CHAPTER 14 Kimberly #2
I stood up. "I’ll prepare a pot of coffee," I announced, retreating before either of them could respond.
From the kitchen, the silence down the grand hallway was deafening. I gave them exactly five minutes before I marched back in with the tray.
"Jackson," I said, setting the cups down with a definitive clink. "I need you to walk Logan through the projection comparisons."
He lifted his head, his eyes boring into mine with a look that was both furious and complicated. "Why exactly should I expend executive hours on a project you personally volunteered to manage?"
He stood up, pushing his heavy leather chair back with a harsh scrape against the oak floorboards. He didn’t look at the folders.
"If your division lacks the capacity to handle basic administrative data, Logan, I suggest you retain an outside consultant," he said, his voice dangerous and smooth. "I have actual priorities."
He strode past both of us, his shoulder brushing mine just enough to leave a trail of heat, and slammed the heavy oak doors behind him.
My shoulders dropped. Logan watched the door swing shut, then turned back to the table with a small, exhausted smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"It’s fine, Kim," he said softly, stacking his papers back into his bag. "I can run the metrics solo from my office tomorrow. Besides, I should get back to Lily before she falls asleep. Don’t worry about it."
Doing it alone isn’t the point of the exercise, I thought miserably. But I kept it to myself. I thanked him, watched his car pull down the long drive, and stood in the center of the dark study with a cold hearth and the absolute certainty that Strategy One had been a catastrophic failure.
I dialed Katelyn before the taillights even cleared the gates. "Strategy One is officially deceased. He evacuated the room before I could even reach for the sugar bowl."
"Alright, pivot," Katelyn’s voice bounced back, followed by the distinct rustle of her turning pages. "We move immediately to Strategy Two: The Unified External Threat."
"Explain."
"Men don’t bond through intellectual discourse, Kim.
They bond through shared crisis management.
An external complication that forces mutual tactical cooperation.
You need an environment where they aren’t looking at each other—they’re looking at a common problem they both have an interest in resolving. "
I looked down at the velvet rug. Maple was curled beside the antique armchair, quietly nursing four increasingly fat, hyperactive kittens who had recently discovered their legs. A terrible, brilliant idea started forming.
"The kittens are due for their initial veterinary immunization panel," I whispered.
"Kimberly," Katelyn gasped. "That is completely diabolical. It’s perfect."
The appointment was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
I informed Jackson that the kittens required immediate clinical screening and that he was responsible for transit because his SUV possessed the required cargo volume.
I informed Logan on Wednesday evening that I required an additional set of hands because managing two separate animal carriers under medical stress exceeded my individual capacity.
I deliberately neglected to mention the other brother’s inclusion to either party.
The precise expression that formed on Jackson Whitlock’s face when Logan walked out of the mudroom holding a blue plastic pet carrier was worth every single hour of insomnia I’d endured in this house.
Jackson froze beside the driver’s side door, his fingers locking onto the handle. "No," he barked.
"They are your mother’s animals, Jackson," I said, stepping between them with the second carrier firmly in my grip. "They require a unified transport protocol."
The drive across the lake to the veterinary clinic in Bellevue was the most toxic brotherly silence I'd ever been trapped inside. They didn’t yell. They simply weaponized the air.
"You’re holding that crate exactly the way you manage your quarterly distribution pipelines," Jackson muttered, his eyes glued to the traffic ahead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Carelessly."
"I am holding a living, breathing creature, Jack," Logan shot back from the passenger seat, his tone dropping into a sharp, defensive register I’d never heard from him before. "Not a balance sheet. It requires a baseline level of human empathy."
"Perhaps we should review financial competence before you lecture me on empathy."
The interior of the vehicle went dead silent. I held my breath. In the crate beside me, the little gray runt let out a tiny, high-pitched mewl.
"Gentlemen," I said from the back seat, wedged tightly between two meowing plastic boxes, completely exhausted by the sheer volume of testosterone in the car.
"If either of you causes me to drop these animals, I am going to come down from this car.
I will walk the remainder of the distance, and I will leave both of you on the shoulder of Interstate 90 to resolve your ancient grievances with either a certified corporate mediator or a bare-knuckle fistfight. I genuinely do not care which."
An orange kitten chose that precise moment to become violently car-sick directly through the grate of the carrier onto Logan’s immaculate cream linen trousers.
Logan looked down at his lap with an expression of such pure, existential devastation that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Jackson, to his immense credit, didn’t say a single word.
But as I glanced at the rearview mirror, his shoulders were shaking with what was either a medical episode or a laugh he'd rather die than let out.
At the clinic, the veterinarian—a seasoned woman in her late fifties with the unflappable aura of someone who spent her life managing territorial animals—watched the three of us march through the sliding doors while fiercely debating the precise airflow velocity of the dashboard vents.
She looked at Jackson’s tailored wool trousers, then at the stain on Logan’s thigh, and finally at me. "How long have the three of you been living in this shared environment?" she asked pleasantly, pulling out a clipboard.
"We are not cohabitating," Jackson snapped.
"It’s a temporary arrangement," I corrected.
The veterinarian quietly checked a box on her form and stopped asking questions.
The evaluation went perfectly. All four kittens were cleared, and the gray runt had officially gained three ounces. I held the smallest one against my sternum while the technician prepared the syringes, the tiny, motorized hum of its purr vibrating against my chest.
As we pushed back through the glass doors toward the parking lot after the appointment, Logan fell into step directly beside me.
"Kim," he said quietly, his voice softening as he looked down at the carrier in my hand. "When they’re a few weeks older… do you think there’s any scenario where I could take one of the orange ones home for Lily? She’s been pleading for a pet."
I smiled. "Of course, Logan. I think Greta would have absolutely loved the idea of her roses and her cats finding their way to her granddaughter."
From two paces behind us, a voice cut through the damp parking lot air like a sheet of ice cracking down the center.
"Who the hell is Lily?"
Logan stopped dead on the asphalt. I froze beside him, the plastic handle of the carrier suddenly cold against my fingers.
The silence that followed didn't just hang—it suffocated. Jackson stepped into our peripheral vision, his shadow long and imposing under the buzzing yellow parking lot lights. His eyes were sharp, locked on his brother.
Logan didn't flinch. He turned around with agonizing slowness, his boots grinding into the wet gravel. The easy, charming mask he usually wore hadn't just slipped; it had vanished, leaving his face raw and strikingly hollow.
"She’s my daughter, Jack," Logan said, his voice quiet, lethal in its lack of inflection. "She turned six on Saturday."
Jackson’s jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. "Six. You've had a child for six years, and I find out from a housekeeper in a veterinary clinic. Why the hell would you keep that from me? She’s a Whitlock, Logan! She's blood!"
"Because of exactly this!" Logan snapped, his temper finally exploding, matching Jackson's volume note for terrifying note.
He stepped directly into Jackson's space, eye-to-eye, chest-to-chest. "Look at you! Look at the fire in your eyes, Jack! You already hate me enough, which I’d say is deserving! I’d be damned if my daughter gets treated the same way. "
"You are protecting her from me?" Jackson’s fists curled at his sides. "She’s my family. Did Mom know about this?"
"Family?" Logan let out a short, mocking laugh that sounded like a sob. "Let me ask you something, Jack. If I had told you, would it have made a single damn difference? We can barely see eye to eye."
Jackson froze, the accusation hitting him like a blow.
"And no, Mom didn’t know. She died before I could tell her. The whole Anita situation was complicated. So tell me, Jack, now that you know, what does it change?" Logan pressed, his eyes bright, unblinking, and entirely uncovered.
Jackson opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to wither on his tongue. He just stared at his brother, his silver eyes wide, caught in a question he couldn't answer.
Then, he turned.
And left.