Chapter Twenty-nine – Universe
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sadie
UNIVERSE
Performed by Kelsea Ballerini
I didn’t have much time to think about Rafe and me, or Rafe in LA confronting Adam, or what would happen after my plane left the next day, because the preparation for the wedding kept me going nonstop. The work was soothing, but it also made me wonder how Lauren had handled it without the extra pair of hands I provided. It wasn’t until after the bride and groom had said their ‘I dos’ by the waterfall with the sun setting around them, and the party had moved to the tents up by the corrals, that I finally stopped to catch a breath.
The temperatures, that had remained pleasantly in the low eighties all day, drifted downward into the chilly territory as twilight settled over the land. A wind brushed over me as I stood at the edge of the dance floor, watching the bride and groom’s first dance.
I looked down at my phone, hoping to hear Rafe had landed at the airport just outside of town. He’d texted me to say he was on his way over an hour ago. It had been another brief, concise, to-the-point text like all the ones he’d sent throughout the day, keeping me abreast of what was happening. If I hadn’t heard the I love you he’d said that morning, the messages would have seemed cold and detached, but the simple fact he took the time to send them to me because he knew I’d be worried showed the depths of how much he cared.
Unfortunately, by the time the SWAT team had arrived at the hotel by the airport, Adam had been gone. Rafe had spent the day with the LA police as they’d tried to find him, but he’d vanished from sight again.
“Is he on his way?” Lauren asked, stepping up next to me with a clipboard in her hand.
“He should be here any minute.”
Lauren looked more put together, more beautiful tonight, than at any other time since I’d arrived. She wore a vivid magenta dress partnered with a pair of white cowboy boots that matched the ones Fallon was wearing. The teen and her friend were huddled on the other side of the dance floor, whispering and sending darted looks in Parker’s direction.
He was not dressed for a wedding. Like all of Steele’s security team, he was in black cargo pants and a black T-shirt with military boots on his feet. With his dark hair and gray eyes, he looked like he was made to blend into the shadows. If I’d been Fallon’s age, I might have had a crush on him too.
The marquee was brimming with the security tonight, just like the ranch had been overflowing with the teams all day. While Rafe’s men had been in black outfits like Parker, Lorenzo’s had worn dark suits and sunglasses like some sort of Secret Service wannabes. The two groups had been hyperaware, eyes scanning the surroundings, bodies tight and ready to shift into action, but they’d given each other a wide berth.
Seeing all the highly trained men with guns hovering, I’d felt silly requesting my own weapon, but it had given me a piece of my control back the shooting the night before had stolen away. It also brought me some sort of strange comfort, simply knowing it was a part of Rafe’s history that was touching my skin. This evening, I’d found a wide band that had allowed me to tuck the Liliput to my thigh under the lavender sundress I’d bought in Vegas—the same one I’d worn the night we’d found the rattler in Rafe’s bed.
Lauren sighed as she watched her daughter. “She’s going to have her heart broken if she keeps sending him googly eyes, but right now, she doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say about Parker or anything else. She’s furious at me for not seeing what she saw happening between Adam and Spence. I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me for how I abandoned her this year, and I’m not sure she should.”
My heart cracked for all of them all over again, and even though I was frustrated with her for using Rafe’s guilt against him and sending him on the hunt for Adam, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to ease her concerns. “If it helps, I don’t think you have to worry about her and Parker. She knows he’s too old for her, and he certainly doesn’t look at her in the same way.”
“Sometimes, that only makes you try harder though. Don’t you remember being a teenager and wanting someone so bad it felt like your insides were going to shred if you didn’t have them?” she asked, turning from watching her daughter to me.
For the first time, I felt her truly assessing me. Not as the person who could help her with the ranch, or even as a guest, but as the person Rafe had been kissing.
“Honestly, no. I liked the boys I dated in high school, but it was all carefree teasing. None of the angst you read about or see in teen dramas. We were all just out to have fun most of the time. Didn’t prevent me from getting into mischief that drove my parents and my brothers batty, but it was still mostly lighthearted.”
“But what’s happening between you and Rafe isn’t lighthearted fun, right?” The hint of defensiveness in her tone took me by surprise. I was almost certain it had nothing to do with jealousy but an actual protectiveness for someone she cared about. Did she realize Rafe was as clueless as her daughter about how much she cared?
“I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for Rafe. Is it crazy to think that everything that started all those decades ago with our families was supposed to happen just to lead me to him?”
Lauren smiled. It didn’t happen often, and she was stunning when she did. In those moments, I could see how both Rafe and Spence would have fallen head over heels for her.
“I don’t know what Rafe told you about what happened between us…” She stopped, as if to see if I’d offer anything up, and I didn’t. I knew some, but not enough, and I wanted to hear her side of the story. “The truth of the matter is, I loved them both. Spencer and I had a connection we couldn’t deny. I never had to fall for him. We just loved each other from the get-go, so when he went off to college and broke up with me so we could see other people and make sure the love we felt wasn’t just friendship, I was devastated. How could he ever think it wasn’t? I went off the deep end a bit, but Rafe was there to catch me. And I didn’t have to fall for him either because I’d always loved him too. If I’d had my choice, I would have kept them both.”
I must have made some sort of noise at her shocking confession because she laughed softly. “I know. How forbidden of me to think it, right? But I would have been happy living here with the three of us together in some sort of polyamorous relationship. I didn’t want to choose between them. But that would never have worked for Rafe or Spence. Their dad had fostered this stupid competition between them from the time Rafe was born. And worse, Kade always showed he was rooting for Spencer simply because he was the firstborn son. Or maybe it was because Rafe didn’t fall into line and believe he was less just because he'd been born second. Either way, it hurt them both—deeply.
“Rafe wanted what Spence had, and Spence wanted what he perceived as Rafe’s freedom to choose. They both envied each other. Spence never expected Rafe and me to hook up though, and when he found out I was pregnant with Rafe’s child…” She shook her head, sadness in every syllable as she said, “I destroyed the tenuous bond they’d been able to forge even as their dad had tried to prevent it.”
The music stopped and started, families filing onto the dance floor. The bride was now with my cousin, the groom with his mother. Maisey and Fallon joined the crowd, smiling and laughing and moving their bodies. I wanted to dance along with them. I wanted to let the rhythm wash away my worries. But while I hadn’t exactly promised Rafe I wouldn’t dance without him, after what he’d said in the safe, I didn’t want any other body but his tucked up against me.
“What made you choose Spence instead of Rafe?” I asked.
“Spencer threw me in the car and started driving to Vegas.” She laughed. “I mean, I could have said no. I’m not sure he would have let me, but he also wouldn’t have forced me. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
I thought of the way Rafe had taken control of everything between us and yet given me a way out at every step, and I nodded.
“I guess Spencer and I both knew we belonged here on the ranch and that our brothers needed something more. They needed the world to bow down before them,” she said, and I heard the pain in her words as she thought about Adam.
“Your brother came home,” I said.
“After Kade died, Spencer had a hard time keeping track of the money and accounting. Things were falling through the cracks, and Adam had lost a big account at the financial firm he’d worked for. He took a hit to his ego, and I told him to come home and regroup. I didn’t think he’d stay, but he did, and he seemed happy here. We all seemed happy here.”
Not all. Rafe hadn’t been here. He’d been cut out, even if it had been by his own request. He’d created an entire empire and made a boatload of money, but from the very first moment we’d met, I sensed he’d been as lonely as I’d been. The fact that none of them had chosen him first, or insisted he come home, made me even more determined to show him someone would. That I would.
I swallowed hard, thinking about what that meant. Of the things—and people—I’d have to give up to do so. It hurt, but not as badly as it could have, because I’d have Rafe. Because I’d be doing it for the glimmering, shiny gift that was him and me—us.
As much as I despised asking her my next question, even thinking it, I still had to know the answer. So, I choked out, “Did you think you could have him back now? Rafe?”
Lauren looked startled by my question, and she was quick to shake her head, but there was a look on her face that said she was considering it. It made me want to unleash my claws and take aim. She was quiet for a long moment, watching Fallon and Maisey as they swung each other around, faces alight with happiness.
After too many seconds had passed for my tense heart, she finally said, “No. I lost Rafe when I chose Spence. He’d never give me a second chance with his heart. He doesn’t give second chances easily. Besides, Fallon would despise me even more if I tried to make her dad mine. She loved them both too, completely and adoringly. She had two incredible dads, and while she had to share Spence with me, she’s never had to share Rafe, and she likes it that way.”
In giving up any chance with Rafe for her daughter, it was the first time since I’d arrived that I saw her doing something for Fallon instead of the other way around.
An alarm on her phone buzzed, and she looked down at it with a tired sigh. “Time for the cake cutting.”
“Do you want help?” I asked.
She huffed out a half laugh. “You’re good at that—helping. So much so people don’t even realize everything you’ve done until after the fact. But I’ve noticed, Sadie. How you’ve made Rafe smile, and the way you’ve been there for Fallon. I saw how much of the load you took this week when you should have been our guest. Thank you. Thank you for all of it. But mostly for giving Rafe someone to love again. That’s the best thing you’ve done all week.”
And then she walked away before I could respond. I wasn’t sure I could have anyway. My heart was in my throat. My stomach full of butterflies. I had no clue what my life would look like, how I’d spend my days while Rafe worked, but the most important thing was to wake up at his side and go to sleep tucked up against him. Love was what mattered. It was how I could make a difference in this world. I could be there for the one person who truly needed me.
The realization brought joy but also a fair amount of panic.
A body filled in Lauren’s empty spot next to me, and I turned to see my cousin offering me a glass of champagne. I took it but didn’t sip at it. After everything I’d learned about him from Gia and Rafe, I didn’t trust him. Add in how he’d had me followed and all but threatened the man I loved, and it made it so I didn’t even like him.
“Little cousin, I’m upset you’ve taken something from me I thought was mine.”
My brows went up. What the hell was he talking about? The jewelry? I hadn’t told him I had it, so how did he know?
“As far as I know, Lorenzo, I haven’t claimed anything that was yours. If either of us has a reason to be upset, it’s me, for multiple reasons, starting with how you had me followed.”
That strange stillness that always surrounded him evaporated in a fairly loud chuckle. It wasn’t the dark and broody one I loved from Rafe, and it wasn’t the tense one Lorenzo had given me when we first met. It was almost light. “Marquess and Steele figured it out? Interesting.”
He drank some of his champagne, waved at mine. “Lighten up, cousin, it’s a wedding.” When I still didn’t drink, he turned serious. “He’s poisoned you against me, I see. No one trusts anyone these days.”
I scoffed. “Because you’re the trusting sort?”
He shrugged. “You’re right. I’m not.”
After a beat, I asked, “So what is it you think I took?”
Puzo slowly waved a hand at the dance floor and the buildings beyond it. “I wanted the ranch, the entire community Rafe tossed aside without a second glance. Now, he won’t walk away from it because you reminded him of what he had waiting for him.”
“He’d kill you and himself before he’d let you have the ranch. That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the two of you.”
He pondered my words before saying, “Perhaps.” After another few seconds, he added on, “He never believed me, but the reason my cousin’s men could never turn on me like the feds hoped wasn’t because they were terrified of what I’d do to them. It was simply because I hadn’t been involved. I didn’t know what Ike and Theresa were up to and would have put a stop to it if I’d found out.
“Since I took over the reins of the family business, I’ve done everything in my power to legitimize us. Ike’s side of the family was pissed that our grandfather left me in control. They thought I was weak because I wouldn’t do things the way our family before us had. Unfortunately, Rafe got in the middle of a war he didn’t realize was being waged.” I made a sound of disbelief, and he continued, “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Rafe’s cocky ass, and I’d be happy to see him take a fall, but not at the risk of losing everything my family has built.”
“I think he has a scar along his rib cage that proves otherwise,” I said dryly.
“Yes,” he said quietly, weighing every word before he spoke again. “An Italian family always gets revenge for crimes against their own.”
Was he basically admitting he’d put a hit out on Rafe? I drew in a sharp breath, and Lorenzo heard it.
“You misunderstand. Ike may be in jail, but he has brothers and sisters. They’re not here tonight because of our own disagreements, but plenty of my family hates Rafe Marquess for having put Ike behind bars. At the time, they demanded I get revenge, but I wanted nothing to do with murder. Instead, I came here, to Rivers, trying to understand the man who’d gone toe to toe with us. And I found things I’d never expected. Untarnished land. A community where the Marquess and Harrington names held respect not based on fear but based on years of good deeds. For the first time in my life, I was jealous of someone. I wanted what he’d had and tossed away.
“Our family has had lives in our hands that we crushed, businesses we decimated and then recreated. We have dirty city streets and dark alleys. Seeing what Rafe threw away made me determined to make it mine. What better way to get revenge for my family? I wanted the men in this town, the businesses, to look at me with gratitude and respect that was given because of the helping hand I’d extended rather than the slap I’d delivered. And I would have had it if you hadn’t shown up.”
Fallon and Maisey had made their way over to my side of the dance floor, and with a darted glance in Lorenzo’s direction, Fallon spun toward me and tugged on my hands. “Come dance with us, Sadie.”
We all knew what she was doing, pulling me away from my cousin because of Rafe’s hatred for him. If I hadn’t promised my last dance, all my dances, to her father, I would have easily gone with her. Instead, I hesitated.
She pouted. “Come on, show us how it’s done in Tennessee.”
I laughed and then turned to hand my untouched champagne glass back to my cousin. “Thanks for trying to set the record straight. Still doesn’t explain why you had me followed, and it still doesn’t make me trust you, but”—I shrugged— “thanks for trying.”
Then, I joined the two teens, and we shook our hips and raised our hands and celebrated like maybe only farm kids truly knew how to do. Because the work was done for the day, and it would start all over the next, but in these few minutes between night and morning, freedom and joy existed. A few hours untethered to endless tasks.
That was how I felt—untethered and in between. As if I had one foot out of my old life and one foot heading toward the new without it having arrived yet. I was in the great in-between place where demons lurked and lives could still be shifted.
I glanced in Lorenzo’s direction, but he wasn’t watching me. He was smiling at Marielle, who was slow dancing with Nicky, love drifting around them. I wasn’t sure what to make of my cousin, of any of it, but Rafe’s scars were very real and the Puzo family was the reason he had them. Just that was enough to ensure I stayed as far away from my cousin as I could.