Chapter 4 #5
“See? We didn’t need to go to the ER, Rachel. A trip to the drugstore could have covered this.” Other than asking if she had a bottle of nail polish remover, he’d never suggested that simpler solution in the first place. He knew better. His nurse sister would have chewed him out.
And here it came…
“No,” Colleen corrected him. “You did the right thing. See that cut on her hand?”
Until that moment, he hadn’t. Gently, Colleen lifted the radiator hose and it came into view. A long, angry line right where the skin of her pinkie met the hose and wrapped under.
“Ouch,” he mumbled.
“Ouch, and in need of some antibiotic cream. Maybe a suture or two. Have to get you two unstuck before I can assess it.”
Rachel shot Kell a look that clearly said I told you so.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I was wrong.”
Colleen gave Rachel a look. “You heard that, right?”
“Yes?”
“Good. I have a witness. Kell Luview finally admitted to being wrong about something.”
“Colleen,” he said in a low tone of warning.
“Kellan Dean Luview, don’t you take that tone with me!”
“Now you just sound like Mom.”
“When you do stupid stuff like this, what do you expect? Superglue–really?”
“It was Rachel’s fault.”
She glanced at Rachel. “That true?”
“Of course not!”
Their hands soaked as the three of them banged this out. A weary tiredness found its way into his bones. If he was this depleted, Rachel must be the walking dead.
The curtain shook suddenly, Luke’s red uniform stark in the hospital’s fluorescent light. “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Peachy keen,” Kell informed him, using their dad’s phrase. Rachel suddenly looked hollow, Kell’s senses going into worried mode. “Can you snag a chair for her?”
“Sure.” Luke scooted a chair under her knees and Rachel sagged into place.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Want a snack? Some water or juice? You don’t look good,” Colleen said in a compassionate voice, disappearing before Rachel could answer.
“What about me? Am I invisible?” Kell called out to her, seeing her dismissive hand wave back at him. But he knew she’d return with juice and crackers for him, too.
He felt like he was five again.
Living back home did that to him more often than he liked.
Joining the family business to help his dad had felt like going backward in time, though he knew that wasn’t true.
His dad had treated him more like an adult than ever, but Kell had returned from D.C.
ready to work hard and avoid conversations.
The higher up he was in a tree, the better.
Self-preservation there was all about making sure you protected your whole body.
Unlike in D.C., where you were mainly watching out for stabs in the back.
Keenly aware of how raw he was, Kell had thrown himself into all the tough jobs, his dad forcing him to take on young Allen as an apprentice.
The kid turned eighteen two days before Kell came home, and now, five years later, he was still green, but at least he didn’t puke from vertigo sixty-feet up in a tree.
“Here.” Colleen returned with squat little apple juices covered in foil, the kind that felt satisfying to poke through with the thin straw. Kell took them both and did the honors for Rachel, handing it to her with his free hand.
“Dextrous,” she muttered, lips curling around the straw.
“Have to be, doing what I do for a living.”
“Pulling poison ivy?”
“Doing tree work.”
“But your truck…”
Luke and Colleen gave each other looks he didn’t like.
“I have my own side business.”
“Oh.”
“Here.” Colleen thrust an opened bag of teddy bear-shaped crackers at him. “Eat. And make sure you brush the crumbs out of your beard this time.”
With a grunt, he did as told, surprised by how hungry he was. In under a minute, he’d consumed the juice and the crackers, his hand feeling better from the warm soapy water.
With the snap of a glove, Colleen got to work. He looked at Luke.
“Don’t you have kittens to pull out of gutters and old ladies to help across the street?”
He got a gimlet eye in return.
“I broke up a porn network out of the old sugar house on Bondville Road last week. I do way more than you ever imagine, bud.”
“If by ‘porn network’ you mean the three college girls who were running a cam girl operation out of a seasonal cottage, okay, bro. Protect and serve.”
“I do need to get home.” Luke checked his watch. “Nanny’s done in an hour.”
“Wait a minute...” Rachel chewed on her last cracker. “Luke! You have a daughter! I remember FaceTiming with you and your wife, back in D.C.”
Her eyes cut to Kell. His siblings wore a thousand feelings across their faces in three seconds, ranging from mourning to intrigue to righteous anger.
That last one was Colleen.
And then Rachel said the worst thing possible.
“How is Amber doing? And Harriet?”
A cold wave of dread washed through him. Luke turned on his heel and left without another word, while Colleen’s frown at Rachel was enough to flay skin.
Kell cleared his throat and changed the subject, fast.
“How’s it going, Colleen?”
She was using a tiny scalpel to carefully peel Rachel’s skin off the plastic hose.
“Pretty close to done. I’ll pull out the acetone in a moment. Trying to avoid it because it’ll sting on any cuts.”
Rachel looked at them both, then toward where Luke had been standing.
“Did I say something offensive?”
“It’s fine,” Kell said.
“Nope,” Colleen said at the same time.
Small towns may be known for gossip, but they’re also known for protecting their own, and there was no way he and Colleen were going to talk about what Luke had been going through.
Not with an outsider, and certainly not with the ex-friend who had hurt Kell so badly. Freedom was almost his, and he needed as little entanglement as possible as they finished up.
“Are you sure?” Rachel prodded. “Because that was weird.”
Both Luviews went silent.
Mercifully, so did Rachel.
Two minutes later, through the miracle of acetone, Colleen freed them. Kell swore never again to take for granted the ability to make a fist with his left hand.
“Now let’s look at that cut on your pinkie,” Colleen said to Rachel, her tone a little too professional. Whatever warmth and humor had been there earlier was gone. Rachel wasn’t stupid. She noticed, eyes jumping to Kell with questions.
Questions he ignored.
“How bad is it?”
Colleen smiled and let out an odd little laugh. “You’re not going to like this.”
“It needs stitches? It’s broken?”
“Nope.” Rummaging through a drawer of medical supplies, Colleen pulled out a small tube.
“What’s that?” Rachel asked, suspicious. “Antibiotic cream?”
“No, I already cleaned the wound. This is a cyanoacrylate adhesive.”
“Adhesive?”
“Kind of a medical superglue.”
Two big groans came from him and Rachel.
“You want to superglue me again?”
“I’m going to glue your skin together at the cut, yes. Easier and less painful than sutures.”
Rachel stretched, a long one that made her arms go up and wide, her back cracking. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Your muscles are going to ache like crazy tomorrow. The more blood flow the better.” Colleen cast him a look. “How about you?”
“I’m fine. I wasn’t nearly as twisted as Rachel.”
His sister sized them up. “Her right hand, your left. So your right hand could do the gearshift, but her shoulder was twisted back so you could hold the steering wheel. People have been posting pictures of how she straddled you. Now I understand.”
“Glad someone does,” he muttered.
“Posting pictures?” Rachel gasped.
“Expect to be tagged on Instagram,” Colleen said to Kell. “And TikTok.”
“Here.” Rachel thrust her hand at Colleen. “Do what you must.” A long yawn escaped, the kind with a breathy little squeak at the end. “I just want to get to my cottage and sleep for a day. But I have an eleven a.m. meeting.”
Colleen got to work, but she looked at Kell. “Meeting?”
“She’s here to make a deal with Love You Chocolate.”
“Lucinda’s selling? No way.”
“Apparently Boyce is trying.”
“And you work in the chocolate industry?” Colleen asked Rachel.
“Yes. Acquisitions.”
“Are you director of acquisitions?”
“Associate director of my division.”
“Which is… acquisitions?”
Something about Rachel’s face made him groan inside. Here came more condescension.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“And you get what if you convince Lucinda and Boyce to sell out to a bigger company? A promotion?”
“It’s not just some bigger company. I work for Markstone's.”
Colleen whistled appreciatively. “I love their chocolate Easter eggs!”
“Right?” Rachel showed some actual excitement, for once. “This deal could really elevate your town’s stature.”
Colleen’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Why would we need to elevate our stature? Something wrong with how we are now?”
Warning bells started dinging in Kell’s ears.
Instead of reading the room, Rachel seemed to take Colleen’s challenge as a genuine question. “Don’t you want more tax revenue? More investment dollars? A facelift? Think about all the potential here!”
A veritable tornado warning siren went off in Kell’s head. He was tempted to insert himself physically between his sister and Rachel, because this was about to get ugly.
Rachel brought it on herself, though, even if she was completely oblivious. Someone who claimed to be smart in business should have better soft skills and know when she was offending a townie.
“A facelift.” Colleen finished gluing Rachel’s hand and stepped back, picking up the wrappings from bandages and stripping off her gloves. “You think my town needs a facelift.”
“Hah. Not, you know, a literal facelift.”
“Like the kind your mom gets,” Kell added, making Rachel smirk.
Something a little unhinged flashed in Colleen’s eyes.
“Your mom?”
A big eye roll didn’t make matters any better as Rachel said, “I know this sounds weird, but my mom is Portia Starman.”
“Your mom is Portia?”
“Yes. You know her?” Rachel reared back. “Oh, right. Her reality show. I’ll bet lots of you know her, huh? She was here for two months filming that little show she did here.” The nervous chatter began, something Kell found remarkably familiar.
Maybe Rachel hadn’t changed so much after all.
“Which makes you… Rachel from D.C.”
Wow. His sister had a look on her face Kell only saw in those TV news segments about small-town folks who quietly murder their neighbors for leaving the trash bin out for more than eighteen hours.
“Um, no. I’m from L.A.”
As fun as it was watching Colleen lose her mind as she dealt with Rachel’s unintentional insults and put all the puzzle pieces together, Kell was tired.
Calamine was still in his truck and probably close to turning it into a litter box, and Allen was blowing up his phone with questions about the job at Oldham’s farm and the storm.
“You’re Rachel from Kell’s days in D.C., I mean. That Rachel.”
Contempt dripped from Colleen’s words.
“If you mean we were coworkers at EEC, then yes.” Rachel’s tone started to match Colleen’s. Neither of these women was about to back down before the other.
“Right. You’re the one who schemed with Kell’s girlfriend to screw over our Uncle Ted–”
“Time to go! Thanks, Colleen!” Kell said quickly, knowing he had seconds before his sister erupted.
Inertia meant that an object at rest stayed at rest, but Kell also knew that he could just pick up said object, if need be.
Rachel was significantly smaller than he was–especially now versus five years ago.
Luckily, another nurse came over to Colleen, mentioning something about an impacted colon, interrupting the brewing argument.
“What was that about?” Rachel groused as she hurried to keep up with him as he spirited them out of the hospital. “What did you tell her about what happened in D.C.?”
“The truth.”
They were halfway to his truck, in the parking lot, when she halted.
“Clearly not.”
“Look,” he said, taking her elbow, which she shrugged off. He tightened his grip enough to make her pay attention. As she looked up at him, Rachel’s brown eyes were filled with righteous fury, as if she were somehow the wronged party here.
He was having none of it.
“You do not come marching into my town, treat my people to your sneering little insults, think you’re going to gentrify us with some corporate deal, berate me, and grill my poor brother about his private life.
You are a transient who is here for a few days to do who knows what, but you’re going about it all the wrong way. ”
She opened her mouth to reply, but yawned instead.
A long sigh stretching back five years poured out of him.
“Get in the damn car, Rachel.”
His phone buzzed. More texts from Allen, and one from Luke:
Storm’s picking up. Deke can’t make it to Rachel’s car in time. I’ll help you get it in the morning. Deke’ll drop a part off at the tavern for you to try yourself in the a.m.
“Luke says he’ll help get your car tomorrow. I’ll take you to your rental now.”
“Thank you,” she said shortly. “And please bill me for your time.”
“Bill you?”
“You wouldn’t take my cash earlier. You’re a professional tree guy. Or a poison ivy puller. Whatever you do, you’ve lost half a day helping me. I have an expense account. Write this up as auto repair or towing or something. Whatever you would charge a client.”
“I’m not billing you for helping out another human being.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Because there’s no way I’m going to owe someone who won’t even listen to the truth about who I am. You don’t get the moral high ground on this one, Kell.”
Her voice shook as she walked around the truck, yanked open the passenger door, and climbed in, shooing Calamine, who just looked at her.
“Don’t you dare,” Rachel said, pointing a finger in Calamine’s face. “I’ve had it.”
The cat, who never listened to anyone but Kell, stood up and leaped onto the console. Rachel settled in and clicked her seatbelt in place. Calamine calmly resumed her spot on the passenger seat, this time in Rachel’s lap.
A truce.
Rachel’s uninjured hand sank into the soft orange fur as Kell took in the scene, every square inch of his skin buzzing.
“What’s the address for your rental?” he barked at her as he gunned the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.
She gave it to him.
He nearly choked.
“Kenny’s? You’re staying at Kenny Bilbee’s?”
“Let me guess. Another one of your cousins?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever. He must own the inn.”
“Inn?” If Rachel thought Kenny owned an inn, this was about to get even more interesting.
“Just get me there in one piece, and not attached to anything, and we’ll call this day over.”
“Deal.”
With that, he drove toward his cousin’s house, suppressing an evil grin.
Because unlike Rachel, he knew what she was about to face.
And he couldn’t wait to watch her as it all unfolded.