by Sarah Peis
“She can go where the pepper grows,” Oma said. Freddie and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. That was a new one.
“I’ll second that,” I said and raised my mug. “To new beginnings.”
The front door opened and Rhett called out, “Where is everyone?”
“Kitchen,” I called back.
“What’s going on? Something happen while I was out?”
“Josie is ours to keep,” Freddie sing-songed, still bouncing Josie through the kitchen.
I walked up to him and tipped my head back. He didn’t hesitate and kissed me, keeping it chaste.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, holding on to my hand.
“What would be the point? The last few times I texted you, you didn’t reply.”
He frowned at me. “I don’t text.”
“I noticed. And I don’t call unless Cassie makes me.”
“I also don’t really know what you’re texting me.”
At that I had to smile. “This I also noticed, old man.”
“I’m only two years older than you.”
“Yet you don’t know the meaning of lol. Who doesn’t know what lol means?”
He pulled me closer and kissed my neck before talking quietly next to my ear. “Stop teasing and pack. Think you can finish and we can spend tonight in the new house?”
I shivered and my mind went wild imagining all the ways we could christen the new bed. I would so ace this packing thing. We would be moving in today.
“Definitely.”
“Good. The movers are outside. They’ll start loading up the van with the furniture and any boxes that are ready. Just let them know what they can take.”
As usual, Rhett made everything effortless. Easy. Not only had he organized movers, he’d also taken Freddie and Josie to pick out new furniture for their rooms. If they didn’t worship him before, they most certainly did now. I wasn’t allowed to come because apparently I wasn’t fun to be around when it came to spending money. They would be correct, since I wouldn’t have let Rhett spend more than what would be my salary for the year on a princess bed, the pinkest dressing table I had ever seen or the designer couch that Freddie just had to have in her room. And that was only the start of their shopping spree.
But if I was honest with myself, I loved his dedication to the girls and the fact that for once it didn’t really matter how much money they spent.
I continued packing up the kitchen, the bedrooms already done, Freddie tackling the bathroom and Oma wrapping the breakables in the living room. Josie was sitting on the floor, still grinning from her impromptu dance session with Freddie.
We managed to get everything to the new house that night. Rhett even ignored work for the day to help us pack. His motives weren’t entirely selfless but you wouldn’t hear me complaining. I was ready for some privacy, and Freddie was ecstatic she would get her own room. Josie was going to be next to the master bedroom where Rhett and I stayed and Oma decided to take up the offer of moving into the guest house. If it got too quiet, she could always choose one of the rooms in the house. But I had a feeling she enjoyed the peace and quiet. Something she hadn’t had in nearly twenty years.
Josie was down for the night, her excitement of sleeping in her princess bed surpassing any fear she might have had of sleeping in a room by herself for the first time in her life. I kept checking in on her, but she was passed out cold, her light snores ringing through the room.
“Babe, she’s fine. We’re right next door. She knows that. If she wakes up, she can come to us. There is no way anyone can get inside the house without us knowing. I have the best security system money can buy.”
I knew all this, but it didn’t stop me from worrying. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I love your big heart.” He traced the side of my breast with a finger, making me arch into him. “But I also love you for other parts. Like your boobs. I especially love those.” Always suspected he was a boob man. I smiled when he led me away from Josie’s door and into our bedroom. I admired the bed—for about the tenth time today, because it was that amazing—and let Rhett guide me to the adjacent bathroom. The marble monstrosity had already grown on me. There was a jacuzzi in there after all. And the shower was humongous, sprayers on all sides. I couldn’t wait to test it out.
“Do your thing in the bathroom. You got ten minutes.”
“Bossy much?”
He grinned at me, and I nearly forgot what I was supposed to be doing in the bathroom. “Always.”
I did as I was told, even got ready in five minutes, just doing the bare necessities, like brushing my teeth and putting on the new nightgown that had mysteriously appeared on the hook of the bathroom door. We were going to christen our new bed. And christen it we did.
“No. Fucking. Way,” Freddie yelled and jumped off her chair. We were eating breakfast together, having settled into a great routine. Life with Rhett was easy, any doubt I had that we wouldn’t work flew out the window after a week of bliss. And we’d been living here for almost two months and were happier than ever. We had our disagreements. I got annoyed when he took hours on the toilet. I mean really, if he wasn’t careful, he’d get hemorrhoids from sitting down for so long. I once pointed that out to him, because I was concerned, of course. He raised his perfect eyebrow at me and didn’t respond.
We fought about what program to watch at night. We girls always had the same suggestion, but he didn’t think the majority vote was a fair system since he always lost. We disagreed. He usually ended up watching one of Oma’s terrible soaps with us. We also fought about his staff. I thought a gardener, housekeeper, personal shopper and cook was overkill. Again he didn’t agree. That was our first real fight. We now still had a gardener, housekeeper, personal shopper and maid.
“Freddie, watch your language,” I chastised her, titling my head toward Josie. She had started repeating everything she heard and some of it was hilarious, others a bit disturbing when taken out of context.
“You’re not going to believe what Tate just sent me,” she said and showed me the screen of her phone. There was a wedding announcement. For Anna and some guy. They were standing in front of a small white chapel.
“What the fudge,” I swore, also jumping off my chair. “Anna Fogerty, formerly McAllister, and her husband Rex Fogerty, in front of the Elvis chapel. Rex Fogerty is best known for his chain of sex stores. They got married the day Anna Fogerty was released from jail after a brief stint for possession. We wish the happy couple all the best,” I read the short text that accompanied the picture.
Even though I had no love left for Anna, I wondered what had happened to her. We started custody proceedings a few weeks ago, and while it turned into a longer process than any of us thought, I was happy to be at this stage. It helped to have the Cormack name on our side. And of course the fact that we were living in a mansion was a plus.
I studied Rhett from my spot next to Freddie who was still waving her phone around after having wrestled it out of my hands. His eyes were on me, and I knew he’d done his thing and somehow managed to pull this off. How you got someone to get married though was something I intended to find out. He was secretive about a lot of things, but this I had to know.
I nodded toward the hallway and walked out of the room. As soon as I was out of sight of everyone, I felt him at my back, his arms coming around to hold me in place. “Don’t freak out. It’s not what you think.”
“So you didn’t plant evidence to get Anna arrested?”
“Okay, maybe it’s exactly what you think. But I can explain. Please let me explain before you do something irrational.”
What the hell did that mean? I was a very rational person. Well, most times.
“I’m not irrational,” I ground out, but made no move to get away. I liked being close to him, no matter how mad I was. Something he’d found out quickly during our time living together and effectively used to his advantage.
“Let’s just talk this through
before you start yelling at me.”
“I don’t yell.”
“Or try and push me down the stairs.”
“It was an accident. I tripped and fell into you. Your body is too pretty to be messed up like that. I would never do anything to it.”
“Or stick your crazy cat on me.”
“I told you not to go into the ballroom. She gets territorial.”
His lips touched my neck and I shivered. “That’s cheating,” I mumbled, leaning my head to the side so he could reach better.
“Just using whatever I can to persuade you that what I did was in your best interest.”
At that, I turned in his arms to face him. “I never doubt that whatever you do is in my best interest. Doesn’t mean I have to like you making decisions without consulting me.”
He bent down and kissed me after lifting me up off the floor. I refused to let him distract me though. “Now tell me how you get someone to get married and vanish from our life?”
He slowly slid me down his body, still holding me tight even when my feet reached the floor.
“Gunner. He’s hard to refuse.”
“I hope you didn’t give her money. Please tell me that greedy bitch didn’t get a dime out of you.”
He grinned and kissed my nose. “Nope. Not necessary. Not when you have proof she was a drug mule and neglected her children. Turns out there have been complaints about her that were never recorded. But that neighbor of hers sure loved to talk to Gunner. And she’d lived there nearly as long as Anna. Once we knew what to look for it was easy for Gunner and his team to dig up evidence. The wedding was totally her own doing. My guess? She got desperate and found someone to take on her problems. Don’t forget, despite the way she abused her body she is still not terrible to look at.”
I guess I could accept that. And it also meant that chapter of my life was closed. I could move on. Finally. And Rhett gave that to me. My own happily never forever.
“The damn cat peed on the chair again.”
Freddie stomped into the kitchen, holding Celeste in her arms. I didn’t know what I was more surprised about. The fact that she was actually holding the cat without getting clawed to death or that she found it odd the demon cat had peed on furniture. It was her preferred bathroom. Turned out she didn’t like sleeping in the guest house and so she had claimed the ballroom as her own personal domain. Which was fine with me. I never went in there and as long as Celeste stayed out of my way, I fed her and changed her litter tray. The very one she hardly ever used. But the room was big enough that a few open windows easily got rid of the stench. And the fact that the housekeeper had magical potions on hand that could clean anything didn’t hurt either.
“What were you doing in the ballroom anyway?” I asked. Nobody went in there. We all knew it was Celeste’s realm.
“I was just, um, trying to find something.”
“In the ballroom?”
“Like a chandelier?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“No. Telling you. And I was looking for a chandelier for a school project. They want us to find something unique in our house. So I thought to myself, what do we have that nobody else has in their home? And it came to me. A chandelier.”
I raised my brows and really looked at her. Her face was red and sweat beaded on her forehead. Which was a sure sign she was lying. Like big time—no holds barred, I’ve done something wrong—lying.
“You didn’t think to do your project on the giant chessboard we have outside? Or the hideous unicorn statue out the front? Or how about the indoor pool? All these options and you pick a chandelier?”
“It’s more traditional?”
“Again, are you asking me?”
“No?”
I put down the breadknife I had used to make us all sandwiches for lunch and walked around the counter. She shifted on her feet, her eyes darting from me to the door and back again. Definitely hiding something.
“What did you do?” I asked, trying to walk around her to see for myself.
“Nothing,” she squeaked. Every time I stepped to one side, she mirrored my movements, effectively blocking me from leaving the kitchen.
“This better not cost Rhett more money to fix. You already crashed the car and put a hole in the wall.”
She swore both incidents had not been her fault. But since she was alone in the car when she’d backed it into a tree, smashing the rear light, and there was nobody else in the room with her when she’d supposedly lost her balance and fell into the wall.
“Nothing is broken. I just need you to stay where you are for another,” she looked at her watch, studying it, “five minutes, give or take a few.”
Now I was worried. She was up to something, and if the last few months had been any indication, it would be something expensive. “And what exactly are we waiting for?”
She made a locking motion in front of her mouth and shook her head. Great, now we were onto charades. Might as well finish the sandwiches while Freddie was being cryptic. “Fine. But you are grounded if it’s got anything to do with boys. Or pregnancy. Or come to think of it, anything that will mean you can’t finish high school.”
Freddie’s eyes went wide and nearly bugged out of her head. Fudge, it was one of the three. I huffed out a breath and stopped stacking ham on top of cheese.
“Okay, out with it, which one is it? You pregnant?”
Freddie glared at me. “What the hell, Mimi. Of course I’m not pregnant. I’m not stupid.”
“Good. That’s good. But what is it then? You got kicked out of school and are now running an illegal bar out of the ballroom? It’s big enough, that’s for sure.”
“Mimi,” Freddie exclaimed, looking put out by my suggestion. To be fair it wasn’t that farfetched. She’d always been the little entrepreneur. Her first venture made a lot of money with some weird cartoon cards. That is until she got caught and was suspended for three days. She was ten. And I’d nearly lost her because the principal was hell-bent on calling Anna. Luckily, Oma was onto it and talked his ear off until he relented and let Freddie go with a warning. “Of course I wouldn’t do that. And I only have less than two years left. Why would I get myself kicked out of school now?”
“Just saying,” I defended myself.
“Whatever.”
Loud music started playing and, Freddie’s face lit up. “Finally. Let’s go, chicka.”
She came around the kitchen island and pulled on my arm. “Come on, no time to waste.”
I rolled my eyes but let her lead me through the house and to the ballroom where the music was coming from. I recognized it as Fall at Your Feet by Crowded House. It was my all-time favorite song.
Freddie pushed me into the room in front of her, and I heard the door shut and lock behind me. I looked back to confirm she had locked me in and shook my head at her. The music was turned down to a comfortable noise level, and I turned toward the room, nearly falling over my own feet when I saw Rhett standing there, a single tulip in his hands.
He might only be holding a single flower, but the room was covered in them. A smile spread across my face, and I quickly closed the distance between us. Rhett met me in the middle of the big room, handing me the flower.
“For you.”
I couldn’t stop smiling and took the flower from him. “Thank you. But what’s all this for? Not that I don’t love it. Because I do. Love it, I mean. But it’s not our anniversary. At least not that I can think of.”
He stepped closer and pulled me into his arms, swaying from side to side. I knew how much he hated to dance, so him doing this for me meant the world.
“Do you remember when I first taught you how to dance?” Rhett asked, his voice a raspy whisper.
“How could I forget? But I’m surprised you’d remember,” I teased him. He had always been busy, playing sports, going to parties. The last thing on his mind would be an impromptu dance session.
“I would never forget the moment I fell in love w
ith you.”
My steps faltered, and I leaned back. “Huh?” was all I managed to croak out.
“You were too young, things got crazy and I left. But you have to understand that I wish things could have been different. I would have waited for you. Without hesitation.”
“You would have? Why didn’t you?”
“I left because of what happened, but I came back a few months later, without dad knowing. I saw you with Marty.”
Ah, yes, Marty. One of the many bad choices I had made in my life. He was one I regretted the most. And now that I knew that he was what kept Rhett away, the regret ran even deeper.
“You came back for me?”
“I did. You looked happy with him. I never went back again. You can call it misplaced pride. Something I regret more than anything in this world.”
“No regrets, remember? We both made mistakes, and in my case some terrible decisions but we’re together now. Where we’re meant to be.”
“We are. And I never want us to be apart again.” Rhett stopped dancing and dropped down to one knee. My heart missed a beat, and I swallowed to stop my throat from closing up. “Emmerson McAllister, I love you with all my heart. You were the missing piece that I was searching for all these years. Please make me whole again and marry me. Spend your life with me. Give me your happily never forever.”
I nodded my head wildly, too stunned to form words.
“I need to hear you say it, babe. Otherwise it looks just like you’re having a heart attack.”
I laughed and got down on my knees in front of him. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Of course it’s a yes. It will always be yes. Because I love you and you have always been my happily never forever. I love you.”
He hugged me tight and kissed the crap out of me. Clapping made us pull apart.
“Congratulations, guys! Can I call you dad now?” Freddie yelled and ran at us, throwing herself on top of Rhett, who was still kneeling. He caught her and laughed. “No. Definitely not. You can call me Rhett.”