Page 212 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
Simone stared at the offering, tears welling in her eyes. With a shaking hand, she took the book and flipped to the first page, her bottom lip quivering as she read.“Sometimes the family you’re given isn’t the one you’re meant to keep. My name is Cecilia Miller, and when I was born, I had mothers and sisters and brothers who weren’t mine by blood, but were mine, nevertheless. We lived in a place called Haven House, where every day was an adventure. This is my story.”
Annabeth went to her mother’s side, wrapping an arm around her to keep Simone steady. “Oh, my.” Simone ran her fingertips over the page. “Oh, my baby. Look at you still making those curls on the tips of your letter T.” She tilted the book to proudly show Bernie. “CeCe always had a problem with writing the uppercase T because she just wanted it to bea lowercase, but Devon taught her how to make it fancy so she would get excited to write it correctly.”
Annabeth pointed at the next passage.“If you have somehow found these and cannot return them to me, please forward my journals to a woman named Simone Howard. She was my mother in the truest sense of the word, and I want her to know I never forgot her and always held her in my heart,”she read and then laughed through her tears. “And if you cannot locate Simone Howard, please send them to her daughter, Annabeth. My sister, and forever twin to my soul.”
Rowan came up behind Annabeth to look at the book, but Jamison had a sneaky suspicion he was doing it to remain close in case she needed him. The same could be said for Izzy, who had taken Abe’s hand while he pretended not to cry.
“CeCe dedicated her life to keeping everyone safe from Toby, and when she tried to fight back, and find her happiness, they killed her for it,” Jamison told everyone. “I know he wasn’t a good person, but you should have seen that house. Michael built CeCe her version of Haven House and would have given her the happily ever after she deserved.”
Simone remained quiet, reading to herself, and when she finally lifted her head, she stared directly at the man she had spent a lifetime traveling on the long road of grief with, neither of them ever able to escape it.
“Benjamin, he needs to be here with CeCe.”
The late morning breeze coming in off the water teased the tips of her father’s hair, ruffling it about. Jamison thought it made him look young again, and when his gaze dropped to Laura Jean’s marker, everyone waited to hear him deny Simone’s request.
But he didn’t.
“If that’s what you want, SiSi.” With a bittersweet smile, Benjamin Fairweather nodded. “We’ll bring him home to Haven House.”
Chapter 50
Once upon a time, Samuel Fairweather said that north wasn’t always the right direction when following one’s moral compass, and that bent principles on a crooked path would forever be the destiny of men like them.
Liam hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, but Samuel was right, and any lingering regret over choosing to take that crooked path with him had long faded with the years. North was no longer an option. Their broken moral compasses knew only one direction, guiding them to make decisions based on what was important.
Their women.
Their children.
Their family.
The rest of the world, including themselves, could go to hell as long as they were safe.
Yet, when he and Samuel decided to kill Tobias Miller, there had been that initial hesitation. It caused the orienting arrow on their compasses to spin out of control, but deep down, they knew it had to be done. It was the only way to know peace and balance the scales.
But then Michael Sinclair entered the picture.
“Any news?”
Sitting astride their boards, the horizon still pink with the rising sun in the distance, he and Samuel had thought they could release a little tension in their waiting game by catching a wave or two. But the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t behaving this morning, annoying them both with low swells breaking a few feet off the shore.
“BOP should alert Klausen around seven,” Liam replied, unzipping his wetsuit to slide it off his upper body. December or not, the heat was heavy, and he couldn’t tell if it was the humidity or his nerves making him sweat. “Bruce’s message was vague, but for sure, we’ll hear something today, as will the rest of the world.”
“Killian said he’s still got a man inside, but the guy has orders only to confirm it’s done.”
Without the possibility of someone listening, they could talk openly out here on the emerald water. “We got lucky with the transfer. Toby being moved to a low-security transport facility made everything easier.”
Samuel grunted in agreement. “I’m assuming Killian’s man also made sure Toby was aware of what happened in Arkansas?”
“Oh, yeah.”
That was the single thing Samuel had wanted. Sinclair’s man could have the kill, but Samuel wanted—needed—Toby to know the fate of Taylor’s gruesome end. In the first few days of sweeping the grounds, the assembled investigative teams had quickly found Taylor’s body.
Well, what was left of her body.
Obliterated by the phosphorus bomb Sinclair had shoved in her mouth, Taylor’s pretty face had been melted into indistinguishable piles of waste. Fragments of the rest of her remains were not far off, scattered across the now scorched lawn. The cleanup crew had spent an extensive amount of time ensuring that they collected every piece of her, leaving no bone or leftover body parts behind.
When they learned the full details, Samuel had no outward reaction, but he did make another call to Killian, asking for a second favor. Not only was his man on the inside to inform Toby about what happened to Taylor, but Samuel also wanted him to pass along a very special message to his cousin.
