He closed his eyes and let his senses experience her in other ways. She was warm and soft. Her breasts pressed comfortably against his chest. With his nose in her hair, he inhaled and picked up the scent of her shampoo. Each time she sighed, her warm breath touched his skin.
Attuned as he was to her and this moment, Alex knew the second they were no longer alone.
“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to find you like this.”
His mother’s voice, filled with love, was the perfect accompaniment to their couple’s dance.
Meghan’s head moved, and she looked over her shoulder at his mother. The quiet moment ended with his wife’s instant laughter. He looked to see what she found so damn funny.
The sight of his little mom, attired in her usual gypsy tablecloth and smart ankle boots, with all of her hair piled into a sloppy bird’s nest on her head and one earring was missing was funny enough. But add Aiden drooling and grinning at them from the back part of a twin carrier that he swore was bigger than his parent, and the visual took top honors. Stevie was oblivious and snoozing in the front section.
“Oh, my god, Mom!” Meghan laugh-snorted. She pushed off him and ran to lend a hand.
The days of MomMom hauling both kids in a twin carrier contraption were coming to an end. The babies were getting too big while she would always be a tiny little thing.
Lifting Aiden from the harness, Meghan gave his mom a talking-to about asking for help. He chuckled to himself. She wouldn’t listen. Becoming a grandmother to the twins and Sophie’s son had taken ten years off her life. She looked younger and her usual glass-half-full outlook was overflowing with love and happiness for the whole world. When Angie had her kid, the Marquez family tree really would require a new limb. Four grandkids all born in the same year!
Carmen bustled into the breezeway looking like a woman with an agenda. “Alexander!”
He readied for the verbal smackdown. Should he have gotten his ass in gear a half an hour ago? Yes, but oh, fucking well. What could he say? His only defense was that he had a beautiful wife who loved to dance.
“I’m going, I’m going,” he muttered. “Jeez.”
His second mother scowled. “Would it hurt to be on time ... just this once?”
Alex’s actual mother unsuccessfully cut off a chuckle. Her light teasing voice was intended to rile Carmen.
“What’s the rush? Is something, oh, I don’t know,” she quipped with a snicker, “important going on?”
The expression on his housekeeper’s face earned a sly wink from his wife. It took an awful lot to bring the woman to a dead stop.
“Ash, come on,” Carmen muttered.
Meghan’s brows shot up. So did his. Carmen rarely let down the invisible wall and called his folks by their given names.
“Eduardo doesn’t have all the time in the world to wait on a video call. Can you please make your son get moving?” Carmen glanced at her watch. “Cris will make Duke’s life hell if they have to make small talk because Alexander thinks he can do what he wants.”
Whoa! Actual snark. He nodded, impressed. Getting the message loud and clear, he deferred to his mamita’s nervousness. Bussing her cheek with a loud kiss, he yanked her emotional chain because, why not?
“All right, ya she-devil. Settle down. Let the men handle this.”
He wondered how close he came to a whack on his head with the sexist comment.
“Yes,” she sniped. “The men. You handle things. Uh-huh. Sure.”
“Hey,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. “Be nice, old woman. I knocked down a wall and everything so Paul can have a bedroom.”
“I think he’s got you there, Carmen.” His mother’s tone definitely had a rubbing it in quality.
Meghan swiftly intervened and took the housekeeper’s side. “Honey, I think you should get going. Carmen is right. Your dad and small talk don’t always work out for the best.”
Carmen’s face said, See?
He rolled his eyes. Women!
“Serve you right if I said no,” he muttered. “Save Duke from making a terrible mistake.”
Stevie squeaked when he grumbled. His baby girl didn’t like it when Daddy took an attitude.
He kissed Meghan, snoodled Aiden, gently caressed Stevie’s face, and smirked at his mom.
Carmen did her crossed arms, brows raised scowl. When her arms unfolded and she pointed at the doorway, he gave a long-suffering sigh.
“When do you leave?” he dryly mumbled. “Not soon enough.”
The women didn’t dial back their laughter as he mumbled and shuffled his way into the Villa. Out of their eyesight, he checked the time.
Fuck! He had to haul ass. His dad and Uncle Ed had the joint ability to scare the snot out of Duke.
Sliding into his Mercedes, he put the car in gear and took his time leaving the property. Once he was through the security gate, however, it was time to let the car have some fun. Flooring it on the county road, Alex let his Fast & Furious fantasies off the hook with a tire spinning, gravel-flying maneuver that would have earned him a safety lecture had his wife been in the passenger seat.
He turned on an oldies station, cranked the volume, and followed the familiar route that would take him into Sedona and on to his parents’ house.
“Runnin’ Down a Dream” came on. He sang along and used the steering wheel to drum. It was a great song that Thunder could rock the fuck out of. The way he saw it, Parker and Finn on dueling guitars would bring the house down. Remy didn’t know it yet, but he was nominating her for occasional guest keyboardist. It wasn’t like she could say no.
While driving, singing, and air drumming, he reviewed the game plan he, his dad, and Uncle Ed worked up. After the three of them got over being impressed by Duke’s old-school behavior, they reverted to form. Leaving the male Marquez elders in charge of anything was asking for trouble.
When he arrived at the house, all the lights were on in the RV, and the garage was open. Duke’s truck was parked on the street, and from what he could see while looking down the side of the house, a light was on in every room and illuminating the backyard.
He also noted the discreet security presence. Having him and Duke together off site was probably making the team guarding Alex’s parents nervous as fuck. Good. Keeping them alert and on their toes wasn’t a bad thing.
“Dad?” he hollered after letting himself in.
“In the back room, son,” his father’s voice boomed.
Normally, he had no problem putting on a game face. As a matter of fact, he kind of excelled at it. But when he got a look at Duke and figured out which performance his dad was putting on, Alex exploded with laughter.
Trying to cover for his unseemly outburst, he pretended that the latest Rube Goldberg contraption Uncle Matt and his father were laboring over was the funniest shit on the planet.
Duke did not appear convinced.
He and his dad exchanged quick looks. There was no way this whole thing wouldn’t be shared with every delicious tidbit artfully embellished for shits and grins.
In a lame and see-through attempt to break the ice, Alex launched into a story about the two amateur inventors and their take on a pacifier aid that looked like a cervical halo. Alex explained that when he saw the drawings and went ape-shit while declaring his kids would never, ever sport such insanity, his father and uncle fell over laughing. The plans were a ruse specifically intended to jack him up. It worked!
The confession softened Duke—fractionally. Alex assessed the guy’s body language and wished he could pull out his phone and snap a pic he could share with Meghan.
In the whole time he’d worked with John “Duke” Winston, his uniform consisted of the same thing in different shades with a nod to the season. He wore jeans. It was a generational thing. Most guys in their sixties were married to their Wranglers. His top was a plain Henley shirt. Three buttons—two always open. Most of the time, the sleeves were pushed back to reveal the thick arms you’d expect on
a prizefighter. Nine times out of ten, he also wore a vest that straddled the fashion line between outdoor gear and tactical.
The shit-stomping police boots Alex was used to seeing were gone. So too, the jeans. His baseball cap was also nowhere to be seen, and his gray hair was smoothed into a discreet man-tail. Tonight, he wore a dark gray sweater that stretched across his beefy chest with a pair of black slacks and loafers.
Loafers! Alex had to control himself.
Deciding he had to land a couple, he nodded at the beer in Duke’s hand. “Planning on drinking that or is it just a prop?”
Duke jolted and looked at the bottle of Corona with the lime sticking out of the longneck as though seeing it for the first time.
His dad chuckled, picked up his beer, and took a hefty slug. The after-belch was standard Cristián Marquez. When the official patriarch of the family opened his mouth, he came out with a doozy that startled Duke and made Alex laugh.
“All right. Let’s call my sanctimonious shit of a brother and get his ugly mug on the iPad. Don’t know why he has to be involved. What the fuck does a priest know about these things?”
Working off a plan Alex wasn’t privy to, his dad led them out to the RV. Duke, who ditched the untouched beer, had the look of a man walking his last mile.
Inside the RV, Duke got pushed onto the sofa while Alex and his father loomed over the guy. The setting and body language was so boxed-in funny that Alex noted the maneuver in his catalog of Major tricks. For future reference, of course.
While Alex got the video chat started and put the iPad on a stand situated for easy viewing, his father read Duke a very specific riot act.
Cristián Gabriel Alejandro Valleja-Marquez fell on Duke like logs dumped off a truck. He laid out chapter and verse about Carmen’s place in the family, making it abundantly clear that she had a serious cadre of supporters. It reminded him of the lecture Paddy O’Brien and his wife’s brothers subjected him to before his request for consent to marrying Meghan was given.
When Ed connected, Alex gave him the eye and shook his head. The guy was laying it on thick with all the trappings of the priesthood cluttered around him. The gigantic crucifix over his left shoulder was leaning against a wall. He imagined his uncle and his fellow retired priests laughing as they moved things to set the perfect stage.
Ed boomed like he was giving an address from the papal balcony in Rome. “Good to see you, my boy. Shall we pray?”
A tittering of laughter on Ed’s end of the conversation suggested he had an amused audience.
Alex made a rude gesture. “Fuck off,” he snarled.
Duke literally looked like he was about to have a coronary.
The next few minutes were pure Eduardo Marquez. He basically offered up a sermon that his brother punctuated with quiet snark. Alex was used to this unseemly behavior. Just because his uncle was a priest didn’t mean he was exempt from sibling fuckery.
It also didn’t hurt that Uncle Ed’s joyful devotion to the priesthood was unblemished by doubt. His love for God was a tangible thing. While others in similar life stations entered the priesthood and climbed the hierarchy ladder, Ed chose differently. His only calling in life was to spread the word of God’s love.
With such clarity for his soul’s purpose, he never lost the things that made him unique as a person. He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a great uncle, and a priest in that order.
And he’d known Carmen almost her entire life. She was one of the people who knew Ed before he took the collar. He’d officiated at her husband’s funeral and been her counselor during the difficult time when her stepson relocated to South America.
Like him and his dad, Ed took his responsibility for Carmen quite serious.
When it was his dad’s turn, Alex listened with his heart. Yeah—they were rattling Duke’s cage but underneath all that was their shared affection and loyalty for the woman Duke wanted to marry.
Things took a somber turn when he recounted the sad parts of Carmen’s backstory. Sometimes, Alex forgot that once upon a time Carmen had her own happy every after—until Vietnam stole her future and took the stepson she was raising.
Ed and his dad talked over each other. It was plain to any observer that both men had deep feelings about that awful time. Carmen was the best of the best who got screwed by a war. They weren’t about to let anything like that happen again.
Alex chose to say next to nothing. Mostly, he made it clear through ocular intimidation what would happen should Carmen regret marrying the guy. He chose the few words he did speak carefully. Fear of Boop jumping down his throat while wearing her Human Resources hat kept him from bringing Duke’s job into the discussion.
Duke waited for his chance to speak. When he did, his words came from the heart.
He loved Carmen. She was like nobody else he’d ever met. Even before the problem with his grandson came to light, he planned to propose. Did he know he was asking a lot? Yes. Was he certain they could handle parenting a young boy? Also, yes. Would he do everything in his power to ensure Carmen’s happiness? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Without being asked for specifics, he launched into a detailed accounting of his finances, retirement accounts, investments, and holdings. Turned out that old Duke was quite a businessman.
In a somewhat of a surprise, he confessed that he’d been on a presidential security detail. Cam had been up front about this aspect of Duke’s experience. Ordinarily, they steered clear of the Secret Service—those guys tended to have attitudes—but Duke’s other qualities were what sold him to Justice. The guy was a legendary taker of no shit whose whispered claim to fame involved jamming a pencil into some guy’s hand to stop him from reaching for a gun. Sort of explained why he had boxes and boxes of pencils—agents sent them to him as homage.
Pfft. They were lucky to have him.
Ed, the king of practicality, asked for an explanation on the holdup. School started weeks ago. Why wasn’t the boy already in Arizona?
Eagerly offering a full disclosure, Duke explained the difficulties involved in shifting custody. His ex-wife and he were on surprisingly good terms, and he had always been part of Paul’s life—even from a distance. He knew what sports teams the kid rooted for and proudly extolled his fourth-grade academic achievements. But with both parents deceased and a will to be considered, the legalities slowed things down.
But he was on it. Duke wasn’t a slacker, by any means. He’d used the delay wisely. He explained in great detail about several private schools within a one-hour drive window. All of his teachers indicated that the boy demonstrated a head for numbers. A serious head. He understood complex problems, found patterns where no one else had, and could do basic computations in his head. He was natural smart—not technology clever.
Being a clever man, he asked for their opinions, and with that one gesture took his place in the extended family.
They debated the pros and cons with he and his dad finally sitting down rather than standing sentry. The school furthest away was co-ed and had a killer sports department. Another nearby education establishment was also co-ed but separated the boys from the girls. Ed liked this approach because he said it addressed different learning environments. Boys simply learned differently than girls.
His dad took a keen interest in the Marsh Academy. They had a solid reputation. The current headmaster was someone he and Matt Sullivan had known for years and years. Their academic claim to excellence was in the sciences. Marsh had a S.T.E.M. Program going long before science, technology, engineering, and math became the designated shining stars of American education.
Duke explained that Carmen’s knee-jerk vote was for the parochial school on the edge of town. Surprisingly, Ed shot this suggestion down with little effort. The diocese for the little school had no money and was in danger of being blended with another diocesan program to capitalize on resources. The boy had been through enough. No need to complicate things with a school situation that was in flux.
So Marsh Acad
emy it would be. Duke had already submitted an application and indicated he’d been assured a transfer from Paul’s current school would be no problem.
In the end, they each gave their consent to the marriage of Carmen Arciaga Delgado and John Michael Winston. As a couple, they would accept the role of Paul’s guardians and Family Justice, backed by the indomitable Valleja-Marquez dynasty, would be there to make sure they had all the support and love they’d need.
Ed graciously accepted Duke’s heartfelt invite to officiate.
Another limb of the Justice tree added a branch for Carmen and her blending family.
Alex’s happiness could not be overstated. Giving Carmen her very own fairy-tale ending was the best kind of joy.
Remy looked at Finn who glanced to Heather who was watching the uncomfortable scene unfolding in Domineau’s living room.
She wasn’t really sure how she and Finn got involved at all. This was Stephanie, Sophie, and Heather’s thing. But here she was, and holy shit, what a swirling cesspool of icky.
“Whatever,” a sullen, snarling, bitchy pre-teen spit out.
Barely managing a wobbly, tentative smile, Remy pretended like everyone else that Kourtney Tate didn’t need a boot up her ass in the worst way. It didn’t matter what happened in the past or how she and her mother got in the situation they were in. To Remy, what mattered was that this stupid kid had a mother who was trying her fucking best. Period. The smart mouth and shitty attitude were fingernails on a chalkboard.
Rebecca Tate looked like she might cry. Everybody and their maiden aunt’s dry cleaner were trying to help, but the snotty twelve-year-old acted like sharing a room with her mother—a rent-free room—was the end of the world.
What a bitch.
Finn touched her arm in silent support before blending into the background. She didn’t blame him for not wanting to get involved.
Heather gave an uncharacteristic eye roll that she didn’t even try to hide.
Domineau stepped up in a big way. She caught Remy’s eye and scratched her nose with her middle finger.
Enduring (Family Justice Book 8) Page 42
