“My body might be a little banged up right now. And I can’t promise you I have all the answers. But I can promise I’ll be there with you while we look for them together.”
“I just realized something,” Cosette said, resting her chin on his chest as she looked up at him with her bronze eyes and long lashes.
“What’s that?”
“Pretty much everything Betty said was true. She wanted us to get together. She said we wouldn’t die there.”
“More than that,” Aiden chuckled. “When we were coming off the cruise ship, when we were walking up the steps just about to reach the top deck before getting on the lifeboats, she whispered something to me. She was right about that too.”
“What did she say?” Cosette asked, furrowing her brows.
“She told me if I kept you safe, if I made sure everything turned out all right for you, it would be the smartest thing I ever did. I was the one who could keep you alive, but you were the kind of woman who’d give me a life worth living.”
“That’s a smart woman,” Cosette breathed out, still hardly believing the sharp turn her life had taken. She stepped onto that cruise ship believing the bump in her road might be enough to take her down completely. She felt weak. It was as though she’d been living her life with her arms out straight, stopping anything and everyone before they stepped close enough to her true self. Now, lying here in Aiden’s arms, she realized it was not too late.
“My ears are ringing,” Betty sang as she pushed open the hospital room door and clapped her hands at the sight of them.
“They should be,” Aiden laughed as Cosette sat up and cleared away the rest of her tears. “We’re singing your praises. You might have a job as a clairvoyant.”
“I can’t see the future, child,” Betty said as she waved him off. “I’m just a little better than everyone else at seeing the present. I’m glad to see you’re awake.”
“Feeling pretty good,” Aiden announced as everyone else flooded into the room.
“We owe you our lives,” Michael said, coming forward and shaking Aiden’s hand. “I get to see my kids in a little while thanks to you.”
“I have no idea how we pulled all of that off, but I know I’m going to be keeping my head low for a while. I’m ready to relax.” Aiden pushed himself up in the bed a little and winced.
“Well earned,” Clay agreed, patting his shoulder. “Come visit us when you’re better. I’d like to cook you a proper meal.”
Normally Aiden would have nodded, pursed his lips, and left many words unsaid as he refrained from committing to such a request. “I’d love that. Cosette and I can drive up once this leg heals. The only thing I heard more about than Jules’s kids was Betty’s baking, so I’m looking forward to getting to experience both.”
Jules rolled her eyes as they laughed. “I’m not apologizing for thinking my kids happen to be the best on the planet. I can’t help it. They have good genes on their mother’s side. Now if I have to wait around here another minute and not see them I’m going to burst.” She opened her arms to Cosette who was sitting on the edge of Aiden’s bed now. Everyone exchanged hugs and goodbyes and promises of seeing each other soon.
As quickly as the room had erupted in joyful noise, it was silent again. “They are an interesting bunch,” Aiden laughed, patting the bed and gesturing for Cosette to come back and lie with him.
“Quiet,” Cosette scolded. “I think Betty can hear and see anything she wants. She might be magical.”
“Then she’s about to see me kiss you,” Aiden said coyly as he tipped her chin toward him. “I hope she doesn’t blush too easily.”
“I’m guessing she doesn’t,” Cosette laughed as she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
“Do you?” he asked, his hand sliding down her shoulder, past her finger tips and to her hips.
“I can’t say,” she shrugged. “I don’t feel anything like I did before I left for that cruise. I’m going to discover a lot about myself, I think.”
“I volunteer to test this one,” he said, punctuating his words with a passionate kiss.
She pulled away just for a second, their lips less than an inch apart. “You sure about all this?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Ordinary life with an extraordinary woman,” he reminded her.
“I’m not even sure I know what you mean by that,” she admitted with a breathy laugh.
“I mean I want to go to brunch on Sunday mornings and shop for a lamp in the afternoon. I want to throw a ball to the dog I’ve never been able to have because I’m not around enough. But at the same time I want to be with the woman who challenges me. A woman who knows what is right. A woman who gives up her seat for freedom for a child who might otherwise be left behind. That’s what I want.”
“He’s very angry,” Cosette explained. “I think he blames me for leaving Amal behind. I don’t think he believes I did enough. He’s not grateful for the seat I gave him.”
“I’ve learned over the years sometimes you have to be someone’s villain. If you’re the bad guy, he doesn’t have to put that on his brother. It doesn’t feel good, but being the punching bag he needs right now is a gift he doesn’t even understand he needs.”
“Amal asked me to try to find some of the displaced kids from Corinti that were adopted after an earthquake years ago. He wants Wilkie to know people like him. He wants him to still have his culture. I don’t know where to start.” Cosette had backed up a bit now and Aiden had to come to terms with the fact that their moment, for right now, was over.
“I can make some phone calls. I’ll get him through the process quickly and we’ll find the right place for him.”
“Where will he be while that happens?” Cosette asked, thinking of the little boy sitting alone, by choice, in the pediatric wing of this hospital being treated for dehydration and some scrapes and cuts.
“It depends,” Aiden shrugged. “We can see if he’ll come with us for a while.”
“Us?” she asked, twisting her face up. “Do we even know where we will be?”
“We’ll be next to your shop,” Aiden said as though it were obvious. “I’ll weigh about three hundred pounds from taste-testing all your cakes while I try to recover. I can get a place next to you, maybe Wilkie can stay with me for a while.”
“I’m not sure he’ll want to be around me,” Cosette reminded him, stifling the threat of tears.
“Give him a chance to decide that,” Aiden suggested. “If you throw in some cake, maybe he’ll warm up to you. Everyone loves cake.”
“Amal asked me to bake him a birthday cake,” Cosette remembered suddenly. “He’s never had a proper one.”
“Extraordinary,” Aiden said, touching her hand gently. “You’ll start to see it for yourself soon enough.”
Chapter 29
Wilkie stood in the doorway of the small apartment but refused to step in. He hadn’t spoken more than a couple words to either of them since Aiden was discharged from the hospital. His agreement to come with them was more of a surrender than an arrangement he seemed to support. What else could he do really? Aiden was the one who would make sure he’d have a future in this foreign land. If he were to have a life at all, it would be with their help. So he accepted it reluctantly.
“My apartment is in the same building,” Cosette sang out, too cheery for the tension in the room. “You’d just take the elevator up to the next floor and I’m in apartment 4B. You can come anytime.”
Wilkie nodded his head and drew in a deep breath. It was as though he were stepping down from a spaceship and on to the moon as he forced himself inside.
“It looks a little empty now,” Aiden apologized and Cosette thought that was the understatement of the century. “But I figured we could pick out some furniture together. It might be a couple months before you are through the system here. Until then, you’re under my care, and we might as well make this a place we both like.”
“Anything is fine,” Wilkie sighed, dropping his ba
g onto the creaky hardwood floor. “I’m tired.”
“Aiden bought you a nice bed,” Cosette explained too loudly. She was annoying even herself now. Stop trying so hard.
“Is there anything you want to eat?” Aiden asked, gesturing at the fridge. Wilkie had barely picked over any food in the last two weeks.
“The food here hurts my stomach,” he groaned. “Everything is different.” Something in the smooth impenetrable veneer he’d layered himself in cracked. It might have sounded like a complaint to someone else, but to Cosette it finally sounded like something real, something he was sharing.
“Is there something we could cook that would make you feel more at home?” Cosette rushed to ask. “Maybe there is a recipe we could make together?”
He shook his head and dropped his eyes to his shoes. “I’m tired.” It was like he was picking up a trowel and filling in the little crack he’d allowed, smoothing it back as though it had never happened.
“Your room is right through here,” Aiden said, walking him to the back of the apartment. A moment later he returned and shot her a look of exasperation. “Kids. I thought this attitude didn’t start until they were teens.” He laughed, shaking his head and smiling.
“He hates me,” Cosette countered. “If it were just you two he’d be better. We shouldn’t have gotten a place so close to mine. He needs space from me.”
“He doesn’t,” Aiden assured her. “He needs as many people around him as he can get. Without you we never would have been able to fill out all that paperwork and get things squared away. Plus, no one would have let this kid come with me if they didn’t think you’d be around to help. I can hardly be trusted.”
At the reminder, Cosette reached into her bag and pulled out the copies of all the papers they had filled out for Wilkie. They were his identity. His full name. His parents’ names. Amal’s information. His birthday. Everything on a cover sheet of paper that made him who he was, and yet now it seemed like he had no connection to it at all.
“He’ll be ten years old next month,” Cosette said, looking at his birthday. “Double digits. Do you remember how big of a deal that was when you were little?”
“Yea,” Aiden agreed. “I thought that I was all grown up then. I remember thinking, how would my mom get all those candles on one cake.”
“I’m going to do something for him,” Cosette announced. It was just the conception of an idea, a notion she would cultivate into something perfect. “I’m going to give him something he needs.”
“A winter coat?” Aiden teased. “The kid is going to freeze in this climate.”
“He’ll get everything he needs to settle in. I’m thinking something different. I’m thinking something he can’t get here.”
“You look like I used to before I started my next mission,” Aiden said, eyeing her nervously. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” she smiled. “You should be excited. I think I just figured out what Amal was telling me before I left. I think I know what he meant. All of us have something in us. We can use it, and I’m going to.”
“Whatever it is,” Aiden grinned, “I can’t wait to see.”
“Me either,” she agreed. “I’m going to do figure this out. I’m not going to stop until I do.”
Chapter 30
Cosette was awake. Not just awake in bed waiting for the sun to rise but awake in her life. She tried to remember what it had felt like before. Brandon would be on his side of the bed. The alarm would ring, and they’d start moving through their day. He’d grab a shower first and then like cars on the road they’d move parallel to each other. Sometimes one would be moving too fast, the other too slow, and for a little while they’d even lose sight of each other. Then a date night or a bottle of wine would bring them back together.
That was what life felt like before. Cosette was always driving alone in her own car, and occasionally someone would sidle up next to her in their own car and cruise along. The company was nice. Looking over and realizing she wasn’t alone brought her comfort. But things were different now. She was moving through life swinging her car doors open and begging people to come in. Come share with me. Come ride with me. And it felt complete.
She’d spent weeks preparing for her surprise for Wilkie, and as the day approached she couldn’t believe how the seed of an idea had blossomed. No it had done more than that. It had pollinated everything within reach. It grew larger and more profound than she could have imagined. All because she’d laid her heart out for people to see.
Wilkie was still hardly eating and spent most of his time in his room. Aiden had tried everything to get him to come around, but the boy had an endless amount of willpower. No bribe would cheer him up. No adventure would spark his excitement. But tomorrow would be the day. Cosette could feel it.
Her phone vibrated and the screen lit her dark bedroom. The only person up this early who’d be trying to reach her was Betty. At the urging of her family she’d actually started texting.
All set for 2morrow. C U then.
God, she’d even learned to text well. Was there anything that woman couldn’t do? Cosette hoped tomorrow wouldn’t be the day they’d answer that question. It needed to be perfect. Every time her nerves creeped up, the reminder of Amal standing on that beach and waving goodbye entered her mind. If he could face that, she could face anything.
Chapter 31
The long car ride on its own wasn’t that big of a deal. It was more the awkward level of sadness that filled Aiden’s SUV as the three of them drove north to Edenville that was dreadful.
“I hear it’s the quaintest little place where nothing ever happens,” Cosette said, trying to break the tension.
“If Betty lives there, I doubt that’s true,” Aiden joked and looked in the rearview mirror to see if Wilkie would crack a smile, but he didn’t. “I have something for you,” Aiden said, pulling a folded up piece of paper from his pocket. “I wasn’t sure when to give it to you, but I figure that’s not up to me. It had your name on it. You decide what to do with it.”
“What is it?” Wilkie asked curiously as he took it in his hand.
“A letter from Amal,” Aiden explained. “It wasn’t easy to get it to me, I’m sure. There are some UN peacekeepers there now, and I called in some favors so you could hear from him.”
Wilkie leaned over, rolled down the window, and tossed the letter out. “What are you doing?” Cosette shrieked, opening her car door as they sped down the road. Aiden slammed on the brakes and before he was at a full stop she was jogging down the street to retrieve the paper.
“No,” he yelled. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to know what it says. I don’t want to be here with you,” he shouted as Cosette came back to the car.
“I understand you’re upset,” Cosette tried, but he cut her off.
“I’m going to stay with Betty,” he pressed. “When we get there I am going to ask her. They put me on the helicopter, and they said they would have to shoot them to let me go. You did nothing for Amal.”
“Hey,” Aiden interrupted, but Cosette waived him off.
“Let him talk. We’ve been asking him to talk for weeks. The least we can do now is listen to what he has to say.”
“You left him there,” he accused her, pointing his finger at Cosette. “And you convinced him he had to do all these things and risk his life,” he said to Aiden.
“There is only one reason Amal agreed to help me,” Aiden corrected, and he tried to tamp down the frustration in his voice, remembering what Wilkie had endured. “You. He told me the first day we spoke that if he helped me, it had to mean that you would be safe. That was all he wanted.”
“We could have both been safe if he’d have gotten on the helicopter. But she didn’t even try. She just thought of herself.” Wilkie was crying now, his nose running, his eyes soaked.
“Read the letter, Wilkie,” Aiden sighed. “Listen to what your brother has to tell you. I know you are mad. You have every right to be. Cosette and
I are not perfect. But hear what your brother has to say, and then decide how you feel.”
Wilkie reluctantly unfolded the letter, cleared the blurry tears from his eyes, and read it aloud.
Dear Brother,
You will never be able to understand how happy I was to know you had safe passage to a better place. Because you do not know the promise I made to our parents. As they fought to make Corinti safer for us, they also knew they might not live long enough to see the day when it was a reality. Sadly that day still has not come. But they wanted to make doubly sure that we had a future. They asked that I fight on but that you move on. Those were Mother’s words. One of us must continue to push forward and the other should go wider into the world and try to make it better. I decided then I would be the one to stay, and you, with your wild spirit and endless energy, would go into the world and try to help that way.
Know the tears Miss Cosette cried as she pleaded for me to come were the truest I have ever seen. If she could have dragged me on herself I’m sure she would have. But I would have returned anyway, because this is where I feel I am meant to be. And finally you are where you belong. I don’t know how long my fight will be. I don’t know if I will live longer than our parents did. But you will. And your life will be fruitful and important.
Forgive me. That is all I ask. I cannot live knowing you hate me. Forgive me so I can know the choice I have made was right. Forgive your new friends because the choice was not theirs to make.
Brothers we will always be.
With love,
Amal
Wilkie refolded the paper and looked out the window. Aiden wasn’t sure if he intended to toss it out again or not. After a few long beats he placed the paper over his heart and whispered, “I forgive you.”
Aiden had to turn his eyes back toward the road just to manage the welling of his own emotions. Cosette slipped silently back into the car and pressed her lips tightly closed, willing herself to stay quiet.
Not Just an Echo (Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Book 3) Page 13