Jace wasn’t even sure if Sheldon was still alive. His search for his brother, who was older than Jace by more than two decades, would have to start at square one. It wouldn’t be easy. Yet someone had to know what had happened to him. Kelly said she thought he’d left the state. Why would he do that? He’d lived his entire life in Maryland. At the Kendall. Obviously, he had friends, business acquaintances elsewhere, maybe he’d gone to one of them? Jace wished he’d known his brother better, it would give him a clue now as to where to look.
All Jace could remember about his brother, other than their arguments, was that Sheldon was always at the farm and rode horses. Well, he certainly wasn’t here any longer, and apparently he’d left with only the shirt on his back.
* * *
THE SUN WAS relentless on Meadesville. Sheldon scraped the bottom of a boat, one of many he’d be attending to at the yacht club that day. It was only nine in the morning and already his shirt was crusted with salt-laden perspiration. The wire brush he was using had seen better days, forcing him to scrub harder to get the pesky crustaceans off the surface. Would anyone back at the Kendall believe that he would be doing this kind of work? The irony was staggering. First Sheldon had lost his precious family home and now he labored for the rich locals. To think that Sheldon had once looked down on his half brother. He’d always called Jason his half brother when he deigned to talk to him or of him. Now he understood.
Sheldon stopped scraping and stood up. His back hurt and his fingers were cramped. He looked out at the marina. Sailboats, cabin cruisers, watersport and racing boats stood majestically in the sunlight. He hadn’t been in Meadesville long. It was an affluent golf and boating community along the coast of North Carolina. The homes there were spacious and sold upwards of six and seven figures. They were newer than Sheldon’s former home in Maryland but didn’t have the history and time-honored traditions that the Kendall possessed. He’d been here for a little over eight months.
This hadn’t been his destination when he left Maryland. Sheldon had had no destination, actually. He was lost, angry and without resources. Even his experience with horses was out of date for training them. He’d never trained a horse, technically, but lied and said he had. There were horse farms in Virginia. He’d stayed at a couple of them briefly, but being around them made him homesick for Laura.
He’d moved on and tried Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, but found no work. He couldn’t remember how he got to North Carolina, only that he’d hitched a ride unaware and uncaring where the driver was going. All he knew was he no longer wanted to have anything to do with horses.
So he’d ended up in Albermarle. A man he met in a bar one night told him about a job and Sheldon followed up on it. He’d long since moved from believing he could find a management position on another horse farm. Apparently, his reputation as the former owner of the Kendall reached farther than he knew and no one would take a chance on him.
Lowering his expectations, he accepted the job maintaining the boats in the marina. The work was hard, unyielding, usually enhausting.
He wouldn’t complain. The old Sheldon would do nothing but complain, but this was a new world and he needed to adjust to it.
He prayed again that there was a little of Jason in him as he scraped the brush against the hull.
CHAPTER FIVE
SEVEN LONG AND very wide steps led to the porch of the big white house at the Kendall. Kelly stood as stiff as a statue next to one of the columns watching Jace stop his rental car in the circular driveway. She couldn’t believe he was disrupting her entire life after only a few hours. Behind her stood his duffel bag. She was throwing him out.
He got out of the car, looking up at her.
“Where’s Ari?” he asked. He probably thought her expression had something to do with his son.
“He’s fine. He’s taking a nap,” she answered.
“Nap? Ari doesn’t take naps.”
Her brows rose. “Apparently, he does.”
“What’s wrong then?” He came around the car and looked up at her.
“As if you didn’t know.” She spoke through clenched teeth.
“I clearly don’t understand.”
Kelly knew he was lying. Color crept up his cheeks turning his face to a beautiful shade of crimson. Picking up the duffel bag, she tossed it down the steps. Instinctively his hands came out and he caught the bag.
“What’s this?” He dropped it at his feet.
“You’re fired, Mr. Kendall.”
“Fired?”
“Yes, fired. I offered you room and board and to take your son in until you could get on your feet, and you repay me by going to the bank and trying to swindle me?”