CHAPTER 80
Finn
Plotting vengeance is fun. Sure, it can make some men angry and anxious, but for me, it’s energizing. Relaxing even. I enjoy the creative challenge of coming up with the best way, the most perfect way, for vengeance to go down.
My brothers feel the same.
But only when it’s warranted.
Like now.
We end up spending an enjoyable two hours locked in the secure conference room, but we’re not there on StellaR Tech business. We’re discussing J.R. Perkins.
They ask. I don’t tell them. I only say that the man is worthy of the absolute worst we can come up with, short of violence because none of us want to go to prison, though Special K thinks he can have his cake and avoid prison too.
I tell them that my only requirement is that Perkins can never foster children again. Anything above that is gravy.
I get home from all this energizing vengeance talk to find the woman I love dealing with her troubles by scrubbing the kitchen baseboards.
“What are you doing, Emma?” She’s on her knees spraying and scrubbing in a huge pair of rubberized household cleaning gloves.
She doesn’t look up at me when she answers. “The baseboards have what looks like steak grease on them, and dirty baseboards make me nervous.”
“You’re fired.”
She stops scrubbing and freezes in place, then tips her face my way. “What did you say?”
“You’re fired. You’re not my housekeeper.”
She stands, a wet sponge in one of her gloved hands. “Did you just say what I think you said?” The sponge drips onto the kitchen floor.
“You heard me correctly.”
“You said I’m fired and that I’m no longer your housekeeper.”
I grab a glass from the cabinet and turn on the faucet. “It would be unseemly.”
“Unseemly,” she repeats. She’s holding the dripping sponge at her side, and her mouth is partially open. She’s not blinking, either.
“Since you’re living with me.” I pause to take a long drink of water.
“I’ve been living with you.”
“I mean in my bedroom. Our bedroom. As my fiancée.”
She drops the sponge on the floor. “Hold up. You’re asking me to marry you while I’m scrubbing the baseboards?”
“Another reason to fire you. It’s super hard to propose while you’re cleaning. I need you to move on to a life of leisure so I can propose to you while we’re at a Michelin-rated restaurant or doing something else that people of leisure do. Perhaps even while sailing in Catalina.”
I rinse out the glass and put it on the draining rack next to the sink. Then I leave the kitchen. Emma chases after me, and when she catches up, she slaps a rubber glove on my arm and turns me around. I now have soap suds on my arm.
“Wait a second. You asked me to marry you and didn’t even wait for my answer? What kind of lame proposal was that?”
I laugh and lean down to kiss her. “Hold that thought,” I say.
“Please consider this a dry run, even though you’re dripping all over everything.
You will not be scrubbing baseboards when the real proposal comes.
I’m gonna do it up right. But right now, I have to go tell Jasmine. First Jasmine, then the whole family.”
I walk out the door, and she runs out after me. “What are you going to tell Jasmine? What did you say about the whole family?”
I smile to myself as I hop in the Jeep I parked in front of the house. I point at her. “Remember, Emma Clark. You are so completely fired. I’ll be back in a half hour. And I love you.”
I take the Jeep up the rough road past the meadow. Summer lives in a rustic cabin with a pretty garden out front. I park by the stone path. Summer’s horse and Jasmine’s pony are tied to the hitching post in front of the house. I pass carefully behind them and jog up the steps.
Wiping my feet on the doormat, I open the door and walk in. The cabin has an open floor plan, everything in one large room. Summer and Jasmine are sitting at the kitchen table making friendship bracelets, even though they’re already wearing at least five each.
“Hey, Dad,” Jasmine says, not looking up from her project.
I hate that she calls me “Dad.” Why did she have to move on from “Daddy”? But things change, don’t they? And that’s why I’m here.
“Hey there.” I take a seat at the table.
“How was Catalina?” Summer asks.
She and Jasmine make kissing noises and break into hysterics.
“What’s going on here?” I give Summer a death stare. Has she been talking to Jasmine about Emma and me without asking me first?
“Don’t look at me,” Summer says, putting her hands up in surrender. “Your daughter has a lot of ideas.”
“Oh, yeah?” I look to Jasmine.
She puts her friendship bracelet down and rests her elbows on the table. “Here’s the thing, Dad. I’ve been playing matchmaker.”
“Is that so?” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Summer holding back from laughing.
“You don’t know a lot about women, Dad,” my daughter continues. “So I had to help you. Every time you guys were together, I would leave the house to be with Auntie Phyllis or Grandpa or Tiffany.”
“You did that?”
“I had to, Dad. You were making goo-goo eyes at her, and she was making goo-goo eyes at you, and I knew you would never ever ask her out because you don’t know how.”
“Since when do you say, ‘goo-goo eyes’?” I ask.
She sighs in exasperation. “I even started playing music to set the mood.”
“Set the mood? Set the… mood?”
“Dad, that’s what it’s called. Anyway, I knew I won when you took Emma to Catalina. You wouldn’t take her there unless you really, really like her.”
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. “Is that how you see it? If Emma and I are together, you win?”
“Uh-huh.” She jumps up and runs across the room to get her backpack.
She opens it and takes out a few sheets of paper.
Then she runs back and hands them to me.
Each is a printout from an online jewelry store.
“Auntie Phyllis helped me use the printer. You have to get an engagement ring. Do you know about engagement rings? You have to get a huge diamond in order to get her to say yes. I think Beyonce’s ring is eight carats. That’s how they weigh diamonds.”
I make a show of studying the printouts. “Thank you for your research. Are you saying you want me to marry Emma?”
“Yes, so that she can stay with us forever and keep you from being lonely and take me to school and make pancakes for the mommy-and-me day at school every year.”
Mommy and me. I choke up and clear my throat.
“Jasmine really likes Emma,” Summer says. “I do, too. We all do.”
It’s nice that everyone likes Emma, but it’s Jasmine I’m worried about. I’d planned to have a long, gentle talk with her about how I feel about Emma, about how sometimes our lives take turns we don’t expect, and how when a man loves a woman…
Yada. Yada. Yada.
Instead, Jasmine has given me her own speech. She’s taken all the pain out of parenting. She’s even researched engagement rings. I don’t have the heart to tell her that her ole dad’s beat her to it.
I kiss the top of her head and get up. “I guess I need to show these to the rest of the family. You two want to join me at Grandpa’s house?”
“I’m taking Jasmine on another ride, and then we’re going paddle-boarding on the lake,” Summer says.
“Can I stay over another night?” Jasmine pleads.
“Only if it’s okay with Summer and you say ‘may I’ instead of ‘can I’.”
Jasmine rolls her eyes again. She’s become truly accomplished at it.
“It’s fine with me,” Summer says. “Go on and tell the world. Boy, are they going to razz you something awful, and I really wish I could be there to see it.”
She’s right. I need to prepare myself for razzing. And everything that follows.