Chapter Seventeen #2
Simon met my gaze and said, “I apologize in advance for whatever my brother says or does when he arrives.”
I lifted my eyebrows and said, “Should I hide in the attic?”
“No.” Lorelei shook her head. “Charlie is okay, he’s just—”
“Charlie,” Simon interrupted.
“Yeah,” Lorelei agreed.
And this time I saw the same pain in her eyes that I’d caught a fleeting glimpse of in Simon’s. Having never had siblings, I’d often felt like I was missing out. Now I was feeling pretty good about flying solo for my formative years. It seemed a lot less complicated.
“I’d stay and we could have a sibling reunion, but I have to get back to my patient.” At my questioning glance, she said, “I’m a nurse, specializing in elder home care.”
“You’re spending the night.” Simon crossed his arms over his chest.
Lorelei lifted an eyebrow. “Bossy much?”
“It’s late. I haven’t seen you in weeks, plus you’re on your second glass,” he said.
“My staying depends upon one thing,” Lorelei said.
“Which is?” Simon asked.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked.
“I just happen to be making my famous crab boil.” Simon gestured to the kitchen. “Which means you two need to vacate and give the culinary genius some room to work.”
“Say no more,” Lorelei said. “I never miss a boil.”
I picked up the bottle of wine and Lorelei grabbed the cheese and crackers. Together, we retreated to the living room, where Dude was delighted to join us.
While Simon banged away in the kitchen, Lorelei told me about her work and why she’d left Raleigh to live on the Outer Banks. It was the wild horses.
“I was a horse girl,” she said. “Absolutely obsessed with them.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I had riding lessons every week for years. It was my parents’ compromise for not buying me my own pony, which was on my birthday wish list every year from age six to sixteen.”
“So rude of them,” Lorelei commiserated. “I had a horse but my father sold him after my mother passed away and we moved into the city. I was twelve.”
I felt my chest get tight. To lose her mom and her horse had to have been devastating to a twelve-year-old.
Why would her father do that? I wondered how old Simon had been.
He must have been barely a teen. I wondered if his mother’s death was what caused him to be so emotionally closed off.
My heart hurt for him. Bit by bit, I was getting a picture of the O’Malley patriarch that was far from pleasant.
“The lure of the wild mustangs helped fill the void?” I asked.
Lorelei grinned. “Exactly.” She told me about working with the rescue outfit and I instantly knew that seeing the mustangs of Carova Beach was a top priority for the travel blog.
I had the content from Kitty Hawk and the Hatteras lighthouse for the upcoming week but I needed to make a few more videos if I wanted to maintain my income, unless I sold my half of the cottage and used that money to live on.
I glanced around the living room. No, that wasn’t an option.
I was still holding out hope that I could convince Simon not to sell.
Dude abandoned us once the cheeseboard was empty, opting to supervise Simon in the kitchen. I could hear Simon talking to him. “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of that guy. He’ll pinch your nose.”
Lorelei was watching me and I realized I was smiling like a doofus. I tried to cover it and said, “Simon’s really good with Dude.”
She nodded and glanced at the kitchen. We could just see a glimpse of Simon through the doorway. “I haven’t seen him this relaxed and happy in years.”
“This is happy?” I asked.
“For Simon, he’s practically ebullient.”
I glanced from her to the kitchen, where I saw Simon sneak a chef’s bite to Dude. Simon’s mouth was curved up just slightly as he took in the dog, who was wagging like a fool, and I felt my heart turn over at the sight of them. Ridiculous.
“Has he always been…” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t sure how to describe O’Malley in a gentle way to his sister.
“Somber? Serious? Stodgy?” Lorelei offered.
“Somber and serious,” I agreed. But when I thought of his kiss, I had to reject stodgy.
Her expression became remote as if she was recalling a different Simon, and when she glanced back at me, her eyes were sad. “No, he wasn’t but life happened.” She didn’t say any more so I approached from a different angle.
“I heard he was an artist,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. “He told you?”
“No. I heard it from someone here who said that Gramps bragged about it.”
Lorelei nodded. “We were all so proud of him, well, most of us were.” She glanced at her brother in the kitchen with sad eyes. “He made the decision to walk away from his art and while I understand why I really wish he could have found another way.”
Before I could ask any questions, Simon called us to dinner.
The crab boil was amazing. With corn and potatoes and Old Bay Seasoning and plenty of melted butter, I hadn’t eaten this well in a really long time.
Simon and his sister were funny and charming and clearly fond of each other.
When Lorelei started to droop at the table, Simon sent her up to his room to sleep.
I started on the dishes and Simon joined.
“You cooked, I clean,” I said. “Those are the rules.”
“Whose rules?” He took the rinsed plate out of my hand and put it in the dishwasher.
“Mine,” I said. “Because if I cook, I’m not doing the dishes.”
“We had a guest tonight so I think sharing cleanup is only fair.”
“I’m not going to fight you over it.” I handed him more plates and he loaded the dishwasher with an engineer’s efficiency.
We worked silently until the questions bubbling to the surface inside of me demanded release. “Are you as close to Charlie as you are to Lorelei?”
He was silent for so long I didn’t think he’d answer.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my busi—”
“In a different way, I suppose I am.”
“Oh.” I wanted so badly to grill him, but I didn’t.
“It could be my perception of things—being the middle child and all. Charlie was the star of the family. The son of my father’s heart.”
“Then what were you?” I asked, feeling a surge of anger that a father could favor one son over the other.
“The spare,” Simon said.
“That sucks.” Now I was furious.
“It was what it was. Charlie was smart, handsome, charming, athletic, and he excelled at everything. It wasn’t just my father who worshipped him, everyone did, especially me as a younger brother who had none of those qualities.”
I stared at him for a beat. “You’re joking, right? I see all of those traits in you.”
He flashed me a shy smile and said, “Trust me, I was none of those things growing up.”
“But you’re close to Lorelei?”
Simon shrugged as he arranged the silverware in the rack. “Little…excuse me…younger sisters are a different dynamic than older brothers.”
“Only child here, so you have to enlighten me.” I washed the final pot and handed it to him.
“To be blunt, Charlie’s life didn’t work out exactly as planned and now he’s…”
I stared at him, waiting.
“He’s different.” Simon finished drying the pan and placed it in the cupboard below the counter.
“Different?” I repeated. “That sounds relatable.”
“Charlie isn’t like you.”
“No?”
“No, he’s unchecked exuberance and no impulse control and he’s given me premature gray hair.”
I glanced at his scalp. “I didn’t see any when I examined your scalp the other day.”
“You were looking for guano not grays.” Simon bent forward so his hair was in front of my face. Then he pointed to the top of his head. “There. See?”
It was simply too much temptation to resist. I knew how soft his thick dark waves were and I reveled in the feel of them between my fingers.
“Well?”
“Um…no…” I ran my fingers through his hair and then I saw one. A single silver strand amid the dark brown. Naturally, I plucked it.
“Ouch!” Simon reared back.
I held the silver hair up and said, “I only saw the one and now it’s gone.”
“That’s only because I haven’t seen Charlie in a while. He has a gift for turning my hair gray.” A shadow passed over his face that resembled guilt.
“Maybe he’s changed since you last saw him,” I said. “Maybe he won’t be such a handful.”
“Unlikely.” Simon took the gray hair from my fingers and considered it before dropping it in the trash bin.
He faced me and I could see the muscles tighten in his jaw.
I had a feeling I was getting only the annotated version of events but that was okay, we had weeks for him to share whatever he wanted about his family, and if Charlie did arrive at the cottage, I would be able to see firsthand what the situation was.
“So, you and Charlie had a ‘Prince William and Prince Harry, the heir and the spare’ thing going?” I refilled my wineglass and grabbed another beer for Simon. “I had no idea I was in the presence of royalty, O’Malley.”
He gave me a mock bow as he took the bottle and said, “I give you leave to address me as Your Highness.”
“My lord honors me with his assistance in the scullery.” I curtsied and he reached out and grabbed my free hand with his. The warmth of his fingers around mine sent the same jolt of awareness I always felt at his touch.
“My lady.” He lowered his voice as he lifted the back of my hand to his lips. “Thou art too fair a maiden to toil in foul dishwater.”
I laughed in delight. The fact that the man could pivot from familial angst to converse in mock medieval tongue was ridiculously charming.
I took my hand from his and rested the back of it against my forehead, arching my back in a pose of feminine distress. “Such flattery. Take caution, kind sir, lest I expire in this very spot from a fit of the vapors caused by your flowery utterances.”
Simon snorted, and I could not have been more pleased to be the cause of it. He tried to wipe the amusement from his face but he couldn’t and instead he reached for one of the white dish towels. “I surrender. Fair maiden has bested me in this battle of witlessness.”