Author's Note: Thanks to all who have read and made it this far! I've been greatly enjoying sharing this story with you so far and I hope you enjoy the next chapter. Special thanks to naybaybay, gerrylynnr, and Dear Miss V for providing reviews and feedback, it really means the world to me!
CHAPTER FIVE
The heat of the day had long since melted away into a cool summer evening, and Annie and Molly's peals of laughter echoed around the garden as they tossed a ball around for Sandy after dinner. Grace, settled on a chaise bench with Oliver's arm around her shoulder, mused happily that this peaceful time had become somewhat of a tradition for the mansion's residents. Annie and the orphans had delighted in exploring the mansion grounds when the weather cooled in the evenings, savoring the outdoor air of upper Fifth Avenue which was so fresh and clean compared to the oppressive, polluted environment at the orphanage in Lower Manhattan. And she and Oliver reveled in their joy as they chased Sandy around, played tag, and even—
SPLASH!
A loud groan erupted from the sliding glass doors behind them, where Grace saw with amusement that Drake had been walking by.
"Annie!" Oliver called in exasperation. "How many times have we told you, don't throw the ball for him so close to the fountain!"
"Sorry, Daddy! This ball is real bouncy!" she called back as she and Molly leaned over the edge of the fountain to help the now-sopping wet Sandy clamber out of the water, his tennis ball held triumphantly between his teeth. Grace couldn't help but laugh as Sandy shook vigorously from head to tail, sending a spray of water all over the two shrieking girls.
"I'm glad you're so amused by this," Oliver muttered, but there was a grin at the corner of his mouth as well. "I'm going to have to start paying Drake a bonus every time he gives that dog a bath, or he'll quit."
"I keep hoping those tennis lessons with Don will improve her aim," Grace said. "And yet …"
"We smell like wet dog," Molly announced as she and Annie bounced up the steps and settled at Grace and Oliver's feet on the marble floor. "Does this mean we gotta take a bath tonight?"
"Indeed it does," Grace confirmed.
She saw Oliver give her a questioning look out of the corner of her eye. Smiling, she gave him a nod.
"Girls," Oliver said, sitting up straighter and looking down at them. "We've got a bit of a, er, a proposal for you." Annie and Molly both turned from watching Sandy, who was lapping up a drink of water from the fountain, to look back at him. "I think by now you know that the next few weeks here at the house will be quite eventful."
"Yeah," Annie said, a touch of sadness in her voice. "Grace told us that you'll be doin' a … a …" She furrowed her brow. "What's it called again? When ya smush two companies together?"
"A merger," Oliver chuckled. "And you've certainly got the basic idea right, Annie. We've been working on this for quite some time, but there's still a lot of work left to be done and, unfortunately, the two of us will have our hands full with their team as soon as they arrive the day after tomorrow." He glanced at Grace hesitantly. She nodded encouragingly for him to go on, taking his hand in hers. "So we thought that, tomorrow, we might spend the whole day together. Just the four of us. What do you think about that?"
Annie and Molly both cheered as his words sank in.
"That's a swell idea, Daddy!" Annie crowed, grinning broadly.
"Well, we're glad you approve," Grace said with a demure smile. "Now, what would you girls like to do? It's entirely up to you."
Annie and Molly glanced at each other, silently conferring with their eyes for only a moment before Molly leaned over and whispered something in Annie's ear. Annie's eyes lit up, and she nodded vigorously.
"Yeah! Tell 'em, Molly!" Molly, suddenly shy, blushed bright red and shook her head. Annie nudged her shoulder gently. "It's all right, Molls. You don't have to be shy."
Grace glanced at Oliver and saw he was looking at her as well with a smile. They both enjoyed seeing the interactions between Annie and Molly. Annie was such a good model for the younger girl, constantly encouraging her and helping her break out of her shell. It was apparent that she had long been Molly's protector and stand-in older sister from their earliest days at the orphanage, and there truly was a special relationship between them.
"Well," Molly said slowly, "Annie and me was talkin' the other night about how you're readin' us Treasure Island at night before we go to bed, and we was sayin' how neat it would be to see the ocean. Is it real far from here?"
Oliver laughed. "It just so happens, Molly, that the ocean is quite close by. And since you girls have been cooped up in an orphanage for your whole lives and have never had the pleasure, I think that's the perfect place to go."
"And …" Grace said quietly, giving Oliver's hand a gentle squeeze. He smiled.
"Don't worry, I'm getting there." He turned his gaze back to Annie and Molly. "And, girls, one more thing." They looked up at him eagerly, their faces shining with excitement. "We also thought …" He coughed, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Well, we also thought that, if you'd like, tomorrow could be a bit of a celebration."
"A celebration?" Annie asked. "How come?"
"Because," Oliver said, "I would like to ask if Molly would like to be a part of our family, and stay here with us permanently."
For a long moment, there was silence. Grace and Oliver watched as expressions of confusion slid across the girls' faces, then dawning comprehension, and then—well, if they had rehearsed deliberately they couldn't have come up with two more opposite reactions! Annie jumped to her feet and whooped at the top of her lungs with joy, while Molly's little face crumpled as big, wet tears spilled out of her eyes.
Oliver looked at Grace in alarm, but only for a second before the breath was knocked out of him as a small body hurled itself into his arms.
"I sincerely hope, Molly, that these are tears of happiness?" he asked cautiously.
The small brunette nodded from somewhere near Oliver's elbow, her body shaking with sobs. Grace laughed, tears almost coming to her own eyes as Annie cheered and threw herself into Oliver's arms as well.
"Oh, Molly, d'you know what this means! We're gonna be sisters! Real sisters! And ya don't have to worry anymore about going to a new family all by yourself! You'll stay right here with us, and you and me'll be together for always!"
So that was why Molly had been acting so depressed lately! Had she been afraid to be adopted by a new family all by herself this entire time? Well, she wouldn't have to worry about that any longer. Grace's eyes met Oliver's over the two small shapes still hugging and crying in his lap, and the happiness she saw reflected in them brought a rush of joy to her own heart. She heard his voice from earlier in the summer echo in her memory—"I do not now and never will love children!"—and almost laughed aloud at the wonder of it all.
The four of them traipsed back inside as darkness slowly crept over the hedges. Grace, holding Molly's hand and walking behind Annie and Oliver, saw the older girl tug on his sleeve and stand on her tiptoes to murmur something to him. Oliver gave her a startled look, then bowed his head and whispered something back. Over Molly's excited chatter, Grace heard tidbits of Annie's response float back toward them on the evening breeze.
"… don't need to be nervous, Daddy! … know she's gonna say yes no matter what … !"
Grace couldn't help but smile to herself. Clearly she wasn't the only one hoping that Oliver would ask another very important question soon.
For years to come, Annie and Molly would describe the first day they ever spent at the ocean shore as one of the best days of their young lives.
As two children who had spent years trapped in a stuffy and overcrowded orphanage, they had rarely been given the freedom to see the sights and sounds of the city immediately around them, let alone anywhere farther afield. Annie's occasional escape attempts from the orphanage had given her only a very limited sense of the world beyond those walls: she had once managed to venture as far from Hudson Street as the Chelsea Piers, and on a separate escape she had caught a glimpse of the Flatiron Building from a few blocks away while running from a policeman.
But a much broader world was at Annie and Molly's fingertips now that they were in Oliver Warbucks's care. Every new voyage beyond the mansion's gates was a delight, one that could never have been imagined while they lived trapped within the orphanage's miserable confines. And as for their first time seeing the beach, the warm sand, and the blue majesty of the ocean, and above all the amusement park sights and sounds of Coney Island? That was a dream in a league of its own.
Coney Island was jam-packed on that hot August day, but the four of them managed to carve out a small space under a handful of umbrellas to lay down their blankets. Annie and Molly immediately raced off toward the water, barely listening to Grace calling after them to remain close to shore and not stray too far from their watchful gaze. Punjab and the Asp, as experienced bodyguards who preferred to avoid crowded public places at all costs, had been less than thrilled about the girls' choice of excursion and were watching sullenly from a short distance away under their own umbrella.
"Of course the day they chose to go to the beach would just happen to be the hottest day of the summer," Oliver said with a grumble as he unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeves of his white linen shirt. Grace merely laughed.
"The beach is a perfect place for children on a day like this," she said, smoothing her sundress over her knees. She glanced over her shoulder. "Although I can't say that Punjab and the Asp look thrilled to be here. I'm sure they might have preferred we go up to Connecticut. The beaches wouldn't be nearly as crowded as this."
Oliver glanced at her in surprise. "Do you wish we had? I'm sorry to say I didn't even think of it."
She shook her head. "No, I'd rather be here. I would have felt obligated to invite my family if we had gone up there." She laced her arm through his and drew herself closer to him with a smile. "And having this time alone with you and them is what I wanted."
"It is a rare treat," he said with a smile. "And look around."
She raised an eyebrow and did so, scanning the crowds of beachgoers around them. "Hm?"
"Not a camera or journalist anywhere in sight," he said with a grin, leaning forward and kissing her softly.
"A rare treat indeed," she murmured.
And it truly was. For the last month since Annie's rescue from the bridge, Grace and every other resident of the Warbucks home had felt as though their entire lives were being scrutinized under a microscope by the outside world. Of course, journalists had been a semi-frequent feature of life at the mansion long before Annie's arrival. Oliver Warbucks was one of the wealthiest men in the country, and practically everything he did on a daily basis was news that someone cared about, from what stocks he bought to what suits he wore and what brand of cereal he ate for breakfast.
But the media frenzy around the mansion had taken an entirely different turn ever since his radio appearance offering a cash reward for Annie's parents. Grace had watched the press coverage of the quest for Annie's parents with despair, hating for the child's sake how many people around the country had borne witness through newspaper and radio reports to the ridiculous and shameful spectacle of hundreds of fake couples claiming to be her parents.
And the news of her attempted kidnapping and dramatic rescue? It had unleashed pure pandemonium. For weeks, hordes of newspaper reporters had set up a makeshift campsite outside the mansion's front gates and made a complete nuisance of themselves, constantly photographing the comings and goings from the house and harassing the staff for interviews on their way to and from work each day.
Oliver had gone so far as to issue a near-total ban on any newspapers in the mansion, trying to—as he claimed—shield Annie's eyes from the seemingly unending series of overdramatized articles about her kidnapping, rescue, and adoption. The last week had been especially bad, as the Hannigan siblings and Lily St. Regis had made their first public court appearance in connection with Annie's kidnapping. For a girl who until just a few short weeks ago had been a complete nobody, just another nameless orphan struggling to make it through the day, that sort of attention couldn't be a good thing. It was better that she remain ignorant of it all.
But Grace knew that Oliver was also trying to protect her.
She didn't know which of the journalists it had been, but one of the particularly quick-thinking ones who had tailed the police sirens to the bridge that fateful night had somehow snapped a photograph of the two of them, their hands clasped tightly together, watching in horror as Annie's little body dangled high in the air. Although no reporters had been invited to Annie's adoption party, a handful had managed to sneak onto the mansion grounds and capture more photographs of Grace and Oliver together, happily linked in each other's arms and celebrating Annie's adoption and their own potential future together.
And from there, that story had also exploded like wildfire. Oliver Warbucks, business titan, cornerstone of the global economy, and no doubt one of the world's most eligible bachelors—romantically involved with his secretary? She had known that the public reaction to news of their relationship was likely to be negative, but even still, the vitriol of some of the language she had seen in print had truly shocked her. Endless headlines proclaimed that she must be pregnant, she must be a gold digger with a history of pursuing wealthy men, she must be blackmailing him with evidence of some deep dark crime he had committed … the rumors and accusations went on, each more sensationalist and far-fetched than the last, and the fact that there was not a single shred of evidence to support any of it didn't seem to matter.
Fortunately, Oliver had assured her—more often than once, and quite convincingly—that he had never cared what newspapers printed about him and wasn't about to start now. But he was incensed for her sake, and even more so that his multiple threatening phone calls to prominent New York publishers had failed to stem the tide of news stories about them.
Grace sighed. For as much as she loved film and movies, she had never herself wanted to experience the constant scrutiny of a life lived in front of the cameras.
But enough of all that.
"When was the last time you came to the beach, Oliver?" she asked. "I can't say it strikes me as a place where you would spend a lot of time."
He thought for a long moment, turning his gaze back toward the surf where Annie and Molly were jumping up and down over the waves crashing upon the shore.
"Hm, I honestly can't remember. It's probably been quite some time. I never yearned for the sight of ocean too much after spending so many years crossing the seas back and forth as a cabin boy." He smiled slightly. "Although the view of the ocean from land is much more appealing than when all you can see is an endless expanse of water in every direction."
"You'll have to tell Annie and Molly some of those stories one day," she said with a smile. "How your ship was requisitioned into service for the Boer War, the time you narrowly averted a dramatic sinking off the coast of Nova Scotia …"
He laughed heartily. "Those stories are certainly more enjoyable to tell on solid ground, and after many years have elapsed." He paused, reflecting quietly. "I think the last time I can remember coming to the beach for pleasure like this was when I was a child, probably about Annie's age. We didn't live too far from the coast. In fact, I remember that I once dared Davey that he couldn't swim all the way from Liverpool to the Isle of Man and back again in time for supper!"
Grace laughed too. "Good heavens, some older brother you were!"
"He got fairly far out to sea, too, before my mother noticed how far he had swum and called him back. She wasn't too thrilled with me." He chuckled, and then fell silent.
Grace watched him for a moment, then took his hand in hers. "It's nice to hear you tell stories about him, Oliver. I know you prefer not to, but when you do, I enjoy hearing them."
"Sometimes it's nice to remember after so many years," he said quietly, gazing out toward the water before he turned his gaze back to her. "And it's nice to have someone to share them with."
She squeezed his hand with a smile. "The girls like hearing your stories, too."
"You think so?"
"Of course they do. They idolize you. They want to know everything about how you became the man you are today."
Oliver laughed. "Maybe not everything. Some of those stories are best left in the past." His eyes met hers. "You know, I will say, I still sometimes feel at a comparative disadvantage."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you know so much about me," he said. "My stories, my history. Things you've picked up over the years by virtue of working for me. But I still feel as if I'm playing catch-up to learn about you."
Grace was touched. "Well," she said softly, "I did pick up a lot over time, having been quietly in love with you for years." Sometimes, in spite of everything that had happened between them in the last month, she still felt a rush of embarrassment that brought a flush to her cheeks before speaking so openly with him. "What else do you want to know about me?"
"Everything," he said honestly, leaning forward and kissing her softly.
She smiled, feeling a shiver run through her at his closeness.
"Hm," she said. "Well, since we're here, I can certainly say that I loved going to the beach when I was a child. We went often in the summer, after church on Sundays. My mother and I would build sand castles while my dad, Walter, and Charlie played ball in the surf. Charlie taught me to swim in the ocean." She laughed slightly. "Although mercifully he never dared me to swim all the way from Connecticut to Long Island. I probably would have tried, just to make him proud."
"I'd like to meet Charlie sometime," Oliver said. "If, er, if you think it would be a good idea."
Grace was silent, gazing at the man next to her for a long moment before a tender smile crept across her lips. "I would like that very much, Oliver." She bit her lip. "He won't really understand who you are, of course. Sometimes when I visit, he even has trouble remembering who I am. But …" She felt a catch in her throat. "It would mean a great deal to me for him to meet you, and Annie and Molly too."
"Have you talked to them about him?"
"A little," she said. "They know that Walter and I have another brother, and that he was wounded in France during the war so now he lives at a special home for veterans. But they don't know much beyond that." She smiled. "I think the girls would have liked him very much, the way he used to be. He was so cheerful, always joking around and telling stories."
"I wish I could have met him back then too," Oliver said honestly. "I'm not sure that Walter cares for me much. Your father seems to have made his peace with me."
Grace sighed. "Walter likes you just fine, Oliver. You have to remember that he hasn't had many opportunities to get to know you. If I had to guess, he might seem a bit aloof because he's intimidated. You're not exactly any ordinary man I could have brought home." She felt herself blushing again. "That being said, I do think Rebecca has helped both him and my father get used to our situation. She has known how I feel about you for a long time, and she was thrilled when I told her about us."
He chuckled. "Any advocacy on her part is appreciated."
"And," Grace went on, "I think my father has a great deal of respect for you. I'm not just saying that!" she added quickly when Oliver raised a skeptical eyebrow. "He's spent his whole life running a business, so I think he admires what you've been able to accomplish. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure he would ever think anyone was good enough for his only daughter. He's very protective. So I'm glad for how he's responded to it all, and you should be too."
"Daddy! Grace!"
They both turned their heads in the direction of Annie's call. From down near the surf, she gestured toward them excitedly.
"Can you help us build a sand castle?"
Oliver laughed. "We'll be right there."
"Oliver!" Grace protested. "I'll get sand all over myself."
"Didn't you just say you have some expertise in sand castle construction?" he asked, smiling as he rose to his feet and pulled her up alongside him.
"I suppose I did," she said with a grin. "Hold this, would you?"
She handed him her sunhat. Then, quick as a flash she had pulled her sundress up and over her head.
Oliver's mouth dropped open in shock, and for a long moment all he could do was stare. Grace merely smiled as she watched his eyes rake up and down her form. He had never seen her in a swimsuit before, and this one—a lovely royal blue with white trim—left far less to the imagination than the skirt suits and dresses she wore every day for work.
"See anything you like?" she whispered with a wink, pulling the stunned man in for a kiss before she grabbed his hand to pull him through the other beachgoers down to the shore.
Watching Annie and Molly's enthusiasm as they dug through the sand, dug up small shells and pebbles in every color of the rainbow, and constructed their first sand castle—which, as it turned out, looked more like a castle ruin in spite of their collective best efforts—was a pure joy for both Grace and Oliver that day. The smallest things, from seeing a little sand crab scurrying into the water to shrieking and jumping as waves crashed over their feet, were enough to spark peals of laughter. Before the afternoon sun hit its highest peak in the sky, Annie and Molly's cheeks and shoulders were already reddened with sun, their hair flecked with sand and bits of seaweed.
The rest of the afternoon was equally magical: arcade games at the boardwalk, hot dogs and cotton candy along the pier! Molly clung to Grace tightly the entire ride up and around the Ferris wheel, and try hard as Annie might, she couldn't convince anyone else to join her for her first attempt at a roller coaster. The heat of the day had started to dissipate late in the afternoon by the time the four of them piled back into the car, shaking sand all over the seats and floor.
"Daddy?" Annie asked dreamily, her eyes drifting shut as the heat of the day finally overpowered her. "Can we come here every day?"
Oliver chuckled. "Every day might be a bit much, Annie, don't you think? But I certainly think we can make this into a summertime tradition."
Grace smiled, caressing Molly's hair as the already sleeping six-year-old began to snore lightly in her lap. Seeing Oliver excited about building family traditions with his children was something she never could have imagined, and to have been a part of it herself? It was a memory to be cherished.