For three hours, the music played, the food and wine arrived in waves and the guests grew louder and louder and more and more convivial. When Pearly Perry wheeled out the wedding cake, guests gasped and cooed.
The main edifice had been shaped and frosted to look like a three-foot-tall oak barrel. Frozen sugared grapes hung in bunches around the rim. A long slice from top to bottom displayed an ombre of colors from pale yellow to lavender to an intense, Syrah dark purple. All around the cake, purple or pale yellow cake filled crystal wineglasses; the frosting was contrasting buttercream.
Behind the scenes, Dr. Frownfelter and Dr. Brundage had worked on Kellen’s ankle, approved Arthur’s work, given her pain relief and an antibiotic and told her sternly not to indulge in any of the fine wines served at her wedding feast.
Kellen sighed and complied, circulating on Max’s arm to visit the guest tables and thank them for their attendance. When they reached the table Annie and Leo were hosting, she collapsed into a chair and smiled at two of her favorite people in the world. Almost everyone here belonged to Max, but Annie and Leo—they belonged to her, too.
Verona joined them, looking flushed and out of breath. She had had a dance with Arthur.
“We’re so excited, dear girl, to welcome you into the Di Luca family.” Annie handed Kellen a small rectangular box. “This is for the two of you, if you wish to have it.”
The box felt oddly heavy for its size and had been tied with a lush purple silk ribbon.
Kellen looked up at Max.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it!”
She did, and inside was a giant old-fashioned iron key. “What does it open?” she asked.
“It’s the original key to Yearning Sands Resort,” Leo said.
Kellen shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s for you and Max. We know how much you love Yearning Sands, and with my current lousy health, we have to retire.” Annie was clearly disgusted with herself. “But I know my darling home will be in loving hands if you and Max take it over.”
Kellen handed the box to Max. “But the winery—”
“Someone else in the family can take it over,” Max assured her.
“Someone who can blend a good wine,” Leo suggested.
Max glared at his uncle.
Leo cackled.
“Did you know about this?” Kellen asked Max.
“No, I didn’t see this coming. But it does make sense, except for—” Max stopped short.
Kellen understood his train of thought, and he was right. She knew he was. Taking Annie’s fragile hand, Kellen held it. “I would love to come to Yearning Sands and take it over as managers, but we can’t. Rae is our first priority, and the school system in Cape Charade isn’t good.” She realized what she’d said and winced. When she decided to own motherhood, she went all the way.
Max got it, too, damn him, for he murmured, “The keys to a minivan are within your reach.”
“Shut up,” she said.
Verona leaned into the conversation. “But the resort is an ideal place to raise a child. Isn’t it?”
“In the summer when there’s no school, yes,” Kellen agreed. “To be out there on the coast, running free... Yes. It would be good for Rae.”
“I have a thought.” Kellen’s new mother-in-law looked bright-eyed and enthusiastic. “I was a grade school schoolteacher before I retired. I can move with you to Yearning Sands and homeschool Rae.”
Kellen felt faint, and not with joy. They were just married, and already Verona wanted to live with them? Permanently?
Verona pulled her chair close to Kellen, excluding Max, excluding Annie and Leo, and in a low voice, she said, “Look. I know we haven’t gotten along. I didn’t trust you. I didn’t believe you. I didn’t like that you...that you saw Rae and didn’t instantly love her. But the way you did it was better. You got to know her, then you loved her.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. We bonded.” Kellen wanted to laugh as she remembered Rae’s Monster MegaBond speech. But now was not the time.
Verona continued, “I’ve been with Rae since she was born. I love her, and she loves me. You’re going to be working. It’s a big resort. I can stay out of your way and still be close to Rae. And I am, if you’ll excuse my confidence, a damned good schoolteacher.”
Kellen took a breath. Everything Verona said about Rae was true; she loved her grandmother, Verona loved her, and most important, when Kellen had been unconscious and then missing, Verona had been there for Rae and Max every minute, and that could happen again. In fact, it might be necessary. “Then I think that’s a great solution,” she told Verona. “I think that’s exactly, exactly, what we need to do.”
“It won’t work forever. Sooner or later Rae will need higher education, more than I can give her, and we’ll have to move.” Verona had clearly decided she would be part of the household forever. “But she’ll have the best educational foundation any child could ever have.”
“She already has an amazing vocabulary.” Which sometimes isn’t comforting.
Verona smiled smugly. “She tests at the top of her class in every subject.”
Kellen offered her hand. “Well, then. It’s a deal.”
Verona shook her hand, then pulled her into a fierce embrace. “In the Di Luca family, we hug.”
Kellen stiffened, hesitated, then relaxed and hugged her in return.
Verona pushed her chair back, whisked tears from the corners of her eyes, looked around and announced, “It’s settled, then. We’re moving to Yearning Sands.”
Annie and Leo and the other guests at the table, Di Lucas and otherwise, clapped in appreciation and congratulations.
Max slid the key into his inner suit pocket and helped Kellen to her feet. “Although this is, of course, our favorite table, we should visit our other guests.”
They exchanged cheek kisses with all the relatives, and as they moved on, he said, “That was a good thing you did.”
“Your mother’s right. It is the best solution.”
“You didn’t have to go for it.” He turned Kellen to face him. “You do know you didn’t, right?”
“I know. I just... The resort will be a great place to raise Rae, and I’ll have a job, and you’ll have a job.”
“No doubt. We’ll be working all the time.” He sounded satisfied.
“If she can get a quality education there—and I know your mother will see to it—then we have everything we need.”
“Except time.” The bitter words slipped from him.
“Then we shouldn’t waste what we’ve got.” She joined their hands, leaned her body close, matched their lips and whispered, “Shall we leave on our honeymoon?”
Someone whistled in appreciation.
“Right now?” Max’s lips moved against hers. “We haven’t cut the cake.”
“To hell with the cake.”
“I knew it from the first moment I met you. You are the woman of my dreams.” He kissed her, long and slow, ready to take up his husbandly duties the moment they were alone.
Max didn’t realize that Daniel Lykke hadn’t lived to complete his dream of taking control of Lykke Industries, but he had fulfilled his desire to harm her; he had slammed her to the floor one too many times. Something was wrong with her. She suspected he had moved the bullet in her brain, for the edges of reality had become fuzzy and gray, like a camera with Vaseline rubbed around the edge of the lens.
But how did she tell Max that, on this day when he had married her and their daughter was safe from threat?
“Look!” he said. “The dead arises!”
At the fringe of the crowd, Nils Brooks stood, head bandaged, eyes bloodshot, looking as if...as if he’d been racked and beaten all in one day.
“He’s not having a good time,” Kellen observed.
“I know!” Max sounded fierce. “He deserves every ache and pain. I trusted him to guard Rae, and he screwed up.”
“He really is a good fighter.” She watched as one of the tiny Di Luca boys toddled over and embraced Nils’s leg with sticky hands. Nils picked up the child and grinned at him, then relinquished him to his laughing mother. “He likes kids, Rae bosses him around, and he took his eye off the ball.”
“You’re too forgiving.”
Kellen met Nils’s gaze.
For the first time since she’d known him, he looked sorry and embarrassed. He dipped his head in apology.
“I am too forgiving. But I keep thinking... I will never let him live this down.”
“I’ll never let him near you again.”
“Check. No more jobs for Nils Brooks.”
“We should probably have our first dance before we leave. For Rae’s sake.” Max knew what his little daughter liked, and he knew, too, she would miss them while they were vacationing in Italy.
“That sounds like a lovely plan,” Kellen agreed.
In deference to her injuries, Max and Kellen’s first dance was a slow waltz, a wonderful spinning tribute to love that made the guests sigh with pleasure.
Then Zio Federico stepped onto the floor with Rae, and the old man and the child danced in circles around them. Max waved his arm at the family and friends who were watching, and soon dozens of couples waltzed in a burst of rhythmic joy.
Carson and Birdie.
Verona and Arthur.
Temo and Adrian.
Max said, “Zio Federico approves of the splatters on your dress. He wants to know how you created it.”
“What did you tell him?’
“That it was a spontaneous demonstration of creative sophistication.”
She chuckled. “You’re a genius.”
“I know. I’ve got you.”
That fuzziness advanced, the edges of her vision diminished. She slowed. “I’ve begun to think that’s not such a smart thing.”
Max’s smile faded. His face became watchful. “Why?”
Kellen had to tell him. Warn him. She looked around, avoiding his gaze, and—Rae had disappeared from the dance floor.
“Where is she?” Kellen searched the wedding party.
“Who?”
“Rae. Where is—?” Kellen caught her breath.
There, at the edge of the dance floor, she saw them. Rae, her charming trusting lovely daughter, smiling and talking to...to a...
FEMALE, WHITE, TANNED, HEALTHY, 5'6", 130 LBS. AGGRESSIVELY PHYSICALLY FIT. DARK HAIR. BRILLIANT BLUE EYES.
She looks older than the last time I saw her...
Mara Philippi, smuggler and serial killer, the woman who had almost murdered Kellen. The woman Max and Kellen had captured and sent to prison.
In slow motion, Mara knelt before Rae and listened to Rae’s enthusiastic babble, then turned her head and smiled directly at Kellen, taunting her with her helplessness.
“She’s here.” Kellen stopped dancing and dug her fingernails into Max’s arm.
“Who’s here?” He looked around, alarmed.
“Mara Philippi. She’s here. She’s with Rae. She has Rae.” The gray mist moved like an ocean fog over Kellen’s mind, invincible, blinding her, binding her.
“Where?” He held Kellen up by her elbows and helped her circle in slow motion.
“There.” Kellen tried to point, but when she stared at the place where Mara Philippi and Rae had been, they were gone. “Rae. Where is Rae?”
“I can see her. She’s with my mother and Arthur, talking and dancing. She’s safe, Kellen, she’s safe.”
Kellen looked up into his eyes. “No. I wasn’t hallucinating, Max. Mara Philippi is back, and she wants to kill everything I love. Save Rae. Take care of yourself. I love you forever.” She collapsed in his arms.