“Don’t be sarcastic, Cassidy. It isn’t ladylike.” Vinegar lady opened her purse and removed a card. “This is my attorney. He can help work out the details.”
Nic crossed his arms and leaned against a wall, glad to have some plaster to hold up his fatigued body. Cassidy glanced his way as if just remembering he was there. Something flickered behind those baby blues. He gave her a wink of encouragement. She glared back, clearly not wanting him to stay. Call it macho, call it stubborn, but the notion made him even more determined to stick around.
“I don’t know what you mean, Grandmother.” Cassidy took the card, studied the face, turned it over and then back again. “Why do we need a lawyer?”
“Issues of estate. The problem of Alexander.”
Cassidy’s hackles rose. She stood up straighter. “Alex is not a problem.”
“You know what I mean, dear. He’ll need new parents, although the Browns may have some notion of taking him on.”
Taking him on. That’s the way Grandmother had thought of her and Janna, as unpleasant responsibilities she had incurred. The notion would have hurt if Cassidy hadn’t always known.
“No,” Cassidy said with surprising firmness. “Not strangers.”
“Be reasonable, Cassidy. The child is still young enough to be acceptable to adopters.”
“I don’t want someone to take him because he’s acceptable. I want him to be loved.”
Grandmother huffed; her mouth puckered tighter. “I was afraid you’d be like this. You and Janna could be so stubborn at times, binding together in your fits of determination.”
Trembling with fatigue and emotion, Cassidy pressed a hand to her forehead. A dozen issues she’d never considered or discussed with Janna filtered through her head. The only thing she knew for certain was that she, not Grandmother, needed to make this decision. She prayed she was strong enough to stand against the powerhouse woman whose iron hand ran a company with several hundred employees.
Nic, whom she’d almost forgotten, surprised her by pushing off the wall and coming to stand beside her. He brought the nauseating scent of smoke with him. Why had he come back when she’d been more than clear that she neither needed nor wanted his interference?
He took one of her hands. She knew she should yank it away, but she was too weak and empty to fight both Nic and her grandmother. When the firefighter gave her fingers a squeeze, she realized how cold she’d become since Grandmother’s arrival. How sad that a virtual stranger—even one she didn’t particularly like—could provide more comfort than her own flesh and blood.
Considering that painful fact, maybe Grandmother was right. Perhaps adoption was the answer.
She pulled her hand away, knotting it with the other in front of her. Nic’s eyes bore into the side of her face, but she kept her gaze trained on Alex.
Dear Lord, help. My mind is so scattered right now.
As though someone had asked for his input, Nic said, “You need some time to think. Nothing should be decided today when you’re still in shock.”
Grasping that tiny bit of good sense, Cassidy nodded. He was right. She was running on fumes and emotion. How could she make an intelligent decision about Alex’s future in this condition?
Grandmother did not agree. “The sooner you settle things, the better. You have a busy career and Alexander has nowhere to go. I am simply not up to taking on another child.”
“Grandmother, please,” she interrupted before Eleanor could begin her diatribe on the supreme sacrifice she’d made when Cassidy’s parents died. Cassidy was determined that Alex would never feel the sting of believing he was an intruder living in someone else’s home. She wanted better for her nephew and with God’s help, she would figure out something.
Eleanor had opened her mouth to say more when Beverly and Thomas Brown entered the room. Both of them looked completely shattered. Cassidy rushed to greet them.
“I am so sorry,” she said to Brad’s mother. “I don’t know what else to say.”
The matronly woman fell against her with a sob. “I can’t believe this. I kept hoping we would get here and discover some kind of ghastly mistake had been made.”
Hadn’t she prayed for the same thing?
Thomas, a portly man, stood by looking helpless, his jowls droopy with sorrow. “How could this have happened?”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy said honestly. “I suppose the fire marshal will investigate.”
She glanced at Nic, amazed that he hadn’t left. He nodded and extended a hand to Thomas. “Nic Carano. I was at the scene last night.”
“Did you see them?” Beverly, eyes puffy and red, pulled away from Cassidy to face the fireman. Her short brown hair, shot with gray, was in disarray as if she’d run her hands through it over and over again in her distress. “My son and his wife?”
“Yes, ma’am. I brought them out.”
“Are they certain of the identities?”
The heartbroken mother was grasping at straws, hoping for a miracle that would not come. Cassidy’s stomach rolled, sick with grief.
“I don’t know about that, ma’am, but I can assure you they died peacefully and easily in their sleep. Smoke inhalation. No pain. No suffering. No fear.”
Thomas clapped a huge paw onto Nic’s shoulder, mouth downcast, as he drew in a shuddering breath and then nodded once. “Thank you for that. It helps.”
The atmosphere ached with sorrow.
“Yes, sir.”
“Nic rescued Alex, too,” Cassidy said, glad for the first time that Nic had returned to the room. His professional ease and knowledge of the situation seemed to be exactly what the devastated Browns needed.
“Thank you, Nic,” Beverly said and hugged him. The firefighter embraced her as if he’d known her forever. No surprise there. Nic Carano was comfortable with people, especially women.
Cassidy’s grandmother had kept her peace for about as long as she could. “We need to plan services, I suppose.”
The other four turned to look at her. Perched on the chair like a queen on her throne, Eleanor would run the show or die trying.
Somehow Cassidy stumbled through the visit to the funeral home, the preparations for the services and the double funeral four days later. In the midst of making all sorts of arrangements and decisions she hadn’t realized were necessary, she’d warded off Grandmother’s attempts to “deal with the issue” of Alex until after the funeral.
She and the Browns had taken turns sitting with the baby at the hospital where they’d discussed the painfully few options for her nephew, but none of them were emotionally ready to make a permanent decision.
To Cassidy’s discomfort, Nic Carano had returned every day as well, sending the baby into an excited display of arm and leg pumps and slobbery smiles. Cassidy, on the other hand, suffered a pain the size of Dallas. Every time she saw him, she had an unbidden vision of the yellow-clad fireman carrying Janna from the house, limp and dead. He was too much of a reminder of that night, of her sister’s last hours and moments.
Out of uniform, he looked different, more like the wild and crazy Nic in funny T-shirts she remembered. She couldn’t understand why he kept coming around. Surely not to see her. Having had her fill of womanizing playboys, she’d let him know from the start that she was not interested.
Alex was the only explanation. Through the shared tragedy, Nic had bonded with the child. That’s all it could be.