Page 108 of Somebody's Watching Me
“Ben, because I love you, I’m going to be the one to break the news.” Evie side shuffled to the passenger window. “Selah is going home tomorrow, whether or not you agree with it.”
Jamison’s eyes widened. The single most dominant personality trait of Benjamin Fairweather was his need to control. Everything and everyone. In business, it worked to his advantage, but in his personal life, not so much.
“Interesting,” he said, already back on his phone. “Very interesting.”
“Simone is recouping, and Selah feels like if Samuel and I can be here with our guards and security detail, he and Lenora can take Xavier home and do the same at their place,” Evie said, nervously glancing at Jamison. “Samuel talked to Liam, who already has the ball rolling and can have everything ready by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, huh?” Even in the backseat, Jamison could see her father’s jaw tick. “Good to hear the boys are all working together on this.”
“And Josie is coming,” Evie continued. “She’s having a fit over not being down here.”
His jaw ticked again. “I told her to stay put.”
“Uh, she said if you said that, I’m supposed to tell you to kiss her ass.” Evie held her hands up in surrender. “Her words, not mine.”
“I get it, kid. Now, go back inside. The sun’s setting.”
Evie told them goodnight and waddled away. Jamison could hear her chatting with the mysterious Holden as she left.
“Are you going to let Josie come down?”
Her father barked out a laugh. “There is no letting Josie do anything. You don’t know her all that well, but trying to control Josie is a bit like trying to control Simone.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
Jamison returned to a flat position, watching the ice cream sky pass by. Everyone always fussed over the sunset colors at Firewater Beach, claiming never to have seen such shades of purple, pink, and orange before.
But she had.
Once.
In a little beachside ice cream shop.
Or she thought it had been an ice cream shop.
It was the single memory she had of Laura Jean, and in it, the smell of sunscreen and the salty gulf tingled in her nose. She could recall being held while they caroused the many flavors under the glass display in the chilly, overly air-conditioned store. Jamison had always found it fitting that the colors of the ice cream that day matched the sky at her mother’s beach. Created by her father and executed by her brother, who had done an incredible job, Firewater served as a memorial to Laura Jean.
Samuel would do the same amazing job in Georgia. Within a year or two, it would be as lovely as Firewater. “What do you think about Samuel designing a place for me close to them in Georgia?”
Her father had been bugging her to build in Firewater, or at one of their many Texas developments. He wanted her to set some “roots” down anywhere that wasn’t Haven.
“I think that’s an awesome idea.”
“I guess it’s time to start planning for my future instead of just winging it.”
“Ninety percent of the world just wings it,” he told her. “Even me,”
“But I think I also want something here.”
“What about Parkland?” he asked. “It’s sitting vacant, and Samuel doesn’t want it, so I’m only holding on to it for you.”
“You would sell Parkland Grounds?”
“I would set it on fire if I could.” He pulled into the private lot, and the tall, thick hedges blocked her view. “That place holds nothing but bad memories for me.”
“Same as Haven House.”
