“I know you don’t want to hear from me, but the job—”
“I understand it’s over between us, but the contract—”
“If you could only look at things from my perspective, I would—”
And the worst of all: “I’m sorry for what I did, baby. C’mon, talk to me, we can still make this work.”
“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it,” Morgan muttered to himself as he deleted the twenty-sixth email from Bentley in his inbox. The sooner they touched down in Minneapolis, the better. He’d turn off his phone, settle in with his sister and niece, and bask for a while in the warmth of their affection. Katie and Nicki were easy. It was everybody else who was hard.
Just before he turned his phone off, one new email came through. It was Ty’s professional address, the one he used to correspond with researchers, and the message was just three words long: “Miss you already.”
Morgan smiled as he read the message—succinct, like Ty always was, but perfectly heartfelt. Which reminded him, he had a present to open. He reached into the pocket where he’d tucked the bag and pulled it out. It was simple canvas, held shut with a bit of cordage. Morgan opened it and tipped the contents out onto his palm.
It was a bracelet, handwoven, with thin strands of leather. In the middle of it was the shining piece of shell that Ty had shown him back in his cabin. Its tentacle-like shape made a lot more sense now. Morgan grinned as he slipped it over his hand and tightened it around his wrist. Rather than typing out a response, he lifted his phone to his mouth and recorded a message. “I love the bracelet, it’s beautiful. And I miss you too, Ty. I’ll see you soon.” He hoped it would help Ty to be able to hear his voice rather than letting the standard text-to-speech automaton do his speaking for him.
Morgan felt the weight of eyes watching him. He looked up and saw an older woman in a long, thick coat, watching him from where she sat in the waiting area outside their flight. She smiled genially. “That was sweet of you,” she said. “It’s always hard to get pulled two directions at once, huh?”
Morgan nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
You don’t know the half of it.
Chapter eleven
Morgan hadn’t told his sister what time he was getting to town. He didn’t want her to come pick him up at the airport. Not because he wasn’t excited to see her, but because he had a special stop to make first. He was ninety percent sure he’d convinced his sister he wasn’t going to go through with his dramatic Christmas present, which made it all the more satisfying.
When he parked in her driveway three hours after his arrival, driving a brand-new Porsche Macan, he got out of the car and had just enough time to close the door before his niece, Nicki, threw herself into his arms with a squeal of joy. “Uncle Morgan!” He wrapped his arms around her waist and spun once, just to keep her laughing. “You’re finally here!Finally!”
He set her down, feeling the confused look on his face. “I told your mama I was arriving today.”
“Yes, and now it’s almost dinner time,” Katie said from where she stood in the doorway, hands on hips. Katie wasn’t prone todramatic gestures, but she must have gone through a seminar on power poses at some point because you didn’t need to know what she was saying to understand exactly how she felt. “We’ve been expecting you since lunch.”
Okay, maybe he could have done a better job of giving her the details.“Sorry about that,” Morgan said with a smile as he grabbed his bag out of the back seat. “I had to go pick up your car.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
He tossed the keys to her, enjoying the way she fumbled them in the air. “Merry Christmas.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am completely serious,” he said.
“But Morgan—”
“How can this be a surprise to you?” he asked, happy in the knowledge that it was, in fact, a surprise to her. “I said I was going to do it, and I did it.”
“I guess you did,” Katie said, her eyes darting between him and the car, like she still wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Pleasure warred with the need to assert her independence. She never wanted to be seen as using him for his money. Had been very specific, in fact, aboutnottaking as much as he wanted to give her.
“Just go with it,” Morgan said under his breath. “It would mean a lot to me.”
“Mommy, is this our car?” Nicki’s voice broke their stalemate, and Katie sighed.
“Yeah, baby,” she replied, “that’s our new car.”
“Really?” Her childish voice hit an octave that made Morgan wince as his niece barreled into him once more, squeezing with all the strength she had in her skinny arms. It was more than he’d expected, honestly. Tennis really had been good for her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” Morgan said, squeezing her one more time. “We can go on a ride in it soon, huh? Make sure your mom knows how to drive it.”
“Knows how to drive it,” Katie muttered under her breath as she ushered him through the front door of the house. “I’ll showyouwho knows how to drive it. Who taught you how to drive a car in the first place, huh?”
