TWENTY
“Looks like you have visitors, mon capitaine,” Remy said.
Bren looked over the Cajun’s shoulder to the tunnel in the Rebels’ practice facility. His heart leaped at the sight of Violet with Caitriona and Franky, all of them waving.
He waved back and a couple of the guys went, “Aw!”
“Shut it,” he muttered as he skated over.
As his daughters hugged him, he raised his gaze to Violet. “What’s all this about?”
“The girls wanted to take you to lunch.” She had that mischievous sparkle in her eye he loved, so something was definitely up.
“Oh yeah?”
Franky peered up. “You don’t have to go out of town for the next game until tomorrow, so we have you for the rest of the day.”
“Aye, I guess you do. Sounds like you have more on the menu than lunch, sprite.”
She slid a glance at Violet. “Maybe.”
“I have to change, so I’ll meet you outside.”
“In the parking lot,” Violet said, to which Franky vehemently nodded her head.
Bren walked outside to the players’ parking lot to find Cade and Violet standing beside Dante’s midnight blue Bentley. His girls were nowhere to be seen.
He spotted the car Violet would’ve driven in, an SUV he lent her because her own car was unreliable. No girls. No sign of them in his car, either.
Definitely shenanigans afoot. “Where are they?”
Violet thumbed toward the backseat of the Bentley. His daughters waved, then broke into inexplicable giggles, which set Cade and Violet off.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Just lunch,” Violet said before she leaned up on her toes to kiss Cade on the cheek.
Cade winked. “Have fun, Highlander.”
Violet opened the passenger door of the Bentley. “In you get.”
Dante loved this car, and damn, was it a beauty. No way on God’s green earth would he lend it to Violet. Cade, however . . . Bren could attest to how people tended to make poor decisions when cocks were involved. So when two dicks were in play . . .
“Why are we driving Dante’s car?”
The girls started giggling again. “Get in, Dad,” Franky yelled. “We have to go on our adventure!”
“Quit that smoldering until we’re alone,” Violet murmured. “You know my knickers can’t handle it.” Then louder: “You heard the girls. We have an adventure ahead of us.”
Bren had no idea what was going on, but he did know this: if anyone was driving this Bentley, it was him.
“Give me the keys, woman.”
Violet’s phone buzzed and she snuck a furtive look. Crap! Cade must have caved like a cheap suitcase when Dante asked about his car.
Dante: I’m Italian, which means I know people, Vasquez. You harm that car and it won’t be pretty.
Men, so ridiculously territorial about their penises—oops, motor vehicles.
Bren slid her a look. “Want to tell me where I’m going?”
“To Chicago!” This was Franky.
“Fun in the city, eh?”
Caitriona leaned over, touching the back of Bren’s neck, her fingers playing with his hair. Violet caught Bren’s secret smile. She knew it had been tough for these two to get back to whatever they had before, and that gesture seemed like a small step forward.
“Can we go down Lakeshore Drive, Dad?”
It would take longer to go all the way east, but Bren didn’t even question it.
“Sure we can, sprite.”
Twenty minutes later, with Fleetwood Mac’s “You Can Go Your Own Way” blaring, they were zipping down one of the most spectacular curves of highway ever created. The lake had never sparkled more brightly, and the gleaming city in the distance invited them to glamour and adventure.
“Wow, that’s pretty,” Violet said.
“No better view,” Bren murmured. “Where to first?”
“I’ve got a SpotHero space lined up.” She gave directions, and soon they were parked and out walking along Michigan Avenue, their heads tilted back, eyes to the sky like they were country rubes who’d never seen tall buildings before.
Bren squinted as they arrived at the Drake Hotel’s lavish entrance. “This is lunch?”
“No, St. James,” Violet said. “This is afternoon tea.”
Within minutes, Violet knew she was in serious trouble of ruining her own chances of having children because, damn, who needed freakin’ ovaries anyway? Big, bad, could-crush-a-yeti-with-a-look Bren St. James was being instructed on how to eat a scone by his daughters.
“First you do the jam, then the lemon curd,” Caitriona said. “The clotted cream is last.”
Bren tried his best to make his big, beefy paws do the necessary to a tiny scone. Ack, the cuteness!
The tea presented a new set of problems. “Let it steep longer. Two minutes isn’t enough,” Franky chided after he’d made the whopping huge mistake of pouring too soon. “And you have to use the strainer.”
“I know all about tea. It was only invented in Scotland, after all.”
“It was invented in China, Dad,” Caitriona said.
“You sure? Pretty certain it was invented by my Granny MacGillacuddy, twice removed, on my mother’s side.”
His daughters giggled. “MacGillacuddly,” Franky said.
“Do you think we could visit Scotland sometime, Dad?” Caitriona asked around her scone chewing.
“Why not? We can go this summer, if you like.”
The girls’ faces exploded in joy. “Really?”
“Aye, time you saw where you come from. I have t’warn ye, it’s not a fancy castle or anythin’.” Thickening Scots accent? Violet squirmed in pleasure. “In fact, where my great-granddaddy lives, it’s underwater.”
Caitriona screwed up her nose. “Underwater? Like a cave?”
Bren caught Violet’s eye and rubbed at his beard, his tell when he was trying to hide something, usually his amusement or the truth. “No, underwater in a lake. Or as we say in Scotland, a loch. And my great-granddaddy isn’t the best host. He hardly every comes out to see people, but when he does, everyone screams their heads off.”
“Dad . . .” Caitriona said, catching on.
“But he’ll make an exception for relatives, especially pretty little American girls. He’ll probably let you hop on his slimy humped back”—he leaned in close to both of them—“before he eats you all up!”
Franky screeched with laughter. “Dad, you’re not related to the Loch Ness monster! It doesn’t even exist.”
Bren popped a chicken salad sandwich the size of a quarter into his mouth and swallowed it without even chewing. “Are you sure about that? Plenty of people have seen him. He’s just shy, like me.”
Everyone giggled at the idea, none more so than Violet, who was a little too charmed by the charming Mr. St. James. Damn, what she wouldn’t give to see the man in a kilt . . .
After a few more minutes of Bren regaling them with stories of his great-granddaddy, the original Nessie, Violet noticed that Franky had gone quiet. She also seemed to be fidgeting under the table.
“Everything okay, Franks?”
“Hmm, yeah.” The fidgeting continued.
“What’s going on?” Violet drew back the tablecloth and found Franky getting up close and personal with one of Slugville’s citizens. In a soil-bottomed jar, but still, a slug.
At afternoon tea.
Franky had taken a sliver of lettuce from one of the sandwiches and was trying to maneuver it into a slot in the jar’s lid.
Caitriona leaned over. “Eww, that’s gross!” Said loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in a three-table radius.
“Excuse me, miss,” an oily voice whispered in Violet’s ear.
Oh dear.
“So, your ‘friend’ has to stay in your backpack, Franky, okay?” Bren impressed upon his daughter for the fourth or fifth time. It wasn’t every day a party was almost thrown out of afternoon tea at the Drake. It would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so funny.
“I know, Dad,” Franky said, pushing her glasses up over her nose. She looked over her shoulder to verify that the backpack’s zip was open, allowing enough oxygen to penetrate. “I only did it because they deserved to have a day off as well.” Quickly, she covered her mouth and shot a guilty look at Violet, who shook her head quickly.
What was going on here? He rewound what his youngest had said, examining it for clues. But it was hard to focus on that when he was in a steel box shooting upward more than a hundred stories. His daughters wanted to come here, so he would suck it up.
“Afraid of heights, St. James?” Violet asked with a grin.
“Not particularly.”
“Dad hates them,” Caitriona said cheerfully. “He doesn’t even like flying. That’s why he wears his headphones the entire time.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to go to the edge,” Violet said.
The elevator stopped at the Willis Tower Skydeck and vomited the entire group out—and that description wasn’t too far from how Bren felt right now. The glass windows were a ways off, but Bren could see that they were up far too high. As Cat and Violet rushed to the edge, he wandered over to the video screen panels, suitably placed at the center of the floor. Here you could see what it was like to (virtually) stand 103 floors above other iconic sights like Wrigley Field and “The Bean,” the nickname for the sculpture Cloud Gate. Much safer.
Small, precious fingers squeezed his. “I’ll hold your hand so you’re not scared.”
He looked down at his youngest daughter, this perfect union of him and Kendra, and wondered from where she’d inherited her intellectual curiosity, smarts, and bravery. Certainly not her parents.
“Okay, sprite, lead the way.”
Violet and Caitriona were already on the glass-bottomed ledge, which canted out and away from the building. Surely the height factor was enough. Did they really need to add an extra element of terror to it? There were no iron girders that Bren could see—it had been designed with some sort of invisible support system. Or a nonexistent support system.
Franky placed her forehead against the glass to study the people and cars moving around like bugs below. It was scientific for her. She still held his hand, but because he didn’t want to step out so far, she was eventually forced to release him so she could get closer.
“Ah, symbolism, right?” Violet murmured beside him.
Caitriona now stood beside her sister, the two of them pressing against the window, displaying no fear whatsoever.
“I’m not quite ready to let them go just yet,” he said to Violet. Their hands brushed accidentally, or maybe it was deliberate. Either way, they found each other and clasped tight.
“Having fun?”
He turned to her, drinking in her saucy smile and sparkling eyes.
“I’m miserable,” he lied, but he squeezed her hand tighter, kept his eyes on his amazing daughters, and counted every single one of his blessings.
Violet couldn’t believe how much fun this afternoon had turned out to be. The girls were having a blast, all the activities were going as planned, and Bren was being a complete sweetheart. Of course, he’d do anything for his girls, but it was nice to be part of this affection bubble. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that, and while it was growing with her sisters, it seemed easier with the St. James family, where the shadow of Clifford didn’t loom large over everything.
Someone else’s family, a voice in her head warned. She had no illusions that this could go any further, but she’d enjoy the view for a while.
About halfway through dinner at Harry Caray’s, Bren finally voiced his suspicions.
“Are we”—he looked at Violet, his daughters, then back to Violet—“reenacting Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”
The girls burst out laughing. “We won! We won!” Caitriona held out her hand to Violet. “Pay up.”
Grumbling, Violet fished in the pocket of her jean skirt. She handed over a twenty to each of his daughters.
“We bet you couldn’t go the entire day without figuring it out,” Cat said, holding the bill up to the light like an expert.
“And you bet against me?” he asked Violet.
“You’re not that bright. Hockey pucks to the head.” She shrugged. “How the heck would I expect you to figure it out? It’s a chick flick disguised as a guy’s flick.”
“I like that movie.” He thought for a moment. “Did we ‘borrow’ Dante’s car like Ferris ‘borrows’ Cameron’s?”
“We couldn’t get ahold of a vintage red Ferrari at short notice, so this was the closest thing to it. I could have asked, but it was more fun to do it behind Dante’s back, like in the movie. Cade was so on board. He liked the idea of ‘stealing’ it.”
“Let me guess. Dante’s been texting threats all day?”
“Pretty much.” She turned to the girls. “But he can have it all the time, right, ladies? We just need it for our adventure. We wanted to do the Cubs game, but they’re away today. And no parades, so we won’t get to hear your dad do ‘Danke Schoen.’ ”
“Dad’s a really bad singer anyway.”
“Yeah, terrible.”
Bren did an impression of being insulted. “I’m not that bad. I’m better at that than Violet is at telling jokes.”
“What?” Violet’s mouth fell open. “I am a superior joke teller. Here’s a good one: What did the ocean say to the shore?”
Bren and the girls parroted the question back at her.
“Nothing, it just waved.” Groans all around, but Violet merely crossed her arms. “I don’t care. It’s another VV classic.”
“I’ve got one!” Franky grinned at Violet, waiting for her nod. “Don’t run with bagpipes. You could put an aye out.” At Bren’s chuckle, his youngest daughter went on. “Or get yourself kilt!”
Violet had taught the joke to Franky yesterday, and the entire table laughed much harder than it deserved. Bren’s arm stretched behind his daughters’ heads in the booth and stroked Violet’s neck. Such a simple gesture, so comforting. She raised her eyes to find him staring with intent and mouthing thank you.
She tried a shoulder shrug to minimize her contribution, anything to avoid acknowledging how deeply entrenched she’d become with this beautiful family. With this beautiful man.
Once dessert was ordered—the hot fudge brownie sundae skillet—Bren left to use the restroom. The girls were looking at photos on their phones, comparing the funny-slash-terrified faces Bren had made earlier at Willis Tower. Violet checked her own phone to find a couple of new warnings from the Rebels’ GM. She responded to one particularly vitriolic text with: Is the insurance information in the glove compartment? Not finding it.
Two seconds later, the phone rang.
“Auto body shop for Middle-Aged Phallic Compensators, how can I help you?”
Dante growled. “Tell me I have nothing to worry about.”
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“Why does this not make me feel better?”
“Because you tend to see the worst in people?”
“Violet . . .” He sounded so forlorn, and she realized how much she actually liked Dante Moretti.
She laughed. “Your precious is fine. Bren’s been doing the driving and he’s handling the car like it’s his newborn child.”
“Okay, but please don’t pull that stunt again.” Slight pause. “How’s it going?”
In that three-word query she heard a million things. She suspected Dante knew exactly what he was asking as well, so it was a surprise that her answer was so honest.
“Great. Terrible.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
Of all the people to confide in, why did she choose hard-assed Dante? Possibly because if anyone knew the perils of falling for the wrong person, it was him. She’d judged him harshly when he screwed up with Cade, but she understood now what he must have been going through. Fighting against the irresistible forces of love took an awful lot of effort.
“You’re good for him,” Dante said. “A stabilizing influence.”
“Me? That’s the last thing I’d ever be called.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Vasquez. But also, don’t expect too much.”
“I never do.”
Dante sighed. “I don’t mean because of you. Bren needs to untangle some of the knots in his life before he can be truly present. You can make him feel better, but you can’t fix all his problems. You need to take care of yourself as well.”
She swallowed. That was a pretty astute thing to say, and not unlike what Bren had once said about his own focus. How it would never be 100 percent on her while his life was in such turmoil. But that was okay. She refused to raise her expectations.
Just another adventure in the Year of the V. What had Ferris said? Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
“Oh, God,” Caitriona muttered, color rising in her cheeks. Her eyes had widened to the width of the brownie sundae skillet that had just arrived, but her reaction was not dessert-related.
That’s when Violet saw it. And it was appropriate, because several things hit her at once:
1. The Beatles singing “Twist and Shout.”
2. Bren St. James strutting toward their table with—breadsticks in his hand?
3. The Scot picking up the second verse and launching into a lip-synch to end all lip-synchs.
Like Ferris in the movie.
Franky had covered her mouth with both hands, but released them to let out a squeal of delight. She didn’t know where to look—at her dad, at her sister, at Violet, or at everyone in the entire dining room, who had stopped stuffing their faces and were now watching slack-jawed as one of the most famous athletes in pro sports sang to his daughters.
“Gotta go,” Violet said, and hung up on Dante.
Caitriona had reddened to the roots of her hair. She shrank into her seat, trying to slip farther under the table, but her dad didn’t care.
No. Her dad did what every dad has done from the dawn of time: he continued with the unrelenting embarrassment of his daughter.
Did Violet say that Bren was lip-synching? That wasn’t entirely accurate. Lip-synching wasn’t quite enough to get his point across; Bren was actually shout-singing over the song. And as Franky had called it earlier, he was terrible.
But he was also awesome.
Franky jumped up and started dancing, just like those German fräuleins in the movie boogying around Ferris on the parade float.
Violet turned to Caitriona, who was still blushing, but was also obviously amused. She was shaking her head, but no longer dipping it in Dad-shame. People had started clapping along, a few of them even adding their own voices to the mix.
“Come on, Cat!” Violet screamed above the hubbub, and she stood, holding out her hand. A moment’s hesitation seized Violet’s heart, but then the most lovely feeling overcame her. Cat placed her hand in Violet’s and stood, joining just in time for the big finale.
Caitriona was the only one of them with any real talent.
But it didn’t matter. Bren St. James had made his daughters’ day out perfect. And if Violet wasn’t already half in love with him, there was little doubt now of just how much trouble she was actually in.