Their Goddess - The Roses, Book 3 (Completed)

Part 3. Noah

"She's back" I told my brothers as I look around our sitting room, my mind replaying the brief image I caught of her in the taxi on the estates CCTV, and I felt my body tense knowing we still had to make things right with Evie.
We knew she was coming but knowing she was within reach again made a huge difference to all our moods.
When she left two years ago we had been sent away so we missed seeing her before she went, that and the disappointment from the whole family, that had made us sit down with our dads and hash out a plan, we just had to hope we had not screwed it up too much, that she would give us a second chance.
We had dealt with Mandy's lies, talking to her parents and making sure everything came out, though even that didn't quite turn out how we expected it to.  And having met Mandy's parents, it answered a lot of questions about her behaviour, they had sent her to counselling at the suggestion of our mother and she was a much nicer person now.  Sometimes we saw her when we were in town or at a party but she was happy with her partner Diana and had apologised to us more than once for the problems she caused.
"You sure, you saw her?" Riki asked hopefully.
"Yep, the taxi just dropped her back" I confirmed and fidgeted, wanting to head for the door and go find and claim her, and looking at my brothers they were thinking the same.
A knock at the door made us tense "come in" I called and Mom came in with some bags of shopping.  Eli jumped up with me and we took the bags "what's all this?" I asked confused.
"I thought you boys would like your fridge restocked, that way you can be more independent whilst your plotting to charm little Evie" she said, laughing at our astonished faces.
Mom had been one of those who was most vocal about what we did, and didn't do, and had helped Evie with the America opportunity. "You're helping us?" I query, wondering what the catch is.
She plopped down onto the sofa, watching us "my boys, I am so proud of the men you are becoming, you made a mistake and you have learnt from it, however, you need all the help you can get with Evie, she's stubborn, feisty and will be on the defensive, because of what happened, just please think before you act"
"Your telling us it won't be easy" I laugh, none of us expect Evie to forgive us easily.
"You're up to the challenge, just give her a couple of days to settle back in before you start" Mom laughs back, holding her hands up so we can pull her up out of her seat.
"Be good, now I'm off to find your fathers" she grins and we watch her go.
We unpack the shopping and sit down at the table with a beer. "Two days?" I say but Riki groans "do we have too?"
"You heard mom, two days and then she's ours" I smile.
"Agreed" they smile back.

My dreams that night were of Evie when we first met at sixteen, how she would appear in the woods with her camera, the pranks we played on each other, then how it just stopped, why did it stop, had she felt threatened by me, or all of us, now I can remember the feel of her tiny body held against mine, when i held her at the wedding, while she fixed the phone she had hacked?
When I woke the next day it was to thick fog, making everything seem eerie and I groaned, We had agreed to help out fathers out with a new software programme, we had developed it for them, but the office team were struggling to get to grips with it.
The software allowed multiple cameras to be linked and track items or people, or search for a specific face in a crowd, it was complicated but also simple once you understood how it worked.  We had promised to do some one to one training with the staff, but that was before we knew she was back.
I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower, banging on their doors to wake them as I passed.

We walked down to the offices, each clutching a large coffee. Dad Hades opening the door for us when we arrived and looked at us "you look knackered, did you not sleep?" He asked and I looked at him.
"Evie's back, she arrived yesterday afternoon" I said and he laughed "so you all spent all night thinking about her?" He shook his head at us before, ushering us into the office where the team waited.
Once we had gone through the basics with them as a group, we each paired with a member of the team and pulled up a set of cameras from the estate.
I had the cameras from the gatehouse and access areas and quickly got down to explaining the new system.
Two hours later and John smiled finally understanding everything, just in time as a flash of red on the screen caught my eye. Evie. I watched her walk up the lane towards the gatehouse, where was she off to?
"Okay John, you have a target, the woman in red, now follow her using the cameras, if you can get a clear still shot of her face, then I can show you how to use the facial recognition link with the other computers." I smile as he quickly snaps a head shot of Evie and pulls it onto another screen, John rapidly working the system so he tracks her route to the bus stop, where she waits.
I look at her picture and sigh, she's even more beautiful now.
"Hey, how'd you get that?" Riki and Eli appeared behind me, holding out a coffee as they too stared at Evie's image.
"Practical test of Johns skills, he is following a suspect using the system" I tell them and we focus on John manipulating the cameras to observe Evie waiting at the bus stop.
"Where she off to?" Riki muttered, eyes fixed on her.
The bus pulling up blocked the cameras and then she was gone.
Riki and Eli moved back to their desks.
"Okay John, let me show you how this bit works and then your done, I'll leave you a challenge, set the cameras to notify me every time the woman in red enters or leaves the estate."
"Will do and thanks Noah, this system is great but I'm al little too old to get to grips with this new technology as easily as you lot."
I shake his hand and go off to update Riki and Eli.