No Place Like You

by Emma Douglas

  “It’s not nothing.”

  She rubbed the back of her neck briefly. “I was going to wait and tell you and Mina tomorrow. This is a party.”

  “A party you don’t exactly look like you’re enjoying.”

  “If I tell you now, then all three of us might not enjoy it.”

  That sounded ominous. Which meant it was Harper business. He glanced around the room. Still no sign of Leah. Which meant she was probably out back where there was a bar and tables set up around a small dance floor—it wouldn’t be a Santelli party without some dancing after all—or maybe on the deck. Either way, there were plenty of people for her to talk to and he wasn’t allowed to hover at her side anyway with her parents here. “Well, I’ve asked now. So you might as well spill the beans.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Let me go get Mina. Why don’t you go out front, meet us there? If all three of us leave at once, we’ll attract attention.”

  He didn’t argue but he waited and watched as Faith walked over to Mina, gave her a quick hug, and then pulled her away from the Fraser brothers. Mina’s expression changed from smiling and pleased to a frown as Faith said something in her ear.

  Then he turned and headed out, trying to ignore the twist in his gut that told him he wasn’t going to like what Faith had to say. Something must have happened. But what? Or to whom? Lou was here at the party, he’d just seen her five minutes ago talking to Billy, so she was fine. But that didn’t mean something hadn’t happened to somebody else.

  There was no one out front of the house, which was good. Meant he didn’t have to chase anyone off so that he and his sisters could have privacy. But the minute or so it took for Faith and Mina to join him seemed a long time, leaving him with nothing to do but stare at the dark stretch of ocean, breathe in the night air, and wonder if Faith was about to drop a real bombshell.

  chapter fifteen

  “So what’s up?” Zach asked as his sisters reached him. They took up position together, standing opposite him, Mina closer to Faith than she was to him. When they’d been kids they’d been a sturdy triangle, each side supporting the others. Zach and Faith and Mina. The Harpers. On paper their lives had been golden. Privileged. Lucky. Money. Travel. A famous dad. In reality, it had been that but there was also a less-stable side. A side where parents disappeared for weeks or months and strangers came and went in the house. The three of them had relied on one another. Stood together. He’d been the one who’d pulled their trio apart when he’d left. But now he was back and yes, their triangle was battered and lopsided. But he hoped it was mending. They were here together. He just hoped whatever Faith had to say wasn’t going to throw them any farther out of balance.

  Faith smiled tightly. “You sure you want to do this now? We can wait until tomorrow.”

  “No,” Mina said. She tugged at the silver M she wore around her neck. “We’re here now.”

  Faith nodded. “Okay. “She took a breath.

  “Just tell me if anyone’s sick,” Zach said before Faith could say anything else.

  Her eyebrows flew upward. “God no. I would’ve told you straight out if it was something that bad.” Her expression turned apologetic.

  Relief swept through him. “Good. Anything else we can handle.” He hoped.

  Faith blew out a breath. “Well, I don’t really know if there is anything to handle yet.” She paused, as if unsure what to say next. Her mouth twisted, as she twined one hand through a lock of her hair.

  Nervous.

  “Is this about the archives again?” Mina asked.

  The archives? He hadn’t been thinking about them.

  Faith nodded. “Had a call from the lawyers yesterday.”

  “While that sounds ominous,” he said. He moved to stand next to Mina—who was chewing her lip and watching Faith intently—reaching out to put an arm around her. “What did they want? Was it about that payment Grey made?” He hadn’t had to think about that for months. Or he’d done his best not to. Because there weren’t many good reasons for Grey to have paid half a million dollars to an unknown recipient not long before he died.

  Faith nodded. “It’s taken them awhile to dig into the recipient. They kept looking for other big purchases but nothing came up, and it was a Swiss account, so it took some … effort to track down the recipient.”.

  “Anyone we know?” Zach asked. Mina’s shoulders were still like steel under his arm and he tightened his grip on her but kept his eyes on Faith who didn’t look happy.

  Faith shook her head. “The account the money went to was held in the name of a woman named Ree Vacek. She lives in some town in Illinois—”

  “Illinois?” Mina said, eyes widening. “But then why was the paperwork in Jersey?” She stopped, then shook her head. “Never mind. It was Dad. It doesn’t have to make sense.” She made a little “go on” gesture.

  “Well, this town is where the bank account that received the money was opened apparently. But I guess that doesn’t mean she still lives there. Or ever lived there, maybe. The name doesn’t ring any bells with me and it doesn’t show up in any of the estate records anywhere. I told them to go ahead and see if they can track her down,” Faith said. “Maybe it’ll turn out to be a donation or something.” She didn’t sound like she believed that was likely.

  Zach’s stomach sank. Fuck. The payment had gone to a woman. It was a scenario they’d discussed when they’d first found out about the money. But part of him had hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be that. Call him cynical, but there was one very obvious reason why Grey would be making a payment that big to a woman none of them had heard of. A child. Or the claim of one. But that last twelve months, he’d been starting to go downhill fast. Sure he’d made a few trips off-island, insistent on being an independent old bastard to the end, and yes, Grey had gotten Zoe and Lou and Emmy pregnant without any planning, but it seemed unlikely he’d been off knocking up random women when he’d been dying of liver cancer. But hell, it did seem like the most likely reason.

  Unless this Ree Vacek, whoever she was, had something over him.

  But Grey had never really given a shit about his reputation. And Zach couldn’t see his dad giving into that sort of thing when he knew he only had a year or two left. And, if he was honest with himself, somewhere in the back of his mind, there had always been a part of him that had wondered if one day another Harper kid might turn up. A legacy of his father’s charm and libido, that maybe even Grey himself might never have known about.

  So maybe he was jumping to conclusions and, like Faith said, there were other perfectly legitimate reasons why Grey might have given someone half a million dollars.

  “Do they think they can find her?” he asked as Mina slipped out from under his arm and walked a few steps away before turning and coming back, positioning herself, arms folded, beside him again.

  Damn. Mina was the one who didn’t have experience of this. She was the youngest. Sure, Grey had divorced Emmy in the end, but he’d never replaced her with anyone long term. And there hadn’t been another kid to really hit the point home that Grey had screwed up again when Mina’s mom had left. Not like Faith had been for Zach or Mina had been for Faith. Though he and Faith had been younger. Back then, he’d been excited at the thought of another sibling. And thankful that Lou had appeared to fill the mom-sized gap in his life Zoe had left behind her.

  Faith nodded. “It’s an unusual name, it shouldn’t be that hard.”

  “Hell,” he said. “Not to be the first to mention the elephant in the room, but do we want to talk about this?”

  “That depends what you mean by ‘this,’” Mina said, looking unhappy. Zach put his arm around her again.

  “What we talked about before,” Faith said.

  “You really think Dad had another kid?” Mina asked, looking at him for confirmation.

  Interesting. He would’ve expected Faith to be the first one to say it out loud, not Mina.

  Zach squeezed Mina a little tighter. “I don’t know, kiddo. It�
�s not like Dad to ignore a child. I mean, he never bailed on any of us.”

  “That’s assuming he knew about it,” Faith said. “But I agree, he always took care of things in that department. And he’d gotten pretty careful, after Mina.” She shot an apologetic look at her little sister. “I always got the impression he thought three not-so-planned kids was enough. Or maybe that he just didn’t want a fourth marriage. He told me once that he’d gotten the snip to be safe, but I have no idea if he was serious or not. And knowing how sneaky he could be, I doubt there’s anyway of finding out whether he did.”

  She was probably right. And really, the truth about whether or not Grey had been shooting blanks later in life was not something he needed to know.

  “Did the lawyers give you a timeframe?”

  Faith shook her head. “Not too long—weeks, maybe a bit longer—but they couldn’t be exact.”

  Which meant they were stuck with not knowing for now and there was nothing that any of them could do about it. A burst of noise came from the house, as though someone had cranked up the music a notch or two.

  Party. Leah. Right. Focus on the now. Don’t borrow trouble. The future would take care of itself. “Okay. Then I think the best plan is to wait and see what the lawyers come up with. We can drive ourselves crazy speculating or we can just forget about it until we need to actually do something.” He nodded back toward the house. “There’s a party waiting for us back there, not to mention Leah’s probably wondering where the hell we are. I vote for booze and cake and letting the lawyers do their thing.”

  Neither sister looked convinced. But then Faith nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll just drive ourselves crazy if we worry about it. Booze and cake sounds good to me.” She smiled at Mina. “You can have cake and Will. He’s a good distraction.”

  Her voice was overly cheerful. But he was pretty sure he’d sounded the same. But hell. Fake it until you make it, or whatever that shit was. If he had to pretend to be okay with this for the moment so that Faith and Mina could be okay with it, then he would. And, if he actually got something decent to drink and Leah back by his side, he might even be okay with it for real.

  * * *

  Leah was sipping a margarita and listening to Stella and Ivy wax lyrical about the latest superhero movie when she saw Zach, Faith, and Mina come back into the room together. The three of them looked somewhat strained. And they were coming from the front of the house, not the deck or out back where the party had spilled out in both directions.

  Where had they been? She hadn’t noticed them leaving. Of course, she’d been somewhat distracted trying to say hello to everyone and get her head around the fact that Zach had organized a party for her.

  She knew it was him. Even though Faith had been the one who’d taken charge when they’d arrived, there was no way Faith would have set this whole thing up without warning her.

  So, it had to be Zach.

  And she didn’t really know how to feel about that. It was sweet of him—and yes, she was having a good time—but it wasn’t the sort of thing that someone who was just a fling did, was it? So what did that mean?

  That maybe there was something more? Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

  And how was she supposed to figure it out without flat out asking him? Which was not an option when this was supposed to be casual.

  So things were confusing enough without trying to figure out what was going on with the Harpers. But if something had happened, she wanted to know. It wasn’t like Faith or Zach to bail on a party and even Mina had been socializing more since she and Will had gotten together. Zach had his arm around Mina and was laughing at something she’d said and Faith was smiling too, but something about her best friend’s posture made Leah think that the smiles weren’t one hundred percent real.

  “Hey, there’s Faith,” she said, interrupting the superhero talk. “I need to ask her something. You two excuse me a minute, okay?”

  Ivy and Stella nodded and waved her off, still too interested in comparing notes on which superhero had the best biceps to be really paying much attention to Leah. Leah appreciated Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth as much as the next gal but she wasn’t a super geek like Ivy or a die-hard Marvel fan like Stella, so she drained her margarita, put the glass down on the nearest table, and started across the room toward the three Harpers.

  It was slow going to get there, everyone wanted to say “hello” and “happy birthday,” which was lovely, but having to stop every thirty seconds gave Faith, Mina, and Zach time to split up before she could reach them.

  She hesitated, making small talk with Theo King, the Harper Inc. COO, who’d been the last person to step into her path, and wondering whether she should go after Faith or try to talk to Zach.

  At that moment, Zach caught her eye and lifted one eyebrow, as though asking if it would be okay if he came over and joined them. She flashed him a smile and nodded slightly. She trusted that he’d play it cool. Sure, some of the people here already knew and something about the way she’d caught her mom looking at Zach earlier made her think that Caterina at least suspected but she wasn’t looking for a big pronouncement.

  As he made his way across the room, looking beyond gorgeous, she almost regretted that decision. It would’ve been nice if she could’ve planted a big fat kiss on him, and claimed him as her birthday present for the second time in her life. But, she only had herself to blame for the fact that that wasn’t going to happen. Zach said hello to Theo as he reached them and then bent and kissed Leah’s cheek, taking a moment to slip his hand around her waist and squeeze gently before he straightened again.

  “Happy birthday,” he said. “Having a good time?”

  She smiled up at him, torn between wishing that kiss could’ve been more and being grateful that he was playing by the rules. “Yes, thanks,” she said. “Remind me to thank whoever is responsible.” She hoped he’d get the hint that she knew it was him.

  Zach nodded. “I will.”

  Did that mean he understood?

  “Faith tells me your recording sessions are going well, Zach,” Theo said.

  Zach shrugged. “It’s good. But I don’t want to talk about it too much. Don’t want to jinx something, you know,” he said, looking a little sheepish.

  Theo laughed. “You musicians are all so superstitious. Give me a nice well-behaved spreadsheet any day rather than trying to do this creative shit that you do.”

  Zach grinned. “Trust me, I’m very happy to just keep doing my job and you do yours, Theo,” he said. “Spreadsheets are kind of my idea of hell.”

  Leah rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not entirely true. You got all your song stuff and music ideas and all that stuff pretty well documented.”

  “Maybe. But not in spreadsheets,” Zach said. “You’re the one who does all that detail stuff.” He grinned. “She’s a bit of a slave driver. I’m lucky she let me out of the studio tonight.”

  Well that was just an outright lie, but not one she could call him on in front of Theo. “Well, that’s because I didn’t know there was a party on,” she said. Which was also kind of a fib. But one that Zach couldn’t call her on either. So she’d call that even.

  Zach shook his head, pretending to look disappointed. “Too busy to have a birthday party. I don’t know what you’re putting in the water around here, Theo. But it’s turning everyone into workaholics.”

  “Busy time of year, with the festival.” Theo said. “You know that.”

  “Just as well I came back to remind you all how to have some fun.”

  From the other side of the room came the sound of Billy cheering, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Zach looked over and grinned. “Or maybe I’ll just leave that up to Billy.”

  “Please don’t,” Theo said. “God knows what would happen if Billy was left in charge.”

  “Don’t worry, he has plenty of adult supervision,” Zach said just as the music cut off and the sound of a guitar rippled through
the room. Zach turned in the direction of the sound.

  “Is that him?” Leah asked. Eli played guitar, but his hand was still recovering. Billy, though a drummer at heart, was one of those musicians who could turn his hand to most instruments. As evidenced by the number of them hanging on the walls throughout the house—though she was pretty sure he didn’t actually play tuba—and by the sleek black Steinway grand piano that sat in a corner of this very room and always made her hands itch to play it. Billy mostly kept his experiments offstage, but he was a damn good guitarist when he put his mind to it—maybe not near Grey’s or Danny’s or even Zach’s level—but he could more than hold his own.

  “Sounds like it,” Zach said as the random guitar noises turned into the riff from an old Erroneous song.

  “Hey birthday girl, get over here,” Billy bellowed across the room.

  Leah stayed where she was.

  Zach laughed and pushed her gently in Billy’s direction. “I don’t think you’re getting out of this. It’s birthday serenade time.”

  Oh God. She’d never really liked being the center of attention. She liked people just fine. She liked parties just fine. She just never wanted all the people at the party to be staring at her. But Zach was right. Billy wasn’t likely to quit until he got his way. She made her way over to him. He’d made himself at home on a chair beside the piano, guitar resting on one knee.

  “Happy birthday, kiddo,” he said and launched into a flamboyant cascade of chords that morphed into a round of “Happy Birthday” that everyone joined in.

  Zach was standing beside her and even though there was a room full of people around her, his voice was really the only one she focused on. Was there a little extra stress on “Dear Leah” as he sang? Or was she just an idiot who’d already had two margaritas too fast? But he’d organized this party for her …

  The song ended and everyone cheered and then Billy started playing another Erroneous song about party girls and summer nights that had everyone clapping along and could have provided her the perfect cover to ease back out of the spotlight. But she stayed where she was besides Zach, not wanting to move away while everybody was too focused on Billy to notice her lingering next to him.