“Give me the spare key.” She steps forward and holds out her hand.
Her ringless left hand.
What does it matter? It’s not like you’re here to get her back.
I hold on to that thought, replaying it twice before sliding my usual smile into place.
Her nostrils flare. “The key, Callahan.”
I take a second to retrieve the silver key from my pocket. When Lana reaches for it, her fingers brush against my skin, sending a jolt of electricity straight through my body. She snatches her hand back and guards it against her chest.
She must have felt the same thing.
Great. At least I can go to sleep tonight knowing that although she might hate me, her body isn’t on the same page.
You’re ridiculous for believing that’s some kind of accomplishment.
She slams the door shut. I jump backward to avoid a potential broken nose and tip my luggage over.
I bang my head against the wood door with a groan. “What were you thinking by sending me here, Grandpa?”
The deadbolt slides into place before the light above me shuts off.
“You couldn’t bother waiting until I got into the car?” I don’t expect a response, but I say the words aloud anyway.
One by one, the lights surrounding the wraparound porch turn off, further emphasizing Lana’s point.
Get lost.
I release a heavy sigh as I return to my Aston Martin DBS. The engine rumbles to life, and I hold my breath for a few seconds, half expecting Lana to come out wielding her gun and threatening to call the cops again. A whole minute passes without the front door opening, so I consider it safe to turn on the overhead light and search my glove compartment for Grandpa’s letter.
The envelope is hidden at the very bottom, right where I left it almost two years ago when he passed. While my brothers rushed to complete my grandfather’s tasks to receive their inheritance and Kane Company shares, including Rowan working at my family’s fairytale theme park and Declan getting married, I did what I do best.
Avoid what scares me.
Procrastinating never gets you anything but trouble.
I trace over the broken wax seal of the Dreamland castle before I pluck the letter out from inside. My eyes shut, and I take a few deep inhales before unfolding the piece of paper.
Callahan,
If you’re reading this version of my final letter, that means I must have passed before we talked out our differences and forgave one another for what we said. While I’m devastated that this is the case, I want to make things right between us with my last will and testament. They say money can’t solve everything, but I’m sure it can motivate you and your brothers to step outside of your comfort zones and embrace something new. Out of my three grandchildren, you were always the risk-taker, so I hope you rise to one more challenge for me.
Between us, I tried not to play favorites, but you made it nearly impossible. There is something special about you—something that your brothers and father lack—that draws people in. You always had this light within you that couldn’t be snuffed out.
At least not by anyone but you.
It hurt me to watch what made you unique disappear as alcohol and drugs became your crutch. At first, I excused it because you were young and immature. I thought maybe you’d outgrow it. After rehab, you seemed better. It wasn’t until I really spent time with you at the lake a few years later that I realized you just got better at hiding it.
I will always regret the things I said to you during our last talk. Back then, I was angry at myself for not stepping in sooner—for not at least checking in on you once you were permanently benched from hockey—and doing the bare minimum because I was too consumed by my job to take the time. You were suffering after your injury in a way none of us could understand, although I should have made an effort to try.
I wish I had swallowed my pride and apologized sooner, so you didn’t have to read it in this letter. Better yet, I wish I had never used your addiction against you and said all those hurtful things I did in the first place, thinking it would be a push in the right direction.
You were never a failure, kid.
I was.
Invisible claws sink into my chest, digging their way through years’ worth of scar tissue to take a stab at my heart. Grandpa might regret what he said, but he was right. I am a failure. What else would you call someone who tried to get sober on two separate occasions, only to relapse not too long after? Weak. Pathetic. Miserable. The options are endless, but I think failure sums it up perfectly.
I take a cleansing breath and continue reading.
Getting sober isn’t a goal, it’s a journey. YOUR journey. And as much as I wanted you to get healthy, I went about it all the wrong way. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wonder what might have happened if I supported you rather than turned my back on you. Would you have been interested in finding your place within the company because you no longer resented its connection to me? Or would you have been excited to marry Alana and work on giving Se?ora Castillo all those grandkids she wanted?
There are a hundred different ways I want to show how I’m sorry, but my options are limited from the afterlife. Hopefully one day—if you pull yourself together and all—we can be reunited. But until then, my will is the best I can do.
So, to my little risk-taker, I have one thing to ask of you in exchange for 18% of the company shares and a twenty-five-billion-dollar inheritance:
Spend one last summer at the Lake Wisteria house before selling it by the second anniversary of my death.
I reread the sentence twice until everything clicks into place.
Oh, shit.
He wants me to live here with Lana.
Of course. And to make matters worse, as if they weren’t already, my grandpa puts the final nail in my coffin with a single request.
I ask that no one outside of your brothers and my lawyer knows the true reason behind selling the house until it is sold.
Fantastic. Whatever chance I had at appealing to Lana’s humanity or pocketbook is stolen away from me with one last wish from my grandfather. I swear he is probably sipping a strawberry margarita from the afterlife, gleefully watching my life implode.
Looks like all I need to do to earn my shares of the company and twenty-five billion dollars is convince Lana—the only woman in the world who would rather shoot my ass than save it—to let me sell the house.
Time to invest in a bulletproof vest.
3
ALANA
I slide the curtain back into place with a shaky hand as Cal’s taillights disappear down the driveway. Whatever semblance of control I had over my emotions breaks, reality punching me in the face with a set of brass knuckles.
Cal is back.
I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to send him running all the way back to Chicago.
Everything about seeing him again hurts. Like someone pulverized my heart until it is unrecognizable.
I hate how he still makes my chest ache from a simple smile, almost as much as I hate the way I wanted to pull him into my arms and beg him to never leave again.
Have you learned nothing after the last time?
I cut myself a little slack. Cal turned my life upside down again, and my mind is still trying to catch up. To ease the sick feeling building in my stomach that hasn’t gone away since he showed up at my doorstep, I swallow a few lungfuls of air.
He was never supposed to come back. The last time I saw him, he promised me as much.