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.
Jenna took a sip of her wine and murmured, “I still can’t get over Mr. Lassiter leaving you so much money.”
Colleen’s stomach churned uneasily and she slapped one hand to her abdomen in a futile attempt to stop it. “Neither can I.”
She’d had several hours to think about it, yet it still didn’t seem real. Though everything Sage had said to her earlier kept replaying in her mind. The thought of gossip gave her cold chills, but...
“So, have you told your mother yet?”
“About the money?” She shook her head and then frowned at her reflection. Tugging at the scooped bodice, she tried to pull it a little higher, but no matter what she did, you could see cleavage. A lot of cleavage. “I never really noticed just how big my boobs are.”