Josh realized from his expression St. John had pulled something out of the proverbial hat, as usual. And that somehow, it was also connected to Josh.
Draven held his gaze for a moment, and Josh knew him well enough to read the warning there. He braced himself. Draven returned to lean over Diane. Softly, with incredible menace in his voice, he spoke.
“Carl Carter.”
Diane Odell gasped, and went stark white. Josh barely managed to keep from looking shocked himself.
“It turns out that Mrs. Odell,” Draven said as if Diane wasn’t even in the room, “had a meeting with him a couple of months ago. Then another, a couple of weeks ago. Amazing how people like them stand out in places they’re usually too good to frequent.”
“He himself?”
Draven nodded. “St. John’s guess is he wanted you distracted, to be sure you didn’t have a chance to help General before he bought Brad out. So he planted this idea in her empty head. She thinks she’ll get money out of you, he gets you out of the picture until he can make his move on General Machine.”
“He put her up to this?” Josh asked.
“You didn’t think she was smart enough on her own, did you? If she was, she’d have picked better people.”
The fact that the insults got no rise out of Diane told Josh she was, at last, broken.
“She’ll hang for it, though,” Draven said. “He’s a lot better than she is at covering his tracks. I wonder if Brad suspected, or he simply had him killed to destroy her credibility? Being an extortion suspect is one thing, but murder? Who’s going to believe her?”
Diane made a tiny sound. Josh glanced at her. The cornered rat was back, and he guessed it was only a matter of time before Chen and his people had everything they needed.
Draven was surprised to find Grace there when they got back to Redstone Headquarters. And Emma McClaren, Cara Taggert, Sasha Tereschenko, Paige Rider and St. John’s Jessa, along with every female who actually worked for Redstone, or so it seemed. All clustered in the courtyard, heads together in that female way that made most men nervous.
He watched warily, until his own Grace burst out laughing, left the group and came over to him.
“What’s going on over there? You plotting the overthrow of the government?”
“Might be an improvement,” she quipped. “But no. We were just saying that all our practice is about to pay off.”
“Practice?”
She nodded. “We have had a lot, after all. Which we’ll need to pull off the biggest, most important one of all.”
“Biggest, most important what?” he asked patiently, knowing his wife liked to tell things her way, and having learned to like it.
She laughed, and planted a kiss square on her husband’s mouth, earning the swift response she always roused in him.
“The biggest, most important Redstone wedding of all, of course!”
Chapter 29
Josh Redstone sat on the battered leather couch that had been with him nearly from the beginning. He’d slept on it countless nights when he’d been barely able to scrape together the rent for the small hangar.
He’d finally managed a place of his own, and by then St. John had taken over the couch. Josh had sensed he felt safer there in the hangar than in a normal residential setting, which back then, before he’d learned the whole story, had been Josh’s biggest clue to why the man was the way he was.
And today, better than a couple of decades later, St. John was going to be his best man.
The leather creaked slightly as he leaned back. He was staring at the opposite wall, more specifically at the painting that hung there. The image was both familiar and precious. But the ache he felt looking at it was distant now, far from the wrenching agony he’d felt in the days when he’d first hung it there.
Elizabeth had been a lovely woman, with a good-humored smile and the sparkle of life in her rich, brown eyes. No painting could have truly captured her essence, not without sound, to render her light, silvery laugh, or smell, to waft that rich gardenia scent.
Tess, on the other hand, had a deep, joyous laugh, and her favored scent was a blend of sweet and spicy that he thought was perfect for her.
“Would you understand?” he softly asked the portrait.
It hit him then, hard. What Elizabeth had said, when she knew her time was nearly gone.
In due time, you’ll realize. I trust you both to find your way.
The words she’d said with almost her last breath echoed in his head now, and suddenly took on the potential for an entirely new meaning.
He sat up sharply. Lord, she couldn’t have meant…surely not…had she possibly meant this? Had she somehow expected this? Even hoped for it, and in her own way, given her approval?
He couldn’t explain the certainty that swept him in that moment. It was as if Elizabeth were there, smiling at him for finally getting it, after all this time.
And as if she were still there, urging him, he rose and walked to the portrait. He reached out, brushed his fingertips over the static, beautiful yet inadequate image. And then he carefully lifted it off the wall. It would go in some other place, honored and never forgotten, but it would no longer be the first and last thing he saw every day. That would now be the woman who, in a few minutes, would become his wife. The woman who had waited for him, who had known him so well she’d known it had to be in his own time; the woman who had reminded him what it was to truly be alive.
Tess Marqueza Machado Redstone. That, he thought with a suddenly lighthearted grin, was going to be a mouthful. Almost bigger than she was, in size.
But never in spirit.
It was right, Tess thought, that it happen here. And like this. Of all the Redstone weddings—and they were up into double digits just in the past few years—this was the one that would crown them all.
This was a Redstone-only affair, and all the wrangling by others, no matter how important they thought themselves, hadn’t succeeded in getting them into this occasion. The guests would be only the people who were most important to them, not the ones who would like to be there for the prestige of it. He might have lost all his blood family, but this, Josh had made clear, was a family wedding. And that family was Redstone. As Sam had once said—more serious than joking—coming to work at Redstone was more like being adopted than getting a job.
Lilith, Josh’s oldest friend, had more or less taken charge when Tess had admitted she was at a loss. Her marriage to Eric had been a military affair, dictated by protocol. This was Josh, and she wanted it to be, more than anything, what he would want.
Lilith, thankfully, had understood immediately, and had quickly organized everything except for the venue, which no one could seem to agree on.
It had been, perhaps not surprisingly, St. John who had pointed out the obvious choice.
So now she was here, in the sleek, simple dress she’d insisted on, saying that the mantilla-like veil was enough ornament; it had been worn by every woman in her family for generations, and she needed no other decoration. Here, in the place that was so perfect for this that she wondered why no one else had thought of it.
The courtyard of Redstone Headquarters, with its lush plants and soothing waterfall, was the place they all came to at one time or another, seeking peace, quiet or inspiration. Josh had had the building designed and built around this place, this refuge for his people, and it was the most fitting place for all those who worked for and loved him to gather to celebrate that he’d finally found what so many of them had found.
They’d all been into the office that had been appropriated for the bride, to tell her so, a long string that nearly made her dizzy. Noah and Paige Rider, with Paige’s son, Kyle, who treated his stepfather with such respect it warmed Tess’s heart, and who talked about his baby twin sisters with a rather bemused smile on his face. Sam and Ian, with bright, grinning, and amazingly well-behaved little Josh in his father’s arms. Emma and Harlan McClaren, for whom she had special thanks, knowing what
he’d been willing to risk to save Josh. Rand and Kate Singleton, parenthood imminent, laughing with each other in a way that made Tess smile.
Reeve and Zack Westin, who spent their lives ensuring no one suffered the kind of pain and tragedy Zach once had, and who had Tess’s utmost admiration. Liana and Logan, who’d had to fight for his honor and their own love. Tony and Lilith, the impossible yet absolutely perfect pairing of streetwise tough guy and elegant society woman, and the newly engaged Ryan Barton and Sasha Tereschenko, sillily happy together. They all came to wish her well. And to thank her for what she’d brought to the man they all loved. Her head was starting to reel; it was, she thought, like becoming queen of Redstone or something.
And when Gabe and Cara Taggert took her aside, and gave her some advice she would treasure on dealing with ghosts and memories, she started to tear up and thought she was going to end up blubbering like a baby at her own wedding.
At last came Draven and his Grace, St. John and his Jessa. The two women kissed her cheek, hugged her and quietly departed, leaving her with the rest of the triumvirate.
“The best thing I can say about today is that you deserve him, and he deserves you,” Draven said quietly.
“Inevitable,” the ever-succinct St. John said.
“I love you both,” Tess said impulsively.
“And we you,” Draven said.
“I will make him happy.”
“That,” St. John said with a startlingly accurate imitation of Josh’s drawl, “you will, m’girl.”
With that, St. John retreated to his best-man duties, and Draven offered her his arm. He would walk her, not down the aisle since there wasn’t one leading to the small deck that had been built near the waterfall and cantilevered out over the pond, but through the gathering of Redstone, the world the man she loved had built, and the people who were lucky enough to be part of what she saw as no less than a miracle.
A family.
Her family. It always had been, but now more than ever she felt the responsibility of it, and admired her husband-to-be even more not just for what he’d built, but for the people he’d chosen and the spirit and devotion he’d fostered; if anyone gathered here today ever needed help they could provide, they would get it, no questions asked. And they knew it, and loved their boss all the more for it.
The moment she saw him standing there—in the simple but elegantly tailored suit that emphasized his lean height and rangy build—she had to remember how to breathe. But the light in his steady gray eyes steadied her in turn, and she walked onward with so much joy in her heart she thought she barely touched the ground.
The words they’d written for each other were simple and utterly heartfelt, and a reiteration of everything they’d said to each other since that day when time had nearly run out and waiting was no longer an option.
Tess felt as if she’d been enveloped by a lovely haze, and hoped they were recording all this so someday she’d be able to see the perfection of it when she was in a condition to appreciate it.
And later, when it was over and the party—and Redstone knew how to throw a party—began, she looked around at them all, people she knew and loved, shy Cara laughing uproariously with the flashy treasure-hunter Mac, spit and polish Gabe teasing Draven’s blossoming stepdaughter, Marly, and most moving of all, Draven’s Grace dancing with Ian Gamble, the man whose genius with prosthetics had made her smooth and easy movement possible.
Josh, too, was looking out over the throng, a satisfied expression on his face as he stood on the small deck over the pond, where they’d said the words that linked them forever. The sound of the waterfall was soft and sweet as she made her way to him, through the smiles and grins of what seemed like all of Redstone.
“We have,” she said to her husband as he helped her up the last step, “a wonderful family.”
“We do,” Josh confirmed, looking pleased at the claim of ownership inherent in her words.
“You’ve built a miracle, my love.”
He smiled, a bit awkwardly.
He wasn’t quite used to her fervent declarations, but he’d learn, she thought. Just as she had learned to read the same declarations in the way he turned to her for advice, solace or support, and sometimes simply in the way he looked at her.
And, of course, the way he touched her. They’d had a lot of lost time to make up for, and they were gaining ground every day.
“Whatever you just thought,” he said, his voice low and rough, “hang on to it.”
“Always,” she promised.
“Always,” he answered.
He kissed her then, deeply, sweetly. She felt the slow build of heat even as she heard the slow build of buzz as the gathered Redstone family began to cheer.
And the mist from the waterfall—that famous Redstone water—fell on them like a gentle promise.
A promise they would keep to each other, and to this family.
Always.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6475-9
REDSTONE EVER AFTER
Copyright © 2010 by Janice Davis Smith
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*Trinity Street West
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**Redstone, Incorporated
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