20. Noah
Chapter 20
Noah
“ Y ou showed up a month ago with a surprise child, and you’ve already landed yourself a girlfriend?”
With a shake of his head, Jude scratched Ripley’s ears.
I smirked. “We’re faking.”
His eyes went wide with shock.
I hated lying, and when it came to Jude, there was no point. The twin connection meant he could read me, sometimes better than I could read myself, and I wasn’t nearly a good enough actor to fool him. The thought of even trying was exhausting, and right now, I couldn’t spare the energy. Plus, he was a vault.
He dropped the six-pack onto the counter with a loud thud. “Not you too. What the fuck?”
“Me too?”
He shook his head, muttering to himself.
I scrutinized him, trying to employ that twin telepathy, but he was much better at it than I was. “Do you have a fake girlfriend too?”
He pinned me with a glare.
I only shrugged. It was worth asking, given his reaction.
He took off his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt, and then put them back on. It was a classic Jude tell. He had a secret, and he wouldn’t share it with me. “Next, are you gonna tell me you’re secretly in love with her and ask for advice about how to win her over?”
“Weirdly specific question, but no.” Although a tiny voice in my head was screaming that my statement was not entirely factual.
“Good. Don’t. Rule number one of a fake relationship: Don’t fall in love.”
Huffing a laugh at how bothered he was, I crossed my arms. “How are you the expert on fake relationships?” There had to be a story here.
He ducked his head, avoiding eye contact as he pulled two beers out. “I read,” he said. “And people tell me things.”
“I’m only telling you—”
He held up a hand. “I won’t say a word. So what do you need from me? Advice? Absolution? Since I’m basically the family priest these days, lay it on me.”
“I’m here for the pizza and beer.” I twisted the cap off mine and took a quick sip. “You know I can’t lie to you, so I figured I’d get it out of the way.”
Lips pressed together, he nodded.
“You sure I can’t help?”
He shook his head, slicing mushrooms so paper thin they were practically transparent.
It was such a Jude thing to do. He’d clearly mastered the art of the homemade pizza. He was like that, focused and fastidious. The total opposite of me.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was studying the Italian language in order to make the experience more authentic.
He might have been a bachelor, but he was anything but stereotypical. His house was a small cape north of town, near the mountains. It was pristine and looked nothing like one would expect the bachelor pad of a professional lumberjack to.
His refinished hardwood floors gleamed, and every window was adorned with a flower box overflowing with color.
His furniture was tasteful, and his walls were decorated with artwork. The spare bedroom housed several musical instruments, and his graphic novel collection took up one entire wall of his living room.
Jude had always been this way. He paid attention, and regardless of what he was doing, he gave it his all. It was why he was such a talented musician. As a kid, he’d stay up all night learning new chords on the battered acoustic guitar my mom had bought him at the pawnshop.
In many ways, I was jealous of him. He knew where he fit in this life. He did his job, and he had his hobbies, dog, and home. He was settled.
In contrast, I was deeply unsettled. I was the one who had a child to care for, yet I had no plan, no career, and no idea how I’d make it through the next few years, let alone a solid eighteen with Tess. The thirty-four years I’d been on this earth had been spent chasing the next adventure, the next opportunity to be a hero. I’d trained and drilled and traveled, chasing fires and good times.
I collected scars as I went, both physical and emotional. Being home, spending time with Jude, though he was my twin and my best friend, had made me realize that I would never fit the way he did. I’d never settle.
My brain wouldn’t quiet down enough to let me.
I’d always be itchy and chasing the next thing.
For the first time in my life, that terrified me.
Because I had more than myself to think about now. I had Tess.
Jude was pulling dough now. Rather than a rolling pin, he was using his hands.
“You look like a professional.”
He ignored the observation. “Why are you and Vic faking?”
With a long exhale, I dove into the details, though I kept it as brief as I could.
“Victoria is beloved around here. This town would rise up and chase her family off with pitchforks and torches if she asked them to.”
My chest tightened with affection for this place. If the people here had her back, then that elevated my opinion of the town where I was raised.
“That ex-husband of hers?” Jude laughed. “He should know better not to show his face in Lovewell. If the knitting ladies got wind he was here, shit.” He shook his head, scoffing. “His life would be in danger.”
I raised one eyebrow. “The knitting ladies?”
“Dude, you have no idea. Ask Cole. He’ll be here soon.”
“You should have seen her at her sister’s wedding. She was so jumpy and anxious. Like she was a completely different person. These people get under her skin. I gotta help her.”
Jude pinned me with a weary look. He’d lectured me many times about my hero complex.
“What would you have done?” I asked. “She helps with Tess. I care about her. And she asked me to be her fake boyfriend.”
“I would have agreed,” Jude said without hesitation. “Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, though.”
A whoosh of air escaped me. “See?”
“But,” he said, peering at me over his glasses. “Victoria is beautiful, kind, and generous. I can also see how easy it would be to fall in love with her.”
A thread of anger wound through me as he continued to speak about her.
“She’s fun and down-to-earth…”
My fists clenched of their own accord.
“And a bright spot in this town.”
My vision went red around the edges. “Are you in love with her?”
Jude tilted his head and gave me a look of sheer pity. “No,” he said slowly, “but you may want to consider whether you are.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. I’d do no such thing. She was my friend, and I loved spending time with her. But I didn’t get attached. I didn’t develop deep feelings. It wasn’t who I was.
She deserved someone steady, someone grounded. Like Jude.
And now my fists were clenched again.
Before I could tell him to take his suggestion and fuck off, Ripley scurried toward the door, barking.
Gus stepped inside, talking to the dog as he did, followed by Cole, who was holding a Tupperware container.
“Are those what I think they are?” I asked, my mouth already watering. Damn, it had been a long time since I’d had one of my mom’s salty-sweet, crumbly cookies.
He nodded. “Debbie taught me the secret recipe.”
Jude, who was hand-tearing mozzarella, nodded. “His are good.”
I reached out to grab the container, but Cole slapped my hand away. “Don’t be an animal.”
A laugh rumbled out of me. “What, you got married and magically acquired manners?”
He gave me an eye roll and bent down to scratch Ripley’s ears. Cole’s marriage had been about as big a surprise as my return to Lovewell with a baby. As big as discovering that Gus had an ex-wife. A woman who came back after twenty years as his enemy and was now the mother of his child.
It was still hard to believe. Cole, our wilder, reckless half brother, had married responsible, upstanding Doctor Willa Savard.
I’d missed so much. Luckily, Mom had insisted on babysitting tonight so I could catch up with my brothers.
Cole leaned over, his reach half the length of this house, and stole a slice of bell pepper.
Jude glared at him.
He shrugged. “I’m hungry.”
“You know I have a process,” my twin grumbled.
Gus cracked a beer and handed it to me, then opened a second and set it on the counter near Jude. But for reasons unknown to me, he skipped over Cole.
“You hit nine hundred yet?” he asked.
Jude didn’t look up from the dough. “Check.”
Gus sauntered over to the sliding glass door that led to a small patio and a tidy yard surrounded by dense pine forest.
I followed, curious about what he was checking. When I saw it, I was pretty sure my jaw dropped. “Holy shit. That pizza oven is massive. Where did it come from?”
The outdoor oven was dome-shaped and beautiful, with colorful blue tiles and storage for wood underneath.
Cole snorted as he filled a glass with water. “Owen.”
I looked at Gus. Cole was married to Owen’s fiancée’s best friend, and yet the two men did not get along.
“You know Owen. He gets obsessed.” Gus shrugged. “Lila’s got celiac disease, so Owen made it his mission to make the best gluten-free pizza on earth. During his search for the best pizza oven, he bought several. He gave the rejects away. I have a small one in my garage somewhere.”
“He’d bought half a dozen of them before he decided these models weren’t good enough,” Jude said, still expertly stretching the dough. “So he flew some Italian artisan in to build an oven at his place in Boston. State-of-the-art, mosaic tiles from Tuscany. This guy is in his seventies and has been doing it since he was a kid.”
“Had to get a special permit from the city for the exhaust.” Cole rolled his eyes.
Gus let out a low, quiet chuckle. “Totally over-the-top. As usual.”
“The guy, Pasquale, stayed a month. He was great. He mentioned that he wanted to visit Maine, so Owen sent him up here. I showed him around, and we drove down the coast. Before he went home to Italy, he built this in my backyard as a thank-you.”
It was so Jude. He would befriend an elderly Italian stone mason. Just like Owen would fly in a senior citizen with decades of experience so he could make fancy pizza for his girlfriend.
Gus, our practical brother and the oldest, would surely think it was all absurd. He’d probably chop down a couple of trees and roast a whole cow over a fire for Chloe. And the woman would probably think that was romantic.
I’d missed them. They’d grown and evolved into men I didn’t really know. Even my twin was now a semi-professional pizza chef and hadn’t bothered to tell me.
Finn showed up at the exact moment the first pizza came out of the oven. Which was a minute after it went in, considering Jude had that thing cranking at nine hundred degrees and Gus tended to the fire, keeping it replenished with fresh hardwood.
Finn’s hair was pulled back into a messy bun, his beard needed a trim, and his T-shirt had a hole in the back, but his smile lit up the tiny house. His first order of business was to pull me into a hug, complete with a firm back slap. The second was to whip out his phone so we could compare photos of our kids. Thor was a couple of months older than Tess and already walking and causing chaos wherever he went.
Finn was gearing up for a busy season. His relatively new flight tourism business had exploded when a celebrity featured him in a magazine spread. He was booked for years in advance and had hired staff to keep up with the demand.
We settled into the Adirondak chairs on the patio, the air warm from the pizza oven. Ripley patrolled our surroundings, ready to snatch up any fallen pieces of crust as we demolished pie after pie.
Fig and prosciutto.
Mushroom and fontina.
Sopresetta and artichoke heart.
My stomach groaned.
“You’re all animals.” Jude reclined in his chair, beer in hand.
“And you’re amazing,” Finn said, raising his bottle. “How many fancy pizzas did we eat?”
My twin huffed a laugh. “Nine.”
Finn lifted one shoulder lazily. “Next time we’ll hit double digits. That fancy cheese was incredible. How far did you have to drive to get that?”
“Mom picked it up at the Trader Joes in Bangor.”
That made sense. We had decent produce up here, and there was a natural food store in Heartsborough, but imported Italian cheese was a delicacy in these parts. One I’d overindulged in tonight.
I’d be running tomorrow. And I’d have to add more weight to my vest.
The thought of running brought an image of Vic to mind. She looked so damn cute, with her face red and her hair disheveled. She’d been doing well and seemed to enjoy herself.
“I brought you something.” Cole held out a gift bag. “It’s for Tess.”
I wiped my hands on my napkin again for good measure before digging into it. “Wow.” A rush of warmth hit me as I pulled a beautiful yellow blanket out. The buttery softness of the yarn against my fingertips lit up comforting instincts in my brain. Or it could be the pizza coma.
“I knit it.”
A scoff escaped me before I could stop it. “You knit?”
Cole was practically a giant. He was by far the biggest of all of us, had been the wildest, and was a former pro hockey player. The vision of him fussing with knitting needles that floated into my mind was comical.
“Thor loves his,” Finn piped up. “And it washes well. He’s barfed on it at least a dozen times already.” He raised his beer and shot me a grin, leaving no doubt in my mind that he was delighted by everything his son did.
“Thank you,” I said, clutching it a little tighter. “This is so thoughtful.”
Cole shrugged. “Knitting is good for my anxiety.”
My chest pinched at the idea. I was taken aback by the way he’d laid that out. What was even more surprising was how the rest of my brothers nodded, as if discussing one’s feelings and emotional challenges was normal.
“And my sobriety.”
Huh. The lack of beer for him made sense now.
To be honest, our dad came from the toxic masculinity school of fatherhood, where screaming was required and all vulnerabilities were suppressed. It was heartening to see my brothers doing things differently.
It was also more than a bit jarring.
I had a lot to catch up on.
While the conversation shifted from Tess to Thor to Gus’s newborn daughter Simone, then to machinery he and Jude used regularly on logging sites, I sat back and enjoyed the night air and the feeling of being back home.
For years, I would have argued that Lovewell was not home. That it was the place I’d grown up and nothing more. But this town was just what Tess and I needed.
It hadn’t taken me long to realize I needed to return. After the order had been extended and I’d parted ways with the guardian ad litem and my lawyer at the courthouse, I was finally free to plan for the future. To map out the legal plan and try to figure out how to shape my life around being a parent.
Within days, I was homesick. After years of moving, then moving again, and jumping from one adventure to another, I missed my mom. I missed my brothers.
I needed this place. And Tess needed this place.
“That’s what Parker thinks. We all need to be aware of what could happen next.” Gus was standing now,arms crossed and looming over us, looking like the eldest brother he was.
“We can’t move on what Cole found yet?” Finn asked. “And what about Huxley?”
Gus shook his head. “Working on it. Legal channels, blah, blah, Fourth Amendment.”
I sat, studying each brother, piecing together what I could from this conversation. For a decade and a half, I’d been worlds away from the business and my father’s dealings, which meant I didn’t even have most of the basics.
Most of what they said went over my head.
“Back up for a minute,” I said. “What did you say about Charles Huxley?”
The guy gave off a weird vibe, and his son was a super creep. And with the financial state of the food pantry and the need of the community, Vic was constantly being forced to meet with them. She seemed to think they were going to make a big donation, but I was dubious.
“He’s dirty,” Cole declared.
My lungs seized up. Wasn’t he the richest guy in town? The former lieutenant governor? Didn’t he cut ribbons and make donations?
“We’re working on it,” Jude assured me.
“Cole connected some of the dots,” Gus said, slapping our baby brother on the shoulder. “Got us our best lead so far. And we know he was mixed up with Chief Souza.”
“I caught the chief wearing one of Dad’s watches,” Cole explained from where he sat on the floor. He had one leg stretched out, and he was massaging the muscle.
My father collected rare and expensive watches. I knew nothing about them—hell, I knew next to nothing about the man himself; he’d taken no interest in me whatsoever—but apparently Cole did.
“When the police seized his collection, one was missing. I recognized it when I met with him one day, and he knew I knew.”
“What does it mean?” None of these pieces were coming together to create an image I could decipher.
Gus sighed. “Dad was the tip of the iceberg. There is a whole network of people involved in the drug trafficking and fuck knows what else. They’re still under the radar. We’ve partially exposed Chief Souza, and we know Huxley and his son are mixed up too.”
“Owen and Lila found evidence of potential money laundering,” Jude explained. “Chloe had some strange encounters. Cole got mixed up with the police when he was asking questions about shell companies owned by the Huxleys.”
I shook my head, my heart rate picking up. What the fuck?
“And no one has been arrested yet? You said the FBI has been all over town for months.”
Cole grimaced. “They’re working on it.”
“But we’ve hired Parker Gagnon,” Gus said, finally sitting again. “She’s an excellent PI. She’s made more progress in the past couple of months than the FBI has in the past year.”
I took off my hat and scratched my head, realizing that I wasn’t only out of the loop. It was like I’d lived on another fucking planet for years. “Our sleepy little town has a PI?”
Cole nodded. “She’s ex-state police, married to Pascal Gagnon, and it’s very likely she’ll be named the new police chief.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s got all the connections at city hall,” Finn explained.
“And knitting club.” Jude chuckled.
Cole’s smirk was smug. “You do not mess with the knitting club ladies.”
“We keep telling him to run for mayor.” Gus’s chest puffed out a little as he made that statement.
Cole’s cheeks went pink above the scruff on his face. He’d certainly turned his life around and found a place for himself in this town. Less than a year ago, according to Jude’s updates, he’d been a washed-up former hockey pro who was self-sabotaging and spiraling.
If he could build a life here, maybe I could too.
After the rest of the guys left, I took Ripley out for a walk, then helped Jude clean up. He taught me how to rake the ash out of the pizza oven and check the chimney for blockages.
“So…” he said once everything was back in its rightful place and the dishwasher was loaded.
My chest tightened. The way he dragged out that word made me concerned that he was winding up for a hard conversation, and I really needed to get home. Tess needed her nightly pacing around the apartment to sleep. She’d done well at Mom’s while we were at the wedding, but I couldn’t chance it. My mom was so generous, but I refused to allow her to be up all night.
“I’m glad you’re finally home.”
I blew out a breath, half relieved, half defeated. “Lovewell hasn’t been home for a very long time.”
“That’s the thing about home, don’t you think? It’s always there for you when you need it. You should stay.”
That was the million-dollar question. Would we stay? Could we stay?
“I need a job.” I went with what felt like the easiest way to sidestep the emotional landmines of settling down in Lovewell.
“Do you? You have your share from the sale of the business.”
I nodded. “And Owen set up some investments and a trust for Tess. And—” I swallowed past the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat and lowered my attention to the floor between us. “And Jack and Emily had life insurance. Tess is covered. College, all of it.”
Jude nodded. “I’m glad she’s provided for. But how are you doing with all this? You want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. The emotions were still so raw. And watching my girl grow and change every day, knowing Jack and Emily would miss every milestone, only compounded my guilt. “No, I really don’t.”
“Okay, then.” With a shrug, he closed the dishwasher. “I’m here when you’re ready.”