When he was finally stuffed into the passenger seat with the door closed, his stomach rolled so badly, he had to close his eyes and breathe through his mouth.
Lane jumped in beside him and cranked the engine. There was a grind of protest from under the hood as things were put in gear, and then they …
When there was no forward motion, Edward glanced across. “What?”
In slow motion, his brother’s head turned toward him, a strange reserve hitting Lane’s too handsome face.
“What’s wrong?” Edward demanded. “Why aren’t you driving us out of here?”
Releasing his seat belt, Lane said, “Here, read this. I’ll be right back.”
As the set of documents fluttered over Edward’s legs, he barked, “Where the hell are you going?”
Lane pointed at the papers and got out. “Read.”
When the driver’s-side door was slammed in his face, Edward wanted to throw something. What in God’s green earth was Lane thinking? They had just broken into their father’s—
For some reason, he glanced down at what was on his lap.
And saw the words “Mortgage” and “Instrument.”
“What …?” he muttered, gathering the pages up and putting them in order.
When he was finished reading them, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back. In exchange for the good and fair consideration of “$10,000,000 USD or ten million US dollars” to Mrs. Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine … Sutton Smythe had an income stream of sixty thousand dollars a month until the full sum was repaid to her.
The kicker, of course, was the default clause: If the monthly interest wasn’t paid on time, Sutton could foreclose on the entire Easterly estate.
Everything from the mansion, to the outbuildings, to the farmland would be hers.
Not a bad risk profile, considering at last valuation about four years ago, the place had been thought to be worth about forty million dollars.
Edward cracked his lids again and riffled to the signature page. It had been previously notarized—regular practice at BBC on the QT. And William Baldwine had signed on the line that was marked Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine with his own John Hancock and three letters: POA.
Power of attorney.
So even though his mother’s name was the only one on the deed, and she no doubt had no knowledge of the agreement, and wasn’t going to see a penny of the money, everything was nice and legal.
Damn it.
When the door on his side of the truck opened, he cursed and shot a glare at Lane—
Except his brother wasn’t the one who’d done the duty with the handle.
No, Lane was standing off to the side, under a magnolia tree.
Miss Aurora had lost weight, Edward thought numbly. Her face was the same, but far leaner than he remembered. Then again, that was true for the both of them.
He couldn’t meet those eyes of hers.
Just couldn’t.
He did look at her hands, though, her beautiful dark hands, which trembled as they reached for his face.
Closing his lids, his heart thundered as the contact was made. And he prepared himself for her to make some comment about how horrible he looked—or even say something in a tone of voice that told him exactly how mortified she was at what he had become.
She even took off the baseball cap.
He waited, bracing himself—
“Jesus has brought you home,” she said hoarsely as she cradled his face, and kissed him on the cheek. “Precious boy, He has returned you to us.”
Edward couldn’t breathe.
Precious boy … that was what she had always called him when he was little. Precious boy. Lane was her favorite, always had been, and Max she had tolerated because she’d had to, but Miss Aurora had called him, Edward, precious.
Because she was old-school and the firstborn-son thing did matter to her.
“I prayed for you,” she whispered. “I prayed for Him to bring you home to us. And my miracle has come finally.”
He wanted to say something strong. He wanted to push her way because it was just too much. He wanted …
Next thing he knew, he had leaned in to her and she had wrapped her arms around him.
Much later, when everything had changed and he was living a life he couldn’t have imagined on any level, he would come to recognize … that this moment, with his head in Miss Aurora’s hands, with her heart under his ear, with her familiar voice soothing him and his brother watching from a discreet distance, was when he began to truly heal: For a brief instant, a split second, a single breath, his pilot light flicked on. The spark didn’t last long—the flare died when she finally stepped back a little.
But the ignition did, in fact, occur. And that changed everything.
“I prayed every night for you,” she said, brushing his shoulder. “I prayed and I asked for you to be saved.”
“I don’t believe in God, Miss Aurora.”
“Neither does your brother. But like I tell him, He loves you anyway.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Because what else could he say to that?
“Thank you.” She touched his head, his jaw. “I know you don’t want to see me—”
He took her hand. “No, it’s not that.”