At Hidden Falls (Angel's Bay Novel) (8 page)

“Stop trying to matchmake. I have my hands full with Megan. Besides, Isabella is just visiting.”

“She’s from L.A. Last I heard, you had an apartment there, too.”

“Right now, my base is Angel’s Bay. Megan needs the whole family, because at the moment, she wants nothing to do with me.”

Colleen frowned. “Things aren’t going better?”

“They’re not going at all. We’re sharing a house, and that’s it. She barely speaks to me.”

“You have to keep trying.”

“I am, but I’m not getting anywhere.”

“I don’t want to add to your worries, Nick, but Cord told me Megan is hanging out with the skateboard crowd, and he’s worried about her.”

Since Colleen’s oldest son, sixteen-year-old Cord, was a straight-A student and an all-around good kid, that wasn’t the best of news. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t pick her friends, can I?”

“No, you can’t,” she said with an understanding look. “We’ll talk later. Right now, Tory and the rest of the family are waiting for you.”

“I should have my head examined for agreeing to talk about theater renovations with them.”

“How could you not? They need your help.”

Ironic, since his parents hadn’t been available when he’d needed their help. But that was in the past, and his parents had short memories when it came to their own failings.

After saying good-bye to Colleen, he headed down the stairs and drove across town to the theater, his thoughts going back and forth between Isabella and Megan. It irritated him that Isabella was in his head at all. He’d spent half the night tossing and turning, trying to forget her image. When he’d pulled her from the car, she’d clung to him, pleading with him not to let her go. Of course, he hadn’t then, but he needed to let her go now.

He needed to forget that jolt of attraction that had caught him by surprise a few minutes ago. He hadn’t felt that gut clench in a long while. Maybe seeing death come so close had bonded them in some way. They’d shared a highly charged, emotional experience, but it was over.

He didn’t do emotionally intense relationships anymore. After his disastrous marriage, he’d put his heart away and kept his relationships casual and short-term. He didn’t need to change that now.

He also didn’t need to get involved with his family’s plans, he thought as he turned into the parking lot of the Angel’s Bay Regional Theater. He’d managed to stay out of their business for a long time, but since he’d brought Megan back to the bay, they’d been after him to come up with plans for restoring the eighty-year-old theater to its former glory and bringing it up to new earthquake standards. While a part of him wouldn’t have minded seeing the theater shut down for good, he knew he couldn’t walk away from the work that generations of Hartleys had devoted their lives to without at least taking a look.

Victoria was sitting on the steps in front of the courtyard that led into the theater. Two years younger than he, Tory was a slender dynamo with short, light brown hair and green eyes. She always seemed to be handling a dozen things at once. She had more patience than he did, more tact, and more compassion. She was also usually the calmest person in a family of drama queens and kings, but judging by her worried expression, something had thrown her off her game.

“I’m not that late, am I?” he asked, stopping in front of her.

She shook her head as she looked up at him. “It’s not you. Annie Dupont has disappeared. The teenager whose baby we were hoping to adopt,” she reminded him.

“What are you talking about?” He sat down on the step next to her.

“No one has seen Annie since yesterday. I just got off the phone with Joe Silveira. He wants to talk to Steve and me this evening. He’s meeting with all of the prospective parents, hoping that Annie might have said something to one of us.”

“Did she?”

“The only thing she told me was that she thought I’d make a great mother.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she drew in a shaky breath, obviously barely hanging on to her composure.

Tory’s struggles with fertility had been going on for more than seven years, and she’d only recently come to terms with the idea of adopting. “I’m sorry. I know your hopes were high,” he said.

“You’d think I would have learned by now not to get my hopes up. It was a long shot. Annie was talking to other parents, but I still let myself imagine holding that baby in my arms.” She shook her head. “What a fool I was.”

“You said no one has seen Annie, but what about the baby?”

“She left him behind with Charlotte and her mother. It looks like the pressure of trying to decide what to do became too much for her, and she ran away. I don’t know what will happen now. Maybe the chief will know more when we meet later.” She paused. “All that aside, I’m worried about Annie. She’s young, scared, and alone. I’m sure she’s emotionally fragile, and I don’t want her to hurt herself in any way.”

“Is there any chance of that?”

“Well, Charlotte met Annie after she jumped off the pier into the bay when she was a few months pregnant.”

“So she’s not very stable.”

“She had a rough childhood. Her father is a war veteran and crazy, from what I understand. Her mother died a few years ago. But Annie has been thriving with Charlotte and her mother. I want her to come back, even if she chooses not to give her child away, because her baby needs a mother.”

Nick put his arm around Tory’s shoulders and gave her a hug. She had always had a soft heart. “I know how much you care about both of them. Maybe this is a temporary thing. Annie got scared and took off to clear her head. She’ll come back and make the right decision.”

“I hope you’re right. But since when are you the optimist in the family?” she added dryly.

He smiled. “Don’t get used to it.”

She got to her feet. “We should go inside. Mom and Dad have been driving me crazy, asking when you’re coming. They want to get you started on plans as soon as possible.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” he reminded her as he stood up. “I said I’d take a look.”

“Oh, please. Once you set foot in that building, there will be no turning back. Besides the fact that everyone in the family will hound you relentlessly, you’ll get caught up in the excitement, in the magic—you know you will. Deep down inside, you’re a Hartley, and theater blood runs in your veins.”

He wanted to deny her words, but he couldn’t quite do that. And as he looked at the tall building that held so many of his family’s dreams, he couldn’t help but be inspired by the architecture, a mixture of Spanish revival and colonial. Designed in the 1920s by a renowned California architect, the theater had been constructed with a sense of importance. For almost a hundred years, this building was where people came to escape the dull reality of their lives. Despite the somewhat isolated location on the central coast, the winter and summer productions were always well attended, drawing audiences from all over the country, the professional performances packing the house for each and every show.

As he followed his sister under the archway and through the courtyard, he imagined the scene on performance days—summer nights when the fountain statues would flow, and audience members would sit at small tables and sip cocktails during intermission. Without the benefit of the lights, tables, and people, the courtyard looked old and worn, much like the rest of the theater.

Stepping through the front doors, he noticed how the ornate lobby also showed signs of age, from the chipped paint in the wall murals to the cracks in the ceiling. The carpeting on the stairs leading up to the balcony was threadbare in places.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done,” Nick said. “And that’s just what I can see on the surface.”

“I know, but we have to find a way to make it happen.”

“It will take an enormous amount of money. Mom and Dad need to be realistic.”

“No one in this family is big on reality,” she said with a smile. “You should know that by now.”

He knew all too well. There had been a time when he’d chased his own dreams and been just as caught up in a world of illusion.

“Ready?” Tory asked, reaching for the door leading into the auditorium. “This might be your last chance to back out.”

“I’m not committing to anything until I’ve done my research.”

She shook her head. “I never thought you would grow up to be so restrained. You used to be a lot more spontaneous, Nick. Sometimes I barely recognize you.”

Sometimes he barely recognized himself, but spontaneity had turned him into a father at the age of nineteen. These days, he looked before he leaped.

As he followed Tory into the auditorium, he realized it had been at least a decade since he’d been inside. He’d always managed to avoid the building on his visits to Angel’s Bay.

The inside of the theater was just as ornate as the exterior. The side boxes on the mezzanine levels were beautifully carved and separated by thick velvet curtains and ropes. The ceiling high overhead had been painted with twinkling stars to make the audience feel as if they were watching an outdoor performance.

As he took in the details, a surprising sense of anticipation ran down his spine. This theater was where he’d first fallen in love with designing and construction. His uncle Richard had taught him how to build sets as soon as he was old enough to pick up a hammer. He’d been amazed to see worlds created within days, and he’d been hooked.

Professionally speaking, this architectural project could be spectacular, but he had a lot of personal reservations. He kept his feet grounded in reality, and this old theater had a way of making people believe in the impossible, which usually led to a painful let-down.

Today there was a lot of action going on inside. Seats were being pulled out to be reupholstered, two men were putting up a frame along the back wall of the stage, and various members of his family were standing around a long table at the front of the stage As usual, they all seemed to be talking at one time. Where there were actors, there were egos, and demanding needs for attention.

He drew in a deep breath as he climbed the stairs. He loved his parents, his grandparents, his aunts, uncles, cousins . . . but they were all devoted to their theater world, and since his relationship with Kendra, he’d found it difficult to be a part of that.

His mother looked up and saw him, giving him a welcoming wave. Pamela Strathmore Hartley had met his father, Paul, during a production of
Phantom of the Opera
in New York. She’d played the ingenue, and his father had fallen in love with his mother’s spectacular voice and beautiful face. Her hair was shorter now, with a dark red tint, but she still had a smile that could light up a stage. His father was a true leading man, with dark, handsome looks that always brought droves of women to the backstage door.

His grandfather, Harrison Hartley, was also onstage. At six foot three, Harrison had an unmistakable presence and a deep, booming voice that carried to the last row of the theater. He’d played a lot of villains in his time, parlaying a sinister, menacing quality to his strong features into a successful career. His grandmother, Alice, was a foot shorter than her husband, and while the others had all been leading-role material, Alice was a character actress who always played the best friend or the sister or the nanny. She had a round face, pale blond hair, and a nervous manner. She could also cry on cue, her most marketable talent. His uncle Richard filled out the group, a boyishly charming man with a big personality and an even bigger smile.

“You’re late, Nick,” his grandfather barked as he made his way onto the stage.

“My fault, Grandpa,” Tory interjected. “I stopped him on the way in.”

Despite being younger, Tory always tried to protect him. She’d sensed early on that someone needed to be a bridge or a translator between him and the rest of the family.

“Are you ready to do some sketches for us, put together a plan?” his father asked.

“I can get you started, but I’m not sure how involved I can be. I have some other projects going on and Megan to worry about. Frankly, you still need to figure out if you can even raise enough money to do the restoration.”

“We’ve been working on some fundraising ideas,” his mother cut in. “Seat sponsors, endowments, that kind of thing. We have to find a way, Nick, because if we can’t bring the theater up to the new earthquake codes, then we’ll have to shut down. That can’t happen.”

He couldn’t imagine what his parents and grandparents would do without the theater. But that might be a reality they would have to face.

“Richard sketched out a few ideas for the renovation,” his father continued. “We want to keep as much of the history as we can.”

Nick stepped over to the table, taking a look at his uncle’s rough drawings.

“They’re not what you can do,” Richard said. “But I wanted to give you a jump start.”

“I can see where you’re going.”

“And we need you to help us get all the way there,” Richard said with a smile. “I know it’s a big job, but you’re up to it, right? I was down in Morro Bay the other day. I saw the work you did for their library. You’ve come a long way from the days when you used to hammer your nails in sideways.”

“I was always better with concept than execution,” Nick admitted. His early construction days had helped him be a better architect. “Can I take these with me?”

“Absolutely.”

“We really need your help, Nick,” his mother added pleadingly. “I can’t imagine anyone in this family surviving without this theater. It’s our livelihood.”

“There’s always another theater, another town,” he pointed out. He’d spent half his childhood on the road, trading one backstage playground for another as his parents took roles in other productions during the off season.

“We’re getting too old to traipse around like we used to,” Pamela said.

“We know you want to refuse this job,” his father put in. “But we won’t make that easy for you. You’re good at what you do, and we need the best.”

Nick felt an unexpected surge of pleasure at his father’s proud words. He’d never really known what his parents thought of his career. Although . . . as he studied the earnest faces surrounding him, he couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t being played. This cast of characters could persuade anyone to do anything.