Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

So much for saving Jack’s party. Then again, maybe it had been beyond saving the moment Prescott and Victoria had RSVP’d yes. Everyone stood in the room in shocked silence, and Maisie fought the crazy urge to laugh or ask about the canapés. Blue was looking out the door after Lee, like maybe she was worried about him. Leave it to Blue to worry about a man who’d been falling down drunk both times she’d met him.

“Is it true?” Addy asked her father, her voice hard.

“This is ridiculous,” Prescott said. “This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion. You’re ruining Georgie’s party.”

“Answer her question,” Georgie said, raising her voice with each word.

Prescott started to say something, then stopped and started again. “Your brother is exaggerating. I might be in a small bit of trouble, but I have it under control.”

Dottie laughed. “A small bit?”

Prescott became enraged. “ You. You did this.”

He lunged for her, but River and Jack quickly bodychecked him, holding him back. Not that Jack needed the help. He could have held Prescott back with one arm. Still, she liked that they’d acted together, that they weren’t awkward with each other.

“That woman is a conniving witch!” Prescott shouted.

Victoria, who’d turned the photos over as if to hide her indiscretion—or maybe the questionable mole—looked up with flashing eyes. “She is . She can read teacups.”

That earned her a disgusted look from Prescott, who shook off River and Jack. They stood by, ready to grab him if he tried to go for Dottie again.

“I refuse to take any more disrespect from my ungrateful children. I’m leaving.” He grabbed Victoria by the arm and headed for the front door, walking at a pace that indicated he would be driving straight to the airport in an attempt to waylay whatever was happening at his office. If the Feds hadn’t been combing through his papers, catching every single altered figure, he surely would’ve stayed until the bitter end to make every last person miserable.

“Prescott, my shoes,” Victoria squawked as she shuffled along in her three-inch heels.

“Good luck!” Addy called out after them. “I know for a fact there isn’t another flight to New York until morning. Plenty of time for the Feds to find everything. Being arrested isn’t a big deal, Dad! Happens to the best of us.”

Maisie finally let herself laugh then, because Adalia would know. Of course, she’d been arrested for destroying her own art, which had been stolen from her. Not for stealing someone else’s money.

Her father didn’t turn back to look at her, but his scowl deepened.

Before he could leave in a huff, the door to the street swung open so hard it would have broken his nose if he’d been any closer. Too bad.

Lurch and Stella stood in the opening, Lurch’s face still drawn up like a goat, along with a tall, silver-haired man with a chicken’s face superimposed on his features with paint. Lurch had gotten the short end of that stick—at least the other guy’s face could be washed. They had Lee with them, and the silver-haired fireman was holding him up.

Addy and Georgie hustled up to the front of the room, Finn and River with them. Maisie looked for Jack, assuming he’d head up there to deal with the situation, only to feel a sudden warmth at her side. When she glanced up, he was there beside her, his eyes on hers, a question in his gaze. He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him, his touch sending a rush of relief through her so great she nearly crumpled from it.

Blue grinned at her and stepped off to stand next to Iris. With her updo and dress, Iris looked like the adult she was becoming, but the wave she gave Maisie was all teenager.

“The party has arrived!” Stella said grandly. “I’ll be painting faces for half an hour for my new project, but only if you’re willing to pose nude.” Glancing at Lee, she announced, “I’ve already found my first volunteer.”

Lee pulled away from the fireman a little, wobbling alarmingly, and took a step toward his father. “And another thing. I quit.”

“You’re a disgrace,” Prescott said, his cheeks flushed. “You’ll be back, though. You wouldn’t know how to stand on your own two feet if someone drew a diagram for you.”

He gave Lee a withering look of contempt, which Lee responded to by wobbling a little more, looking just this side of nauseous. Really, if ever there had been a time to vomit, surely it was now.

“He doesn’t need you,” Georgie said, seething.

“He has us,” Addy said, and they fell in on either side of him, each of them taking one of his arms.

“He’s not going to stay here,” Victoria said as if scandalized.

“And why ever not?” Addy said. “Looks like you’re going to have to burn those wedding dresses and all of your monogrammed baby bibs. Either that, or you can take out a personal ad for someone whose last name starts with ‘B.’”

She gaped, wordless, and Prescott gave her another tug toward the door. After ushering her through the opening, he turned back in the doorway, no doubt to make some final pronouncement regarding his ungrateful children, but Lurch slammed the door shut in his face.

“I’m buying you a drink!” Addy said.

Stella grimaced. “Now, don’t you go trying to steal one of my men, girly, just because I like the look of yours.”

She gave Finn another of her long, lingering looks, making him edge a little closer to Addy.

Then Jack was turning Maisie around, looking down at her with those deep, dark eyes. Reminding her of the night of Diego and the petting zoo and them . She hoped that had only been their beginning, and that this wasn’t their end.

But it struck her that his sisters were over there with his brother, and he probably needed to help them work out whatever craziness was still unfolding.

“We have to talk,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“Don’t you need to deal with the fallout?” She gestured to the gathering at the front of the room. Stella was waving around a paintbrush she’d retrieved from her bag, going off about promises being promises while Addy lectured her about consent and Lee teetered some more. “If you’re worried about Stella, I can go with you. But I don’t promise I’ll protect you from getting your face painted.”

“I’m only worried about getting things settled between us. Everything else can wait. I shouldn’t have let the party get in the way in the first place.”

“You know the world is falling apart around us, don’t you?” she asked, gesturing to the rest of the party. People were gawking openly, some taking pictures of Stella and her guys. If this wasn’t on all the local news reports in the morning, it was only Christmas that had saved them.

“The world fell apart this morning, and I’m not doing anything else until we make it right.”

As far as words went, they were perfect. It felt like someone had taken a big dishrag to the cloudy window concealing her future.

“There’s somewhere I need to take you,” she said.

The park was quiet and cold, its beauty lost to the dark and the winter. But she took Jack by the hand and led him to a wood bench. Christmas lights twinkled from houses in the distance, adding a little holiday sparkle to the view. They sat next to each other, sides pressed together, and he looked at her, waiting.

He probably wanted to know why she’d brought him somewhere outside rather than back to the warmth of her house. Which, fair enough. She was cold, despite having put on her dog-hair-covered coat. (He’d already seen the dress, she figured—might as well avoid freezing). But he hadn’t asked questions in the car. They’d just sat in companionable silence, soaking in each other’s presence.

No one had questioned Jack for leaving the party he’d put on. If anything, everyone had seemed pleased to see them go. She might have made a joke about that, but she wasn’t quite ready to laugh yet. Not until they talked.

“This is where I found Ein,” she said. “I was sitting on this bench, feeling more lost than I ever had. Molly had been getting into a little trouble at school, and I felt like I didn’t have it together enough to take care of myself, let alone her.” She looked down and smiled. “Then I felt something nudging my leg. I almost screamed, thinking it was maybe a bear, but I looked down and saw a filthy, starving, little dog. His skin was raw in patches, and he just looked…he looked like I felt.”

“You found Einstein out here?” Jack asked in surprise. “I thought people bought corgis from breeders.”

“They do,” she said, “but there are plenty of people who buy dogs from fancy breeders and end up with buyer’s remorse. They abandon them like they’re nothing. Ein had a microchip, so I was able to contact his owners. They weren’t even looking for him. I think they were relieved he ran off.”

“That’s why you started the shelter,” he said. “It happened after you found Ein out here.”

He was a good listener. It was one of the things that had endeared him to her from the beginning—the way he really listened to a person, both what they were saying and what they weren’t. “Yes. I saved him, and he saved me. He gave me another purpose. Of course, I had a massive assist from Beatrice, plus my inheritance from my parents. But I knew from the beginning Einstein and I were soul companions, and he was going to change my life. It was what you could call a pivotal moment.”

Something glimmered in his eyes, almost as if a string of twinkle lights had lit up inside him.

“I didn’t think beyond one night when I took you home from Dottie’s party. But it was another pivotal moment, Jack. Just like when Einstein found me.” She smiled up at him, feeling tears in her eyes. “Dottie always told me I needed to find a human soul companion, and I did. I found you.” A tear trickled down her cheek, and he traced it and wiped it away. “But I can tell you that I love you every day, and you might still wonder if I have feelings for River…because he’s my friend and Georgie’s your sister, and they’ll be in our lives. I get that. I just don’t know what to do about it. That’s why I didn’t say anything before I did. I was worried you’d push me away.”

He was silent for a long time after that, and her heart thumped painfully in her chest. She could offer to give up her Bro Club dinners with River and Finn, or to avoid hanging out with River alone, but that was the kind of thing she’d end up resenting Jack for. She didn’t want that for them.

“Did you just say you love me?” he asked, staring into her eyes. He took her hands, and the warmth of his fingers, the familiarity of them, grounded her. His eyes weren’t expressionless, the way they got sometimes when he was overwhelmed. They were wells of raw emotion.

“I guess I did,” she said with some amount of sass, and then she said it again, her tone completely serious this time. “I love you. And Jack, I know what you thought earlier, but you were wrong. River is my friend, and he’ll always be special to me, but I’ve never wanted him the way I want you. He’s not my soul companion. You are.”

One moment he was looking into her eyes, and then he was pulling her onto his lap, claiming her mouth. His kiss was fierce and insistent, and it touched something deep at her core. When he pulled away, she was panting, no longer chilled by the cool air.

“I love you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have run away from you—I should have listened —but I let my past get between us.” His brow furrowed with anger she knew wasn’t for her. “That’s how I always dealt with Genevieve, by taking off, but I don’t want to do it anymore. That’s not who I want to be.”

She smiled at him, running a hand through his thick hair. “Well, you’re in luck, because I can give you plenty of lessons about snapping at people until they quail in submission. Except I’ve been told that doesn’t work out too well either.”

“I’ll hold you to it, Red.” He reached up to caress her face and wiped away another tear that had escaped her eye. They were silent for a moment, just taking each other in, like they had in the car. Then he said softly, “I didn’t know what I was looking for when I came here, not really, but I never imagined I’d find this. I always felt like I had to do everything alone, but you made me realize that I don’t want that anymore. I want you . And if you really feel the same way, then the River thing isn’t an issue.”

She kissed him, a slow, sweet kiss meant to tell him that he was the one in her heart and he didn’t have to be alone anymore. He had her, and they had each other, and that was enough to get them through this crazy life.

Then she pulled back and grinned at him, letting her sassiness roll out again. “Is this a good time to tell you that I think you should adopt Ruby?”