“I believe I can better…”—defend—“represent you, if I make your case more sympathetic to the court.” I choose my words deliberately.
“You believe I need sympathy?” he retorts.
“I have several concerns and a strong opposing council.”
“There is no opposing council, only a self-empowered advocate who couldn’t possibly be a threat to me,” he states presumptuously.
“I wouldn’t dismiss her so easily. She’s building a strong case, and there are key points she’ll be putting on the table. I need to be able to counter them.”
He frowns, indicates the chair to my right, and instructs, “Take a seat, Mr. Callahan. Mr. Gilcrest, pour our guest a drink.”
“No thank you,” I say.
He waves him back with a scowl.
So far, the meeting is going smashingly.
“Mr. Prescott, you could be called to state your case before the judge—”
“That won’t happen,” he states assuredly.
“Opposing counsel is prepared to allow Jackson to take the stand.”
“He’s a minor and a temporary ward of the state. He has no say.”
“The boy’s testimony will likely be taken into consideration. He’s twelve years old.”
At this, he makes a frustrated sound in his throat. “They wouldn’t dare.”
I think of the feisty Ms. Hayes, the determination in her countenance. Oh, they’d dare.
“I have the familial ties to obtain guardianship over my grandson.” His eyes trail to Gilcrest, then slip back to mine. I wonder what kind of understanding is between them.
“It would help me to secure your victory if I had all the facts at my disposal, including any possible unsavory ones.”
“Unsavory?” He leans over his desk toward me, keeping his gray steely eyes locked with mine. “Whatever is your meaning, Mr. Callahan?”
He’s trying to intimidate me and I’m not having it. I lean in closer to match his positioning. “Let’s begin with your reasoning for offering a home to Jackson alone, severing your own grandchildren permanently from each other.”
He looks only mildly perturbed by my inquiry. He also doesn’t deny it. “Of course, my design is to take Jackson. His grandfather, Clifford Stanton the second, is an excellent associate of mine. He has impeccable breeding. I will raise him up to take over my businesses.”
“Max is nine years old; Lily is five. They are also your biological grandchildren. Are you even the least bit interested in offering them a home here also?”
“Not at all. Their father had no status.” His tone drips with disdain.
“They have the Prescott name and blood because of their mother,” I remind him.
“It’s diluted, Mr. Callahan.”
His unashamed harshness throws me.
“Breeding and lineage are of utmost importance. Jackson is to be my sole heir.”
I recover. “I don’t believe the court will find sympathy in your motive. All the children are your late daughter’s offspring.” I try another route. “If that doesn’t give you pause, you should know the court almost always rules in favor of keeping siblings together. Meaning, if the advocate finds a foster family willing to take all three, you’ll lose Jackson too.”
A sickly, metallic taste rises into my mouth, seeping over my tongue. His beliefs and frankness disgust me. Offend me. I wouldn’t want to sentence any of the children to live under his type of oppression.
Ms. Hayes was right all along.
What else is she right about? The thug? Judge Andrews?
My own boss?
God, I hope not.
“I understand you don’t agree with my reasoning, Mr. Callahan.”
“I suppose I’m not much of an actor,” I retort truthfully.
“I will do whatever it takes to secure custody of Jackson. In time, he’ll move past his sorrow and stop searching for the others. He’ll have a whole new life here with me. A life of privilege and prestige. Your only job is to make sure that happens.” He frames his words like a warning. “Mr. Gilcrest, see Mr. Callahan out.”
With that, our meeting is over. I’ve been dismissed.
A few minutes later, I’m driving away, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck still standing on end. Once I’m a decent distance away from the mansion, I pull to the side of the road and press one on my speed dial.
I need a favor—a big one. Fast.
“One good turn deserves another.” Cade’s tone tells me he’s going milk this favor thing for all it’s worth as he claps a strong hand onto the back of my shoulder and we hike up the steps to the front door of North House nearly a week later.
The same house that became my home when I turned sixteen.
“How long we talkin’ Cade?” I throw him a knowing glance.
“It’s just a week.”
Ha! “Like a five-day work week? Or seven?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, which?”
“The kind of week with two weekends on each end.”
“A nine-day week?”
“Probably.”
“In other words, whenever you and Deb get back,” I surmise.
“Might even be two weeks.” I can hear the smile that must be spreading on his face. “You know, Debra and I haven’t had a vacay in over two years. I can’t tell you how many strings I had to pull, backs I had to scratch and palms I had to grease to accomplish what you asked me to do.”
Knowingly, I nod. “You’re the best.”
“I hope you still think so when we’re a couple days late.”
I laugh out loud. “You’re killing me.”
“Oh, son. You don’t even know the half of it.”
That raises my eyebrow. There’s a suspicious edge in his voice that goes beyond our original discussion. “What are you not saying?”
“Nothing. At all. Some things are best left unsaid.”
“Now I’m scared.”
“And so you should be.” He reaches for the door handle and looks me straight in the eyes. “Because this one has Debra written all over it.”
“Oh shit. What does that mean?”
“Best to discover the big things on your own.”
“Thanks for the cryptic warnings.”
“Anything for you, Connor.”
The front door swings open wide. The warm, golden glow of home along with the aroma of deep-dish lasagna—Debra’s specialty—come floating around us, welcoming us in.
“Ahh… smells like home,” I wax nostalgic, thinking of all the family dinners when I was a teen.
Cade smiles at me, lovingly, fatherly.
“You’ll be hosting dinner. Deb and I are almost late getting to the airport as it is,” Cade says as we hang up our coats on the cast-iron hooks in the foyer. “I’m getting you in and getting us out.”
“Hey, more lasagna for me and Talon.”
“Talon?” he asks.
“Yeah. Isn’t he my second in command?”
Cade snorts with laughter as we head down the hall to the kitchen.
I peer at him with suspicion. “What’s with the diabolical laughter?”
He shakes his head, his lips pursed. “We’ve got girls in the house.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” When girls are staying at North House, we need a female counselor on staff. “Quinn?” I immediately think of Liam’s wife—my sister, for all intents and purposes. The girl who was the catalyst in making us the Brothers of Ink and Steel.
“Nope. Not Quinn.”
Again, with the cryptic. “Anyone I know?”
“You know what? I think so.” He opens the swinging door—the wood still cracked from when the brothers used to fight—into the kitchen.
There stands Debra next to a woman with long blond hair woven into an elaborate braid that begins at the crown of her head and lays over her right shoulder. They’re laughing. Her back is to me, but I know exactly who she is.
Oh shit! I try to double back out of the
kitchen fast!
“You’re here!” Debra exclaims brightly as she pulls me around into a huge hug. Like she’s never seen me before.
Like she’s totally setting me up!
“Hey, Mom.”
The laughter singing from Debra’s companion ceases instantly when she turns. Her smile fades and her face falls. The look in her eyes makes me want to melt into the worn linoleum and disappear.
“Connor,” Debra begins, her own smile growing exponentially, “this is Elle. Elle Hayes. The Core’s new yoga instructor.”
Suddenly, Cade’s cryptic warnings begin to sink in.
I don’t know how to handle it. Every defense I have is down. I just stand there like an idiot.
“This is…?” she asks with a pleading look toward Debra, who nods exuberantly.
Elle’s cheeks flush red—with embarrassment or hatred, I can’t tell which—as my own adrenaline thrums through my veins.
“I’m sorry. There’s been a mistake.” She looks like she could cry. Or scream.
Or punch me.
“Mistake or not,”—Cade checks his watch—“we’ve got to fly. Literally”
I swear I catch a twinkle in his eyes.
He’s got to be joking! They can’t leave us here together. For an entire week! She’ll kill me! Probably strangle me with the blender cord.
The doorbell rings, adding to the fiasco that is now my life.
“Perfect!” Cade exclaims. “Right on time.” He rushes out of the kitchen, the breeze from the door tossing a hair out of Elle’s perfect braid.
He knew. He had to have known!
I can’t be left in here alone with her. I follow on his heels. But I can’t get a word of protest out to him before I realize Debra and Elle are right behind me.
“Connor Callahan is one of your boys?” I hear Elle whisper.
“You bet!” Debra singsongs. “You two are going to get along so well!”
This is all way over Debra’s head! She has no idea what’s going on.
Unless she does, I groan inwardly.
“I don’t know how,” Elle mutters under her breath.
Oh, please get to the door and open it, Cade! Let it be one of my disgruntled clients come to kill me. Anything is better than this!
“You’re both always fighting injustice and helping others. You both have huge hearts! You’ll see,” Debra’s saying.
“Debra,”—Elle takes a deep breath as we all file into the foyer—“I really appreciate the chance to be a house monitor for you and Cade, you could never know how much, but I don’t think you understand…” Poor Elle stumbles over her words, and I feel like a pile of hot steaming shit on an expensive hand-woven carpet for adding more pain to her trouble.
“Oh dear,” Debra coos lovingly, “I’m sure that I do.”
The bell rings once more, just as Cade opens the door. “Well, hello there!” he projects in his brightest voice. “I’m so glad you all could make it. We’re having lasagna tonight!”
Despite everything that just transpired in the past five minutes, I feel the smile spreading over my face at the sight of North House’s newest residents. I shake my head in amazement. At everything. How Cade comes through.
Like magic.
In my excitement, I can’t help but turn my head to gauge Elle’s expression, who stares dumbfounded at the scene unfolding before us.
“ELLE?!” Jackson, Max and Lily all shout excitedly when they see her standing behind us. They pour into the hallway without ceremony to wrap her in hugs.
“Jackson! Lily! Max!!” Elle drops to her knees to embrace them.
“I figured they’d rest much easier with you here.” Debra sets a gentle hand on her shoulder.
She looks up, her face full of tears and confusion as the children clutch her. “How did you…? I’ve been trying to get them together for months.”
As Cade signs the papers on the dispatcher’s clipboard he says, “Connor set it up.”
“You?” Her gaze lifts over me with shock. “You did this?”
All I can do is nod in her direction. I know what she thinks of me, how she thinks I helped that bastard of a grandfather. It makes me feel ashamed.
Her eyes lock on mine, brimming with gratefulness. “Thank you.”
I try to speak, but the words get caught in my throat as I watch her cling to the children.
She grants me a genuine smile before turning her attention to Cade and Debra. “Thank you all so much.” She can’t hold back the tears anymore, and she buries her face against the children’s shoulders.
By the time Cade and Debra have left for their trip and all the kids in North House have polished off the lasagna and gone to bed, it sinks in that Elle and I will be spending the entire week together.
As I make the rounds checking that the teens’ lights are out, I can’t help but linger at the open door where Elle is reading The Bear Snores On to Jackson, Max and Lily, who’re still up nearly two hours past their bedtime because they’ve been so excited.
The boys share a large bedroom with two twin size beds, and Cade moved a sofa in for family times like this. Lily is curled on the sofa with Elle while the boys are snug in their beds, each of them bundled in handmade colorful quilts. Even Jackson is giggling as Elle uses a different voice for each character. It melts my heart even more. He’s not so tough after all.
A bubbling passion rises through me to stop the course his life has been on, so maybe he can keep what remains of his sweetness. His innocence. Before he sees or experiences things no kid ever should.
When she finishes the last rhyme of the book, Elle kisses a nearly sleeping Lily on the cheek. “Remember, we’re going to sleep in our special girl’s room.” Elle and Lily have their own shared room down the hall.
“Is this going to be our new home, Elle? Together?” Max asks in a sleepy voice.
Elle hesitates, then answers, “I’d like that very much.” She strokes the blond curls back from Max’s face.
“But she doesn’t know. That’s what she means,” Jackson injects. His tone pierces my heart.
Elle doesn’t skip a beat. “But we’re all together right now. That means we have more hope than ever!”
“Tuck me in, Elle, like my mom used to, with a hug,” Max requests. “And wrap the blanket all around me so I’m a burrito.”
“You got it.” She smiles.
Before she turns, I duck behind the door to peer through the crack.
“How did you do it?” Jackson leans in, lifting himself up on one elbow. “Get us all together?”
“I think our wishes came true.”
“I’m not Max. I’m not nine,” he grumbles.
Max throws him a sour look. “Hey.”
“You can have faith at any age,” Elle reassures as she finishes making Max into a burrito. He smiles contentedly.
“You’re rubbing your necklace again,” Jackson observes. “Do you pray to her?”
“I talk to her sometimes. I don’t know if you’d call that praying.”
“Does she talk back?”
“Well, you’re here, safe and sound, so… maybe she does.” Elle walks over and burritos him too. “You get some sleep now.”
I hear the bed creak as the conversation winds down. I don’t want to get caught, and I’ve certainly pushed all my luck tonight, so I rush down the stairs into the kitchen. To appear busy, I put on a pot of water, while I wonder if Elle’s going to talk to me when she comes back downstairs. Or if she’s even going to come downstairs. She’s probably just going to avoid me altogether. What would give me hope anything different could happen?
Yet here I am, putting enough water for two into the pot.
“Jesus Christ!” I huff under my breath. “What the hell am I doing?”
Even if she does want to talk, all I’m going to do is fuck it up!
I let my eyes lift to the mugs hanging neatly on their hooks under the cabinets.
Just two mugs, I think.
Then
I hear her voice from behind me. “How did you do it, Callahan?”
To steady myself, I reach for those mugs. “Would you like a cup of decaf or tea?”
“Why did you do it?” she asks suspiciously.
As I turn to face her, she takes a forceful step toward me. “I’ve been thinking. How does it serve your client?”
“It doesn’t at all,” I answer truthfully. “It serves them.” I nod toward the stairs to indicate the children.
She regards me. “If I take a cup of that, will you tell me?”
“I’ll tell you either way, Ms. Hayes. However, I would like to invite you to sit with me.”
Her brow cinches.
“We’re stuck with each other for the next seven days… or more,” I add, thinking of my earlier conversation with Cade. “How much we communicate is up to you.”
I hold the steaming mug out to her like a peace offering—the waving of the white flag—wondering if she’ll accept it.
Her eyes soften, even though her expression does not. As she reaches out, she pulls the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and takes the mug.
I force myself not to smile at the sleeve thing.
She breathes in the aroma of the drink. “Where should we sit?”
“The living room is comfortable.”
She lets me lead the way. The room is big, cozy with three overstuffed armchairs, an oversized loveseat and a huge L-shaped couch. Several teen-sized bean bags are scattered in front of the TV with the best vantage point for gaming. A battered coffee table with a shit-ton of scuff marks, drink-rings stained into the dark wood and a few knife carvings still sits in the middle of the room—circa 2005.
I even remember when Cade and Debra brought it home. Probably because when we were teenagers, Talon and I almost broke it when I shoved him and he fell over top of it.
Elle tucks her legs up underneath her as she perches onto one of the armchairs and holds the mug on her lap.
Realizing I’m still in my three-piece from work, I set my mug on the table and shrug out of my tweed jacket, folding it over the back of the sofa before I sit.
“You were right.” I make sure I look at her; this is almost an apology, and most definitely a declaration. “About everything.”
Risk: An Enemies to Lovers, Second Chance Romance Standalone (Brothers of Ink and Steel) Page 8