Chapter 5
DUKE
“Heard your day was shit,” Lukas said, amusement coloring his voice as I picked up my phone.
“Understatement of the fucking century,” I muttered beneath my breath, drying my hands on a dish towel on the counter.
It was so much more than just a day. Two years ago, I had everything figured out.
My life was better than it’d ever been. My wife and I were happy.
Harper was thriving in school. I gave back to my community, and my community gave back to me, supporting the dream I was chasing.
Because of them, I quit my job at the mechanic shop to ensure Frank’s Bar—a Pinecrest legend—was restored to its former glory and gave the lost and weary a place to call home.
Little did I realize I would soon become one of them.
In the blink of an eye, my life crashed and burned like an old country song. Everything good was tainted. I was weak. A coward. So goddamn beat down by life and circumstance that I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror most days.
Today, it just happened to hit harder than most. My world lost focus the moment I ran face-first into Olivia fucking Hart.
The Harts were Pinecrest royalty. Everyone knew their name, knew how much money and power came with it, and fawned over them accordingly.
Even though my family lived paycheck to paycheck, I was lucky enough to consider Lukas my best friend.
We were inseparable growing up, still were, but his sister? That was a different story.
God-fucking-dammit. Out of all the people I could’ve run into, it had to be her?
Olivia Hart had always been a pain in my ass.
From being forced to spend time together as kids, to saving her ass when she got her jeep stuck in the mud after I told her it was shit weather to cruise in.
The girl was one headache after another.
“Were you able to get the milk out of your favorite New Balance sneakers, Grandpa?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know what the fuck you have against them. They’re comfortable. Sorry I don’t wanna kill my feet when I’m on them all day.”
“That’s why they make inserts for your other shoes. You can be stylish and comfortable at the same time,” he mused. “A concept I know has been long since lost on you.”
His words hadn’t stung exactly, but they were another reminder of how my life had changed.
My outfit was simple and to the point. I didn’t see the need to dress up when I was just going from the cabin to the bar or to Harper’s school.
It wasn’t like I was going on dates or anything.
Even when I had that one damn time, I knew five minutes in there wouldn’t be a number two.
“Maybe when you have a kid of your own to chase around, I’ll convert you.”
Lukas laughed. “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
“You talking about wearing New Balances or having kids? Kinda hard to tell,” I said, grabbing a bottle of cleaner and spraying it over the counter.
Harper had gotten jelly everywhere while making herself a sandwich And while she’d tried to clean up, she ended up leaving a sticky mess along the surface that wouldn’t be conquered by anything less than industrial strength solvents.
“Both,” Lukas chuckled. “But I’m an awesome-as-fuck uncle. How is my niece doing, by the way? Haven’t seen her around much lately.”
My hand faltered as I let out a sigh. Lukas always offered to watch Harper when I needed him to, and she loved going out there to visit his hoard of animals. “Yeah, it’s rough this time of year, ya know? This is about the time Sarah—”
“Walked out,” Lukas finished quietly. He knew every sordid detail of my ex and I splitting.
He’d been there to take care of Harper when I physically couldn’t get out of bed, and he’d made sure I ate when I’d rather have wasted away.
“No, I get it. Losing a parent is rough. When my dad died… Well, it wasn’t his choice to leave us.
I knew that. Could rationalize it, even. ”
“Can’t really rationalize this, though. Makes no goddamn sense, walking away from your own kid,” I groused.
Ever since the divorce, my daughter had struggled to find balance.
Her life had been uprooted, torn from her childhood home because I couldn’t afford the mortgage payment by myself anymore, and her mom wanted nothing to do with us.
Sarah moved to the city, choosing to follow dreams of her own, which apparently didn’t include her husband or her child.
These days, Harper was lucky to get a text on her birthday.
Her mom never called. Never sent gifts. It was like we didn’t exist. While I wasn’t wasting my days pining for a woman who, looking back, I knew was never going to stay with me, our daughter felt the absence of her mother something fierce.
“You know I’m always here for you,” Lukas said after a beat. “Y’all can stay in the guest house—”
Before he could finish, I was already shaking my head. We’d had this argument more times than I could count. “We’re good here, Luke. Told you that.”
“You’re sleeping on your goddamn couch, Duke. A couch I know damn well isn’t comfortable.”
He was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it and acknowledge another failure. Another thing I couldn’t fix.
Six months ago, Harper and I moved into the small cabin behind Frank’s bar.
It came with the property, so I figured I ought to make use of the damn thing.
There was only one bedroom, which meant I was, in fact, sleeping on the too-small couch every night so my daughter could have her privacy.
I thought it might help get her back to her old self, but it only seemed to make her sadder.
The only time I saw her smile these days was when she was around her best friend.
“How goes things with you?” I asked, changing the subject. If there was one thing Lukas wouldn’t do, it was push things after I’d drawn a line in the sand.
Lukas blew out a long breath. “John’s sick.”
“Aw man, I’m sorry. What’s he got? The flu or something? Heard that’s going around.”
“No,” Lukas said after a long moment. “End stage liver failure. He’s declined all treatment. Doc said three to six months.”
My eyes closed as I processed the news. John Hart was a stand-up guy.
Literally one of the best I’d ever known.
After Lukas’ dad died, he took on the parental role Lukas and Olivia needed while their mother lost herself to grief.
Not only that, but John had helped my uncle since he was elected mayor of Pinecrest over fifteen years ago.
Together, they’d helped transform our little town into the tight-knit community it was today.
Why did the worst things happen to the best people?
“Christ, man. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”
Lukas laughed, but there was no warmth to it. “Want to see if you can convince the old bastard to do a liver transplant?”
“He refused?” I asked in shock. “Why the fuck would he do that?”
“He said he’s lived a good life. That there’s no point in postponing the inevitable. We all die in the end, after all. Fuck if I know. It’s idiocy if you ask me. He’s got all the money in the world and yet won’t use it to save himself.”
Suddenly, it made fucking sense. “That’s why Olivia’s back, isn’t it?”
“Picked her up last night. I don’t think she’s handling it well, to be honest. She’s putting on one hell of a front, but you know how she is. Stubborn as a goddamn mule and never willing to ask for help.”
She was sure as shit stubborn alright.
“She’ll be fine,” I bit out. It came out more harshly than I intended, but Lukas didn’t seem to care. He was too lost to his own battles to hear about the one I was currently waging with his sister in my head.
Once upon a time, I’d been glad Olivia left this tiny town to chase her dreams. I listened as Lukas talked about all her accomplishments.
Even followed her career on my own a bit, too, but times had changed.
Now, I resented her for leaving. For the fame, the fortune, the too-good-for-Pinecrest attitude.
It reminded me too much of Sarah. The way she disappeared without a second thought, leaving Harper and I to pick up the pieces.
A divorce was one thing, but how could a mother walk away from their kid?
Their stories were too similar for me not to compare.
If I’d passed her on the street, I would’ve known it was Olivia immediately from the fancy way she carried herself.
She might’ve been wearing a Hartfelt Homes T-shirt, but the skintight jeans painted on powerful legs gave her away.
They hugged every goddamn curve of her body like a masterpiece.
Silvery blonde hair was piled into an artful bun on top of her head, giving a perfect, unobstructed view to her slender neck.
I could still smell the faint scent of her expensive perfume.
Sweet berries and warm vanilla. Thank god for the cold milk that had shocked me out of my stupor, otherwise I might’ve stood there gawking like an idiot.
“Liv’s a fighter, but I still worry about her. I invited her and Charlie over for dinner tonight, but she declined. Told me that as long as our mother is staying under my roof, she wouldn’t be stepping foot inside,” Lukas muttered.
“She can’t get over herself for five minutes?
Not everything is about her.” I was being an ass, but it was true.
Their mother was a barely functioning alcoholic in designer clothes.
The only reason she wasn’t living out on the street is because of John’s generosity.
But sometimes you needed to set that shit aside for family.
They were blood after all. Whatever she’d done couldn’t have been that bad.
“It’s complicated, but I’m not getting between them. Tomorrow will sure as fuck be interesting, though.”
“Why’s that?”
Luke was silent for a second. “Liv and I are going to visit John. I wouldn’t put it past our mother to make an appearance. Especially if I told her to stay her ass home.”