Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Wright family estate felt like heaven this Labor Day afternoon, with four generations sprawled across the expansive deck overlooking the Atlantic.
Cici shifted in her deck chair, watching Callan’s eight-year-old daughter, Peri, holding Grant’s eight-week-old baby while Summer, Grant’s wife, hovered nervously nearby.
Cici’s grandparents reclined in a nearby seating area, chatting with Mrs. Ballentine, Forbes’s grandmother, who’d been adopted into the family along with Forbes.
Mom and Aunt Peggy were bustling around, refilling drinks and pushing appetizers. Dad and his brother, Uncle Roger, were playing horseshoes in the yard.
The late summer sun painted everything in golden hues, the overlapping conversations creating a symphony of belonging that made Cici’s heart overflow with gratitude.
Delaney was missing, her absence the only pall on the gathering.
Two weeks had passed since the horrifying incident that had changed Cici’s life. Her bruises had faded, though her ribs still ached. She was eager to feel normal again, if not to get back to work.
“Aunt Cici, look!” Peri held up the tiny baby like a trophy. “She smiled at me!”
“That’s probably gas,” Callan called from where he flipped burgers at the grill.
“Daddy! That’s not nice!”
Cici grinned, catching Asher’s eye on the far side of the little seating area. Also there were Michael, his wife, Leila, and the youngest Wright brother, Derrick. His wife—Leila’s twin—had just stepped away.
The sight of Asher fitting so naturally into her family’s chaos made something warm unfurl in her chest.
At a break in their conversation, she said, “Michael, I never properly thanked you for everything you did. With Gagnon and…”
“Don’t mention it.” He waved her off with a flick of his wrist. “Uncle Gavin beat me to the punch. His contacts are much higher level than mine are.”
The mention of Cici’s father made her stomach flutter with a familiar mix of anxiety and confusion. Since the incident, Dad had been…different. Gentler. More attentive. He’d called her every day, checking on her healing, asking about her business, actually listening to her answers. It was…bizarre.
She excused herself and made her way inside, finding Alyssa and Brooklynn in the kitchen. Brooklynn had a flair for making a charcuterie board a work of art.
Alyssa, ever the practical one, kept her from going crazy. “You don’t have to turn the pepperonis into flowers.” Her eye roll hinted at her exasperation. “It just makes people feel guilty for eating them.”
“But it’s so much prettier—”
“What’s going on with Dad?” Cici interrupted.
Both sisters looked up, and she caught the meaningful glance they exchanged.
“Right?” Alyssa said, unscrewing a jar of olives. “I wondered if he was doing it to you too.”
“What, exactly?” Cici managed to shimmy onto a stool on the opposite side of the counter, ignoring the twinge in her ribs.
“He’s been…” Brooklynn wagged her head. “Nice?” She said the word as if it tasted foreign. “Like, genuinely nice. Not his usual ‘I’m-being-civil-because-your-mother-is-watching’ nice.”
“He apologized to me.” Alyssa looked behind as if someone might overhear a terrible secret. “After everything that happened with Ghazi and Peri.”
Earlier in the summer, Alyssa had been kidnapped by a terrorist. Well, Peri’d been kidnapped. Alyssa had allowed herself to be taken so she could save the little girl. No wonder Callan was head-over-heels.
“He apologized?” Cici clarified. “Dad?”
“Yeah. And told me he was proud of me.” Alyssa shook her head in wonder. “I was still in shock after all the…well, you know, and I honestly thought I was hallucinating.”
“He’s been the same way with me,” Brooklynn added, leaning against the counter, giving up on her pepperoni flowers. “Ever since the fire, it’s like he’s trying to…I don’t know, make up for something. He told me my picture—the sunrise one?”
She asked the question as if they might have forgotten the gorgeous photograph that’d won her a coveted prize. As if they didn’t all have a copy hanging in their homes.
Cici tapped her nose. “I think I know which one you mean.”
Alyssa laughed, and Brooklynn said, “Shut up.” But her cheeks were turning pink. “I’m just saying, he told me it was beautiful, that he was… yeah, like you said.” She flicked a glance at Alyssa. “Proud of me.”
Alyssa set a handful of cheese slices on the wooden board. “I think…I think he’s finally figured out that he’s been a terrible father.”
The blunt assessment hung in the air between them.
Brooklynn fixed the cheese, arranging it just so. “He wasn’t…terrible.”
Alyssa’s eyebrows hiked. Cici just stared at her.
Brooklynn laughed first, and Alyssa and Cici joined in.
“Well, it’s weird,” Cici said.
“But nice,” Alyssa said. “I mean, maybe you didn’t need it, but I did.”
“Hmm.” Brooklynn returned her focus to the charcuterie. “Maybe a little.”
Cici had needed it. She’d craved her father’s love all her life. Apparently, all it took was a little near-death experience to—
“Girls.” Mom poked her head into the kitchen. “Hurry up with that. Forbes has some kind of grand announcement.”
Cici and Alyssa both looked at Brooklynn, who was careful not to meet either of their eyes as she grabbed the charcuterie and followed Mom toward the deck.
Cici and Alyssa followed. “You think he’s going to propose?” Alyssa whispered.
“Ooh, I hope so!”
“They’ve been together for like…five minutes.”
The engagement ring on her big sister’s hand glinted in the light. “Right. While you and Callan waited the respectable, what, month? Two months?”
“Whatever.” But she was grinning as they stepped onto the patio.
“There she is!” Forbes called. Brooklynn crossed the deck and stood beside him, beaming as if she knew exactly what this was about. So, probably not a proposal.
Brooklynn was looking right at Cici. Come to think of it, so was everyone else
“Uh…”
Asher slipped up beside her and took her hand, whispering, “Any idea what’s going on?”
Before she could answer, Forbes drew everyone’s attention. “First, thank you, Gavin and Evelyn, for inviting Gran and me today. And to the rest of you. You’ve welcomed us into your family, making us feel like we belong.”
“You do belong,” Evelyn called. “You’re one of us now.”
“God help you,” Derrick added, earning some chuckles.
Forbes grinned. “Cici, Asher, could you two come up here?”
She looked at Asher, whose face had paled the slightest bit. She had a sudden flashback to high school. He might’ve been the smartest kid in their class, but he’d always fumbled through presentations, blushing and umm-ing his way through his speeches.
She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped as she hooked her arm in his and urged him forward.
When they got to the edge of the deck where Forbes stood, he addressed the crowd again.
“I know you’ve all heard the story, so I won’t tell it again.
Suffice it to say…” He focused on her and Asher, “I can’t thank you two enough for what you did.
Not only did you return a family heirloom, but your actions also brought one more person to justice for my parents’ murders. Thank you.”
Cici gripped Asher’s arm, unsure what to say. It was a pleasure? Yeah, that’d be a bald-faced lie.
Anytime?
More like, never again.
Fortunately, Forbes didn’t expect her to speak. He reached into his jacket and pulled out two envelopes. “A gift, a token of my gratitude and that of my grandmother for your heroism. What you did means more than you’ll ever know.”
Cici took the one he handed to her. A brief glance inside told her it was a check. She held it out toward him. “Forbes, I can’t accept this. You’re practically my brother.”
“I like the sound of that.” But he didn’t take the check. “As your practical brother, I should tell you that it would be rude to reject it.”
That was true for gifts, but this was something else.
Asher had opened his envelope and pulled out the check. He was staring at it, his face pale. “I-I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can. And you will.” Forbes spoke like a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. “I know your dreams, Asher. This is enough to make them happen.”
Over the past few weeks, Forbes and Asher had struck up a friendship. She had no idea what the billionaire and the former trailer-park kid had in common. She loved that it didn’t matter at all where either one of them was from. They were both good men, and they liked each other.
“I don’t think…” Asher stammered. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“It wouldn’t feel right to Grandmother and me not to do this.” Forbes lowered his voice, speaking just loudly enough for Asher to hear. And Cici, if she eavesdropped, which she did. “That necklace is worth a lot more than the check in your envelope, and Cici’s life is priceless.”
Cici peeked at the check in her envelope. Oh, my. Her dream of her own jewelry store could come true too.
Asher said, “I get that, but—”
“Just take it.” Forbes chuckled, raising his voice again. “Sheesh, I’ve never had so much trouble giving money away.”
The crowd laughed, all except her father, who watched, arms crossed, from across the deck. His enigmatic expression had her heart dropping. Something was up.
He stalked forward and stopped at Asher’s side. “I’d like a word.”
Asher’s shoulders went rigid, and Cici caught the way his jaw tightened. He looked like a man about to face a firing squad.
“Dad? Is this necessary, right now?”
“It’ll only take a minute.” His tone was measured, but she could see the steel beneath it as he spoke to Asher. “Please.”
Funny how, even when he asked nicely, it sounded like a command.
The conversations around them gradually died as everyone sensed the shift in atmosphere. Even little Peri stopped chattering about the baby, her wide eyes darting among the adults.
Asher handed the envelope to Cici, his movements careful and controlled. She wanted to grab his arm, to tell her father to leave him alone, but Asher’s expression stopped her.