Is this destiny?

Next day, after breakfast, guys geared up for outside weather, took oversized backpacks from the storage which were prepared in advance and headed to their (team building) mission.

It is a nice day in the mountain. Light wind lifted up flurries which filled the air.

"When will you come back?", Sophia asked.

Jeff and Felix looked at Aiden. Aiden is the only one who knows details what they are about to do, and because of the mess in last few days, he didn't get a chance to tell them.

"Maybe around lunch time? It depends how fast we finish our task." He vaguely explained before returning his focus on Sarah.

"Task?" JoAnna was annoyed that Aiden ignored her.

Aiden gave a quick kiss to Sarah and headed out.

"Take care. It might snow soon." Sophia told Felix before giving him a long kiss.

"I grew up in Canada. Little snow is nothing." Felix assured her with a smug expression before heading out.

Sisters watched their men walk away toward the forest.

"What do you think they will be doing?", JoAnna was curious and worried. Felix might be a Canadian-snow-man, but her Jeff came from the desert! And he is NOT an outdoorsy type!

"Whatever it is, it must be something primitive." Sarah commented.

"Primitive?", JoAnna frowned.

"Yes, like cave-man-survival thing. Look." Sarah pointed at the table next to the door. "They left their phones behind."

"How can it be a survival? For only few hours? They will barely get hungry by then." Sophia pointed out a flaw in Sarah's guess.

"And I saw them packing thermoses with hot tea and coffee." JoAnna added.

Sarah had to admit that her theory does not make sense. Who goes on a survival mission with tea and coffee and will be back after few hours?

Three of them moved to the living area and continued guessing: from hunting foxes to collecting mystery-snow-berries to taming a bear to finding an abominable snow man. Each idea sounded a bit crazier than the previous one, but the girls had fun imagining guys actually doing those things.

"Any ideas why they are doing this?", Sophia asked.

JoAnna shook her head while Sarah was in thoughts.

"Aiden started looking into this right after your wedding. Something happened then." Sarah said after some time.

"At my wedding?" Sophia was surprised.

"Or few days before." Sarah was confident.

JoAnna's face lit up. "Do you remember how guys acted strangely on the morning of big sis's wedding when we all met in the hallway?"

Sophia nodded. "They took their time talking, and then they were weird during breakfast. I assumed that Felix is nervous because of the wedding. But now that I think about it, why would other two be nervous?"

Sarah shook her head. "Aiden never told me what they talked about… I asked more than once, and he always avoided it."

JoAnna thought of something: "Didn't you ask Eve?"

"Oh!" Sarah remembered that she can ask Eve. She hopped off the sofa and dashed into the room.

Few minutes later, she was back on the sofa with her laptop, and girls watched a video showing three guys descending the stairs and Edward stopping them.

"They went into study!" Sarah frowned.

"Why does that matter?" JoAnna didn't understand Sarah's reaction.

"No video. Dad disabled it." Sarah explained.

"Why would he do that?" Sophia asked.

Sarah shook her head indicating that she does not know. "Aiden has a crazy theory that dad has some secret side of him which we don't know about."

Sophia and JoAnna exchanged glances, and Sarah didn't miss it. "Do you know something I don't?"

"Nothing concrete…", Sophia admitted. "But don't you find it strange that with all these crazy things happening with us, and even some things happened in our own house… that dad is uncharacteristically oblivious? He always went into overprotective rage mode where he demanded explanations even for small knics and bruises, and now he is... quiet. Not even asking what happened."

JoAnna nodded in support of this and added: "I have a feeling that he knows much more than we think. I remember one recent talk related to Jeff. Dad spoke about things I never mentioned, like that Jeff was tied up to Isabella when we started dating… and he even knew that Jeff suggested me to join White corp."

"You will join White corp.?" A bright smile bloomed on Sarah's face. She likes the idea of JoAnna working there.

"Stay on topic." JoAnna reminded her.

"And… do you remember Mark?" Sophia asked Sarah.

"Yes. Mom cleaned up that." Sarah could not forget that creep even if she wanted to. And she cringed at the thought that she used to consider him a brother-in-law material.

"Correct, mom cleaned up." Sophia confirmed. "However, dad was always 'Mark-this, Mark-that'. And persistently invited him to every event we had… and after he…" Sophia frowned. "After that incident, dad never mentioned Mark again. Not even once. He didn't even find it strange that Mark didn't show up at work!"

Sophia and JoAnna saw that Sarah is staring at them and processing what she heard. Somehow, Aiden's crazy theory didn't sound so crazy anymore.

JoAnna tapped Sarah's head, waking her up from her daze. "What tipped off Aiden?"

Sarah told them how Aiden doubts that only with his regular job Edward can afford the property in New Mexico and all his 'little toys' in that underground garage.

Sophia and JoAnna praised Aiden for noticing this. Conclusion is that their dad is definitely hiding some side of him, and that side is earning him a lot of money.

"Do you think dad is a secret agent?", Sarah's imagination started running wild. But no matter how much she tried, Edward didn't look like 007-type of guy.

"Secret agents need to travel, right? And dad is mostly stuck at home…" JoAnna's voice trailed off.

"In his study." Sophia finished her sentence.

Three sisters exchanged glances: whatever he is hiding, it's tied up to his study!

"Oh, this is fun and frustrating at the same time!" JoAnna exclaimed. "I love that we have mysteries to solve, and I'm frustrated that we don't see answers!"

"We can still find out what happened that morning in the study. There is no video, but audio is there. We can listen." Sarah anxiously started a video recording from that morning, unsure what to expect.

About fifteen minutes later, three sisters sat in a daze.

Sarah spoke first: "I can't believe that dad kept tabs on them. Based on this, he used Eve to find out when and how they got in. Eve would not tell him that unless he asked. Did he know that they will come?"

JoAnna shook her head. "It seems he knew more than we did. But what stuns me is that he used 'trust' speech on them. And he got them to do something crazy because of that!"

"Aiden mentioned team-building activities." Sarah was concerned and she looked through the window outside. It started snowing!

JoAnna followed Sarah's line of sight and looked through the window as well. "Oh, it's snowing! I would enjoy this if the guys are not outside. And they left their phones behind!"

"The only thing we can do is wait for them to come back, and then talk to them." Sophia sighed. "I can't believe they bought Edward's speech and even got us in the middle of the wild snowy mountain!"

Sarah was not sure if she should laugh or cry. Sophia's is not a type who enjoys outside of comfort that modern civilization offers. She tried to comfort Sophia: "Well, we can consider it as a vacation. This place is not bad. Let's enjoy until guys come and then we can talk to them. At least now we have time to chat and catch up.. We didn't do that in a while."