Chapter 40
Forty
Cap, Nash, and I once again crowd around Nash’s kitchen counter, the documents surrounding the missing gold spread across it.
“We’re missing something,” I say, exchanging one paper for another.
Cap grunts and Nash sips his coffee.
At this point, even if I didn’t need the money, I want to figure this out. I’ve been here less than two weeks and I’m as frustrated as I am compelled by it. I have no idea how Cap has spent his life chasing something that feels right there without ever managing to grasp it.
“What’s Bennie’s favorite color?” Nash asks, refilling his coffee. Now that he knows about her, he’s so far gone from what Anson Burns did or didn’t do, I’ve cut my losses. He got me into the places I needed, but now he’s a new dad too distracted to be of any use. “And food?”
“Pink.” I reskim Anson’s letter, mentally reconfirming we did everything right at the places he listed. “And she’s seven—pizza.”
“I like pizza,” Cap says—like that has a damn thing to do with a damn thing. He chokes out a cough that brings his palm to his side. “What time will your mom be here tomorrow?”
I sigh, frustrated, looking up from the letter. “I already told you. Tomorrow afternoon. Am I on my own here?”
They blink at me, perplexed.
“Nash, you’ve mentally left me for Bennie. Dad, you’ve asked me about Mom a million times. I only have a few more days here.” I gesture at them with the letter in my hand. “And I’m still broke.”
“I was thinking we could have a party,” Nash says, ignoring me. “Kids could play in the pool. Sunny. Your sisters and mom.”
“I love parties,” Cap pipes in.
“What?” I blow my bangs out of my face. “What for? We have”—I sweep a hand across papers in front of us that I’m the only one paying attention to—“all this.”
“Oh!” Nash snaps his fingers, eyes brighter than his flamingo-covered shirt. “What about a Lowcountry boil?”
“Aha!” Cap says with an elated tap of his cane. “Know a shrimper at the marina that can get us the best on the coast. Mind if I invite Danimal?”
I frown; Nash laughs. “I’d never turn a man down named Danimal. Your mom likes seafood right, Rue? And your sisters?”
I could scream.
At these.
Morons.
“Maybe we should invite Anson Burns while we’re at it,” I say through a tight smile.
Cap bats a hand through the air. “We’ll get to that. How about oysters, Nash?”
“Not an r month,” Nash says, contemplating. “Might be hard to get good ones local. Oyster bars import.”
Cap thinks this is a very good point because he scrubs his beard and looks at the ceiling like it’s where the quality of local oysters will be revealed. “I’ll see what they say on the docks.”
“Good call.” To me: “What about for the kids?”
“The kids?”
“Bennie. Remy’s. I know what Sunny’s boys like, but . . .” He puts his hands on his hips and his handsome face fills with a rare casting of self-consciousness. “I want everyone happy.”
I’m incredibly frustrated that nobody is focused on what I want them to be focused on, but Nash wanting to impress Bennie is so damn sweet and unexpectedly sexy. I set the paper down and circle the counter to where he’s standing, filling my fists with his ridiculous shirt and pulling him to me.
“She’s going to love you,” I tell him. “Whether you make shrimp, or spaghetti, or a peanut butter sandwich.”
“She likes peanut butter?”
“Yes, Nash.” I peck a kiss on his lips. “Her and every kid who has ever tasted it.”
He rubs his tongue along his teeth before a slow breath leaks out of him, doing a double take at my smile. “You think I’m being crazy?”
“I think you’re being crazy and sexy.”
“Just the combination you were begging for last night.”
He’s not wrong.
After the emotions from Jonathan’s bomb then the effects of all the liquor, by the time we got home, we were insatiable. The way he bent, bit, and broke my body was perverse perfection, even as he reminded me how mad he was at me. Just him mentioning it makes me want a redo.
He smirks, reading my mind. “Glad I’m consistent.”
He kisses me again, this time deep enough Cap grunts. “Still sittin’ here.”
We pull apart with a slight laugh.
From the other side of the counter, I say, “All I’m saying is you two need to relax. Bennie will love you—” I look at Cap. “Both of you. And Mom is Mom. For some reason she wanted me here with both of you. I’m blaming the tumor.” I look at them sideways. “But you have nothing to worry about.”
They disregard my confidence and resume their chatter about party plans. I refocus on the documents. Getting nowhere with Anson’s letter, I exchange it for correspondence notes between bankers and officials, then another newspaper article.
“Hey,” I say, reading and rereading, nobody listening as they drone on about finding someone with cornhole. “Hey!”
They look at me like they forgot I was there.
“You see this article? The one from right after the robbery?”
Cap grunts. “What about it?”
“There was a reward. This one says they were offering five thousand dollars and ten percent.”
“And?” Cap asks.
“And—” I scoff. “Could be a big deal. One of the reasons you said the gold was a lost cause was because the federal government would seize it all. Depending on who issued the reward and if there was an expiration date—” I tap the article.
“It might be honored. I’ve seen it at the store.
Someone brought in a painting that was stolen over fifty years ago and got thousands for it.
” I shrug. “Depending how much Anson got away with, that could still be millions of dollars even if the government takes the rest.”
“Never knew that,” says Nash in a tone that makes me wonder if he heard a single word I said.
I know Cap is listening because a small smile tugs at his whisker-hidden lips. “Me neither, kiddo.”