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Grace had gone completely silent since the attack. Zoey was worried about her, too. Sydney had been released two weeks to the day after being shot. She could probably have been released sooner, but Rafe and Jillian and her family had ganged up on her, made her stay. They all knew the truth—Sydney wouldn’t have stayed still enough to heal properly.
She was too worried about everyone else to sit still.
Jo-Jo’s cast had come off the week before. She had a long way to go before she was recovered. She probably wouldn’t walk without crutches ever again. The nerve and muscle damage were significant, worse than originally thought, even though the bones themselves had healed. They would know more after a few months of physical therapy.
The girls were getting better.
But Pen? She didn’t want to go back to FCU. She’d signed on for completely online classes, after finishing up last semester’s off-campus. No one was pushing. The university wasn’t—considering what had happened just off the edge of campus. Jo-Jo was also going to be delayed at least a year on her own education.
Sydney had gone back to law school within one week of release. She’d made up the lost class time somehow.
She’d been determined. She’d told Zoey herself—she wasn’t letting Eastman change her world any more than that bastard already had. That girl…there was a fire and determination in Sydney that frightened Zoey.
Sydney had taken over the search for the rest of the Eastman babies.
The Eastman babies. The Eastman Affair. TheEastmanGirls.
That’s what the news sites had started calling them. Five young co-eds, Zoey, little Oakley, and Bonnie—taken by a madman for his evil experiments. Including identical twins separated at birth. Zoey, Pen, Crispin, Oakley, and Bonnie being related to the governor’s wife and to a tech giant like Luc, and Sydney being Houghton’s sister-in-law, and Jo-Jo being the mayor’s sister-in-law—they had been hounded for weeks.
The media coverage had been horrible.
And everyone focused onBonnie.Speculation was that she’d been involved. The sweet nurse exterior hiding the soul of a monster had been one speculative article.
It had nearly destroyed the woman at first.
Zoey hadn’t interacted with the Colesons much. Not yet. There was almost a battle line drawn between the Colesons and Zoey’s family. They were still working their way past that. Zoey didn’t fully understand why.
Except…ways to protect themselves from morepain.
It wasn’t going easy between Pen and Crispin either. Zoey’s counselor at the women’s center her sister Ariella had started—and Luc funded—suggested it was the outward appearance. Every time they looked at each other, Pen and Crispin were reminded of what Eastman had done. An in-your-face reminder of the worst moments of their lives.
Zoey understood that.
Today was the first step. It was going to be a cool day, February’s highs were usually in the fifties, but Bonnie and her family had been invited to a barbecue at the Barratt Ranch. With Zoey’s family, and Houghton and Melody’s.
The entire family. Whoever they could get. It was a large event, and not just family. They’d thought something casual like that would be best to build bridges. Zoey thought it had waited long enough.
Murdoch stuck his head in the bathroom where she was finishing up. “Hey, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe.” She just said it out of habit. “Unless you want to tangle.”
“I definitely want to tangle with you. But…it needs to be later. We have company.”
“Oh?” It was usually one of her sisters or brothers. Or his.
“Yeah, they are waiting out here in the front room.”
Murdoch had moved himself right in. Zoey had held open the door. They’d come home from the hospital as a family. They lived there as a family. Pen was making noises about moving to the mother-in-law suite eventually. But she just wasn’t ready yet.
She was still fighting the nightmares every night. And Zoey wanted her sister where she could keep an eye on her. But they were getting there. They would keep getting there, an inch at a time.
Murdoch and the kids were in the living room. They adored their daddy. Their daddy adored them. She loved watching Murdoch with them, too.
The kids were eyeing their guest suspiciously. They’d only really interacted with two or three people their entire lives—the nanny, who they missed, but no one had ever fully been able to identify yet, the man they called Mean Vaughn. And Eastman.
Oakley had mentioned a “mean lady” once, but that was it.
The isolation they’d faced had delayed them in some ways, making them act a little younger than most of their agemates. But they were catching up.
