Chapter 11
11
[Vale]
O n Saturday, Stone takes Hudson to practice while I run errands around town.
My first stop is motivational.
I need coffee and something sweet, so I pop into my brother’s bakery.
The Curmudgeon Bakery has black and white checkerboard tile flooring.
A dark wooden bench runs the length of one wall with a scattering of tables and chairs in front of it.
A display case of goodies lines the opposite wall.
Near the front of the bakery is a small sitting area with café tables.
The place is appropriately named for the business owner—our once surly brother—who also happened to be one of my closest friends growing up.
Trouble led Sebastian, and as I followed him wherever he went, that meant trouble found me on occasion.
In my teens and the beginning of my twenties was when I was most reckless.
When I searched for love in all the wrong places, literally.
I wasn’t proud of what I’d done or who I’d been with, having gotten myself into a pickle a time or two with the wrong sort of character.
Or rather, refusing his pickle.
One time in particular was a close call, and my brother right above me in birth order played the hero.
He also took the fall like a villain, serving jail time for his reaction.
For years, guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders because Sebastian was locked up while I was raising my son, living a better life than I expected.
But now, Sebastian has Enya and two beautiful daughters, plus he runs a respectable business, and my pride and deep love abound for how things turned out for him.
He still has a curmudgeon look about him with the tats and dark clothing, but I know he’s feeling lighter inside, and he smiles more often.
“Hey,” he greets me as I near the counter where he slides a tray of brownies into the display case.
“How’s my favorite sister?”
“Funny, as I’m your only sister.”
“And thank God for that.” He looks up and winks.
I give him a sassy smirk before directing my attention to the display case.
Everything looks mouth-watering today, and I take my time to glance at the variety of baby bundt cakes and brownies, plus cookies and muffins.
“What can I get you?” he asks, swiping his hands on the apron tied around his waist.
“What’s new?” Still being springtime, he doesn’t have a large array of seasonal berry treats or my favorite pumpkin spice anything.
“I got crack.”
Certain he’s joking, my head still swivels in his direction.
Sebastian doesn’t do drugs anymore.
Further teasing me, he pulls a tray from a refrigerator.
Crack . Graham cracker bottom with a layer of solid chocolate on top.
Toffee in the middle with crumbles on top of the chocolate layer.
“I hate you,” I tease.
“Give me one of those.” Not exactly breakfast of champions but I’ve got a lust for sweets today that only chocolate can fix.
After asking about the baby, Adara, and Enya, and catching him up on Hudson, I take my coffee and crack for a later snack, intending to exit the bakery, until Trinity Haven enters.
“What’s up, Trin?” I ask, noting how her head is down, reading something on her phone.
She looks up at me with a weary expression before slipping her phone into her pocket.
“Oh, hey, Vale. Nothing much.”
I don’t believe her.
As Trinity and I called a truce years ago despite our brothers’ situation, I take a seat on the long bench, setting my coffee on the nearest table.
“Sit with me a second.” She looks like she could use a friend.
Trinity simply stares at me for another second before stepping up to the counter and ordering her own morning drink and a muffin.
She takes the chair opposite me and stares at the perfectly puffed-up pastry as if it offends her.
“Girl, what did that muffin do to you?” I joke.
Her blond hair shakes as she does a full body shudder before sitting upright and leaning her elbows on the tabletop.
“Why are men so stupid?”
Something tells me she doesn’t mean collectively.
Maybe just one man.
“I hate cheaters,” she adds.
I nod to agree but also find it a bit rich considering what her brother did to mine.
Then again, like I said, Trinity and I have a truce.
“What’d he do now?” Eyeing her, I don’t need to say his name.
Trinity swipes her hands over her face, tugging at her skin a little bit.
“Nothing. Right? He’s done absolutely nothing for me.”
Without spelling it out, I know she’s referring to her ex-husband who left our small town without a blink backward.
The hardest part about their breakup was how in love they seemed.
They were perfect for each other and then he just decided to leave.
Or so Trinity tells us.
A midlife crisis at thirty-five.
He became a NASCAR driver.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask, open to listening to more details.
“Not really.” She shakes her head again and stares down at her steaming cup.
Sebastian suddenly appears at the side of the table with another piece of crack goodness on a small plate.
He practically drops it on the tabletop but then he slides it toward Trinity before walking away.
He doesn’t say a word, although minutes ago he was pleasant enough taking her order.
Trinity’s eyes follow his retreat before she shakes her head one more time and turns back toward me.
“Think they’ll ever grow up?” She means the silent feud that is so old sometimes it’s almost difficult to remember what happened.
Almost , but not quite.
I remember. The heartbreak of my oldest brother.
The loss of both his best friend and his girl.
In trade he took on six siblings.
It wasn’t fair.
And it’s a reminder why Cort and I shouldn’t ever be more than we are now.
Therapist and patient.
Mother to a kid he coaches.
Once his sessions are over and the season ends, back to our respective corners we go.
“I don’t know,” I admit about our siblings.
They have grown in so many ways.
Her brothers are just as accomplished as mine, but hers are also single later in life like most of mine have been .
“Sometimes I just want to knock all their heads together. Don’t get me wrong, I know Cort was at fault, but still . . .”
This is the first time Trinity has ever spoken so directly about what happened.
Cort broke Stone’s heart.
He also broke mine a little bit too.
While unintentionally cracking it open when I was ten, the real shattering happened later.
Cort wasn’t a bad man, he just made poor decisions.
Who didn’t? I’d made a rash decision as well with misplaced expectations on him, so I take some responsibility for my wound.
But if I was being honest, the way he’d treated me hurt.
Deeply.
And the moment proved only one thing: I would never find what I was looking for through random sex.
Trinity sighs. “But sometimes, you just have to forgive and let go.” She makes a heart symbol with her hands before breaking them apart and fluttering her fingers like two halves are flying away from each other.
“Be free.”
Somehow, I don’t think we’re discussing our brothers anymore, but I appreciate what she’s saying.
I learned to forgive long ago.
Be free from my own guilt in the equation with Cort.
Letting go of him hadn’t been a choice.
He’d walked away from me.
He’d also never been mine to keep.
Cort is still on my brain when he shouldn’t be as I stand in the beekeeping section of the Sylver Seed & Soil.
Our family business started out as a dream of our mother’s.
She loved the outdoors.
Plants and flowers. Animals, especially horses.
And when the opportunity came up to buy a rundown farm and fleet business, the romantic side of our father, which I’d never ever seen, decided to purchase it for her.
Upon her death, their dream died, according to our dad.
Between his drinking, gambling, and business debts, he’d taken the start of a thriving opportunity and ran it into the ground.
Clay worked his butt off for years, struggling to keep the place standing before our father died.
Then the real work began.
Clay turned the farm and fleet into something even greater.
While farm supplies are still sold through the back of the business, the front end has turned into an empire for the outdoor enthusiast, selling garden needs and garden-themed houseware items, plus pet products.
Thus, a beekeeping section.
My mind races as I stare at the two types of bee smokers on a shelf.
Forgiving Cort came with time and seeing him so often lately is triggering old feelings.
The sting of his rejection.
The confusion about his tears.
The coldness of his second exit from my life.
While I could justify not reciprocating my crush when I was in my teens, it was harder to excuse Cort’s actions as an adult.
When I was twenty-two, he’d been making bedroom eyes at me, restoring the heart emojis in mine, and that attention was enticing, refreshing, and maybe even a little vindicating.
Like he really saw me.
Saw what I needed.
Only everything crashed and burned as it always does when I go at sex with full speed.
I’d been devastated then, but as I’m quick to react, instead of reflect, I’d been with Ken soon after Cort, and then my life flipped in other ways that made the Cort-situation almost insignificant.
But now he’s back. Or at least, I’m stuck seeing him more often than I have in years.
And I’m just as befuddled.
The tender hand holds.
The soft brush of his fingers on the underside of my wrist. What was he doing?
Why was he doing it?
And dammit, why am I stirred up by him again?
Shaking my head, I force my concentration back to the bee smoker options, reading off once again the attributes of each one.
“Vale?”
Like I’ve conjured him up, the rugged, surprised voice has me turning my head, flinching a little bit in additional confusion.
“Cortland?”
The very last place I expect to see Cort is standing in the aisles of my family’s business, dressed like he came here fresh from the Haven Hitters practice, complete with a backward baseball cap on his head.
Damn, he looks good .
Taking a step closer to me, he glances at where I’d just been staring.
“Smokers?”
While my insides leap at his nearness, my response is still snarky.
“It’s for blowing smoke up someone’s ass.”
Cort snorts while his gaze drops to my backside before quickly looking away.
“Well, that sounds . . . hot.” The corner of his mouth tips up just the slightest bit.
“Good one,” I counter, turning to face him.
“What are you doing here?”
Cort casually leans against the shelf.
“I need to pick up a puffer.” He holds one hand outward in a fist, the other a few inches away, motioning back and forth like he’s pumping something up.
I could make a sexual remark back at him but bite the inside of my cheek instead.
“Do you mean a powder duster?”
“Yeah, that.” He snaps his fingers while the corner of his mouth curls a little higher as we stare at each other another second.
“My momma needs it for her garden.”
Mary Haven.
“How is your momma?” I sigh sweetly, having fond memories of his mother.
“She’s good.” His smile falters only a little bit.
Cort lost his dad to a heart attack in the time our families have been separated.
Seventy-something seems too young to be a widow .
Then again, my father became a widower in his thirties.
As silence lingers, I tip my head to the side.
“The puffers are in the next aisle over.”
Cort exaggerates a nod but doesn’t press off the shelf.
Instead, he turns his attention back to the smokers.
“I’ve been looking at a smoker for my bees,” I explain, taking the sting out of my early joke.
“I’m a beekeeper.” Playfully jabbing a finger in his direction, I narrow my eyes.
“No little bee jokes.”
Cort’s mouth twitches a little higher.
His arms cross and he glances back at the smokers.
“A beekeeper? Really?” Disbelief doesn’t fill his tone half as much as his question implies.
And the curl of his mouth is still slight but teasing.
His full smile would be devastating.
When he brings his gaze back to me, a spark flickers in his eyes.
“St. Valentine. Patron saint of bees.”
I blink.
“What?”
His face sobers a little, but that smile doesn’t leave his mouth.
“Don’t tell me you never heard such a thing? That St. Valentine loved bees.”
I have heard such a thing, but I wasn’t aware he had.
“Where do you think Little Bee comes from?”
My mouth gapes a second before I respond.
“Me being an annoying child, buzzing around you and Stone, following you everywhere.” As Cort had accused me of doing on numerous occasions as a kid.
“That was never the reason I called you Little Bee.”
I’m gobsmacked a moment.
Had there been a deeper meaning to the nickname?
There couldn’t be.
He tips his head toward the smokers.
“Do you even need to shop here?”
He means since I’m a partial owner of Sylver Seed & Soil, do I need to make purchases.
I could have ordered something online from a beekeeping group I belong to, but I like to support our family business, even if the proceeds just get turned around as dividends paid out to me quarterly.
Our brother Judd is a financial wiz and the family accountant, not to mention CFO of the Seed & Soil.
“Can’t you collect compensation for years of working here?”
I chuckle.
“It’s been years since I worked here.” Back in high school and during college, I spent as much time as I could helping out in some capacity or other.
There was never an expectation to work at Sylver Seed & Soil just because I am a Sylver.
Clay holds the honor of wanting to be here the most. Judd fell into his position because our oldest brothers worried they’d lose him otherwise, and Stone was hellbent on keeping the family together.
Even Knox works here now, after his retirement from the Navy.
Thoughts of my brothers remind me why I shouldn’t be so casually chatting with Cortland in our family business.
Chatting in a way that’s only one flimsy layer away from flirting.
Stone would be so hurt.
And I couldn’t be the one responsible for breaking his heart again.
“Anyway.” I turn my head, aiming my focus at the bee smokers but not really seeing either of them.
Cort presses off the shelf and steps up beside me.
More like just behind my left shoulder.
A little closer than necessary.
Close enough I get a whiff of him.
Balsam fir, fresh air, and all man.
The position almost reminds me of how he stood behind me once upon a time.
The things he said to me.
What we did together.
Cort stretches his arm around me, brushing his inner bicep against my shoulder as he points at one of the two smokers.
“I heard this one is top of the line. Best for blowing smoke up someone’s ass.” He chuckles near my ear, and I close my eyes a second, breathing in the sound, sensing his heat behind me .
If anyone’s blowing smoke, it’s me, suddenly feeling a little overheated and a bit steamy.
He’s too close. Then he moves away too soon.
And I spin to face him.
My heart saws against my ribs, like I’ve been triggered once again.
Like he’ll walk away with tears in his eyes and indifference in his tone.
Instead, Cort offers me a tentative smile.
“See you around, Bee.” He takes one step backward while still looking at me.
Then another. And one more before he spins for the end of the aisle.
Then, to my surprise, he glances back one more time before rounding the shelves.
And I’m left wondering, how bad can a man really be if he’s shopping for his mother?
If he can tease me about bee smokers?
If he can still make me weak in the knees and my heart patter and give me a final glance.
Is that enough cause to give him a second chance?