Epilogue
Aaron
“She get everything moved in?” I spin around to find my dad walking across the lawn in my direction. He is holding his mug of coffee on his way to the barn.
“Yeah.” I nod, looking back to Oscar who at the moment is chasing his own tail. My dad looks down and chuckles.
“Your mother couldn’t be more happy,” he says and I look up just in time to catch the tail end of him grinning at the furball.
“Kendall has definitely got herself a fan in your mother. Kendall this, and Kendall that. Had a conversation with Joan yesterday and brought you up. Joan of course made a tsking sound and damn momma went back. I’d imagine that friendship has finally come to an end. ”
“But was it ever really a true friendship in the first place?”
“More of a nuisance.” He nods. “Every time she’d call your mother would try to find ways to avoid answering it at all.”
“Never liked that woman,” I confess. “The date with Chelsea was more to please Mom.”
“I know.” He gives me that look. “But you know now that your mother only wanted you to be happy. Are you happy?”
“Very.” Seems weird having this kind of conversation with my father. We’ve never been the heart-to-heart kind. Never had these relationship, life and love, kind of conversations. It is nice.
“So your mother and I have been talking.” He sips his coffee. “I think it’s time maybe I start stepping back a little. She wants to travel more and, it sounds nice.”
I arch my brow at him and he grins.
“It’ll be an adjustment I know. I’ve never been good at letting go, but I know you’re ready. I know that I don’t have to worry, and I know that the success of our company means as much to you as it does me.”
“So does this mean you’re gonna be calling and testing me every hour for updates. Sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off and something hits you and you make those last minutes phone calls that piss off the flight attendants.”
“No.” His reply is nowhere close to reassuring. And my facial expression must say it all because he starts to laugh. “I told you that it will be an adjustment. You’ll have to take it easy on me. But I’ll get there.”
“I’ll just ignore the harassing calls,” I tell him as Oscar starts to jump at my leg.
“You got a strong woman by your side, you’ll need that. She understands the sacrifices a business owner has to make.”
“She does,” I say with a nod. “Never thought her and I would get to the place we are now though. She fought me the entire way.”
“The good ones always do.” My father chuckles. “Keeps us on our toes, son.”
“And drives us to drink, tests our limits, triggers nervous twitches,” I add, only making him laugh harder.
Reaching out he pats my shoulder and offers me a squeeze. “Yeah son, all those things.” He walks away toward the barn leaving me with a smile.
Oscar and I take our time going back home and when we get there, we decide to hang out on the front porch waiting for his mommy to come home.
Kendall
“Chelsea?” Jillian laughs and stares at me like I am playing some kind of joke on her. I nod my head and she blinks a few times. “The same Chelsea from the bar, the one so prim and proper?”
“The very same one.”
“No way.” Sophie laughs and her and Jillian share a look. “Do you think she finally got enough of mommy dearest and went a little wild? Like a beast let out of her cage and now she can’t seem to keep from jumping every available man she meets.”
“Personally I don’t care who she jumps as long as she stays far away from Aaron.”
“And you’re okay with Leo?”
“I don’t care who Leo screws, he just needs to keep her out of the shop.
” I hold up my hands to stop Jilly. “And not because I’m jealous, not because I am secretly harboring feeling for Leo.
That was fun, a few times, but that ship sailed long ago.
I just don’t like a person who thinks they are better than others and I sure as shit don't like any girl that Aaron has dated, talked to, or any of that. I get why Sophie wanted to punch her hairdresser now.”
“See,” she interjects. “No woman wants to be friends with their guy’s exes.”
“Nope,” I say and glance over at Jillian who is looking across the fire with an unreadable look on her face.
“What’s going on with you?” I ask, tapping her foot with my own.
“Nothing,” she says in a hurry and glances back toward the fire.
“You remember when you pushed me about Aaron? Telling me to stop being stubborn and fighting something I shouldn’t.”
“This isn’t the same thing, Kendall.”
“Then what is it?”
Sophie and I watch and wait for her to come to terms with what she has going on.
“My brother slept with his wife,” she says, biting her lips nervously.
“They were having an affair right under his nose. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough they took off and she told him in a text message.
I love my brother, but I also hate him. And in no world will I ever like that bitch.
She’s always been a bitch, and when she did that, oh wow! ”
Jillian wasn’t an angry person but her nostrils flare as she talks about Marshall’s ex-wife and her own brother. Granted what they did was awful but on most occasions Jillian’s worst curse word was damn.
“It took everything I had not to drown her in her bowl of soup at our last family dinner. And my parents treat her like she is the epitome of perfection. She is an adulteress whore. But by all means bow at her feet.”
She exhales.
“I can barely look at Marshall, because my God my brother screwed his wife and still is! Only now it’s his wife.”
“Honey you need to breathe.” Sophie tries not to laugh. “Marshall isn’t the kind of guy to blame you for what your brother did.”
“How can he not?”
“Well, because you didn’t force them to do what they did, that’s how.”
She rolls her eyes and looks up to the space that Marshall is standing. Then quickly she looks away. I glance in his direction and see his brows furrow in confusion.
“I really think you’ve got it all wrong,” I tell her, only she doesn’t seem convinced. Instead she stands up and hurries to the open back door and inside where both Lexi and Adley are.
“Is she alright?” I ask Sophie and all she can do is shake her head.
“She avoids him, even takes the dogs to Montgomery for their vet appointments instead of right here in Hudson. It’s crazy, but when I attempt to talk her through it, it only makes things worse.”
I see movement and notice Marshall walking in the direction Jillian disappeared.
“Well maybe he’s had enough of her disappearing act.”
We both sit in silence watching as he slips inside the back door and wait to see what happens next.