by Jen Davis
It was her brother’s way. He tried to slay dragons, protect the people he loved. He blamed himself for things he couldn’t control, and if his sisters needed it, he wouldn’t hesitate to drop himself in a hole so deep, he’d never see the sun.
It never made sense he’d committed a crime and risked a separation from his family. It not only cost him ten years of his life, it cost her and Izzy their big brother. It was a decade he should have spent having fun and building a life. Instead he spent all of his twenties trapped in a nightmare.
Clearing her throat, Izzy joined her family. “You scared me, big brother. Let’s never let it happen again.”
He lifted the hand with the IV attached and flipped her off. It made her smile, which was probably the entire reason he did it.
Izzy caught the ball and ran with it. “Silent communication? Does this mean you’re a captive audience?”
Pulling up a chair, Iz laughed. “You know this means he can’t argue, right?”
She met her sister’s grin with one of her own. “This is our opportunity to say anything we want, and he can’t talk back.” She hoped her light tone hid the tremor in her voice as she turned back to Will. “Actually, I was telling him thank you.”
She ruffled his hair. “You’re the best brother a girl could ask for. On a totally different note, though, maybe now is the best time to tell you…I’m in love with Jonathan.”
Will’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try to speak.
“He’s starting his life over without all the crazy shit he was mixed up in before, and I’m going to be there with him every step of the way.” She hesitated before going on. “You’ve always supported me in everything. I hope you can support me in this too.”
He nodded soberly.
“Okay,” Iz said briskly. “Out with you. Go spend some time with your man while I hang out with Mr. Target Practice here.”
It was supposed to be funny, but she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to laugh about this. “I will. But I need a few more minutes to make sure my big brother is okay.”
A man cleared his throat from the doorway. She’d never seen him before.
He had wavy, black hair. It had a few wisps of silver in it, which made it more striking. Just like his face. He possessed Greek heritage, with olive skin, a proud nose and full, dark, eyebrows to complement what appeared to be hazel eyes.
Izzy squirmed in her seat, scanning the man appreciatively, and Liv almost groaned aloud at her reaction. The man was certainly attractive, but her brother was in the hospital for Chrissakes. This was hardly the time to be twitterpated.
“—don’t need to worry about rushing back to work,” the man was saying to Will. “Your job is safe. I want you to focus on getting better, okay?”
Will pulled down his mask. “Thanks, Xander.”
The gravel in his voice propelled Izzy forward. Handsome or not, Will’s visitor needed to let him get his rest. “Stop trying to talk and let your throat heal.” She held her hand out to the man her brother had called Xander. “I’m Isobel, Will’s sister.”
He accepted the handshake. “Xander Karras. I’m the foreman on Will’s construction crew.”
Izzy hummed in acknowledgement but didn’t release her grasp.
Liv cleared her throat, and her sister dropped his hand like a hot potato. “It’s really nice of you to come check on Will, but the doctor says he needs some rest.”
“Yes, of course.” He glanced first at Izzy, then turned back to Will. “I won’t keep you any longer. Don’t even call me for a few weeks, Will. We’re all pulling for you to get better.”
He didn’t look at Izzy again as he walked out the door, but she never took her eyes off him.
When Will made an exasperated noise, she finally stopped staring at the empty doorframe. A blush crept over her cheeks, as she returned to his bedside and picked up the crossword puzzle on the table beside him as if nothing had happened.
It wasn’t often Izzy Turner showed interest in a man, but her reaction to Will’s boss was hard to ignore. Liv decided to file the knowledge away and think about it again…if her life ever got back to normal.
***
Brick
It was weird for Brick to hang out with Kane in his apartment. He’d never invited anyone here before, but the things they had to discuss required discretion. Liv was visiting her brother, and this was as good a time as any to wrap up loose ends from their takedown of Sucre’s operation.
He couldn’t breathe for a second when his friend dropped his old black backpack on the table in front of him.
“You forgot something at the bar the other night, brother.”
Honestly, he hadn’t thought about the money except as an element in his plan to destroy Sucre. Having it here now opened up a world of possibilities. “I’ll never be able to thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
Kane rubbed his beard. “You can start by coming back to work soon. Matt won’t say shit, and I hate working in silence.”
He barked out a laugh. “Give me another day or two. I did get shot. That should buy me a little time off.”
“How’s Will?”
“Liv says he’s awake. Mad as a hornet’s nest she got kidnapped, but he’s gonna be all right.”
“You think he’ll ever accept you in his sister’s life?”
“I hope so, but he doesn’t have a choice. I’m in this for the long haul. I love her, man.”
“I’ve been in love once.” Kane’s face was stark. “The best and the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
One day, he would ask his friend to tell the story, but not today. “The best, yeah. The worst is all behind us.”
Now Kane cracked a smile. “Because you fucking killed everybody, brother.”
He shrugged. “How’s the house on Burgundy Street coming along?”
“It’s practically done, but Xander is freaking out because there still isn’t a buyer. With all the trouble at the Decatur house, he’s really feeling the heat.”
“Still no buyer? The house is perfect.” He thought about the family he’d pictured building a life there.
“If you like it so much, why don’t you buy it yourself?”
“I ca—”
Kane picked up the backpack and threw it at him. “You’ve got the down payment. You’ve got the girl.” He smirked. “You know it was built by the best. What are you waiting for? The only thing standing in your way is you.”
***
Liv
Liv felt like a different person as she walked through the halls of her school Tuesday morning. So much had happened since the end of last week, but everything here somehow stayed the same.
Funny it surprised her.
The doctors were supposed to release Will from the hospital tomorrow. He needed to take the next few weeks off work, but otherwise, his life would be going back to normal too.
The police accepted her version of events from Sunday night. She told them she’d been there to check on her student when some crazy guy with a gun started shooting. Thank God, her brother and her boyfriend had accompanied her to such a terrible neighborhood, or who knows what might have happened.
She’d feared the state of Tre’s body would cause a stink, but it looked like the cops had their hands full. When they investigated further, they discovered a macabre cage under Tre’s bed. They ordered tests to identify the hair and skin residue they’d scraped out of the hinges. Other sets of DNA analysis might identify the dozen fingers found in a velvet lined box on his nightstand.
In the face of all that, she figured the police were just glad Tre was finally off the streets.
As far as she knew, no one had asked any questions about Sucre or his crew. The police had found no bodies. They all simply disappeared. Including his infamous bruiser Brick Barlow.
Brick was a thing of the past. Now only Jonathan remained.
She floated through the day on autopilot. Ate lunch in the cafeteria. Then froze on the way back to
her classroom, when Devon Lowry approached her in the hall.
Books clutched to his chest, he kept a respectable distance. “Can I talk to you a second, Miss T?”
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“We can talk on the quad,” he offered. “Lots of witnesses.”
She nodded and followed him to an empty bench outside. His buddy, Justin, grinned and waved like a fool from a strip of grass a few yards away.
“I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”
Jonathan had told her how Devon helped him hide their relationship. If it wasn’t for Devon’s loyalty, things would have played out very differently. It was why he was nowhere near the bar when Jonathan cleaned house. Still, she had never really expected to see the young man again.
“It’s not your fault. You tried to warn me to leave it alone.”
He nodded gravely. “I did, and I know what happened to you was horrible, but you saved me. If you and Brick hadn’t done what you did, I would be working for Sucre the rest of my life. Because of you, I have a chance to get out of here. And if I can take it, I will.”
She still wanted a future for him. He’d been out of school for a while, but with some help, he could easily catch up. “I’ll help you any way I can.”
“You’ve already helped me more than I can say. I’m just glad I could help you a little too.”
***
Jonathan was already at her apartment when Liv got home from school. He swept her into a kiss but pulled away quickly. “Come out to dinner with me tonight.”
She took in his jeans and button-down shirt. “Dinner, huh? What should I wear?”
“You look beautiful in anything. It’s casual. Wear whatever you like.”
Warmed by his words, she took a quick shower and changed into her favorite jeans and a blue pullover top that matched her eyes.
They rode in his truck in comfortable silence, until she recognized their destination.
“Majestic!”
He smiled at her enthusiasm and parked the truck. They walked in hand-in-hand, straight to the booth where they’d sat so months before, making a memory. They didn’t even need to check the menu, both ordering the same thing: a Deluxe Burger for Liv and a Majestic Special for her man.
As they ate, she told him about her day and filled him in on what happened with Devon. Being with him here felt so natural. So right.
“I’m going back to work in a few days,” he said, dipping a French fry in some ketchup. “The Burgundy Street house is almost finished.” Chewing his food, he pulled out his phone and opened his photos. “Take a look.”
She flipped through the pictures, slowing down to appreciate the shots of the kitchen. “Those cabinets are beautiful. You guys have really outdone yourselves.”
“I want it to be ours.”
Her jaw dropped.
“I love you, Olivia Turner. I want to marry you and have kids with you. And I want to live in this beautiful house with you and grow old together.” He dropped to his knee, and the restaurant went silent. “Make me the happiest man on this earth. Marry me.”
His broad face was so earnest; his brown eyes, big and clear. There was nothing she wanted more than to see his face, kiss his lips, every day for the rest of her life. “Yes. Yes to the house. Yes to the kids. Yes to growing old and wrinkly together. I would love to marry you.” As one, they rose to their feet, and he spun her in a quick circle next to the booth.
The restaurant broke out in cheers.
“Only one condition,” she whispered in his ear. He froze. “You’ve got to give me a preview of our wedding night as soon as we get home.”
He relaxed and nipped at her shoulder. “Then we’d better get out of here right now. You’re in for a long night.”
Chapter 31
Brick
He didn’t understand at first why his grandmother had wanted her ashes scattered at Piedmont Park. Not until he picked up her urn at Magnolia Green, and an elderly woman with a walker stopped him in the residents’ hall. He didn’t know her name, but he recognized her from the music room where he often found his grandmother.
“You’re Sylvie’s boy, right?”
He nodded. “Yes ma’am. I’m Br—Jonathan, her grandson.”
The woman gestured for him to follow her toward the day room. “She talked about you, you know? All the time. Told everybody about your construction job and bragged on the flowers you brought her…and the treats.”
When they arrived in the common area, he held out his arm to help her settle in a chair. He took the seat next to her and waited for her to continue.
“Sylvie was my best friend. She had a lot of regrets. She talked about them too, dictated the letter to me for you.” That solved one mystery. “One thing she was really worried about was whether you’d understand why she wanted you to take her to Piedmont Park.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Maybe I should, but I don’t.”
The woman nodded knowingly. “You were only a boy. It was before your father died, one day he wasn’t too far gone with the drugs. Sylvie said the three of you went out to the lake and had a picnic. She said your mama had bought you this little pocket racer the week before, and you ran all around with it.”
He wracked his brain for some trace of the memory as the lady continued. “It wasn’t really an extraordinary day by most people’s standards. Sylvie cherished the memory because it was the closest she says y’all ever came to something normal. Your mom couldn’t go with you because she was working, but she packed the picnic with whatever she could find. Cheese sandwiches. Dill pickles. And a big bowl of Jell-O.”
“With three spoons,” he whispered. The memory still wasn’t entirely clear, but he had flashes now of the day at the parl. “I think there was a kite.”
“That’s right. Someone who had been there before you left it on the ground because it was torn. You spent hours with it, though, determined to make it fly. The afternoon she died, she was still thinking about that day, wishing she could’ve given you more like it.”
“It helps to know she wanted to. I wish she would’ve told me.”
“In the end, I think she wished she had too.”
***
Olivia came with him to set Grandma’s ashes free at the park. After he told her the story from the nursing home, she insisted on packing them a picnic with grilled cheese sandwiches, dill pickles, and Jell-O. She even packed three spoons.
One for Grandma, she’d said.
He didn’t remember any more of that day, but the snippets he recalled at Magnolia Green gave him some comfort.
It was Liv’s idea to bring a kite with them. Together, they flew it beside the water, after they released Grandma’s ashes into the wind.
“Maybe we’ll bring our children here one day,” she mused.
For a moment, he allowed himself to fantasize about building a family with her. A beautiful, blond pixie of a little girl. A son with his dark hair and her sparkling eyes.
He would teach them how to play ball. He’d go to their school plays. He would make them feel safe.
They’d never have to fly someone else’s discarded kite. Or cling to shards of broken memories to know someone loved them.
“I’d rather bring them to the Majestic,” he whispered. “All the best memories are built there.”
Epilogue
Liv
“I’m sorry the entire crew couldn’t make it.” Liv surveyed her dining room table now bursting with family and friends helping them celebrate the holiday. “We might have had to be creative with seating, but I hope they know they’re welcome.”
Jonathan lifted her hand and kissed the back. “Cy has a thing with the guys in his old Ranger unit, and Matt is with his kid. They’re with people who care about them, don’t worry.”
He knew her so well.
She had never been so happy in her life. Now she wanted to spread her joy to everyone around her.
She and Jonathan had only been in the new ho
use for two weeks, but it already felt like home. Carol’s framed Dare to Dream list hung on the wall in their bedroom, now with red checkmarks made next to the last two entries.
They’d had a quiet Thanksgiving at Izzy’s and it was lovely, even though Will was still recovering from his gunshot. Now he was almost back to his normal self, she was determined to do Christmas the way she remembered it from her childhood: loud, crowded, and filled with laughter.
Izzy helped her cook a huge turkey with a sweet and savory cornbread stuffing. They argued over how much celery to use, the same as when they were kids. Beth, a new friend she’d made at the gym, brought macaroni and cheese.
Kane brought corn on the cob still in the packaging from KFC. He shrugged as he handed it over. “Hey, sweetheart, corn is corn.” He was right. It tasted fine.
Jonathan’s boss, Xander, brought a huge Greek salad topped with red onions and feta cheese. His young assistant Robby came with him, carrying two big pitchers of iced tea.
It was perfect.
She stood to clear the table, but Jonathan blocked her path and pushed her back down to her seat. “What are you doing?” she giggled. “Does this mean you’re in charge of the clean-up?”
His smile was soft. “I’m a little late. I should have had this ready when I asked you to marry me.” He held up a black velvet ring box. “But you don’t think I’m gonna miss giving you a way to let the whole world know you’re mine.”
Tears filled her eyes as he opened the box to reveal a familiar braided gold band and a solitaire diamond engagement ring. “It’s perfect, but how—”
“It was your mom’s.” He spoke quietly. “Your sister’s been saving it for you since she died.”
A short nod from Iz confirmed his words. Tears tracked down her face as her future husband slid the sparkling ring on her finger. The braided gold ring she’d given him months ago—the one modeled after the wedding band—never left his pinkie.