March 2025 #4
Sam nodded and then grinned, taking the hand just as he had Eddie’s. “You know he wants to be a marshal now, right? No more learning the family business. That will be for your second child here to take care of.”
“And I’m thrilled,” Edward assured him.
“Excellent,” Sam said, putting his stamp of approval on that.
“I’m going to study business so I can help my dad,” Tierney volunteered.
“That’s all a father can ask for.”
Tierney looked up at my husband like they were looking at the sun, and not squinty, but like they were loving the warmth on their face.
“Nice suit, kid.”
Tierney nodded. “Kola said he wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”
“No, me neither, but I’m betting your mom here bought it, and I’m sure my daughter, who knows about fashion, will love it when she gets here.”
Tierney was clearly very pleased with my husband.
Both Maura and I turned to him. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “How ya doin’ there, Mom, you all right?”
She nodded quickly. “Thank you so much for getting my idiot son––”
“Mom!” Eddie howled, horrified.
“––and his stupid friends out of that terrifying apartment building where those DEA agents were prepared to let them be killed.”
“Not killed,” Sam amended. “Probably.”
I let her go so she could turn and fall into my husband, wrapping her arms around his waist and heaving out a sob.
Checking his face, I saw him grimace like possibly things had been out of hand.
“When was all this?” I asked the hero in our midst who wasn’t hiding anything, instead grinning at me because yes, he’d just been caught not giving me the whole story on something.
“Maybe a week ago,” he confessed.
“There were people shooting, and they hit a gas line or something because half the building blew up and the chief deputy had to protect me and my buddy Colin,” Eddie explained.
“I was scared, and I won’t even lie about that to try and make myself look good.
But once he was there, saving us from the—what did you call them, Chief? ”
“Don’t worry about that,” Sam told him.
Maura laughed, Edward pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t, and Sam stepped up beside me and draped an arm around my shoulders.
“Thank you again for saving my son, Chief––”
“Just Sam,” he corrected Maura. “The title is for your son.”
“Sam,” she breathed out his name. “They just—I mean, he and his three friends just opened the wrong door after getting off the elevator on the wrong floor and––”
“It happens to the best of us,” Sam said kindly, tucking me into his side as I let go of Maura’s hands.
I turned into him, pressed my face into his chest, and closed my eyes.
“He’s been worried about ancient history,” Kola told his father.
“As you do,” Sam rumbled. “C’mere.”
“Oh, not you too,” Kola groaned. “Nothing bad even hap—oh.”
Sam yanked him in close, and I knew that because both of us were suddenly clutched tight as I heard my daughter.
“What is happening right now? Aunt Sandy, why is everyone crying in your vestibule?”
Like father like daughter.
Later, Michael came into the dining room where we were all getting dinner at the buffet set up there and charged up to his brother.
“Did you make Sandy cry?” he barked at my husband.
“No,” Maura answered for Sam, and Michael rounded on her. “Sandy made Sandy cry when she said something thoughtless to my child.”
Sandy joined us then.
“But she’s been forgiven, so we’re moving on.”
“Please let it go,” Sandy pleaded with him.
“I made Thea cry, though,” Hannah pointed out, putting salad on her plate. “Just a bit ago.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked his niece.
“Well, if you don’t have the balls to say something to my face, then you shouldn’t put it on Instagram either.”
“I––”
“And worse,” Hannah said, smiling, “you shouldn’t take it down when you get heat and say you never said it because that’s what screenshots are for.”
He turned to his wife. “I don’t understand.”
Sandy looked uncomfortable. “Apparently both Thea and Kitty said some rude things about Hannah online, and her followers—who there are apparently a lot of—have demanded that both my girls make a formal apology.”
“I told my followers it’s not necessary,” Hannah told her uncle as she stepped around him, adding more toppings to her greens. “Since, you know, we’re not close.”
“Hannah,” Sandy began, “I hope you can give my girls the same amount of compassion that Tierney gave me.”
“I wasn’t here,” Hannah said to Tierney, also making a salad on the other side of the table. “What happened? Gimme the deets.”
Tierney smiled at my daughter.
“Great suit, by the way,” Hannah commented. “Canali?”
“Yes.” Tierney’s whole face lit up.
“Heathered wool?”
Lots of nodding.
“It’s fabulous. Love the buttercup-colored shirt underneath and the blue suede wingtips as well. The blue-and-gold tie is playing it safe, though, don’t you agree?”
“I do,” Tierney replied, nodding.
“I have a place to show you wherein you shall find excellent, decently priced vintage pieces,” Hannah imparted. “I found a Halston there, from the seventies. It's a gold metallic silk wrap shirt dress, and I only paid five hundred.”
Tierney’s eyes nearly bulged out. “You’re kidding.”
Hannah shook her head.
“Where is this?” Sandy asked her.
“I’ll take you,” Hannah promised. “We can all go.”
Sandy smiled, and Michael turned to Sam, who only scowled.
“I––”
“Do better,” Sam ordered.
Michael walked away then, which really was for the best.
Sandy made it clear later that she would not interfere with whatever her daughters were engaged in with Hannah and left it at that.
That too, I thought, was for the best.
After dinner, Hannah was sitting with her brother, Tierney, and Maura. I was sitting with Sam or, more accurately, snuggled up into his shoulder.
“You realize, I wasn’t ever letting my kid go off to boarding school, right?
” I was quiet, and in response, he put a hand under my chin and tipped my head up so he could look down into my eyes.
I had no choice but to meet his steely gaze.
“There was no way. We even made a list of the pros and cons.”
And that I did remember. “Yes.”
He nodded. “We both agreed, the thing was for Kola to stay here with us, with his sister, and to go to the best private school we could find that would help him reach his goals.”
“Which we did.”
“That’s right.”
I sighed deeply and stayed where I was, soaking up all his strength and surety, leaning like I did on occasion, both literally and figuratively.
It was these moments, when I could simply turn off and tune out because my husband had me, and the rest of our family, that I appreciated him more than I could say.
To know you were mentally, emotionally, and physically safe was truly a gift.
“I’ve got you, you know,” he rumbled.
And I knew that.
That’s it. Have a good rest of March, all. I will fill you in on Hannah’s Ostara candles and St. Patrick’s Day when we chat in April.