She plops down next to me, our shoulders brushing as she settles herself. “This is gorgeous.” With a sigh, she leans back on her elbows and lifts her head, studying the open sky. “I could stay out here all night and take in the stillness of this place.”

“This is where my father’s ashes were spread.” The words, unrelenting, spill from my lips like a waterfall.

Fuck!

Regret seeps up my throat.

I should’ve kept that to myself.

Way to morbid the night up, Linc.

“Oh.” Dead air passes before her voice softens, and she stretches out her arm to rest her hand over mine. “That has to be hard.”

That’s an understatement.

It ripped me apart.

I was close with my father.

After graduating college, I took over the VP position at Callahan Holdings since Archer refused to. My father and I worked together every day and got along great, and then he hired Phil, his longtime friend. His shady friend who had too many ideas but not enough sense.

That friend convinced my father he could avoid repercussions from breaking the law because he was rich and had a company to stand behind. I warned him, threatened the friend, begged my father day after day to stop. It generated a wire of tension between us that was never uncut. He was breaking the law, and all I could do was sit back and watch the fire spread, praying to the good man above that my father would come to his senses. Archer, not giving a shit about family loyalty, resigned the moment he found out.

Me? I stayed. Callahan Holdings had been ingrained in our blood, and I’d never turn my back on blood.

Then I also went to prison with my father and Phil.

“He died while serving time in prison.” Another unstoppable confession.

“What?” There’s no stammer in her tone.

“He was in prison, had a heart attack, and died.”

She shifts to face me, and under the brilliance of the light seeping from the front porch, I spot the curiosity swimming in her eyes. I wait for the endless questions, but they don’t come. Cassidy, my mind-reading confidant, understands I’m here to reflect upon my past, my father, and not confess the wrongdoings of a man who’s no longer with us.

“It’s nice he can rest somewhere so peaceful … so pretty.”

I nod. “It is.”

I never perceived it that way, but Cassidy has a point. My father loved the lake; it was his resting place, so it only makes sense it’s where he was finally laid to rest. Criminal or not, he deserved a proper good-bye, a proper place for his soul to reside.