* * *
She hadn’t planned just how to give him his anniversary gift, hadn’t been entirely sure she could pull it off since she’d come up with the idea.
But when she’d considered giving it to him in Greece, alone, it hadn’t seemed the right way.
After the feast, with the family sprawled in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, with a dog snoring and a baby nursing, with Roarke’s great-grandmother knitting something or other, seemed like the right way.
“Are you sure now?” Sinead asked when they went into a parlor, into a cupboard. “I haven’t seen it or—at great cost, I’ll add—given in to the temptation to take a peek, but I know the idea of it, and there’ll be tears. Some will be my own, I expect.”
“I think it’ll mean more to him this way.”
She hoped so.
She carried the brown-wrapped gift to where Roarke and his uncle held a conversation having to do with sheep.
“A few days late—in case you thought I forgot.”
She knew she’d surprised him—a rare thing—when she handed him the long, wide package.
“Tear it open, would you?” Sean demanded. “Nan wouldn’t so much as give us a hint what it was.”
“Then we’d best find out.”
More family crowded in as Roarke removed the paper, the stabilizers.
And inside, found family.
The painting held the farmhouse, the hills, the fields in the background. And everyone stood together—the whole insane mob of them, young, old, babes in arms, Eve and Roarke centered.
Sinead stood behind Roarke’s right shoulder. Roarke’s mother, lost so long before, at his left.
“It’s the lot of us. Is that my aunt Siobhan, Nan?”
“It is, aye. Aye, that’s our Siobhan. Ah, it’s beautiful. It’s brilliant.” Turning, she pressed her face to her husband’s shoulder. “And here I go, Robbie.”
“This is … Eve.” Roarke looked up at her, his heart in those wild blue eyes. “I have no words.” He reached for her hand. “You’ve put Summerset in it.”
“Well.” She shrugged at that. “Yancy painted it.”
“I see the signature. It couldn’t be more precious to me. How did you manage this?”
“Sinead sent photos, and Yancy figured it out.”
“Hand it over, lad.” Robbie took it from him. “And stand up and kiss your wife.”
“That I will. I love you, beyond reason.”
When he kissed her, the family cheered. Then crowded around to get closer looks at the gift.
* * *
Young and old, the Irish partied well into the night. Music—which meant singing, dancing—plenty of beer, wine, whiskey, and yet more food. Since the patch of blue had spread its way over the sky, the revelers spilled outside to keep right at it under moon and starlight.
When Eve found a moment to sit—hopefully far away enough so no one would pull her into another dance—Sean settled beside her with a plate of the cookies they called biscuits.
“I liked the case about the girls taken, then locked into that terrible school place. Well now, I didn’t like how they were shut up in there,” he qualified, “but how you got them out again.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Oh, from the Internet,” he said easily, and bit into a cookie. “And there was talk of it all even in Tulla. I heard my own father saying how proud he was our own Eve freed those poor girls from a terrible fate, and saw those who harmed them got their comeuppance right enough.”
“I had some help with that.”
“Well now, of course. You’re the boss of the police, and wasn’t it fine meeting them when you came last? So, when you found the bad ones, did you stun any of them?”
What the hell, she thought, and took a cookie from the plate. “As a matter of fact.”
“Brilliant, as they deserved it and more. And did you have a chance to—” He punched a fist in the air. “And get in a good one.”
“Yeah, I got in some good ones.”
“As did Roarke, I’m sure, as they all say he fights like a demon.”
“He holds his own.”
“The one who came here in the spring meant to hurt my nan, and any of us he could.” Those bright eyes darkened with a hard fury she not only understood but respected. “He came to hurt Nan, as it would hurt Roarke.”
“He’ll never touch your nan, or any of you.”
“And that’s the truth of it because you locked him up. I think I’ll not be a farmer, even as I love the farm. When I think on it, I think I’ll lock people up—the bad ones, of course.”
“There’s more to it than that, kid.”
“Oh sure and there’s more. You have to train so you know how to protect people, and take an oath. It’s why I like reading about your cases. And I watched the vid about you and Roarke and the clones.”
He looked around at his family with those green Brody eyes.
“Tulla’s a quiet place, but still people need protection, don’t they then? I saw the dead girl last year, and she didn’t get protection in time. Things can happen here as well. So I think I’ll be a cop who loves to farm.”
“A good way to have it all.”
He gave her a quick nod as if that settled it. “That’s my thinking on it.”
When she mulled it over, she’d been his age, even younger, when she’d decided to be a cop. Different reasons, and thank Christ for that, but the same goal.
“Maybe when you come to New York for Thanksgiving, you can come into Central.”
His face didn’t light up. His whole being illuminated. “Do you mean it?”
“It’ll depend on if I have an active case, and—”
“I won’t be any trouble at all. I talked to the Captain Feeney when he was here, and maybe I can see the EDD as well? It all seemed so grand in the vid.”
Too much wine, too much relaxation, she thought, and she’d backed herself right into a corner. “We’ll try to work it out.”
“I have to tell Da!”
When he barreled off, Roarke took his place.
“And what was all that? It looked like you brought his Christmas early.”
“I somehow sort of offered to bring him into Central when they come for Thanksgiving.”
When Roarke laughed, kissed her cheek, she shook her head.
“He’s slippery. They’re all slippery when you come down to it.” She picked up her wine, again thought what the hell, and took another sip. “He reminded me of me—without the baggage. Anyway.” This time she shrugged. “He’s following my cases on the Internet.”
“Ah, well of course. You’re a hero to him.”
“If he wants to be a cop, he’ll have to learn the difference between a cop and a hero.”
“From where I sit, they’re one and the same.” He took her hand. “The painting, Eve.”
She smiled, smugly. “Nailed that one.”
“You undid me. How did you think of such a thing?”
“You have to ask yourself what do you get for the man who if he doesn’t have it already, it’s because it hasn’t been invented. Then he’ll figure out how to invent it and have it anyway. Has to be personal. So, chronologically, Summerset found you, we found each other, you found all of them.”