Page 66 of Embracing the Change

Jamie took it while stepping out on the back deck.

“How are you doing?” he asked his son.

“Well, it happened.” Judge blew out the words on a sigh.

“How’d it go?”

“We were all asleep. I woke up first and saw it. He’d slipped in and out like a ghost. I waited until Chloe woke up. She opened it. She says it’s a Bird Baby sterling silver cup. I got the Tiffany’s part from the box.”

The ghost in that scenario was a man named Rhys Vaughan.

So far, Chloe was the only one to have met him, and she did this only briefly.

Jamie had had him investigated, but according to every record on two continents (he’d been told by Chloe, Rhys was Welsh, something she derived from his accent), he didn’t exist.

So, yes, very much a ghost.

“And?”

“And, on the bottom, it’s engraved, To, Jameson Thomas Oakley. Love, Uncle Corey.”

Jamie nodded even if his son couldn’t see him doing it.

The story was tragic, convoluted, and bizarre, but tech billionaire, Corey Szabo, now deceased, father to Hale, best friend to Genny, and mastermind who was so good at that shit, he was able to perpetrate his maneuvers from beyond the grave, had set everything in motion.

Including, in a definite but roundabout way, Jamie and Nora being able to finally be what they were meant to be to each other.

Unquestionably convoluted and bizarre, but the results were far from tragic.

When Laird came into the world, his grandfather, even being dead, had sent him a like present.

So they knew it would happen.

And it happened.

“Is Chloe okay?” Jamie asked.

Chloe had been particularly close to Corey.

“She cried. But they were happy tears, kind of,” Judge said.

“How about you?”

“I’m lucky I have a great Dad who’s been through it, so he gets it.”

Jamie drew in breath through his nose, so much, it expanded his chest, and then he let it go.

“Fortunately, considering Operation Parent Trap, we have the time off, so Nora and I are going to stay for a while,” he shared.

“They’re releasing Chloe tomorrow,” Judge shared in return, and Jamie was relieved to hear humor in his tone.

That was much more like his son.

“Excellent.”

“Will you and Nora move to the guest room in the townhouse?” Judge asked. “I want you close.”

“We’ll do that first thing tomorrow.”

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