Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) (27 page)

And
then Mick Sinatra leaned back in his car, and his driver drove him away.

As
her son ran out of the schoolhouse and up to her truck, Denise watched the
shooting of Luke Sinatra on her smartphone for what had to be the fifth
time.
  
Brent was in the frame, running around
with his gun drawn, looking up at some tall building and pointing.
 
And all she could think about was what might
have been.
 
And how he had to be feeling
about his granddad’s death.

“Hey,
Mommy,” Marcus said as he got into her truck.
 
“I got all happy faces today.”

Denise
looked over at her green-eyed, black-haired son and smiled.
 
“That’s wonderful, Markie.
 
I thought we’d go to the amusement park.”

“Yeh!
 
Can we ride?”

“We
sure can,” Denise said, as she cranked up.

“Will
Dad be there too?”

“No,
son, Dad won’t be there.
 
He can’t make
it.”

“He
never makes it,” Marcus said.
 
“I hate
him.”

“Don’t
say that about your father.”

“I
hate him,” Marcus said, defying his mother to make him feel otherwise.

Then
she exhaled.
 
“Don’t worry,” she
said.
 
“One day, when we make it big, and
I get what I want, I’ll leave him.
 
And
then I’ll introduce you to a real man.”
 
She looked at her smartphone again, rewind the part where Brent was shown.
 
“Don’t you worry about a thing.
 
It’s just a matter of time.”

The
backyard was filled with guests and festivities.
 
Ashley had graduated from Berkskill and her
parents had thrown her the party of a lifetime.
 
All of her siblings were there, all of her friends were there, Ashley
felt as if she had a second chance at life.
 
She walked around the yard, laughing with everybody, talking with
everybody, dancing with everybody until she could barely stand up.

She
sat down.
 
Beside Donald.

“Isn’t
this great?” she asked him, a grand smile on her face.

“It’s
fantastic,” he said.
 
“Everybody showed
up.
 
It’s a testament to you, sis.
 
Everybody loves you.”

Ashley
looked at him and smiled.
 
“Not really,
but thanks anyway. I know you do.
 
You’ve
been a great brother, and I’ll never forget that.
 
After my father died, I didn’t know what me
and Carly were going to do.
 
When Dad and
Mom agreed to take custody of us, and then to adopt us, I thought I had died
and gone to heaven.”
 
A frown appeared on
her pretty face.
 
“And then I got
stupid.”

“No,
you didn’t.”

“Yes,
I did.
 
I was arrogant and stupid.”
 
She looked at Donald.
 
“But after what happened with that awful man,
and after what you and Dad did for me, I’ll never be that way again, Donnie.
 
I was stupid, and it almost cost me
everything.
 
I’ll never let you and Dad
regret what you guys did for me.”

Donald
smiled.
 
“It was worth it then,” he said.

Ashley
smiled.
 
“And I understand
congratulations are in order for you too.”

“That’s
right!
 
I’m the new General Manager of
the Jericho Inn.
 
Nobody’s higher ranked
than I am except Mom and Dad.”

“That’s
great, Donnie.
 
You deserve it.”

“No I
don’t.
 
But like you said, I’ll never let
them regret giving me this shot.”

“Why
aren’t
 
you two entertaining your
guests?” Charles asked as he and Jenay came over to the twosome.

“I’m exhausted,”
Ashley said.
 
“I had to take a break.”

“What’s
your excuse?” Charles asked his son.

“I’m
lazy,” Donald said.
 
“I had to take a
break.”

They
laughed.
 
“So true,” Jenay said
playfully.

Charles
took Jenay by the hand and led her away from the maddening crowd and toward the
riverbank.
 
It was majestic out there,
and peaceful, and they sat on the bench at the water’s edge.

“She
graduated,” Jenay said.

Charles
nodded his head.
 
“She graduated.
 
She almost didn’t make it, but she made
it.
 
Thank God.”

“And
Donald’s doing great at the Inn, Charlie.
 
Oh, you should see him.
 
He has my
back and every member of that staff knows it.”

“Do
they respect him as GM?” Charles asked.

“Many
of them didn’t at first.
 
But now every
one of them does.
 
Because they know he’s
all business now.
 
He reminds me of you
sometimes.”

Charles
let out a one-syllable laugh.
 
“Never
thought I’d hear that comparison.”

“I
know.
 
But it’s true.
 
You have rubbed off on all of the children,
in one way or another.
 
That should make
you very proud.”

Charles
nodded.
 
“It does.
 
It does.”

Then
Jenay let out a long exhale.
 
“Mick?” she
asked.
 
And then she looked at him.

Charles
hesitated, and then looked at her.
 
“What
about him?”

“Was
he the man you nodded to in that Town Car?
 
Was he the man who hired that shooter?”

Charles
stared at her.
 
“Yes,” he said.

“Why
didn’t you tell me?”

“I
didn’t want to implicate you in it.”

“If
you’re in it, I’m in it.”
 
She
frowned.
 
“You know that.”

He
placed his arm around her.
 
“Yes, I know
it.”

“You
 
know what else I know?”

Charles
looked at her.
 
“What else?”
  

“Mick
was the one who hired somebody to spy on Makayla Ross and Brent.
 
And then he sent those photos and that film
to the Attorney General.
 
He wanted her
pulled off of the case.
 
He wanted the AG
to reverse their recommendation.”

Charles
stared at her.
 
“And why would he want
that?” he asked.

“Because
he wanted your father to be released.
 
And he wanted his first steps to freedom to be his first steps to
hell.
 
Am I wrong?”

Charles
exhaled too, and shook his head.
 
“No,
babe.
 
You’re not wrong.”

But
Jenay was still concerned.
 
She knew the
man she married, but she also knew she had to ask it.
 
“What I don’t know,” she said, “is your
involvement in that decision to spy on your own son.”

“I
had no involvement in any of it,” Charles said.

“Then
why did you look down the street and that Town Car, and why did you nod your
approval?”

“I
looked because I felt led to look.
 
I
don’t know how else to describe it. This feeling came over me, as if I had a
connection to something, and there he was.
 
Michello. Mick.
 
I saw his
face.
 
And I knew like I knew my name
that he was the one, that he hired the guy to spy on Makayla and Brent and take
those photos, and he was the man who hired that shooter.”

“A
shooter who still is at large, a shooter Brent doubts they’ll ever catch.”

“Yes.”

“But
why did you nod your approval when you saw Mick in that Town Car?”

“Because
I approved,” Charles said.
 
“We couldn’t
allow it.
 
I would have preferred that he
rot in jail, but it is what it is.
 
It’s
done.
 
Justice has been served.
 
On my father, and your old friend.”

Jenay
nodded.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
Then she thought of something. “Where’s Brent
anyway?
 
Did he come?”

“Nope.
 
He had to work late.
 
You know how he is.
 
He’s chief of police now, and that job of his
is his life.”

Brent
drove his truck up the long driveway to his quiet home.
 
It was almost midnight and he had been
booking yet another robbery suspect, their third in as many weeks.
 
He had hoped to drop by his parents’ home and
give his congrats to Ashley, but he was too tired now to even try.

But
as his truck approached his porch, and the headlights revealed, first a car in
his driveway, and a figure on his porch, he hesitated, and made sure his gun
was at the ready.
 
But when he drove
closer, and was able to see that the figure on his porch was Makayla, he
relaxed.
 
At least it wasn’t an
intruder.
 
Or was it?

He
got out of his truck and made his way toward his porch.
 
Makayla was standing on the porch, leaned
against the rail, and her arms were folded.
 
She was dressed, as usual, in one of her regular power suits.

“I
thought you’d be in D.C. by now,” Brent said as he walked up the steps.

“I
thought you’d be home by now,” Makayla replied.
 
“Working late, or playing late?”

Brent
didn’t respond to that.
 
He leaned
against the rail, standing beside her.
 
In the moonlight, her eyes beautiful brown skin glowed.
 
“What do you want?” he asked.

Makayla
stared at Brent.
 
She could make this
easy, or she could make it hard.
 
She
decided to make it hard.
 
On
herself.
 
“I want you,” she admitted.

Brent
returned her stare.
 
He’d been thinking
about her, wondering about her, worrying about her day and night.
 
“You have the Assistant Attorney General.
 
You have your career.
 
Why would you want me?”

A
concerned look appeared on Makayla’s face.
  
“I don’t know,” she said.
 
“All I
know is, ever since I met you, I haven’t been able to get you off of my mind.
 
And that’s not like me.
 
I am not sentimental like that, not
ever.
 
But it’s the truth.”

Brent
nodded.
 
“I understand that truth,” he
said.
 
“Because I’ve had the same
experience.
 
I have been thinking about
you day and night, and I don’t understand why either.”

“It
can’t possibly be love,” Makayla said.
 
“We barely know each other.”

“Are
you still going to D.C.?” Brent asked her.

She
nodded.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“My career is very important to me.”
 
Then tears appeared in her gorgeous eyes.
 
“But I want more than that,” she said.
 
“I want you, Brent, and I don’t know
why.
 
I don’t want to be alone.
 
I don’t want to be with anybody else.”

Brent
grabbed her into his arms, and kissed her hair.
 
“Oh, Makayla.
 
I don’t want to be
alone either.
 
And I don’t want anybody
else either.”

“So
what are we going to do?” she asked him as she closed her eyes in his warm,
strong embrace.

“The
only thing we can do: make the impossible possible.”

She
removed her head from his shoulder and looked at him.
 
He wiped a lone tear from her eye.
 
“What do you mean?” she asked him.

Brent
had a determined look on his handsome face.
 
“We make it work, Makayla.
 
We
make this work.”

“Even
if I’m in D.C. and you’re still here in Maine?”

Brent
exhaled, and nodded.
 
“Yes,” he
said.
 
“Your career is important to you,
and mine is important to me.
 
We are
going to give this our all, and make this work.”

Makayla
was crying tears of joy now.
 
And Brent
pulled her back into his arms.
 
She was
what he wanted.
 
She was what he needed.
 
Against all odds, they were going to make
this work.