Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Thom
Two days later, in what used to be Grandpa M.
’s study, Thom brushed his hair off his forehead with the back of his wrist. Ripping the old-fashioned wood paneling off the walls should be a quick, simple job—crowbar under the wood, pull it loose—but his rhythm was off and his movements were disjointed.
Maybe it was because he was used to working alone, having the house to himself.
Having Poppy around was, at best, distracting.
He looked over at her, sitting in front of the massive wooden desk that had been too heavy to move out of the study and had been left where it had stood for probably a hundred years or more.
It was filled with papers and junk, and he’d given Poppy the task of clearing it out as he was too scared to hand her a crowbar.
Poppy and tools—power or otherwise—were not a good combination.
She sat cross-legged on the intricate parquet flooring—a snoring Felony spread out on the floor next to her—flipping through what looked to be an old ledger. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in from the bow windows and hit the side of her face, turning her skin golden.
His eyes dropped from her profile to the swell of her breasts under a simple button-down shirt.
Unlike thirteen years ago, he could now appreciate the curve of her high breasts, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips.
She was now all woman, curvy and feminine and luscious.
Noticing those curves on a teenager, reacting to them, had sent him running from H-Town back then, but they were adults now…
Thom walked over to the trestle table and lifted his water bottle to his lips.
If they were adults, then why did he feel slightly guilty, off-balance, and …
yeah, weird? Was it because she was a gorgeous-looking woman and he would have to be dead not to notice?
Was it because of their history? Or because she’d been engaged to Benji?
Or because he now owned the house she adored?
Maybe it was a chaotic combination of all the above?
The dust in the air tickled his nose, and he sneezed, then sneezed again.
He eyed the pile of wood in the corner and sighed at the amount of paneling that still had to be removed.
Most days, he relished restoring the inn, and he liked seeing the progress he made.
Working with his hands gave him unexpected satisfaction.
On other days, when the project seemed never-ending, and he was overwhelmed, he wondered whether the house deserved the money he was pouring into it.
A chill ran up and down his spine and goosebumps pebbled his skin.
It was weird how that always happened when he had doubts about what he was doing here.
It was a reminder that anything was better than working with Benji.
He might be fighting a house, hauling its old bones into the twenty-first century, but back then, he’d been swimming with politicians and lobbyists, all of whom would stab him in the back given a fraction of a chance.
He’d expected it, guarded against it, but he’d never imagined his downfall would be orchestrated by his brother.
He’d been prepared for an attack from the outside—politics was a dirty business—but he had not expected an attack from inside his own camp.
Was it any wonder that he’d lost the ability to trust, that he kept his distance from strangers—hell, why he kept his distance from most people?
Benji—and his ex, Ingrid, too—were responsible for some or all of these changes in him.
Thom drained his water and eyed Poppy, noticing she’d yet to clear a drawer.
She, it seemed, was still easily distracted.
Still the head-in-the-clouds girl who walked into tables and tripped over rocks because she was lost in her own little fantasy world.
Was that why she’d fallen for Benji, because she spun a story around him?
He could see how it happened: Benji looked like a Prince Charming from one of those fantasy books she’d loved to read as a kid. Blond, good-looking, socially skilled…
Benji was also, under his tailored suits and designer threads, selfish and narcissistic.
Wildly ambitious and ridiculously insecure.
Had Poppy seen the cracks of his perfect persona—was that why she bailed?
But why leave it until the last minute? Why run away so soon before she was supposed to walk down the aisle? Who did that?
Thom wanted to know, but damn it, his pride wouldn’t let him ask.
Why she got engaged to his brother and why she bailed had nothing to do with him and didn’t affect him at all.
His water bottle toppled over, rolled off the table and hit the floor with a thud.
Thom frowned and bent down to pick it up.
Shit like this was always happening in Solstice Deep, and he’d learned to ignore it.
Poppy’d spent a lot of time on her phone earlier and, judging from her distraught expression, he presumed she’d been taking flak from her family about running out on her wedding. Could he ask her about that?
“I heard you on the phone earlier… Have they stopped shouting at you yet?”
Poppy hunched her shoulders. “Benji is in the Bahamas. I’ve tried to call him numerous times, but he isn’t picking up or calling me back. Judging by his social-media pics, he’s having a great time with a friend.”
Thom briefly wondered whether this friend was male or female, then dismissed the thought—there was no universe in which he’d ask Poppy that. As for Benji … he’d never met a spilled-milk situation that the guy couldn’t turn to his advantage.
“But my mom is still yelling at me. And when she gets tired, my sisters take over the yelling,” Poppy added.
He winced. “I’m surprised none of them have come to see you.”
“We’re talking about my family, remember? I go to them, Thom, they don’t come to me.”
So nothing had changed then. During those long summer vacations when they were kids, her parents only came to H-Town to drop off or collect their kids from this house, but never stayed.
Thom picked up his crowbar, prepared to tackle the godawful paneling.
If he worked hard enough, got into the rhythm, he could stop thinking about the way the sunlight hit Poppy’s hair, her slender body, the way she wrinkled her nose, her light scent drifting over to him.
He had a house to renovate, a job to do.
He couldn’t allow his unwelcome housemate to distract him.
“Thom, come and look at this.”
Caught by the note of surprise in Poppy’s voice, he rested the crowbar against the wall, took off the gloves he’d just pulled on, and walked over to her, dropping to his haunches.
Poppy handed him a stack of photographs, and he flicked through them, instantly recognizing the rooms of the house.
He stopped when he came to the study and tipped the photograph to get more light onto it.
He angled the photo so that Poppy could look at it, too.
“This is a photo of this room, you can see the desk.”
Poppy took the photo from him and smiled. “It’s pretty amazing to think that this desk has been here for that long,” she commented. She stroked the side of the desk, like it was a pet and needed reassurance.
Poppy found more photographs, and Thom rapidly flicked through them.
Then one of them stopped him in his tracks, and he tumbled back in time, instantly remembering the moment it was snapped.
Late summer, just days before the summer vacation had ended.
Wren sat on the rock next to Hayes, her arms around her knees, her smile wide, and her hair falling into her eyes.
Thom and Hayes were both all knees and elbows, hair too long, and grins wide.
Poppy, about five or six, her hair shockingly white, missing her front tooth, leaned into him, cute in her red and white spotted swimsuit.
He passed her the photo. “Remember that day?” he asked.
Poppy took it, squealed, and then frowned. “Oh my God! What the hell happened to my hair?”
A chuckle, rusty and unused, rolled over his lips. “You cut your bangs a few days before with Grandma M.’s sewing scissors. Your hair kept falling in your eyes, and you kept losing your barrettes, so you decided that cutting it was a good idea.”
She winced. “Not my finest idea.”
He smiled and looked down at the photo. “God, we were so young.”
Poppy bit down on her lip. “And twelve years later I lost contact with you,” she said, her voice quiet.
He cleared his throat and looked away. “Yeah.”
“One day you were part of my life, the next you weren’t. You didn’t answer my calls, reply to my texts, or emails.” She looked up at him, the pain in her eyes easy to recognize. “I lost my friend, my confidant and protector. I felt lost and so alone.”
Oh, and didn’t that feel like a hundred knives jabbing into his soul? Thom closed his eyes and wished he was anywhere but here. He really didn’t want to have this conversation or be reminded of the hurt he’d inflicted on her.
Thom stared at the image of their younger selves and knew they had to address the brightly colored elephant in the room.
They couldn’t keep tiptoeing around the subject any longer.
But if he was going to have this conversation with her, it wouldn’t be in a dim, stuffy room.
He needed to be outside, where he’d have room to pace.
He pushed up to his feet and held out a hand to her. “Let’s take a walk,” he said, and pulled her up. Thom eyed his dead-looking dog and slapped his hand against his thigh. “Fel, walk!”
Felony lazily opened an eye but didn’t twitch. “C’mon, boy, we’re heading out.”
Both eyes now, and a growl. Still no movement.
Poppy bent down to scratch his ears, and Felony stretched but still made no effort to get to his feet. “Are you feeling lazy, puppy?” Poppy crooned.