12. Chapter 12
In the very bizarre and unfair string of recent events, perhaps the largest injustice was Jase breezing in this afternoon, catching Lindsey without makeup and wearing yesterday’s tank top and shorts.
He was supposed to have more than a thousand miles to cross to get back to Ohio. The man had missed his own father’s funeral, and he picked now to get on a plane?
Lindsey slammed the door of her Wrangler on the hem of the black flowered dress she changed into after their disastrous reunion.
It was the same outfit she wore in Santa Barbara that finally pushed Jase over the edge and into her arms. The dress she should’ve been wearing the first time he saw her after California.
He looked terrible today too, at least.
Well, terrible in the unfair way that an impossibly sexy man looked dirty and rough, managing to incite fantasies about stripping off his dingy clothes, washing his naked body from top to bottom, and sleeping for the next few days nestled against his clean chest, waking only to slowly work off the scent of the Old Spice body wash from the upstairs shower.
While those irritating sights and smells fought with the reality that she would never be naked with Jase Young again, nor should she want to be—not even in fantasy—because the Jase Young he’d sold her, with his motorcycle and mouth and more orgasms in a few days than she’d had in a year was a lie, Lindsey freed her dress and headed inside for her second stiff drink of the day.
Walker’s Whiskey Room was a replica of Jason’s study without the books: quiet, dimly-lit, and smelling of lacquer and expensive tastes.
She ran her hand along the polished bronze rail lining the polished wood bar.
This wasn’t the place to kick back and get bombed after a bad day.
It was where professionals transitioned from long hours at work to short nights at home, which was probably why her brother wanted to meet her there.
“What’ll it be?”
A man in a pressed shirt the same stark white as his hair and black vest and pants set a wrinkled hand on the bar in front of her.
“Uh.” She appraised the glittering bottles lining the wall behind the bartender. Classier booze than she’d ever served at Smitty’s, on par with Jason Young’s cask-aged, smooth-sip-with-notes-of-vanilla single-malt favorites. “Anything but whiskey.”
A clipped laugh escaped him. “You sure you’re in the right place? This is a whiskey bar.”
“She’ll have a Macallan 18, neat.”
Lindsey’s head swiveled to the door and the voice she hadn’t heard since he called to check on her after Jason died.
“Luke!”
“Hey, Shortcake.” Her brother scooped her into a hug and looked over her shoulder at the bartender. “Make it two, please.”
“The usual then?” the bartender said. “My pleasure.”
“The usual?” Lindsey studied her brother, who shrugged and set her down.
“It’s on my way home,” he said. The gray-blue eyes they shared narrowed on her. “Are you okay?”
She hadn’t realized how desperate she was to reconnect with someone of her own, someone she belonged with, without any hard work or pretenses or requirements by a rather devious old man, until Luke’s hug squeezed tears from her eyes.
“Yeah, I just really, really missed you.”
“Me too,” he said. “Sorry I haven’t been around more.”
“It’s not just you,” she said, sitting on the stool Luke pulled out for her. “I haven’t been home since Easter.”
“Easter.” Luke loosened his tie and ruffled his hair. One thing all four Adams children shared was wavy, brown locks prone to wildness. “What a nightmare that was.”
The entire Adams family had packed around the dinner table, plus Luke’s wife, who kept her nose in her phone, and Graham, who spoke only when spoken to and spent the visit rubbing his chest raw.
Eight people passing platters, cautiously dancing around all the topics they’d been warned were off-limits for the holiday.
Grandbabies (Luke and Rachel were too busy being doctors to have a family), marriage (Lawrence hadn’t admitted to anyone other than Lindsey that he had a boyfriend, and Lindsey’s relationship with Graham had stagnated since his dad got sick), and illness.
Lots of clinking silverware, quiet chewing, and compliments to the chef, Lindsey’s mom, who apologized profusely for using too much clove in the ham.
Even the banter had been muted. The Adams men liked to joke that they were all technically doctors with their PhDs, though Luke was the only son to follow in their father’s footsteps and practice medicine.
Lawrence, the second oldest, was a professor, and Louis, three years older than Lindsey, was an environmental lawyer.
Her dad rarely let Lindsey forget that the best she could do was doctor up a drink, but on Easter, he’d only given her a hug and reminded her quietly that she could always come home.
Nightmare indeed.
“Yeah,” Lindsey murmured in agreement.
The bartender set two glasses in front of them and poured a few golden fingers into each.
“You’re a life saver, Walker,” Luke said.
“Walker?” Lindsey asked. “As in the Walker?”
“Yes ma’am. The name on the sign is mine,” Walker said. “Welcome to my whiskey room.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s nice to see you with someone, Luke,” Walker said with a smile. “Especially a girl as pretty as this.”
“Well, thank you, but we’re not on a date. This is my sister, Lindsey,” Luke explained.
“Hm. Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance. Pleasure to meet you Lindsey.”
Walker tipped his head and left to greet a pair of men in suits taking seats around the corner of the square bar.
“First name basis with the owner, huh?” Lindsey asked when he was out of earshot.
“I told you, it’s on my way home.” Luke sipped his Scotch and asked, “How’s your boyfriend?”
“Dead,” Lindsey said.
“What?” Luke exclaimed, nearly spilling his drink on his button-down shirt.
“I mean, dead to me,” Lindsey said, not entirely sure why it came out the way it did. “We broke up.”
Luke’s sigh of relief fogged the lacquered bar top. “Oh, thank God.”
“That he’s not actually dead? I didn’t realize you cared.”
“No, that you broke up. You dodged a bullet there, Linds.”
He didn’t know how many bullets she’d actually dodged recently.
“Wow. Thanks for the support, Luke,” she muttered.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I mean it, Shortcake. You can do better.”
“You might’ve mentioned it sooner.”
“Dad did plenty of that for all of us. I didn’t want you avoiding me too.”
“I’m not avoiding Dad.”
“Why haven’t you been home?”
“I’ve been…busy. Jason sent us on a road trip as part of his will.”
“Who? You and Graham?”
“And Graham’s brother.”
“Was this before or after you broke up?”
Lindsey touched the rim of her drink cautiously, unsure if she wanted the taste in her mouth after the Dalmore. Even the good stuff reminded her too much of Jase and all the things she was trying to forget.
“Both,” she said finally.
Luke raised his empty glass. “Sounds like a story that calls for another drink.”
While the white-haired whiskey man refilled Luke’s tumbler, Lindsey noticed the bags under her brother’s unusually dull eyes.
“Did you come from the hospital?” she asked.
He adjusted his suit pants on the stool beside her. “Sure did, and it’s been a monster of a day.”
“How long was your shift? When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’ve been on call the past few nights.” He rubbed his eyes, which only made him look more tired. “It shows?”
“You’re not as tragically handsome as usual.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sure your wife would disagree. How is Rachel?”
Luke and Rachel had been together since med school and seemed to live the busy but lavish life one would expect from two doctors. Big house, new cars, extravagant—though infrequent—trips, dry-clean only clothes, and a personal chef to do their weekly meal prep.
He lifted his second glass to his mouth. “She’s pregnant.”
“What?” Lindsey smacked his bicep. “Luke, we’ve been sitting here for ten minutes talking about Graham when you’re going to be a dad?”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “It’s a little known fact, but I can’t have kids.”
Lindsey’s heart leaped into her throat. Luke was her family’s quintessential golden boy.
Valedictorian? Yes. Voted “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Most Likely to Make Beautiful Babies” (with his then-girlfriend, the prom queen to his king) his senior year of high school?
Also yes. He exceeded every expectation school or family ever put on him, paving an impassable trail for his siblings to follow.
Life worked out for him, and what didn’t come easily he worked hard for.
It never occurred to Lindsey that the reason he didn’t have children was because he actually couldn’t.
“Even if I could, I’d have to be home enough to make a baby.” He grunted. “Which, Rach constantly reminds me, I am not.”
Lindsey spotted the pale indent on his finger. “You’re not wearing your wedding ring.”
“I’m not going to be married much longer. What’s the point?”
“She’s a doctor. Doesn’t she understand how busy it is?”
“She has her own practice. She sets her hours. I’m at the hospital, on call. It’s different.”
“And she’s…” Lindsey couldn’t repeat it. The truth was too awful.
“Pregnant,” he finished for her. “Yep.”
His second whisky was going down too fast and the bags under his eyes turned a darker shade of purple.
“Luke. I’m—”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. At the end of the day, she gets the baby I can’t give her.”
As her brother’s life story rewrote itself in front of her, Lindsey scrambled to catch up. How had she missed this? Rachel seemed distracted at Easter, but Lindsey had been dealing with her own failing relationship to pay much attention. That was only three months ago.
And in that time, Jason had died, Graham got back together with his ex, Lindsey hooked up with Jase, they’d traveled to the ocean and back, and Lindsey had inherited a house. Three months was plenty of time to upend a life.
And, apparently, get pregnant with another man’s baby.
“Do Mom and Dad know?” she asked.
“That I can’t have kids? Yeah,” Luke said.
“No, about the divorce.”
“No. And neither do Larry and Lou, and I want to keep them out of it for a while. I don’t think I could stand the look on Mom’s face.”
“And you’re sure you can’t…?”
She shouldn’t have asked.
Luke finished his second glass unceremoniously and almost choked on a laugh. “I’m a doctor, Linds. I think I’d know.”
That was it, then. A marriage ending. Her brother broken. Another situation she couldn’t change or fix.
“Stand up,” Lindsey said.
“What?”
“Stand up, you big dope.”
Lindsey dragged him to his feet and threw herself into his chest so hard it knocked a real laugh from his lungs.
“Take it easy, Linds.”
“You’re the best man—”
In the whole entire world, she was going to say, before a familiar voice in its own kind of anguish shouted, “Are you fucking kidding me?”