As he pushed the large chair away from his desk he heard the familiar coo of his daughter’s voice echoing up the hallway. Perfect timing. He got to his feet and headed for the door. Expecting to see his wife he peeked his head out playfully, ready to kiss her. Instead he was met with Piper’s extended hand shoving his face away.
“What are you doing?” she croaked as she pushed his face back a little and adjusted Frankie on her hip.
“I thought you were Jules,” Michael muttered, rubbing his cheek and extending his arms to take Frankie. His heart flooded with much missed happiness as she nearly leaped into his arms.
“Jules is still out with your mom. I thought she’d be home from the spa by now, but I guess they must have gone somewhere after.” Piper wrung her hands nervously as she spoke.
“You were supposed to stay with her. I told you how conniving my mother is. You can’t let her get her claws in Jules.”
“I didn’t want Frankie to be put to bed by some stranger. I knew you were busy trying to get the hell out of here. Plus I’m not sure there is all that much I can do to keep Jules from falling for your mother’s attempts to impress her. Once she bought her a five thousand dollar dress this morning for your sister’s engagement party everything I was saying fell on deaf ears. Jules is not pretentious or anything, but she’s damn tired and you put her through the wringer coming out here. It’s not taking very much to get her all caught up. You know as well as I do that Edenville has always felt too small for her. She loves this stuff, and she’s finally getting a taste of it.”
“So, what, you’re giving up?” Michael asked, starting his tone rough and then softening the edges as he thought of his daughter in his arms.
“No, I’m letting you know that it’s not going to be as simple as just telling Jules that your mom has an agenda or that she’s selfish. You’re going to need to really explain to her what’s going on here.”
“I was going to tonight but I guess my mother is keeping her out late to try to keep me from doing that. But come tomorrow morning everything will be different.” Michael squeezed his daughter a little tighter as she rested her tired head on his shoulder.
“And what exactly happens tomorrow?” Piper asked, looking skeptically up at Michael.
“I’m going to take a play from my mother’s book and see how she likes it. She won’t know what hit her. Then she’ll realize trying to get to me through Jules won’t work.”
“Your mother doesn’t strike me as someone to back down just because her first plan doesn’t work. She wants you here. She wants you running all this so she doesn’t lose what she has, am I right?”
“Yes, but I have no intention of staying here and paying for my father’s crimes. I won’t turn into him. I won’t watch my wife get sucked into the wake of my mother’s insanity and selfishness. I’m ending this now. All of it.”
“It sounds like you’re starting a war.”
“I’d fight a war to keep them safe. I know this is a different kind of danger than you’ve had in your life, and maybe it doesn’t seem as bad, but it’s just a different kind of bad; trust me. My mother will stop at nothing to keep this life going, but what she doesn’t understand is there is no way to maintain the charade anymore. They got too greedy and it was all falling apart long before my father died. His death was just the tipping point. This was a long time coming.”
“Is that why you left? You knew it wasn’t sustainable?” Piper patted Frankie’s back gently and Michael watched as the baby’s eyes fluttered heavily, weighed down by the sandman.
“I left because my father betrayed me, and I couldn’t look at him the same way again. I idolized him, and he ripped my heart out and stomped on it.” The heaviness of this topic wasn’t Michael’s style. He was the one who broke tension through jokes and levity. Luckily he and Piper were a lot a like.
“Geesh, the guy I thought was my father only tried to stab me a couple times. He never tried to rip my heart out,” she joked.
“The only thing we can do,” Michael whispered, watching his daughters eyes finally close as she fought to stay awake, “is do a better job than they did. This baby is never going to go through any of that. She belongs in Edenville. We all do. We’re better there. Now I need you to keep doing your best to keep Jules focused. Things are going to blow up tomorrow. I need her to come out on my side.”
“I’m sure she will. Your mom might be good, but not that good. Jules loves you and she’s not going to take your mother’s side just because she spent one day at the spa.”
“Don’t underestimate her or the spa. That place messes with your head.”
“I never pegged you for a pedicure kind of guy,” Piper joked quietly as Michael handed her back a sleeping Frankie.
“I’m embarrassed how well I know my way around a spa. I think I missed the deep sea mask the most when I left for Edenville.”
“You are so lucky Bobby isn’t here to listen to this. You’d never live it down.”
“Joke all you want. When we’re all old I’ll be the only one without wrinkles. Then who will be laughing?”
“We’d still laugh at you.” Piper turned toward the door and patted Frankie’s back rhythmically.
“I can put her to bed,” Michael offered, feeling like he was asking too much of his friend. All of this seemed like too much to expect from someone. “I feel bad leaving you to yourself in this big boring house.”
“Lindsey is here. Your mother invited her to stay in one of the spare bedrooms. There seems to be no shortage of those. I hope you don’t mind but I filled her in on what’s going on. Now she’s got her police antennas up and she’s treating everything like she’s working a case here.”
“Good, tell her to keep it up. I don’t know what my mother will do come tomorrow. It can’t hurt to have a cop around. Does my mother know what she does for a living?”
“No, they haven’t formally met yet. I don’t think Lindsey intends to tell her though. I think she’s been out of work too long while her leg heals, and she thinks she’s undercover here.”
“Let’s keep it that way. She can be our secret weapon if we need her.”
“You really think it’s going to come to all that?” Piper asked as she adjusted a snoring Frankie slightly.
“I’m not taking any chances. You just keep Jules focused on what’s important if you can. Keep reminding her how much our life means to us back in Edenville and how she has always trusted me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you for being here and doing this for me.”
“Oh yes, you’ll be in my debt, as long as you don’t count every single situation you’ve bailed me out of since we met. If you weren’t saving me from my past you were saving me from myself. I’ll do my best to think of ways to keep Jules from getting swept up in this.”
“I don’t like being the one who needs help.”
“You think I particularly enjoyed it?”
“You were in trouble so much it was hard to tell.”
“Well I’d be home living a pretty damn normal life if not for your drama. That must count for something.”
“If there comes a day when you and I are ever bored, just living like normal people do, let’s make a pact.”
“Okay,” Piper hummed skeptically.
“If there comes a day when we’re not in some kind of trouble anymore, let’s promise we won’t go looking for any. We’ll just sit in our rocking chairs and enjoy the quiet.”
“Deal,” Piper mouthed as she backed out of the room and gave Michael a tiny wave. Off his daughter went in the arms of his friend, and at least for tonight, he knew Frankie would be safe and happy.
Chapter Fifteen
Michael dug his fingers deep into the muscle of his neck as he tried to break up the knot that had formed from sleeping on the couch in his father’s office. He’d only gotten a couple hours before the sun broke through the window and woke him. He wasn’t tired though. There was too much adrenaline pumping through his body to ack
nowledge his lack of sleep.
Jules and Frankie had both been out cold when he crept in the room, grabbed his clothes and took a quick shower. Now, as he made his way toward the dining room for breakfast, he knew everyone would be up.
“There you are.” Jules smiled, and he felt relieved to know his presence still elicited that reaction from her. “Where did you sleep last night?”
“I crashed on the couch in my father’s office. I nearly pulled an all-nighter. How about you? You were out late.”
Jules strapped Frankie into the highchair and then stared down at her shoes as though guilt were keeping her from looking up. “It was nearly midnight before we came in. I know that’s not like me, but I have to tell you, Michael, I really needed a day like that. We went shopping, then the spa, and dinner followed by a drive through town.” Michael had to strain to see it, but then he was sure, Jules was crying. Just a subtle couple of tears rolling down her cheek.
“What’s the matter?” he asked nervously as he pulled her body against his in a tight hug. Had his mother hurt her? Said something unforgivably rude? He’d lose it on her if that were the case.
“I’m so sorry,” Jules choked into his shoulder. “I should have told you how I’ve been feeling lately. I just didn’t want you to think any less of me. I didn’t want you to confuse my feelings and think I’m not happy being a mom. I’m so happy being a mother, but I need to be more than just one thing. I need to do things like last night and breathe fresh air after nine p.m. I need to talk to other adults and put makeup on and feel like my life is semi-normal again. Does that make me sound selfish?”
“Not at all,” Michael assured her as he pulled her back so he could look her square in the eye. “You’ve been doing so much of this on your own. I’m busy with work, everyone else is doing school or running the restaurant, and I guess I lost sight of how hard this must be for you. Then I go and just bail on you. My timing probably couldn’t have been worse.” Michael drew in a deep breath as he wondered how his life had gone from a trajectory toward sheer perfection to a rocky, complicated, overgrown mess. “When all this is over and we’re home in a few days, I promise to make this right. You deserve time to yourself, time to feel like the old you again.”
Jules wiped away the tears as the clamoring voices of the staff entered the room and then instantly silenced at the sight of them.
“We should talk about that, Michael,” Jules said as her hand clamped down on his bicep. “I spent a lot of time yesterday with your mother and your sister. I’m not going to oversimplify the issue, but I do think with a little effort we can all come to an understanding.”
“Don’t do that,” Michael said abruptly, pulling his arm away and then regretting the harshness in his voice. “You don’t talk like that; those are my mother’s words. You say things like there’s no problem that can’t be solved with some moonshine and rocking chairs. You are one of the most authentic outspoken women I know; please don’t let spending time with her change that. My mother is toxic. She is manipulating you into thinking the problems between us are small. They are not. My mother has two agendas: to stay rich and to keep her image intact. Both of those things are on very thin ice. She’ll do anything to protect that. Even—”
“Even be friendly to country folk like me?” Jules asked with an arch of her brows. “How preposterous that she might actually like me because this is more to me than just some cute sayings about sweet tea. Maybe your mother actually thinks I’m worth spending time with and it has nothing to do with whatever drama you two have. I’ve been pretty quiet since having Frankie. I’ve been staying up all night and doing everything that needs to be done. I get a say in what we do out here. I have a voice in this. I want to be here for your sister’s engagement party and when we leave here I want a plan for how you’re going to fix things with your mother so we can all have a relationship. Frankie deserves the best we can give her, and you have to admit that there are things out here we’ll never be able to offer her back in Edenville. I want a say in those choices.”
Michael felt like he’d just gone ten rounds in the ring with a heavyweight champion. How had his mother worked her dark magic so fast on the woman he loved? But then, wasn’t it clear? Jules was telling him how. She’d been feeling overwhelmed by motherhood. She was tired, and he’d abandoned her like a jackass. His mother found every crack in Jules and bled her way in. By the time he found the words he needed, a mix of compassion and begging, it was too late. The dining room came alive with chatter. His mother burst her way in with Lindsey and Piper in tow.
“I hope everyone is ready for a big breakfast,” Tabitha sang as she motioned impatiently at the staff to get moving.
“Before we sit down, Mother, there is something we need to do,” Michael explained flatly as he finally tore his eyes off his wife.
“Oh, Michael, it can wait—whatever it is. Jules and I have a very long day planned. There is still so much to do for the party. We’re going to the venue today and making sure those buffoons don’t screw anything up. Then to the florist to make sure the wisteria is as vibrant as I’ve been promised. We need a hearty breakfast to deal with all that.”
“The eggs can wait, the press can’t.” Michael turned on his heel and headed out the dining room door toward the front of the house. This was the moment he’d been waiting for since he’d hatched this plan yesterday morning. He’d always prided himself on never sinking to his parents’ level but now he realized the reason they were always down on that level was because it got shit done.
“What press?” Tabitha asked, unable to fight the draw that his words had created. She was nipping behind him a second later.
“Jules, you come too. This is a family matter.” Michael’s voice boomed over his shoulder, and he heard his wife’s heels clicking against the marble floor as she joined them just in time for him to swing open the front door. Spread across the lawn were a dozen or so reporters and cameramen all clamoring to get the best spot.
“What are you doing?” Tabitha hissed through a fake smile. Strategically, Michael shifted Jules between himself and his mother so there could be no quiet exchanges. This was the ultimate trap for his mother. She’d never tarnish her image in front of this much press. It’s a tactic she used dozens of times on Michael over the years.
“So what’s all this about, Michael,” one of reporters asked in her nasal tone as she fluffed her hair up in the reflection of a nearby news van. “Everyone’s set up and ready to roll, so let’s hear it.”
“I just wanted to thank you all in person for the time and attention you’ve given to the passing of my father. As you can all imagine it’s been a very difficult time for us.” Michael watched as the reporters settled into silence and the lights of the cameras came alive. “My family is heartbroken by my father’s sudden death. It has truly rocked us to the core. My father was a planner, a brilliant businessman, and incredible politician. His shoes will be impossible to fill. That’s the reason I brought you all out here today. As we try to find a way to live in a world without my father, we have to come to terms with the fact that much of what he built can’t be sustained without him.” Michael paused, mostly for effect but he also wanted to hear if there was anything his mother had to say. He glanced at her briefly from the corner of his eye and found it remarkable how calm she could look when he knew she was raging inside.
“What are you saying, Mr. Cooper?” one of the male reporters asked with furrowed brows as he held the microphone up higher.
“My family needs to grieve and heal right now. We can’t dedicate the kind of time, energy, and resources it takes to maintain the work my father was doing. We’ve made the decision to scale back on everything.”
“What do you mean everything?” a few of the reporters asked anxiously at once.
“Effective immediately, all charities will be dissolved. The funds will be funneled to the appropriate places and then the paperwork will be filed to close them. The manufacturing business will remai
n open, but it will be scaled back to just the essentials. No employees will be let go, but the company will run extremely lean.”
“You’re walking away from your father’s legacy? That doesn’t seem like a very smart decision.” The chatter began to grow, as clearly this was the thought that was ringing through the minds of every reporter on the lawn.
“It isn’t a smart decision. It’s one we’re making with our hearts, not our heads. As you all reported yesterday afternoon, I have a wife and daughter now. I’m older than my father was when he had me, and he spent much of his life working. I don’t begrudge him for that because I know it was something he did for us. But after such a loss I’m sure the public will understand why we’re making this choice. There is no amount of money or wealth that can give me back my father.”
“It’s pretty widely known that you haven’t had any relationship with your father for almost nine years—since you mysteriously left. It seems strange that you’re mourning him now,” the nasal and big-haired journalist spoke out brashly.
“There is a vast difference between what is shown in the media and what is real. I didn’t splash my relationship with my father across the newspapers; that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Things happen every day outside of your view. I buried my father a few days ago, and it has forever changed my life. We’ve come together as a family and decided to make nothing more important than family.”
“Tabitha, these charities have been your whole life for over a decade. You’re honestly going to put all that behind you?” the reporter pressed on.
“My mother’s whole life is more than the work she’s done with charities. Maybe that’s the problem. All we’re seen as is a culmination of the business decisions we’ve made over the years. Let this be the one that speaks volumes about us. We will, of course, continue to support and fund charities important to us. We will still employee people who have worked loyally at this company for decades. But we are at a time in our lives where the only thing that matters is our love in this family. I’m sure many of my father’s associates will want to discuss this, and I encourage them to contact me. I’ll be in my father’s office working nonstop to implement the necessary changes. Again, I can’t thank the community enough for the outpouring of love and support they’ve shown to my family during this impossibly hard time. As we go into the weekend we’re going to find a way to celebrate even with our heavy hearts. We just ask that you keep us in your prayers.” Michael bowed his head and held his breath for a moment, waiting to see if any of the reporters would have anything else to say, but they were seemingly stunned into silence. He fought to not throw his fist in the air in victory. Wrapping one arm around his mother and the other around Jules he moved them back toward the door and gestured for them to head inside.
Battling Destiny (The Piper Anderson Series Book 6) Page 9
