Free Fancy Dancer by Fern Michaels Page B

at the same time.
    Alex reached for his coffee and drained it in one long gulp as the two old lawyers packed up their worn, battered briefcases. He couldn’t take his eyes off the two papers sitting in front of him. He had to fight with himself not to black out again. The two men were looking at him and saying something. He needed to listen, but it was hard to focus.
    Both lawyers held out their hands. Alex extended his hand.
    “Our hope is that you are the same caliber of young man Jake is. If you haven’t figured it out by now, we want you to know he’s a fine young man. He’ll never steer you wrong. For a little while he took the wrong path, but he’s back on track now. His feet are planted firmly on the ground, and he’s going in the right direction. It was that promise, you see, that he couldn’t fulfill no matter how hard he tried—and he did try, as we all did—that made him go off the track. What you do with your life is up to you. Give your mother our regards, young man.”
    “I will,” Alex managed to say. “Hey, just for the record, I was doing just fine, and so was my mother, before Jake and you guys came into our lives. Yeah, we didn’t have enough money for the twenty-percent down payment on that air-conditioning unit, but we managed. Just so you know.”
    The Symon brothers had no idea what Alex was talking about, so they just nodded sagely.
    Alex watched the two lawyers walk away. His head was still spinning, so he walked back into Starbucks and ordered a straight-up black coffee. He carried it back to the table and sat down. He unfolded the papers and stared down at the numbers until his vision blurred. Son of a gun!
    Alex burned his tongue on the coffee, but he barely noticed. He looked down at his watch. Lunch would be almost over at Rosario’s Bistro. It was just five blocks from where he was sitting. He folded the papers and jammed them into his pocket. Carrying his coffee and spilling half of it, Alex started to sprint to the bistro.
    When his mother saw the expression on her son’s face, she dropped a platter of pizza and ran to him.
    “It’s okay, Mom. Come with me, out back. I have to talk to you. Now! ”
    Sophia Rosario blindly followed her son as her help swooped in to clean up the spilled pizza and apologize to the customer, who just laughed.
    “Listen, Mom, don’t say anything until I’m finished. Remember now, I’m a lawyer, so what I’m telling you is true. And there’s no way out. We have to accept this.”
    “Just tell me, Alex.”
    So he did. Alex was glad he had his hand on her arm, or his mother would have had the same reaction he’d had, and he told her so.
    “Sixty-seven million dollars! And it’s all ours?”
    “Yes, Mom. But that’s only half of it. Look at the back of the paper. That shows what we now have an interest in; that’s almost a hundred million more.”
    Sophia closed her eyes and nearly swooned a second time. “This can’t be happening to us, Alex. We didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
    “Mom, I tried telling them that. It doesn’t matter. And Jake wanted to give it all to us. We can talk about it tonight when I get home. I want to go out to see Jake. I need to talk to him.”
    “Yes, honey, you do need to talk to your brother. Alex, does this mean I can tell my employees we can now give them health insurance and give them a bonus for their hard work and loyalty and maybe give something to Abby for her new baby, maybe help her out with her day-care bills?”
    “That’s what it means, Mom. It also means you can give Father John and the parish a big check for the building fund. Might be nice if you gave it in Jake’s mom’s name.”
    “Oh, you are such a smart son,” Sophia said, pinching Alex’s cheeks. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
    “No, Mom. You do realize this is going to change our lives, don’t you?”
    “No, Alex, it won’t. We won’t let it. No, no, no. We are who we are. I will not allow anything to change