“Lafferty.”
“Whatever. Whether it was Nissa or her kids or that whacked out wine town—”
“Are you looking to get punched?” Because his still healing knuckles were willing to take another bruising.
“You don’t belong in this job any more, Dante. Because you know what’s really out there. Not all of us get that chance, man. Just something to think about. Keep in touch, okay? Let me know how things…go.”
Dante stared at the envelope long after Jack had left. He wasn’t entirely sure what constituted a severance package in his line of work, but at least it wasn’t ticking. He flipped open the metal clasp, pulled out the inch-thick stack of papers topped with a cashier’s check for the balance owed on the job he’d purposely tanked.
“Son of a bitch.” Dante laughed in spite of himself as he began scanning through the disturbingly thorough report compiled on Nissa’s ex Lance Drummond. And his less than above board law firm.
*
“Mooooom! Come in here, quick!”
“What?” Nissa raced out of her parents’ kitchen and joined her father and kids in the living room where they were all staring at the television. “Good lord, I thought one of the chickens had invaded. What’s going on?”
“It’s Dad.” Wyatt pointed at the screen.
Nissa sank onto the arm of the recliner and grabbed hold of her father’s hand. “What—?”
“Shhh.” Brady Lafferty squeezed her fingers. “Details are just breaking.”
Nissa turned her attention to the reporter standing on the steps of the San Francisco courthouse.
“This is Melody Chavat reporting from downtown San Francisco, where one of the most prestigious law firms in the country has been served a federal subpoena for their role in alleged organized crime syndicates. At least six of the firm’s attorneys, including founder Miles Beaufort, have been taken in for questioning. At least three junior partners have been arrested on fraud and money laundering charges and face at minimum ten to fifteen years although it’s expected some if not all will cut a deal with the Department of Justice in exchange for a lenient sentence. Rumor has it the evidence was provided by an anonymous source. More to come…”
“Is Dad going to jail?” Caley spun around on her knees to look at her mother as Brady muted the volume.
“I don’t know.” Nissa wiped her hands on a towel and tried to look away from the film of Lance being led out of his office building in cuffs. She should be feeling something, regret, sympathy maybe. But instead, relief swept over her like a cleansing tide. “I guess we’ll find out.” Now she had a legit reason to take her maiden name back. And change the kids’.
“So, this means we won’t have to visit him again, right?” Caley asked.
“Not if you don’t want to, no.” For the first time in almost a month, hope surged afresh inside Nissa. She’d wondered why she hadn’t heard word one from Lance after details of the shooting had emerged. She thought for sure he’d come at her with lawyers and accusations, especially once she did what she should have done to begin with and started seeing a therapist. If he didn’t sign the custody agreement now, he probably never would. But whatever ammunition he’d been hoping to use against her, she now had her own. In spades. “But no matter what he’s done he’s still your father.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s a dad though,” Wyatt pouted. “Dante would have been a great dad.”
“Dante had to go back to New York.” Nissa attempted to stand, but her father tightened his grip.
“Dante did what he thought he had to in order to protect you. All of you,” Brady said. “I might not like that he lied, but I’m not going to fault him for loving you. Are you so afraid of taking another chance you’re going to throw that all away?”
“While I appreciate what you’re trying to do, you and I both know you can’t love someone and lie to them.”
“I love you, Mom.” Caley scooted across the floor and grabbed hold of her jean-clad knees.
“I know you do, baby.”
“And I lied to you. I did something really bad.”
Nissa had been wondering if and when Caley was ever going to come clean. “You mean about drinking the soy milk at your father’s?”
Caley gaped. “You know?”
“Mothers know everything,” Nissa whispered. “But I’m not the one I think you should apologize to.”
“You mean Arabella, don’t you?” Caley’s pout rivaled her brother’s. “Should I call her? I have her phone number.”
“I would bet she has her hands full right now.” She could only imagine the fallout for Arabella with both her fiancé and father under federal indictment. “But yes, I think we should plan on going to see her and telling her you’re sorry.”
“Will that be enough?” Caley didn’t look convinced.
“It should be.”
“But it wasn’t when Dante said he was sorry,” Wyatt scrambled closer and nudged his sister. “And he saved your life. He saved all our lives. How come you can forgive Caley and not Dante?”
“I-well, yeah, you see—”
“That is an excellent question, Wyatt.” Brady released Nissa’s hand and patted her leg before he stood up. “How about we go check on that cake grandma’s baking for your uncle Quaid. I bet she’ll have some chocolate frosting left.”
“Mom, is Wyatt right?” Caley jumped into her grandpa’s chair and leaned against Nissa’s arm. “You can forgive Dante if you forgive me.”
“It’s not that simple, baby.” Nissa kissed the top of Caley’s head. And sighed.
But oh how she wished it was.
*
“How is he tonight?” Dante stopped by the nurses’ station at his father’s care facility to speak with the duty nurse.
“Oh, Mr. Thanos.” The middle-aged woman removed her wired glasses and offered an encouraging smile. “He’s doing quite well actually. He was asking for you earlier.”
“He was?” Dante couldn’t remember his father ever asking for him before.
“The doctor’s working on some new medication regiment with him and it appears to be working. He’s in the dining hall working on a puzzle I believe if you’d like to visit.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”
For the last four years Edward Thanos had been non-verbal and completely sedentary. Dante hadn’t exactly been generous with his visits; how could he be given he’d gone for more than twenty-five years without speaking to the man? Edward had only reappeared when Dante’s mother died.
The dining room was empty save for the arranged tables and chairs and carried the odor of over-steamed vegetables. He stood there, in the doorway, watching as a man he remembered as larger than life stooped in his wheelchair and plucked at tiny puzzle pieces even Dante couldn’t decipher.
Edward lifted his chin. “I’ll go to bed when I want to go to bed.”
“I’ll be sure to pass the message to your nurses,” Dante said.
His father jolted in his chair. He looked at Dante, blinked and narrowed his eyes. “Is that you, Dante?”
“In the flesh.” Dante walked over and stooped down beside his father. “I hear you’re doing better these days.”
“Huh. May be my final rallying cry. Who knows.” He grinned that twinkling, sneaky grin Dante saw in the mirror every day. “They tell me you’re footing the bill for this place.”
“I am.”
“Pricey I bet.”
“Yes.” Money had always been the great equalizer for his father. Always off to find his fame and fortune…and whatever woman went with it.
“Why?”
“Why?” Now it was Dante’s turn to blink. He pulled over a chair and sat down. “What do you mean, why? You’re my father.”
“Takes more than sperm donation to make a father. We both know that. I never made no time for you, boy. Never showed any interest. So why are you doing this?”
The words should have hurt, but how could they when he’d long ago given up any notion of hav
ing a real relationship with the man?
“Because I promised Mom.” He picked up a puzzle piece and turned it over between his fingers. “She never stopped loving you, Dad. She wanted to make sure you were taken care of. And she knew—”
“She knew you’d never break a promise.” Edward nodded, his scraggly silver hair falling in front of his sunken eyes. “One thing about you, you never made a promise you wouldn’t keep. Good woman, your mother.”
“Yes, she was.” Dante’s throat tightened. He’d been thinking about her a lot lately. Maybe it had been seeing Nissa with her kids, maybe it was being around Eileen and watching how she doted on her family; how she’d welcomed him in to hers.
“Biggest mistake of my life was walking away from her,” Edward continued. “You know what the worst thing a man can possess, Dante? Pride. A man lets pride sneak in and he can’t bring himself to admit his mistakes until it’s too late. I should have crawled back to her, wanted to, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Dante heard, but he wasn’t sure he understood. His father had regrets? His cold, unfeeling, detached father had still loved Dante’s mother after all those years?
“Instead I ran away. Didn’t fight for her, didn’t fight for us. Now look at me. Just sitting around, waiting to die so I can finally tell her what I should have said thirty years ago. That she was the only woman I ever loved.”
“That’s a lot of insight to have in a few weeks,” Dante said in the hopes of keeping things from getting too maudlin. The last thing Edward would want was to make a fuss about feelings or emotions.
“Gotta get it all out before I’m out of time.” Edward looked him up and down. “You married, boy? You give me any grandkids?”
“No. There is, was a woman.” He cleared his throat. “Her name’s Nissa. She’s beautiful.” He reached back and pulled out his cell phone, tapped open the picture he’d snapped of her and Wyatt and Caley. The image still took his breath away. “I screwed up, Dad. Maybe even worse than you.”
“Huh.” Edward tapped his finger against the picture. “She’s a looker. Seems to me you should do something about fixing what you broke. Not that I have any right to give you advice. Just my two cents.”
“You have every right,” Dante murmured as the years of resentment melted away. “You’re my father.”
*
“What on earth is wrong with this thing?” Nissa flipped open the back cover to the 35mm camera and rearranged the strip of film. Again.
After almost a month, she was back in the park, back at her bench, trying to exorcise whatever inner demons were still lurking inside of her. Therapy had helped; the panic attacks had subsided, and she felt more in control of her life. So much so that she was answering freelancing photography ads online.
One step at a time.
Click. Click. Click.
Nissa froze. She hadn’t hit any button. She scanned the park, turning in a slow circle as she focused on the bushes behind her. “Who’s in there?”
“At least you ask these days.” Nissa’s heart jack-hammered in her chest as Dante emerged from the shrubs.
“What are you—why are you—Dante?”
“Articulate as ever.” He walked toward her, and it was then she saw he was carrying a camera identical to the one in her hands. “Hello, Nissa.”
“Hello.” It was all she could manage even as her heart screamed out to him. She knew she’d missed him; ached for him. Longed to touch him and laugh with him. But until this moment she hadn’t realized how much his absence actually hurt.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he said. “Fully this time. For planning to meet you like this the first time. For lying to you. For not telling you the truth from the beginning. I was wrong.”
“You said all that before.”
“Right.” A smile flickered across his beautiful full lips. “I guess I wanted to make sure you heard me.”
She had heard him, but she didn’t believe him. She hadn’t been able to let herself. Until now. “I understand why you did it all. You had a job to do—”
“It wasn’t the job. It wasn’t all the job. It was supposed to be a quick in and out. A hello, maybe a coffee and dinner, then I’d find the photographs and be gone.”
“Wow. Talk about romance.”
“That was the plan before I met you. I wasn’t supposed to care. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to hear this. Not again. She didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have reality slap her back. And yet, when she opened her eyes and found him still standing amidst the flora of St. Helena’s beautiful park, saw the hope and affection shining in those stunning eyes of his, that’s exactly what happened.
“I had a long talk with my father.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I know. Shocked me, too. He pretty much told me to do what I had to in order to fix what I broke. Unless…”
“Try,” she whispered. “Try to fix it and we’ll see what happens.”
He set his camera on the grass and stepped closer, reached out and clasped her face between his hands. “Nothing I say will fix what I broke, Nissa. We both know that. But I’m not the man I was when I first came here. I don’t want to be him any more. I want to be worthy. Of you. Of Caley and Wyatt and your parents…”
“And my brothers? Don’t forget them.”
“Couldn’t possibly. Can you give me another chance? Can we try again? No pretense this time, no ulterior motives? No secret agendas. Just a home and a family. And maybe a dog?”
She frowned. “A dog?”
“I think your kids need one, don’t they? If only to help herd those chickens of your mother’s. And they’ve got some great pet resources downtown.”
The emptiness clawing inside her filled. With his smile, his laugh. With him. “You can’t buy my kids’ affection you know.”
“I know.”
“Because they’re already crazy about you.”
He grinned. “I can work with crazy.”
“Good thing. Cause we have a lot of it.” She curled her free hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. “I love you, Dante Thanos.”
“I love you, Nissa Lafferty.” He kissed her again. “Now how about we pick our kids up from school?”
About the Author
Anna J Stewart is the USA Today and national bestselling author of sweet romance for Harlequin Heartwarming, steamy contemporary romance (The Tremayne Family Romances), and spicy romantic suspense for Harlequin. All of her stories feature family, friends, and close-knit communities, which means she always has a story to tell.
A geek at heart who suffers from Star Trek, Supernatural, and Sherlock obsessions, when not at her computer, you can find her reading, binge watching her favorite TV shows, at the local movie theater, or at fan conventions.
For more information about Anna, her books, and her editing services for writers, please visit www.authorannastewart.com. While you’re there, make sure you sign up for her “news only” newsletter. She has subscriber only giveaways in every issue!
You can also find her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorAnnaJStewart and on Twitter using the handle @ajstewartwriter
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