Unprecedented Read online

  The other guys weren’t doing too badly with their cork vases. It was a little like Lincoln Logs from childhood. Edith and Lucy had a collage of small circles painted bright colors and glued together, ready to be put on a wall and filled with little trinkets.

  Edith patted his arm. “You have been so helpful. This will be something great for my granddaughter to do with me. I’m going to go home and use the internet to look for more ideas.”

  He grinned as he handed her a contact form to fill out. That spark of joy carried him through each week. “When you get them finished, bring them to me and I’ll list them on my website to sell.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “Oh, that is a marvelous idea. I can’t thank you enough, Xander. Thank you.”

  “Edith is going to come to my shop tomorrow to look into helping me part-time, too,” Lucy said with a grin. So she’d gotten what she came for.

  “Tonight filled my soul. It was just what I needed. Thank you both,” Edith said.

  He handed the contact form to the guys to fill out and give back. When he got to Reggie, he offered one to him and a pen.

  “Tell you what, man. Write down your number for me. I could use some help around here. How about you come here every afternoon say around…” What time did school get out these days? “Three thirty? Four? We’ll see if we can’t get you some more income.”

  Reggie’s eyes grew wider as a smile spread across his face. “Yeah…yeah, I can do that. Cool, man. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  Xander gathered up the contact sheets and left the projects where they were to dry overnight. Reggie’s coffee container planters were colorful and meticulously done. Add dirt and a bouquet of those succulents chicks loved and they’d sell first.

  Sounded like Reggie needed some money.

  He needed some income himself, so maybe this would work for both of them.

  Chapter 3

  “She didn’t get to see it,” Cara screamed through her sobs as she hurled the quilt at Joey. Ribbon wheels and thread bobbins skimmed his head and shoulders. The once organized sunroom lay destroyed by the tornado of Cara’s grief.

  He didn’t catch the quilt. Instead, he stood with his hands in his pockets not saying or doing anything. Some projectiles bounced off him, rolling to a stop on the floor.

  “I—I did this for her. And she didn’t even live long enough to touch it. I told her she couldn’t die until I was done. I told her, Joseph. But she didn’t listen.” Cara collapsed onto the nearby sofa with her face buried in her hands. “Why didn’t she listen?”

  Gia couldn’t hear Joey’s response as he folded Cara into his arms, his cheek pressed against her hair. It wasn’t fair. Neither of them were thirty yet and here they were burying their last parent.

  She was helpless. No words fixed the way the bottom had dropped out of the world. And they certainly didn’t stop the freefall of despair.

  It was two in the morning and the rest of the family had left to sleep for a few hours while Ma and Daddy worked out the details with hospice to get her moved to the funeral home.

  She’d called Xander a few minutes ago to tell him the news, but she’d gotten his voicemail. Her ability to talk without crying was nonexistent, so she hung up. He’d find out in the morning when she woke up.

  Cara stomped past her and up the stairs. Joey ambled in to where she sat in the living room on the sofa, snuggled with their Yorkie mix.

  He sank onto the chair next to her and rubbed his eyes. “We shouldn’t have gone to dinner. If we’d known—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “I need some sleep.”

  As quickly as he’d sat, he left.

  Gia stretched out on the couch.

  Daddy shook her awake. “Gia, let’s get home.”

  When she slipped in between her cool sheets, she sank into the dreamless unconsciousness that accompanied exhaustion and mourning.

  By the time, she awoke the clock read two p.m. She hadn’t slept like that in years. Her parents’ bedroom door stood open. Their bed was made nicely, as usual. She dressed and made her way downstairs, feeling like a teenager about to face her parents’ teasing for sleeping so long.

  The house was silent and the kitchen empty. A note on the counter in Daddy’s scrawl said they’d gone to finish the funeral preparation for tomorrow. He signed it, “Be a good hostess. Love you, D.”

  Hostess? No one was here, but her.

  She grabbed the eggs and cheese, prepped scrambled eggs, and poured them into the heated pan. When she turned around, Xander stood with his hip leaning against the counter, looking devastatingly gorgeous.

  “You make enough for two?”

  Her hand slapped against her chest as she rushed into his arms. Her lips found his in a heated welcome. His gentle kiss deepened as his fingers worked into her hair. Oh, she’d missed this. He was her favorite kind of company.

  He broke their kiss and murmured next to her lips. “Your scrambled eggs.”

  She grunted and turned around. “I’d have happily burned them to keep kissing you.” She pouted slightly. The eggs were slightly overcooked but not terribly. “When did you get in?”

  “Around noon. You were up late last night. I didn’t want to wake you.” He hugged her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist. She leaned into him as she plated the eggs.

  He held her hips. “I know it’s supposed to be a taboo topic, but you’ve lost more weight since I’ve seen you last. You look beautiful. Always have. But that concerns me.” She hummed as he kissed her neck. Lord, she loved this man’s touch. “If it’s because you missed me, that’s sweet, but you need to eat more.”

  “I was spending my lunch hours with Tia Carolena.” She led him to sit at the breakfast bar next to her with his hand on her leg. “I haven’t had an appetite recently.”

  He nodded, quiet as she ate. When she’d finished, he took her plate to the sink. “Your dad said the funeral is tomorrow morning.”

  “Tia Carolena’s family should be arriving today. Breaks my heart that they missed saying goodbye by a day.” The tears hovering near the surface welled up and streamed down her cheeks.

  Xander lifted her from her chair and set her on his lap. His arms enveloped her in his strength. She pressed her face into the soft skin of his neck. The tears came unchecked. He said nothing as she sniffled.

  He’d seen her in a lot of situations in the past few months and he’d been a rock through it all. Last time she’d cried was after the fire in her house. She’d tucked herself away in her closet so no one would see her tears. And then she’d run…again.

  This time, he’d see the tears. And there would be no escaping to clear her head. If he couldn’t bear her tears, better she knew now than when they were in too deep.

  Who was she kidding? She was already in deeper than she’d ever been before. She knew it. He knew it. Her parents knew it. But no one sounded the alarm.

  He swept her into his arms and carried her to the overstuffed chair where he sat and lowered her on top of him. With a kiss to her forehead, he brushed the pads of his thumbs across her cheeks. “You’re even more beautiful when you cry. Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

  This was the time to tell him.

  “First of all, I love you. Time is too short for me not to tell you.” She kissed his cheek as he stared at her a little bewildered-looking. No, she wasn’t going to be embarrassed about it. It wasn’t too soon. Everything about them being together was right. “Secondly, I have been thinking about our next steps a lot and I want to wait until we’re married to consummate our relationship. Not because I don’t want you like my next breath but because I gave Bronc too much too quickly and I learned my lesson. Thirdly, I have a feeling my extended family is going to put you through your paces so be warned. We can be loud and insane—”

  He kissed her so hard and fast she didn’t see it coming. She shifted in his lap. Guess he didn’t want to talk. She loved not talking with him. This boy set every inch of her on
fire.

  But then he moved back a fraction so his lips grazed hers.

  “I love you, Gia.” He looked her straight in the eyes. There was no awkwardness or hesitation present. “I didn’t want the moment to pass before I could express that, too. We both have experienced our share of devastation and catastrophic damage. We’d be fools to let these moments slip by without being honest with each other.” His lips met hers again. “Love is patient. No one waited for me for anything while I was in prison. It’d be a joy to show you my love by waiting.”

  His phone rang in his pocket. He shifted to ease it out, silence it, and set it on the side table. “As for your family, if they give me trouble it’ll be because they love you deeply. I’d be disappointed with less. It beats tense dinner conversations where everyone walks on glass shards like how things are with my family right now.”

  Her heart swelled in her chest, as she ran her fingers through his short hair. She’d forgotten how soft it was. “Tell me how things went with Avri yesterday.”

  He nibbled on his swollen lower lip as he shook his head. “She wrote me letters, a whole stack of them, but I never got them because Dad gave her the wrong address when he knew the right one.”

  Gia lifted her eyebrows. She tried to stay neutral about Xander’s family, but had secretly already made up her mind about his dad based on his behavior. Who treated their son like that? “He intentionally sabotaged your relationship with your sister?”

  “I read a few of them. They had funny moments, poetry, song lyrics we both liked, things she thought would cheer me up.” He huffed and shook his head. “I haven’t fully processed what I’m going to do about that kind of betrayal. Part of me insists that I be done and walk away. And yet there were all those times in prison that I vowed I would never turn my back on my family. I would never treat them like they treated me. Here I am six months out and ready to give up on my dad after being so persuaded that family didn’t do that to each other. Ever.”

  “You’re adults now which hopefully means Avri sees his attempted control for what it is. You can’t make someone love you, so be there for the ones who want you there. Not that I’m an expert on that, but I’m trying.” Strange how easy offering advice was, but following it felt like climbing a mountain in sandals.

  He squeezed her thigh. “And you’re doing well. You’ve been here for months. After tomorrow, you can come home and put more bids in for international projects. And you and I can go on normal dates and see each other every day.”

  She groaned. “Things have been crazy since we met. I swear my life was semi-normal before,” she waved her hands around, “all this happened. I am looking forward to normal life with you.”

  Her phone beeped in the kitchen. She slid off his lap to get it. Joey had texted her, asking her to come over whenever she woke up. “Joey needs us.”

  They grabbed their things and drove to Joey’s house. When they walked in the front door, Uncle Roberto and Aunt Judita sat in the front room. She stopped to make introductions of Xander. Uncle Roberto shook Xander’s hand and began to ask questions. She made eye contact with Aunt Judita and grinned. “You seen Joey this morning?”

  “I think he’s in his room still.” The set of her chin made Gia think that they’d expected as much.

  She squeezed Xander’s hand and gave him a questioning look. He nodded. He could hold his own. As she left the room, Uncle Roberto called Breno in to talk futbol with Xander. Her family would embrace Xander and his futbol passion wholeheartedly.

  Upstairs, everything was quiet. She knocked on Joey’s door on the left.

  “Come in,” came the response.

  The room looked similar to how the sunroom had looked last night. Clothes, shoes, and bags cluttered the floor. An almost-full suitcase lay on his bed.

  Her jaw fell slack. “Are you just now unpacking from when you were at my place?”

  Joey’s swollen face was a mix of desperation and misery. “I’m leaving after Mama’s funeral tomorrow.”

  Leaving. Her heart lurched. “Good. You need a vacation. You work too hard and never take time off.”

  He pinned her with a stare that was hard to read. “I took time off to be at your place.” He turned his back and added more items to his suitcase. “This is different. I’m going to be gone for a while.”

  Her mouth opened and shut with the questions of why, with whom, and how long. Instead, she said, “Where are you going first?”

  “My flight leaves for Lisbon tomorrow night.” Turning around, he sat on his bed facing her full-on for the first time. “I need you to do me two big favors.”

  “Anything, Joey.” And she meant it.

  “I’ve been working on the design for the Rio Venha Resort, and it needs to be done by the end of the year. Preferably before Christmas. Your dad insisted on keeping the design in the family instead of me putting one of my best architects on it. So, since I can’t do it, can you finish it for me? You can have the money, the credit, whatever. I don’t care. Take it all. It’s the last thing on my plate for me to be free and clear for the foreseeable future. My other architects are sharing the rest of my workload.”

  A resort. She hadn’t done anything that big in a while. Resorts were really visible. She could not afford to mess that up. “Of course. I’d be happy to.”

  “Good. All the details are in your email.” He gave her a sheepish look. “I counted on you saying yes or me begging until you did.”

  Biting her lip, she tried not to beg him to stay. “Is Cara going with you?”

  “Just me. I’ve been trying to keep my family, my business, Mama’s health together for the last three years and I never properly grieved Dad’s murder. Now that we know the murderer and Mama’s gone, too, it’s long overdue that I get some space to get my head on straight.” He pursed his lips as the tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t stay here.”

  Down to her very soul, she understood. If she hadn’t already committed to staying, she’d go with him. But someone had to stay behind, as Joey had done when she’d left.

  She hugged him tightly. “You be safe out there. And check in as you go, so we know you’re still alive.”

  Designing a resort thrilled her a little. She’d been doing smaller scale designs for most of her career. It was good to have a challenge every once in a while.

  Saturday morning dawned sunny and mild for a December day. The funeral was scheduled to be held in the local Presbyterian church Tia Carolena was a member of. Their music staff were performing the ceremony with a piano, a violin, and a harp. Tia Carolena had loved the sound of the harp.

  Outside on the sidewalk, a small group of protesters circled with their signs bobbing.

  “It’s sick,” hissed Cara.

  “So disrespectful,” Gia said as she waited to turn into the parking lot. A twenty-something protester made eye contact with her and booed at them. Did they think about what they’d feel like if someone they loved deeply was protested the day of their funeral? “They have nothing better to do with their lives on a Saturday than show the world how awful they are?”

  “They need to get over it. It’s not like Dad cleared the forest where they put the conference center he designed. They should be protesting at Microchasm’s headquarters. Mama had nothing to do with it.”

  “They want others to be just as miserable as they are,” Xander said from the passenger seat. “I had a huge group of people protesting me at my sentencing date. Fools who believed everything they heard. They feed off hate.”

  “They’ll get their reward in this life or the next,” Cara murmured.

  Gia parked around the side of the church. They’d drive to the cemetery for the burial and come back for a lunch provided by the church for the family. Joey and Cara kept their heads down as they walked in the side entrance. Gia grabbed Xander’s hand and squeezed. The last time she walked into a funeral, she came in ashamed, alone, and inconsolable.

  The guilt ate her alive.

  But now, Tia Ca
rolena’s forgiveness had set the stage for her to take back her life. To move forward with Xander and her dreams with her architecture.

  She’d never take for granted the change love made inside her, the healing blanketing her soul. The words Tia whispered to her fiercely as they embraced over Uncle Angelo’s coffin stayed with her— “Love never gives up. It never looks back and continues to the end.”

  That thought that once heaped guilt, now felt like ice on a burn. As she stood in line accepting condolences from people she didn’t know, the truth that Tia lived came alive to her. Love always looked for the best.

  Xander found a spot in the back where he could watch her to see if she needed anything and talk to Uncle Ronaldo. Likely futbol again.

  During the ceremony, he tucked her into his side, pressing her tightly against him as if he could lend her his strength through his touch. He’d pressed a small tissue box between him and Ma so he could hand out tissues easily. Gia’s eyes were raw from the constant wiping and dabbing, as they listened to a song about seeing her again.

  Joey and Cara sat next on her other side and didn’t fare any better. By the end of the service, the graveside service, and the lunch, they had drained every last emotion. Joey and Cara’s faces reflected their exhaustion. Xander tilted his head toward them.

  She nodded and whispered to Joey, “Let’s get you back for a nap before you leave.”

  They went without a backward glance.

  Four hours later, she and Cara hugged Joey one last time as he rolled his carry-on behind him, looking slightly less haggard but determined. There was a hint of excitement in the way he carried himself through security. As they waved before he disappeared, she breathed a prayer that it wasn’t the last time she’d see him alive.

  Chapter 4

  While Gia took Joey to the airport, Xander sat staring at the flames in the stone fireplace. Overhead, the space heaters kept him warm enough to be without his jacket. Nearby on the back patio, Burley and Ronaldo drank a nightcap and talked politics and business strategy. On one wall, a huge flat-screen television showed a golf tournament on a channel entirely dedicated to golf. No doubt supported by insomniacs looking for a non-medicinal cure. A few feet away there was a square of turf as a tee box for launching golf balls into the unknown.