REDEMPTION
By
Clara Grace Walker
REDEMPTION © 2014 Rebecca von Wormer. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.
Published by Rebecca von Wormer
License Notes:
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This novel is a fictional piece of work. Any and all references to real people, events, businesses, groups, organizations, places, etc. are only for literary value and authenticity, and are used in a fictitious manner. All other characters, events, businesses, groups, organizations, places, etc. are created by the author. All utterances, actions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. done and/or expressed by any and all characters in this book are for literary purposes only and do not necessarily represent any thoughts, actions, beliefs, etc. on the part of the author.
Dedication
For Nik and Dave…thank you for the use of your ears when I needed to whine and the offer of a shoulder when I needed support.
And for Penny, Angie, Mick and Jack…your time and advice are a writer’s greatest gift.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Jeff Barry for the quickie Spanish lesson.
Cover photo courtesy of Kelsey von Wormer @ Von Wormer Photography.
Cover model Miranda L. Bower
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 1
Earl Grayson stood on the hot concrete pool deck of his Malibu home, barefoot and bare-chested. His morning coffee steamed in a tightly gripped mug. Down the street a garbage truck rattled closer to his house. Its wheezing and chugging reminded him he’d forgotten to take out his trash. Instead of rushing to his garbage bins, however, he stared at a tabloid strewn carelessly atop his patio table. He read the headline and tasted bile inching up his throat. Four simple words and they made him want to cry. Mindy LePage Loses It.
He was a strong man; macho on the movie screen. Able to dispatch twenty armed villains with his bare hands, if that’s what the script called for. On this particular morning he felt neither strong, nor macho. His resolve slipped away like water flowing over the edge of his infinity pool.
“Carlita.” He called for his maid, fighting back the hot feeling in his gut.
She appeared moments later. “Did you need something?”
He set down the coffee and snatched the day’s edition of The Tattletale from the table. “What do you know about this?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Grayson.” She took the paper from him. “I forgot I left that there. I know you hate the tabloids.”
“True.” He got his emotions under control. “But I was referring to the headline.”
She furrowed her brow, staring at the words and picture on the front page, before nodding. “Just what it says there. I didn’t read it. It’s a real shame about Mindy.”
A real shame indeed. She was so much more than the strung-out joke the press had turned her into. Earl closed his eyes, as if that might somehow block his sorrow. Two years had done nothing to dull the pain.
Carlita dumped the paper in a nearby waste can and laid a hand on his shoulder. Exactly three people knew the truth about his break-up with Mindy, and Carlita was one of them. “I can’t figure out what would make that girl leave a good man like you and self-destruct the way she has.”
He patted her hand and nodded. “Whatever it is, it’s killing her.”
Carlita went back inside and Earl allowed his thoughts once more down a well-traveled road. The two years he’d spent with Mindy had been the happiest of his life; like someone had handed him the script for the perfect Hollywood ending, and all he had to do was spend the rest of his life living it.
Until the day he’d proposed.
She’d turned him down flat. Moved out the very next day. Two days later, her people issued a statement to the press crediting him with the break-up. Him. The man who’d gotten down on bended knee. He supposed in her mind she was sparing him the embarrassment of having been dumped, but reading the lie in the paper that way; it stung.
After her press release, she’d taken up with Vince Allan, an aging, one-time boy-band heart throb, who’d spent too many days on the party train. Mindy’s decision to jump on board with him had seen the start of her downward spiral. Clubs, booze, drugs, and inappropriate, sometimes bizarre, behavior. It hurt to see it. And despite it all, he still loved her. He remembered a sweet, funny young woman who gave a dollar to every homeless person she met, tried to rescue every stray she found and carried bottled inside some deep, long-ago hurt.
He’d discovered the truth of that quite by accident, several months into their relationship. Sitting on this very deck one night, enjoying an evening swim.
“I had a meeting with Barney today.” He’d referred to his agent. “I told him we’re thinking about going to Spain for Easter, and do you know what he said?”
Mindy, stretched out in a lounge chair beside hi
m, her dark hair clipped on top of her head and her bikini barely covering her, gave him a quizzical stare. “No. What?”
“He said we should go to Africa instead and say we’re on a humanitarian mission, because we’d get better PR.”
She’d shrugged. “I’m not opposed to going on a humanitarian mission.”
“Neither am I. That wasn’t the point.” He’d paused, blowing out his frustration in an exasperated breath. “I just hate how totally calculating everyone is in this town. Shouldn’t a humanitarian mission be about the mission? And can’t a vacation just be a vacation? Why does everything have to center around PR and what the rest of the world thinks?” He thought back to simpler days; before he became a movie star and life became about his image. “I miss being a kid. Life was so uncomplicated then. More honest. Sometimes, when I’m sitting at some power lunch listening to Barney go full-on agent debating salary and screen credits, I wish I was a kid again.” He’d paused. “I guess we all wish that sometimes.”
She’d tensed. Visibly.
“What?” he’d asked. “You never wish you were a kid again?”
“I like my life fine the way it is. And I don’t mind power lunches.”
He’d gotten the feeling she was holding back. “You never talk about your childhood.”
She’d stared straight ahead, not looking at him. “It was fine.”
He could tell by the terse way she’d spoken, it was not. “Anything you want to tell me?’
She’d shrugged, turning to give him a thin smile, before going back to staring at whatever was in front of her. “Nothing to tell. I did regular kid-type stuff. Went to school. Sang in the choir. Joined a rock band at sixteen. Started playing in clubs. Got lucky and got noticed by a talent scout. Got a record deal and became a star. It’s all been written about in the press. See? Nothing to tell.”
“You never talk about your parents.”
“My mother’s dead, and I never knew my father.” Still not looking at him. “So there’s nothing to talk about there either.”
“That’s certainly something. You don’t have any feelings about that?”
“I need another beer.” She’d headed for the kitchen without giving him another look.
Any time he’d tried bringing the subject up after that, she told him to drop it. Finally he’d stopped trying. He’d always hoped she’d learn to trust him and open up on her own. The last time he’d said anything resembling a request for information on her past had been the day of his proposal. He’d gotten down on one knee, explained how much he loved her and said he wanted to spend the rest of his life getting to know her. In retrospect, that was probably why she’d fled. He’d opened his big mouth and threatened to spend the rest of his life trying to find out whatever secrets she was hiding.
A ringing phone stopped his reverie. Pulling his cell from the back pocket of his jeans, Earl flinched. “Vince,” he answered. “What do you want?”
“Oh, fuck you, Grayson. You could try being polite.”
Or not. The son-of-a-bitch had ruined Mindy’s life. “Don’t whine at me, asshole. What do you want?”
“Fine. Be a dick. But you need to get a fucking handle on Mindy, man; because I’m done with her shit.”
“I need to get a handle on Mindy?” Was the guy kidding? “Seriously? You’re the one who’s spent the last two years pulling her down the rabbit hole.”
“What the fuck ever, man. All she does is fucking get drunk and cry about how much she still loves you. I don’t know what happened when you broke up with her, man, but you need to fix this shit. I can’t be associated with her bullshit anymore. It’s ruining my reputation. I can’t even get a record deal because people think I’m as fucked up as she is.”
They should. “Where’s Mindy?”
“I don’t fucking know.” Vince sounded put out. “I left her ass in Aspen.”
“She’s in Aspen?”
“I told you, I don’t fucking know. She was totally fucking out of it for two fucking days. Anthony Howard got some guardianship over her and picked her up.”
“Anthony Howard has guardianship over her?” Earl’s gut tightened. Anthony Howard was a pervert and a crook. “Why would the courts give Anthony Howard guardianship over her?”
“How the fuck do I know? He’s been all self-righteous since he got out of that rehab place. Maybe they figured he could get her cleaned up or something.”
“What rehab place?”
“That place that girl killed herself at last month. Why do you keep asking me so many questions? Rehab ain’t gonna help anyhow. Booze ain’t her problem. You are. She’s still bent out of shape because you dumped her. You need to fix this shit. I’m tired of people pointing their fingers at me and saying it’s my fault. ‘Cause it ain’t. It’s yours.”
Iron-clad determination pitted itself in Earl’s heart. Mindy still loved him. Nothing else mattered. “Thanks for calling. I’ll take care of it.”
Heading back inside, Earl grabbed his car keys from a hook by the door leading to the garage. At the food dish on the other side of the room, Snickers, a sleek Siamese and Lollipop, a fluffy white cat, growled and hissed. Pretzel, a scruffy-looking terrier mix with German Shepherd markings, jumped and barked between them. “Whoa.” Earl bent down and retrieved Pretzel from the fray, scratching him behind the ear. “Trust me, boy. If there’s one thing you don’t want to do, it’s get between two ladies fighting.”
He set the dog down, out of the way, and retrieved a handful of cat treats from his Tardis cookie jar, tossing half in one corner of the room, and the remaining treats in the opposite corner. Lollipop and Snickers ran to their respective corners like prize fighters awaiting the next round. He’d learned that trick from Mindy three years ago, when she’d brought Lollipop home and Snickers hadn’t taken to her.
The animals were all Mindy’s rescues. She’d loved them like children; lavished them with praise and affection. She’d left them in his care when she moved out; asking him to please take care of them. He’d taken it as a sign she meant someday to return.
Carlita walked into the kitchen carrying a basket of laundry and set it on the table. “Snickers and Lollipop at it again?”
Earl nodded. He pulled on a blue t-shirt from the top of the basket, inhaling the fresh scent, and stuffed his feet into a pair of loafers. “I may need you to take care of them for a while.”
Carlita cast him a curious glance. “You going somewhere, Mr. Grayson?”
“I’m going to see Anthony Howard and find out where Mindy is. She still loves me. I still love her. And what’s been going on for the last two years is bullshit. It’s about time I put an end to it.”
Carlita smiled. “I’ve been thinking all along that’s what you should do. And don’t worry about the niños. I’ll take care of them.”
“Gracias.” He headed out the door, adding, “After I fix things with Mindy, I just might hunt down Vince Allan and punch the asshole’s lights out.”
Chapter 2
Mindy LePage woke with a headache. The throbbing, ear-splitting variety that made her head feel like a grenade on the verge of exploding, and made her wish it would hurry up and get it over with. The pain kept her from immediately realizing she was in unfamiliar surroundings. And when she did, it made no impression. She’d woken up in unfamiliar surroundings hundreds of times. Being on tour got a person used to waking up in strange places. She closed her eyes and re-opened them, only then remembering she wasn’t on tour.
Fuck. She’d had too much to drink. Had an actual blackout. And where was Vince? Not that she cared really, but waking up from a major drinking binge meant Vince should be somewhere nearby.
Last night was a complete blank. She didn’t remember drinking. She didn’t remember yesterday at all. Looking around, wondering where she was, she felt sick, and not just from too much alcohol. She felt sick inside her soul.
Her last morning of happiness was now two years old. The last time she’d awakened in Earl’s
bed. He used to wake up before her, but lay beside her until she opened her eyes, wanting to be the first thing she saw every morning. Her eyes misted remembering him. No one else had ever treated her like such a princess. Earl was special. The only gentleman she’d ever known. She loved him more than she would ever love anyone.
They’d been so happy. But he couldn’t stop wondering about her past, or understand why she wouldn’t tell him. There were some things she could never tell anyone. Knowing what happened those long years ago would make Earl look at her the same hateful way Mama had; like a cold-hearted monster who’d given away her child.
Like so many times before, her thoughts flashed back to a memory now ten years old. She was fourteen. Two months shy of her fifteenth birthday. Malia had picked her up and brought her home from the hospital because Mama had refused to get her. She winced, remembering Malia. Her only real friend. Malia, who’d been the unintended victim of a drive-by shooting two weeks later. Aside from Mama, Malia was the only one who knew about the baby. Mindy had stopped going to school in March when Frank was arrested and she’d started to show. Mama told the school she’d contracted mono. The baby had been born in late July, the 22nd day of the month, just in time for Mindy to go back to school, as skinny as if it had never happened.
Mama was already drunk when Mindy got home, and threw a lit cigarette at her when she stepped through the door. “You ungrateful bitch!” She’d yelled. “How dare you give that baby away? That little boy was all I had left of Frank!”
Mama had thought to keep the baby and say it was hers, but Mama sucked at being a parent. Mindy had signed the adoption papers without telling her. She’d choked back a sob under the weight of Mama’s accusing stare and wouldn’t answer.
“You did this to hurt me, didn’t you?”
“Of course not.” Mindy sat down in a nearby recliner with peeling plastic upholstery. She’d torn pushing the baby out and was still sore from the stitching.
Predictably, Mama didn’t believe her. “Of course you did. As if you didn’t hurt me enough already; sleeping with my boyfriend and then having him thrown in jail.”