Page 97 of The Acquisition

"Good, let's talk when I get back in town."

We said our goodbyes and I turned to face Colter. I held my hand up to stop the questions I had no doubt he was dying to ask. "I know this is going to sound crazy after everything we did to help me gain control of Easton Corporation, but I don't want to run it. I'm not with you to keep the company. I don't think agreeing to marry you was ever about that."

"You want Stryker to take over," he said, figuring out what I was thinking.

I nodded. "I know you don't like him, but he's been amazing at repairing all the damage my father did to the company. Just because I don't want to run the company doesn't mean I want to leave all the employees to languish under poor management."

"It isn't that I dislike him, it's just his family I'm not fond of, but I've looked into him. He's estranged from his family, and if you trust him, then I can give him the benefit of the doubt."

The car pulled up to an intersection. "Hey, can you drop me off at the center?"

"You aren't coming to the cemetery with us?" Colt asked.

I shook my head. "No, I've got some things I need to set up for the unveiling ceremony. Besides, this is a family thing for you and Evie."

Colt grimaced. Okay, so his words at the hospital still stung, but I also thought he needed this time with Evie alone, not worrying over what I thought about what they needed to say to each other.

"Jana, I know I hurt you when I told you not to come to the hospital. I was fucking stupid. I want you there with us. You're part of this family."

I smiled. It was good to hear, but I was still wary about intruding on the relationship they were still building. It had been less than a year since they learned Colt was her father. I wanted them to be able to bridge the gap caused by the years they were apart.

"You aren't planning to run, are you?" The weeks we were apart would likely haunt him the way his careless words would me. Only now, I realized we had to put in the work to rebuild that broken trust. Being with him was worth the fear of being vulnerable.

"I won't run. I promise."

He kissed my forehead. "If you insist. I'll see you as soon as we're done at the cemetery."

* * *

From the moment Colter dropped me off at the center until they returned from the cemetery almost an hour later, I raced around making sure the staging was perfect for the press conference.

The rain continued to come down in sheets, so I needed to reconfigure the set up to move the sound system under the covered front patio. Somehow I managed to convince one of the few local hotels to rent me one of the tents they used for weddings to provide some covering for the gathering media. It was a logistical nightmare, but somehow it all came together in time.

Evie beamed a radiant smile at me when she saw how I transformed the space. "I just knew you'd make everything perfect."

I gave her a smile in return. "Anything for you."

She looked at her father then at me. We hadn't told her we'd made up over the last week. I, for one, wasn't going to be sharing the details of how we managed it. There were some things you couldn't share with your best friend, at least not when you were in a relationship with their father.

I couldn't say I had any motherly feelings for her, but I didn't need to label what we had. Evie was family even before I met Colter. The ring on my finger only made what we already had official.

She had blossomed from the woman I met a couple years ago. Gone was the wallflower reacting to life. She owned her pain and turned it into something healing for others. Her father might own my heart, but Evie and I shared a soul. Knowing she didn't hate me for falling in love with her dad proved I'd chosen well in a best friend.

My heart swelled with pride as she stood in front of the microphone.

"Thank y'all for coming out here today in the rain," she began. Being back in Kentucky made the slight accent she always had grow to a full twang.

"My father wanted to do something to honor my momma's memory, since he felt he failed her while she was alive. But he didn't fail her, poverty did. Poverty perpetrated by a lack of opportunities and made worse through her mental illness. We talked about what would have helped her, and through those conversations the Genevieve Holmes Center for Women was born."

She spoke for a few more minutes about the services that would be provided to the community and where the funding would come from. She had the press eating out of her hand. No doubt the copy they'd provide to their various media outlets would be glowing. Not that she was motivated by the positive press, but it would help us to secure future donations so we could continue to expand the charity.

Beckett watched Evie with pride written all over his face. "She's remarkable, isn't she?"

"She really is," Colter sighed.

Beck leaned close to Colt and put his hand on Colt's shoulder. "You know, what happened to Jenny wasn't your fault. A good friend told me something similar not long ago. You need to forgive yourself and move on. She wouldn't want you to punish yourself forever because she was ill."

I shook my head. Evie confided it was Colter who set Beckett straight when he pushed her away because he felt responsible for his ex who's in a catatonic state after a failed suicide attempt over twenty years ago. It's amazing how parallel their life experiences were, even if they didn't know it at the time.

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