“You’re stressed. You needed relief. Don’t kick yourself.” He wanted relief, too. But he wasn’t going to pressure her.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.”
She rolled off him and he stood.
With a look of guilt, she smoothed the edges of Owen’s bedspread. “So bad.”
Jason placed a hand on her waist to tug her away.
With the movement, the bedspread untucked from the foot of the bed, and Rachel stood perfectly still. “Wait.”
“What?”
She shoved the blanket aside and then ripped it off the bed altogether.
“What is it?”
“Owen has an electric blanket. It’s not here.”
“Are you sure it was on his bed the last time he was here?”
“It’s always on his bed. As soon as the temperature dropped under fifty.”
She pulled his pillow away to unveil his backpack. “He came home.”
They both stared at each other.
“We were looking in the wrong house,” Jason said quietly.
Rachel flew across the room and tossed open Owen’s closet.
Jason ran down the hall, searched closets, down the stairs, the coat closet, the garage . . .
They both stood in the kitchen, and their gazes landed on the door leading to the basement.
“He wouldn’t.”
Jason had to laugh. “Hide in the one place you would never look for him? Yeah, he would.”
They opened the door slowly and started down the stairs.
Behind a stack of boxes, in a makeshift tent, Owen was curled up on his side, the electric blanket working double time in the cold space . . . snoring.
Rachel started to weep before she fell to her knees and grabbed a sleepy Owen in her arms.
“Hey,” he said with one eye open.
“I’m going to kill you,” Rachel told him. From the strength she was using to hug him, it might be possible he wouldn’t make it out of the basement alive.
“You found me.”
She pulled away, grasped his face in her hands. “Never do that again. You hear me?”
“I didn’t want you to go to jail.”
“Never! You don’t get to leave. We will figure it out together. But you don’t get to leave. Got it?”
“’Kay.”
And the hugging began again.
“I’m okay,” he told her.
“Yeah, well . . . I’m not.”
Owen looked over Rachel’s shoulder at Jason, smiled, and then wrapped his arms around her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Moreau.”
Judge Sherman held humor in her voice.
Rachel stood beside Owen, both of them properly dressed for a day in court. Jason had sent Owen to his tailor. The suit he wore made him look five years older than he was.
“Hi,” Owen said sheepishly.
Rachel nudged him and whispered, “Your Honor.”
“Your Honor,” he said after the fact.
The people in the courtroom laughed.
Rachel glanced behind them to find Jason and his family sitting there in support.
“You gave Miss Price quite the scare. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Well, Judge . . . I mean, Your Honor. At the time I didn’t feel I had any other choice.”
She seemed surprised by his answer. “And now?”
“I realized that if I had used a few more of the skills Mr. Collet was teaching me—he’s my English teacher—I might have learned that I could have stayed with one of my buddies instead of a foster home until we had a court date.”
“Mr. Collet sounds like a wise man.”
“His tests are hard.”
The courtroom laughed again.
“Hard teachers are always the best,” she told him.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Sherman looked at Rachel and then the Colemans. “I’m told you’ve come to an agreement.”
“We have, Your Honor,” Mr. Yanez said.
“We have,” said Clive.
“I’m listening.”
“My clients have decided to drop the petition for custody of Owen Moreau.”
Rachel already knew they were going to drop everything, but it was nice to finally hear it aloud in front of a judge.
“I think that’s wise,” Judge Sherman said. “I take it you’re TJ?” She addressed Owen’s father.
“That’s right, Your Honor.”
“What are your intentions?”
TJ looked around the attorneys to stare at Owen. “I want to get to know my son, Your Honor.”
Rachel placed her hand on Owen’s shoulder.
“With all respect, I don’t think a court should force Owen to see me, or his grandparents. The stress this situation has put on Owen and the roadblock I’ve created by not stopping my parents before they came to the court is something I’m going to have to live with.” TJ turned his attention to Owen. “He’s turning out to be a fine young man without us, and my guess is that isn’t going to change. I hope that one day he will want to know me.”
Rachel caught Owen moving his gaze to his feet.
“TJ is relinquishing his rights for custody so long as Miss Price remains Owen’s legal guardian,” Mr. Yanez stated.
Judge Sherman focused on Rachel. “You’re in agreement with these terms, Miss Price?”
“Yes, Your Honor. With all my heart.”
The judge smiled and lifted her papers. “Let’s hope all my cases go this well today. I am ordering Miss Price and Mr. Moreau’s passports to be returned and all mobility restrictions lifted.”
It is over . . . finally over.
Owen hugged her.
“Not so fast, Mr. Moreau.”
Owen froze.
“Being a teenage runaway is a probationary offense.”
The air left Rachel’s lungs.
“I won’t do it again, Your Honor.”
The judge had a catlike smile. “I’m sure you won’t. And to help you with that wise decision, I’m ordering you to perform twenty hours of community service, to be completed at the local homeless shelter and teenage runaway hotline.”
Rachel closed her eyes in relief.
“Really?” Owen asked. “Your Honor?”
“Really!”
Rachel lifted her hand, as if she was in a classroom.
“Yes, Miss Price.”
Rachel glanced at Owen, then back to the judge. “I’d like to request forty hours of community service.”
“What?” Owen cried.
The courtroom exploded in laughter.
“The hard teachers are always the best. And I’m too young to have to start dyeing gray hair.”
“Forty hours it is.” Judge Sherman hit her gavel to the block. “Case dismissed.”
Rachel ruffled the top of Owen’s head before pulling him into a hug.
She turned to Clive and shook his hand. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
TJ approached them once they all walked out of the courtroom. “Owen?”
Owen nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to be in town for a few weeks. I was wondering if maybe we could catch a movie or something.”
Owen looked at her, then back to TJ.
“I guess so.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I mean, as long as I can pick the movie.”
“Deal.”
TJ turned to Rachel. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He turned and walked away, making his parents come with him as they left the courthouse.
Jason squeezed between them and placed an arm around each of them. His brothers and their wives followed close behind. “How are we going to celebrate?”
“I was thinking Machu Picchu,” Owen said, deadpan.
“Peru?” Rachel exclaimed.
Glen started to laugh.
“I really am start
ing to like this kid,” Trent said.
“Too much?” Owen asked Rachel.
“Ya think?”
Jason laughed. “It’s only a seven-hour flight.”
Owen jumped in front of them. “Not a bad idea, right?” He pointed both index fingers at Jason and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Seven wonders of the world. What’s not to love?”
“Owen!”
“What?”
“How about dinner and ice cream?” Rachel suggested.
“Peru totally trumps dinner and ice cream,” Trent said.
Monica smacked his arm. “You’re not helping.”
“He has school in the morning.” As if Rachel had to talk this crazy clan out of a spontaneous trip to Peru.
“And community service hours,” Mary added.
Glen was looking at his phone. “It’s eighty degrees there right now.”
Rachel turned her unbelieving stare toward Mary and Monica. “These men. How do you cope?”
The door to the courthouse opened, and a rush of cold air had all of them turning toward the icy temperature.
The view was breathtaking . . . or maybe it was the beginning of altitude sickness.
From Rachel’s vantage point, she could see Owen running circles around the others. His crazy-ass idea caught a fever within the Fairchild men, and before Rachel could say no, they were tucked in the Fairchild personal jet and soaring at thirty thousand feet.
“I don’t remember the last time the three of us went anywhere together like this,” Jason told her as they rested on one of the many ancient steps of the Mayan temple. She sat half in his lap, her tan legs dangling across his, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Why not?”
“Work. Life. Sometimes we have our eyes set on the golden ring so hard that we lose sight of everything else that’s important.”
“Didn’t your parents already hand you the golden ring?” she asked, watching Jason’s profile.
“Up until I met you, it felt more like a baton I had to run to the finish line. Only I never saw the finish line, so I just kept running.”
“Sounds tiring.”
“Exhausting. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I woke up with you by my side.”
“Jason.” He always had the right words.
He turned to catch her smiling at him. “It’s true. I’ve never felt so alive as I have when I was convincing you to date me.”
“When was that? Between putting up my Christmas lights or fighting my legal battles?”
“Somewhere in there.”
They both laughed.
“I want this. Exactly this, forever,” Jason said.
Rachel looked at the panorama before them. The blue sky merged with the deep green of the Peruvian forest that hid Machu Picchu for hundreds of years, the steps where human sacrifices were likely performed, a constant reminder of how precious life was. “You can have this every day if you want.”
She laughed.
Jason shook his head and grasped her hand. “Not this.” He waved a hand at the land in front of him. “This.” He squeezed her hand.
Before she could say a thing, he pointed at Owen taking pictures of his brothers and their wives. “That. I want to be that guy who says . . . okay, Owen, you wanna learn about the Great Wall of China? Let’s go!”
“That’s crazy.”
“Not quite crazy.” He kissed the back of her hand. “Maybe a little crazy.”
She squeezed her thumb and index finger together. “Tiny bit.”
“I’m going about this all wrong,” he said.
“Going about what?” she asked.
He hiked her higher on his lap and kept one hand on her hip to keep her from toppling off. Jason’s playful smile turned twenty shades more serious.
“I have fallen completely and irrevocably in love with you.”
Her jaw fell open.
“I want you, this love, for the rest of my life.”
She was going to cry.
“The way I see it is I can spend the next six months convincing you we belong together forever, or we can just get on with our beautiful life.”
“Jason—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Marry me, Rachel. Give me a reason to pass the baton and start living my life again.”
She sniffled through her smile. “You’re crazy.”
“We established that.”
“I guess that makes two of us.”
His smile fell. “You’re serious?”
She nodded through her tears. “Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.” He kissed her hard, spoke without breaking contact of their lips. “I’m going to make you so happy.”
“You already do. I love you,” she told him.
He kissed her softer, deeper.
“Hold on.” He pulled away and lifted her off his lap and onto the Mayan steps and then dropped to one knee. From his back pocket, he produced a small box.
“You totally planned this.”
He smiled like a teenager and opened the lid. His eyes glistened with unshed tears of his own. “It was my mom’s. I would be honored if you would wear it.”
Ugly tears ran down her cheeks as her heart burst with pride and happiness. Then she looked at the ring. “Your dad had great taste.”
Jason removed the ring, wiped his cheek, and lifted her left hand.
They both stared at it for several seconds, the enormity of the step they were taking circled around them with a loving band of joy.
“This is really happening?” she questioned.
“Oh, this is on. We are doing this.”
He stood and pulled her into his arms.
Their kiss was broken by the round of applause from below.
Owen pointed his camera lens their way and put a thumb up in the air after checking the image.
“Was he in on this?” Rachel asked under her breath.
“They all were.” Jason waved.
“You’re all nuts.”
“Not quite.”
Epilogue
Light bounced off the lake and caught Owen’s fishing pole as he tossed a line off the side of the boat. Nathan sat on the opposite side, directing him. Summer was quickly fading into fall, signifying the year since she’d moved.
Rachel felt the weight of the ring Jason had placed on her finger that day in Peru, and the band he’d added to it the afternoon six weeks later when he made her Mrs. Jason Fairchild.
The memory of Jason flying her and Owen back to California to place flowers on Emily’s grave on the anniversary of her death wasn’t something Rachel would ever forget.
Their marriage was saluted by most and doubted by others.
Neither one of them listened to what anyone else had to say. Even when her promotion to the head of the marketing department was talked about under hushed tones around the water cooler, Rachel kept her head high and her ego in check. It helped that Julie reminded employees that it was Rachel who brought Fairchild Charters one of the largest accounts they’d acquired in over five years.
Jason’s even footsteps sounded behind her as he walked outside.
He kissed the top of her head and took a seat beside her. “Has he caught anything yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
Jason kicked his feet up on the double chaise longue and pulled her into his arms. “Do you think he suspects anything?”
“I’m pretty sure he knows there’s a party planned.”
“And the car?”
She cringed. “I’m not ready for him to be driving.”
Jason laughed. “He’s a good driver.”
Yeah, and his sixteenth birthday was the following week.
“Where did you leave the car?”
“Trent’s house.”
Buying Owen his first car wasn’t something Rachel could talk Jason out of.
“One crash and we buy him a beater.”
“He’ll be fine.”
She sniffled. “He’s gr
owing up too fast.”
Jason hugged her, and when the waterworks didn’t end, he stopped teasing. “Are you okay?”
She sighed, watched Owen tugging on the line. “It’s just hormones.”
“Ahh.” Jason settled against her. “Is it an emergency chocolate kind of night, or a glass of wine?”
It was now or later. “I’m probably better off with pickles and milk,” she said, deadpan.
“Oh, God, that sounds horrible—”
Jason snapped up to a sitting position on the chair and leaned over her. His gaze moved to her stomach. “Pickles?”
Rachel placed a hand over their unborn child and let her smile show.
“You’re serious?”
“Took the test this morning.”
He patted her stomach as if he was afraid to touch her. “You’re pregnant?”
“I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. It isn’t like you’ve left me alone since Costa Rica.”
“I’m going to be a dad.”
Rachel started to laugh. “You catch on quick, Fairchild.”
“Oh my God.” He leaned down and kissed her stomach before resting his ear on it. “What was that?” He jumped up.
“That would be my stomach. I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry . . .” He scrambled off the chair. “Okay. I’ll get you something to eat. What do you want? Pickles? I can cook pickles.”
Rachel started laughing.
Jason took two steps toward the house, then turned back around and pulled her off the chair and spun her around. “I love you. Every day I love you more.”
“I’m getting dizzy.”
He stopped spinning her just as abruptly as he’d begun. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
She started laughing again. “I was just as pregnant last night when you had me bent over the pool table.”
“Oh, that’s bad.”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. I had a good time.”
He kissed her soundly, then stepped away and lifted both hands in the air and shouted, “I love this woman!”
He caught the attention of Owen and Nathan on the lake.
Owen placed his hands around his mouth to amplify the sound. “What’s wrong?”
Jason ran several yards closer. “You’re going to be a brother!”
“What?”
“Rachel is pregnant!”
Owen stood in the boat. “Pregnant?”
Jason nodded several times.
Not Quite Crazy (Not Quite Series Book 6) Page 28
