Micah raised his hand. “I’m stuffed. Thanks.”

  “Here’s your check,” the waiter answered, practically slamming the paper down on the table.

  Micah nodded and grabbed the ticket, wondering why the big guy seemed to have suddenly become less friendly. That was saying something, because he hadn’t exactly been much fun in the first place. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve been watching Tessa all night. Don’t even think about it, man.” The stranger’s face grew threatening and annoyed.

  “She’s an attractive woman,” Micah replied sensibly.

  “And she happens to be my sister. Stay the hell away from her. She’s been through a lot in the past several years. She doesn’t need a Sinclair to screw with her head.” The burly man crossed his arms and shot Micah a dangerous look, one that said if Micah fucked with his sister, he’d kill him.

  “You know who I am?” Micah asked, surprised.

  “Yes, I know. I recognize you. I’ve seen some of your work, and I’ve used your equipment in the past.”

  “I don’t mean her any harm. I’m just looking,” Micah said calmly. “She makes it difficult not to look.”

  “Well look in another direction. She’s deaf, handicapped,” Liam growled protectively.

  “Being deaf isn’t really a handicap for her. She seems to cope quite well,” Micah observed, not liking the fact that her brother seemed to think his sister was less desirable just because she couldn’t hear. “You must be Liam Sullivan, one of the owners of this place, right? Has the place been here long? The food was good.” He tried to make casual conversation to get the man off his back.

  “Since my grandfather’s time,” Liam admitted. “It’s not the ambiance that makes the restaurant. People come back for the food.” Liam hesitated for a moment before he asked, “Are you trying to change the subject?”

  Actually, Micah was trying to forget about the fact that he was a certifiable stalker. “Yes. Look, I find your sister attractive. That’s all there is to it. I wouldn’t want to upset her.”

  Liam gave Micah a warning glance. “Stop looking. She’s not going to end up being a notch on your bedpost or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  Micah thought about telling the man that he didn’t keep track of the women he slept with by carving a notch on his expensive bed, but he didn’t think Liam would appreciate the comment.

  “Since when do you run your sister’s dating life?” Micah asked evenly, standing up to go pay his bill. He did need to leave. He had work to accomplish, and sitting here stalking a deaf woman was pretty damn pathetic.

  “Since I’m the only one around to protect her anymore.” Liam shoved Micah’s shoulder with a closed fist. “You’re trouble, and the last thing Tessa needs is any emotional issues right now. She has enough to deal with at the moment.”

  Micah put some distance between himself and Liam. “Don’t touch me, asshole. You profess concern for your sister? How do you think she’d feel if we started going a few rounds in the middle of her restaurant?” Micah wasn’t afraid of Liam. He knew he could kick his ass if he needed to, but he didn’t want to. The guy was Tessa’s brother, even if he was an overprotective prick. Micah didn’t want to go there.

  “You think you’d win?” Liam asked with a smirk.

  “I know so,” Micah replied arrogantly. Liam might outsize him by a few inches and pounds, but Micah was fast and had the skills to go along with his speed.

  “Cocky bastard,” Liam mumbled.

  “Don’t worry; I’m leaving. But I won’t promise I’ll never come back.” Micah put on his jacket and zipped it up.

  “Just make sure you keep your eyes pointed in another direction,” Liam warned ominously.

  Micah wasn’t certain he could promise Liam that he wouldn’t gawk at Tessa if given the opportunity, so he remained silent.

  “I’ll take that,” Liam said anxiously as he snatched the bill and the credit card Micah had pulled from his wallet.

  Clearly the guy wanted to make sure that Micah had absolutely no opportunity to talk to his sister. Liam was pretty obvious in his enthusiasm to see the back of him, at least for tonight.

  Micah smirked as he strolled to the front of the restaurant to watch Liam hastily take payment.

  “I’m not going to tell you to come back and see us soon,” Liam stated in an unhappy tone.

  Micah took back his card and returned it to his wallet. “No need. Good food and an ass like your sister’s will always bring me back,” he told Liam with a cocky smile and turned to leave the restaurant. Most likely, he wouldn’t be back, but he wasn’t going to give Liam the satisfaction of admitting it. He would have liked to have seen the look on Liam’s face, but he suppressed the urge to turn around again.

  “Bastard,” Liam muttered angrily.

  Micah chuckled as he walked out of the steakhouse and back into the cold.

  Randi parked her car on the side of the road in the cemetery, doubtful anybody would care. She was the only living soul in the place.

  Pulling a shovel out of the car, she watched as Lily slipped out and scampered through the snow and over to exactly the place where Randi was headed: her foster parents’ tombstones.

  It had become a ritual for her to come clear a path to the stones since Joan had passed away. For some reason she always felt better once the stones weren’t buried in snow like they’d been forgotten.

  She locked the SUV even though it probably wasn’t necessary and started her trek toward the area where Dennis and Joan had been laid to rest side by side.

  The reverent silence was broken by Lily’s excited bark.

  The moment she stepped off the sidewalk to trudge through the snow to the markers, Randi knew something was off. Amazed, she walked over the dead grass on a path that had been cleared directly toward Dennis’s and Joan’s stones.

  Somebody was here.

  Randi realized it wasn’t the family of another loved one who had done it. The cleared area led directly to where Lily was standing, excitedly sniffing the ground. Not a speck of snow marred the writing on the marble remembrance markers, her foster parents’ names and dates of birth and death completely revealed.

  “What the hell?” Randi mumbled to herself, resting a gloved hand on top of Lily’s head. “You recognize a scent, girl?” she asked her curiously. The dog’s nose was off the ground and she was now sitting and looking up at Randi with her head cocked to one side.

  Why would anyone clear a path to her foster parents’ gravestones, and then proceed to carefully remove any snow from their markers? Nobody came here except her, and occasionally Beatrice and Elsie. The elderly women went to graves to leave flowers for deceased loved ones and friends on some of the major holidays.

  But it wasn’t a holiday.

  And Randi knew it wasn’t Beatrice and Elsie who had shoveled the heavy snow.

  A flash of color caught her eye, and she bent over to retrieve an object that was situated between the two stones.

  She rose with a perfect single calla lily between her fingers. Randi’s mouth opened and closed with surprise as she read the small handwritten tag attached to the flower. There were only two words: Thank You!

  Clutching the flower, Randi sat down hard on the snowbank beside the path that had been created by some massive shoveling. Her ass was cold, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to understand what was happening.

  Lily cuddled up to her side, quiet as she laid her furry head against Randi’s shoulder.

  “Who would do this? And why?” Randi whispered, turning the perfect bloom around with her fingers. It was a smaller calla lily, and it had splotches of a color that reminded her of a ripe plum on the inside of the white flower. In the middle was the signature tiny gold bud that matched Lily’s golden fur coat.

  It was still beautiful, which told her it hadn’t been out in the cold for very long.

  “Impossible,” Randi marveled, still confused. There was no way somebody had just happened to find this flower in town. The local florist didn’t carry calla lilies. They were rarely seen in her area, and definitely not in the winter.

  Fingering the small tag around the flower, she wondered who was thanking Dennis and Joan . . . and why? If anybody should be thanking them, it was her. They’d rescued her from a hopeless life and made her feel like a real person for the first time in her life.

  Her eyes misted and tears began to trickle slowly down her face. Even though it could be a little creepy that an unknown someone else had visited their graves, it wasn’t. Whoever had dropped this off and cleared the site had once been touched by Dennis and Joan’s kindness . . . just like her.

  Maybe it was an old student of her foster mother’s, or a student at Dennis’s school. The couple had done so many kind things in their lives; they deserved to be remembered.

  Randi wrapped her arms around her dog as Lily started licking at her face, lapping at her tears. “I miss them, Lily. I miss them so damn much.” Giving up the fight, Randi lowered her head and sobbed against Lily’s silky fur, keeping the calla lily clutched in her fist.

  She cried for the loss of a mother and father, even though they hadn’t shared the same blood.

  She cried for the sacrifices they’d made just to keep her with them.

  She cried because she’d never completely mourned their loss because it was so hard to let them go.

  Finally, she stopped, and memories of the two people she’d loved the most in life drifted through her mind.

  They’ll never really be gone, because I’ll keep the memories alive and both of them in my heart forever. They showed me what it was like to truly be happy and loved. Both of them would hate it if I stayed sad when I think about them.

  “They wanted me to be happy, Lily. That’s why they lied to keep me here in Amesport,” Randi murmured quietly to her dog as she lifted her head from Lily’s fur.

  Swiping away the rest of the tears from her face with her glove, Randi walked back to her car and removed a pretty red rose from the backseat. She took the calla lily and wrapped the two flowers together with the tag the other visitor had provided and walked back to the two stones.

  Gingerly, she dropped the entwined flowers back between the two graves, her heart much lighter than when she’d arrived.

  She didn’t know who had dropped off the calla lily and cleaned the path and markers, but she and that person had a connection, an abiding love for two of the kindest people who had ever existed.

  “I hope I can make you both proud,” Randi whispered, determined to make their every sacrifice really count. “I’ll try my best.”

  Lily whined softly, as though she agreed with Randi.

  She patted the dog on the head. “Come on, girl. Let’s go home.”

  The canine sprinted in front of her to the SUV. Randi followed slowly, thinking about some of the happy memories she’d created with Dennis and Joan. She’d have those peaceful times in her heart forever even as she began to let go of her sadness.

  Finally, the healing would begin.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Evan looks so much happier,” Mara Sinclair shared with Randi as the women put food away and loaded the dishwasher in Hope’s kitchen. “I’ve been so worried about him.”

  Randi wrapped the remainder of the chocolate cake that she’d made and placed it carefully in the refrigerator. “Was he that bad?” she asked curiously.

  Hope snorted as she wiped the stovetop. “Yes,” she answered simply.

  One of Randi’s attempts to make Evan happy had been to gather his entire family in the same place for dinner. Some moments had been painful to watch since she could see Evan’s struggle not to pull away from them because the habit was ingrained, but he was doing well. She had told him that so much happiness came from the people who loved him, so she’d arranged to have a family dinner at Hope’s home.

  The ladies had kicked the men out of the kitchen even though they’d tried to help clean up. Poor Hope was afraid for the safety of her dinnerware. Not that it had taken that much arm-twisting to make the guys retreat to the living room, but they’d grumbled goodheartedly anyway.

  With Randi, Emily, Hope, Sarah, and Mara in the kitchen, they’d made short work of cleaning up.

  “I can’t believe he actually ate my lasagna and garlic bread. He even went for dessert,” Mara contemplated, her voice sounding happily surprised.

  “He didn’t just eat it. Evan enjoyed it,” Emily said, a smile on her face. “It was so nice to see him eat for a change.”

  Randi grinned. “I’m slowly trying to introduce him to the joys of eating things that aren’t good for him. His diet was boring and bland. It’s not like he’s going to get fat. He works out.”

  “Thank God he’s eating like a normal guy,” Mara replied. “I just wish we had known sooner what he went through as a child. I can’t imagine having dyslexia with a father like theirs.” She shuddered visibly. “It had to have been a nightmare for him.”

  Randi knew exactly how Evan’s childhood had affected him all the way into adulthood. “He was beaten pretty badly. You can still see the scars.”

  The kitchen went absolutely silent, all of the women suddenly staring at Randi.

  “Oh, my God. Grady told me his father didn’t beat him,” Emily said in a somber tone.

  “Jared said the same,” Mara related.

  “Dante, too,” Sarah added.

  “Our father was an asshole and verbally abusive. If he didn’t have something bad to say, he ignored us completely for the most part,” Hope explained. “But as far as I know, he didn’t ever beat any of us.” She looked directly at Randi. “Is it true? Did Evan really get beaten? Why wouldn’t he tell me that part?”

  Randi knew exactly why Evan had never told . . . now. She should have kept quiet. Evan putting himself out there as his father’s target for physical abuse had kept his other siblings from getting beaten. Even though she thought his siblings should know everything, she shouldn’t be the one to break that news. “I assumed you all knew. He said he told you about his childhood.”

  “We didn’t know that part,” Hope mentioned mournfully.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want you to know. It’s in the past, and I think Evan is trying to find his place in the family and in the world. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody else,” Randi said, her voice slightly pleading.

  All the women nodded their heads.

  “We won’t mention it. I want Evan to feel comfortable. But I still don’t understand. God, my father was an asshole!” Hope exclaimed, sounding angry for Evan. “It’s a wonder that Evan turned out to be so successful.”

  Randi shrugged. “It’s not really surprising. Dyslexic children can be very creative and extremely intelligent. Lots of famous people are thought to have been dyslexic: Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Pierre Curie, Picasso, Ansel Adams, Richard Branson, and Thomas Edison.” She paused to take a breath. “And there are so many more.”

  “Evan is just as smart as any other genius,” Mara confirmed. “How did he learn?”

  Randi sighed. “He learned by working so damn hard. It takes a lot of repetition, and learning to understand things in a different way. He had to learn the concept of phonics before he could actually apply it to reading. For Evan, dyslexia was one learning problem in a sea of strengths that he possesses. Time and perseverance helped him learn to read and write when he was struggling. Every child is different and has different levels of difficulty. Now we have reading programs that help, and audiobooks are a great tool if kids can read along with the audio.”

  “What makes him so uptight?” Hope asked inquisitively.

  “He’s anal,” Randi admitted. “But I think in his mind everything around him has to be running optimally for him to be functional. No highs and lows. No ups or downs. No shades of gray. It keeps him organized and focused. The problem with Evan is he’s never had time to be spontaneous or undisciplined. It’s not healthy for him now, even though it was probably his coping mechanism earlier in life. He’s always wanted to prove to your father that he can run his business well, be successful. Unfortunately, I think he’s still trying to prove something even though your father is gone.”

  “We want to help. What can we do?” Mara asked anxiously.

  “Just care about him and realize that he isn’t wired the same way as everybody else. He’s not going to change so much that he’ll never be an arrogant jerk sometimes, but he’s trying. He wants to be part of the family. Now that you’re all grown up and happy, he’s not quite sure where he belongs.” Evan could protest all he wanted, but he did want to be loved.

  “He belongs with the rest of us,” Mara said forcefully. “I don’t care if he’s arrogant. All of the Sinclair men are arrogant in their own way, but their hearts are good. I just want Evan to be happy, and so does everyone else.”

  The women nodded their heads enthusiastically.

  “It will just take time,” Randi admitted.

  “We aren’t going anywhere,” Hope said emphatically.

  Randi smiled, knowing the four tigresses in the room would grab onto Evan and never let go. The Sinclairs loved their family, and Randi knew they’d help him find out exactly where he fit in. He would eventually realize he really was loved.

  “Are you going to tell us what’s happening between you two?” Sarah asked bluntly.

  Randi flushed, turning her face away from the other women on the pretense of wiping the countertops. “Nothing. He’ll leave right after the party. He said he’s got an important meeting on Monday morning. We’re just trying to be . . . friends.” That sounded safe enough. “We got off to a bad start, but I think I’m starting to understand and like him a little,” she added.

  “I know that’s bullshit,” Hope answered. “I can see how he looks at you, and how he watches you constantly. But thank you for trying to help my brother.”

  “I’m not doing much, really. I’m just trying to get him to relax a little and enjoy life.” Randi sighed.

  “Well, he is more relaxed, and he looks like all he wants is to take you home and jump your bones,” Mara observed.