The Millionaire's Cinderella Wife

Not a sterile apartment, not a lavish mansion, and definitely not a hotel suite. Instead, Ty had a year-round beach-house that was every bit a home. Set high up behind the dunes to put it out of reach of all but the strongest storms and tides, and surrounded by a wide wooden deck, it looked quirky and unique and as if it had grown in that spot.

It pretty much had, Sierra soon found.

“Built by one of the fishing fleet owners a hundred years ago,” Ty told her. “When nothing else was out here. Quite an eccentric guy, I understand. It started out as just a cottage, but his descendants added to the place over the years which is why it looks…a mess, I guess.”

“No!”

“You don’t think so?”

“It has character.” Sierra forgot to feel self-conscious about telling him what she really thought. “Feels as if it’s inviting me in, to explore. That little window up top is winking at me, and that set of stairs disappearing round the corner is asking if I can guess what I’ll find.”

“Round the corner? There’s a bench and seats built into the deck. Then there’s a kind of Florida room, with a—You’ll see. Come in and make that call to your family.”

“They’ll be fine, I’m sure,” she said, then realized it sounded like a definite commitment to stay. “But if they’re not, then the deal’s off,” she added, offering herself a way out.

He led her, business-like, into a large living area that opened onto a stunning deck, and pointed to a phone sitting on a small antique desk. “That’s my private line. I have a business line in my office, right here, and I need to make a couple of calls myself, so just make yourself at home.”

He indicated the direction of kitchen, bathroom and spare-room, then disappeared into the adjacent office, and Sierra sat down at the living room desk and picked up the phone. Her youngest sister Lena answered and assured her, “We’re fine, Sierra. Absolutely. Don’t worry.”

“You’re making sure Dad tests his blood sugar levels when he’s supposed to, right?”

“He took a test yesterday—”

“Just one?”

“—and it was a little high. But don’t worry. I’ll nag him about it.”

“And did Angie pick up the dry-cleaning? Because he has that big function on Saturday and he needs the suit.”

“I’ll check. But you’ll be back by then, won’t you?”

“I’m thinking of staying a little longer.”

“Why? Ty’s not making trouble, is he? Won’t he give you the divorce? I’d have thought he’d be only too happy about it.”

“Yes. No. I mean, yes, we’re both only too happy about it, but that’s not it.”

How should she explain?

She sat back in the chair and let her gaze drift to the view from the windows on the far side of the room. Across the undulating, sea-grass-covered dunes, the Atlantic Ocean crashed onto the beach, perpetually scouring it clean. The summer air made a symphony of color and light—dazzling sun, powdery sky, salt spray hanging like a transparent curtain.

It was so beautiful that it hurt, and it did something to her soul that felt painful and good at the same time, like an aerobic stretch.

“He’s…asked me for help with something, that’s all,” she continued to Lena. “And I kind of feel that I owe—”

Lena wasn’t interested in what Sierra kind of felt she owed. “How long?”

“Ten days, maybe a couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks? I have summer classes, and my job, and Dad’s going to want one of us to do your First Lady thing at the dinner on Saturday, if you’re not here. To be honest, Sierra, his blood sugar was, like, quite a lot too high yesterday. I didn’t want to worry you…”

Sierra felt her temples tightening. She closed her eyes and forgot about the view of the ocean.

Okay, she’d have to coach Lena or Angie through the blood sugar and insulin thing again. Or Dad himself. But he just didn’t seem able to grasp it, with all the other commitments he had between his business and his city hall duties, and anyhow he always thought she was overreacting. So what if his sugar level was a little high?

“Well, okay, ten days,” she said. “Max. I guess it shouldn’t take more than that to…uh…handle this problem Ty needs help with. Maybe even just a week.”

Maybe she could tell Ty he was on his own. He’d spent the past eight years proving that he could be happy that way. Why should his brief admission of need strike her as so important?

She took a big breath and said to Lena, “Listen, I’m going to print out an exact summary of what Dad needs to do, at what times of day, and what he needs to watch out for, and I’m going to fax it to you. I’m sorry, I thought he had a better handle on it after all this time. His doctor is a phone call away, and so am I, on my cell or here, and the bottom drawer of the desk in my room is filled with diabetic education brochures and booklets.”

“Booklets?” Lena sounded skeptical and daunted.

“They’re actually not that hard to read and understand. You and Angie and Jordy were too young when Mom died, so I took over from her with managing Dad’s illness, but you’re all old enough now.”

Even during the years of her marriage, Sierra had stopped in at Dad’s a couple of times, most days, to help him with his shots and his blood sugar tests. She’d also helped him as much as she could with the younger three, and handed out leaflets for his mayoral election campaign.

She finished, “I’m not expecting you to push Dad to handle it himself. I’ll do that when I get back.”

How? Dad was stubbornly determined to stay as ignorant as possible about his disease.

Sierra decided to ignore this problem until she was actually home again.

“You can handle it, okay?” she said to her twenty-two year old sister, using the same encouraging tone she used to her special needs pupils when they struggled with their math.

“Yeah, I know,” Lena said. “But we just really miss you, okay?”

Which was why Sierra let herself remain the lynch-pin that kept the whole Taylor family together and functioning, ultimately. Because she knew she was loved.

“I miss you guys, too,” she said, then gave Lena the phone number here at Ty’s and ended the call.

Apparently Ty himself was still busy in his office, and the door was closed. He’d told her to make herself at home so she explored a little. Huge, gorgeous granite and wood kitchen; Florida room full of quirky, beachy furniture; wide wooden deck; powder room with decor befitting a five-star New York hotel.

Like the living room, the spare-room he’d designated for her overlooked the dunes and the ocean, on its own up a flight of stairs right at the top of the sprawling, higgledy-piggledy house. Since the room had windows on three sides, Sierra could see up the coast as far as the opening into Carteret Sound, and down the coast as far as a tall Carolina lighthouse with its broad, distinctive stripes.

French doors opened out to a narrow, wood-railed balcony that also skirted the room on three sides. A widow’s walk? Was that what it should be called? Sierra wondered about it as she paced to one end of the balcony and back again, before pausing just to lean on the railing and look at the beach. She didn’t know for sure. She’d only been to the Atlantic shore twice, both times down in Florida, which had felt very different to this.

Taking a deep breath of the fresh, salty air, she felt a surge of energy and anticipation that made sense when she thought about how long it was since she’d taken a real vacation.

Years.

Ever?

Never on her own, for sure. Dad wouldn’t have felt safe about her doing that, in case his diabetes gave him trouble. She and Dad had always gone to places that were easy, like Disneyworld with Lena, Angie and Jordy when they were younger.

Once they’d taken a special cruise with medical facilities on board that were equipped to handle diabetic complications. That had been fun. And relaxing, when Lena and Angie weren’t fighting. They’d been sixteen and seventeen then, which meant the cruise had happened, gosh, six years ago, already.

“I’m on vacation,” Sierra said aloud.