by Alison Ryan
“You’re the pretty princess,” Quinn replied, bending down to Lea’s level. Lea reached out to touch Quinn’s hair, fascinated by the color and the curls.
Eventually, Canaan hugged everyone, Quinn was introduced all around, and the makeshift welcoming committee let the one-time Bulgarian fugitives come inside the condo.
After the typical small talk about their flight and the weather, Canaan stood and made an announcement.
“I have something in this case that Quinn insisted we bring along. It’s a gift, a way for us to say thank you for everything everyone here did for us, despite all your responsibilities.” Canaan pointed to little Callum, peacefully swinging in his Rock-N-Play. “Please, gather around the table.”
The adults encircled the dining room table as Canaan lay the briefcase in the middle of it and stepped aside to make way for Quinn.
“This is a small token of my—our— appreciation. They belong here.”
She spun the combination lock on the case and popped it open, with the contents facing her and away from everyone else. The assembled Titans leaned in for a closer look, but at first all they saw was Quinn pulling on a pair of white, silk gloves she pulled from a pocket in the lid.
She then unfolded a large black velvet cloth, stretching out any wrinkles before proceeding.
On the velvet she placed a book, a very old looking book, with a red cover bordered by a fanciful gold design. She carefully opened the cover and turned pages slowly until a picture of the Bard appeared, under a banner that read “Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.”
Odin broke into a smile as he stepped around Clara to get up close and personal with the First Folio on his dining room table.
He was speechless.
He bent down close enough to smell the paper, then looked up at Canaan, Quinn, and Clara, each in turn.
“If you don’t like it, we can…” Canaan began.
Odin spread his arms wide across the table. “No way in hell, Canaan. I may sleep with it tonight.”
“On the couch, you must mean,” Clara added.
“It gets, I should think, appreciably better,” Quinn said, pulling something heavy from the suitcase and setting it on the table.
A one-of-a-kind, complete, priceless, vellum-bound Gutenberg Bible.
Odin felt faint and had to sit down, pulling out a chair just in time.
“After it was pulled from the auction, I thought…I never…Canaan you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“It’s yours,” Quinn said matter-of-factly. “It’s a peace offering, and I hope it stays in your family forever.”
“At what price,” Odin asked, his eyes glistening. “Our final bid was—”
Quinn cut him off. “The price of forgiveness. I have no right to ask, and the books are yours either way, but consider this an act of contrition. And if Canaan will allow me to, I’ll spend as much of the rest of his life as he’ll let me making amends and restitution.”
“I don’t know,” Piper countered. “He can’t take his eyes off you. I don’t think he needs any further convincing.”
Canaan blushed, everyone laughed, and Quinn accepted hugs from everyone. Atlas opened a bottle of champagne and the party moved back into the living room. Except for Odin, who remained transfixed by the books.
“How’s Nolan?” Atlas asked Canaan.
“Nolan went straight back to Salzburg, to Camilla and their baby. They were planning to stay with Richard and his wife a while, then Nolan said he wants to find the most remote island he can and disappear with his family. I think he’s finished with this life for good.”
“Speaking of islands, when do you suppose we’ll see Raven again?”
Canaan laughed. “Not for quite a while. She and Annalise were planning to meet in Tahiti for what Raven called ‘indefinite R&R’. She claimed she was turning off her phone, no laptop, just, as she put it, ‘sun, sand and sin’.”
“All on our dime, no doubt,” Atlas grumbled.
“That’s between Odin and the accounting department,” Canaan laughed.
Canaan eventually migrated back over to Odin, and joined him in admiring the books.
“I meant to ask Nolan; how did the two of you connect on the Royal Sands? What did you say to him?”
“Let me see if I remember it exactly,” Odin mused. “Nolan is a huge baseball fan. I made reference to a very angry baseball player, with sticky hands. Do you remember George Brett?”
Canaan shook his head and gave Odin a blank stare.
“Huge star in the ‘80s,” Odin continued. “Great hitter, played his entire career for the Royals. In one really famous game, he hit a home run against the Yankees. Their manager protested and said Brett had used too much pine tar on his bat, sticky stuff that helped players with their grip. The umpire agreed and called Brett out. Well, old George burst out of the dugout with murderous intentions. He was livid. I knew Nolan would remember that clip. I’m sure it’s on YouTube. Nobody has ever looked more pissed off. Then I made reference to the Venetian, but before it was the Venetian. Old Las Vegas.”
Canaan nodded his head. “They blew up the Sands to build the Venetian.”
Odin smiled. “Dude… these books… that girl… how wild is all of this?”
“And here you and Atlas sit, changing diapers and burping babies.”
The party went on into the night, three men as close as any brothers could be, with the women who loved them, and who they loved back, just as fiercely as any men ever loved any women.
Epilogue
The car drove through rolling green fields outside of Auckland, New Zealand, leaving civilization behind and giving way to wild places and things.
And sheep.
Canaan Titan turned onto the long, winding driveway that led to the main house, bisecting Emerson Titan’s Four T Ranch. Sheep grazed everywhere, and Canaan’s fiancée, Quinn Brentford, stared in amazement.
“It really is true, isn’t it?” Quinn asked. “That there are more sheep than people here?”
“Strictly speaking,” Canaan replied. “I don’t know if that’s true or not. But there are definitely lots and lots of sheep.”
“Does your father raise them for meat as well, or just for their wool? Because mutton, done right, is delicious.”
“Shhh,” Canaan warned. “Do you want them to hear you? Pretty sure the answer is no, these guys are strictly wool-producing. None of them are going to the slaughterhouse.”
The house came into view, a century-old restored farmhouse with a spacious wraparound porch where Emerson Titan enjoyed spending his days, weather permitting, inside a good book.
The old man barely seemed to take notice as Canaan parked the car, so absorbed was he in what he was reading. A pack of sheep dogs—five blue heelers— ran up to the car and immediately began sniffing, twisting and wagging as Canaan and Quinn got out.
Emerson glanced up, but extended his index finger to request that his guests bear with him a moment so that he could finish the page, or chapter, he was reading.
Once he finished, he set a bookmark in place and climbed down off the porch, smiling warmly.
“Canaan!” He called out, walking briskly to where the dogs refused, in as friendly a manner as possible, to let Quinn take a step away from the car.
“See, now that’s the problem,” Emerson started. “Right there, young lady. If you pet one of them, then they all expect it, and now you’ll be stuck here all afternoon. And there’s a storm coming in, so you won’t want that. Cinnamon! Scram!” The old man shooed one of the dogs away.
“They usually follow her,” Emerson said, regarding his best, and fastest sheep dog, Cinnamon. The pack playfully cycloned across the front yard and disappeared around the side of the house.
Emerson extended a hand to greet Quinn Brentford, who happened to be the daughter of his mortal enemy.
But also the woman with whom his youngest son, Canaan, was madly (though inexplicably) in love.
“Emerson Titan,” he needlessly introduced himself. “And you must be Quinn.”
“Must be!” Quinn confirmed, shaking Emerson’s proffered hand.
Canaan came around the car to stand by Quinn, and Emerson wrapped his son up in a bear hug and gave him a great shake.
“My boy!” Emerson exclaimed.
To Emerson Titan, his sons were perpetually six years old; wild balls of energy, getting into mischief and causing nannies to quit at a rate of approximately one every two weeks. He never saw enough of any of them, living on the opposite side of the planet as he did in New Zealand, so he cherished their visits. He was expecting Odin, Clara, and the twins later in the month, to celebrate their first birthday— Kiwi-style.
Flying private makes everything, especially traveling with youngsters, that much more pleasant and easy.
“How have you been, Dad? What are you reading?” Canaan asked.
“I’ve been as you see me. Tomorrow I’m starting my diet. Just like I have for the past several years. And reading? Oh, I’m on a bit of a poetry kick these days. Jack Gilbert and Billy Collins.”
“A Brief for the Defense is wonderful,” Quinn observed.
Emerson Titan began to recite the famous Jack Gilbert ode to life and allowing ourselves to be happy in it despite the inevitability of suffering, and when he reached the end of the first line, Quinn continued the poem. Back and forth they went, reciting all thirty lines from memory, while an astonished Canaan followed along raptly as if at a tennis match.
When the piece ended, Emerson spread his arms and gave Quinn one of his trademarked bear hugs.
“Canaan, you may go now,” Emerson joked. “I’ve found my soulmate. Give my regards to your brothers.” With that Emerson took Quinn by the hand and walked her up to the porch. She looked back over her shoulder at Canaan, grinned, and shrugged.
Canaan stood with his hands in his pockets, watching as his fiancé and father sat down on the porch swing to discuss the book he’d been reading.
“I’ll just go talk to the sheep, I guess,” Canaan called out. He was ignored.
“You’ve made Canaan very happy. Helped him heal some old wounds,” Emerson said to Quinn. “And he was right about your hair. I’ve never seen its equal. And I’m an old man whose seen a few things.”
“Thank you,” Quinn replied. “But whatever I’ve done for Canaan pales next to what he— and your entire family— have done for me. I grew up thinking it was normal to lie, cheat, steal, and step on and over people to get what you want out of life. Your sons, and their wives have shown me a happiness I didn’t think was possible.
“They had no reason to accept me; every reason not to, yet I feel like a sister to Piper, Clara, Odin, and Atlas all. I only wish I could have met Achilles.”
Emerson got a faraway look in his eye at the mention of his son who’d fell victim to the Titan-Brentford war.
He took Quinn’s hands in his and surprised her. “Wait until you have that baby. Nothing that ever happens in your life will change you like becoming a mother will.”
“Oh!” Quinn exclaimed. “Canaan didn’t tell me he’d told anyone. We weren’t going to announce it for at least a few more weeks.”
“Child, he didn’t have to tell me. You have the glow. And the walk. You aren’t showing yet, but like I said, I’ve been a few places and seen some things, and there’s nothing more beautiful than a mother carrying her first baby. I’m so happy for you and Canaan. Where’s that rascal gotten himself off too, anyway? I worry about him. He’s always been such a free spirit. Let me give you the tour of the ranch and we’ll track him down, shall we?”
“I’d love to,” Quinn replied.
They walked down and climbed into a specially-modified all-terrain golf cart and drove out toward where Canaan was leaning on a fence post, admiring the horses his father kept in the next pasture over.
“Canaan, have you gotten to hold Atlas and Piper’s new baby yet?” Emerson called out.
Canaan’s answer was lost to a cool breeze blowing through the meadow. And to the barking of five happy blue heelers chasing ewes they thought had strayed too far from the rest of the sheep.
It was as it should be. And as it would always be. Forever.
The Titans were truly free.
Their enemies had been vanquished, outlasted, or converted, and no Titan would ever again pick up a weapon in anger again.
Forgiveness. It would always be the happiest ending of all.
THE END
Thank you for reading CANAAN. It is the last book in my Billionaire Titans saga… something that makes me tear up a bit as I type this. These Titan brothers to me are the best kind of men and I will miss them.
But there will be more stories and more alpha men to come! To find out about future releases, sign up for my newsletter. No spam, just fun.
About the Author
Alison Ryan is a romance author who lives with her husband and sons in a southern kind of heaven. She loves books about love, watching too much Bravo, and good bourbon. Not always in that order.
In her former life she has been all of the above: a Las Vegas limo driver, an insurance adjuster, an American Idol reject, a repo woman, and a graveyard front desk clerk at a dilapidated motel on the shores of the Redneck Riviera. (Panama City Beach) Her 20's were a fun, but exhausting time.
She is quite happy to be pretty boring in her 30's.
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