Title: The California Dashwoods
Author: Lisa Henry
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: May 1, 2018
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 62 000
Genre: Romance
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Synopsis
Make a new future. Choose your true
family. Know your own heart.
When Elliott Dashwood’s father dies,
leaving his family virtually penniless, it’s up to Elliott to do what he’s
always done: be the responsible one. Now isn’t the right time for any added
complications. So what the hell is he doing hooking up with Ned Ferrars? It’s
just a fling, right?
Elliott tries to put it behind him when
the family makes a fresh start in California, and if he secretly hopes to hear
from Ned again, nobody else needs to know. While his mom is slowly coming to
terms with her grief, teenage Greta is more vulnerable than she’s letting on, and
Marianne—romantic, reckless Marianne—seems determined to throw herself
headfirst into a risky love affair. And when Elliott discovers the secret Ned’s
been keeping, he realizes that Marianne isn’t the only one pinning her hopes on
a fantasy.
All the Dashwoods can tell you that
feelings are messy and heartbreak hurts. But Elliott has to figure out if he
can stop being the sensible one for once, and if he’s willing to risk his heart
on his own romance.
A modern retelling of Jane Austen's
Sense and Sensibility.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
His father’s hand was weightless.
Elliott held it gently, rubbing his thumb over the loose, wrinkled skin of his
knuckles. His father’s fingers were thin and fragile now, and scrubbed clean.
Elliott had never seen his father’s fingers without paint under his nails.
“Elliott,” Henry Dashwood whispered, and
Elliott lifted his blurry gaze. The smile on his father’s face was almost
beatific, but that was probably down to the morphine.
“I’m here,” he said, his throat aching.
“John’s here too, Dad.”
John Dashwood was seated on the other
side of the bed, his hands folded in his lap. His jaw was clenched tight, and
his gaze was fixed on some point just above Henry’s pillow.
Henry lifted his free hand and held it
out toward John. John looked startled for a moment, and then reached out and
took it gently.
“My boys,” Henry murmured. “My sons.”
They sat for a long moment as Henry
drifted off into a doze, only the sound of his heart monitor punctuating the
silence.
Elliott didn’t even realize Henry was
awake again until he spoke.
“John,” he said. “John, promise me that
you’ll look after your brother and your sisters.”
John seemed to recoil for a moment, and
then he wet his lower lip with his tongue. “I will, Dad.” He met Elliott’s gaze
and then looked down at their father again. “I promise.”
“Is Abby coming?” Henry asked, his voice
faint.
“Mom’s on her way, Dad,” Elliott said.
“She’s on her way with the girls.”
Henry passed away before they arrived.
***
Francesca Dashwood, John’s wife, arrived
the day after Henry passed away. She organized the entire funeral, shoving Abby
and her children aside as though Henry’s second marriage had been nothing more
than a footnote in the Dashwood Family history. Norland Park was filled with a
curious mix of mourners, well-wishers, and gawkers. Elliott, Abby, and Marianne
suffered their attention, or lack thereof, with varying degrees of politeness.
Greta, thirteen years old, locked herself in her bedroom and threatened to stab
anyone who tried to drag her out again.
Three days after the funeral, the Naked
Blue Lady vanished from her place above the fireplace, and that was when
Elliott knew for certain that Francesca had made her move.
The Dashwood Family—always a capital F
in Elliott’s mind, to distinguish it from the tiny offshoot that he considered
actual family—had never forgiven Henry for running off with the help—Abby—and
proceeding to prove their dire predictions wrong by living in wedded bliss with
her for over twenty years before the cancer took him. Abby had never been
interested in the Dashwood Family money. She’d signed the prenup the Family
lawyers had asked her to. In exchange, the Family had allowed Henry to retain
Norland Park and had provided him with a monthly allowance. Those, however, had
only been guaranteed for as long as Henry lived.
And now, staring at the blank space
above the fireplace where the Naked Blue Lady had hung, Elliott knew that he
and his mother and his sisters were next to go.
“She’s evil,” Marianne announced. “She’s
a horrible evil troll, and we should let Greta stab her.”
“She’s not evil,” Elliott began, and
caught Marianne’s look. “Okay, so maybe she’s a little bit evil, but she’s also
John’s wife, so can we try and be civil, please? Also, why does every scenario
that anyone in this family comes up with always involve Greta stabbing
someone?”
“Not every scenario,” Marianne said, her
slight smile vanishing as she looked at the blank space above the fireplace.
“Mom is going to be pissed.”
Right on cue, the French doors flung
wide open and Abby Dashwood swept through in one of her trademark kaftans. She
stopped when she reached the fireplace, and pressed a hand over her heart.
“That bitch! Where’s my painting?”
Elliott exchanged a glance with
Marianne, and together they stepped forward and put their arms around their
mother.
“I’m fine!” Abby shook them off. “It’s
fine!”
It clearly wasn’t fine. Their wonderful,
vibrant mother had been badly shaken by their father’s death. She had never
once allowed herself to believe that Henry wouldn’t go into remission.
“You have to think positive,” she’d said
a thousand times, and thought so positively herself that she had refused to
even begin to entertain any thoughts to the contrary. “Positive thoughts are
positive energy, and that’s what your father needs right now.”
Elliott wasn’t certain she’d actually come
to terms with the fact that he was gone. Even though they’d all sat in the
front row at the funeral, the Family on the left side of the chapel, and Abby
and her children on the right side, with poor John constantly darting between
both factions like some frazzled emissary, silently begging Elliott to please
prevent Abby or the girls from making a scene.
“Mom,” Elliott said now. “Come
upstairs.”
“Yes,” Abby said, and lifted her chin.
“Yes, let’s go upstairs and pack our bags! I’m not staying in this house a
minute longer!” She raised her voice for the benefit of any eavesdroppers.
“We’re clearly not welcome here!”
Marianne met Elliott’s gaze.
“Mom,” Elliott said, “we don’t have
anywhere else to go. We can’t just leave.”
“Oh, honey.” Abby smiled at him, her
eyes shining with tears. She reached up and cradled his cheeks in her palms.
“Of course we can! All we need is each other.”
And somewhere to stay. And jobs. And
money for college for Marianne and school for Greta. And health insurance. And
a million other things that their father’s savings would barely begin to cover.
But Elliott didn’t have the heart to say any of that.
“We can’t go anywhere yet, Mom,” he
said. “Not without a plan.”
“Oh, honey,” Abby said again, her smile
softening. “You worry too much.”
Marianne twined her fingers through
Abby’s and tugged her gently toward the stairs. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go and see
if Greta’s stabbed anyone yet.”
Elliott watched them leave, and then
headed down the hallway toward his father’s study.
Norland Park, outside of Provincetown,
was the only home Elliott had ever known. It had seven bedrooms, a sunroom, and
a large parlor that Henry had used as a studio. The house had been built in
1910 in the American Craftsman style, and purchased by the Dashwoods a little
over a decade later when Alexander Dashwood made his first million in the
burgeoning aeronautics industry. It had served as a summer house for the Family
for generations. And now they clearly wanted it back.
Henry Dashwood’s study was on the ground
floor beside his studio. The hallway smelled of his oil paints. Tears pricked
Elliott’s eyes, and he wiped them away before he opened the study door.
John was sitting at Henry’s desk,
flicking through paperwork. He looked up.
“Elliott,” he said, his expression
suddenly guarded. “Is everything okay?”
“Mom’s pretty upset,” Elliott said.
“The, um, the painting?”
John had the decency to look abashed.
“Francesca felt it was confronting.”
A wave of grief rose up in Elliott. He
could almost hear Henry’s voice. “Art is supposed to be confronting, Elliott.
It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable! It’s supposed to challenge you, to
shake you up, to make you feel!”
Which were all good points, but Elliott
still didn’t feel he could invite his friends over with the Naked Blue Lady
hanging over the fireplace. She was very, very blue, and she was very, very
naked. She was also his mom. Elliott had been twelve at the time, and not sure
how to explain to his friends that yes, that was his mother sitting spread-legged
on that chair, and yes, that was her vulva.
“It meant a lot to them,” he said.
John’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
And yeah, the painting meant a lot to
John too, didn’t it? It represented the moment Henry Dashwood had walked out of
his life and away from all his responsibilities as a father and a husband to be
with the college student he’d hired as John’s au pair for the summer. John
wasn’t a bad guy, but he was never going to be able to put that betrayal aside.
Elliott couldn’t blame him. Henry had been a wonderful father to Elliott and
Marianne and Greta. They’d stolen that from John, in a way.
“There’s a little over ten thousand
dollars in Dad’s savings account,” John said at last.
Elliott nodded. “It’s what he’d been
putting aside, except there’s not even enough for Greta’s school fees, let
alone Marianne’s college tuition.”
From the moment Henry had been
diagnosed, he’d saved what he could from his monthly payments from the Dashwood
family trust, but in the end it had been too little, too late. In the end he’d
gone so quickly, and there were funeral costs, and taxes, and bills for the
alternative treatments they’d tried when it was clear the chemo wasn’t
working—bills the insurance hadn’t covered.
John sighed. “Elliott, I promised Dad
I’d do what I could to help, but most of my assets are tied up in the
corporation, or held in trust. I mean, the board isn’t going to . . .” He
cleared his throat.
Elliott nodded, his eyes stinging again.
“I’ll see what I can do,” John said.
“But Francesca wants the house.”
Elliott nodded again, and slipped
outside before John could see him crying.
***
Greta’s bedroom overlooked the front
entrance of Norland Park, and she’d taken to leaning out of her window like a
particularly malevolent gargoyle and glaring at anyone who came or went. She
was a pretty girl, usually, when she wasn’t plotting murder behind the curtain
of her dark hair, but Elliott couldn’t blame her.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming, Elliott! Another one!”
Elliott couldn’t bring himself to care
enough to climb off her bed and go and see.
“It’s like Francesca can’t even wait
until she kicks us out to start filling the place with her awful friends! These
ones are driving an Audi.” She leaned further out the window.
“Greta!” Elliott leapt off the bed and
crossed to the window before she dived out of it. He wrapped an arm around her
and looked down.
The black Audi was parked close to the
front entrance of the house, and the two young men climbing out were both
wearing blazers, khakis, and boat shoes.
“Oh, look! It’s the Brooks Brothers!”
Greta exclaimed.
Greta had no volume control.
The young men looked up.
Elliott and Greta pushed back from the
window at the same time, and landed in a heap on the bedroom floor.
Greta stared at Elliott wide-eyed, and
he stared back.
Then, for the first time in what felt
like weeks, they both started to laugh.
***
The Brooks Brothers, Elliott learned at
dinner, were actually the Ferrars brothers. They were Francesca’s younger
brothers, Ned and Robert, and they apparently did something in construction. By
the looks of them, nothing at the dirty end of that business. The Ferrars
family resemblance was clear. The brothers were both tall, blond, and
good-looking in a way that had just as much to do with presentation as it did
with genetics. Skincare lotions and hair products and designer clothing gave a
glossy shine to the brothers’ otherwise ordinary exteriors. Elliott found
himself glancing at Ned’s profile more than once during dinner. His nose was a
little long for his face. His jaw was a little wonky. His ears stuck out a bit.
Without that two-hundred-dollar haircut working for him, would he still be as
handsome, or would the slightly awkward way he held himself be even more
apparent?
Elliott had never had a
two-hundred-dollar haircut in his life. His father might have grown up
obscenely wealthy, but his mother hadn’t. Two hundred dollars for a haircut
when there was a perfectly good pair of scissors lying around? Not on Abby’s
watch. Even now Elliott’s dark hair was tousled and unruly. When it was wet
after a shower, it hung in tendrils in his eyes and down the back of his neck.
When it was dry he rubbed some wax through it, stood it on end, and let it do
whatever the hell it wanted for the rest of the day.
And he was the most presentable of his
side of the family. He’d heard Francesca telling Robert exactly that after the
brothers had arrived, before conceding that he was also “the least
objectionable.”
Not exactly high praise, then.
Elliott glanced at Ned again, and this
time Ned caught his gaze and offered him a small smile. Elliott smiled back, a
little embarrassed to have been seen looking, and stabbed a piece of carrot.
Dinner with the Family was an ordeal.
And Elliott meant that in the most ancient judicial sense. At this point he
would rather choose ordeal by fire and walk over red-hot plowshares than endure
another round of stilted conversation and barely concealed barbs. In addition
to John and Francesca and the Ferrars brothers, Great Uncle Montgomery had been
in residence since the funeral. He hadn’t done much except wander around
Norland Park poking his cane into the wainscoting and announcing the presence
of dry rot, then making grumbled threats to sue Abby for failing to keep the
house maintained while she was a tenant.
A tenant.
Aunt Cynthia and her husband, Aldous,
had also been staying since the funeral. Elliott couldn’t decide if they were
better or worse than Montgomery.
“Oh, such pretty children,” Aunt Cynthia
had said the night she’d arrived. “They don’t look anything like Abby, do
they?”
Aldous had grunted. “That girl’s got
metal through her nose.”
Worse, probably. They were worse than
Montgomery. Montgomery might complain about holes in the wainscoting, but at
least he didn’t comment on the hole in Marianne’s nose.
With the arrival of the Ferrars
brothers, it didn’t take long for conversation at dinner to turn to the fact
that they now had more guests than available guest rooms.
“Well,” Francesca said, with a thin
smile in Abby’s direction, “I’m sure that the children can share, can’t they?”
Abby narrowed her gaze. “Excuse me?”
“I think it’s only fair to offer guests
a proper bedroom, isn’t it?” Francesca asked.
Elliott met John’s gaze. John glanced
away.
“Invited guests, yes,” Abby said. “But I
didn’t invite them.” She grimaced in the direction of Ned and Robert. “No
offense.”
They both mumbled something that sounded
vaguely polite.
“Well, I just thought that Marianne and
Greta could share,” Francesca pressed on. “That would free up a room.”
Abby drew a deep breath. “Excuse you. My
daughters don’t have to—”
“Ned and Robert can have my room,”
Elliott said, to head Abby’s diatribe off at the pass. Francesca looked smug,
John looked relieved, and Abby looked like she had a hell of a lot more to say
on the subject. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
Ned shot him a worried glance. “That’s
really not necessary.”
“I don’t mind,” Elliott repeated.
In the awkward silence that settled over
the dining room, Great Uncle Montgomery muttered about nonexistent mold spores,
and Greta turned her steak knife over and over in her palm in a thoughtful
manner that made Aunt Cynthia shuffle her chair a few inches further away.
Happy families.
***
Elliott trudged upstairs after dinner to
grab some spare clothes and his laptop and phone. He dragged a duffel bag down
from the back of his closet and shoved clothes into it. This was his room, but
he had known since his father died that he wouldn’t be allowed to stay in it.
The Family wanted them out of the house. It was a matter of when, not if.
Elliott slid his laptop into his bag,
then zipped it up and slung it over his shoulder. He stared down at his rumpled
bed, but fuck it. If the Ferrars brothers wanted clean sheets, they could find
them for themselves. Elliott crossed to the door and wrenched it open,
surprising Ned Ferrars.
He had a suitcase on wheels.
“Sorry,” Elliott said, and stepped
outside his room.
“No, um, I’m sorry.” Ned pressed his lips
together. A faint wrinkle appeared at the top of his nose, right between his
drawn-together eyebrows. “For, um . . . for your loss, and for everything.”
Elliott’s heart skipped a beat. He
didn’t think a single person associated with the Family in any way had stooped
to offer him their sympathies. At the funeral, everyone gave their condolences
to John, as though Abby and her children, even in that moment, were interlopers
with no claim on Henry Dashwood.
He was our dad too.
“Thanks,” he murmured, his throat
aching.
Ned nodded and wheeled his little
suitcase into Elliott’s room. The door snicked shut behind him.
***
Henry’s studio was largely undisturbed.
It smelled of oil paints and turpentine. Stacks of unfinished canvases leaned
against the walls. Elliott set his duffel bag down on the old paint-spattered
couch his dad used to take his naps on every afternoon. It still smelled
faintly of weed.
He crossed to the wall and traced his
shaking fingers down a canvas. The paint was laid on thick, in a choppy texture
that read like Braille. He closed his eyes and could hear Henry’s voice.
“This is art, my boy! Art! Nothing
matters more in the world!”
“Says the man living in a Cape Cod
mansion!”
Henry’s laughter had filled the room,
and then he’d grown uncharacteristically solemn.
“Alexander Dashwood used to fly kites,
you know? He used to watch the birds, and fly kites. He wanted to soar. He had
an artist’s soul as well, I think. What would he make of his descendants, hmm?
Making their fortune by manufacturing military drones. All innovators become
oppressors, given enough time.”
Elliott smiled, his chest aching, and
lifted his fingers away from the canvas.
“Love you, Dad,” he whispered to the silent
studio. “Miss you.”
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Meet the Author
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with
hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland,
Australia. She doesn't know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects
she's too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government
minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not
because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between
international school systems early in life. She studied History and English,
neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats,
a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in
every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
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