Getting by (A Knight's Tale) (23 page)

“I thought he’d realized it during his jail time.” I turned to where the voice had come from. Judah Anderson stood a few steps from the bedroom door. Grey hair and wrinkles had changed the man but everything else was identical. His strong presence was the same, as was the soft gaze toward me that had always been there before, except when we operated on his fish. “How are you, baby Emma?” He opened his arms.

“Grandpa,” I said, and flew toward him not being able to stop the tears. “I missed you so much.” Still tall and strong, he hugged me while I cried. There was such a thing as daddy’s little girl, but I had been grandpa’s little girl instead.

“I missed you too.” It was a tight embrace that made me feel as if I recovered from a bad flu. Being here made me think that the storm had stopped. “Emma if I could rewind—”

“Don’t,” I said to him, moving out of his embrace. “We’re here and there’s no need to talk about the wrongs we wrote or the rights we could’ve fixed.” He smiled at me and pulled me back, kissing the top of my head.

“Where’s the bacon?” he asked, when he looked at the small table holding breakfast. Calling the maid to bring his staple food, we sat at it and began to talk about my life during the past years.

Though my career sounded perfect, they tried to persuade me to go back to my art. In the future, maybe, but right now I had fun with what I did. He had retired and sold his investment company after Dad’s embezzlement. The investors began to mistrust him—who could blame them? It had been fine, and using his own money to play with in the stock market kept him entertained. That, my grandma and his boat were all he needed.

“How’s Chloe?” Grandpa asked, and I tensed. No one, well except for Jake, knew about her. To fool my other set of grandparents, I kept paying her cellular bill and erasing the messages once the mailbox was full. “Still wild, isn’t she…?” I shook my head and another wave of sobbing hit me with everything it had, almost drowning me to the bottom and not letting me come up to the surface.

“She died, from an overdose eight months ago,” I whispered. “We… after Mom and Dad… she took off and I never heard from her until the police called. I’m sorry, I let her down.”

“Did Chloe pay your college tuition?” Grandpa asked. I shook my head.

“She kept the little money she got from our parents insurance,” I informed her.

Grandpa told me that Mom and Dad’s life insurance added up to five million dollars, which Chloe received in full, minus taxes and all. He helped her with the paperwork. That was a hell of a lot of coverage. If my sister had given me one percent of that money I could’ve gone to France. But then again, I had lost the will to draw, paint, sculpt or create anything.

While munching on bacon with grandpa, I continued listening to whatever they needed to talk about to ease the guilt they carried around. Today it wasn’t much about me, mostly them and what seemed like a full load of blame they accumulated throughout the years of loss. Their only son—they let him die. Their two only granddaughters—abandoned without a good reason.

Grandma Lily talked about Dad, Mom and Chloe. Then she described me as a little independent adult at the age of four. I never accepted the help from others, and most of the times, I stayed inside my own world, creating something. Dad had worried I’d be an outcast or become a co-dependent person, like Mom. Once my parents fell out of love, she couldn’t move on with her life. She could only try to protect her daughters from the divorce and herself from the financial stability her husband gave her.

“Nick blamed himself for Chloe’s problems,” Grandma said, sipping the cup of tea Grandpa had given her. “She was a brilliant girl, like the entire family, with good grades until she began high school and we lost her. Parties, boys, alcohol and street drugs consumed her. Nick spoiled her as a kid, and never punished her like he did with you. Emmy, since day one, you kept us guessing what your next move would be. We adored you. At age four though, you used my walls to create a mural no one noticed until the entire hallway had been doodled on. The fights we had with your parents. The nagging became too much for your Mom to handle and she stopped visiting us. Back then, we worried you’d be breaking rules…but you proved us wrong. Look at you.”

My grandparents gifted me some peace, giving me the knowledge that my father wasn’t the ogre I painted him out to be. They, of course, didn’t approve of the way Dad conducted himself before he died. Mom and Lily didn’t see eye to eye but her loss had wounded her as deep as Dad’s did. After I mentioned that I didn’t have many details about the murder, she began to describe what she knew about it.

“Both shot several times, execution style, tied up—” Grandma Lily began to say, but Grandpa stopped her from continuing.

“Stop, Lily,” his gentle voice said. “Emmy doesn’t need to know the gory details.”

He didn’t want me to know what happened to Mom before her death, but I only imagined it was awful, if Mr. Wilmington was searching for vengeance and Dad slept with his wife. Jake gave me a lot of details the night before, while we had lain in bed but most of what he said was details of the operation, the killer’s motive and what the police found about him, nothing about the scene.

Mr. Wilmington intended to kill all of us. If Mrs. Johnson hadn’t called the cops, who killed him on the high speed chase, he might’ve killed me. I was his next target and Chloe the final. He had a plane ticket to New York and a map with the addresses where he might find her. A sheer miracle saved us, and I appreciated my life a little more.

Around eleven, the doorbell rang. Rachel, who had taken off to give the family some privacy, was back with her sons and husband. I made the introductions.

“We’re Jake’s family,” Rachel introduced herself and everyone in three words to my grandfather. To which I arched an eyebrow and turned to look at Mitch with the face of ‘what the hell is she doing?’ His shrug didn’t help. “Her boyfriend.” She finished and my out of body experience didn’t take me far before bouncing back into it
. There wasn’t any boyfriend,
I wanted to tell her.

“Mom,” Liam said, “don’t start.”

“Rachy,” Ed, the head of reason, at least I hoped, said, “why don’t we invite Mr. and Mrs. Anderson for dinner? Of course another day, when Mrs. Anderson feels better. Right now we need to go. If that’s fine with you, Emma.”

“The boat,” Grandpa said. “If the three of you are available, tomorrow I can take you out. Lily needs fresh air, and if the ladies want to join us, there’s plenty of room for them too.” He winked at me, a gesture I didn’t understand. Well, what he meant by it.

Everyone agreed to meet the next morning by seven at my grandparents’ home, and Rachel promised to convince her son, my non-boyfriend, to join us… but with work and a few commitments, he might not be able to appear this week. When they asked if I was ready, Grandpa surprised me.

“You want to stay, Emmy?” That was uncharacteristic of him, he had always had a schedule and nothing should disturb it. Then again, he had retired. Though, the curiosity to know why his hunched shoulders and anxious face had taken over, peaked my interest. “It’s fine if you want to leave, but if not, I could take you later and we can talk some more,” he hesitated.

“Or I can pick you up around five,” Mitch added. “We’ll go to the bowling alley from here.” I nodded to Mitch.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Liam asked, while giving me a hug. I nodded. “Call if you need us before then. Jake would drop me naked in the middle of the Sahara if I let anything happen to you.”

My agreement brought a huge smile to Grandpa’s face, and a bigger one to Grandma’s when I went upstairs to join her again. While we continued catching up, I drew on her cast, various scenes of San Francisco, including the Golden Gate.

Chapter 28

Emma

MITCH AND I went together to the bowling party, where we paired up and didn’t let anyone else join our table. Liam had stayed behind, due to a conference call with Sam. A new client was falling through the cracks because Sanders was giving them a better deal. How dare them for taking away our business! I wanted to go to the offices and yell at them. Their offices weren’t far from where I was, but Li told me that wasn’t ethical and very unprofessional behavior.

The black light, combined with some cool designs, gave the entire place the sci-fi ambiance of the seventies. Alien logos and strange symbols were glowing on the floors and walls, and a disco ball hung where the register was. I hadn’t been there since I turned eight and my parents used to go to tournaments. They were on a team with the Clements, and if my memory of those occasions was correct, their team always won. Those were fun times. There it was a memory of a period when my family had been close to perfect; happy and as stable as any family could be.

Between spares and strikes, Mitch and I continued our light conversation about my work. Anyone could’ve guessed that it was the best ice-breaker when it came to Emma Anderson. The guy had a competitive bone and I was thankful he couldn’t cheat at a bowling game. If it had been poker, the guy would’ve stripped me from all my savings; unless we played for favors. I’d be under his servitude for the next two lifetimes. At the table next to us, I spotted Gavin, flirting with yet another bridesmaid. His girlfriend watched them, pouty face, crossed arms and about to murder both.

“He’s an asshole,” Mitch said, pointing at Gavin. “Chloe broke him.”

Ignoring his remark against my sister, I changed the conversation. “If I ask you something, will you answer honestly?” I hoped he would, even though the question circled around the fact that Chloe had wrecked Gavin. “Is Jake broken because of a girl?”

“Honestly?” I nodded, and his voice gave me the clue that I was right on the spot. “He never had the time to date.” The satisfied smile he gave me, said that he got me on that one—idiot. “Home schooled with sport practices, music and other things, girls never came up. We didn’t have those cliché high school sweethearts. College was similar; no girl wanted to date a lanky teenager. By the time we finished, he left for training, where he never socialized with girls. Though, that didn’t mean we were virgins. Just one night stand guys. In whatever port we were, we’d find an available female to do, and continue on our way. After the accident, no one caught his attention, until you. We thought you’d be the girl that would bring him back, but he fucked up. Which I knew would happen.”

Mouth agape, I went to the turn table, grabbed my ball and took my turn. When I returned, I saw his smirk, as if he had planned to drop the bomb. “What does that mean?” I put my hands on my waist.
The obvious, Emma, you knew it. He doesn’t want a real relationship.
“Then why did you let it happen?” Only two pins dropped with the ball, and I waited for it to come back and threw it again. Four more…he made me lose my cool. “I didn’t need to know he loved me. Now it’s going to be a thousand times harder to forget who Jacob was and what he means to me. Do you have any idea how freaking challenging that is?” I poked his hard chest, inflicting some pain in my finger joints.
Darn it.

“Of course I do, Emma,” he said, leaving me standing next to the table. He grabbed his ball and took his turn, another strike without a sweat. When he came back, he winked at me. “The guy needs to learn that the world is still alive and things will go on without him. Now, you need to date. I’ll get you those…dates.”

And with that he changed the conversation to his restaurants and the future plans he had for them. Those included me.

*

I wanted to skip the bachelorette party. Going out on Grandpa’s boat exhausted me. He owned a yacht, and the sun decided to come out in full shine for the five hours we were outside. Serving water, preparing lunch with Rachel and talking with Grandma and her, exhausted me to the point of wanting to cancel the bachelorette-bachelor parties that we had combined. Mitch didn’t let me. At twenty three, I shouldn’t be begging for my bed, but by the fourth club, I prayed it would magically appear in front of me. Jake’s brothers were a fun pair, and we danced in the first two clubs and talked during the last two. They were outgoing, not as reserved as Jake, who in public was silent and observant. For the past two years, Liam and I had developed a good relationship; several times we invited him home for dinner. Fish, he’d complain, but would eat and enjoy it with us. This trip solidified our friendship and developed one with Mitch, who had silly comments about everything. He had theories and crazy thoughts that made no sense to others but they did to me, and I enjoyed them.

I didn’t avoid the bride, but she seemed to disappear each time we arrived into a new club. Cade looked lonely. None of his friends had wanted to join us and he plainly disliked me. It hadn’t been a guess. When we went to Skye—the first night club—he was about to sit with us, when he said, “Get the hell out of here.” Not subtle. Mitch told him to cool down and that I was staying. “I don’t like her, why should I stay around her.”

I didn’t want to cause trouble and tried to move out of the way, but Liam reminded me of the Sahara Desert. He implied that it wasn’t a joke, and Jake would do it. In the end, if I was with his cousins, it meant Cade would be isolated from them—and everyone it appeared. Amazingly, everything was working perfect until three of the bouncers at Jezebel’s went toward the back where the restrooms were. Mitch noticed, and ordered Liam to take me outside and hail a cab and wait for his instructions before we left.

I had come to learn that there was a hierarchy among the siblings, Jake commanded the operation and in his absence Mitch took over. Once outside, my phone rang.

“You okay, Pretty Girl?” Jake was on the phone, and I made an a-ha sound. I did not understand how he knew things had gotten weird. “Tell Liam I’ll be there in five hours and to keep Mom out of the loop in the meantime.”

“What’s going on, and how do you know?”

“CTV; your friend has been screwing guys in each night club.” He was furious, and the harsh tone said it all. Other bridesmaids began to come outside the small black door in the alley. “I called the bouncers on this last one. I needed someone to catch her in the act. Cade won’t be happy…but I think it is best to get rid of her now.” Then he paused for a second or two, and I looked at Liam who was expectant about my call. “On second thought, give the phone to Li, love you, babe.”