LITMIR.BIZ

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knew Jacinda might be worried about her, but her coworker also was ready to share a laugh at her streaks of stubbornness. “I said what I had to say.”

      “Fist bump, chica.” Jacinda extended her hand.

      Fiona complied. “And...I’ll be taking a two-week vacation.”

      “Hot damn. You got a double win—telling off the boss and heading to the beach.”

      “Who said anything about the beach?” Fiona shook her head at Jacinda’s excitement.

      “That’s where I’d go.”

      Fiona shrugged. The response seemed appropriate, given she hadn’t weighed her options. It had been a while since she took time off. Real time off that lasted for more than a long weekend. The sun hadn’t warmed her body in a while. And as for walking barefoot in the sand, that hadn’t happened in a couple years. The idea of kicking back felt strange and wrong to entertain when she had a caseload the height of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. But the matter was no longer hers to consider.

      “Look, do I need to give you a list of destinations to visit?”

      Fiona shook her head. Any suggestions courtesy of Jacinda might land her at an expensive resort halfway around the world. Her colleague loved to cherry-pick interesting male partners on her various trips.

      For her part, Fiona preferred a good book and a glass of wine—alone. She was over the manhunt for a good while. Her recently ended relationship with a man who was oversexed, uncommunicative and bad at kissing helped to instill her current priority system.

      Desperate wasn’t her middle name.

      * * *

      Later that day, Fiona gathered at her cousin’s house in Midway, New York, where her other cousins waited. Belinda’s place was often their mutually agreed setting to catch up. After her latest drama, the others wanted a blow-by-blow account of her issues on the job.

      “Wow. What a story. You are lucky that your boss didn’t write you up.” Her cousin Dana interrupted for the umpteenth time, no longer trying to hold in her amusement.

      “Humph!” Fiona hadn’t stopped fuming, although she had to admit that her punishment could have been worse.

      “Now you can go with us to the Hamptons.” Belinda emerged from the house and stepped onto the deck. One hand balanced the drinks and the other held a plate with slices of her homemade peach-almond cake.

      “Grace doesn’t know my situation changed.” Fiona accepted the proffered iced tea and helped by taking the plate of sliced cakes and setting it on her lap.

      “No, you don’t.” Dana promptly removed the plate and placed it on the small table centered in front of the three women. “Belinda, you always have the best snacks for our gab sessions.”

      “My pleasure, ladies.” Belinda looked pleased at their murmurs of appreciation as they munched and washed down the treats.

      The September weather still held on to the last dregs of summer’s humidity. Upstate New York hadn’t escaped the oppressive blanket of hot and sticky temperatures. But for Fiona, the hellish conditions felt right for sitting on the deck, soaking up the sun, pigging out on cake and drowning her sorrows in iced tea.

      Belinda’s home was always the cousins’ fun hangout place. Although her cousin’s charming boyfriend had become a familiar presence, Jesse Santiago knew when the women needed their alone time. Now that Jesse had permanently closed the door to his soccer career to run his father’s construction business, he had blended into Belinda’s world and shared her love for horses. Most of his free time, except for when he was with Belinda, was spent riding around the large property or performing any rehab needed on the physical structure of the equine therapy facility.

      After sampling another slice of cake, Fiona pointed at Dana. “I don’t hear you confirming my statement that Grace doesn’t know about my situation.” Fiona unfolded her legs from her seated position and sat up. “Please tell me that you didn’t throw me under the bus with our grandmother.”

      “Way under the bus, like six feet under.” Belinda tossed back her head as she expelled a hearty laugh.

      “Why should we be the only ones that have to go to the Hamptons?” Dana’s mouth closed into a pout.

      Belinda took up the defense against Fiona. “You know Grace feels that it is a family tradition to have one vacation together—our annual Meadows family duty.”

      “But it’s not really a vacation. Our family under one roof is chaos. Drama with a capital D. That’s not a vacation. Besides, let’s stop pretending that we are this family dynasty, like the Kennedys or Rockefellers, operating like we are like this.” Fiona held up her hands pressed together with interlocked fingers to indicate closeness.

      She didn’t care that the family did show up to the various gatherings. If her grandmother didn’t insist on having her usual expectation heeded, the family wouldn’t operate like a close-knit unit. The reason they did was clear—it wasn’t because they wanted to be together.

      Despite all of Grace’s accomplishments, she couldn’t brag about the bond between her and her three daughters. Their mothers all had a mixture of respect and awe for Grace, but all had endured her hands-on, sometimes manipulative nurturing.

      Verona, Fiona’s mother, who also was Grace’s eldest daughter, had the most strained relationship, with no signs of improvement over the years. Whatever history had passed between her mother and Grace remained unknown, although their measured approach to each other was quite visible. Regardless of her cousins’ endorsement, going to the Hamptons did not rank as one of Fiona’s favorite ways to spend family time.

      Dana leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “What else would you be doing? You are now a benched superhero of the police department. And for the record, I plan to continue this family-vacation tradition when that time regretfully comes.” Her dark brown eyes reflected sincerity.

      “Okay, now that you’ve taken over from Grace to be the CEO of the family media conglomerate, don’t let it go to your head. You’re supposed to be on our rebel side,” Belinda reminded her.

      “Yeah, well...” Dana swallowed the rest of her defense in a long drink from her glass.

      “Maybe I can grovel and get my vacation postponed.” Fiona’s forehead was still furrowed as she resumed reclining with her legs tucked to the side. She munched on a piece of ice.

      “From what you’ve told me, I foresee that if you step foot into that office, you’ll regret it. Your boss may be new, but he seems to be as tough as a junkyard dog. So go ahead and disobey his order. I’ll sit back and wait to tell you ‘I told you so.’” Dana’s mouth pursed full of smugness.

      “You were always the mean one,” Fiona accused. Defeat set in, ratcheting up her grumpiness.

      “That’s why she’s running the Meadows empire. Someone’s got to walk in Grace’s queenly footsteps.” Belinda jabbed her thumb in the air toward their youngest cousin.

      “Stop calling Meadows Media an empire. And I’m not mean. I’m doling out the appropriate advice, that’s all.”

      Fiona ignored the bickering and drained her glass to chew on more ice. “Looks like I’m going to the Hamptons.” Something she’d suspected she’d get roped into when the invitation had come from Grace two months ago.

      Grace had a reputation for approaching each granddaughter with an invitation to join Meadows Media. Her invitation was predictable and always managed to tweak a bit of guilt from the ones who didn’t join the company after graduating from college.

      “Let’s move this inside now. I’m melting and I just got my hair done. My honey and I are going on a date tonight.” Belinda stood and brushed off the crumbs.

      “I don’t want to hear about any lovey-dovey stuff.” Fiona

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