Chapter Fourteen
Lunch was fun. Chad was happy to once again recapture moments they’d enjoyed until the boys started leaving home after graduating from high school.
Every birthday, they’d gather around the kitchen table with a huge cake and sing to whoever was turning another year older.
It was such a simple thing, but it felt as if it had more meaning now than in the past. Dad was missing, of course, but that just made every second the family could spend together a little more important.
And having Britt at his side was an added bonus. It was scary how much this woman had come to mean to him in such a short period of time ... and how easily he could read her.
Something had happened while she was at the auto shop, but he had no idea what.
Walt and Barry seemed fine, their usual selves.
Camden had been there earlier, but he wasn’t in the shop when Chad had gone to get Britt.
Otis had just arrived, so he couldn’t have said anything to Britt to put that look of worry and concern on her face.
Whatever it was, he hoped she’d confide in him sooner rather than later. He didn’t want her time here at Lobster Cove to be concerning or stressful.
There was still a lot he needed to learn about her, and vice versa.
He hated that he hadn’t known about her fear of storms before last night, but now that he did, he’d keep an eye on the weather and do what he could to mitigate her fears.
He never wanted to see her as scared as she was when she’d barged into his room.
She’d practically been in a terror-induced trance, and if he hadn’t been around, he hated to think about how she would’ve coped . .. or not coped.
He wanted her to know that she could lean on him for anything.
To get through storms, to talk through her feelings about her mother, to rant and rave.
He wanted a real relationship, not just the bright and shiny parts.
He wanted the warts, slogging through the mud, dealing with any darkness that might arise—and he wanted to do it all together.
That wasn’t something he’d ever felt before. He’d been satisfied with simple relationships in the past. Going out to eat or to the movies, having sex. He’d never felt the need to share his burdens or deep dark thoughts with a woman before. But he did with Britt.
He had a feeling she’d understand the complicated emotions that came from being a sniper.
How proud he was of his record ... and how disgusted at the same time.
Killing human beings wasn’t something to brag about or talk about in polite circles, or even with his family, but he could see himself unburdening his soul and telling Britt about some of his more gnarly missions.
In return, he wanted her to open up to him as well. Her childhood had been shit. She’d practically raised herself, and that couldn’t have been easy. Listening to her mother harangue her that morning was painful ... almost as much as watching Britt pretend it didn’t bother her.
But he was grateful she didn’t need her own awful mother anymore ... because she had his now. Britt had gone with his mom to the store after lunch, and when they’d returned, they’d both been laughing—he and his brothers could hear it all the way from where they were working on the cabin.
On that front, they’d made great progress on the new roof today, and Chad felt confident they’d finish up in time to welcome the next renters.
Zach, Knox, and Lincoln had left for their homes an hour ago.
Evelyn had left shortly before her sons, back to town for her spa appointment and birthday dinner with some of her oldest friends.
He and Britt had the house to themselves, and Chad was thrilled. He wanted nothing more than a quiet night to relax and hang out, just the two of them.
Many people would think his life was damn boring, and they certainly wouldn’t understand why in the world he’d moved back in with his mother at thirty-seven years old.
But he didn’t care. He loved his mom, and he loved Lobster Cove.
It was in his blood, and he felt more at home here than anywhere he’d ever lived.
And Britt being with them was icing on the cake. He didn’t have to convince her that he wasn’t a weirdo for living at home. Didn’t have to try to talk her into moving in with him ... she was already here. He grinned at the thought.
“What’s that smile for?” she asked.
Chad glanced over at her. They’d eaten leftovers for dinner and were now sitting on the couch, watching TV.
Some show about people being dropped into isolated places and competing with others, who they couldn’t see or talk to, to be the last one to quit and go home.
It was interesting, but not as interesting as the woman next to him.
“I was just thinking about how much I love this.”
“This?” she asked.
Chad waved a hand to indicate the room. “This. Sitting at home. Waiting for my seventy-one-year-old mother to get home from a dinner date. Watching TV. Relaxing after a long day of honest work. Being with you.”
Britt rested her head on the cushion behind her. “Yeah. I like not being alone.”
Chad nodded. She’d hit the nail on the head. “Yes. The hardest part about being single was coming home to an empty apartment after work or after being deployed. Not having anyone to talk to, to share my day with, to eat with.”
“Being here has been ... enlightening,” Britt said.
He glanced over, feeling the intimacy of the moment. There was only the large-screen TV and a small light in the kitchen illuminating the room. She had a blanket over her legs, and they were sitting close, but not quite close enough to touch.
“How so?” he asked.
“Growing up, I was always alone, since my mom worked so much. I came home from school to an empty apartment, ate dinner by myself, put myself to bed. In the mornings, Mom was usually sleeping when I got up. There were some weeks when we barely said two words to each other, since our schedules were so opposite.”
“That’s sad,” Chad said softly.
Britt shrugged. “I didn’t know any different.”
“Doesn’t make it any less sad.”
“My childhood wasn’t necessarily bad ,” she said. “At least, it could’ve been a lot worse. But after seeing this place, the love you and your family have for each other, I realize that I missed out on so much.”
Chad reached for her hand. He didn’t pull her into him, although he wanted to. He simply wanted her to know that he was there, that she had his support.
“It wasn’t always easy growing up with three brothers and having so many businesses here on the property.
We didn’t go on a lot of vacations because we needed to be here for customers.
Dad worked a lot ... yes, he was here on Lobster Cove, but he was always doing something.
But I don’t think I would’ve changed anything about my childhood.
We had everything we needed right here.”
Britt squeezed his hand. Then she sighed and turned her head to stare into space.
Chad wanted to reiterate that she could talk to him. That she could tell him anything. But he didn’t want to push.
A couple of minutes passed as the TV show played in the background.
He felt Britt tense a moment before taking a deep breath and turning her head back toward him. “I think someone is stealing from you. From Lobster Cove. And I think it’s Otis.”
Chad blinked. That was so far from what he imagined was wrong, it wasn’t even funny.
His first instinct was to deny it. Tell her there was no way.
But he forced the words back. It was obvious Britt had seemed distraught since before lunch.
And it was no wonder she’d needed some time to think before telling him what was wrong.
“Why?”
Her head came up off the cushion and she tilted it in a questioning way. “You aren’t going to disagree? Tell me I’m wrong? That there’s no way he’d do something like that?”
“I don’t have enough information to say any of that,” Chad said calmly.
He felt her relax a little through the grip he had on her hand. She was still tense, but it was as if getting that first sentence out released a lot of tension she’d been holding on to since this afternoon.
“I don’t know for sure. But when I was helping with the inventory at the auto shop, I noticed some stuff that looked hinky.”
Chad didn’t want to believe it. But Britt had no reason to lie. Not about something like this. Besides, she knew how close Otis was to their family. How much he’d done for them, was still doing for them. So she’d also know accusing him of something so egregious was a huge deal.
“At first I didn’t think too much about it.
Figured it was just data entry errors. There seemed to be a lot of inventory ordered and paid for that wasn’t actually in stock .
.. or at least, Walt didn’t have it on his spreadsheet.
It was weird. I thought I was probably just confused, since I’m still learning what the different parts are.
But when I looked at the accounting program—which I only did because I was making up some fake invoices to test the system—I also noticed there were double the amount of bills the previous months than there are for this one. ”
“It’s possible with Dad’s death, the shop simply hasn’t been as busy as it was before, so we’ve ordered fewer parts,” Chad said gently, still not wanting to believe what he was hearing.
He wasn’t making excuses for anyone, per se, just trying to come up with some kind of reason for the discrepancies.
“Yeah.”
Chad waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, he was kind of disappointed. “What else? If someone is stealing from my mom and Lobster Cove, it’s a big deal, and my brothers and I need to know about it so we can do something.”