One Look (The Sullivan Family #1)

1. Wyatt

WYATT

“Do you think I’ll get to see a dead body?”

I stared at my seven-year-old daughter, Penny, unsure about how to navigate this particularly morbid topic. I adjusted the sleeves on the white button-up I’d pulled on. “Get to or have to?”

Penny picked at the hem of her blue dress as she sat with the rest of the skirt rumpled beneath her. She didn’t make eye contact, only shrugged.

I slipped a tie around my neck and worked to get the knot right. “It’s a funeral, so there will be a memorial before we go to the cemetery. You won’t have to go up there if you don’t want to, but people will come to pay their respects to Mr. Bowlegs.”

An unladylike snort came from her little body as her face scrunched up. “Bowlegs? That’s his name?”

“Just a nickname.”

“What’s his real name?”

I paused and laughed a bit to myself. I had no fucking clue.

“I’m not sure. I only ever knew him as Mr. Bowlegs. Usually just Bowlegs for short.”

Penny’s lips twisted. “Why did people call him that?”

Her hearty giggle was infectious, and I tried to embrace the lightness of her mood. Maybe it would ease the dread pooling in my stomach. “Well, I guess because he was bowlegged.”

Penny turned on the bed so she was lying on her back, her head dangling upside down off the edge. “Does everyone in your hometown have a nickname?”

I took a deep breath and shook my head. Ridiculous nicknames were only one of the utterly asinine aspects of Outtatowner, Michigan. Even the town name itself—Outtatowner.

What a joke.

I pulled the knot loose from my crooked tie and tried again. Penny waited for me to answer. Stubborn, that girl. She could outwait a monk if she put her mind to it.

“Not everyone,” I conceded. “But a lot of people.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Just something that started a long time ago. I think it’s a small-town thing.”

“Why?”

I quickly realized we were on the brink of playing the why game, and I’d walked right into it.

Not today, Daughter.

“I don’t know. The town’s just weird, okay?”

“You said it’s not nice to call people weird.”

It was annoying as fuck when your child threw your parenting back in your face. I looked over my reflection one last time and turned toward her. “You’re right. They’re just a little different. You ready to go, Pickle?”

She righted herself with a smile and bounced on the edge of the bed. “Is that why you call me Pickle?”

I stepped toward my precocious, pain-in-the-ass spawn. I tapped my knuckle on the end of her little upturned nose. “I call you Pickle because sometimes you’re sweet and sometimes you’re sour.”

Penny pretended to chomp at my hand.

“My point exactly.” I pulled her from the bed. “Let’s go, kiddo. We have a drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to be late.”

Thankfully, Penny was feeling agreeable, and we left the cramped apartment without losing a shoe or misplacing her beloved Blue Teddy. Once she was securely buckled in the back, I laid my suit jacket across the passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

After embarking from the outskirts of downtown St. Fowler, Michigan, I drove through the college town. Penny kept her nose to the window, watching the buildings flicker past as we drove, Blue Teddy getting strangled by the crook of her arm.

Last Christmas she’d asked for a blue teddy bear—two days before Christmas.

I had scoured the internet, and the best I could do was a baby-blue hippopotamus with a dark-blue ribbon around its neck.

There was no fooling anyone, because it was definitely not a teddy bear, but Penny loved him, and though it was barely a win, I was taking it.

Some days it felt like I needed all the wins I could get.

Her ponytail was lopsided, but despite the late-night YouTube tutorials between game-film playbacks, I still hadn’t come close to mastering a french braid. That shit was pure witchcraft.

I swallowed a sigh. We had just gotten set up in St. Fowler, but it was our third city in three years. I didn’t miss the sadness that crept into her eyes as I watched her from the rearview mirror. That look alone was why I needed to make this work.

“You’ll like it here, I promise.” A lump formed in my throat. I really hoped I wasn’t lying to her.

“There’s the church.”

When I glanced up again, her index finger was pressed to the glass. I tracked her stare and, sure enough, in the distance was Wilson Stadium and the Athletic Center. It wasn’t the biggest stadium I’d coached at—certainly not the biggest I’d played at, but for now it was home.

“Sure is, baby.”

As the stadium whirred past us, Penny settled into her seat, squeezing Blue Teddy’s neck a little tighter. “How long is the drive?”

I glanced at the clock. “Only about an hour.”

The tiny sound of disgust told me I didn’t have more than twenty minutes or so until she was bored out of her mind and the why game would start back up. Flipping through the radio stations, I found some toe-tapping garbage I knew she liked and turned it up a bit.

Then we headed west toward the coast. Toward the hometown I hadn’t seen in years.

* * *

“Well, holy shit. The prodigal son returns!” A grin split across my little brother Lee’s face as he stomped across the parking lot of the funeral home. Even a few miles from the water, the fresh, coastal air stirred around us.

It had been a long time since I’d seen my little brother. He’d always been the reckless one, a bit of a wild card. A charmer. So it was no wonder that after his time in the service, Lee had found his groove as a local firefighter and had never left our hometown again.

His hand swooped to mine and gave it a hearty squeeze. Lee had bulked up too. His scrawny arms had filled out, and he’d gained a few inches in the years I’d gone without seeing him in person.

Before I could introduce him, Lee crouched down to Penny, who was tucked behind my leg. “Who’s this rat? It’s definitely not the Pickle I saw on FaceTime last month.”

Penny rolled her eyes and stepped out from behind my frame. “Hi, Uncle Lee.” Her voice was laced with boredom and annoyance, but it simmered with shy delight. Some days I swear she was seven going on seventeen.

Lee reached out and captured her around the waist, hoisting her high in the air. Her delighted squeals only egged him on as he bounced and jostled her.

“Who. Are. You. And. Where. Is. Penny?”

A hot lance of regret speared my side as she giggled and horsed around with my little brother. I’d denied her this simple joy.

That was on me.

After Dad got sick, our family was scattered, broken. I hadn’t made it back to Outtatowner in years, and that meant Penny knew my family only through sporadic video chats and presents mailed at holidays and birthdays.

I cleared my throat to dislodge the hot coal that had taken up residence there. “Is Katie coming?”

Our youngest sister had found some random college in Montana, and with the encouragement of her idiot boyfriend, she’d left everything and never looked back.

Lee’s smile didn’t falter, but I heard a bit of sadness creep into his voice. “Nah. She couldn’t make it in.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Duke?”

Lee set Penny on the ground, and she beamed up at him. “Getting Dad.”

I nodded. Dad’s early-onset dementia had deteriorated so rapidly that he lived in the local memory-care ward in town.

It was difficult, but with the four of us as broken as we were and Aunt Tootie unable to care for her brother herself, we’d made the choice to provide him the nursing care he needed.

The thought of a fifty-eight-year-old man requiring full-time nursing care ate at me, especially when I thought about all the times he was lucid. Himself. Until I thought about how upsetting it was when he wasn’t. Confused. Angry. Scared.

His sister loved him fiercely, but Aunt Tootie couldn’t do it on her own, and we weren’t equipped to help him. The thought of seeing him today, not knowing the kind of day he was having, stacked a slimy layer of unease on top of my already-churning stomach.

Let’s get this over with.

I glanced around the nearly empty parking lot. “Figured the King boys would be here.” My fingers clenched into a fist just speaking their name aloud.

“Aunt Tootie and Bug worked it out. Sullivans have the first hour, and then the Kings can pay their respects after.”

I nodded. The long-standing feud between the Sullivan family and the Kings was a thing of legends, going back longer than I could remember.

Though Outtatowner was a coastal tourist town, those who were from there, us townies, knew the line was drawn.

You were either with us or with them, no two ways about it.

The only two who’d managed to find some peace were Aunt Tootie and the Kings’ aunt Bug.

Even though they didn’t like each other, they took it upon themselves to make sure we didn’t tear down the town around us when we got to arguing with each other.

For the tourists’ sake, we kept outward appearances, but it wasn’t unheard of to have a throwdown at the pub on a Saturday night.

I reached out to Penny, and she tucked her little hand in mine.

Together we walked with Lee toward the funeral home.

The warm air inside whooshed out as I pulled the heavy door open.

The familiar smell of roses and musk turned my stomach.

I pushed down the flash of my mother’s smiling face as I walked through the door.

The foyer was nearly empty. Hushed voices floated through the air, and small handfuls of people huddled in groups.

“Why is no one here?” Penny whispered.

My heart sank. I remembered Bowlegs as a kind and soft-spoken man. A little odd, even for a townie. Neither a Sullivan nor a King, he was a staple in our community. Every day he’d walk the town in his Moon Boots, collecting cans or feeding the wildlife.

My eyes swept through the sparse crowd and recognized every single person in the room.

Except her.

I hastily signed the guest book as Penny asked Lee a thousand questions about Bowlegs, my eyes tracking the unknown brunette quietly weeping in the corner.

Outfitted in a formfitting black dress that swept just past her knees, an air of elegance swirled around her.

The short sleeves fluttered around her slim biceps.

The woman dabbed a tissue under her pert nose, and a soft sob escaped her again.

I watched her take a shuddering breath before fresh tears leaked out from thick, dark lashes.

I leaned into Lee. “Who the hell is that?”

His gaze fell onto the stranger, and he shrugged. “No clue.”

“Daddy, I’m hungry.” Penny pulled at my hand, and I looked down at her. Her eyes sliced toward the open casket.

Lee leaned down to her. “Are you starving... to death ?” Mischief laced his tone as a cackle erupted from Penny. Heads turned in our direction.

I shot them each a warning glance as a hand clamped over her mouth, and Lee pulled his lips in to stifle his own laughter.

“I already paid my respects. I’ll find Pickle a snack. You go ahead.”

I looked at Penny to make sure she was okay with the plan, and when she laced her hand into Lee’s, I knew she was relieved to not be going with me toward the casket. I nodded, and Lee brought Penny down the hallway toward the small room that would undoubtedly be filled with coffee and pastries.

As I made my way toward the front of the room, I couldn’t help but watch the mysterious woman. I noticed others had started watching her too.

Deeply upset, the woman wept, silent sobs racking her body.

Did Bowlegs have a daughter?

Clearly a stunner like her wasn’t some unidentified widow. Sure there were rumors he was secretly wealthy, but Bowlegs was an elderly man, and this woman was a knockout. Surely she had her pick of any man.

With a sad shake of her head, the woman looked longingly at the casket a final time before turning. As she swept past me, our eyes locked.

My breath seized.

My heart hammered.

What the hell?

Time moved in slow motion as her mossy hazel eyes swept down, her wet lashes nearly touching the apples of her cheeks.

The wind was knocked straight out of me. My head spun. My blood was thick, and all she’d done was walk past me.

I watched her leave, and despite the alarm bells clanging in my skull, I silently followed. Down the darkened hallway, the woman stood across from Tootie and Bug. The aunties nodded as the mystery woman smiled.

Just like that, the weeping probably-not-a-widow was clear eyed and smiling kindly at the women. I hung toward the wall, feeling like a creeping asshole watching the three women talking in the dark hallway, but then it happened.

Tootie reached into her purse and placed a stack of bills into the woman’s hand.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.