Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
EMMA
Rita is dressing a mannequin in a fifties-style dress when I walk into her shop. It’s white with red flowers, a red sash cinching the waist, before the full skirt flows out in an almost triangular shape.
She looks up at me, pins in her mouth even though I’ve told her I’m scared one day she’s going to swallow them.
“Hey,” I say as I close the door behind me. Brooks left an hour ago. He insisted on walking me back to the shop and shaking Granddad’s hand before he left.
“If we were dating, that’s what I’d do.”
“But we’re not dating,” I told him. “I don’t date guys who blackmail me.”
“But we might be pretending that we’re dating.”
“Or we might not be,” I growled.
And yeah, I’m at the point of growling at Brooks Salinger. Because I know I should shoot the whole thing down. But he’s blackmailing me. And though I hate to admit it, Will would feel like he’s won if I don’t go. There’s a part of me that’s stupidly competitive. I blame my dad for that.
And just like that, my chest twinges, as I think about my parents and the way I lost them one rainy day when I was thirteen years old. The way Granddad and Grandma never once complained at suddenly having to raise a grieving teenager.
The way they showed me so much love when I felt lost at sea.
If I look at this other building, this could all go away. Things can go back to the way they have always been. And Granddad never has to know about anything. He can just get on with his old age the way he should.
“You look like you just found a cent and lost a hundred dollars,” Rita says. “Is everything okay?”
“Brooks Salinger made me an offer,” I tell her, because I have to talk to somebody about this. I can’t tell Granddad, obviously. And I don’t want to tell Mia either. She’s too close to the situation. And if I decide to go through with it and pretend that Brooks and I are together…
No, I’m not going to do that. I don’t know why I’m even considering it.
“What kind of offer?” Rita asks, pulling the pins from her mouth and sticking them into a pin cushion shaped like a man. I saw her ex-husband once and there’s a striking familiarity there. “Like a swimming with the fish offer?” she asks, leaning forward, her voice hushed. “A horse’s head in the bed kind of offer?”
“No.” I wrinkle my nose. “He’s not trying to kill me.” Or at least I don’t think he is.
“Then what?”
“He’s found a new building for us all. On the other side of town.”
“He has? What kind of building?” Her face lights up, and I send up a prayer to the god of leases that she wasn’t around when Brooks showed up today. She would have snapped the offer up.
“That doesn’t matter. We’re not moving.” I wave my hand. “But he wants me to see it.”
“Can I come?”
I sigh. She’s not getting with the program here. “But he’s thrown in a caveat,” I tell her. And then I unleash the whole sorry story. From Will’s white ass thrusting in the bathroom at Mia’s wedding to Brooks’ offer of being my date at Cassie’s wedding.
She listens carefully, her brows pulled together in concentration. Only twice does she stop me to ask questions.
“He paid for your room? That’s so sweet.”
I blink, because yeah, it was sweet. To distract myself from that memory I tell her about him threatening to tell Granddad.
“He’s blackmailing you? What an asshole.”
That’s more like it. “I don’t know what to do,” I tell her. “If I do this, he’ll go away. He’s promised.”
“Do you trust him to keep his promise?” Rita asks.
The stupid thing is, I do. Because as much as I’m trying to separate the two men in my mind, Brooks Salinger is in fact one person. The same person who took care of me when I was barefoot with a malfunctioning dress and nowhere to sleep is now trying to negotiate with me.
“I think so.”
“Then I don’t see why you wouldn’t do this,” she says. “It’s a win for you. You get to stick it to your ex…” She shakes her head, looking at her pin cushion. “What I wouldn’t give to do that. And anyway, you’ve only agreed to look at the new units, not sign a lease, though I’m interested in seeing what it looks like. If it has good storage it’s one up on this place.”
“It feels… grubby,” I say.
“Then take some shower gel with you.”
I laugh. “And Will will probably see right through it, anyway. How the hell is he going to believe Brooks and I are an item when I’m shooting daggers at him every time our eyes meet?”
“Brooks,” she says. “You called him Brooks. Not Mr. Salinger. Not his full name. You’re sweet on him.”
“Oh, I’m so not.” I widen my eyes to get across how not into Brooks Salinger I am. “I hate him.” It almost sounds convincing.
“Sure you do,” she says, the grin still on her face. “You should think about taking his offer. You have nothing to lose.”
“Except my dignity,” I say, my voice low. But when it comes to Brooks Salinger I have a feeling I lost that a long, long time ago.
brOOKS
My brother opens his front door and lifts an eyebrow. “Well, this is a surprise,” Linc says. “A voluntary visit from the disappearing brother. Have you come over to help me with bath time?”
He steps aside to let me in, and I follow him through the brightly painted hallway with walls that are plastered with photographs of his family. There’s a basket full of clean laundry by the stairs and discarded shoes are scattered everywhere across the floor. Abigail is crawling toward the stairs and Linc scoops her up and passes her into my arms. “If you’re here, you can be helpful,” he says. “You can feed Abby while I sort out the laundry.”
If you’d met my brother before he got together with his wife you would never have believed he was the same man. He was all designer suits and smooth talk. Most of his career was spent on an airplane, flying from country to country, keeping clients happy by schmoozing them with dinner and evenings out.
Now he’s in bed by ten. And I’ve never seen him happier.
“I don’t exactly have the equipment to feed your kid,” I tell him. “But nice try.”
He rolls his eyes. “We’re weaning her. There’s food on her high chair.”
“Weaning? What the hell is that? Making her smaller, like a weenie?”
“Jesus Christ,” Linc mutters. “Just give her some damn carrots.”
Abigail looks up at me, a line of drool hanging out of her mouth. The end is attached to my suit jacket.
“Come on, kid,” I tell her. “Let’s go make you a weenie.”
“I heard that. My daughter is not a weenie.”
“Just like your dad,” I add.
A few minutes later, I’m sitting in front of my niece as she throws her food on the floor, laughing every time I reach down to pick it up. Because my brother’s a childcare genius he’s put her highchair on a clean mat, which means the five second rule absolutely applies here.
“So I went down to the bookshop to try to talk sense into the owners. And I ended up offering to take her to the wedding in Montana with me,” I say casually.
“Run that by me again,” Linc says, taking a pair of tiny white panties from the basket.
“Those yours?” I ask him.
“Funny. No.” He puts them to the side. “They’re ladies’ panties. Not that you’ve seen a pair in a long, long time.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I wasn’t planning on ever seeing Tessa’s.”
He blinks, then shoves her panties under the pile of clean laundry. “Stop looking at my wife’s lingerie.”
“Stop flaunting it at me.”
“I’m not…” He narrows his eyes. “Oh I know what you’re doing here. You’re trying to distract me. Stop me from asking about this date.”
“I’m the one who mentioned it in the first place,” I point out. “So no, I’m not.”
He looks torn between berating me some more for even daring to look at a clean pair of underwear and finding out the gossip.
Because if there’s one thing Linc loves, it’s gossip.
“Who’s the date?” he asks. “No, sweetie,” he takes a knife out of Rowan’s hand without stopping folding. He’s an excellent multitasker.
“The girl from the bookshop.”
“Okay, what? How? I thought she hated you.”
“She did. She does, I think. But we came to an agreement that can benefit us both.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need you to backtrack here. I’m completely confused.” Rowan is standing at his feet, holding his hands up, clearly wanting to be held. Linc lifts him up and settles him on his hip, using his free hand to continue folding.
Honestly, if he hadn’t been a confirmed bachelor for most of his life, I’d say my brother was born to be a househusband.
While he finishes the laundry, I quickly fill him in on my trip to Oak Hollow and coffee with Emma. Linc’s brows knit as I finish.
“So this is the girl from the wedding? The one you saved from her asshole boyfriend.”
“Yeah. What are the chances?” I say.
“Quite good, knowing you.” Linc shakes his head. “And you really threatened to tell her granddad about her lying if she didn’t agree to go with you?”
“When you put it like that, I sound like an asshole.” I frown, remembering the flash in her eyes when I said it. Her pretty, pretty eyes.
“You’re blackmailing the poor girl.”
“I’m not. I’m helping her. It’s not good to avoid a whole friendship group after a breakup.”
“It’s not good to avoid an entire family group either,” Linc says pointedly. And yeah, I feel like a bit of a dick because I have been avoiding them. Not because I don’t love them, I do. But because they all have something I’ll never have.
And sometimes it’s tough to come to terms with that.
“I need to see an actual picture photograph of this woman. Not just the official one in her background check,” Linc says. Abigail has finished eating and he puts Rowan back on the floor before he picks up a cloth and wipes her face.
“Why would you want to see a photo of her?” I feel a little weird. I shouldn’t have come here. But I needed to talk to somebody, and Linc likes to talk. A lot.
He’s older than me by two years, but we’ve been buddies since we were running around in diapers. And yeah, I’m thrilled he’s found love with Tessa and their kids.
But sometimes I miss him.
He turns to catch my eye. “It’s not like I’m asking to see her panties.”
“That was a mistake. And I don’t have a photo of her. That would be weird.”
“And blackmailing her to be your fake date to a wedding isn’t,” Linc mutters. “She has to be on social media. What’s her name?”
“Emma Robbins.”
He lifts his daughter out of her high chair and puts her back on the floor. She crawls over to me, then puts her hands on my legs. I lift her until she’s sitting on my lap.
Linc pulls his phone out and starts tapping at the keyboard. “What’s the shop called again?”
“The Vintage Verse.”
“She’s on LinkedIn. Oh yeah, she’s pretty. Nice hair.”
“Is she? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Shut the hell up. You ate her face at a wedding.”
“When you put it that way it sounds so romantic,” I snipe at him. I don’t like that description at all. It wasn’t like that. Yes, I felt a complete hunger for her, but it was more sensual than that.
And now I’m thinking about her lips, goddamn it.
“Oh no,” he says in a high voice. “I just accidentally requested to connect with her.”
“You didn’t.” I glare at him.
“I did.” He grins.
“Take it back. Unfriend her or whatever it is on there.”
“If I do that, she’ll know for sure I’ve been snooping.” He looks delighted at himself. “Or that you have.” He winks. “Oh, she’s accepted my request.”
I grab the phone from him. Sure enough, her profile is up in a way that you can only see if you’re connected. The profile photo is of her sitting in the bookshop. She’s wearing a dress with printed flowers on it, her flaming red hair pulled back and thick black glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. In her hands is a book – a tattered leather hardback – and I have to squint to read the title. Ducks, And How To Make Them Pay by W. Cook.
My lips twitch because this woman is completely different to any I’ve met before. She’s frustrating and annoying and I want to taste her mouth again like I want to breathe air.
“Jesus, you like her.”
I look up.
“Like really, really like her,” Linc says.
I swallow hard. “No, I don’t.” And even if I did, nothing can happen. Not knowing what I know about myself. But Linc’s a damn romantic and he believes in happily ever afters.
“You were looking at her like you do,” he says, not giving up.
“I was looking at the title of the book. It amused me.”
“The book that’s right in front of her tits,” Linc says.
“Don’t mention her tits.” I frown at him. “That’s disgusting.”
“I tell you what, I won’t mention your girlfriend’s tits if you don’t look at my wife’s panties,” Linc says.
“Panties,” Rowan shouts out. “Panties, panties, panties.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I tell Linc.
“You want her to be your fake girlfriend. Why not make it real? You’re obviously into her.”
“I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t do relationships,” I say. Dammit, I don’t want to go over this again. “Or they don’t do me. Whatever. I’ll take her to this wedding, get her to move out of the building, and then everything will be good.”
“You were burned,” Linc says. “I get it. But you can’t let one poor relationship ruin you for good.”
He doesn’t know the full extent of it. Nobody does. And I’d like to keep it that way because some things should stay private. “Forget about it,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It obviously is, because you just came here to spill your guts about it.”
“I came here because I heard you were giving away free panties. I wanted to stake my claim.”
“Fuck off.”
“You fuck off.” God, we’re imbeciles. That’s another thing about being the youngest of six brothers – though at least I’m not the youngest in the family anymore now that we have a little sister. You end up acting the way you did when you were kids even though you’re a grown adult. One with a demanding job and responsibilities.
“You fuck off,” Rowan repeats and we both turn to look at him.
Shit .
“I said puck,” Linc says quickly. “Like hockey.” He glares at me. “Stop teaching my kid to swear.”
“You did it first.”
“That’s not what I’m gonna tell Tessa if he says it again,” Linc warns. “So you better hope he keeps it zipped.”
“Zip zip zip,” Rowan sings.
Jesus, I’m getting a headache.