“But I do,” Jameson announced with unexpected rowdy conviction. “SEAL teams consist of six platoons, Maddie. Each platoon is sixteen SEALs strong. Two officers. One chief. Thirteen enlisted. Trust me. My brothers’ll all be there. Then there’s Mom’s and Dad’s brothers and sisters. Two sets of grandparents. All my cousins.”
“And I have eleven brothers and sisters, dziewczynka. All live in America and all with sons and daughters, cousins you’ve never met. Your grandparents, Matka and Ojciec, my mom and dad, are still alive. They’ll be so thrilled to meet you. I’ll have to rent the hall in my church. It might be large enough, but if it isn’t…”
Maddie looked to Jameson. He was grinning. Like her. So many words she used were her mother’s. She traded Krystyna’s embrace for Jameson’s, knocking his cane to the ground as she burrowed under his chin.
“Thank you,” she told him as she circled her fingers around the back of his neck and pulled his forehead down to hers. “You gave me back my mom.”
“I think we should serve lemonade at our reception,” he whispered into her mouth. “What do you think?”
“I think I love you, Jameson Tenney. Forever and ever—”
“Amen,” he breathed.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Lexie. Whatcha doing, sweetheart?” Alex asked, not sure what his precocious little one was up to. Her bright brown eyes sparkled from the corner of the front room sofa where she sat with Bradley snuggled in her arms. With his face pressed to her—chest?
“I feeding baby, Daddy,” she said, the sarcastic “duh!” in her tone obvious, like he shouldn’t have asked such a silly question.
“Oh, my, no,” Kelsey murmured. She’d barely settled into the nearby rocking chair after making sure Lexie had a good hold on Bradley. Now she was back on her feet. “No, honey. Put your shirt down. Let me get you a baby bottle to feed Bradley.”
“No, Mama. I wanna feed him like you do. He likes it this way.”
Alex nearly roared with laughter the way Lexie had Bradley’s face plastered to her flat, little girl chest, as if she knew better than her mom and dad. Girls. God, he loved them. Never a dull moment at his house.
“Kelsey? This one’s all yours.”
Her brown eyes laughed back at him. “Just you wait. Bradley’s going to give you a run for your money one of these days.”
“Plan on it, Mama.” Nothing would make Alex happier.
After all was said and done and explained to the satisfaction of the authorities in Boston, he’d brought Mel home and put him to bed. The next day, he moved his old man out of the comfortable bedroom in the basement, upstairs to the bedroom closer to Lexie’s, two doors from Alex and Kelsey’s.
Since that telling night in Boston, Mel had been semi-faithful about taking his meds, with Alex riding shotgun to make certain he did. Mel had also explained more about his relationship with Pops Delaney and the Irish mob. His claim of being Pops’ lieutenant wasn’t verifiable, since everyone involved was dead, and, according to Tucker Chase, the FBI had no evidence he’d ever been to Ireland or in Boston. But none of those answers or explanations changed the fact that he’d deserted his family for a life of intrigue and dirty-dealing. That he’d left them as destitute as beggars on his folks’ doorstep, then missed most of his only son’s life. Not to mention his wife’s and parents’ deaths and funerals.
If Mel had ever been sharp enough to leave no trace behind, as he claimed, he would’ve been a completely different person than the father Alex remembered. Which cast doubt on every word out of the old con’s mouth. Alex didn’t fall for Mel’s stories. He was certain they were mostly lies. But Mel had gotten them to the Black Rose in time to extricate Maddie from certain death, and he had seemed to know details about Lucy Delaney that agreed with Jameson Tenney’s more trustworthy observations. Those two truths Mel told were undeniable.
Since that day, he’d also filled in a couple holes in a certain nine-year-old kid’s recollections. Not enough for Alex to give him a key to Kelsey’s castle, but enough he was willing to listen and hear the old guy out. Which brought peace back to the castle, as well as story time with Gramps for Lexie, whom he now remembered.
Boston authorities had turned Mel over to Alex for safekeeping. Said they didn’t send Alzheimer’s patients to jail. Which made him Alex’s father, once and for all. Mel was finally home and that was okay.
Alex now knew that Mel’s lucid moments, which was all that their time together in Boston had been, would occur less frequently from now on. Alzheimer’s robbed everything from its victims, and this might be the hardest battle Alex would ever fight. But what else did a person do when their long-lost parent finally came home? For that answer, Alex looked to Lexie.
At the moment, she’d traded Bradley for her Grampa. Mel had her on his knee while she read one of her favorite books to him, a story about a pink ballerina. They were sitting in the dining room, between the stone fireplace and the wide picture window that offered a magnificent view of the Shenandoah Mountains to the West. Whisper, the laziest guard dog in Virginia, and Lexie’s faithful shadow, snoozed on his side at their feet, while Smoke sat alert at the window.
Mel would offer an insincere ‘aha’ whenever Lexie pointed out something he needed to know about one of her beloved characters. She’d shove the book into his face when he dozed off, scolding him to ‘stay awake and listen, Grampa, until I’m through reading.’ That then, only then, could he take a nap. That reading was important; he should try it all by himself sometime.
It was plain to see she adored her Grampa, as much as Alex still adored his Gramps, Patrick Bradley Stewart. Full circle, damn it. Life had come full circle, and Alex was standing
