Chapter 3 #2
And then I go back to Manhattan, and I love that too. I love working on something bigger than myself, even if I feel disjointed at not loving the roots of Aurora Gardens anymore.
Lucky quirks another grin at me, this one holding a slight wince again. “If you decide to stay, we’ll have to address the elephant.”
I was hired as extra help for a month—apparently there’s a big conference being hosted at the retreat center and it’s nearly full in the weeks leading up to that, and they’re still figuring out staffing requirements, which, clearly, I could be helpful in assessing, if I were admitting to who I really am.
But it means that we know this is a trial. A short-term run to see if Margie Johnson would like it here enough to fight to keep the job and settle down.
Be close to the brothers she’s just met now that her mother’s dead.
And honestly?
My mother might as well be dead.
While I’d suspected Daphne was with Oliver, my ex, on a cross-country road trip last month when my executive assistant brought me a picture linked to an article about a mystery couple who’d been giving money away all over the Midwest, the rest of the world found out for sure when they were arrested together in a town a few hours north of where I am now.
My father apparently saw the same photo I had.
He’d been making noise about me getting back together with Oliver, and I’d been playing along since that’s what you do when you don’t want your enemy to know how close you are to destroying them.
So as far as my parents knew, I was interested in Oliver again.
And when Daph and Oliver were arrested, my mother called—not to ask how I was doing, but to talk about how dreadful it was that Daphne was still smearing the family name.
Being dramatic in a fashion only Daphne could manage.
Causing all of my mother’s friends to be horrified once again that my parents could’ve raised someone like Daphne.
My parents don’t call to ask how I’m doing.
They don’t check in.
If it’s not adding to the bottom line of the family’s reputation or holdings, then they don’t care.
Fuck that.
Daph hasn’t talked to our parents since they disinherited her, and I’m close—so close—to being there too.
“We’ll worry about elephants when we have to,” I tell Lucky. “Until then—can you pull over? I want a picture. But only if it’s safe.”
He brakes instantly, and a moment later, we’re on the side of a mountain road, with me leaning out the window, taking a picture of the morning mountain view.
I’ll send it to Daphne later.
And hopefully, Daph will get a chance to come out here and meet Lucky and his brothers herself sometime soon.
If all goes well.
“If Rhys starts to be a problem,” Lucky starts again as I settle back in the car and strap in, “just let me know. Decker’s a disaster with calendar management. But we can find another situation.”
“I’m sure he and I will figure things out.”
“He letting you have the bedroom?”
“Do you really think a guy who’s walked into a human mousetrap made of hair dye, flour, a squawking phone, and a woman armed with a cast-iron skillet is going to make a fuss about having the bedroom?”
Lucky hoots. “No.”
“I’d be happy to share. I mean, take turns.” No, you meant share, my libido whispers.
The man is attractive in a big, broody, scowling, grumpy, exact-opposite-of-everything-I’ve-ever-looked-for-in-a-man kind of way.
“Nah. Couch is comfortable enough. I should know. Decker always claims he needs his inspiration sleep when we’re both there, and Jack says he’s allergic to the pull-out mattress when he and I are both there, so I know firsthand about the couch.”
“What do you do when all three of you are there?” I ask.
“Me? I go home after dinner and crack up at the arguments they’re probably having.”
My heart swells in my chest.
I don’t think it’s instant love of my brother, given that I don’t think I know how to love someone.
I think it’s a desperate desire to have the kind of relationship with him—and his brothers—that they have with each other.
To belong.
To know that even when we disagree, we’ll still have each other’s backs.
If I hadn’t already known from my text and email conversations with Lucky the past few months that the triplets have that, this morning on its own would solidify it.
Daphne and I are close, but we’ve lived such different lives, in such different places since I left for college, which was almost half her lifetime ago.
The triplets—our half brothers—are still tight.
Lucky told me they each went different places after high school—Decker to the Marines, Jack to Colorado School of Mines, Lucky to nursing school in Denver, not far from Jack, but still far enough away that they didn’t see each other often.
But they all made their way back to Snaggletooth Creek within five years of high school graduation.
They have what I’d love to have with Daphne.
What I’m still working on having with Daphne as much as we can when I live in the city and she rarely travels back there.
It’s not where her heart is, and everyone she knew growing up basically abandoned her too when she was cut off.
I don’t blame her for staying in Athena’s Rest, where she was kicked out of her last college and then disinherited, where she’d made tight friends with a woman who took her in and helped her figure out her new life path, and where Oliver’s settling now to be where she’s happy. So they can be happy there together.
Lucky turns onto a road that opens us up to a main street with more mountains standing proudly in the distance, and I draw in a steadying breath.
“I can see why you moved back here after nursing school,” I tell him.
He grins again. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He points out various things as we drive down the street—city hall behind us with a statue of a miner that he tells me has quite the history—“Both” being his answer to the miner or the statue?—and a baked pretzel shop and the hair salon where he says Sabrina’s mom works, a pub and a chiropractor.
“Oh, a bookshop too?” I ask as we pass another shop.
“Yep,” is all he says to that.
Interesting.
Considering Decker’s job is writing books, I would’ve expected him to say a little more about a book store.
I’ll wonder about that later.
“Best Indian restaurant ever right there,” he says, pointing out a place called House of Curry and making it subtly clear that we’re not discussing the book store. “And—no, I’ll save telling you about that for later.”
“Telling me about what?” I ask.
He ignores the question with a grin as he points out an art gallery, and finally, the corner building on the left where a large bee hangs over the door.
Bee & Nugget.
The coffee shop, and our destination.
“I’m not saying it’s the best just because my grandparents ran it ever since my dad was little and it’s almost always been in the family,” he insists while he parks behind the building in a spot between a classic Cadillac convertible that weirdly looks like a bee and a truck that I’m almost positive belongs to Rhys.
“It really is the best, and it keeps getting better.”
Exactly what I’d like my entire life to be.
And what I’m nearly at.
I eye the truck once more.
“You see the bee-mobile?” he asks, hooking his thumb at the car on the other side.
“It’s adorable.”
“I helped restore it. We all did.”
“You and Decker and Jack? It’s yours?”
“Us and some friends. And nope, not ours. It’s a communal car for my friends. Long story. Oh, hey, that’s Decker’s truck,” he says, pointing across the lot. He grins at me. “Ready to meet one more of us?”
My heart thumps.
Ready to convince one more of us that you’re worthy of love?
“Absolutely,” I say. “Can’t wait.”
And I hope, on some level, that Decker feels the same.
Guess we’re about to see.