The Will (The Magdalene Series) (Volume 1)(176)

I bit my lip.

Jake watched me do it then his eyes came back to mine and he said, “Right.”

I turned my attention back to the halibut on my plate but felt something strange and looked across the table.

Alyssa was sitting there between Amond’s bodyguard and his “other manager” and her eyes on me were huge as was the smile on her face. I watched as they darted comically and quickly to her side then she jutted her chin out and they darted across the table and back. She repeated this four times before she lifted a hand in a thumb’s up gesture then curled it in a fist and pumped it up and down three times before she turned her attention back to her plate.

I stared at her, nonplussed, until Jake again put his lips to his ear.

“Well, we got that goin’ for us. Alyssa’s fired up about her girl landing the high school big man. My son makes his move, you play that angle. I’ll keep an eye on Junior.”

Ah.

So that was what that was all about with Alyssa.

I turned to Jake. “Deal.”

He grinned at me, leaned in and touched his mouth to mine.

“Gross!” Ethan shouted and both Jake and I looked at him in time to watch him announce to the whole table. “They do that all the time.”

“Just you wait until you get your turn, little man,” Amond advised.

“I’m not kissin’ Josie,” Ethan returned, looking a little sick.

“No, boy,” Amond replied. “When you get a woman of your own.”

“She’s gonna cook like Josie. She’s gonna dress like Josie. She’s gonna talk like Josie. But we’re just holding hands,” Ethan informed Amond superiorly and my heart jumped as my belly melted.

“At least you got good taste, even though I’m makin’ a pact with you that I’m callin’ you in fifteen years and we’ll see about that holdin’ hands business,” Amond replied.

Ethan grinned, likely only hearing that Amond was calling him in fifteen years, and agreed, “You’re on.”

Amond threw him a smile.

I reached out for my glass of champagne.

Jake reached for his beer and as he did so, slid an arm around the back of my chair, leaned behind me and said something to Amond.

But I wasn’t listening.

I was looking.

And I was feeling.

A table of friends from two different worlds, talking, eating, laughing and making a beautiful memory with me smack in the middle, able to drink it all in even as I felt my man close, his arm on my chair, claiming me.

And it was then I knew.

It wasn’t Jake Gran wanted me to have.

It wasn’t Jake and his kids.

It was this.

It was a good life. A happy life. Safe with people I cared about and trusted.

And in giving me Jake, this was what she gave me.

I felt my eyes sting, put my champagne back and focused again on my halibut.

After I took a bite, chewed and swallowed, I took up my champagne again and looked to the ceiling that was painted an attractive wine color that had a lovely wash to it that made it look like undulating satin.

I didn’t see the lovely paint job.

I wasn’t seeing.

I was speaking.

Silently.

Thank you, Gran, I said, lifted my glass minutely then took a sip.

I put it back to the table and turned my attention to the halibut.

* * * * *

The next afternoon, I watched Amond and his posse hand out hugs and handshakes around the Escalades making note that when Jake and Amond clasped each other’s forearms, they kept hold and leaned into each other, talking in ears.

I decided to ignore this. They were bonding and it wasn’t lost on me they were bonding over my troubles with my uncle and Boston Stone. But they were bonding, that was what was important.

I gave out my own hugs to Amond’s crew and he was the last for me.

He pulled me in his arms; he did this close, his arms going tight.

And he shocked me, honored me and wounded me when he whispered in my ear, “This is precisely what I wanted to give you, beautiful.”

I said nothing, just held on.

“Even not givin’ it to you, sure as f*ck am glad you got it.”

I closed my eyes and held on tighter.

“Love you, Josephine,” he finished.

I opened my eyes and turned my head so my lips were right at his ear.

“And I love you, too, honey.”

He gave me a squeeze, pulled back an inch, looked deep in my eyes and smiled.

I took in a breath through my nose and smiled back.

He let me go and got in the back seat of one of the Escalades. As he was doing this, Jake got close and claimed me with an arm around my shoulders. The kids then claimed me just by huddling close.

Thus Jake, Conner, Amber, Ethan and I stood and waved Amond and his crew away.

And when we lost sight of them, we all walked together back into Lavender House.

* * * * *

The next morning, I followed Jake and Ethan out of the kitchen, pad of paper and pen in hand, scribbling.

“Babe, just give it to me and text me if you forget anything,” Jake ordered impatiently.

“Just a second,” I murmured, hurrying after them and still scribbling.

“It’s a grocery list, not the Magna Carta, Slick,” Jake noted. “Just give it to me. I gotta get my boy to school and then I got a session at the gym.”