Scarlett Baby (The Scarletts Read online

  Friendly indifference which was a travesty because she was feeling anything but indifference to him. She never had. Yuri was firmly stuck in her head as the one, her only one. Ricky knew that and he exploited it shamelessly.

  "Hey," she said when she reached them.

  "Hey Marla Mills." Terri got up. "How are things going at Luxury Manor?"

  Marla winced. Ricky had renamed the place, Luxury Manor for some perverse reason. She knew that the locals mocked it. She would too if she weren't living there.

  "Fine." She looked at her former playmate, a smile flirting around her lips. Terri was never reticent in speaking her mind. She was fiery and pushy and outspoken. She was two years older than Terri but always felt that Terri had more gumption.

  "I am going to see if I can help Mama," Terri said, making her eagerness to leave the two of them obvious.

  "Sorry for your loss," Marla said before Terri could leave.

  "Yep. Sure. Thanks," Terri said and walked toward the house at a fast trot.

  And just like that, she was alone with Yuri.

  He was staring at her solemnly. Yuri had always had serious eyes, like he was contemplating the extensive burdens of the world.

  "Hi Marla." His voice was slightly husky, warm and velvety.

  "Yuri." She sat in the seat which Terri had hastily vacated. "I am sorry to hear about Pops. I know words won't make a difference but know that I am sorry."

  "He was a hundred." Yuri downplayed his sorrow. "I guess it was expected. Where is your husband?"

  Marla grimaced. "Not here. Therapy in Miami. He is making rapid progress."

  "He is determined to walk again, huh?" Yuri nodded. "He was always a determined fellow."

  Marla didn't know what to say after that. She had not had a conversation worth anything with Yuri since the evening she told him that she was going to marry Ricky. That had been their first and last explosive conversation five years and one week ago.

  Right in this yard.

  Under this tree.

  He had begged her not to do it but she couldn't tell him why she had to marry Ricky then, and she couldn't tell him now either.

  Maybe if things were different and Yuri actually told her that he loved her and there had been a future for them together…but he had never declared himself to her. She had never declared her feelings to him either.

  She had been waiting for him to go first, even though they had been practically inseparable before he took his job in Kingston.

  That was the thing with Yuri; she never knew where she stood with him. There was a time when she could tell him anything and they were easy with each other. That time had long since passed. Now they were stiff strangers, staring out into the yard in a silence fraught with tension.

  Or maybe she was just the tense one?

  She looked at him again and found that he was staring at her, his eyes semi-veiled.

  "You look good," he said after a beat.

  "Er, thanks." Marla nodded. "I like to think that I am a walking advertisement for the spa. I developed a new line of skincare products using seaweed extracts. When I tell people that it is all I use they are usually amazed at my skin."

  "That's false advertising," Yuri murmured softly. "You have always had beautiful skin, with or without your products."

  She didn't know where to look after he said that. Her ears were probably red; she could feel her cheeks getting warm.

  "How is that going?" Yuri asked.

  "Huh?" She quickly glanced at him.

  "The spa. Ricky said he built your dream spa at Villa Ingles."

  "Oh. It's going well. We are booked out for the year. I am now a certified masseuse."

  He nodded. "Congrats. You always wanted to do something like that."

  She gave him a half smile. "You look like you could use a massage."

  No, she did not say that out loud. She gave a mental groan after it came out of her mouth. Stupid mouth.

  Yuri didn't answer right away but he seemed as if he was actually contemplating it. Her heart did a little leap. What if he said yes? What would she do? She couldn't possibly act professional while touching Yuri Scarlett's body. That would be like having all her little girly fantasies coming to life.

  "I would really appreciate a massage," Yuri finally said. "But mostly I just want to escape this place, at least for a while."

  Marla swallowed. "Well come on then, I can give you the whole works." Her voice trembled a bit.

  Yuri didn't seem to hear it. He stood up. "I could do with a swim. Maybe at Pops' favorite place over at Frenchman's Bay or better yet Sherman's Cove. Over there is still nice, isn't it? I haven't been there in years."

  Marla got up. "Well, I..."

  "Come on." Yuri looked at her, a challenge in his eyes. "Or you don't swim in the local waters anymore? You prefer the heated pools over at Villa Ingles?"

  "Of course I swim in local waters." She tried a carefree laugh. "I am just going to have to get my swimsuit and the massage stuff..."

  "Let’s play it by ear. We'll see about the massage." Yuri was ready to go. It seemed as if now that he had made up his mind he was anxious to leave.

  "Okay," Marla said, not wanting to miss this opportunity to be alone with Yuri. They hadn’t been alone together since they were in their teens.

  "I am going to get my swimming stuff at the house. Meet you on the beach."

  ****

  Frenchman's Bay was fourteen miles of beach but Marla knew exactly where Dolby's spot was. His boat was still there with the big Scarlett emblazoned on the side. Yuri had changed into a swimming trunk. He was leaning on the side of the boat and looking out at the sea contemplatively.

  "Remember when we were younger we would sit right here and wait for Pops to return?"

  Marla chuckled. "Not sit. We would be swimming or running all along this shoreline."

  "And we knew every inch of this fourteen-mile stretch and we would try to celebrity spot, especially up at Jake’s Restaurant. Or we would collect shells. Remember that time when Pops came in early and took us over to Parottee Bay and we got to hang out at Pelican Bar in the middle of the sea? We talked about that at school for months."

  Yuri sighed. "The best memories."

  "Remember when we spent all night with Pops over at Pelican Keys—just the three of us in the boat with the stars?"

  Yuri inhaled shakily. "Wasn't Troy there with us?"

  "That was when we were late teens." Marla leaned on the boat beside Yuri. "I didn't even remember that Troy was there."

  "Yes, well I do remember." Yuri grinned. "You were in a red swimsuit and you had your hair in two plaits hanging way down your back and you were self-conscious because you had just gotten breasts. They appeared out of nowhere, stunning me and Troy."

  "Shut up," Marla growled. "I was a late bloomer."

  Yuri laughed. "You kept crossing your arms over them."

  "Good grief," Marla looked at him beseechingly, "can't we just stick to memories of Pops?"

  Yuri held her gaze. "It is a memory of Pops. Troy was teasing you about your new modesty and Pops told him to stop. Me, I was so fascinated with your new... erm... assets that I couldn't think straight. Then Pops took us aside and lectured us sternly to ignore them. ‘Look into her face, not her chest, or else I am not going to carry you out again.’"

  Marla laughed. "Yes, he did. I wondered why you guys were so excessively polite after that."

  She then sobered up. "That was when Pops told me that it was best if I didn't hang out with the guys after that. He got your mom to start paying me some special attention. And she worked hard on helping me to be less of a boy."

  "You were never a boy." Yuri glanced at her. "I always knew that. Come on, let’s walk. We can swim down at Sherman's Cove."

  Marla nodded, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. Sherman's Cove was a local beach spot. Visitors didn't know where Sherman's was. It was one of Treasure Beach's best-kept secrets.

  The sun was lowering ac
ross the horizon. They passed Eggy's, where mostly visitors gathered for the sunset. There was live music belting from the bar. Marla waved to the few locals who were hanging around. A few of them came to Yuri and gave him their condolences.

  "See you at the yard tonight," was their parting shot.

  Yuri nodded and then sighed. "I know it's a tradition but I hate it."

  "What?" Marla asked.

  "The whole dead yard set-up business." Yuri shook his head. "Kingston must have rubbed off on me, because I can remember liking it when I was younger—getting to stay up late at nights, eating free food, listening to the bands and the singing, dancing...sometimes we didn't even know the person that died; we just liked the free drinks and the free food."

  "I don't like it either, not even when I was younger." Marla shrugged. "And I have never been to Kingston."

  "You know that's weird, right?" Yuri grinned at her. "You have never been to your nation's capital."

  Marla laughed. "Is going to Kingston some kind of requirement for being Jamaican?"

  "Nope. It is a requirement for being a normal Jamaican. You have to at least visit there once."

  "I don't like leaving Treasure Beach," Marla said wistfully.

  Yuri looked at her sharply. "You once told me that you wanted to travel. You were desperate to leave here."

  "I was younger then," Marla struggled to keep the wistfulness out of her tones, "and I..."

  "And you..." Yuri prompted because she had stopped speaking mid-sentence.

  They reached Sherman’s. It was deserted. This side of the sheltered cove, with its powdery white sands and rocky overhang, was rarely visited anyway.

  Yuri was looking at her, a frown on his face. He stood before her and blocked out the weak sunlight.

  Marla swallowed. She couldn't tell him that she was a prisoner. She couldn't tell him that all was not what it appeared with her. It wasn't that she couldn't trust him, far from it. She could tell him, but there was nothing that he could do about her situation.

  "This has something to do with Ricky?" Yuri pressed. "It's him, isn't it? He forbids you from traveling? He is always going places and you are never with him. I found that odd."

  Marla dragged her eyes from his. She didn't want him to see anything in her eyes. If he mentioned this to Ricky she would have hell to pay. Ricky was rabidly jealous of Yuri. It was the kind of black jealousy that consumed his every waking moment.

  "You both have a weird relationship," Yuri said contemplatively. "I have a confession to make."

  "What?" Marla looked into Yuri's dark brown eyes and then looked away. She saw sympathy in them. She didn't want his sympathy.

  "I used to stay up at night wondering how I could stop you marrying him. You looked like you were about to be fed to the lions at your wedding."

  Marla resisted the urge to nod like a marionette.

  "Lets talk about somebody else... anything else but Ricky and marriage and all of that heavy stuff..." she pleaded.

  Yuri was frowning at her now. "He has always reported that you guys are deliriously happy. And he did use the word delirious."

  Marla sighed. "That is so not true. I know delirious means hallucinating, so maybe it's true we are happy, in his head. Maybe he is the delirious one."

  "Level with me." Yuri gripped her hand firmly and spun her around to face him. "Marla...talk to me."

  "It won't make a difference if I do," Marla whispered hoarsely. "Yuri...just leave it."

  He looked at her so intently she was on the verge of breaking down and telling him everything. She sighed in relief when he turned away from her.

  He growled in frustration. "Fine!"

  He headed to the water.

  She breathed out tremulously and then followed him.

  Chapter Three

  It was almost dark when Yuri dragged himself from the water; he was tired, physically and mentally. He had tried to out swim his thoughts about Ricky and Marla. She was hiding something and she wasn't telling him. He sat on the warm sand and watched her as she swam fiercely through the water; maybe she was suffering from the same thing he was—a muddled mind, but who knew what Marla was thinking?

  This brought back flashes of the past, five years ago to be exact, when he had thought that something was eluding him. He had been astonished at the time that Marla and Ricky were an item, and he had even been more surprised that they had planned to get married.

  He blamed himself, of course. After university he had left Marla in Treasure Beach while he worked himself into the ground trying to at least earn enough money to be a proper husband. They were young, and everybody—his parents, Pops—encouraged him to work first…figure out what he was doing with himself before he even thought of marriage. It was sound advice; Marla was just twenty, he twenty-three.

  There was plenty of time to figure it all out. It had been an unspoken rule that Marla was his and he was hers. They didn't make promises because it was known. Everybody knew—including Ricky, especially Ricky.

  Ricky used to call him and faithfully report all of his conquests and regale him with his adventurous tales with women.

  When Yuri stopped taking his calls while at university, Ricky had visited him instead. Sensing that Yuri was fed up with his bragging, Ricky had changed tactics. He had even enrolled at the university to take business courses, which was shocking enough for Yuri because school never interested Ricky.

  He had dropped out when Yuri graduated. And Yuri had graduated despite all of Ricky's pleas for them to party or go to some fun place or the other. His needy friend had acted as if he wanted him to flunk.

  Looking back now, maybe that was exactly what he had wanted Yuri to do. Ricky hadn't counted on one thing though: the Scarletts were poor people and Yuri always knew in the back of his mind that it was a burden on his parents to send him to school, so he didn't waste time. He had a rich friend but he knew he was light-years away from Ricky’s lifestyle and he accepted that.

  He could clearly remember the first weekend he came home after being in Kingston for two months. It was also his second month at SofServ Tech.

  He had a financial plan that would see him saving enough money to get married. Marla could continue living with his parents, and then he would get an apartment for himself.

  He had come home brimming with confidence. In two more years he would marry Marla. That was all he thought of—marrying Marla.

  And then Ricky had seen him at the bus stop at Gutters and had dropped him home. That, he realized now, had not been a coincidence either. Ricky always seemed to casually show up when he was at the bus stop, when he was in university and now while he was working.

  In the forty-five minute drive, Ricky had not said a word about Marla; he hadn't even indicated that he and Marla were an item. But he had gushed about his new Porsche that his mother had bought for him as a birthday present. His latest toy would probably go the way of his other toys, neglected after the shine wore off. Ricky's parents were super rich and they indulged their only child with whatever he wanted.

  Yuri had nodded politely at his friend as he gushed about the car. He should have known that Ricky hated polite nodding. He hated when Yuri wasn't as excited about something as he was.

  "Come on man, you have to see it to believe it," Ricky had urged. "It's gorgeous."

  "I have to go home first," Yuri said. Ricky was overly enthusiastic even by his standards.

  "But why?" Ricky asked, puzzled.

  "Because I miss my parents and Pops," Yuri had frowned. It always puzzled him how lacking in sentiment Ricky was when it came to family. "And Troy is coming home from college too and Terri is making pudding. We don't have enough family gatherings these days."

  Ricky had shaken his head. His parents were quite content to not see him for a whole year; they left him in Jamaica with the nannies while they went about their business all over the world.

  His mother had been his father's mistress, a supermodel when she had him. The two had met in Treasu
re Breach where his mother had an elderly aunt who she visited frequently.

  His father had seen the young teenage beauty walking down the streets and had literally stopped in his tracks. It wasn't long before he was pledging her all his worldly goods and half of his kingdom.

  His mother, the shrewd businesswoman that she was, had smelled the opportunity to make it big despite the fact that his father was three times her age, had a beer belly and spoke in a German accent so thick she couldn't understand half of what he was saying most times.

  She told Ricky several times since his death that she had looked in his faded blue eyes and had seen her future. She had candidly told him that having him had been a strategic move. So when Costas Stravinsky, the German billionaire, died last year, Ricky was his joint heir along with his widow but Ricky could only access his vast fortune in portions, when he was twenty-one, twenty-five and thirty years old.

  His mother, the ever-beautiful and understated Francine Mills, who had not one motherly bone in her slender body, had bought him a Porsche because once more she was busy doing something else, somewhere else, with someone else. Ricky had been pathetically excited.

  His parents had always shown him their love by buying him gifts. He needed Yuri to see that though he didn't have a Pops and a father and mother who hugged him and cared about his well-being, he was still loved.

  Ricky turned down the Great Bay road with a look of resignation on his face. "Your sister can cook? Miss Prim and Prissy with the gray-green eyes."

  "Yep. She can cook better yet she can bake. Her puddings even taste better than Mom’s, and that is saying something."

  "That might be so, but she is a real pain, you know that." Ricky sighed. "I pity the guy who takes up Terri Scarlett on his head. She may look like a dream but she is a real pain in the..."

  Yuri grinned. "She doesn't like you either."

  "The feeling’s mutual," Ricky snorted. "I have other people who like me and for the record I have not tried anything with Terri. If I turned on the charm she'd be putty in my hands but I couldn't take the stress of being with her."