Chapter 5 - Midnight in Oregon
Forty-eight hours later, the frantic pulse of Denver’s financial district felt like a lifetime ago.
We weren't in a high-rise corporate suite, nor were we trapped thirty thousand feet above the earth in a pressurized cabin. We were sitting on the hardwood floor of Cassandra’s sunlit living room in Portland, surrounded by scattered wrapping paper, half-built plastic toys, and the smell of cinnamon rolls baking in the kitchen.
Luke was sitting cross-legged between my knees, struggling mightily to attach the plastic wheels to a red fire truck, while Violet sat nearby feeding her gray stuffed elephant imaginary tea from a plastic cup.
Cassandra walked out of the kitchen holding two mugs of coffee, steam curling into the crisp winter air, and paused in the doorway. She watched me patiently guide Luke’s small fingers to snap the axle into place.
"You know," Cassandra said softly, leaning against the doorframe as she took a sip of her coffee, "your phone hasn't rung once in two days."
I looked up, offering her a tired, completely untroubled grin. "I left it in my winter coat pocket in the hall closet. And I turned the ringer off."
She walked over, kneeling beside us on the rug, and handed one of the mugs to me. Her fingers brushed mine—warm, familiar, and steady.
"Marcus called my cell yesterday," she noted, her green eyes twinkling with a mixture of amusement and lingering disbelief. "He wanted to know if I was holding you hostage."
I let out a soft laugh, taking the coffee. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him you were busy learning how to build a fire truck," she smiled, her expression softening as she reached out to wipe a smudge of red crayon off Luke’s cheek.
The silence that settled over the room wasn't the heavy, suffocating quiet of my old downtown loft. It was warm, vibrant, and alive with the sounds of a family finally being put back together.
I set my coffee mug down on the hardwood floor and reached out, gently taking Cassandra’s hand in mine. She didn't pull away.
"We have a lot of Christmases to catch up on," I murmured, looking from her to the twins and back again. "And a lot of history to rewrite."
Cassandra squeezed my fingers, her smile reaching her eyes for the first time since we met on that Oregon flight. "Well, Damon... you always were an overachiever when you set your mind to a project."
Before I could answer, the front doorbell chimed—a cheerful, melodic chime echoing through the quiet house.
I frowned, glancing toward the entryway. Nobody knew we were here. Marcus wouldn't dare track us down after my explicit instructions at the airport.
Cassandra stood up, wiping her hands on her jeans. "I'll get it."
She walked down the short hallway and pulled open the front wood door.
A moment later, I heard a sharp gasp leave her lips—a sound not of anger, but of absolute, paralyzing shock.
I carefully set Luke’s fire truck down, got slowly to my feet, and walked around the corner into the hallway to see who was standing on the porch.
Framed in the doorway, standing beneath the falling snow, was a tall, silver-haired woman in an expensive tailored coat holding an identical manila envelope to the one Cassandra had handed me on the plane.
May you like
She looked up, fixing her sharp, unmistakably familiar green eyes directly on me.
"Damon," my mother’s voice rang out, cold and unyielding against the winter air. "We need to talk about the family trust you thought was buried thirty years ago."
