That Summer Night (Callaways #6) (12 page)

"She's not going to make lunch either?" Shayla asked.

"I don't think so," Nicole replied. "She said she'd try to stop by but not to wait for her."

"I wonder when Sean and Jessica will get married," Emma said.

Nicole shrugged. "I have no idea, but they act like they already are. Sean has become quite the family man since he fell for Jess."

Emma smiled. "Who would have thought our rebel musician brother would settle down in a condo with a woman and her kid?"

"Not me," Nicole said. "I thought he'd be the last of our brothers to fall in love."

"I think the last one will be Colton," Shayla said, although she couldn't really imagine her wild twin brother settling down with one woman.

"He is the youngest," Nicole said.

"Maybe the youngest," Emma conceded. "But not the most entrenched in bachelorhood. That would be Burke. I wonder if he'll ever let himself fall in love again."

"He just has to meet the right person," Sara interjected. "Then everything changes."

"You guys look amazing."

They all turned around as Ria's niece Megan came into the dressing room.

At seventeen, Megan was a beauty with black hair and olive skin. As the maid of honor, she would be wearing a slightly different version of the gold bridesmaid's dress, but today she was dressed in a layered tank top, short white denim skirt with four-inch heels that showed off her long legs."

"We look good, because you picked out some fantastic dresses," Shayla said. "Thank you for not making us look like hideous bridesmaids."

Megan grinned. "I would not let that happen. I'm glad you're happy. Does anyone need an alteration? Mrs. Valensky is finishing up another fitting, but she said she'd be right in to make any adjustments you need."

"I think we're good," Shayla said, everyone else nodding in agreement.

"Great, I'll let her know. After you all change, we're going to lunch." She checked her watch, then frowned. "Ria was supposed to be here by now. I wonder where she is."

"I'm here," Ria announced, rushing into the room with an apologetic smile. Ria had light brown hair streaked with gold, her skin tan from all the hours she spent teaching sailing on the San Francisco Bay. While Ria usually preferred jeans and t-shirts, today she'd put on cropped turquoise blue pants and a loose-flowing floral top.

"Sorry everyone." Ria paused, emotion filling her eyes as she took in the sight before her. "Wow. I have the most beautiful bridesmaids in the world." She put her arm around Megan and gave her niece a hug. "Nice job on the dresses."

Megan beamed. "I told you they would be perfect."

"You were right."

"I want the wedding to be everything you ever dreamed," Megan said, her eyes filling with moisture. "You deserve it, Ria. You saved my life. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. And I wouldn't have a family like this if it weren't for Drew, and…" She paused, her voice choking with emotion. "I'm just so happy for you. I only wish Mom could see you now."

"I think somewhere she can," Ria said, giving Megan a quick hug. "But she wouldn't want either of us to be sad or to look back. We have a really bright future ahead of us—all of us. You, me and Drew are family now."

"Hey, don't forget about all of us," Emma cut in. "You're going to be Callaways. Not that you aren't already. From the first minute Drew brought you to the house, I knew you were both going to be a part of our lives forever."

"I knew it, too," Shayla said, not wanting Emma to take all the credit. "The way Drew looked at you made me want to cry."

"Someday a man will look at you that way," Ria assured her.

"I hope so." She shivered at the thought of Reid looking at her that way, but that was crazy. She wasn't even sure she was ever going to see him again. She'd done what Robert had asked. Reid had the notebook and he knew where to find his brother. Her part was done.

She wanted to be happy about that, so she forced a smile on her face as she changed the subject. "Are we meeting everyone else at the restaurant?"

"Yes, and we have to leave soon," Megan said, resuming her role as wedding coordinator. "I'll tell Mrs. Valensky we don't need alterations and meet you out front after you change."

"That girl is going to run the world," Nicole told Ria as Megan left the room.

Ria smiled. "No kidding. I'm going to miss her so much. I can't believe she's already leaving for college."

"She'll come home," Nicole said, putting her arm around Ria. "She's just ready to start her own adventure."

"I know, and I'm thrilled that she was able to get into college after missing so much school over the past ten years." Ria paused, looking around at the group. "I want to thank you all for going along with Megan's plans. Drew and I really wanted Megan to be a part of the wedding, to feel like she's a part of our love, and these traditions are important to her. If it had been up to me and Drew, we probably would have eloped."

Eloping would have been Drew's first choice, Shayla suspected. Her brother wasn't that excited to be part of big family events, especially when he was the star attraction. He didn't like all the attention. But he would do whatever Ria wanted, because he was madly in love with her. Shayla had never seen her brother as happy as he'd been the last year, and it was such a nice change. Drew had spent a lot of years away from the family when he'd been serving in the Navy, and she knew he'd been through some hard times. Not that he ever talked about those times. Like Reid, he was close-mouthed when it came to his service.

"You should get changed," Ria said. "I don't want to keep your mom waiting."

"What about Grandma?" Shayla asked. "Is she coming to lunch?"

Ria shook her head, a sad gleam in her eyes. "Your mom said your grandmother isn't having a good day, although I guess she started on a new medication a few days ago, and they're hoping it will kick in soon. I know Drew would really like her to be at the ceremony."

"What was the medication?" Shayla asked.

"Sorry I forget the name; it was really long," Ria said.

"No worries. I'll ask Mom about it."

"What's going on with that new drug you were working on in Colombia?" Nicole asked.

"I don't know now. The trial will have to be completely redone." She wished she could say they were closer to finding a drug that would save her grandmother. She'd gone to Colombia with high hopes, but those had been crushed. "But we don't need to talk about that. We're welcoming Ria to the family. That's all that matters."

* * *

After talking to Matt, Reid felt confident that his friend would at least be able to tell him what interest the FBI and State Department had in his brother. For more personal information, he was going to have to do his own digging, and he knew where that digging had to start—at home, the home of his parents, Gregory and Elyse Becker.

He hadn't spoken to them since the day his wedding was supposed to take place almost eight years ago. He could still remember in vivid, ugly detail the scene between the three of them.

They'd arrived at his apartment just after eight o'clock in the morning, the apartment he'd shared with Lisa for the past six months. He'd been drunk, having spent half the night nursing a bottle of vodka while Matt and Jared tried to talk him off the edge of doing something even more stupid.

When his parents came in, he'd been happy at first, but that had quickly changed.

"It's good you found out now that Lisa can't be trusted," his dad said as his mom gave him a quick hug.

The words went around in his head. He was drunk but not too drunk to realize that his father had pinned everything that had happened on Lisa. He was pissed as hell at her, hated her, in fact, but she hadn't been alone in the coat room at the restaurant where they were having the rehearsal dinner, she'd been with his brother. His twin brother! And that betrayal had hurt just as bad.

"Robert," he bit out. "He's not blameless. He destroyed my relationship. Don't you get that?"

"She seduced him," his mother interjected. "Robert is not experienced with girls the way you are. He got taken in. She used him."

He stared at her in astonishment. "Are you serious? That's how you see it?"

"Robert was lonely. He's been having a rough time. He was drinking at the rehearsal dinner, and he made a terrible mistake," she said.

"Is that what he told you?"

"It's terrible what happened," his mother said.

"But at least you now know what kind of woman Lisa is," his father added. "Better to know now."

"What would have been better is for this not to have happened at all," he replied.

His mom put her hand on his shoulder. "I know you're hurting, Reid. I'm sorry."

At last, an apology from someone; it had seemed to take forever for either of them to get to that point.

"Lisa's parents are canceling the wedding," his father said briskly. "If you need us to make some calls, we will."

He stared at his father. "How about you call Robert and tell him how disappointed you are in him, how he betrayed his own brother, how you don't think you can stand to have him in the house ever again? How about making that call? How about letting Robert know that just because he's smart doesn't mean he gets a free pass to do whatever the hell he wants to do."

His father's jaw tightened. "This is between you and Robert."

"You're both our sons," his mom continued. "We don't want to take sides."

He stared at them in amazement. Even after what Robert had done, they still couldn't let go of their idealized version of the golden boy. "You just did," he said. "You can go now."

"Reid," his mom protested. "Don't be like that."

"Like what? Myself? We all know that it's the three of you on one side and me on the other. We've been pretending we're a family for a very long time. But we're not. We never have been, and we never will be."

"Reid, that's not true," she said.

"Come on, Elyse, let him be," his dad said briskly. "When you want to talk, Reid, come by the house. Our door is always open."

Their door might have been open, but he'd never stepped through it, never spoken to them since that day. They'd emailed him over the years. And every once in a while when his mom had begged for him to just let them know he was okay, he'd written a few lines in return. As the years passed, those pleas got less frequent. They'd all gotten used to the distance between them. They'd accepted that that was the way things were going to be.

So why was he considering changing things now?

Because Robert was in trouble, and if there was anyone Robert had confided in, it was probably the two people who had been Robert's biggest cheerleaders since the day he was born. And there was only one person who could get his parents to talk about his brother, and that was him.

So he left San Francisco and headed south on the freeway. It took him almost forty minutes to get to the two-story Spanish-style house in Menlo Park that his parents had called home for thirty-five years. As he drove down the streets of his childhood, Robert's sketches played through his mind.

His brother had certainly captured the essence of their neighborhood, which was middle class suburbia. While Robert's sketches contained demons and monsters, the real town was a lot quieter, even a little dull, but that suited his parents who were also quiet and a little dull.

As he pulled up in front of the house, his stomach began to churn, and he had more than a few second thoughts about what he was about to do.

He glanced up at the front window, the one in which he'd so often seen his brother, including last night in the sketch in Robert's notebook. But there was no familiar face staring through those panes of glass. He wasn't going to find Robert in this house, but hopefully he would find some answers.

He turned off the engine and got out of the truck. He'd just hit the sidewalk when his father came out the front door. His steps slowed. When he reached the bottom of the steps, his father towered above him.

Gregory Becker was six-foot-five, a long drink of water as his grandmother used to say. At sixty-two, his black hair had peppered with gray, and his skin pulled taut against the strong bones in his face. His father had never been a man to smile much. In fact, he couldn't remember ever seeing his dad laugh at one of his jokes. His mother and Robert had been able to bring a smile to his face. But somehow Reid had never managed to make that happen, and he doubted today would be any different.

He climbed the steps, ignoring the painful cramp in his hamstring as he did so. His leg always felt worse after a long drive, but he was not going to limp in front of his father, no matter what it cost him. The one thing he did have in common with his dad was an excessive amount of stubborn pride.

"Reid," his father said warily as they faced each other. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"I'm surprised to be here. I need to talk to you about Robert."

A glimmer of something passed through his father's eyes. "Really? I didn't think you spoke to your brother anymore."

"I don't. But you do. That's why I'm here."

"What's going on?"

Before he could answer, his mother came through the door. Elyse Becker was also tall and thin, her brown hair and light green eyes matching his own. She was an attractive woman, and he found her long summer dress and sparkly sandals familiar and a little endearing. She'd never been a woman to wear jeans or slacks. It was always about colorful dresses and unique jewelry. The turquoise pendant around her neck reminded him of her Native American heritage. Her father, his grandfather, had made jewelry, and every Christmas he'd given his daughter a new piece.

It was funny the things he remembered now. He'd thought when he saw his parents that all he'd feel was pain and anger, but oddly enough he didn't feel much of anything. The monsters in his head were just two aging human beings.

"Reid," his mother said, a note of wonder in her voice. "I can't believe you're here. Is something wrong?"