“Dammit. Hey, Morgan.”
At her brother’s shout, Morgan looked up from scooping fruit salad onto her paper plate. “What?”
Nathan beat his cell phone against his palm. “Can I use your computer? I’m not getting Internet.”
“Go ahead.” She took a seat at the picnic table between Sheila and Liza. “Anyone seen Gage? I thought Gina proclaimed work officially finished fifteen minutes ago.” Not a moment too soon, as everyone looked as exhausted as Morgan felt. She wouldn’t be surprised if people started passing out in their plates.
“He had one more thing to do.” Sheila knocked her shoulder into Morgan’s as she waved a fried chicken leg in the air. “Said it was a surprise.”
“Yeah, haven’t had enough of those lately.” Thinking of his last surprise brought a smile to her face.
The reward for a full day’s work had been a fried chicken feast put together by Angela and Theresa, who chose to work in the kitchen while the rest of the house came together as if Hermione Granger had waved her magic wand.
“I can’t believe you and the construction crew came,” Morgan said to Kent as he sat across from her. She’d never be able to express her gratitude. After all the work he’d already put in at the center, here he was on his day off, helping her. She’d made it a point to learn each of their names this afternoon.
“Ever try to say no to Gina?” Kent arched a brow. He plowed into the macaroni salad as if he hadn’t eaten in a month. “Girl makes Martha Stewart look like a slacker.”
Liza’s mouth twisted as she plucked apart her buttermilk biscuit.
“You were good with Lydia today,” Morgan told her as she stabbed an errant blueberry. “Made her feel special.”
Liza shrugged. “I just braided and curled her hair. Put on some blush. No big deal.”
“It is for a little girl who likes to feel pretty. Trust me, Liza. You made her very happy.”
“Agreed.” Sheila popped an olive into her mouth, specks of blue and red paint dotting her face and hair. “Hey, Kent, any chance I can come by the site next week and see the blueprints for the center? I’d like to see what the space allocation is.”
“There’s some left to play with, including that lot behind the building,” Kent said. “I’m there by eight every morning.”
“Gah.” Sheila shuddered. “Make it noon and we’ll talk.”
“What are you thinking?” Morgan asked her sister.
“Depends on whether you’re open to some new ideas,” Sheila said. “I know you have things on a schedule and all mapped out on that cell phone of yours—”
Morgan didn’t need another reminder of how difficult she’d made things for herself or how frustrating her self-sufficiency must be for her family. “I’m working on being flexible, Sheila, but it won’t happen overnight. Out with it.”
“Well.” Sheila gave a pointed look at Liza. “I’m wondering if we might have the space for a mini-spa for girls. You know, get their nails done, pretty bows and makeup and stuff. Like you said, every little girl likes to feel pretty, especially when they’re sick. Maybe a gaming room for the boys? Or a woodworking shop. We could bring in people like Kent to teach some classes.”
“Not sure how good I’d be at manicures,” Kent joked.
“We did plan on some playrooms, but maybe that’s too typical.” Morgan tapped a finger against her lips as she smiled at Kent. “What about having a social center, you know, arcade, spa, art studio. Different little stores geared for kids, for teens, since we’ll have all different ages. Like a mall for center patients.”
“Exactly.” Sheila snapped her fingers. “Activities that spark their interests, let them stop thinking about being sick.”
“I love it. Liza, what do you think?” Morgan asked.
Another shrug.
“You and Drew could start a club,” Morgan muttered. “Think she’s up to helping, Sheila?”
“She could be if she stopped feeling sorry for herself.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself.” But the hurt look on Liza’s face said otherwise. “It’s just—”
“Hard to live up to your sister’s overabundance of confidence and determination?” Sheila nudged Morgan to sit back. “Try it when she’s five years younger than you are. Then you’ll have something to bitch about.”
Morgan’s mouth dropped open at Sheila’s confession. “Hey.”
“When she was six she gave away all of the Barbie dolls, and by all I mean even mine. The Dream House, the pink convertible—hell, even Ken didn’t survive the purge because this one heard about a fire at a local day care and they’d lost all their toys.”
“That was almost twenty years ago.” Morgan tried to laugh, but Sheila had hit on something. Liza’s frown was easing.
“Or what about the time you went on a hunger strike until Nathan promised to take Ellie Munford to her high school prom?”
“She’d had a crush on Nathan for years,” Morgan protested. “And you agreed with me at the time. You even helped her pick out her dress.”
Sheila waved a hand in the air. “That’s beside the point. Prisoners go on hunger strikes. Not Tremaynes.”
“Not like I couldn’t afford to miss a few meals.” Morgan snorted. It had been one of the few diets she hadn’t tried.
“My point is, Liza”—Sheila leaned over Morgan as if she wasn’t there—“you have to find your own way in life, and wallowing in the fact you aren’t someone else or that you don’t do things the way they do isn’t going to get you anywhere. Put the talents you do have to use. Like working for us.”
“Or working for her,” Morgan corrected automatically. Okay. Morgan’s brow knitted. Where had that come from?
“Exactly.” Sheila nodded. “Wait. What?”
“Your idea. Your project.” And the more Morgan thought about it, the more sense it made. Given what might be coming down the road, given that there was every chance she couldn’t fix the mistakes she’d made, she had to have a contingency plan for the foundation.
If she was wrong, then it was time Morgan shared the responsibilities of the family’s foundation. “I think Liza should be your consultant on this project. She’s not that much older than the kids we’ll be treating, and you said I needed to ask for help more often. Let’s consider this step one.” She stood up and picked up her plate, but she bent down and whispered, “Now you get both of them. Oh, and Liza? If at some point you could show me how you get your eyebrows perfectly plucked, I’d love a lesson.”
She tossed her plate in the garbage and made a quick round of thank-yous before stopping beside a super sleepy Brandon. “Hey, bud.” She bent down next to where he rested his head on his arms. His eyes drooped despite his determination to stay awake. “I think maybe you need to call it a night.”
“Want cake,” he mumbled, even as he reached for her. Morgan hefted him into her arms, patted his back as she smiled at her father and Gage’s dad as they stopped their discussion on the downgrade in property values to say good night to Brandon.
“Cake,” Brandon said again.
“We’ll save you a piece for breakfast. Come on.” She carried him inside, marveling at the finished and polished banister as she inhaled the vanilla-scented paint on the walls on her way upstairs.
Brandon’s new room was everything she could have hoped for and more. The Wild West theme included a sheriff’s office made out of a giant moving box. The dresser, desk, and bookcase had all been distressed to match the Old West feel. Cowboy-and-Indian fabric draped the windows on either side of the bed. She popped off his shoes and set them on the giant sheriff’s badge throw rug. Drawing the bright red sheet up to his chin, she kissed him on the forehead before he rolled onto his side and dropped into exhausted sleep as only an exhausted nine-year-old can.
The room couldn’t have been more perfect. Love was indeed in the details: in the desert landscape and ghost town buildings Sheila had painted on the far wall. The year her sister had spent studying art abroad had been worth the months Morgan spent missing her. To be able to create this perfect fantasyland for a little boy was a gift.
Closing the door, she headed downstairs and stepped onto the silent front porch, grateful for a few quiet moments to remember this moment—seeing Gage like this, hot, sweaty, still working to make her home safe for her kids, her family, knowing when he turned around that smile would be on those beautiful lips of his. She squeezed her eyes shut as if taking a mental picture, memorizing this sight, these feelings that wouldn’t stop growing, for when she had to say good-bye.
“So what’s the surprise?” she asked Gage as she hugged her arms around her waist and walked over to him. He stepped aside to reveal the tire swing knotted to one of the branches. “Oh.” Morgan’s heart flipped like a dolphin in the summer sea. “Oh, Gage.”
“Might be too big for Kelley and Brandon, but they can grow into it. If you want, I can put up a smaller one on the other—”
Morgan threw her arms around his neck and hung on, squeezing him so hard she heard him laugh as his arms went around her. He lifted her in the air.
“You and tire swings are the oddest combination. But nice to know I know how to get to you.”
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, not wanting this day to end. “This day has been perfect.”
“I’m thinking tonight might be, too.” He tucked his chin to his chest and grinned. “I snuck off to the drug store at lunch.”
Morgan laughed as he lowered her feet to the ground. She turned to look at the loving transformation of the house. Her grandmother, her mother, would have loved it. Morgan loved it. The pale blue siding, the eggshell white shutters and trim. There wasn’t a nail to be hammered, a board to be sanded. Even the yard had been replanted with bunches of pansies and daisies and still-to-bloom camellias. It was the picture-perfect-postcard house she’d always known it could be.
“I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life, Gage.”
Her heart had never been so full.
Or in such danger of breaking.
***
Morgan’s perfect day screeched to a halt when Gage’s cell phone vibrated.
“Boy, you two really are made for one another.” Sheila glared when Gage pulled out his phone. “Honest to God, one weekend without a cell phone wouldn’t kill either of you.”
“Given my job, it could,” Gage said with a grin, then shot Morgan an apologetic smile. “I’ve put them off all day. I need to take this.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course.” Suddenly chilled, Morgan shivered. “I’m going to grab a sweater.”
“Wait, Morgan.” Sheila ran up the stairs behind her, caught her arm. “I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you letting me help more with the center.”
“Just mark it on your calendar as the day you were right.” Morgan smiled and tugged her arm free.
“And, um, that I won’t let you down.”
Where was this coming from? “You can’t. I know where you live. Speaking of which.” Now that Sheila reminded her. “What do you think about Dad wanting to sell the house?”
“You first.” Sheila leaned against the railing. “You seemed to be the one having the most issues with it.”
Morgan watched Gage pace while he talked on the phone. After one night she’d never look at her home the same way. Never not see him in her bed, never not remember him sitting at her desk drinking coffee, welcoming her with a warm sleepy smile. She couldn’t imagine how her father had managed this long. “I think Dad should do what he needs to do. It’s not the same without her.”
“You’re okay with it, then? Because Nathan is, and it might help ease Dad’s mind if we tell him sooner rather than later.”
“Agreed. Let me get that sweater and we can do it now.”
“Great,” Sheila said in a loud voice. “I’m going to get some cake.”
Morgan’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think you needed to announce it to the entire yard, but have at it.” As if a single calorie would dare adhere to Sheila’s DNA let alone her hips. All Morgan had to do was think about cake and the scale ticked up five pounds. “Oh, Nathan. You’re still in here?”
Her brother held up his hand, pointed to his phone as he spun on her desk chair to face her. “Yeah, I’ll meet you at the gym at seven tomorrow morning. Sorry.” He clicked his phone off and turned off her screen. “Took longer than I thought. Did I hear Sheila say she was having cake?”
“Yes. We thought we’d tell Dad we’re okay with him selling the house.”
Nathan flinched and looked away as he got to his feet. “Today was a good day. Mom would have loved it.”
“Yeah, she would have.” For the first time since last summer, the thought of her mother didn’t arrive on a wave of pain. When Morgan headed into the dining room, she saw the jewelry box and its contents lying on the table.
“Feeling nostalgic about Granny?” Nathan asked as she scooped up the pieces and dropped them into the box, then closed the lid and headed into the bedroom.
“Something like that. I’ll be back out in a second.” She heard the door close as she placed the box on her dresser. More and more people depended on her every day. She couldn’t let them down. Whatever it cost her in the end would be worth it. She hoped.
“No, Monday is soon enough.” Gage’s voice drifted up through the open window. Morgan angled the shutter open. “Take a day off, for Christ’s sake, Bouncer. The list will wait. No.” Morgan frowned at the long pause. “No, we’ve been watching the papers and the media outlets. None of us has seen anything that looks like a Nemesis trigger. Maybe he’s taking the weekend off. You do the same. That’s an order. Yeah. You, too.”
Morgan was about to close the window when she saw her father approach Gage.
“You look like you could use this.” Jackson handed him a beer. “Work won’t leave you alone?”
“My overattentiveness to the Nemesis case has rubbed off on my team. Doesn’t help we’re working against a clock.”
“I wasn’t aware Evan put you on deadline.”
“Not Evan. Suffice it to say I’m trying to stave off any federal involvement. The sooner I can get them out of town, the better. Putting a stop to Nemesis should do exactly that.”
“Feds, huh?” Jackson lifted his bottle. “What possible interest could they have in Nemesis?”
“Hell if I can figure it out. But this case is so strange, I can’t help but feel I’m not seeing something I should, like all the information is out of focus and I need a new set of eyes to see it clearly.”
“Maybe you’re focusing too much and need a break. Today should help you see things clearer come Monday.”
“Let’s hope you’re right. I’ve been meaning to ask you, are you acquainted with a man named Mac Price?”
“Mac?” Jackson’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes, actually, I am. He was one of my first investors back when I was starting my business. Once upon a time we lived in the same neighborhood down south.” Jackson lowered his chin and shook his head as if in regret, even as his lips curved into a smile. “Easy to forget those days. Mac was always a lot of fun; dangerous, even. Last I heard he was serving time in Soledad prison for a string of white-collar cons. Man could charm the white off rice. Why do you ask?”
Gage shrugged. “No reason, really. How about an FBI agent named Kolfax? He was investigating Price at one time.”
“Kolfax?” Her father quirked his head, frowned. “The name’s familiar. With the financial world the way it is, I’ve had more interaction with the Feds lately than I have in the past. It’s possible I’ve spoken with him. Why?”
“Nothing. Just one of those things running in my head. Any idea where Morgan got to?”
Morgan jumped out of sight as both Gage and her father looked up to her window. She dug into a bottom drawer for a lightweight sweater, then tugged it on. Gage wasn’t the only one on a deadline.
The question was, which one of them would run out of time first?
***
“Guess we have to get back to the real world.” Gage rolled out of Morgan’s bed Monday morning just as the sun made its return appearance.
Morgan burrowed into his pillow, drawing his residual warmth as close as possible, snuggling as if settling in for a long winter.
“Best weekend ever,” she all but hummed, but she could feel the gears in her mind clicking into their familiar overworked state even as a satisfied smile curved her lips. After an early morning walk to the park, they’d spent the rest of Sunday finishing up the repair list Gina had pilfered from Morgan’s clipboard, before introducing the kids to the tire swing. They, like Morgan, thought it was the best invention ever. Ah, the simple things in life. Watching Gage play catch with Brandon or tossing Kelley into the air had been beautiful, but it was when he sat down for a long conversation with Drew that locked her heart away forever.
She’d almost cried when she heard Drew laugh, then did when he shoved his hair out of his face.
Gage was right. Fantasy couldn’t last forever. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to hold on to it as long as she could.
Gage bent down and placed a warm kiss on her neck, and lingered long enough for her to reach for him. “Mmmmm. Come back to bed.”
His low laugh made her insides tremble like a ten-point aftershock. “Can’t. I’ve already put Bouncer off long enough. I need to get my head around work and not”—he kissed her quick and hard—“be distracted. Why don’t you stay right where you are.”
As if considering Gage’s request a challenge, Morgan’s calendar alarm blared its Beethoven-based reminder about her morning appointments and phone calls. Morgan slapped her hand on the nightstand, but Gage had hitched into his pants and picked up her phone first, frowning as he skimmed her schedule.
“Christ, Morgan. Did you leave yourself time to breathe?”
“Gimmie.” She waved her fingers as she came more fully awake. Given the week she had in front of her, she didn’t want to start the day with a lecture on her overscheduled life.
“Today’s bad enough, but you’ve booked all but five minutes tomorrow starting with a breakfast meeting with Kent, and I’m assuming by breakfast you mean coffee, bank deposit at eleven, final contract meeting with Vanity Cleaners, phone appointments with, what is that, six different doctors? We couldn’t wedge a two-second kiss into this schedule with a crowbar.”
“You were warned.” Morgan pushed herself out of bed and plucked her phone out of his lax fingers as she headed into the bathroom. “And don’t try a repeat distraction of Saturday morning. I’m locking the door.”
By the time she emerged, the euphoria of the weekend had evaporated with the shower steam, replaced by the reality that in the next two days, the foundation would either thrive or be buried under a public scandal of mismanaged funds.
She buttoned the last two buttons on her lavender shirt, zipped and twisted her knee-length black skirt around, and headed into the kitchen where Gage held out a mug of coffee. “Thanks.” She inhaled the steam and felt the caffeine zing through her system as she lifted her heavy damp hair from beneath her collar, then beelined for her computer for her morning email check. As she switched her screen on, her gaze fell to the blank space on her desk.
Her stomach dropped like a deflated basketball after a game-losing shot.
She slammed her mug down and ignored the splatter of coffee on the back of her hand as she shoved the stack of folders aside, lifted them up, and pushed her cup of pens aside.
“Lose something?”
“Um. There was a stack of white notecards here.” She tapped the empty space where the cards from Nemesis had been. The space that suddenly felt like a black hole. She tucked her hair behind her ear, then dropped to her knees to look on the floor and peer under the desk, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. “Did you take them?”
“No. I’m sure they’re here somewhere.” He came over, pulled open the bottom desk drawer. “I’ll help you look.”
“No!” She slammed shut the drawer that held the last of the Nemesis cash and almost caught his fingers. She forced out a laugh, but it sounded more like she was choking on the air she couldn’t find. “I’m sorry, I just meant, it’s okay.” But she knew her eyes had to be spinning like a UFO coming in for a landing. Staving off the dizziness, she pinched the bridge of her nose until she saw stars. Too close. “I’m sure they’re here somewhere. I’ll find them myself. I don’t need help.”
The chill that erupted down her spine had little to do with Nemesis’ missing cards and everything to do with the icy stare Gage leveled at her. “And even if you did, you wouldn’t ask.”
Morgan closed her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. We both have busy days and neither one of us has time—”
“It’s too early for bullshit, Morgan.” His words sounded as bitter as the coffee in the mug he set in the sink. “Say you want to do it yourself, remind me you need to do everything on your own, but don’t make shit up. Don’t ever lie to me, Morgan.”
She might have laughed if she didn’t think he might have her committed when she couldn’t stop. Don’t lie? She’d been lying to him from the moment they’d met.
“And don’t expect me to change overnight,” she snapped back, and earned a cool arch of his eyebrow in response.
She let out a long breath, dug fingers into her hair as she tried to settle her riotous pulse. Where the hell were those cards? The last time she’d seen them was right before she and Gage had—
“You’re sure you didn’t take them?” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice.
“I did not, and since it’s obvious you aren’t going to tell me what’s so all-fired important about those precious cards, I’ll leave you to your search.”
“Gage, please don’t leave angry.” She didn’t want the weekend to end this way. The coffee threatened to rocket up into her throat like acid.
He stopped, hand on the doorknob, his bag dangling from his hand as he turned his head and looked at her, disappointment shining like dulled coins. “I thought this weekend taught you that you don’t have to handle everything on your own.”
“It did teach me that. You taught me that. They’re just stupid cards. You’re overreacting.” But she couldn’t pry herself from beside the desk, not when Nemesis had her so tied up in knots she couldn’t move. “I’m trying, Gage. Please believe that. I am trying.”
“Try harder.” And then he was gone.
“Shit.” Morgan spun on her bare feet, twisting this way and that, looking through every folder. She dug through every drawer, tossed the twenty-five thousand in cash Gage had nearly found aside, but to no avail. She sat against the desk feeling as if she’d taken a body shot of Novocain.
The cards were gone.