.<\/p>\n<p>Tess would gloat if she knew, but, thankfully, she would have no reason to know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHrmph.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you\u2019re still a high-maintenance attention whore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne laughed. \u201cRedundant observation is redundant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber <em>almost<\/em> smiled, but then said, \u201cMom changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, \u00c9tienne did not want to go there. The topic of \u201cMom\u201d was a sore point for both of them, one they\u2019d barely touched in three years. Kimber had been at war with her since his conception just because they were so alike. And \u00c9tienne was turning sour in a cask of guilt and remorse\u2014which, sadly, didn\u2019t mitigate his fury at what she had let go.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he murmured, for the first time in three years having to make a hard decision about where to go next. It was an odd feeling to think in terms of just&nbsp;\u2026 leaving. \u201cI talked to Tabby three days ago and she was\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToo happy?\u201d Kimber said blithely.<\/p>\n<p>No situation in which Tabitha was too happy had ever turned out well. And now that \u00c9tienne thought on it, he had to agree with Kelly. \u201cI\u2019ll call her this afternoon, then decide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber\u2019s mouth tightened slightly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s head to Buenos Aires again and see Chad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t gotten him in trouble yet, so let\u2019s just keep dropping in on him until we do, right? You know his mission president is a prick about the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne shrugged. \u201cThere are ways around mission presidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, you mean, like marrying their daughters?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Big mistake<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne kept that to himself\u2014just in time\u2014in case Kimber thought he regretted the existence of his children. He didn\u2019t, but Kimber was touchy, seeing insults where there were none. And that was in no way predictable.<\/p>\n<p>And it wasn\u2019t true anyway. \u00c9tienne was just one big mess of guilt and anger.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re going home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was nothing in his voice to betray how he felt about that, but \u00c9tienne knew: He wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n<p>He had grumbled that \u00c9tienne insisted on following him through east, then southeast Asia, working their way west in a north-south zig-zag, but he\u2019d been happy about it. It had taken \u00c9tienne about six months to figure that out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou <em>can<\/em> use the money in your account for something other than getting across an ocean, you know. Like&nbsp;\u2026 food. And shelter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber turned <em>that<\/em> look on him, the one he\u2019d inherited from his mother. \u201cMoney is a pain in the ass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight,\u201d \u00c9tienne drawled, half dismayed, half proud. But he\u2019d learned a lot from his son, being forced to come out of his head for a while. Or all the time. To pay attention to his surroundings and people, to take the time and effort to think about <em>menial<\/em> things and formulate a response or plan, to leave the ideas cooking at the back of his mind.<\/p>\n<p>If he had any ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker House had taken it out of him. He was still bruised, if not broken, from that giant snafu and he was dry as a bone. He needed something to fill that hole in his head.<\/p>\n<p>And heart.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou gonna eat that?\u201d Kimber asked, gesturing to \u00c9tienne\u2019s nearly untouched second serving.<\/p>\n<p>He scoffed and picked up his fork. \u201cOui, I\u2019m going to eat that. I notice you aren\u2019t too upset about our itinerary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeh. It\u2019ll be good to get back to civilization for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, I see. Getting a little restless, are we?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber leveled him a pitying expression. \u201cYou could use a little TLC yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne snorted. \u201cUnlike <em>you<\/em>, if I wanted sex, I wouldn\u2019t have to pay for it. And I guarantee you the professionals would pay <em>me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBraggart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt isn\u2019t bragging if you can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018<em>Ain\u2019t<\/em>\u2019 bragging. You just can\u2019t bear to say the \u2018ain\u2019t,\u2019 can you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kimber said nothing while laying the last of the fish into the pan, but there was a smile teasing the corner of his mouth. \u00c9tienne knew why: In the past three years, Kimber had witnessed \u00c9tienne\u2019s mesmerizing effect on women <em>and<\/em> men up close and personal. He had also witnessed \u00c9tienne ease himself out of those situations with a graciousness that left every one of them feeling as if he had declared his eternal devotion.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne had never taken advantage of his opportunities because he was only interested in having sex with one woman, which Kimber had finally deduced. So his suggestion that \u00c9tienne get some \u201cTLC\u201d was his way of saying that, since \u00c9tienne was going home anyway, he should go back to Tess.<\/p>\n<p>It was the first time Kimber had made his opinion known.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne slid his son a knowing smile that turned into a smirk when Kimber flushed and looked away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">3: CRITICAL REGIONALISM<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">October 2010<br \/>\nKansas City, Missouri<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u00c9TIENNE HIT KCI a week later and found his youngest daughter waiting for him at the baggage claim where he\u2019d expected her to be. But he didn\u2019t have any luggage. Everything he owned was in his backpack.<\/p>\n<p>At seventeen, she\u2019d grown a few inches since he saw her last. She\u2019d filled out, her maroon-streaked black hair falling to the middle of her back. Even dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, she was attracting a lot of male attention. It was to be expected: He and Tess had made very pretty babies.<\/p>\n<p>He snagged her from behind and, ignoring her startled screech, planted a big smack on her cheek. \u201cHow\u2019s my baby girl?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She struggled to get out of his arms, stumbled to her feet, and turned on him prepared to slap the crap out of him. Then her face lit up. \u201cDaddy!\u201d she cried she cast herself at him. \u201cI\u2019m so glad you came home,\u201d she whispered in his ear.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, he was too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you stink.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne laughed and set her down, explaining his lack of luggage and letting her drag him to the hand-me-down kid car. \u201cDoes your mom know about me coming home?\u201d he asked after instructing her to drive. He hadn\u2019t driven in three years. Planes, trains, taxis, horse carts, donkeys, boats, rickshaws, and bicycles had been his various modes of transportation. And when all else failed, he walked. He hadn\u2019t minded that in the least. He hated driving.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d she snapped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, don\u2019t tell her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly slid him a sidelong glance. Oh, how much she looked like her mother. It made him ache for Tess in ways he had mostly been able to squelch for the last five years. He\u2019d gone from being angry at Tess to being angry at Nia for the two-year Whittaker House build. Then he\u2019d left the country, only returning briefly three times for the weddings of two of his daughters and his second son\u2019s missionary farewell.<\/p>\n<p>Those had hurt, Tess not acknowledging his existence. He managed to keep the pain down to a dull throb and when he wasn\u2019t in the same country, it was a pain he could mostly ignore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs it because you didn\u2019t ditch that bitch?\u201d she asked suddenly, her voice tight. \u201cIs she going to be here anytime soon?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne started and glanced at her. After a really filthy glare, she turned her gaze firmly to the road, hunched over the steering wheel like she was afraid it would come loose, and held her body tensed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat bitch?\u201d he asked, genuinely confused.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNia whoever\u2014the bitch you left Mom for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mouth dropped open. \u201cAre you serious?\u201d he barked.<\/p>\n<p>But her mouth was set, which meant she wasn\u2019t backing down. He liked that about her. \u201cSerious about what? That I found out or that I actually had the guts to say something about it?\u201d She glared pointedly at his shirt, then reached out and felt his biceps. \u201cOh. You\u2019re still wearing your temple garments. Hypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He attempted to clamp his temper, but it was difficult. There were so many implications to what Kelly had asked he didn\u2019t even know where to start. Or even if he should.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuestion,\u201d he said smoothly, impressed with himself because his mind and gut were roiling with anger. \u201cDid your mother tell you that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. I was snooping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He almost breathed a sigh of relief. That was one issue down. More to go. \u201cIs there a reason you haven\u2019t said a word about this in the last five years? I talk to you at least three times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She scoffed. \u201cI was snooping four days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I see. You decided to wait until I got here so you could ambush me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Somebody<\/em> has to!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I\u2019m here now, so congrats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you could just <em>pretend<\/em> to not hate us, that would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His head snapped to her, but she still stared at the road, her jaw clenched, a tear running down her cheek.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKelly, I\u2019m your dad. I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, maybe just <em>pretend<\/em> you don\u2019t hate being in the same country with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, what had he done?<\/p>\n<p>A moment.<\/p>\n<p>It had only taken a moment to light the fuse of his long-fomenting rage. If he\u2019d just&nbsp;\u2026 gone for a walk around the block or something\u2014<em>before<\/em> he\u2019d gone walking \u2019round the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t kidding about Tabby,\u201d she muttered. \u201cI have these feelings. Instincts. Or whatever.\u201d She glared at him again. \u201cBut you wouldn\u2019t know that, <em>would you<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He deserved it. Every word of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you would be so kind,\u201d he said wearily, \u201cplease explain why your mom isn\u2019t taking care of this. She can\u2019t bear to part with her dustmop for a week to go say hi?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly opened her mouth to argue with him, but then snapped it shut again. \u201cI am being trustworthy,\u201d she sniffed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne dropped his face in his palm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>You<\/em> weren\u2019t doing anything else, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, shit,\u201d he breathed, his head snapping up. \u201cI could have called Knox to check on her. He\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight,\u201d she snapped. \u201cYou think <em>he<\/em> cares what happens to us?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne groaned, but hit the speed dial anyway. \u201cCheck on my kid,\u201d he said as soon as Knox answered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHel<em>lo!<\/em>\u201d Knox cried with sarcastic delight. \u201cWhy, it\u2019s my long-lost cousin, calling to ask how I and my wife and child-soon-to-be-children are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCheck on my kid,\u201d \u00c9tienne repeated. Slowly this time, in case Knox hadn\u2019t heard correctly. \u201cTabitha.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knox laughed. \u201cYou think you\u2019re entitled to the world, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since he had been around it and seen suffering and poverty and evil he\u2019d rather not have known existed, he thought that was perfectly reasonable. \u201cOui. Go. Check. On. My. Kid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t live in Provo anymore,\u201d Knox said disdainfully. \u201cWe\u2019re living in Eilis\u2019s house in Chouteau Woods, awaiting completion of our house. It\u2019s being rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne blinked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe prophet got wind of my presence at the law school and summoned me. Yes, <em>the prophet of God <\/em>summoned me. We had a nice sit-down and we now understand each other\u2019s positions a little more clearly. But he still fired me. Damn near fired the guy who decided the best way to get me hired was to use <em>F.K. Oliver <\/em>Hilliard instead of Knox. Also, I don\u2019t particularly like BYU when I\u2019m not a student. Loses its charm. Who\u2019d\u2019a thunk it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne sighed. \u201cI do not care how you managed to get hired at BYU or about your confab with the prophet or your issues with that crappy little town. I want to know if you <em>ever<\/em> talked to Tabby at all?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. But not because I didn\u2019t try. She refused to talk to me. Apparently, putting distance between us and your family when you and Tess hit the skids did not go unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBite me, Knox!\u201d Kelly yelled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSee?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne was suddenly sick to his stomach. The LaMontagnes had always had a good relationship with the rest of the Dunham tribe\u2014until \u00c9tienne had gotten so frustrated with Tess he had begun to vent to his cousins. Whenever he and Tess had it out, there he went, running his mouth. Then the two of them would make up, or agree to a truce, or have three straight days of mind-blowing angry sex, but that news wouldn\u2019t manage to trickle down to his confidantes. The chasm widened slowly but surely.<\/p>\n<p>Another sin he had committed against the woman he loved, had loved for so many years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWait, what? You\u2019re here? In the US? And your uppity kid is eavesdropping?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m in Kansas City, oui. Kelly seems to think Tabby\u2019s in some kind of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knox took a deep breath that meant he was about to lose his temper. And Knox\u2019s temper scared \u00c9tienne a little bit. \u201cI believe,\u201d he gritted, \u201cthat her biggest problem is that her husband is an asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComing from you, that\u2019s saying something!\u201d Kelly yelled again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShut up,\u201d \u00c9tienne told her calmly. \u201cI\u2019m here because you put out the bat signal, remember?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo sum: I couldn\u2019t get near her without getting my head chopped off, and Justice wasn\u2019t interested in making friends with someone who didn\u2019t want her there. What I don\u2019t know is which one of them was more interested in keeping me away. I did get the vague feeling he\u2019s a control freak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told you something was wrong,\u201d Kelly grumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne ignored that. \u201cIs there a reason you didn\u2019t call me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s your kid!\u201d Knox snapped. \u201cIf you want to run off with your tail between your legs\u2014or rather, the tail who\u2019s got your dick between <em>her<\/em> legs\u2014\u201d \u00c9tienne\u2019s heart stopped. \u201c\u2014and no, I don\u2019t care if your kid is listening, because she\u2019s probably as pissed as the rest of us\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrue,\u201d Kelly agreed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2014and indulge your midlife crisis by not telling anyone where you\u2019ve been for three years after you left the Ozarks, you have to live with the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His body feeling very heavy suddenly, he murmured, \u201cYou think Nia and I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, she\u2019s only been telling <em>everyone<\/em> you two left for Paris the minute Whittaker House was christened and that you\u2019re shacking up there. When can we expect her arrival?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, <em>crap<\/em>,\u201d he whispered. \u201cI cannot <em>stand<\/em> her. That entire build was sheer torture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly gasped, and cast him a shocked glance.<\/p>\n<p>After a long pause, Knox asked slowly, \u201cAre you telling me you <em>didn\u2019t<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d \u00c9tienne said weakly.<\/p>\n<p>Another very long pause. \u201c<em>Dammit<\/em>, Stephen!\u201d he roared, making him <em>and<\/em> Kelly jump. Knox only called him Stephen when he was <em>really<\/em> pissed. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of court record!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUm&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou didn\u2019t read your divorce papers before you signed them, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly groaned. \u201cGeez, Dad! Don\u2019t you ever learn?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA fifteen-year-old knows better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m seventeen!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBe careful, Kelly. I might actually start to like you again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly didn\u2019t quite know what to do with that, but \u00c9tienne was writhing in silent agony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPay attention!\u201d Knox barked again, and again \u00c9tienne jumped. \u201cYou can sort that out later. Tabby\u2019s an adult with a husband and children. I <em>resent<\/em> that you\u2019re mad at me because I didn\u2019t make <em>your<\/em> kid <em>my<\/em> responsibility just because I lived a mile away from her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, good point,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a lawyer,\u201d Knox said flatly. \u201cI get paid to make good points.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do you hate my mom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAsk your dad,\u201d he snapped.<\/p>\n<p><em>Call ended<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne let his head thunk on the window, closing his eyes, feeling guilt wash over him. He was going to have to face this issue head-on.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t like facing issues head-on. It was so&nbsp;\u2026 <em>menial<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>His Zen was officially, permanently harshed, and he\u2019d only been home for fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the record,\u201d he said with as much calm as he could muster, which wasn\u2019t much, \u201cWhatever the papers said\u2014 Didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It couldn\u2019t have. The architect he\u2019d thought she was turned out to be&nbsp;\u2026 average. A mechanic. He\u2019d known she had little vision, but at her level of experience, that was normal. He was used to engineering for Tess, who could see far into the future. What he hadn\u2019t known was that Nia didn\u2019t really understand her client\u2019s vision, either. Building Whittaker House had been maddening, and he hated that hotel with every fiber of his being.<\/p>\n<p>She had tried every way under the sun to seduce him, but he\u2019d be damned if he had sex with an average architect half his age with an Electra complex, particularly when it\u2019d get him excommunicated. She\u2019d have to be a genius for him to risk that.<\/p>\n<p>Tess was a genius.<\/p>\n<p>For her, he\u2019d risk it.<\/p>\n<p>But she\u2019d let her genius go, so he\u2019d let her go. With a few cruel words guaranteed to make it permanent.<\/p>\n<p><em>Big mistake<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He still couldn\u2019t think about it, it hurt so badly. The look on Tess\u2019s face. The scrambling to get away from him. The slam of the bathroom door. The keening and puking.<\/p>\n<p>That he\u2019d made her do that.<\/p>\n<p>He drew in a ragged breath while barely keeping himself together enough to refrain from asking Kelly what her mother was doing nowadays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes mom know you weren\u2019t with that other person?\u201d Kelly asked softly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClearly not,\u201d he said wearily.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I think you should tell her.\u201d She wouldn\u2019t believe him. \u201cAnd work it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne just shrugged. Kelly didn\u2019t need to know what had been said in private, and he doubted <em>that<\/em> had made it into the divorce petition. So far as he knew, none of his kids knew any details at all. They had only known that one day, Dad lived and worked at home, and then the next day he\u2019d gone to a job two hundred miles away. That was normal. But at the end of it, he never came home again. That was not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you share your snooping with your brothers and sisters?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo!\u201d she gasped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmall favors,\u201d he muttered. \u201cSo now that you can\u2019t brush me off, let\u2019s talk about school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence. He looked at her. Her face was flushed and her bottom lip was between her teeth.<\/p>\n<p>He took a deep breath and released it, closing his eyes. \u201cPlease do not tell me you\u2019re flunking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence. Then, \u201cI\u2014 Dropped out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mouth fell on the floorboard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t yell at me, Dad,\u201d she said frantically. \u201cYou don\u2019t\u2014 I\u2019m\u2014 I can\u2019t explain it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan\u2019t or won\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth. I\u2019m\u2014\u201d Then she stiffened and curled her lip at him. \u201cI\u2019m being <em>trustworthy<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That made no sense. \u201cWhat does your dropping out of high school at the beginning of your senior year have to do with your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just does. I don\u2019t know why you expect me to tell you anything about her when you don\u2019t want me to tell her anything about you. And you know what else? That makes me <em>really<\/em> mad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He could see why.<\/p>\n<p>Three years ago he wouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m studying for my GED. I\u2019ll take that in November and go to Penn Valley in January,\u201d she admitted sullenly.<\/p>\n<p>Kansas City\u2019s urban juco.<\/p>\n<p>Well, it was better than Tabitha, for sure, who\u2019d gotten her MRS degree as soon as she hit Brigham Young University. That really ticked him off, not the least because BYU was so hard to get into, and she\u2019d done it. And now she was in Utah with a husband and two babies, not going to school, with his youngest daughter suspecting some horrible thing to have happened to her, and his not-very-perceptive cousin inclined to believe a kid he didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>Darcy, his second oldest daughter, had married a local boy\u2014<em>not<\/em> a member of the church, and both sides of the family had opinions on <em>that<\/em>\u2014and they were now slugging it out with life in a studio apartment in a crappy Kansas City neighborhood. Darcy\u2019s husband answered the phone and ran interference when \u00c9tienne called, very rarely letting her speak to him. He hadn\u2019t spoken to her in six months\u2014and not because he hadn\u2019t tried.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll head out to Utah next week,\u201d he muttered. \u201cI need to get a place to stay first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou told me to take you to Sebastian\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s got two toddlers. I\u2019m not staying there any longer than I have to. I\u2019ll sleep on his roof until I find something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly\u2019s jaw dropped open. \u201cHis roof?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat? There are worse things than camping out in a rooftop garden in October. It\u2019s nice up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2014camp? Who are you and what have you done with my father?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He sighed and declined to answer. She wouldn\u2019t understand. At first, he\u2019d hated the way Kimber lived his life, but when he\u2019d suggested they get a room at a five-star hotel in Seoul, Kimber had scoffed.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fuck off. Do it my way or go home<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d tried it again with a three-star hotel in Okinawa<\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m leaving now<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And then some fleabag \u201cbed and breakfast\u201d in Manila.<\/p>\n<p><em>Get lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And then a hostel in Ho Chi Minh City.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ciao<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>Then a ramshackle train station with benches in Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mmm, okay. It\u2019s typhoon season and you\u2019re a pussy, so I guess so<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But there was freedom in Kimber\u2019s life. He stayed in one place long enough to pick up a little of the language, get to know the locals and their traditions and their foods, do odd jobs here and there for change and a meal and a story. Possibly a place to stay. He moved furniture. He swept floors. Occasionally he could find an ex-pat dive that needed a short-order cook.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne had never worked so hard in his life, but he\u2019d started to find people who needed things fixed\u2014toasters, TVs, houses, farm implements, Yugos\u2014and fixed them with borrowed tools until Kimber had allowed him to dig through a pawn shop for some of his own.<\/p>\n<p><em>You\u2019re wasting your time trying to fix that piece of crap<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Maybe, maybe not. You know that saying, \u201cUse it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><em>No.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That\u2019s the problem<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Kimber had always made enough for his meager needs, but \u00c9tienne had made more right off the bat, so he\u2019d taught Kimber how to fix things, too. Little things. Things the poorest American would take for granted.<\/p>\n<p><em>Don\u2019t MacGyver it. Whatever you fix has to last. We\u2019ll be out of here in a week or a month, but they have to live with the thing they paid you to fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>I got one measly dinner out of this and a spot in front of a pit fire next to a yak. That drools<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>From people who don\u2019t have enough to feed themselves. Do it well and can the attitude<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s brain had unwound little by little, with each doorknob he replaced, each window he reglazed, each pipe he soldered, each carburetor he coaxed into life, each rusty plow he polished, until he could find some measure of peace from his grief and regret.<\/p>\n<p>And learn how to live and thrive in the world on the world\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n<p>At forty-six.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat about grandma?\u201d Kelly said, interrupting his thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mother adored Tess. He had no ally there. He\u2019d be lucky if she ever spoke to him again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProbably not. Never mind. What about Giselle? She\u2019s got two whole <em>floors<\/em> she\u2019s not using.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He snorted. Oh, Giselle would give him a place to stay, all right. And it would come with a heaping helping of vicious barbs while her husband got out the popcorn to watch the show.<\/p>\n<p>But if <em>Knox<\/em> could turn on him, maybe Sebastian&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Eh. Sebastian had had his share of married women. He\u2019d funded a hotel for his mistress. He\u2019d be disappointed \u00c9tienne <em>hadn\u2019t<\/em> run off with Nia.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly dropped him off in front of Sebastian\u2019s with hugs and kisses and many tears. But long after she\u2019d driven off, \u00c9tienne was still standing in front of the Black Box, as the family referred to it. Tess would love it, and suddenly he couldn\u2019t remember if she\u2019d ever seen the inside of it.<\/p>\n<p>Perched on the steep hill just west of the Country Club Plaza, it was, in fact, a black concrete block with a thick piece of glass across the front at the third floor to face the Plaza. Otherwise the windows were three floors tall, about a foot wide and four feet apart, totally symmetrical. The ground floor was Sebastian\u2019s subterranean retreat, windowless, accessible from the outside only by a firebreak door with a keypad but no knob. The first floor was the living area. The second floor was a warren of bedrooms. The third floor was the garage. The fourth floor was an art studio bounded entirely by floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall glass. The roof was a Zen garden with an outdoor kitchen.<\/p>\n<p>The inside was pure midcentury modern maple, punctuated with Sebastian\u2019s art in the form of painstakingly carved mahogany slab doors and little pieces he\u2019d done for himself, for the pure love of making art.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne sighed. He\u2019d had that pure love of creation once. Before building Whittaker House killed it.<\/p>\n<p>He trudged up the front steps and punched in his key code. No one seemed to be home, so he headed toward Giselle\u2019s old bedroom, dumped his backpack, then headed to the shower hoping there was enough shampoo.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne loved his son, and he loved his vagabond life with his son, but damn, it was good to be home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">4: TIDEWATER<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">TAKING A HOT shower in the minimalist postmodern bedroom suite was heaven.<\/p>\n<p>utter<\/p>\n<p>sweet<\/p>\n<p>luscious<\/p>\n<p>heaven<\/p>\n<p>It took a while before he was satisfied he was clean, and left the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips and one over his head. He bent over and sponged all the water out of his long hair, then tossed the towel in the corner and dug in his backpack for a strip of leather with which to tie his hair. With a flash of himself in the mirror, he realized he was a very pretty girl.<\/p>\n<p>He snickered and went into the kitchen to find something to eat.<\/p>\n<p>There were steak and salad fixings, but no frites. Darn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the hell are you doing here and where the hell have you been?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s bellow startled \u00c9tienne so badly he hit his head on the freezer door. He turned rather guiltily to see his paint-splattered cousin with an equally paint-splattered sleepy little girl in his arms, her thumb firmly in her mouth. A paint-splattered little boy was cowering behind Sebastian\u2019s leg, looking at \u00c9tienne with wide eyes. \u00c9tienne tilted his head and looked at them. Sebastian was only two years younger than \u00c9tienne, and \u00c9tienne had grandchildren not much younger than Sebastian\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n<p><em>Grand<\/em>children. \u00c9tienne\u2019s lip curled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnswer me!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked at Sebastian then. His cousin was livid. Hm. It did not seem as if \u00c9tienne would be getting the welcome-home reception he\u2019d expected, not even from his cousins. At this point, he <em>knew<\/em> Morgan would have the same reaction, because he\u2019d always had the least sympathy for \u00c9tienne in, well, anything.<\/p>\n<p>Oh well. \u201cI\u2019m commandeering your roof until I find a place to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere the hell have you been?\u201d he snarled again. \u201cI have been trying to find you for three years and Nia is still feeding me a line about you being in the shower. For three years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne groaned and fell back against the now-closed refrigerator to slide down it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, for fuck\u2019s sake. Go put on some clothes. I don\u2019t want you flashing my kids.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He obeyed without a peep, but since he didn\u2019t have much of anything at all and Sebastian was only slightly smaller than he was, he headed straight for his cousin\u2019s bedroom and riffled through his closet. He noted that Sebastian actually had marginally acceptable taste that didn\u2019t involve black Versace.<\/p>\n<p>When he emerged, Sebastian was sitting at the conference room table, his elbows propped on it and his face propped on his fingertips. His eyes were closed and his mouth was tight. The children\u2014\u00c9tienne didn\u2019t know their names\u2014were nowhere to be seen. He noticed there were plans all over the table, but he ignored them. He wanted <em>nothing<\/em> to do with any projects Sebastian was about to propose to him. He had more than enough money to live out the rest of his days modestly and devote himself to his life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p>For the pure love of it.<\/p>\n<p>If he ever got it back.<\/p>\n<p>He ignored Sebastian and continued to fix himself lunch. He turned on the broiler and found a pot in which to boil eggs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d Sebastian asked low.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAround the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t fuck with me, \u00c9tienne. I am not in the mood for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I\u2019m serious,\u201d he replied. \u201cI\u2019ve been around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian studied him for a moment. \u201cYou got a weird accent. What is it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHobo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNia said you two were in Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne sighed. \u201cAs much as I love my home town, I would not have stayed there for three years. Much <em>less<\/em> with that <em>hack<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s head popped up and he stared at \u00c9tienne in shock. \u201cWhat?\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n<p>He sneered. \u201cLet us say I have no reason to have to go to a bishop. <em>No<\/em> reason at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s already pale complexion went white and he flopped back in his chair. \u201cUm. Well. My worldview just imploded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHrmph. It appears,\u201d he said conversationally as he put the steak on the broiler pan, and the eggs in cold water, then on the stove, \u201cthat I have, once again, gotten myself into trouble by not reading what I sign. Including my divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian groaned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKnox has already read me the riot act,\u201d he said, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. \u201cAlthough it seemed like he was too pissed off for the offense. It\u2019s not <em>his<\/em> marriage and <em>he\u2019s<\/em> not a divorce lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian barked a humorless laugh. \u201cYou have no idea how many people are pissed at you and exactly <em>how<\/em> pissed they are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t tell me. <em>You\u2019re<\/em> disappointed I didn\u2019t sleep with Nia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. Actually, I\u2019m impressed with your restraint. She\u2019s hot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mouth tightened, and now it was his turn to be pissed. \u201cIs that why you hired her?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. I\u2019m an artist, so I note what people look like. I\u2019m also uninterested in anybody but my wife, and it certainly didn\u2019t occur to me you\u2019d tie yourself in a knot because you\u2019ve been obsessed with Tess since you were nineteen, <em>and<\/em> you have spent your life being the perfect Mormon male.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne tapped his jaw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcept for the tats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne flipped his earlobe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, and the earrings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne tugged at the cluster of tiny braids at his temple.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight, because you\u2019re <em>so<\/em> wild.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>You<\/em> were willing to believe I\u2019d sleep with Nia, so you must be just as taken in by appearances as everyone else is. And this from a libertarian venture capitalist who wears Versace, keeps his hair missionary short, has no tats or piercings. Everything about you just screams \u2018practicing Wiccan.\u2019 You <em>did<\/em> grow up with me, right? Or did I imagine that part?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian rolled his eyes. \u201cFine. You made your point. Except I never wear Versace. I hired her because I thought she could handle your unfathomable conceit and sense of entitlement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne pursed his lips. \u201cShe <em>wanted<\/em> to handle a few other things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat went without saying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt got really annoying really fast.\u201d He studied Sebastian a moment. It was something he\u2019d learned to do, study people and suss out some details. \u201cYou know, then. About Whittaker House, I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. I found out by happenstance. I was presented with a several-billion-dollar mixed-use project by a megafirm that\u2019s changing its focus to green energy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne pointed to the plans. \u201cThat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shook his head. \u201cThis is new. I was going over the plans with one of their alt-energy experts and he said something in passing about what a <em>shame<\/em> Whittaker House was. I was <em>delighted<\/em> when he pulled out the plans they\u2019d reverse-engineered and told me <em>exactly<\/em> what should have been done, where, and why. He said, and I quote, \u2018LaMontagne must have worked around the architect to make it functional. I really can\u2019t imagine how he did it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne gave him a beatific smile, then dropped it. \u201cIt\u2019s one giant kludge,\u201d he snapped. \u201cI took one look at her and I started thinking with my dick, which made me even madder than I already was, then it all went to pot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat, too, went without saying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t want to think about that. \u201cNothing happened,\u201d he grumbled. \u201cNot even sure I shook hands with her. Furthermore, by halfway through the build, I refused to speak to her.\u201d He turned to check his steak. His eggs were boiling nicely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you\u2019ve been a wandering Mormon?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know my son, Kimber, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ginger twin with the mouth and anger management issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat one. I\u2019ve been with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s confusion was comical. \u201cThis whole time?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne nodded. \u201cDropped in on Chad a time or four. He\u2019s in Buenos Aires. On his mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUm&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clearly Sebastian did not know what to do with any of this information.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne took the opportunity to pull his chef salad together. This took a while, and he did it in silence, emptying his mind, trying to get his Zen back. He got his steak out of the oven and plated it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat brought you back?\u201d Sebastian asked quietly when \u00c9tienne finally settled at the table across from Sebastian and began to eat his lunch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKelly thinks there\u2019s something wrong with Tabitha. I\u2019d like to think it was an excuse to get me home, but she\u2019s kind of panicked. I keep asking her why Tess isn\u2019t dealing with this, but she\u2019s punishing me by withholding information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou deserve to be horsewhipped,\u201d Sebastian grumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat opinion is trending. Hashtag @LordTavendish Is An Adulterous Butthole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo all of Twitter knows where you are, but your family doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t consider Emilio to be family, who is <em>also<\/em> on Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are matadors on Twitter,\u201d Sebastian said flatly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHemingway\u2019s turning in his grave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSocial media for the win.\u201d \u00c9tienne shrugged. \u201cAs it happens, Twitter is an efficient method of writing a travelogue. For <em>me<\/em>. I didn\u2019t <em>mean<\/em> to get ninety thousand followers.\u201d \u00c9tienne stuffed a piece of steak in his mouth, then gestured to the plans and talked around his food, not caring in the least bit that his table manners were shot all to hell. \u201cIf you were looking for me in relation to those plans, you can forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s eyebrow shot up. \u201cWhat if I told you they were drawn for you specifically?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne rolled his eyes, chewed, swallowed. \u201cDo you know how many plans are drawn for <em>me<\/em> specifically? Do you think I come by this ego just for being drop-dead gorgeous? Which <em>also<\/em> goes without saying.\u201d He took another bite and pointed his fork at Sebastian. \u201cYou all seem to think that because I can\u2019t manage to put on my own socks without help that I\u2019m an idiot. I have other things to do with my giant&nbsp;\u2026 <em>brain<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have a word for people like you, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, oui. The labels. The ones you love <em>so<\/em> much. So tidy.\u201d He leaned forward. \u201cLabel me anything you want, but make sure one of those labels is \u2018the guy who made Sebastian Taight his first million, which got him into Harvard\u2019s MBA program.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian looked up at the ceiling and his jaw slid left. He wanted to slug \u00c9tienne in the worst way, except Sebastian didn\u2019t have a baseball bat handy and he had learned the hard way not to pick a fistfight with \u00c9tienne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDidn\u2019t think I knew that, did you? What I know and what I care about are two entirely different things and never shall they meet. In any case, you will be glad to know Kimber taught me how to put on my own socks. <em>All by myself<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do seem a little more self-aware,\u201d Sebastian acceded grudgingly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui, I know. Since Tess can\u2019t take a day off from her housekeeping and Relief Society schedule to go to Utah to check on Tabs and my father-in-law\u2019s in Korea, Kelly got me home and here I am and there I go next week, like a <em>normal<\/em> father to make sure his child is alive and well. I can do that now, be normal. Mostly. Somewhat. Maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian stared at him for a moment. \u201cHer housekeeping and Relief Society schedule?\u201d he asked carefully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui,\u201d he sneered. \u201cCompeting with the housework. Competing with service projects and Relief Society and PTA. Competing with the kids\u2019 activities. But you know what? I wouldn\u2019t have cared what she did if she\u2019d just sat down at her drafting table and spilled her brains all over it so we could build something every once in a while. <em>That\u2019s<\/em> what I\u2019m pissed about.\u201d And still was. \u201cI thought Nia actually had a brain to spill, but I was wrong, which made me even <em>more<\/em> pissed at Tess, especially when I thought about what we <em>did<\/em> build, which I can\u2019t help but think about every time I look at my tats\u2014\u201d He stopped, then looked down when shame flooded him.<\/p>\n<p>He stayed silent for quite a while, trying to rein in his anger at what could have been, still thick after all these years and all those miles. He knew the anger would return in full force the minute he stepped foot on U.S. soil. It was why he hadn\u2019t done so but three times in three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have said that,\u201d he said low. \u201cI would&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d He took a deep breath. How did one <em>ask<\/em> for what one wanted instead of demanding it and expecting it to happen? \u201cI would appreciate it if you guys would forget the things I said about her. I\u2019d really like it if you apologized, but I\u2019m not sure that would solve anything. Might make it worse. I don\u2019t know. My expanded capacity for normal didn\u2019t expand enough for me to know which one to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was a long silence, but \u00c9tienne didn\u2019t look up from his food, which he was now simply fiddling with and not eating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy kids hate you guys,\u201d \u00c9tienne said low. \u201cAnd I regret that. Deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you did or that they hate us?\u201d Sebastian asked, equally low.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I did. Their hatred is a consequence, not the problem. I shouldn\u2019t have gone running to my girlfriends to dish every time Tess and I had a fight. They feel abandoned. Punished. Something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re grown men,\u201d Sebastian rumbled. \u201cWe knew better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know those jokes about women being vicious gossipy harpies, running around trashing their men?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey aren\u2019t funny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian took a deep breath. \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd there was Giselle in the middle of us, being the only adult in the room, and there <em>I<\/em> was, pissed because she wouldn\u2019t take my side. She\u2019s <em>my<\/em> family, dammit, not Tess\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you talked to your mom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, hell no. She\u2019d go running straight to Tess after she shoved a stake in my back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s not mad at you. She\u2019s worried about you and Tess the same way she was worried about Victoria all those years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot interested, thanks,\u201d \u00c9tienne muttered, not wanting to face his mother\u2019s sorrow any more than he wanted to face Tess.<\/p>\n<p>Silence.<\/p>\n<p>Then Sebastian abruptly said, \u201cTess\u2019s mother died.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s mouth dropped open. He didn\u2019t think he could bear any <em>more<\/em> shame, but there it was again, overflowing this time. He hadn\u2019t been there for the funeral. Didn\u2019t even know. Regular contact with his kids, and not a one had seen fit to tell him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight after we broke ground for Whittaker House.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So long ago! It wouldn\u2019t have been a big thing to catch a plane to Salt Lake.<\/p>\n<p>Soon-hee Chun had adored \u00c9tienne from the moment he\u2019d stepped into the Salt Lake mission home when he was nineteen years old. He found her amusing, but it had been a delicate balancing act between Tess and her mother, one \u00c9tienne hadn\u2019t navigated with much grace at all. There had been something wrong there, in the triangle of \u00c9tienne, Tess, and her mother, other than the fact that her mother was in it at all. He had never understood what it was and if he didn\u2019t understand a problem, he couldn\u2019t fix it.<\/p>\n<p>Especially with humans.<\/p>\n<p>Humans were totally above his pay grade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re wearing your wedding ring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne looked down at the wide gold filigree band studded with rubies. \u201cNever took it off. I don\u2019t feel not married. Never did. I\u2019ve never even referred to her as my <em>ex<\/em>-wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m curious,\u201d Sebastian murmured. \u201cIf Nia had turned out to have a brain, <em>would<\/em> you have?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian waited, and \u00c9tienne took a deep breath.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wondered,\u201d he said low. \u201cBut I met a woman in Seoul, the minute I touched ground. She was <em>breathtaking<\/em>. And brilliant. And flamboyant as hell. And&nbsp;\u2026 I couldn\u2019t. Naturally, I get hit on a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNaturally,\u201d Sebastian drawled sarcastically.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne ignored that. Sebastian had always been jealous of his ease with women. \u201cIt\u2019s different when you\u2019re married to a beautiful, brilliant woman you adore, and you know you\u2019re going to be going at it like bunnies that night. And then&nbsp;\u2026 I wasn\u2019t. Married, I mean. But every single time\u2014 And let me tell you something. There are <em>a lot<\/em> of beautiful, brilliant women in the world. The <em>variety<\/em> is mouthwatering for a normal man, but I am not. Normal, I mean.\u201d He took a bite of his salad and pointed his fork at his cousin. \u201cSlap some label on me for this, but the thought of having sex with another woman nauseates me. A lot. It nauseated me the day after I left Tess, but didn\u2019t know it for what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, yeah. You\u2019ve been conditioned to be faithful to your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne shook his head. \u201cNo, not in a contemplating-excommunicable-sin way. In an \u2018Oh, that\u2019s disgusting\u2019 way. Even if she <em>is<\/em> gorgeous. Whatever happened to me that day Nia walked into my workshop, it never came back and it was too late. Look, I was\u2014still am\u2014really pissed at Tess for filing for divorce out of the blue, and I lashed out using Nia. I don\u2019t know what I hoped to accomplish except to maybe get some of my own back and maybe also that she\u2019d come to her senses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it was a bluff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne thought about that too. \u201cI could go with that. Except it didn\u2019t work. And there I was, stuck with a loser project with a loser architect who wanted a piece of me and did just about anything she could think of to get it. And&nbsp;\u2026 well, I couldn\u2019t get the look on Tess\u2019s face out of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian arose slowly, as if he were an old man with back problems, and set about gathering the plans \u00c9tienne was actively ignoring. \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaking these plans back to the architect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to look at them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou just said you didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you took me seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian sighed and let the rolls loose again so they fanned out on the table.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne studied them. It was a four-building housing complex. The buildings were oddly shaped, thin but slightly puffed out in the middle like\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooks like a really fat keel,\u201d he muttered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They were each twelve stories high, polished concrete fa\u00e7ades cut vertically with strips of glass. The living units were on the south-facing side with the access halls on the north. Each unit\u2019s window covered an embedded balcony and could be opened.<\/p>\n<p>The apartment buildings were placed in a diagonal pattern, with one large common area in the middle. The rendering showed a community garden and a playground. The ground floors of each building contained a cafeteria and lounge area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDorms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight concept, wrong use. Its intended use is as a low-cost long-term housing facility for mentally disabled adults and low-risk psychiatric patients. People who can do many things for themselves, people who can work\u2014see the garden there\u2014but still can\u2019t live on their own. One of the buildings is for offices and workshops.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There were cables running from the points at the tops of the buildings down to the earth in an odd pattern that looked vaguely familiar. He blinked and looked closer. \u201cIs that&nbsp;\u2026 hemp?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. The idea is that the residents grow, process, and weave the rope as it wears out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne snorted. \u201cThat\u2019ll happen never.\u201d He flipped through the massive pages. Sun, wind, water\u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s been sited?\u201d he asked quietly. \u201cThe water tables are real? To scale?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. Somewhere in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He dug through more pages until he found what he suspected he was looking at. \u201cIt\u2019s strung up like a tallship. You know, the rigging.\u201d He turned one of the renderings ninety degrees. \u201cOh, I see. Sails get unfurled when the wind\u2019s high and they\u2019re rigged to funnel it all into the collection unit on the front angle. But the sails have steel cantilevered spines, so it looks like the rigging\u2019s decorative. The site as a whole is a flotilla.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne was growing fascinated with this. More pages. \u201cJunk timber. Bamboo. Hemp. <em>Lots<\/em> of hemp. Prairie straw. Clay.\u201d Which was more than abundant in that part of the country. In fact, almost everything it needed could be grown or acquired locally with little effort or cost. Except the hemp. \u201cCanvas. Made of hemp.\u201d He squinted at the sails. The canvas by itself could funnel the wind, but it could do double-duty for solar energy. It would have to be woven with some type of special wiring to harness it all. His mind started to churn through the electricals to figure how it could be done.<\/p>\n<p>Now he began to talk to himself. \u201cGlass calls for a system of heat collection that doesn\u2019t exist yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know? You\u2019ve been gone for three years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToo advanced to have happened in three years,\u201d he muttered. \u201cXeriscaped. Sustainable materials, residential labor, native produce. Mechanicals deep under the quad garden in one unit to power all four buildings. No. Each one should operate independently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd there you go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne raised his head. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnybody can run the power from the fuel cells to the buildings. But there\u2019s nobody who can build the collection and conversion systems these plans call for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course not. \u00c9tienne specialized in energy conversion because he\u2019d married, made love to, had children and built buildings with a woman who was a visionary. He\u2019d worked with plenty of architects over his career. None of them challenged him to pull energy out of the ether and turn it into wattage the way Tess had.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince nobody could find you, I rescinded my funding until either you could be found or someone else could build the system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Again, \u00c9tienne noticed something in his cousin\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou really like this, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded. \u201cActually, I love it. I\u2019m an artist. Mother Nature is my deity. But, as you noted, I also have OCD, and I detest authority. This complex is art and nature and clean lines and perfect order and, with all that possibly unattainable hemp, a big \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the government, all rolled up into one. Now, don\u2019t get me wrong. I think Whittaker House is beautiful too, but it\u2019s just so elaborate and <em>heavy<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Victorians did love their ornamentation,\u201d \u00c9tienne muttered absently as he continued to flip through the plans for the canvas construction, which would be the key energy collector. \u201cBut Whittaker House is plain. It\u2019s not true to period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all the dark brick. The gables. The verandah. And the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know the entire thing was Vanessa\u2019s doing, right? She just couldn\u2019t draw it. She told Nia every single detail of what she wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. She and Knox both love it, but I could never live in that. And, well, I <em>did<\/em> fund it for her, which has been hammered into me lately by everybody and his dog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease note: I <em>am<\/em> privy to how much off-the-books money you poured into it, and that you\u2019re the silent guarantor on her strip mall expansion and golf course. Didn\u2019t know I knew that, either, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A deep, fury-tamping breath. \u201cHow did you get that information?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmilio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAsshole. I wish he would keep his fucking mouth shut.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have known him for twenty-five years. This is what happens when you continue to trust your information to someone who will use it against you later. But,\u201d \u00c9tienne continued, \u201cin the course of discussing a coolant I questioned his unusual lack of budgeting. Imagine my surprise to be told he doesn\u2019t <em>have<\/em> a budget and, furthermore, his surprise that I didn\u2019t know that. My <em>chemist<\/em>\u2014brother-in-law or not\u2014is not going to keep such things from me, and why you thought he should is beyond me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, well, neither Vanessa nor Knox knows that, so keep it to yourself. Vanessa would die of shame and Knox would kill me. Actually put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. And Vanessa\u2019s current lover\u2014who, by the way, is now the prosecutor up in Chouteau County\u2014has had it in for me from the minute he saw the painting I did of her. If he knew, he\u2019d find a way to put me in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne hummed noncommittally, and continued to study the plans. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t just another one of your women,\u201d he said absently. \u201cYou loved her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did,\u201d Sebastian agreed. \u201cI still do. But certainly not the way I love Eilis, and I couldn\u2019t have lived with her for much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToo young. Too stuck on her childhood crush\u2014the aforementioned prosecutor\u2014which made her too ambivalent about me. Too dazzled by the sex\u2014I was her first. No. <em>Ford<\/em> was her first. I was never really <em>Sebastian<\/em> to her, even though she called me by my name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That clarified things a lot. Ford, Sebastian\u2019s artistic alter-ego, was the manwhore, and only because he didn\u2019t have to talk. Straight up VC Sebastian Taight was either tongue-tied around women he found beautiful or he snapped their heads off, making him utterly unapproachable. Sebastian\u2019s wife was the only one who\u2019d refused to be intimidated by him, which enabled her to observe him long enough to see him for himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes Eilis know this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. I tell her everything, hoping someday she\u2019ll trust me with her everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne was now utterly bored with Sebastian\u2019s love life. \u201cThis is genius,\u201d he said, his neurons firing at turbo. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I <em>could<\/em> do it,\u201d he muttered. \u201cAt least not yet. Take me a year, two, three, maybe, to figure out how to build it. See, the big thing would be to weave the canvas sails with a filament that could collect wind and sun at the same time. Or solar fabric. Oui, fabric. Use the canvas as the base. But I can\u2019t stand the thought of putting up black sails. Ugh.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI half suspect it\u2019s just a thought experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can see it. Tess would have loved this. Once upon a time. Before she gave up her drafting board for perfectly folded underwear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne dug through them frantically in an attempt to find the architect\u2019s name. Not there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho did this?\u201d he demanded without looking up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGeez, \u00c9tienne, it\u2019s right there in front of your face, on every page, in the masthead on the bottom right. Don\u2019t you read <em>anything<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, but the architect\u2019s name is missing. Why?\u201d No answer. \u00c9tienne looked up. \u201cWhy?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not missing. You\u2019re just not looking hard enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere is it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s nostrils flared and his jaw tightened. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you read the fucking fine print for once in your life?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He ignored that. \u201cI\u2019ll go with you when you get these back to Cleland.\u201d His brow wrinkled. \u201cThey\u2019re a good firm. I like their work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s eyelids lowered. \u00c9tienne didn\u2019t know what that meant. \u201cDid you not tell me,\u201d he began slowly, \u201cthat you were here to go check on Tabitha?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui. Next week. I\u2019m not doing anything right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, but <em>other<\/em> people are. I\u2019ll put you in touch with the department head when you get back and you all can set up a meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy did you show them to me if I can\u2019t talk to the architect? You <em>just<\/em> said it was designed for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s expression tightened into one of utter fury. \u00c9tienne blinked. \u201c<em>Fuck\u2014off<\/em>,\u201d he growled. \u201cI didn\u2019t <em>intend<\/em> for you to see them at all. They\u2019re sitting on <em>my<\/em> table in <em>my<\/em> home, a place my long-lost cousin hasn\u2019t been for five years. How am I supposed to predict that he\u2019d show up on the exact day they\u2019re due back to the firm? I come upstairs to put my kids down for a nap to find <em>you<\/em> half naked and raiding my fridge. You\u2019re lucky I don\u2019t carry in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne couldn\u2019t fault the logic, but it was irrelevant to him. \u201cI want to talk to the mind who thought that up. To. Day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u00c9tienne,\u201d Sebastian said low, and it occurred to him that Sebastian would have a baseball bat here <em>somewhere<\/em> and he was about to go get it. \u201cDon\u2019t pull that shit in my house. I don\u2019t allow my children to throw tantrums, and I\u2019m sure as hell not going to allow you to. Now go act like an adult father who actually gives a flying fuck about his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">5: ART DECO<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u201cMI-KYUNG, SEBASTIAN Taight\u2019s in the lobby asking for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She snarled at her desktop. It was her boss standing in the doorway of her office. She would have refused, but she didn\u2019t have a choice. The news that she was <em>\u00c9tienne LaMontagne<\/em>\u2019s ex-wife, that she had once been one of the exponents of LaMontagne<sup class=\"plain\">2<\/sup>, was not sitting well with her overlords. It was true that if she had mentioned \u00c9tienne and LaMontagne<sup class=\"plain\">2<\/sup>, it would have been easier to get this job, but she had been desperate to put her name on a building without having to use the one connected to Team LaMontagne.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, it was nice to have the secret out, to not have to tend her mystique. Her colleagues had oo\u2019d and ah\u2019d over those old plans and renderings as if she had just drawn them up. She\u2019d been in her twenties and thirties when she\u2019d done that work, and though with time they had faded from visionary to merely relevant, they were still remarkable.<\/p>\n<p>Cleland was furious with her, but not enough to fire her. He\u2019d simply demanded she produce lithos of her past projects so he could frame them and put them in the lobby. He\u2019d also had her business cards and stationery redone to reflect her association with LaMontagne<sup class=\"plain\">2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker House, being the face of the breakup of LaMontagne<sup class=\"plain\">2<\/sup>, was not spoken of at all now. Ever.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can see you snarling at me, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right. In the monitors. She sighed. \u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t wait for the lobby receptionist to call her and she didn\u2019t bother to double-check her appearance. Her neon-rainbow-streaked black hair was twisted up above her head and speared with pencils. It wasn\u2019t to keep her hair up. It was to keep her pencils where she could find them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, there you are, Ms. Chun,\u201d the lobby receptionist said cheerfully. \u201cYou have a visitor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She smiled, but it was forced. \u201cI know. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was Sebastian, his back to her, as tall as \u00c9tienne but not as bulky, his short black hair salting up nicely, waiting for her across the terrazzo floor, his hands in the pockets of his crisp black suit, looking at a rendering she had done in watercolors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have good technique,\u201d he mused, still studying the painting, but not looking at her reflection in the glass. \u201cYou\u2019re an artist as much as an architect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coming from him, that was a compliment of the highest order. It was, in fact, the second high compliment he\u2019d given her in as many encounters.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t give out compliments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you. Let\u2019s go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He followed her out into the crisp October afternoon, and the wind almost blew her jingling skirt up over her head.<\/p>\n<p>They were silent for quite a while, but Tess would be darned if she spoke first. She strolled along relaxed, her hands behind her back and he had his hands buried in his pockets. His head was bowed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTell me about Whittaker House,\u201d he said low. It was a request, not a command, which surprised her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not going to fall down, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said nothing, and she realized suddenly that that was exactly what he was worried about.<\/p>\n<p>She sighed. \u201cDon\u2019t take the inside-baseball stuff so literally. If Nia had not presented herself as a green architect, it would be a respectable accomplishment. Better than that. It mostly powers itself. Vanessa can sell energy back to the utility. That\u2019s what it\u2019s supposed to do. But it is <em>not<\/em> brilliant and it\u2019s <em>not<\/em> a masterpiece and it\u2019s <em>not<\/em> a prototype for what could be in the future. It\u2019s a run-of-the-mill green building. And since the propane wasn\u2019t in the original plans, that\u2019s a big mark against it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor a handful of people, including my colleagues, what it <em>should<\/em> have been, <em>could<\/em> have been\u2014but isn\u2019t\u2014is&nbsp;\u2026 a tragedy. It\u2019s visceral, almost like a betrayal. Now that the cat\u2019s out of the bag about whatever happened to Tess LaMontagne, who designed all those groundbreaking projects \u00c9tienne LaMontagne powered, it\u2019s even more difficult because everybody knows if <em>I<\/em> had designed it\u2014\u201d She wasn\u2019t explaining herself well, but it didn\u2019t matter. \u201cAnd,\u201d she continued low, \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure \u00c9tienne was just as heartbroken as everyone else is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Especially in light of what he\u2019d said to her their last night together.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian took a deep breath, pulled one hand out of his pocket and rubbed his mouth. \u201cUm&nbsp;\u2026 I don\u2019t really know how to approach this. Not sure I should, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She waited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u00c9tienne was not sleeping with Nia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stopped abruptly and stared at her, aghast.<\/p>\n<p>She shrugged. \u201cThe night he left me, he told me he <em>intended<\/em> to. I was&nbsp;\u2026 ill. Shattered. I puked for <em>days<\/em>. He was angry and\u2014\u201d She still couldn\u2019t think about that night without tearing up, and her nose began to sting, so she tried to pack words into her brain that would drive the sounds out. \u201cI had no reason to doubt him. But Emilio let me know what was going on down there and I realized what Nia was. I <em>know<\/em> \u00c9tienne and he is first and foremost attracted to the crazy train.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian laughed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFlamboyance. Strong passions. High drama. Grand gestures. But more than that, he is attracted to intelligence. Not your ordinary smart-people intelligence, though he\u2019s easier to manage if you\u2019re smart, but the crazy-smart. The kind of smart that ends up having to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs and Adderall to cope with life. They may or may not kill themselves. If they don\u2019t, they land in the gutter flat broke or chop their ears off. Them. Put that in a woman and&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, not Nia,\u201d Sebastian muttered. \u201cShe has no depth. There\u2019s no there there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess shrugged. \u201cTo \u00c9tienne, those two things are the same. He won\u2019t bother to dig out your IQ to play with it. It has to be on display and presented for his personal amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you were crazy, then you weren\u2019t, and now you are again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou forgot who I am,\u201d Tess said with a certain satisfaction. \u201cYou stopped seeing me for who I am when \u00c9tienne started going to you with his gripes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Nooo<\/em>,\u201d he drawled. \u201cWe thought you\u2019d finally hit the wall and started taking medication to \u2018cope with life.\u2019\u201d He made air quotes. \u201cWe didn\u2019t forget who you were. You became somebody else entirely and we didn\u2019t know what you\u2019d done with Tess or how to talk to this new person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She started and looked at him in shock. \u201cDid you <em>all<\/em> think that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, yeah,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause the changeover might have been gradual for you and \u00c9tienne, but we saw you less and less so when we did see you, it was a shock. What are we supposed to say when we\u2019ve got \u00c9tienne over here bitching about his wife turning from Mozart to June Cleaver, and there you were right in front of us being June Cleaver instead of Mozart? We thought you were withdrawing from us because you stopped wanting to deal with the crazy that\u2019s the Dunham family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess swallowed hard, shocked and&nbsp;\u2026 hurt. All her assumptions about the Douchebag Triumvirate had just shattered into sand, and she didn\u2019t know what to do with the mess. \u201cBut&nbsp;\u2026 you didn\u2019t even question it,\u201d she said weakly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWere we supposed to save you from yourself?\u201d he demanded. \u201cWere we supposed to stage an intervention? \u00c9tienne wanted <em>you<\/em> back, but when we saw you, you seemed serene. Who takes the serenity of a perfectly functioning woman firing on all cylinders to turn her back into the bipolar mess she\u2019s always been? I\u2019m an artist. Don\u2019t think I don\u2019t know how much easier life is when you\u2019re not knee-deep in paint and canvas, when you can remember what day it is\u2014hell, what <em>year<\/em> it is. My business is the only thing that saves me from that, but you never had that. Then suddenly you did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sighed heavily, unable to speak for quite a while.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven Giselle and Aunt Harrie thought you were on medication,\u201d he continued finally, quietly. \u201c\u00c9tienne swore you weren\u2019t, but it\u2019d be easy to hide that from him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t on drugs,\u201d she muttered, her head spinning. \u201cI just woke up one day and realized you can\u2019t run a family on high drama and neon green hair tips. <em>Somebody<\/em> had to be the adult.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, and adults in your situation with your resources hire domestics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She bristled. \u201cYou adore your kids. Would <em>you<\/em> hire a nanny for <em>your<\/em> kids?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he snapped. \u201cMy goal was to be a work-at-home dad, and I earned it. But I don\u2019t keep house and I don\u2019t cook and I damn sure don\u2019t plant flowers or clean the pool. I also have assistants, agents, accountants, and lawyers. You had all that, but you took over doing it by yourself and seemed happy to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess shuddered, a feeling of ickiness trickling through her at the thought of domestics, barely remembering a time when she hired all that out, but she shook her head, attempting to clear it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was what \u00c9tienne was pissed about\u2014and after that presentation you gave, I\u2019m beginning to think I may have reacted the same way. It would turn my soul upside down if Eilis turned into Mozart after having been Marcus Aurelius her whole life. For better or worse, yeah, but a complete personality change into somebody I would never have married? That\u2019s dirty pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Goodness, was <em>that<\/em> how \u00c9tienne had seen it? Tess put her hand over her mouth, unable to deal with it at the moment. But\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that why you were mad at the meeting?\u201d she asked low.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. I was pissed about Whittaker House and Nia, which was made exponentially worse the minute I realized what you could have done with Whittaker House, and then you worked me up one side and down the other for it.\u201d He sighed heavily. \u201cLook, Tess, I didn\u2019t come here to get on your case. I came to ask <em>how<\/em> fucked up Whittaker House is. Vanessa is a survivalist and she wanted a fully self-sufficient operation. I didn\u2019t give her that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not your fault,\u201d Tess muttered. \u201cCompletely self-sufficient buildings are very rare. I\u2019ve only managed to build one out of six. The fact that I could have easily made Whittaker House fully self-sufficient doesn\u2019t negate the fact that Nia fluffed up her qualifications to be awarded the project. You also wanted to give a young, hungry architect a start because that\u2019s what you do. It was a gamble to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess stopped talking because she couldn\u2019t sift out what she wanted to say from the things Sebastian had just dropped on her.<\/p>\n<p>Finally he said, \u201cAnd so you knew all along that \u00c9tienne hadn\u2019t cheated on you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She shrugged. \u201cI was only ninety percent sure because he told me point blank if I didn\u2019t call off the divorce, he <em>would<\/em> because he said he had the hots for Nia. We\u2019re in the middle of\u2014\u201d Oh, why <em>not<\/em> be frank? Sebastian couldn\u2019t be shocked. She sighed and dove in. \u201cWe\u2019re having sex, <em>good<\/em> sex. The angry sex was the <em>best<\/em>. I was never June Cleaver in bed. We\u2019re in the middle of that\u2014<em>I\u2019m<\/em> coming down off a killer orgasm\u2014and he tells me about this <em>other woman<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian groaned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sick irony? I had already decided I didn\u2019t want to divorce him. He didn\u2019t give me a chance to say it before I hear \u2018other woman\u2019 and\u2014 He\u2019s pressing me to go design a building, but I needed to go see my lawyer the next day and he\u2019s demanding I either answer him or hit the drafting table right then. I couldn\u2019t have spoken if you\u2019d held a gun to my head. He gave me up, like <em>that<\/em>.\u201d She snapped her fingers. \u201cDidn\u2019t wait for a response. Didn\u2019t wait until I could <em>talk<\/em>. I had no reason <em>not<\/em> to believe him, because he\u2019s not capable of lying. Then he signed the papers. At first, I thought he <em>had<\/em> slept with Nia, but that was so not \u00c9tienne. Then Emilio told me he hadn\u2019t, wouldn\u2019t. Couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian took a rough breath. \u201cHe didn\u2019t read the papers before he signed them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sighed. \u201cIt took me a while, but I finally figured that out.\u201d She smiled up at him then, but it was watery. \u201cDo I think Whittaker House could have been so much more? Oh, yes. Do I regret not having designed it? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Am I sorry that it isn\u2019t what it could have been? Definitely. Am I <em>giddy<\/em> that it\u2019s a complete disaster to those who know and <em>his<\/em> name is all over that?\u201d She snorted. \u201cOh, you bet I am. It\u2019s my vindication for what he said, for leaving me, for not appreciating what I was <em>trying<\/em> to do for the family. His karma.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian laughed. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t feel karma the same way everybody else does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t kid yourself he isn\u2019t writhing in agony over it and will until he dies. If he had had his way, he would have packed a semi full of dynamite under it and let nature take over the rubble.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked intrigued by that. \u201cReally? He\u2019d feel it that deeply?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She nodded. \u201cHe might not have if he hadn\u2019t built with me, didn\u2019t know what I was capable of. Once. Before five kids and a husband who provided very well for us but needed a keeper. My crazy got beat down by my survival instinct. My vision taunted me constantly with the fact that I didn\u2019t have a minute to pick up a pencil, much less sit down and draw. Then here comes my mother popping in whenever, running her white-gloved finger over my picture frames, quoting Martha Stewart and church leaders from the fifties, telling me I\u2019m not meeting my husband\u2019s needs well enough. <em>All<\/em> of them. And I had \u00c9tienne in my other ear telling me constantly to \u2018go draw.\u2019 I can\u2019t work in bits and pieces. How did he expect me to lock myself in an office for week nonstop when there was so much to do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He grunted. \u201cStuff you didn\u2019t have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, so what? You still didn\u2019t need to enable his whining,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t have trashed me, but what I fault you for is letting him cull you away from me and the kids because he wanted to keep you to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded slowly. \u201cI understand and I\u2019m sorry. For what it\u2019s worth, we\u2014all three of us\u2014are ashamed that he walked out on you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That shocked her. \u201cWhy are you ashamed? You didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause he\u2019s a Dunham,\u201d he said flatly, \u201cpart of the pack. And we don\u2019t run out on our families.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess stared at him, still shocked but&nbsp;\u2026 pleased. \u201cYou feel that reflects on you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian nodded. \u201cWe\u2019ve all had our cowardly moments. Crises. Bad decisions. Consequences. Angst. But not him. No, he did <em>everything<\/em> right. He was the epitome of righteousness, whereas we\u2014 Well, we\u2019ve racked up our share of pretty major sins, but none of us had a spouse and children riding on how we handled our midlife crises. So yes, on the pack\u2019s hierarchy of sins, Knox gets a pass. \u00c9tienne doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess gulped, only now realizing how desperate she had been for their support, and now to know\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you,\u201d she breathed, tears pricking her eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuestion,\u201d he began with some hesitance, \u201chow would you be able to work with \u00c9tienne on your flotilla project?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess sniffled. \u201cI call it the four-twenty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He barked a surprised laugh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she sighed. \u201cThe client wanted the impossible. I gave them that. Then they were mad at me because it truly is impossible without \u00c9tienne. It\u2019s a lot of money, a lot of prestige. It\u2019s not my finest work, but it\u2019s a close second. I\u2019d find a way to work with him because I want it to be built as badly as the client does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do too,\u201d he said softly, surprising her. \u201cI love it. I\u2019d fund it in a heartbeat, because \u00c9tienne\u2019s work is cutting edge, a goldmine for licensing agreements alone, not to mention the stuff Emilio comes up with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It made her very sad. All of it. What could have been. What was once. What she wanted again, but didn\u2019t know how to get and how to cope with the fact that it could never be the same again even if he did come back.<\/p>\n<p>Tess sighed. \u201cIt\u2019s a moot point. You know \u00c9tienne. When he cuts somebody off, it\u2019s done. Like they never existed. I haven\u2019t spoken to him since he left me with&nbsp;\u2026 a couple of really good orgasms and an \u2018Eff you, Tess. I\u2019m going to get my crazy from someone else and ride <em>her<\/em> vision.\u2019 He showed up at two weddings and a missionary farewell without a word or a glance acknowledging my existence, and all I could do was stare at him because he\u2019s so beautiful and remember what it was like to make love with him and build together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The heartache in Sebastian\u2019s sigh was real. \u201cHow did he know about them?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmilio. The man\u2019s got a cast-iron psyche, to be able to balance all the crazy amongst Victoria, \u00c9tienne, and me, but he doesn\u2019t give up information, even to Victoria because she\u2019d have told me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has his own agenda for what information he does and does not divulge when, where, and to whom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know how she puts up with that,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d be mad about everything my husband was keeping from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell what he keeps from her because he\u2019s being underhanded or because she doesn\u2019t want to be bothered. That\u2019s a code only he\u2019s been able to crack and every couple has their idiosyncrasies.\u201d He paused. \u201cUnfortunately for you, <em>none<\/em> of us wants to get involved. Nine times out of ten, meddling makes everything worse, people end up pissed at the meddler no matter how well-intentioned, and considering what we\u2019ve been through the last ten years, you can probably understand why we\u2019re all a little touchy about gossiping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, yes. <em>That<\/em>. Giselle had inadvertently started a snowball of tragedy when she was still a teenager. Murder. Mayhem. One little bit of information turned Sebastian\u2019s, Knox\u2019s, and Giselle\u2019s lives upside down for years, and the three of them were still recovering, not quite knowing what to do with their newfound peace and quiet. They were lost. Constantly looking over their shoulders. Questioning everything. Still armed. Tess wouldn\u2019t be surprised to know Sebastian had a gun on him right now. They\u2019d lived with the stress so long they didn\u2019t know how to live without it.<\/p>\n<p>One thing was for sure, though: Giselle could keep secrets better than a dead man.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes \u00c9tienne talk to the kids?\u201d he asked carefully.<\/p>\n<p>She chortled at the unexpected question. \u201cHow would I know? They have their lives and I\u2019m dealing with a really sick one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He started. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy daughter, Darcy. She\u2019s pregnant, but she\u2019s got the opposite of postpartum depression. Antepartum. She\u2019s&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d It hurt so badly to say it, but Tess shoved down her crazy and did it anyway. \u201cShe\u2019s suicidal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, <em>fuck<\/em>,\u201d he breathed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t talk about that, you know. Or at least, not much. It\u2019s not natural. It\u2019s shameful, when you\u2019re supposed to be happy and glowing and your worst problem is puking every morning for three months. Watch it. You\u2019re going to harm the baby. Control yourself. What\u2019s the matter with you? Don\u2019t you know there is no such thing as depression during pregnancy? We can\u2019t buy <em>good<\/em> help at any price and Darcy would just die if anybody at church knew, but that\u2019s what family\u2019s for, right? I pulled Kelly out of school to help full time, and Giselle and Harriet help when they can. I just\u2014 Her husband is a tiny little thing, like her and\u2014 You know what we need? We need a big, strong man to control her.\u201d She paused. \u201cSomeone as big and strong as her father, but who doesn\u2019t have any burn scars to terrify her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBryce?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess nodded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan we help? I know Knox and Morgan would be happy to. It\u2019s not much in the way of making amends, but&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sighed. \u201cThe problem is that it comes on suddenly. You just\u2014 You\u2019d have to be willing to move in for a while, and you\u2019ve all got your own lives. I appreciate the offer, though.\u201d She did, she realized, and suddenly she <em>wanted<\/em> to be able to call on them if necessary. \u201cYou know what? Can I\u2014 If I need\u2014 Is that offer open?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he said immediately. Then, \u201cBut look, I\u2014 If\u2014 What if&nbsp;\u2026 what if I could find \u00c9tienne?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If anyone could, it\u2019d be the Douchebag Triumvirate.<\/p>\n<p>But she laughed harshly. \u201cTrust me, as much as I love and miss \u00c9tienne, and I pray every night that he\u2019s safe, his being here right now, demanding attention and making everything all about him, would be the worst possible thing I could imagine.\u201d She paused and having her anger and pride set aside almost forcibly, she murmured, \u201cBut if you\u2019re offering, I\u2019d like you to find my son. Kimber. He left the day after he turned sixteen and never came back. I don\u2019t even know if he\u2019s alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He cleared his throat. \u201cI\u2019ll, uh, see what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">6: BAROQUE<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">DULY CHASTENED, \u00c9tienne landed in Salt Lake City the next day with his wallet and phone and passport (he never knew where he might want to go next) and his backpack, which held little more than undergarments, a change of clothes, and basic toiletries. He was used to traveling this way.<\/p>\n<p>He liked it.<\/p>\n<p>So there was really nothing to impede his progress to Provo except the clerk at the rental car kiosk, at which time he remembered Kimber\u2019s aversion to the extras of civilization. Or, as he considered them, burdens.<\/p>\n<p>It took four times longer than necessary to get a car and get on his way.<\/p>\n<p>He was loath to stay in Salt Lake where memories of Tess were everywhere. He could hardly resist the temptation to drive by the mission house where she\u2019d lived the entire eighteen months of his mission.<\/p>\n<p>But getting onto I-15 immediately proved difficult because it was rush hour, and southbound I-15 was a parking lot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI should have taken State Street,\u201d he grumbled. But that would have taken him by the ward building where he\u2019d first seen seventeen-year-old Mi-kyung Tess Chun pulling off Cyndi Lauper much, much better than Cyndi Lauper did, dressing down the Gospel Doctrine teacher in front of half the ward, and fallen in love ten days into his mission.<\/p>\n<p>He would give <em>anything<\/em> to see her like that again.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, hell, he would give anything to make her take him back under any circumstances, even if she <em>did<\/em> still think dusting baseboards was more important than designing visionary buildings. Because if she took him back, he\u2019d have time and proximity to seduce her back to her drafting table, with no kids to tend and no mother around to distract her. Thanks to Kimber\u2019s training, he might actually be able to <em>understand<\/em> why she\u2019d chosen baseboards over designing, and then <em>fix her<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He couldn\u2019t fix something he didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n<p>But she would never take him back now, not after what he had said that last night together.<\/p>\n<p><em>Big mistake.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It took him two hours to get to Provo and he wallowed in guilt the entire time, replaying that night, what he\u2019d said, when, and how. Tess was a fighter and she didn\u2019t retreat and she could slam ultimatums back in someone\u2019s face so hard they\u2019d be dizzy. He should have known better than to think that would work.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tess, I don\u2019t understand what you really need to get your vision back. I\u2019ll give it to you. I\u2019ll give you anything you ask for. Just tell me in a way I can understand.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That was what he should have said.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d say it now if he could figure out a way to let her know there was no Nia, had never been a Nia.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019d never believe it.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d signed the papers.<\/p>\n<p>So lost in those thoughts, he got to BYU without noticing, then shook himself. He had to focus on his daughter.<\/p>\n<p>He found Tabby\u2019s ramshackle little rental house easily, but hesitated. It was dinner time. She had a baby and a toddler. She\u2019d be cooking now, wouldn\u2019t she? Would her husband be there to help her?<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>There was no car in the driveway, so he parked on the wide street in case her husband really wasn\u2019t there and needed to park, and cut across her crappy lawn. He rang the doorbell. He could hear a child screaming in the background, the TV blaring some kid show, but he didn\u2019t hear the doorbell.<\/p>\n<p>So he knocked. No answer.<\/p>\n<p>He knocked harder. Still no answer.<\/p>\n<p>He balled up his fist, pounded on it, and bellowed, \u201cTABITHA!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That got her attention, but \u00c9tienne barely managed to hide his shock when she opened the door. His effervescent, flamboyant, and demanding daughter stood in front of him haggard and worn, looking older than she was, her sloe eyes with dark circles and the whites streaked in red. Her straight black hair was a rat\u2019s nest. She wore a tattered smock and holey slippers. Her face was a study in hopelessness and despair.<\/p>\n<p><em>Too happy<\/em>. Kelly was <em>right<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDad,\u201d she breathed, her eyes widening and her breathing quickening. \u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026 why are you here?\u201d she asked, panicking, her sudden energy that of a child caught with her hand stuck in the cookie jar. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to look at something over his shoulder, but when he turned, all he saw was the SUV he\u2019d rented.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust\u2014 Um, if you drove.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do know how to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOr, you know. A taxi. Or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was something really fishy about that, but it was irrelevant. He leaned to his left to see the living room cluttered, filthy, and the baby was still crying. The toddler, he now saw, was clinging to her leg staring up at him in terror. And he was filthy, too.<\/p>\n<p>What to do. What to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought you were somewhere,\u201d she squeaked, now attempting to close the door a bit so he\u2019d stop snooping. Eh, that wasn\u2019t going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was,\u201d he said absently, and attempted to maneuver his way around her and into the house. She moved to block him. He looked back at <em>her<\/em>, but she refused to look at him. \u201cAnd now I\u2019m some-<em>here<\/em>. Kelly remarked to me that you had been <em>too happy<\/em> at her, which made me realize I had noticed the same thing. Then when I called you last week, your phone didn\u2019t connect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t answer, and still wouldn\u2019t look at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s your husband?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n<p>She flushed. \u201cI&nbsp;\u2026 don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTabitha,\u201d he said calmly, but with a hard edge that let her know he meant business. \u201cLet me in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut\u2014\u201d She choked off a sob, then her shoulders slumped and she obeyed.<\/p>\n<p>He stepped in and his ears were immediately assaulted by the deafening baby screams that had been muffled by the door. His mind fuzzed and he wanted nothing more than to leave. Fast. But he couldn\u2019t. <em>His<\/em> baby needed him in the worst way.<\/p>\n<p>He barely managed to think through the chaos of the noise. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with the baby?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGas,\u201d she said with a resigned tone. \u201cI gave him some stuff. I don\u2019t think it works. Or else it wasn\u2019t the right stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne knew less than nothing about babies, but he knew how to google. So he whipped his phone out. He held up his search results. \u201cThis?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She squinted and leaned close. \u201cThat\u2019s not what I have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne could not stay without the noise sending him into the corner to curl up with his hands over his ears. Abandoning her was not an option, but he could not tolerate <em>that<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s the drugstore?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her face lost a little of its color, but he couldn\u2019t fathom why. \u201cThe Creamery\u2019s up Ninth East. Otherwise, everything\u2019s on the other side of University Ave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Right back<\/em> was an assumption of massive proportions. He\u2019d thought Tabby was exaggerating how far away a drug store of any kind was, but no.<\/p>\n<p>He drove right to one, but it took him forever because of the student traffic and how freaking inconvenient everything was. Once there, he took the time to talk to a pharmacist. Rather, he made a scene when the pharmacist barely glanced at him, demanded he pay attention to him, only him, and woe be to the human who didn\u2019t. He also demanded that the pharmacist\u2014who had a line of customers waiting to have their prescriptions filled\u2014escort him to the baby aisle <em>personally<\/em> and tell him exactly what he needed for a&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know how old he is,\u201d \u00c9tienne admitted. \u201cSix months? I think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The pharmacist, half pissed and half intimidated by \u00c9tienne\u2019s size and appearance, pointed at the medicines and said, \u201cYou\u2019ll need that, this, and those over there. I have other customers waiting for me. I\u2019m sure someone else can help you with whatever else you need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though \u00c9tienne didn\u2019t give one crap about anybody else, he allowed the man to scurry away, then commandeered a little coed with a wedding ring and a baby bump to tell him what else to get. <em>She<\/em> was only too willing to help him once she got an eyeful of him. For good measure, he gave her one of his slow, suggestive smiles.<\/p>\n<p>She went breathless.<\/p>\n<p>And then he pretty much cleaned out the aisle.<\/p>\n<p>The baby was still screaming when he returned to the house an hour later, and he shoved the right gas relief stuff in Tabby\u2019s hand. \u201cGive him some of that. I can\u2019t <em>stand<\/em> that noise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She took the box listlessly and turned, never looking at him, scuffling her feet as she went into the bowels of the house, the toddler clinging to her housedress and staring back at \u00c9tienne, still in shock.<\/p>\n<p>It took for<em>ever<\/em> for the screaming to stop, where forever equals two minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne, still standing in the middle of the filthy living room, dropped his head back in relief. Then it occurred to him to hit the kitchen and conduct an inspection. He threw open the refrigerator. Nothing but a few carefully wrapped leftovers and some condiments.<\/p>\n<p>The freezer. Not much more than ice and small packages of breadstuffs he assumed were intended to become turkey dressing.<\/p>\n<p>The cabinets. One can of formula and a few jars of baby food.<\/p>\n<p>He sensed her presence. She was quiet. Too quiet. A younger Tabby would have been screaming at him for invading her space, which he would have continued to do regardless. <em>This<\/em> Tabby looked close to having a breakdown and he wasn\u2019t sure how he should approach it. Whatever \u201cit\u201d was. And which \u201cit\u201d to start with. He could hardly shake her and demand she explain what happened.<\/p>\n<p>He continued to inventory the cabinets and attempt to make a list in his head. No, there was too much. He\u2019d need pen and paper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s Mom?\u201d she asked low.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne barked a harsh laugh and looked over his shoulder at her, his eyebrow raised. The toddler was still clinging to her, his eyes wide and his fist in his mouth. \u201cYour guess is as good as mine, <em>ma fille ch\u00e9rie<\/em>, but since she is not here, I must assume you also told her everything was fine. How long were you going to keep lying to us before you asked for help?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked away and down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHrmph. Were you planning to call anybody? Ever?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She hesitated. \u201cMy phone\u2019s cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI <em>know<\/em> that. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here. Your cell too, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt died.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPay phone?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sobbed. Or laughed. Whatever. No, he realized. Those were nonexistent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you have a computer?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInternet access?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He knew the answer already. \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCable TV?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She shook her head. \u201cA couple of DVDs for Raleigh, but he\u2019s tired of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you going to church?\u201d he asked, not because he was concerned about her soul, but because the church should have been taking care of her. Except they had to be aware of her situation before they could do that.<\/p>\n<p>She barely shook her head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen\u2019d Dave leave?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA couple of weeks ago. I think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne took a deep breath and said, \u201cYou can come home with me or I can move here. Which would you rather?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her lips pressed together in indecision, and her eyes were firmly glued to the floor. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she whispered. \u201cI just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne\u2019s heart broke.<\/p>\n<p>He had nothing here, and he\u2019d resented having been called to the penny-ante Salt Lake City mission, particularly since Sebastian got sent to France\u2014and he didn\u2019t even speak French!\u2014and it was \u00c9tienne\u2019s first language!\u2014and then his twin sister got sent to Spain!\u2014so he resented Salt Lake. Even if it had given him Tess.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t have many material possessions in Kansas City either, but he did have a large family.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, he just really hated Utah.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you sick?\u201d he asked quietly.<\/p>\n<p>To his surprise, she barked a humorless laugh. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Maybe? I\u2019m so tired. All I can do is sleep. I can barely manage to feed the kids and change their diapers. My milk didn\u2019t come in, so I have to set an alarm to remember to make formula before he starts crying. <em>If<\/em> I remember to set the alarm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t surprise him, though. \u201cYour mother\u2019s didn\u2019t, either.\u201d And lack of breast milk meant she had to shell out for formula. \u201cDon\u2019t they have welfare or something?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked away. \u201cI&nbsp;\u2026 can\u2019t&nbsp;\u2026 leave the house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He could see why. No transportation. No energy. A toddler and an infant. Did she have a stroller? A baby backpack or whatever it was called? Even the poorest women in Asia and Africa had cloth slings to carry their children in a way that would allow them to work. And she was a long way from a grocery store. Even if she had everything she needed to hoof it with the kids, getting everything <em>back<\/em> would be a task of astronomical difficulty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you have <em>any<\/em> friends?\u201d he burst out.<\/p>\n<p>Another bare motion of her head <em>no<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat about your neighbors?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey hate us,\u201d she muttered, her face flushing. \u201cOne of them slammed the door in my face. She said I deserved whatever happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dave had isolated her completely and alienated any potential allies and, to make sure she stayed put while he wandered, he\u2019d left her no resources she could use to get out. Not even her feet. <em>How<\/em> had \u00c9tienne let this happen to his little girl?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, Tabby,\u201d he moaned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know you\u2019re disappointed in me,\u201d she said, no life in her voice. \u201cI don\u2019t blame you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He laughed harshly, and the toddler whimpered. \u201cI am <em>not<\/em> disappointed in you. I\u2019m <em>hurting<\/em> for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She winced.<\/p>\n<p>Wasn\u2019t there a <em>Thing<\/em> women got after childbirth? Tess\u2019s mood swings had ramped up while she was pregnant, but they went back to normal as soon as she popped the baby out. Of course, they had had plenty of money for food and formula, so he supposed that if Tess <em>had<\/em> had a <em>Thing<\/em>, it would have been worse without food or the hope of getting any.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to go grocery shopping. Can you manage to take a shower or something?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She shrugged. Sort of. Not really.<\/p>\n<p>That wasn\u2019t going to work. <em>Simplify simplify simplify<\/em>. \u201cOkay. How about we all go find a nice hotel room and I\u2019ll order pizza?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her eyelashes fluttered and she exhaled quite a bit of air, but she didn\u2019t say anything. That idea had been divinely inspired. Then again, he was used to divine inspiration.<\/p>\n<p>God had always loved him best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me pack up some stuff for you. Just\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She let out a little peep. \u201cWhat if\u2014\u201d She stopped. Gulped. \u201c\u2014he comes back and I\u2019m not here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne had no reply for that for a second or two because his attention was caught by the fear on her face. If he could get his hands on that kid\u2014 \u201cTabby,\u201d he said carefully, \u201che hasn\u2019t been back in two weeks. The odds he\u2019ll come back while you\u2019re gone are slim to none. If he does, you just won\u2019t be here. What\u2019s he going to do, trash the house?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She blanched and looked to the side.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd if he does trash the house, so what? Tabby, look at me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She tried. She really did. But her eyes never rose above his chin. He decided not to press it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid Dave ever hit you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She made some vague gesture that might be no. Might be sometimes, never, or only on the second Thursday of every month.<\/p>\n<p>That meant he had.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd he\u2019s trashed the house. Thrown things?\u201d He looked around. Ah. \u201cPunched his fist through the wall? Broken panes out of the windows?\u201d That hadn\u2019t been reglazed, with winter coming on.<\/p>\n<p>He would have missed her hesitant nod if he hadn\u2019t been looking at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHas he left you alone like this before?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She nodded, and he realized she preferred being left alone and helpless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he\u2019s always come back before?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She nodded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you love him?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t move. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then something else occurred to him. He didn\u2019t want to ask, but he had to. \u201cHas he raped you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She stiffened, just the slightest bit, but otherwise she didn\u2019t move. She didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n<p>And that was all \u00c9tienne needed to know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t have to worry about him anymore, <em>ma fille ch\u00e9rie<\/em>. Sit down and relax a while so I can gather a few of your things. Can you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She nodded. It was quite a bit above barely moving but far below enthusiastic. Didn\u2019t matter. It was better than anything she\u2019d given him so far.<\/p>\n<p>He <em>ached<\/em> to see his defiant daughter so broken. Where were the screaming fits and demands and refusals to obey? Where were her crazy haircuts and ears studded with various and sundry earrings? Where were her imaginative homemade fashions, meticulously designed and hand-crafted out of thrift store finds? And on her less imaginative days, her goth, her steampunk, her Victoriana? <em>His<\/em> daughter wouldn\u2019t be caught dead in jeans and a tee shirt, much less a muumuu.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing he could see of <em>her<\/em> was the My Little Pony tattoo above her ankle, which had made him mad the second he saw it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Are you kidding me? You put more thought into your last skirt than you did in that clich\u00e9d piece of\u2014 I expect better from you, Tabby. If you couldn\u2019t come up with anything on your own, you should\u2019ve asked your mom to draw you something original. Significant. Or wait until you actually had something significant to ink.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It\u2019s cute! Everybody says so!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Then everybody\u2019s got crappy taste.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He gently gathered her in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest until she relaxed against him. He stroked her greasy rat\u2019s nest and pressed his mouth to her head. It was gross. And he was used to gross.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love you, Tabby,\u201d he murmured. \u201cI love you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She just sighed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">7: MIDCENTURY MODERN<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u00c9TIENNE LOOKED down at the semi-clean but happy baby lying on his hotel room bed, and propped his hands on his hips. He had screwed up that diaper change like nobody\u2019s business because he was afraid of touching the baby too much in case he damaged it somehow. It wasn\u2019t <em>his<\/em> kid. That made a difference. He <em>really<\/em> didn\u2019t want to pick it up again, because the more he picked it up, the greater the odds that he would drop it.<\/p>\n<p>It had been a long time since he\u2019d dealt with babies, but a couple of his kids\u2014he didn\u2019t remember which ones, precisely, as he had <em>five<\/em> of them\u2014had liked to sleep on his chest.<\/p>\n<p>Tess hadn\u2019t liked that. She thought he\u2019d roll over on them in his sleep or forget they were there and sit up suddenly.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t blame her for that. It wasn\u2019t an unfounded fear.<\/p>\n<p>He cast a glance at the toddler, who seemed to be intrigued by the cheap crap toys he had picked up at the drugstore on the way to the hotel. The boy dumped the crayons on the bed. Picked one up and studied it as if he vaguely recalled what it was for.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne piled blankets and pillows around the baby so he wouldn\u2019t roll off the bed or something stupid like that, gave him a pacifier and a rattle, then skirted the end of it until he got to the other bed. The toddler looked up at him, but then back down at his new possessions.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere between giving him a squeaky toy, shoving pizza in his mouth, and pouring milk down his throat, \u00c9tienne had earned his trust. He sat on the bed beside him and reached for a coloring book. \u201cHere,\u201d he murmured, opening it, and picking up a crayon to demonstrate. \u201cThis is how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tess could have done it so much better. She could create masterpieces out of a piece of paper and a stick of colored wax. Give her a sixty-four-count flip-top box of crayons\u2014with the little sharpener on the back\u2014and a stack of newsprint and she would be in heaven for days.<\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne breathed a sigh of relief when the child snatched the coloring book with a squeal and went to town. Heck, for all \u00c9tienne cared, he could color on the walls. He <em>should<\/em> color on the walls. That was what walls were for, giant blank canvases just right for holding information or art.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne and Tess had moved to Kansas City after she graduated from MIT. She loved his mother, loved the peacefulness of their Sunset Hill neighborhood that was only moments away from chaos, loved being able to stand out and turn heads because Kansas City was so much more staid than Boston. The house he had bought for her was very traditional\u2014not her style, nor his\u2014a light-brick colonial revival. But it was big, on almost an acre of land, had a big swimming pool in the back and, more importantly, a big pool house \u00c9tienne could convert into a workshop. The house also had giant blank walls just waiting for her to color on\u2014and she had.<\/p>\n<p>He closed his eyes, sighed, and let the memories and quiet wash over him, punctuated only by soft toddler giggles (that was okay) and baby coos (that was even okay-er).<\/p>\n<p>He couldn\u2019t wait to see that house again. He <em>ached<\/em> to see that house again.<\/p>\n<p>And Tess. In one of her outfits, the ones that made her look like the love child of a harajuku girl and a belly dancer. Or better, in one of her little tease-me lingerie sets, which she would not bother to remove before opening his fly and sliding herself down on him. Or getting on her knees and taking him down her throat.<\/p>\n<p>She was beautiful, his wife. Five-three. Sultry almond eyes she could enhance until she was full-on femme fatale. Straight black hair\u2014when it wasn\u2019t streaked in one color or six. Heart-shaped face. Creamy vanilla skin. Strong nose and full lips just right for\u2014 Full breasts and hips and nicely rounded butt, evidence of the children they\u2019d made together. He loved watching himself disappear into her\u2014<\/p>\n<p>He groaned and wondered how long he could stay in the bathroom before somebody bothered him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He started and looked down at the little boy he\u2019d forgotten about, who, so far as he knew, couldn\u2019t speak yet. And here he was with a clearly articulated question that made some sense.<\/p>\n<p>Now he had to answer it. Possibly carry on a conversation with a two-year-old. What was \u00c9tienne\u2019s name? Such a simple question, and yet so fraught with meaning.<\/p>\n<p>There was no help for it. He was going to have to say the word and he <em>really<\/em> did not want to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrandpa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The child blinked. \u201cYou\u2019re my grandpa?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sadly. \u201cYour mother\u2019s father, oui.\u201d He paused. \u201cThat\u2019s \u2018yes\u2019 in French. I was born in France. My father\u2019s French. You want to learn how to speak French?\u201d Now he was just spewing to hear himself, so he stopped.<\/p>\n<p>It was getting late and he wanted to keep the quiet. To wrap himself up in it and snuggle for a while so he could continue with his memories of Tess, because heaven knew it wouldn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n<p>The connecting doors between his and Tabby\u2019s room were open, and he arose to peek in on her. She was out like a light after a long, hot bath and a decent meal, during which she hadn\u2019t said a word, even when spoken to directly. It was as if she couldn\u2019t hear him, she was so buried in her mind. She\u2019d ignored the children, which he did not blame her for in the least bit. But that left him to deal with them, and he had to google for every little detail of how to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Just as his mind was about to overload, his phone rang. Ah, his twin sister, right on cue, even though it was three o\u2019clock in the morning in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVictoria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u00c9tienne,\u201d she returned, then continued in French. \u201cWhat\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am impressed with your prescience. Did I wake you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. Emilio just returned from a week-long conference in Brussels and is reading a bedtime story to Dolly since she waited up for him. If you wouldn\u2019t mind, please tell me your problem so I can have sex with him when he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He explained. He stopped. She was silent. Then, \u201cYou did all this yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. And now I need advice to continue doing it, because if <em>I<\/em> don\u2019t do it, who will?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHm. Now you finally understand what I had to do <em>by myself<\/em> all those years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He sighed. \u201cThis is why I haven\u2019t spoken to you in five years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to rub it in your face so badly I can\u2019t stand it. Put me on speaker and get something to write on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It turned out, \u00c9tienne discovered to his great surprise, that giving a toddler a bath was not such a bad adventure and was grateful the salesclerk had told him to get bubble bath. It would keep the boy happy, if not quiet. Actually, \u00c9tienne didn\u2019t mind the giggling. He\u2019d forgotten what an awesome sound kid-giggles were.<\/p>\n<p>He also remembered that giving an infant a bath was good training for handling Faberg\u00e9 eggs. And that sinks were better than bathtubs.<\/p>\n<p>It was ten by the time he had followed each and every one of Victoria\u2019s instructions. He fed the baby and the toddler again whether they wanted anything or not because there was no way in hell he was going to get up for a midnight feeding.<\/p>\n<p>Then he tucked the two-year-old in, clutched the baby to his chest so he wouldn\u2019t drop it, carefully laid himself on the bed, pulled the boy to his side, and the covers up over all three of them.<\/p>\n<p>It was the best night\u2019s sleep he\u2019d had in five years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">BY SOME MIRACLE, the children were still alive come morning, although the boy kicked like a mule and the baby\u2019s hands were almost irretrievably tangled up in \u00c9tienne\u2019s hair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDad, I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He lifted his eyelids to see Tabby standing over him and reaching for the baby. \u201c\u2019Bout what?\u201d he slurred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just\u2014 I don\u2019t what happened. I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There were tears in her eyes, but she really didn\u2019t look any better than she had yesterday and he didn\u2019t think her mind was all there yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t worry about it,\u201d he said, rubbing his face and yawning. \u201cNobody got suffocated. Everybody got a good night\u2019s sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMommy, that\u2019s my grandpa!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne groaned.<\/p>\n<p>She looked at the boy and said, \u201cThat\u2019s right, sweetie.\u201d She looked back at \u00c9tienne. \u201cI don\u2019t know how\u2014 I missed his midnight feeding. I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne smacked his lips and wished she\u2019d go away so he could get out of bed and hit the bathroom. \u201cHe didn\u2019t wake up, so the screaming should start any time now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His head couldn\u2019t take it. He <em>had<\/em> to find a way to keep that kid perpetually happy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe slept through the night?\u201d she asked cautiously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOui,\u201d he drawled suspiciously. \u201cBoth of them did. But my ribs are going to be black and blue tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve never slept through the night before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTeam Dad for the win. Tabs, I have to go. Seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her expression melted into panic. \u201cGo?! You just got here!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That made no sense. And then&nbsp;\u2026 \u201cI. Have. To. Pee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh.\u201d The utter relief on her face would have been funny had it not been so shattering. It was the first real sign that she actually knew what was going on and wanted him there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTake the kids and get out!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh. Oh! Sorry!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She gathered them up and scurried into her room, slamming the connecting door behind her. \u00c9tienne groaned.<\/p>\n<p>Once he had taken care of his business, showered, and gotten ready for the day, he knocked on her door. \u201cYour turn. Hand over the spawn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She opened the door, and she was already exhausted from having simply minded them for an hour. He ran his tongue over his teeth. There were three children in this suite and for once in his life, <em>he<\/em> wasn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n<p>This would require <em>menial<\/em> thinking, so he concentrated.<\/p>\n<p>What would Kimber do?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay. Take a shower. Wash your hair. <em>Comb it<\/em>. Brush your teeth. Do you have any <em>clean<\/em> clothes? Other than that muumuu you were wearing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked haunted. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n<p><em>Hooo boy.<\/em> He bent his head and rubbed his temples. \u201cTabs, you\u2019re gonna have to help me here a little bit. I\u2019m baby challenged.\u201d He was also twenty-two-year-old-catatonic-daughter challenged. He didn\u2019t say that part. Barely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me ask you something. Is there anything in that house you would want to keep?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nearly groaned. \u201cIs there anything of <em>value<\/em> in the house?\u201d Even as he asked, he knew the answer.<\/p>\n<p>But she only said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This was not getting him anywhere. \u201cI\u2019m going to order room service, and I\u2019ll take care of the spawn. You <em>will<\/em> get ready to go out and you <em>will<\/em> try on some new clothes and you <em>will<\/em> pick out clothes for the boys. They can\u2019t stay in those dirty little jumper things forever, especially since I just threw them away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnesie,\u201d she said dully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhattie?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s called a onesie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNice to know.\u201d She still didn\u2019t move. \u201cTabitha.\u201d Her eyelashes fluttered upward. She was so small. Still his little girl. So much life and joy and vivacity\u2014gone. He couldn\u2019t stand it. \u201cI want to see my bubbly and colorful little girl again,\u201d he said before he thought, \u201cand I will do whatever I have to do to pull her out of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She blinked in what might have been wonder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou will do what I tell you to do until you can think for yourself again. No argument\u2014\u201d Not that she could. \u201c\u2014no disobedience, no tantrums. Do you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She closed her eyes and let out a great sigh. She nodded. \u201cOkay, Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">HE HAD TO POKE and prod her to find anything for herself. \u00c9tienne, being vain enough to know how to dress himself in a manner befitting his place in the world as God\u2019s favorite, was dismayed to find out women\u2019s off-the-rack fashion was so&nbsp;\u2026 bland.<\/P><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d been spoiled. He knew that. Before Tess had gone all Stepford, she had dazzled him with her creativity. Then his daughter had come along and followed suit, even as Tess devolved to sweater sets.<\/p>\n<p>Tess\u2019s free spirit had evaporated\u2014why, he didn\u2019t know, because he <em>adored<\/em> her for it. But Tabby\u2019s had been crushed, ground into the dirt under the heel of a kid \u00c9tienne <em>knew<\/em> was bad news, but couldn\u2019t prove it.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d tried.<\/p>\n<p>He walked through Target, daughter and <em>grand<\/em>sons\u2014ugh\u2014in tow, turning every female head as he went and a few male ones too. That was normal. What was also normal was that he had offers of help coming out his ears.<\/p>\n<p>He looked at a pierced and tatted young woman with pink-streaked bleach-blonde hair and granted her the smile that got people to do anything he wanted, <em>give<\/em> him anything he wanted.<\/p>\n<p>It had driven Kimber up a wall when he did it on purpose.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pussy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And yet, now we have a place to stay. For free.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>She\u2019s only letting us stay because she wants to fuck you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Everybody does.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In an effort to pull a smile out of Tabby, he exaggerated his accent and used accompanying hand gestures. When they were little, the kids had begged him to do this every time they went out, and giggled madly at the reactions he got.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould you be so kind as to \u2019elp my daughter dress? Somezing to make \u2019ere feel good and per\u2019aps&nbsp;\u2026 ah, what izee word? Peck. Oui, peck \u2019ere a beet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He slid a glance at Tabby to check her reaction, but her eyes were unfocused and she was very far away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerk?\u201d the girl offered. \u201cPerk her <em>up<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, oui, oui. Perk-perk \u2019ere <em>up<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The girl sighed dreamily. \u201cI would <em>love<\/em> to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once the children figured out <em>why<\/em> he got the reactions he did, it was no longer funny.<\/p>\n<p><em>I cannot BELIEVE this shit!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Watch and learn, mon fils. Watch and learn.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Kimber wasn\u2019t inept with women, as evidenced by the fact he could, in fact, get sex without paying for it\u2014if he wanted to.<\/p>\n<p>But he was no \u00c9tienne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you work on commission?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The girl\u2019s shoulders slumped. \u201cNo,\u201d she said flatly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>C\u2019est dommage<\/em>. Make zee decisions for \u2019ere, <em>s\u2019il vous pla\u00eet<\/em>? You can see she eez a beet\u2014ah, \u2019ow do you say\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The girl finally looked at Tabby. \u201cBeat down?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do not understand ziss \u2018beat down,\u2019 but you see \u2019ere zere. Shoes. Cosmetics. Jewelry. Earrings. Do you also see, she \u2019as \u2019oles up and down \u2019ere ears. Fill zem up. I will return shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Shortly<\/em> was all of thirty minutes after another very helpful young lady, who had a baby of her own, filled a cart full of appropriate clothes.<\/p>\n<p>But while she was doing that, he called Sebastian and spoke French.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBuy me a house. I want to move in within the week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian responded likewise. \u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026 can you be more specific?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBig garage. Three-car, if possible. Four bedrooms. Cul-de-sac preferably. Large back yard with a fence. In Knox\u2019s subdivision, an older part. Lots of trees and privacy. Doesn\u2019t have to be fancy. No McMansions. No HOA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou drive me insane,\u201d Sebastian muttered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNext, find the owner of Tabby\u2019s rental. Buy that house, too. Have the realtor change the locks on the doors and board it up. Iron bars over that. It has all her crap in it and I don\u2019t have the time or patience to deal with it right now. Is burning down your own house bad?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is frowned upon by the authorities, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen lean on the owner <em>hard<\/em> because that place is one broken floorboard away from condemnation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the pen scratching stopped, Sebastian said, \u201cWhat brought this on?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, my daughter is in trouble. Husband abandoned her, so far as I can tell.\u201d He wasn\u2019t about to spill the worst part. \u201cLives almost in the foothills with no car, and all the decent stores are two miles away. Nothing in the house to eat. No money. A two-year-old and a six-month-old she can\u2019t take care of because she\u2019s as catatonic as Giselle was after Fen torched her store. Don\u2019t women get a <em>Thing<\/em> after they\u2019ve delivered a baby?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was a long silence. \u201cUm&nbsp;\u2026 I think it\u2019s called postpartum depression.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat. But I\u2019m not sure because I asked her if this happened after the first baby and she said no. Maybe it\u2019s just stress and exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d Sebastian sounded odd. \u201cJust keep an eye on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve half a mind to call Tess to get her butt out here and deal with this. She would know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe Tess is busy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith what?\u201d he sneered.<\/p>\n<p>He said nothing for a second or two. \u201c\u00c9tienne,\u201d he finally said, his tone indecipherable. \u201cYou haven\u2019t shown your face in three years. Five if you count when you mentally checked out the minute you clapped eyes on Nia. Nobody but Emilio knows where you are or what you\u2019re doing and he\u2019s not talking. And now you want to demand Tess drop whatever she\u2019s doing, not knowing <em>or<\/em> caring what that might be, to do something you came home specifically to do. Are you really that incompetent or are you just being lazy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lazy, but Sebastian didn\u2019t need to know that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNonplussed, rather,\u201d \u00c9tienne grumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, boo-hoo. Poor \u00c9tienne is out of his comfort zone. You\u2019re an adult. Take care of it yourself. On your own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Tess\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u00c9tienne,\u201d he growled. \u201cPull your head out of your ass and <em>think<\/em>. This is not a difficult project. Calling me for help is one thing. Calling your ex-wife, whom you haven\u2019t talked to in five years, to order her to take care of the kid you\u2019re half responsible for <em>when you\u2019re already there<\/em>, is a real asshole thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh! What day is it? Is it Friday? Is it window-washing day or knickknack-dusting day?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShut up,\u201d Sebastian snapped. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hear another word against her. Didn\u2019t you tell me you were turning over a new leaf?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne pulled his lips between his teeth. There was that, and once again he felt shame. \u201cMy kid\u2019s a mess,\u201d he said low, \u201cand I don\u2019t know how to take care of her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t difficult\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmotionally, you shit!\u201d he snapped. \u201cThere are <em>some<\/em> things only a woman\u2014a <em>mother<\/em>\u2014can deal with and I\u2019ve lived with women a hell of a lot longer than you have. Don\u2019t lecture me now that you\u2019ve been married all of two years and have two babies and one on the way to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was another long silence, then a long resigned sigh. \u201cYou\u2019re driving home?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, well, don\u2019t be a hero. Take two days and stop early for the night. Make frequent pit stops.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh no. No.<\/em> He knew it could be done in one hard sixteen-hour drive, only stopping for gas, because he\u2019d done it before. So had both Giselle and Knox. And half the rest of his cousins. It was exactly what he\u2019d planned, and he wasn\u2019t deviating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t help you with Tabby, you\u2019re right. But for the kids\u2014 Get lots of ointment for diaper rash. Mix the formula with cereal and cut the nipple bigger. Buy lots of Cheerios. Stay away from the juice boxes and give them water to drink. Get a personal DVD player for the toddler and a shit-ton of kid DVDs. As long as nobody\u2019s hungry or has their butt stinging like the devil, it\u2019s just noise. Remember: Google is your friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence. \u00c9tienne looked at his phone. <em>Call ended<\/em>. \u201cHrmph.\u201d He dialed another number. \u201cFind my son-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpeak English,\u201d Knox said wearily.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne turned away from people gazing at him as if they were hypnotized and quietly repeated himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFine,\u201d Knox sighed. \u201cWait. <em>Find<\/em> him? What the hell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m in Provo. Tabby\u2019s husband is long gone and you are going to find him. When you do, put Giselle on a plane to wherever he is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>End call.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One more to go.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou will lend me your particular expertise.\u201d There was stunned silence on the other end, but \u00c9tienne had expected that and continued. \u201cYou will take care of Tabitha\u2019s husband the minute Knox hunts him down because I am not fucking around with a divorce. I do not care how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026 \u00c9tienne,\u201d Giselle said hesitantly, \u201cI can tell you\u2019re seriously pissed because you dropped the f-bomb, but you have to give me a valid <em>reason<\/em>.\u201d She hadn\u2019t protested. Good. \u201cI don\u2019t kill people for the hell of it, and I\u2019ve never <em>murdered<\/em> anybody.\u201d \u00c9tienne remained silent for several seconds. \u201cYet?\u201d she squeaked. She lowered her voice and hissed, \u201cWhy can\u2019t you ask Knox? He\u2019s done this before. <em>Twice<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9tienne had no idea who Knox\u2019s second victim had been, and he didn\u2019t care in the least bit. There was only one pertinent point here. \u201cKnox is not indestructible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I am about to tell you, you will keep to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI keep <em>everything<\/em> to myself, you adulterous fucking asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, good! I\u2019m batting a thousand. My son-in-law raped my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pause. \u201cOn it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Call ended.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wingding\">\u203b<\/p>\n<div class=\"navblock\">\n<p class=\"leftnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/pasodoble\/\">\u2190 Book 5<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rightnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowbig\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/blackjack\/\">Book 7  \u2192<\/a><br \/>It would\u2019ve been a fun weekend fling\u2014<br \/>except for almost getting murdered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"date\">20260331<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tales of Dunham #6LaMontagne #2\u00a92014 Moriah Jovan108,000 words (290 pages) Book 6 in the Dunham universe Buy direct: &nbsp; Amazon Kindle \u2022 paperback Barnes &#038; Noble Nook \u2022 paperback Apple iBooks Google Play Books Kobo eBooks After a 20-year marriage and five children, teenage sweethearts \u00c9tienne and Tess LaMontagne had burnt out. Tess, once a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":18726,"menu_order":26,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3800","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":149,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25678,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3800\/revisions\/25678"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}