Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Rus got choked up again.
Melanie started to say something.
But Gary kept talking.
“I knew you’d pull shit, so I asked. And as her dad, I got rights. And as the person who claimed her and paid for all this, Lucinda has rights too. You got nothin’. You wanna fight it, punch at the sky all you want, woman. By the time you rake together enough cash to take us to court or whatever, my beautiful Brittanie will be free and breezy.”
Melanie looked fit to be tied.
Not reading the situation, that being that Gary had sorted it, Dakota butted in and asked, “Where’s my dog?”
At this point, Rus guided Lucinda away while looking toward Moran, who had Dakota’s dog on his four acres south of town. He’d been rechristened Smokey. And Moran’s two chocolate labs had adopted him as one of their own.
Fortunately, Melanie didn’t know that.
And Dakota would never find out.
He saw her outside on the deck alone.
So he left Keyleigh, Declan, Gary and Indira with Lucinda in Lucinda’s kitchen, since they’d moved the final mourners down to the more intimate space of her house once everyone else had left.
Rus walked out to the deck.
To Madden.
He stopped next to where she was leaning against the railing, her ankle twisting, staring at the river.
“You wanna be alone?” he asked.
“Not really,” she answered.
“You hanging in there?” he asked.
“I guess,” she answered.
Regrettably, that was all he had.
“Mom says you have a daughter,” she remarked.
“Yep. Twice as old as you and at the University of Florida. Her name is Sabrina. I have a son too, he’s older. He’s called Acre.”
“I’m gonna have a daughter.”
“They’re the best.”
“Britt loved Jason Bohannan and said they were gonna make baby girls, and she said I could be their big sister.”
Shit.
Rus pulled his thoughts together and then gave it to her straight.
“Well, sweetheart, as horrible as it is, and as much as it hurts, there was a lot that Brittanie wanted to do that she won’t get to do. But she leaves us with things that make her stay special, even when she’s not with us. All the memories you have with her in them. But also, she taught us to live it up while we’re here, because sometimes, we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Live it up.”
He looked down at her shining dark head. “It’s not fun to know all that.”
She didn’t look at him but kept her eyes to the river when she spoke.
“No. It’s funny, though. You said that. You said it just like her. One of the things Britt always said was, ‘Live it up.’ We’d make popcorn and she’d melt butter for it, and she’d melt a whole lot, look at me and say, ‘We gotta live it up, baby.’ Or she’d do my hair before we’d go to the grocery store, and it’d be all fancy, and she’d say, ‘Who cares, we’re living it up, you and me.’ So I guess that’s right.”
“I know it is, honey.”
Finally, she tipped her head back to look at him. “Do you think she lived it up enough before she went, Mr. Lazarus?”
No, he didn’t.
“I think a woman who knows to melt all the butter they want for popcorn knew how to live life, Maddy.”
“I hope so.”
He ran his hand over her hair then turned and leaned into his forearms on the railing.
He knew that conversation went okay when Madden returned her attention to the river too, but she did it leaning down his side.
The water rushed over the rocks like it had before either of them made it to the earth, and as it would after they were both gone.
Together, they stayed close and watched it race away.
And they did this for a long time.
He was walking back to his SUV after hitting the grocery store when his phone vibrated against his pectoral.
He pulled it out of his inside suit jacket pocket, looked at it, and saw he had a text from Moran.
He opened it up and read, Carrie Molnar hasn’t checked in and hasn’t come home. She’s in the wind.
Goddamn.
Shit.
“Momma! I don’t wanna be an immunologist when I grow up! I want to be a fashion designer!”
They were in the big seating area of Lucinda’s suite.
When Rus had hit the store, he’d got what they needed, and he’d microwaved several bags of popcorn, then melted extra butter to pour on.
They’d gone through a slew of napkins.
After Madden said that, he turned his head to look at Lucinda.
She didn’t look thrilled with this announcement.
But he should have known.
They were all on the couch, Madden’s head on his thigh, her feet in her mother’s lap.
They were watching Cruella.
And he was learning Disney had already figured it out.
The really interesting story was what went into making the cunning queen.
THIRTY-TWO
Man-to-Man
Rus sat with his laptop at the conference table in Moran’s office.