Chapter 1
One
Petition to change Thanksgiving dinner from turkey to brisket. No one likes dry bird.
—Mable to Cody
Mable
“Mother!”
“What?” she asked innocently.
I didn’t believe that innocent “what” for a second.
“What is it, exactly, that you wanted me to do here?” I pushed.
“I wanted you to join Birdee and me for lunch,” she said demurely. “Is it too much to ask to want my two girls together?”
Yes, yes it was.
Mostly because I couldn’t fucking stand Birdee. I wouldn’t sneeze on her if she was on fire.
I certainly wouldn’t choose to have lunch with her when I wanted nothing more than to bend her over the table and smack her head against the fine china a few times just to make her cry.
My mother had said that it would just be the two of us today, but, like always, she’d lied.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if my mother forced us to spend time with each other because she genuinely wanted to mend the breach—as if it could ever be mended—or if she was just trying to rub it in.
I was betting on the latter.
My mother was never that nice of a person.
Or, more accurately, my stepmother.
She and Birdee had come into my and my father’s lives when I was barely eight.
From the moment my father had met her, he’d declared that it was love at first sight. Both for Birdee and my stepmother.
At first, I thought it was great, too.
But I’d quickly realized that Birdee would be the prodigal daughter while I was just barely second fiddle.
“I’m sorry that you went to all the trouble to invite me,” I lied. “But I will not be dining with Birdee.”
“Don’t be a fucking baby,” Birdee said from her perch on the expensive chair that barely dipped under her weight. “I think it’s time to stop acting like a child and instead focus on the rift in our family.”
“Focus on the rift in our family that you created?” I asked, getting really freakin’ angry.
“The one where you slept with my boyfriend of four years, lied about it when I found out. Stole my life savings, then drove to the airport where you used my ID to get on a flight that I’d booked and paid for.
Taking you to my honeymoon. And while you were at it, going to the leasing office of my apartment and terminating my lease? ”
I’d gotten stood up at my own wedding. When I’d left the venue to go home, I’d found that my place had been cleaned out and the locks changed. When I’d gone to call my dad, I’d found out that my cell phone had also been turned off.
It’d been a hellacious eight months, and she was going to sit here and act like she hadn’t just ruined my life?
I’d lost my job because I couldn’t get to work.
Did I forget to mention she’d also sold my car?
Forging my name on the title to get some cash to hold her over while she and my ex-fiancé spent our honeymoon in Bora Bora?
At least she had to buy her own ticket to Bora Bora and her lodging, since I managed to cancel a few things.
I’d lost my apartment.
All of my things—including every stitch of clothing that I’d owned.
I’d had to literally start over from scratch, and she was wanting me to “just let it go?”
I think, the fuck, not.
Birdee’s face showed pure shock.
“Listen, Mother,” I said, jaw set in stone. “I don’t want anything to do with Birdee. I don’t want to talk to her, see her, or even hear her from a distance. If you want us to reconcile, that’s your mistake. Because there’s no reconciliation on my end.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” my “mother” drawled. “You’re being a little extra, aren’t you?”
No, no I wasn’t.
The only reason I’d agreed to this farce was because I was desperate for some freakin’ food that wasn’t cooked by my own hand. I hadn’t been able to afford to go out since the night before my almost-wedding.
I was, however, a few months away from getting all of my money back.
I was lucky to have a great friend who was a lawyer.
She’d taken my case pro bono and was in the process of suing the pants off of Birdee.
She may not have any money, but my stepmother did.
The only reason she was likely here was to try to talk me down from the lawsuit.
I would never be talked down.
In fact, if I could bring more on, I would.
Cody, my best friend, assured me that I was going to win.
I didn’t care if I won, to be honest. What I did care about was making sure that she hurt for what she did to me.
“Don’t you want to know where your dog is?”
I froze at that, turning around so slowly that it was almost comical.
My eyes narrowed on the smug look on Birdee’s face, and I had to physically stop myself from launching myself across the superbly set table and raking my fingernails down her arrogant looking face.
“What are you saying, Birdee?” I asked carefully, trying and failing to control the temper that was about to be set loose.
“Oh, nothing.” She hummed. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
This. Fucking. Bitch.
“What did you do with my dog?” I asked.
“I didn’t do anything with it.” She shrugged. “It’s such a shame that he went missing, though, isn’t it? Such a beautiful, distinct looking dog. What was he again? A brindle mastiff? Or was that a bulldog? I can’t remember.”
It was a sable mastiff.
Which she fucking knew because she’d grown up in a house that had housed them.
My dad had been breeding mastiffs for show since before I could walk, and hadn’t stopped when my stepmother and stepsister came into the picture.
Brawny.
God, I missed him.
It’d been an awful six months without him, and every day I wished someone would call me with the news that they’d found him.
I answered every single phone call that came my way.
I’d even fought tooth and nail to get my old phone number back just in case the new phone number that I was forced to get—thank you again, Morris, you asshole, for insisting that we share an account and then refuse to give me my line back—didn’t reach me.
I searched far and wide for Brawny. I was on every single social media available to me sharing his picture on every site that would accept the photos. One day, he’d come back to me. I just knew it.
And the worst of it all, I somehow knew that Morris and Birdee were involved.
The fucking disgusting excuse for human beings that they were.
“I’ll be seeing you, I guess,” I grumbled as I started to walk out.
As I turned, I face-planted into the hardest chest I’d ever felt before in my life.
“Ooof,” I coughed as hard, unforgiving arms circled my waist. “I’m so sorry.”
I looked up, and up, and up into the most beautiful face I’d ever seen in my life.
The man was tall, that was a given.
But his eyes were the color of butterscotch, and I felt like I was drowning the moment that he looked down into my own baby blues.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
He grunted. “No problem.”
It was then I took in his attire.
Black shirt covered in sawdust. Red flannel shirt that looked like it was well loved. Jeans that were worn not because of style, but because of use. Brown boots that also sported quite a bit of sawdust.
He had thick thighs. Even thicker shoulders. Arms that looked like they could bench press a truck.
Long, flowing black hair that looked like an ad for Pantene.
A well-groomed black beard. Kissable lips. Working man hands.
God, this man was seriously the entire package.
He looked like he didn’t belong in this stupid country club right along with me and my spandex shorts that my mother hated. I had a huge, oversized t-shirt on over black biker shorts. Black New Balance shoes that had creases that drove my mother nuts.
Shoes shouldn’t have creases, Mable.
Truthfully, she wanted me to walk around all day every day in high heels and a modest skirt.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Especially not a woman that spent her life literally in the woods playing in the dirt.
Again, another thing that my mother fucking hated.
If she could erase that part of my life from existence, she would.
Women shouldn’t have dirty jobs, Mable.
Whatever.
The best part of my day was sitting in a backhoe digging in the dirt with headphones on playing my romance books.
I stepped back reluctantly from Mr. Literal Tall, Dark and Handsome.
His eyes took me in, starting at my shirt that was hanging off one shoulder, and ending at my slightly dirty shoes.
His lips tipped up, and he walked around me heading for the bar.
He took a seat and jerked his chin up at the bartender for a drink.
The bartender got it for him so fast that I couldn’t help but be surprised.
Plus, he acted like the man wasn’t severely underdressed.
If I’d gone up there I would’ve gotten a sneer and a revolted look.
Without a backward glance, I got the hell out of my least favorite place, and headed back to my lonely apartment.
The moment I got there, I sat down at my computer and started to scour the classifieds again.
“One day, Brawny, I’ll find you.”