“You’re a beck-and-call girl.” Meghan laughed. She offered a high five that Angie gleefully accepted. Unfortunately, the loud smack drew her aunt’s attention.
“Okay. That’s enough for me. Your turn and please—spare me anything too personal.” She shuddered. “You’re married to my brother.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. I had something broader in mind as a share. I’m not exactly what you’d call a wallflower. Never have been and never could be. I’m way too opinionated for that sort of nonsense. But until Alex came along, I didn’t know what it was like to have someone else’s complete respect. Respect and honesty are the cornerstones of his style—if you catch my meaning. He might be Big Daddy in our relationship too, but he treats me with a dignity that feels worshipful. Even when he’s being beastly, I know he’s in awe of my trust and love.”
“Trust and love. Powerful connections.”
“What are you two girls plotting?”
Angie heard her aunt’s voice and shut her eyes. She hadn’t seen her approaching. It was too late to cross her fingers and hope she hadn’t heard too much.
Meghan saved the day with a bright laugh and a cheeky smirk. “Wendy! Perfect timing. I was just about to tell the bride what your husband and my father-in-law had in store for poor Parker tonight.”
Angie mouthed a silent, “Thank you,” and shifted on the lounger to look at her aunt. “Ben Kenobi and Bail Organa? Really?”
Wendy’s amused laughter rang out. “Cristián took his role as Leia’s father seriously. Made your mom call him His Serene Highness or some such nonsense. And Matt, well, pfft,” she drawled. “I won’t bother to pretend that he didn’t already have an Obi Wan costume.”
“Meghan says they tried to fight off the stormtroopers who invaded his law office?”
Wendy snickered. “Had a ball choreographing the action. Boys forever, those two. It was supposed to start with Vader stomping into his office and demanding he surrender.”
“I can’t wait to hear the rest of it.” Angie softly laughed.
“Those two idiots wanted to knock him out with chloroform.”
Meghan doubled over with laughter.
“Luckily, it’s illegal.”
A scream and a shriek of laughter drew their attention. Carmen’s legs were all that were visible as she tumbled off the side of the hot tub and fell with a splash in the water. Heather and Ria were hysterically laughing as Bella balanced precariously on the edge and tried to help Carmen. Her mom was laughing too hard to be of any help, so Sophie tossed a seat cushion into the tub, declaring it a flotation device.
Betty and Cheryl, who quite masterfully put the whole affair together while enduring Parker’s heavy breathing, came strolling out of the house carrying an elaborate croquembouche of her favorite profiteroles covered with spun sugar.
“He thought of everything,” Angie murmured.
Aunt Wendy put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “He loves you, Angelina. Thank you so much, honey.”
“For what?”
“For loving him back just as much.”
She rose and hugged her aunt. “I know hearing me say this is getting old, but it’s true. I’ve loved that man my whole life, and I promise, Aunt Wendy, I will move heaven and earth to make sure he’s happy.”
Wendy placed a deliberate kiss on her forehead. “I know. That’s what makes this all so perfect. You two were destined for this. It took a lot of love to overcome what you did. Matt and I couldn’t be happier or prouder of the both of you.”
She saw Meghan wipe away a tear. These days, an overload of emotion was in the air all the time. Angie felt honored to know the people who surrounded her and Parker had their best interests at heart. The love and support was pure joy.
They were all lucky. There was something truly extraordinary about Family Justice. For her, it transcended the usual Valleja-Marquez family emphasis and encompassed a much larger world. She and Parker didn’t live at the Villa, but they were key figures in the family her brother had made happen out here in the desert. The same for Heather and Brody. Sophie too.
Family Justice reached well beyond the enormous acreage where the Villa and agency compound occupied. When all was said and done, their unique bond had changed the trajectory of her life.
Without Family Justice, she might not have returned to Arizona determined to find closure with Parker, once and for all.
Without Family Justice, she might not be having this wonderful moment with her girl crew.
She glanced around. Without Family Justice, none of them would be here, and life would be very different.
With a deep frown, Alex looked at the men waiting expectantly for him to speak. Using a tone that suggested the entire weight of the world rested on his shoulders, he began.
“Men, the world is a fucked-up place with bad actors hiding around every corner.”
Heads nodded and a low murmur of agreement flowed through the room.
“We’ve all had our share of shit and stuff,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“Hear, hear,” someone called out.
“But you do not know what fucked up is until your best friend starts doing your little sister.”
Loud moans, groans, and chuckles filled the room.
Chewbacca’s growly laugh rang out.
Drae shouted, “Drink up, guys. He said sister.”
Alex sniggered. Several drinking games were going on, and one of them involved taking a drink every time he rubbed Parker’s nose in the fact that the man’s bride was Alex’s sister. The fucker.
Raising his drink, he acknowledged Parker’s father. “Uncle Matt—thanks for not taking any of our shit as kids.”
“Hey,” his dad groused. “What about me? Don’t I get any credit?”
“In this instance, Dad, you get the blame. For that tart you insist is my sister.”
Drae groaned. “Cut it the fuck out, man.” He raised his drink and muttered, “Sister.”
They’d all be face down on the floor before the end of the night.
Cam let out the granddaddy of all belches, which led to Calder pushing the sound effects button, and next thing they all knew, the Star Wars theme came booming through the sound system.
Chewbacca sat by himself at a small table and laughed.
“It’s damn impossible to follow the program with you lot,” Alex muttered. “Can you just shut up long enough to let me make this toast, or do I have to take out my lightsaber and wave it in your faces?”
Brody chimed in. “Who wants to see a three-inch lightsaber?” He raised his hand and laughed at the innuendo.
“I know where you live, Jensen,” Alex snarled.
“That’s what your wife said,” Brody chortled in response.
“Oh, burn!” The laughing voice? Belonged to his father.
Ben stood and wobbled a bit—then raised his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. Come on. Let the Major give his pretty speech.”
Shit sailed through the air at Ben’s head, making him laugh and swat the projectiles away. “Hey, I gave it a try,” he said to Alex.
“Shut up, Alex,” Calder hollered. “We all get it. Your childhood pal is sleeping with your sister. Get over it. Besides”—he snicker-laughed—“I hear that he’s so scared of you freaking out over what he’s doing to Angie that he’s lost at least an inch of dick.”
Now, in a normal family, the older, supposedly more dignified individuals would find this sort of talk objectionable. Maybe some muttering and head shakes. But with this crew? Ha! His dad and uncle laughed the hardest and led the group through a round of table pounding that rattled the walls.
“I give up,” he drawled. “Dude. Congratulations.” He raised his glass to Parker and gave him the finger at the same time. So much for preparing a special toast.
Finn staggered to his table and sat down heavily in the chair Alex had been using. Cam snickered and shrugged.
“I dig your brand of fucked up, Zorro,” Finn said in a minor
league yell. “Damn creative. You’re giving me ideas for theme nights at Pete’s. I had no idea putting on a costume and acting like a lunatic could be such fun.”
Alex could always count on Cam to get in a few well-aimed shots in the driest and most imaginatively deadpanned way. Tonight was not going to be the exception.
“Hey,” he said in a growling monotone. “Maybe you could have a door prize. Stroke 29 and a box of tissues.”
Finn swung his head and drunk glared Cam. “I’d smack your teeth down your throat if I didn’t like your wife so much.”
Alex shrugged and made a face. He spoke the truth.
Cam’s shit-eating grin never failed to make Alex laugh. What surprised him, though, was when Cam dropped a word salad bomb.
“Beantown, I hate your fucking guts, man, but dude? I like you.”
Finn smiled with one side of his mouth and said something. He was minutes away from falling to the floor.
“What was that?” Cam asked.
Alex chuckled and pulled up another chair. “I believe after you said I like you, he tried to say that’s what your wife said. Then it got garbled.”
Barry, who was running the bar in full cantina costume, walked up to Finn and grabbed his shoulder. “This one’s definitely over the limit.”
“Are you implying I’m drunk?” Finn slurred.
Barry played with his beard and rolled his eyes at Alex. “Totally,” he said to Finn.
“Bring me some meat!” Finn yelled. “Something greasy and disgusting.”
“Okay, that’s it.” Barry snorted. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go.” He got Finn on his feet and led him away.
Cam watched the maneuvering it took to keep Finn upright and had a good laugh.
“So you’re okay with him now?” Alex asked.
“Aw, he’s okay,” Cam muttered. “Showed up a piece of shit. Now he’s just a dumbass. And besides, Bella wants us all to act nice.”
They both laughed.
“Now, Calder, on the other hand,” Cam said and then whistled. “Man, seriously. Those two are nuclear material waiting for detonation.”
“My uncle has an extraordinarily short fuse where these things are concerned. He doesn’t believe in pandering to some privileged kid’s demand that he be allowed to act badly in the process of finding himself.”
Cam arched a brow.
“Family history. You kind of had to be there.” Alex half shrugged.
“Well, when he first arrived, all of us wanted to drown his sorry ass. Meghan’s poor dad was at the end of his rope with the kid, and Finn went out of his way to be as big of a flaming dick as he possibly could—while disparaging you in the process. The guy was not your biggest fan, and you can imagine how well that went over.”
“As long as my wife thinks he’s getting better, I’m cool.”
“Need a laugh?” Cam asked in a hearty chuckling voice.
“Always,” he replied.
“Mizz Bella Mia? The lil’ captain? She might be smarter than all of us are. Gave Uncle Thor a present for the baby.”
Alex’s brows bumped together, and he wondered what Bella was up to.
“It was a book. A book called Be Nice to Your Friends.”
His jaw went slack, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. “A six-year-old gave a fifty-three-year-old an attitude adjustment? With a kid’s book?”
“Word,” Cam murmured with mock reverence. “We’d better keep an eye on that one, huh?” He chuckled. “Love that girl. Can’t say it enough.”
“Speaking of girls to love,” Alex drawled. “Won’t be long now till you and Lacey meet your daughter.”
Cam sat immobile and didn’t say anything. Alex knew the signals. He looked him over carefully, noted the relaxed posture that masked his tension, and immediately started to worry.
“What’s going on?”
Cam sat forward and put his elbows on the table. He propped his chin on his hand and looked at him. “Lacey’s convinced something is up.”
Incredulous, Alex barked, “Excuse me?”
“We’ve had every test in the book. Everything is fine. She’s a bit on the small side but not so much that anyone is worried. But that doesn’t stop my wife from worrying. Shit, Alex. We go to every doctor’s visit expecting bad news.”
He didn’t understand. When Lacey was pregnant with Dylan, she made it look so easy. “What does she think is wrong?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t know. It’s a feeling—that’s all. Maybe saying something’s wrong isn’t accurate. She says not quite right. Something’s not quite right.”
Alex thought about it for a moment. “Not to be a downer or anything but have you considered the not quite right is Lacey—and not the baby?”
He asked the question because it seemed logical. And reasonable. But Cam’s horrified expression suggested he’d gone too far.
“Oh, my god, Alex. No. Shit. If anything happens to Lacey, I’ll …”
“Goddammit,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that she’s been a little off from the beginning. You weren’t around when she found out she was pregnant, and it’s been tough for her. Maybe her fears are an extension of that. Of Lacey not feeling quite right.”
Silence descended. He felt like shit.
“I’m sorry. Let’s not borrow trouble, okay? The doctors say everything is fine. In a couple of weeks when you’re holding a healthy baby girl, none of this will matter.”
“You’re right. Come on,” Cam said. “Let’s go fuck with Parker. He’s not drunk enough. We still have work to do.”
Alex stood and gave Cam a handshake hug. “How do you wanna play this? Lightsabers at the ready?”
“Totally.” Cam sniggered. They grabbed two nearby props and laughed. “I’ll go high, and you go low. Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” Alex boomed.
They ran toward the group of party-goers, many wearing stormtrooper outfits and started shouting. Wildly waving the lightsabers, they activated Calder’s sound effect chips and started an epic saber duel that spread until everyone got into the act.
One of his thoughts as he dueled around the room was that Whiskey Pete’s had never seen so much fuckery. And then a chair sailed through the air just like in the older, grittier days, and he laughed, thinking how the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
18
The day of her wedding arrived with a glorious sunrise. She watched it from the small vine-covered terrace of the room she and Sophie shared when they stayed at the Villa as children.
It ended up being important to her that she spend the night before her marriage in the home of her ancestors. Meghan was forever going on about the comfort and support she got from Abuelita’s portrait—so much so that Angie and Sophie had taken to stopping by at odd times to commune with the beautiful señora whose DNA they shared.
She wanted to awake in a hacienda hundreds of years old as a Valleja-Marquez señorita. After today, she’d be a married woman, and her name would join the Sullivan family tree.
Her mom and Sophie arrived before Carmen finished spoiling her with breakfast in bed.
“Get up, you lazy shit,” her sister barked with a yank on the bed’s covers. Angie barely had time to rescue the piece of jam-covered toast she’d made before her sister’s bullying forced her to move.
As her feet hit the floor, she looked down and frowned. Parker had taken away her anklet last night before kissing her into a coma and leaving her at the Villa’s doorstep. He said he didn’t want her wearing it to the wedding, and she wasn’t happy with him for it.
She hid out in the small bathroom and did her thing while in a second, larger bedroom, a makeup and hair person waited along with a photographer and a fucking reporter.
Angie wanted to kill Parker for putting her in such a position, but he hadn’t been the one pulling the strings. It was his dad. The society editor at the local paper wanted to do a story on them. Whoever this woman was h
ad big-time connections. The interview could possibly even appear in a national magazine. Uncle Matt thought the national attention might come in handy someday, so neither of them could do much to object once Matthew Sullivan weighed in.
Showered and lotioned from head to toe, she wrapped herself in a satin robe and left the sanctuary of the bathroom. It was time to get the show on the road.
In the other room, introductions were made, and Angie was relieved to find that Sophie had her bitch cap on and had taken control to the amusing satisfaction of their mother.
Not a single photograph was snapped without Sophie’s consent—and she meant business. The reporter looked like she wanted to shoot herself.
As her hair and makeup happened, the reporter asked her a series of dull, innocuous questions. Details about her dress. Fashion tips and fluff.
“Is it true that you and your fiancé had a secret liaison when you were a college coed?”
The room went deathly still. She looked into the mirror and fixed the reporter with an icy glare. In those few seconds, she aged ten years. If she had any lingering growing up to do, it happened in a flash when it dawned on her that she and Parker did not, in fact, live in a happily ever after bubble, and that people existed out there who had agendas and did not mean them well.
Sophie became a ten-foot-tall fire-breathing dragon. “Did you tell your editor that this would be a gotcha piece?” The direct challenge in her question rattled the reporter’s cage.
“Readers want to know,” the stupid woman insisted.
Her mother came to Angie’s side and put a protective arm around her shoulders.
Sophie took out the trash. She held out her hand and demanded the picture card. When the photographer balked, she reminded him that Parker was a lawyer, and that unless he wanted to surrender all his camera equipment, he should hand over the card and shut up. After she had the card, Sophie looked at the reporter and said, “Get out.”
Like a scene in a movie, Duke Winston and a security guard knocked on the room’s door and entered. To her mother, he said, “Mrs. Marquez, ma’am. Would you like me to escort these two from the property?”
Everlasting (Family Justice Book 6) Page 26