Mark seemed to get it then, that Lincoln had taken sides where the Charles were concerned. He straightened in his seat and narrowed his eyes.
“I was under the impression that my daughter was in some kind of danger. That’s what Brady told me and that’s why I’m here.”
Aggie stood then, a whining cry coming from her throat as she faced the front of the house. There was a thump from upstairs.
“Let me go,” Lori murmured, standing quickly.
“Take Aggie and Lola. She’ll want to see them,” Lincoln told her with a nod. He hadn’t needed to say the words. The second she walked out of the room, the dogs followed her as if they knew exactly where she was going and they wanted in.
“Talk, Lincoln,” Mark said, knocking a hand on the table.
“Did you really tell Sadie not come visit you in the city? That it was bad for business to be seen with her?” he asked instead.
Mark’s lips firmed and Brady’s head turned to look at his father. “You did what?”
“It was a long time ago,” Mark said defensively. “Her reputation has the potential to damage all of us—not just my business, but yours, as well. I was trying to protect us.”
“And who was protecting Sadie?” Lincoln growled. “While you were so busy protecting your precious business, she was being blackmailed and threatened without anyone to turn to because you made her think she couldn’t. You cut her out, Mark, and left her no goddamn options. Now she’s lost something infinitely precious to her and her life is on the line.”
Mark stood, his chair bumping into the wall and falling to its side with a clatter. “You don’t get to dictate how I raised my daughter, Lincoln. Just because you’ve decided she’s the one you want to warm your bed this week doesn’t give you the right to tell me how I treat her.”
“How you treat her? If you don’t treat your daughter with the utmost love, care, and respect every time you see her, you’re doing it wrong,” Lincoln informed him. “And that should be, no matter what I say. You fucked this up for her, Mark, and helped get her into this position in the first place. If she felt like she could come to you the second Connor Page came out here and demanded money from her, you could have advised her not to pay. Instead, she kept it to herself and put herself at risk.”
Lincoln had never had Mark Charles’s fury directed at him before and normally he’d be leery of attracting such attention. But in Sadie’s defense, he felt emboldened and empowered, because he had every right to stand up for her the way her own family hadn’t for years.
“She could have come to me,” Brady said, his voice thoughtful.
“Of course she couldn’t,” Lincoln argued. “Your father convinced her that if she was in your lives, in Boston, she’d ruin all of you. She was trying to protect our business, Brady. Trying to protect you. Don’t you see that? And now she’s lost one of the most important parts of her life—”
“A dog,” Mark said with a casual wave of his hand, dismissing the very idea that a mere dog could mean that much to someone.
In one statement, he’d shown just how little he really knew about Sadie.
Lincoln nodded. “A dog that stood by your daughter’s side, day in and day out. One that loved her and made her smile and laugh. One that made her feel whole and helped build her up.” He shrugged and kept his eyes firm on Mark. “That dog did everything for Sadie that you should have been doing, but weren’t. And now she’s gone. Murdered and taken away by some piece of shit scumbag that would have never been out here if you’d have kept her closer instead of pushing her away.”
Mark stepped closer, nearly bumping chests with him. “You have the balls to blame this on me? Are we just going to sweep all the prison time under the rug and pretend killing an actual person is not worth mentioning?”
Lincoln just narrowed his eyes. “And you’re trying to tell me that you don’t think Sadie paid the price for what she did? Instead, you get to lord it over her head for the rest of her life whenever it suits you? No wonder she stays out here.”
“Okay,” Brady interrupted, nearly shoving his body between the Lincoln and Mark. “Now isn’t the time for this. We can all having a pissing match later about which one of us is better for Sadie and how we’ve all fucked things up for her in the past. Right now, the one thing we need to focus on is the fact that someone came out here, to the middle of nowhere, where Sadie should be the safest, and killed her dog. It could have just as easily been her. This has to end now, so she can be safe. Bottom line. End of story.”
“And then you can apologize for the way you’ve treated me,” Mark said, a challenge in his eyes.
“And for Sadie, you’ll give your blessing when I ask your daughter to marry me.”
“Jesus, Lincoln,” Brady murmured. “You think now’s the time for that?”
As far as he could see, now was the best time.
Sadie had quite literally tumbled out of her bed, thrashing in her sleep, chasing after something that no longer walked the earth.
She’d dreamed of Cocoa, in all her wild, furry glory, darting through the back field, sopping wet and caked with mud. Sadie had never seen a more glorious sight and, wanting nothing more than to be with her, had followed.
What she’d found instead of the dog she loved so dearly, was the cold, hard truth of the wood floors beneath her. She didn’t get up, choosing to wallow for a bit in her bone-deep sorrow.
People wouldn’t understand that Sadie now felt like a piece of her was missing. They’d relate to her in the way someone that lost a pet might, as if something on the periphery of her life was now gone.
But what it really felt like to lose Cocoa was like someone had ripped a piece of her away. Like the very thing that helped make her into a whole person, someone worth living and loving again, was gone. Cocoa, along with her dog sisters, had given to Sadie what no human ever had. They’d shown her unconditional acceptance.
Not necessarily love, but that one sliver of something that showed her that they didn’t care where she’d been. Just like she’d never let where they came from affect how she loved them.
It didn’t matter if they came from the highest echelons of society, where looks and money meant more than personal substance. It didn’t matter if, like Lola, they were used for nothing more than personal gain. It didn’t matter if someone threw them away like garbage or abandoned them to live a life scared and alone.
It didn’t matter because they found each other and helped make each other better.
Cocoa was more than a dog, more than a companion. She was a friend and closer than any family Sadie had ever had. Cocoa had been a child at heart, and Sadie wasn’t sure how to get up off the floor and pretend like her life wasn’t caving in around her.
“Sadie?” Lori’s head poked around the door, looking casually perfect. “Can I get you anything?”
“A time machine?” she whispered, averting her gaze and looking out the window. Somehow, the sun shining felt like a slap in the face.
“There are some very anxious girls out here that would like to come in.” Lori, ever the diplomat. For all the grief Mercedes had given her, the woman was still kind and caring.
“You all can come in,” she said, comforted when Aggie and Lola trotted over, both loving her in their own ways.
Aggie laid attentively at her side, pressing her head against Sadie. Lola sat in front of her, large and alert, watchful of danger. They’d lost too. They hurt the same way she did.
Lori sat in the chair by the window. The one Lincoln sat in sometimes at night, looking out at the yard.
“I’m so very sorry for your loss, Sadie. I wish there was something I could do or say. I know how much you love your dogs and your life here.”
There were no words, nothing she could say without choking on emotion and blubbering, so she just nodded.
“If you need anything…” Lori let the words trail off, the statement not needing to be finished. “Brady told me a little about what you’ve been dealin
g with out here. I wish you would have said something.”
Sadie gave a half-hearted one-shouldered shrug. “I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that you aren’t a bother, Sadie? I want you to come home. We miss you.”
She looked at Lori then and a switch suddenly flipped. The woman was so genuine, so passionate in trying to get Sadie back into their lives.
“He never told you, did he?” At Lori’s confusion, she clarified, “My father. He never told you that he asked me not to come to Boston anymore. Told me it was bad for everyone’s images.”
Lori’s face dropped and she looked somewhere between appalled and nuclear-volcanic-eruption angry. “He said what?”
“I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you. Just trying to keep my problems out of your life.” She held out her hands. “I was trying to make sure that all this didn’t touch you guys.”
“All this being what, exactly? Your father gets threats all the time. He sends them straight to his lawyer. I’d like to think if you’d come to us, we would have done the same.”
Time and time again she’d gone over how she’d handled this situation with Connor, as if she could have done something to stop him or help him. Maybe she could have reported him, called her lawyer as Lori suggested. Gone to his parents like Lincoln had done.
“If you could just get me that time machine,” Sadie said. “There are a lot of things I’d do differently.” Starting way back when she was just a kid, out of control with too much power for her own good.
“Me too,” Lori admitted.
Intrigued, Sadie eyed her curiously. “What would you change?”
Lori sat back in the chair, linking her fingers and wrapping them in front of her knee.
“Well, for starters, I’d have worked harder when I was younger to make more of my degree. I graduated and married your father and got so wrapped up in clubs and committees that I didn’t get to build my career.”
“You’re not exactly Methuselah,” Sadie pointed out.
“It just feels like it’s too late.” Lori shrugged, a gesture that seemed so out of place on a woman Sadie had always seen as confident.
“You’re looking at the queen of starting over, you know,” Sadie pointed out. “I know a lot about feeling like it’s too late, only to find out it’s not.”
“Like finding out it isn’t too late to have your shot with Lincoln Greene?” Lori said, a small smile on her lips. “You did always love him.”
The mention of Lincoln made her feel squishy and warm inside, something she was desperate to hang onto. He’d never let her go the night before, strong and protective behind her; he’d just held her and been there. There was nothing more she could have asked for.
Sadie nodded her agreement, confirming that maybe she was looking for her shot at forever with Lincoln.
“Or finding out it isn’t too late to be the person I really am inside, not the person everyone expects me to be. I held onto that for a long time,” Sadie admitted. “Acting like someone I didn’t really want to be. I just didn’t know any different.”
“I love both of those people, Sadie,” Lori admitted. “I loved Mercedes’ fire, her strong will and confidence.”
“Mercedes treated you like shit. She treated everyone like shit.”
Lori agreed. “She did. But she also begged for the right kind of attention and when she didn’t get it, she settled for the wrong kind, because it was better than nothing.” Her eyes were soft and a little watery. “I tried, Sadie. I really did, but I wasn’t who you needed and I couldn’t get your father to listen. I am so sorry for that.”
“Stop,” Sadie said, that emotion she’d been trying to avoid lodging in her throat.
“You and I have never been close. You wanted your mom and there was no substitute for her, even though I wasn’t trying to be. I just wanted you to know that someone loved you, Sadie. You always had me. You always will have me.”
“Stop,” Sadie murmured again even though the words were something she needed to hear.
“I hate what you’re going through. I’m so sorry for your loss and I want nothing more than to make it all better for you, but I can’t. All I can do is be here.”
“That’s enough,” Sadie told her. “You just being here. It’s enough.”
“You have people in your corner, Sadie. Me and Brady, we’re always here. Your father, no matter how much I love the man, can be shortsighted, but he’ll see. You keep being yourself and eventually he’ll see who you really are. And now you have Lincoln. Let us be here for you.”
It didn’t sound like a bad plan.
Lincoln entertained her father and brother at her kitchen table, and when Sadie felt human enough to trudge down the stairs, she found them all there staring daggers at each other. The room was filled with a tense silence, as if they were doing nothing more than tolerating one another.
Even Brady looked uncomfortable and he was as easygoing as they came.
She wondered if people who weren’t Jewish could sit shiva and if they could, could they do it for an animal? A weeklong mourning period seemed to be about the only thing she was up for at the moment.
Well, that and finding Connor Page and making sure he was put behind bars. She knew, without a shadow of doubt, that he was behind what happened to Cocoa. He did it out of hatred for her, and spite.
Ultimately, it was her fault, but Connor needed to pay for what he did.
“Have the police said anything?” Sadie directed her comment at Lincoln.
Out of everyone in the room, he was the one who was going to make sure she was taken care of. Not her father or brother, not her family, but Lincoln.
And it was because he loved her. He hadn’t said the words. She hadn’t said them to him either, arguments and life getting in the way.
But it was there between them and they both knew it. She felt it in every molecule in her body, every breath she took, she loved him. His eyes on her, so full of care and solidity, said more than any words could
“They picked him up this morning,” Lincoln confirmed, almost deflating the balloon of anticipation that had been building inside her chest.
She’d been preparing for a long, drawn-out search, terrorized by the idea that he was stalking her in her world. Instead, there was nothing else to do except let the police do their job and hope he got what he deserved.
“That’s wonderful news,” Lori murmured.
“Mercedes—” her father began.
“Sadie,” Lincoln corrected, shooting her father a dark look.
Strangely enough, Mark responded to the look, changing his approach.
“Sadie,” he corrected. “I had no idea you were in such danger here. Lincoln told me what’s been going on—”
“She would have told you herself if you’d have given her the chance.”
It wasn’t Lincoln coming to her defense but Lori.
“I’m not interested in blaming anyone,” Sadie told them all, taking the few steps to Lincoln and sitting in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, neither of them caring what her family thought. “What happened, happened. I want it to be over. I just want to be able to put Cocoa to rest.”
Those words, just saying them, were almost more than she could handle. The very idea of Cocoa being in the ground was too much to process. She could put Cocoa to rest, but what would her life look like after that? What did a life without her mean?
Lincoln’s strong hand on her back was firm and soothing.
“When can I get her back? I want to have a funeral.”
“For a dog?” her father blurted.
It was the reaction she’d imagined him having, that disbelieving shock dripping from his voice.
“She was more than my dog,” she tried to explain. “She was my best friend, Dad. She was their best friend.” She pointed to Aggie and Lola who both looked forlorn. “She was…” God, the word was sounded so far in the past. It cut like a shard of
glass across soft skin, quick and deadly, halting any words she’s been trying to say.
“I’ll find out,” Lincoln said. “Until then, we’ll make sure Connor Page is in jail and you’re safe out here. That’s all I care about.”
“Me too,” Brady interjected. “But if you need to get out of here, you can always come stay with me.”
The look on Lincoln’s face was laughable as he glared at Brady.
“She could always come home,” Lori suggested.
Lincoln just shook his head. “She is home.”
16
Five days later, Lincoln stood at the front door of Sadie’s house, letting in guests. She was having a celebration of life for Cocoa, and as much as he might have thought the notion was ridiculous a few months ago, he felt the need to reflect on Cocoa’s short life as much as Sadie did. Not only for himself, but for others, as well, so they could see how wonderful she was.
Gordon was a bit lost, not understanding where his love went. He’d come into the yard, hell for leather, but had found nothing but disappointment. He’d been moping for days and Lincoln didn’t feel much better himself. He’d been working to be as strong as Sadie needed him to be and he was fine with that. But in the dark, when she finally fell into a fitful sleep in his arms, he felt an emotional letdown unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
He’d never lost a parent or someone close to him. He had no frame of reference to fall back on and instead found himself bumbling through his grief.
Lincoln didn’t know much about the grieving process but he knew about giving Sadie what she wanted. If anything, he’d started making giving her what she wanted his life’s mission. She wanted a small backyard get-together, where she would celebrate Cocoa’s life and lay her to rest? He was going to deliver.
So he’d made a few calls and asked Lori for some help, while Sadie did her thing. She’d been understandably introspective and distant, but she’d asked him to stay. He hadn’t been to work in days, hadn’t even opened his briefcase, and it occurred to him that he wasn’t bothered by that fact at all. It seemed natural to stay with Sadie and weave their days in and out of each other’s. She took solace in Aggie and Lola and when the night fell, him too.
No Love Left Behind (Boston Billionaire's Club Book 1) Page 19
