“I won’t deny that my heart demanded I take you and your beautiful Libby under my wing,” Kate said. “When I see people who’ve been dealt an injustice, when I see them fighting valiantly, as you and Libby were fighting that devil, cancer, why I have to do what I can. You might call it a bit of a calling I have.”
“It’s the most wonderful calling, Grandma Kate,” Ginny said.
The two women shared a smile, and Rachel understood she certainly wasn’t the only woman who’d been lucky enough to be befriended by the nonagenarian.
“When I see women of strength, women of heart, who’ve been knocked down by life but who refuse to stay down, I can’t sit on the sidelines.”
“Thank you.” Rachel leaned over and kissed Kate Benedict’s cheek.
“Clint, I believe you have some news for us?” Kate asked.
“I do, indeed. I’ll be speaking later with the Dorchesters, so that they know, too. Buck Cosgrove changed his plea to guilty. That means Libby and Bonnie won’t have to testify.”
“That’s really good news,” Rachel said. “What made him change his mind?”
“According to his lawyer, he had a change of heart. He’d kept insisting that Libby couldn’t actually be his daughter, because she was a girl and because she got cancer.”
“How some people can continue in this day and age to deny science is completely beyond me,” Kate said. “Look at all the otherwise intelligent people who insist on believing that climate change is a hoax!”
“Some people get ideas in their heads and don’t want to hear any facts.” Rachel shrugged. “I’d heard Buck say both those things, not long before he left us. I didn’t try to reason with him, because I didn’t think, in the end, I’d be successful. I wonder what made him change his mind.”
“His defense attorney did, apparently,” Clint said. “He convinced Buck to take a DNA test.” Clint looked around the table. “The lawyer convinced him that presenting evidence at trial that Libby wasn’t his child might impact the case in his favor.”
Trace shook his head. “And I bet when the lawyer showed him the proof that she was his daughter, he told him that, going to trial, there wasn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t come down hard on him.”
“I think the word his attorney used was unmerciful,” Clint said. “So the lawyer approached the prosecutor, and they negotiated a slightly reduced sentence if he saved the state the cost of a trial.”
“You know, I’d done everything I could to leave a door open for the future. I’ve never trash-talked him, never said anything against him in Libby’s hearing. I didn’t think I had that right. I thought maybe, when she was older, she might be willing to give the man a chance.”
“He sure as hell slammed that door shut all on his own,” Brandon said.
“The thing about liars,” Grandma Kate said, “is that they begin to believe their own lies with such passion that, usually, no facts will convince them that they’re wrong.”
“I doubt Buck has really changed his mind,” Rachel said. “He was just doing what was in his own self-interest. And really—that’s no way to live a life, is it?”
“I’ve never thought so,” Kate said.
“Clint, thanks for letting us know,” Rachel said.
“The prosecutor’s office will likely call you on Monday, but I wanted to let you know right away.”
“We appreciate it,” Trace said.
The music, the laughter, and the company of good people surrounded Rachel. She was engaged to marry two of the most amazing men she’d ever met. Her daughter now had two forever fathers and family aplenty that would give her life a fullness, a richness, that no money could ever provide.
I don’t know how I ever got so lucky. That was a mystery destined to remain unsolved. But that was fine. Rachel would gladly spend the rest of her life being grateful for the kindness of strangers who refused to remain strangers.
She met first Brandon’s gaze and then Trace’s. In that moment she understood, from the love in their gazes, that their futures, together, would be brimming with love, happiness, and joy. It would be solid.
All her dreams, even the secret ones, had come true.
THE END
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