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“I’m feeling much better, then,” Agnes said, but she was actually starting to feel worse, her head beginning to throb again.
“Upstairs,” Shane said, and steered her inside and up two flights of stairs to the cool blue bedroom, Rhett padding patiently behind them.
In the middle of the big bed was a large canvas bag.
“I think that’s yours,” Agnes said, and lay down on the bed because her head really hurt
Shane picked the bag up and opened it. It was, not surprisingly, full of money. “Why me?”
“I’m guessing that’s half of Joey’s half of the take from the five mil Frankie came back to get from the basement,” Agnes said, and Shane sat down.
“Five million,” he said. “Frankie got twenty percent, Joey got twenty, and Four Wheels got ten. And the Don got fifty. Except the Don isn’t getting fifty.”
“So Frankie and Joey get two million each.” Agnes rubbed her forehead carefully. “Frankie split his with Lisa Livia, and she’s taking her mil and going down to the Caymans to see what her mother did with her money. And Joey took his two million and split it with you.”
Shane took a handful of bills out of the bag. “We can finish the bathroom. And I’d like a boat”
“The IRS is watching you. Spend it slow.” Agnes closed her eyes. Then she started to laugh.
“What?” He crawled onto the bed beside her, and Rhett collapsed in a patch of sunshine under the low windows and sighed himself into sleep.
“Frankie and Joey are honorable guys, right?” she said, snuggling against him.
“Right,” he said, his voice exhausted. “Garth’s a millionaire.”
He laughed, too, warm beside her, and then he stopped, and she looked up at him. “What?”
“Carpenter said this thing to me.” He settled closer to her. “Happiness in the world?”
“Oh, yeah.” Agnes smiled against his shoulder. “Contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future. It was in the wedding vows.”
“He said when I had that, I’d be able to talk to you.”
“Oh. Well, all things in good time.”
“I’m close.” Shane yawned. “I’m close to the middle one, I think. And the last one, I’ve got that.” He closed his eyes as his hand rested on her waist. “Nah,” he said, and yawned again. “I’m good with all of them.”
She watched him as his breathing slowed and he slept, and then she curled close to him thinking, I’m good with them, too.
Outside the windows, the sun came up over the Blood River, and Cerise and Hot Pink honked their fury as Butch loaded them onto the truck. Beyond the truck, Garth showed Tara around the kitchen in the barn and stole a kiss and kept his mouth shut about a million dollars. Farther up the road, the rest of the Thibaults went about their lives in total ignorance of the indoor plumbing that was about to come their way. And farther still up the road, Joey opened the diner and began to make breakfast for the shrimpers and for Xavier and Evie on their way out of town.
It was a damn fine morning.
THE END
