The Promise (Thunder Point #5)(5)

It was a very clean beach, and she took off her sandals to walk. At the far end there was a flight of wooden stairs leading up to a small restaurant—Ben & Cooper’s, according to the sign over the door. A few people sat out on the deck, and under the deck there were kayaks and paddleboards, obviously available to rent.

Peyton figured this beach was probably much busier on weekends. There weren’t many people now—a dozen maybe. But it was two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and while school might be out for the summer, most people were at work. She spotted a weathered log. It had been used as a bench before; the remnants of a fire pit, carefully surrounded by large rocks that wouldn’t wash out with the tide, sat in front of it. She sat down to consider her options. Could I hear myself think in a place like this?

Peyton was thirty-five and single. She had a prestigious degree and a lot of experience, had a great big loving family with healthy parents, four brothers and three sisters. All of the Lacoumette siblings got along but were not all best friends. Matt got on her last nerve because he liked being the prankster of the family, Ginny annoyed the hell out of her the way she was always playing cruise director and taking control of everyone and everything, Ellie was trying to copy their parents and reproduce the nation with her five kids and counting, but Adele was her best friend, and big silent George, second oldest, still ranched on their family land and was her rock. George didn’t usually have much to say, and yet when Peyton needed to talk, they had wonderful conversations. The rest of the time everyone else was talking too much.

In a family of eight children you could have sibling issues and rivalries and alliances—it was a very interesting balance, loving all of them, but definitely some better than others. She was the only one with no romantic partner, no family of her own. Well, except Matt, who was recently divorced, but that would surely be temporary—he was funny and handsome, and women loved him. But Peyton was alone. That was once by design. She couldn’t wait to move away from the farm and have a life that didn’t make her at least partly responsible for seven siblings. And then while the other young women her age were looking for husbands, she’d been looking for a career, travel, adventure and perhaps some great dates, but not to be tied down. She was in no hurry to have kids, if ever! Lord, she’d had enough of kids. Her first niece had arrived before she graduated from college, and the numbers were still growing. There were ten so far, and Adele, thirty now, was expecting her first. Peyton’s mother, Corinne, was in heaven; her parents loved being grandparents. Her father, Paco Lacoumette, loved nothing so much as sitting at the head of a huge clan.

All Peyton had wanted was to live in a place not crowded by people, have her own bedroom, closet and bathroom. She wanted to do fun things, the kind of things her siblings with kids didn’t have the time or money for—skiing, scuba diving, river rafting. She wanted to be able to spend money on clothes that wouldn’t go missing from her drawers when some younger sister absconded with them; she wanted to drive a car no one had driven before her. She liked being able to watch anything she wanted on TV and reading until four in the morning if she felt like it. And she had done all that. For ten years following college, she’d lived the life she’d always dreamed of and hadn’t taken it for granted for one second. She was not lonely one day of her life. And then, at just over thirty, she was finally ready to share her space again.

That’s when she met The Man. Ted Ramsdale. He was so handsome he stopped her heart and took her breath away. Six-two, built like a god, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, straight white teeth. That was the first thing she’d noticed, but it was not what caused her to fall in love with him. He was a brilliant and powerful cardiologist, one of the best known and most admired in the state. He was charismatic; his success with patients had everything to do with his bedside manner. He could charm even the crankiest old man into doing everything exactly as asked. Ten minutes with a patient and Ted had them eating out of his hand. He could give courses on being a loving, giving physician. His staff would follow him anywhere; his colleagues went to him for advice. Ted always got his way, and at the same time everyone who dealt with him believed they had gotten theirs.

Just as luck would have it, Ted came with three kids. He shared custody with his ex-wife, and she wasn’t exactly cooperative. They lived within a few miles of each other so the kids could spend equal time with each parent and never change schools. Getting to know Ted professionally and then personally before she met his kids, there had been nothing to prepare Peyton for the fact that Ted had no parenting skills at all. Too late, she’d learned he was totally unable to manage or discipline his own children. It was uncanny that Ted, the charming doctor, was somewhat useless as a father. When she’d first met the kids, they were aged seven, nine and twelve, and they were incorrigible. It had been a shock, really. It seemed the only people in the world Ted could not relate to were his ex-wife and their kids.

At first, Peyton had rationalized their behavior was sulky and insubordinate due to divorce issues. But, no.

For over two years she’d spent several days a week with three rude, insensitive, lazy and obnoxious tweens and teens. When she was growing up, her own parents had been firm but kind and fair, but after meeting Ted’s children, her father had said, “Those three would’ve been taken out behind the shed a long while back.” Paco, who rarely raised his voice in anger, whose worst corporal action had been a gentle cuff on the back of a son’s head or a light swat on a rump, had only been half joking when he’d given Peyton his assessment. “I think I’d have to beat ’em.”