The Lassiter name and what it had meant to J.D. What it had been like to not be born a Lassiter, but made into one. With that thought simmering in his brain, he took another step into the chaos.
“Thank heaven,” Marlene muttered. “Sage, help me convince your sister that her father wasn’t angry at her about anything.”
He glanced quickly around the familiar room. The massive stone fireplace, the wide French doors that led to a flagstone patio, the oversize leather couches and chairs dotting the shining wood floor. And the family members scattered across the room, all looking at him.
“What other reason could there be?” Angie asked, throwing both hands high only to let them fall to her sides again. Flipping her dark hair back out of her face, she looked at her oldest brother and said, “I thought he was proud of me. I thought he believed in me.”
“He did, Angie,” Chance put in and she turned on her cousin.
“This is an odd way to show it, don’t you think?”
Chance sighed and scrubbed one hand over his face impatiently. Sage could sympathize. The poor guy had probably been trying to cheer Angie up for hours with no success.
“Angie.” Evan McCain spoke up then and all eyes turned to him. “You’re overreacting.”
“Am I?” Shaking her head, Angie looked at the man she had been poised to marry only two weeks ago and it was as if she’d never seen him before. The wedding had been postponed after J.D.’s death, but the two of them had remained close. Until today. Until Evan had been given the company Angie loved. “He gave the company—my company—to you, Evan.” She slapped one hand to her heart. “I was his daughter and he left it to you.”
Evan shoved one hand through his hair and looked to Sage for help. But hell, Sage didn’t know what he could do. He didn’t believe that Evan had tried to undermine Angie. But who the hell knew anymore? Mysterious benefactors. Nurses who inherited three million dollars. A daughter who got cheated out of what should have been hers. None of this made a damn bit of sense.
Still, if they went to war with each other over it, that wouldn’t solve a thing either—it would just splinter them when they needed each other most.
“Angie, taking it out on Evan isn’t going to help,” Sage finally said and he caught a brief look of relief on Evan’s face. “We just have to try to figure out what was in J.D.’s mind and then do what we can to change things.”
“Can we change anything?” Marlene looked worried, her gaze darting from Angelica to Evan and back again. “The will is done. And even though J.D. was sick, he was mentally competent right up until his last day.”
“I know.” Sage walked to the woman who had been a mother in all but name to him since he was a kid and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. The scent of her perfume drifted up to him and colored his mind with memories. Marlene had been the one stabilizing influence in his life. Through all of his rebellion with J.D., his aunt was there, talking him down, trying to build a bridge between Sage and his adoptive father. That bridge had never really materialized, but it hadn’t been for lack of trying on her part.
Sage dropped a kiss on the top of her head, then looked across the room to Dylan, sprawled in one of the oversize leather chairs.
“You don’t have anything to say?”
“I’ve said plenty,” his brother countered, then shifted a glare to their sister. “I was shouted down.”
“I didn’t shout,” Angie argued.
“Like a fishwife,” Dylan told her, then glanced at Evan. “If you still want to marry her, you’re either brave or brain-dead.”
“You’re not helping,” Sage said.
“Yeah, I heard that from our darling sister an hour ago,” Dylan told him tiredly.
“You don’t understand how this feels, Dylan,” Angelica said, giving him a look that should have set fire to his hair. “Dad didn’t take away the business you love, did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” he admitted.
“Angie,” Evan said, stepping toward his fiancée and laying both hands on her shoulders. “I love you. We’re getting married. Nothing’s changed.”
She slipped out from under his grip and shook her head. “Everything’s changed, Evan. Don’t you see that?”
“I don’t want to run your company, Angie. You’ll still be doing the day-to-day,” he argued. “You’re still in charge.”
“I don’t have the title. I don’t have the power. The only reason I would still be in charge is because you allow it.” She shook her head and bit down hard on her bottom lip before saying, “It’s not the same, Evan.”
“We’ll figure this out,” he countered, but Angelica didn’t look convinced.
Sage wondered suddenly if maybe J.D. hadn’t done all this just so he could hang around as a damn ghost and watch his family jump through the hoops he’d left behind.
“I think we’ve all had enough for one day,” Marlene announced, interrupting what looked as though it could turn into a battle. She walked over to give Angelica a hug, then smoothed a stray lock of her dark brown hair back with gentle fingers. Giving the younger woman a smile, she spoke to the room at large.
“Why don’t we all go into the kitchen? We’ll have some coffee. Something to eat. It’s been a hard day but I think we all have to remember—” she paused, letting her gaze slide around the room “—that we’re family. We’re the Lassiters. And we will come through this. Together.”
* * *
“There’s no reason to be so nervous.” Jenna Cooper took a sip of her white wine and smiled as Colleen changed clothes for the third time in a half hour.
“I’m not nervous,” she replied, “I’m just hyperalert.”
Jenna chuckled and curled up into a corner of her chair. Colleen met her friend’s amused gaze in the mirror and released a sigh. “Fine. Maybe I’m a little nervous, but there’s no reason to be. This is not a date. It’s just dinner with a family member of a patient I’ve lost.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You might sound a little more convincing when you’re placating me.”
“I’ll work on it,” her friend said, still laughing.
Jenna Cooper lived next door, with her husband and adorable three-year-old twin boys, Carter and Cade. At five foot two, Jenna looked like a pixie with very short black hair that curled around her elfin features. Her green eyes were always shining and she and Colleen had been good friends since the second week Colleen had lived in the condo complex two years before.
Knowing Colleen was a nurse, Jenna had come to her door in a panic late one night because one of the boys had had a fever seizure. Colleen had recognized it for what it was immediately and helped them lower Carter’s temperature, then she had stayed at the house with a sleeping Cade while Jenna and her husband took Carter to the E.R. to be checked out, just to be on the safe side.
