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Bitter tears fell without sound, slipping down my cheeks and dripping from my jaw. “I’m so fucking mad at him,” I blurted. I had worked so damn hard to dissociate myself from his crime, from everything he was involved in. And it didn’t matter. Didn’t make even a tiny bit of difference. Even from his prison cell his stain followed me.
“Fine,” I finally said. It pissed me off, but they were right and I knew it. “I’ll agree to security,” I continued, as if I had a choice.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Ezra said, low against the shell of my ear. I turned my face towards him and his lips brushed the corner of my mouth, the faint contact making my breath hitch and tension to coil tight in my belly. Our eyes caught and clung, and when I finally looked away it was to find Galen looking at us with an inscrutable expression. He stepped forward, pulling me out of the circle of Ezra’s arms and into his own, and dipped his face toward mine.
He kissed my forehead, then my nose, and finally my lips, a long, sweet slide of our mouths against each other’s. “I love you, baby,” he whispered.
“We all do,” Baron echoed.
I looked around the circle of my men. There was a song spinning in my head, one about broken roads and being thankful for them. I’d walked a broken road to get here, but was a stronger, better person for it. A stronger, better woman, for them.
I wiped my hands on my thighs. “How about a pot of coffee?”
Epilogue: Eleanor
Seven Months Later
Jude’s graduation fell on one of those painfully pretty May days, where a brilliant blue sky was dotted with puffy cumulus clouds, and a warm sun shone on the lush green lawn of Chandler U’s campus dell. I sat at the end of a row of metal chairs, watching Jude and her men graduate. Galen walked across the stage first, followed by Ezra, then Jude, and finally Baron.
When Jude received her diploma and waved it above her head, the air exploded with hoots and shrill whistles. I laughed, seeing her men standing to clap and cheer in rows where everyone else was seated. Even across the sea of family and friends come to see their loved ones, I could see her cheeks turn red with embarrassment.
Her men.
I guess I was as deviant as she was, because I loved the fact that my older sister had not one, but three hotties wrapped around her finger. I’d met Galen, Baron, and Ezra several times over the past several many months, and their affection for her was indisputable.
And it was returned. Jude was lighter and happier now than she had been in years. We had both had some pretty shitty days since my father landed himself in prison, but all of that was changing now. Things were going to be better from here on out, and I knew a huge part of that was because of these three men.
After the ceremony, I hurried to meet everyone at our designated spot in the parking lot. They were already there, shrugging out of caps and gowns and grinning ear to ear. I flung myself at Jude.
“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you. You did it.”
Jude’s arms came around me and she hugged me back, hard. “One step at a time, sis. Now I need a job.”
“You’re going to get that one you applied for. I know it.”
“We can hope.” Jude had applied for a paralegal position with a small law firm in Cold Spring. I couldn’t imagine anyone being more qualified than she was.
“You guys ready?” Ezra was already in the driver’s seat, window down and engine running. Jude and I climbed in the back with Gale, while Baron walked around to the passenger seat.
We were going to low-key celebrate with a barbecue at Jude’s—our—newly finished house. It was still hard for me to believe that soon, I’d be out of Uncle Rick’s and in this gorgeous house with Jude.
And possibly her boyfriends. We were still working on that. There couldn’t be any hint of impropriety during the adoption proceedings, so Baron had told me they’d probably rent an apartment for a while to keep things on the up and up.
Jude would be meeting, for the second time, both Ezra and Baron’s parents—who were Gale’s parents, too, as they had adopted him when he was around my age. Now, they were helping to push through my adoption by my sister, using their money and influence that seemed to move mountains and defy bureaucracy. It was strange to think of being adopted by my sister, but they’d explained that it was actually easier in some ways to adopt than it was to foster, especially if you were a family member. Fostering came with constant oversight, which Jude and her guys definitely did not need.
Until it went through, I was stuck at Rick’s, stuck barricading my door every night with a chair and sleeping with my bat.
I sat up eagerly in the back seat when Ezra turned down the gravel driveway that led to the farmhouse. It had been a bit over a month since I’d last seen it, and I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like now that it was finished. Midway down it changed to a treated surface, lined with a new black fence that held the woods at bay and recently planted boxwoods along its edges.
The driveway opened into a circle, a weeping willow tree in its center. Beneath the willow was an old-fashioned metal glider, painted a bright cherry red. The house rose behind it, transformed from a tiny Craftsman-style home into a rambling dwelling with an intricate roof line and a wide porch that wrapped around its perimeter.
We were the first to arrive and Ezra pulled to a stop at the side. He looked back at me teasingly. “Gonna catch flies, lil sis.”
“It’s so beautiful!” I climbed from the car. “Look at this porch! Jude—”
She put her arms around me and hugged me from behind. “I know.”
“It’s so much…” I whispered. The first few months after Dad went to prison and we lost everything had been rough. I’d been used to having my every need and desire taken care of, and had to grow up fast to deal with my changed reality. I’d never expected to return to a life of...provision...let alone wealth.
