Gabriel stopped in front of the closed conference room door. “I live like I’ve already won. For me, there’s no other way to be.”
HALSTON
Halston and Sydneyentered the kitchen and were bombarded with the delicious aroma of pancakes and sausages. The amount of food being placed on platters had her wondering how many people they were feeding. Then, she remembered—three giant Santini brothers, with Teddy being a human eating machine. And her parents hadn’t eaten much in the past forty-eight hours.
Halston put her arm around her mom. “Mom, how are you doing?”
“Keeping busy,” Sonya Devereux replied. “How’s Daddy?”
“Working away.”
“Sydney, how’d it go?” Caroline asked.
“All good at the morgue,” Sydney replied. “But for the other, CJ couldn’t start. He’s got generators if thesituationis in progress, but he can’t start a job until the power comes back on.”
Halston didn’t like that the bodies of Dmitri Petrov and Natasha Petrova were on hold in the crematorium. They were evidence, waiting to be discovered…
“It’s scary what’s going on,” Sonya Devereux said.
“It’ll be okay.” Halston hoped she sounded more positive than she felt.
In truth, she had no idea how this would turn out, but she wasn’t fueling the stress. Best to tamp that out before the fear got ahead of them.
Caroline stopped stacking pancakes. “Sydney, put the scrambled eggs into the serving dish—the one with the cover.”
After they prepped the food—which consisted of pancakes, scrambled eggs, a large fruit salad, a pot of oatmeal withblueberries and walnuts, two dozen sausage links, and two pots of coffee—Sydney made a call.
“Hey, babe,” Teddy’s booming voice filled the kitchen.
“Food’s ready, honey.”
“On the way.” Teddy hung up.
“Do you think he’ll tell the others?” Sydney asked. “Maybe I should call Greystone.”
Caroline smiled. “He’ll tell them.” Then, Caroline turned to Halston. “Do you want to let G know?”
“Me?”
“Oh, Halston,” her mom said. “I’ve never seen you act coy before. It’s adorable.”
“All I do is act coy,” Halston replied. “I’m the coyest person ever.”
“I don’t want to jinx anything,” Caroline said putting her arm around Halston, “but we hope you become part of the fam.”
Her mom stopped folding napkins, her gaze fully glued on Halston. “Gabriel did tell Dustin and me that he wants to marry Halston.”
Silence while the sisters stared at Sonya, then shifted to Halston.
“Yay!” Caroline cried out.
“That’s so great, especially now, when things are super loony out there,” Sydney said.
“Well?” Sonya Devereux asked. “Did he ask you?”
“No,” Halston replied. “I heard about it when you did.”
Teddy appeared in the doorway. “Heard what?”
