Love Under Two Mavericks Read online

  Sean, Noah, and Brittany arrived. Michaela was happy to see them, and they came right over. They all greeted Terry and then gave their congratulations to her and her men.

  Something seemed a little off with them.

  “What is it?” Lewis’s question said he’d seen it too.

  “A friend of the family—I don’t know if you know him, Cameron Drake?” Noah asked.

  “The contractor who rehabbed the Waco headquarters for Ian and Ken’s business?” Michaela asked.

  “Yes. Lieutenant Corbett of the Waco PD called Aunt Samantha about a half-hour ago,” Sean said. “Cam’s wife, Linda, was involved in a traffic accident. Someone ran a red light and T-boned her car.”

  “Oh, no! Cam and Linda have both come into the roadhouse from time to time. Is she all right?”

  Sean just shook his head. “We don’t know. That was one of the reasons Aunt Samantha delayed coming. She wanted to find out if there was anything Cam needed, if there was any help the family could give. Jordan, who’s a close friend, is on his way there now with Peter and Tracy.” Then he blinked. “Sorry. We’re here to celebrate your engagement. I shouldn’t have mentioned…”

  “No, I’m glad you told us.” Michaela looked at Lewis and then Randy. Both of her men nodded their agreement. “Cam and Linda are crazy in love. And as you’ve said, they’re almost family.” There was no such thing in Lusty as just being friends of the family. Benedicts, Kendalls, and Jessops alike had a habit of adopting anyone they came to care for.

  “Hopefully everything will turn out fine,” Lewis said.

  “Our fingers are definitely crossed.” Brittany met Michaela’s gaze. Michaela wasn’t surprised to see empathy in the face of the former Marine. She herself had endured a horrendous accident—though the vehicle she was in at the time had been a helicopter.

  That accident had left Brittany a below-the-knee amputee. That was something that Michaela thought rarely came to the minds of anyone who knew the energetic woman.

  Brittany Phillips Kendall, now an advocate for other injured servicewomen, didn’t let the matter of a prosthetic leg stop her from doing anything she set her mind to.

  Jenny, Parker, and Dale as well as Trace, Lucas, and Laci spoke fondly of the couple as they passed little Zoe Diane between them. This was family, and Michaela smiled as her fiancés relaxed and as the conversation flowed.

  Rachel Gillespie-Langley brought over a big jug of sweet tea and set it on the table. Adam, Jake, and Ginny arrived with their three children and didn’t take long to make their way over. Once greetings had been given, Ben took his younger twin brothers over to the play area, where there were kid-sized bits of fruits and veggies and, best of all, games.

  “Any news on Cam and Linda?” Michaela asked.

  “They’re at the hospital,” Adam said. “Mom’s just making sure that they’ll be taken care of, and then she and the dads and Grandma Kate will arrive.”

  That was another benefit of being considered family. When the wagons got circled, everyone ensured that whatever was needed was received.

  Jake and Adam took time to head to the buffet. They came back with two trays. One plate and glass, Jake set in front of his wife.

  “You barely had a minute all day,” Adam said. “Time for you to relax.”

  The look Ginny exchanged with each of her husbands made Michaela’s heart happy. “It was a good day, but I won’t say no to a bit of pampering. Thank you.”

  “I’ve had a phone call from Kramer,” Jake said. “Three of the rare coins he discovered will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next month, as a unit.”

  Michaela hadn’t fully understood the expert’s excitement at finding three exceptionally rare gold coins among the lot that had been buried under the Legacy Tree. She’d never been a collector of anything, in particular. But when Kramer Forrest had asked if he could first examine every coin—and when she understood how collectors would react to having the chance to acquire something they’d dreamed of—she couldn’t refuse. Kramer had found twenty fairly rare coins, in all. Some were to be sold, and some had already been donated to museums, both in the United States and in Europe.

  They weren’t in any real hurry for the money. Some of the coins had already been converted to cash. They had enough on hand to begin to build their house.

  “I have no idea how these things go. Is three in one lot a thing?”

  “I think the ‘thing’ is to own three,” Jake said. “I don’t understand collectors, either, because we are not all given the same interests.”

  “I have an update for you on Mr. Gowan,” Adam said. Then he turned to Terry. “If you don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind. I’m still feeling guilty. I really had no idea just how greedy and selfish the man was or that I was bringing trouble to your doorstep.”

  “You didn’t,” Lewis said. “I’d bet that if you’d refused to take him in, he’d have found another place to stay and he would most definitely have gone ahead with his plan, regardless.”

  “Lewis is absolutely right.”

  They’d all been so engrossed in their conversations that none of them had seen Grandma Kate approach. The men, of course, got to their feet. Kate made sure she hugged everyone at the table—even Terry Gowan. Then Randy moved, giving her his seat between Michaela and Tammy.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Grandma Kate.” Michaela said.

  “And I’m so glad I get to call you granddaughter,” Kate Benedict said.

  “Is there any news about Linda Drake, Grandma Kate?” Brittany asked.

  “We’re all praying, sweetheart, but it doesn’t look good,” Kate said.

  The nonagenarian settled in and then thanked Randy, who’d fetched her a glass and brought with him a fresh pitcher of tea.

  “Lewis, what you said is exactly right.” Then she looked at Terry. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for the actions of your father. We all, each of us, must own our own actions, of course. But how others behave and react to the things that life tosses them, well, that’s on them.”

  “I think it’s going to take me a little time to let the guilt go,” Terry said. “But I need to tell you—all of you—how grateful I am for your forgiveness and your inclusiveness.” He turned to Adam. “What’s the update?”

  “Devlin Gowan has made a plea deal with the prosecutor. He’ll be spending at least the next twenty years in prison. But it’ll be at a minimum-security facility. His medical needs will be seen to, but he won’t be able to burn down any more houses—or shoot out any more power lines.”

  Kate nodded. “I think that, and knowing he’ll never see any of that gold, are justice enough.”

  “It is,” Adam said.

  “Will you two be going into business with your cousins?” Kate looked at Lewis and then Randy.

  “We’re talking about it,” Lewis said. “The most important thing is that we’ve found our place.”

  “The reason the two of you came here in the first place,” Kate said. “You were just going to visit, and then you were looking for the perfect piece of land.”

  “What we didn’t really know at the time,” Randy said, “was that we weren’t thinking of what we needed in the right terms. It was never really land we were looking for. We needed to belong. And we’ve discovered that what we were looking for—our place—is with Michaela and wherever she wants to be.”

  “And I found that it wasn’t heritage I was looking to hold on to but family I was craving to make. And I have that—the beginning of that—with the two of you.”

  “That’s the golden answer to life, and happiness, right there,” Kate said. “As long as you love, and are loved in return, contentment and every other good thing can be yours. If you choose for it to be so.”

  Michaela looked around the table, at family and near family. The restaurant overflowed with people she knew, people with whom, in just the last six months, she’d formed a connection. Instead of being alone after the death of her father, s
he was in the heart of family.

  But more, she had two men who loved her, two men she would spend the rest of her life loving in return.

  Family is the real fortune I’ve discovered here. And, she knew, it was a fortune that would never, ever be lost.

  THE END

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