Chapter 1
ONE
NATE
EIGHT YEARS LATER — NOVEMBER
Exhaustion beat at my heels. Regardless, I opened up the main entrance and stared bleary-eyed around the store.
Immediately, rightness settled in my chest. While work was busy, this place was pretty much my second home.
Whenever I was here, whatever stress I was feeling melted away.
Maybe not all of it, but certainly enough to help me breathe.
If only it could help with my sleep-deprived state too.
It had been another night of Amber being uncomfortable and calling me at almost midnight, worried she’d gone into labor.
After checking on her, and me and her gran reassuring Amber that perhaps the curry she’d eaten may have been responsible for the grumbling stomach pains and not the baby ready to say hello, I’d finally dropped face-first on the bed in their spare room and crashed.
Six hours later, I was going through the orders, preparing for a big delivery from our produce guy while yawning like it was an Olympic sport.
“Coffee?”
I glanced up at Patrick. He carried my saving grace. “Please tell me you got me a double shot and vanilla?” My voice was scratchy, lack of sleep doing a number on more than my attention.
“The gross sugary syrup is most definitely in there.” He wrinkled his nose, and I didn’t have a single thing to say in my defense, not when staring at the order sheet was already addling my brain.
Instead, I grunted, “You are a rock star,” and took the coffee from him.
“That I am. Don’t you forget it when it comes to Christmas bonuses.”
I snorted before inhaling the scent of coffee deeply once I clung to the cardboard cup. I took a tentative sip, unable to wait until it cooled. The splash of frothy coffee, with the bitter tang of caffeine barely disguised under the vanilla, hit my tongue. I sighed happily.
“Amber again?”
I nodded, gaze resting on Patrick, a small smile forming. He was one of two full-time staff who worked for my dad and me. He was young, early twenties, and from a local family. I knew his big sister from high school, which had helped me decide to give him a chance, and I was so pleased I had.
Most of the day-to-day management rested on me these days, which I was more than okay with. While Dad was still young in his midfifties, he’d had a few health issues over the past couple of years, so he had stepped back a fair bit.
But this store was all I’d known, so running the place was as easy as breathing.
It meant even when struggling to function, I could just about manage.
It also helped that I took comfort in being here.
I loved the familiar space, loved hearing the gossip from the locals, loved interacting with so many people.
“Is she okay? The baby?”
“Both fine. She just had a scare. It’s getting close, though.”
“What is it now, a month?”
I bobbed my head, my heart leaping a little when I thought about Amber.
In just over a month, she’d be a mum. I still struggled to wrap my head around that.
Hell, she was still a kid herself. Admittedly, she was a lot more grown up than most eighteen-year-olds I knew, but she was like my kid sister and absolutely my family, which meant she was still practically a child.
Her being a parent would change it all, though.
And hell if we weren’t all excited for the new addition.
“Are things still difficult at home?”
A chuckle spilled out of me. It was no secret Gran Broadwater was a force of nature.
When Amber had asked me to be with her when she told her gran she was pregnant, I was sure I’d been more nervous than she was.
But Gran had surprised us both that day.
She’d listened to her seventeen-year-old granddaughter tell her she was pregnant without batting an eyelash.
And when Amber had admitted it had happened when she’d gone to a festival, where she’d done the deed with two different guys, neither of whom she was in contact with, I’d been the one who’d winced and could have broken out into a full-on lecture.
But Gran had listened to every single word before asking what she wanted to do about the pregnancy and saying she’d support Amber whatever decision she made.
Knowing that Amber had been as safe as possible by using condoms perhaps helped. But that tiny percent chance of protection failing was a shit of a thing.
Eight months from that festival that changed her world, Amber had finished up her final school exams last month and was waiting for her results.
Always focused, she’d already put in her applications for studying next year to start her veterinary nursing course, and had even maintained a part-time job until last month.
I was so bloody proud of her.
“I don’t even know why I’m laughing.” I shook my head, becoming somber.
“Gran’s health isn’t great, and you know how stubborn she is.
I honestly don’t know how Amber is going to manage being a new mum and studying while trying to make sure Gran is taking her meds and following the doc’s orders.
” Yeah, there was nothing funny about any of it really.
And while I did know Amber would cope, my concern was she’d struggle and not ask for help.
Asking me for a Big Mac from Maccas at ten at night was a bit different from admitting she struggled with new-mum duties.
Since Amber’s brother left—the only way I thought about him these days—I’d stepped up.
Admittedly, it was my decision to do so, but with Amber being so young when he’d gone to America and her gran getting on in years, I’d felt responsible, and there had been a kinship in our sorrow those first years after he’d moved to the US.
There was nothing I regretted about forcing myself more firmly into the Broadwater home either. I spent more time—more recently especially—with them than my blood family. And I loved every moment of it. Well, the late-night calls from Amber I could do without.
Amber’s gran had become my gran somewhere along the road, and while I had my parents who had also helped them out over the years, the past couple with my dad’s heart issues meant my folks had his well-being to worry about.
“I imagine it’s the only way you won’t lose your mind,” Patrick said, referring to my previous comment.
“Yeah. I just know something is going to give, and I’d prefer for that to be handled before it all turns to shit, you know?” My concern just wouldn’t budge and was making me increasingly uneasy.
“Has Amber spoken to Ryan?” My stomach dipped at the mention of his name. Oblivious to my internal battle, Patrick continued, “Maybe if he knew how worried you were, he’d, I don’t know, help them out or something.”
My snort was bitter. “All Ryan thinks about these days is himself. He’s not interested in being there.
Throwing cash at a problem is more his style.
” While I was sure he worked his arse off for it, he’d hurt his family by breaking promises of seeing them often.
Having already been abandoned by her mum, Amber felt that more acutely than anyone.
While he’d done an amazing thing a few years back and bought a new home for his family, which I knew Gran was beyond grateful for, Gran had still worked her full-time job to pay the bills and had only recently taken late-retirement.
I’d asked more than once if she was okay financially, but she’d reassured me she had a decent superannuation fund, enough to keep her and her granddaughter going.
Patrick’s brows shot high. The venom in my words left little to the imagination where my feelings were concerned.
Patrick had no idea of my history with the prodigal town hero who’d up and left eight years ago, never to return.
All the town knew was that Ryan was the basketball star who’d made it big in America.
A simple Google search on the sports pages could give them an insight into who Ryan Broadwater was. All of which I actively avoided, but temptation was a bastard of a thing sometimes.
The clean-cut, true-blue Aussie was an elite pro basketballer. He kept his nose clean and was only in the celebrity magazines for charity work and being arm in arm with the occasional supermodel at a party.
But I knew a different version of the guy.
When he’d first been drafted out of college in the early days, he’d flown Amber out when she was only fourteen or so to visit him.
She’d returned early, upset she’d spent only a handful of hours with him in the five days she’d been out there—having been left alone for the majority of that time.
Me? The first year he was away, we’d spoken at least once a week while he was at college.
The second year had dwindled to once a month—him regularly not returning my calls.
At first I’d understood. I could only imagine the pressure he was under to perform, to play his hardest and make the cut.
By the third year, though, I was surprised he’d remembered my birthday.
After that, my back was up, and my heart was broken when he finally told me he didn’t have time to talk to me anymore, so it was best if I stopped calling altogether.
It hurt a lot, and I still spent too many hours reminiscing about our time together, but grieving over a lost friendship and an unrequited love only led to bitterness. And based on Patrick’s surprise, the bitterness held strong. But I never regretted his family or being so close to them.
“Oh wow, okay.”
“Do you want to go and prepare the delivery area? The truck should be here in about an hour,” I said, changing the subject altogether. Thoughts of Ryan would lead to nothing good. And I was already worried enough about Amber and Gran that my blood pressure remained high.