2. Aspen
Chapter two
Aspen
W ithin the first few seconds of ringing a doorbell on a house that falls under the category of serious freaking real estate , at least in my mind, because it’s huge and grand and must have cost a fortune and not at all what I expected, I know I’ve made a mistake.
As soon as the massive, modern, black-paneled door swings open and I meet with a set of frigid dark eyes, a steel jaw, and the rapid-fire pinging of a vein in a proud forehead, it’s obvious I’ve landed in the grumpiest of grumpy pants patches.
I’ve bunged this up. No, not bunged. Bungled. I can’t even get that right.
I know Patrick McDonald knows .
He must have gotten a letter too. At least it saves me from having to explain myself. Still, I have to be sure this guy is him. Because he looks like he’s not. He’s not the middle-class, laughing-eyed hero of a gentleman that I expected Jace to be as close as brothers with. He’s not the man I would have ever imagined my brother picking out for me. He’s too…cold. The burst of air flying past the open door out of the house is more than just good AC. Yeah, that air is not radiating from the house. All that cold is coming straight off of him. He looks like the kind of guy who would wear a severe suit and do up the top button and tie all the way just because it’s a stick-in-the-ass thing to do, and he wants everyone to realize his stick in the assness and not be happy in his presence because he finds it irksome.
The glare he’s shooting my way is enough to ward off any sort of lightheartedness.
He’s not wearing a suit or a shirt with buttons, but he is clad entirely in black. Black Henley. Black jeans. I think it might be the chosen outfit of superspies when they’re grumping through their forced downtime.
Not that this guy’s downtime or retirement is forced. He left, Jace said. And for the record, something about him tells me he’s never worn a suit in his life.
Also, he’s not a spy. Jace wasn’t a spy either. They worked together. I got the right house and the right guy. I know I did.
“Patrick McDonald?” Yup, my voice trembles like I’m hoping I didn’t.
He gives me a tight nod. “Jace’s little sister,” he grunts grumpily. “You’re here because he wanted you to be here, but you need to turn around and go right back home.” He points behind me like that direction is Atlanta. Maybe it is. God, I’m terrible as a human compass.
“I can’t go back home. I got a letter. You got a letter too.”
Christ. How did Jace think I could marry this guy? There is nothing but more frigid air wafting around between us, and it’s going to tornado up because I’m a happy, easy-going, welcoming person who has warm vibes. Warm and cold don’t mix well. There is a total lack of chemistry happening right now. No zapping wild energy going through the air, no lab compounds mixing, and no my body liking his body on a primal, animal level.
“You need to forget all of that,” Patrick growls. “This is not a thing. Oh, freaking no…” He trails off, whistling low in his throat. “No, this is not a thing. This is never going to be a thing. Do you have any idea the kind of man your brother entrusted you to?” I’m honestly starting to wonder. “If you did, you wouldn’t have come.”
Well, that certainly sounds ominous . A bit dramatic too. I might not have the best people reading skills, but it seems to me that he’s trying too hard. Like he practiced this exact scary speech in case I should ever just show up here with the idea that we make good on my brother’s proposition.
“I have a name, you know. I’m not just Jace’s little sister.”
“Yeah.” Patrick runs a hand through his hair, which is light auburn shot through with gold and copper streaks that make it so much more than just brown. It’s longer than I first thought. He has it combed back without the slicked-back greasy look. It does look thick and kind of nice. I’ll give him that. He has good hair. “Aspen.”
“That’s right.” How much has he heard about me? What did Jace tell him? It would never have been anything bad, but it might as well have been because this guy was definitely not happy to see me. He has got the most resting asshole face I’ve ever seen on anyone before.
“ Aspen , you need to go back home. What your brother wrote…it’s just…it’s never going to happen.”
“I’ve just flown across the country to meet you. I think we should at least talk.” I stare pointedly past him. Now, he’s doubly not what I expected. He’s frank to the point of rude, and his face looks like it will crack in half if he ever smiles. He’s not a laugher, not like Jace was. It seems like this man and my brother have zero in common. He’s way more of the scary Special Forces personality that you see on shows and movies. Jace didn’t fit the bill. Physically, yes, but in any other way? No. This guy? He’s about as cheerful as getting smushed by a freefalling pickle launched off a really tall bridge.
I had this picture of Patrick McDonald in my head, and this guy isn’t it. His name is very Irish, but it’s clear by his total lack of an accent of any sort that he was raised here. There’s more, but I’m caught off guard when he rolls his rich brown eyes at me and sighs like I’m the spider he keeps shooing away, but I keep coming back, making webs all over his front door or his favorite car. And spider poo. I think that’s a thing. I’ve heard people complaining about that before. I’m basically spider-pooing all over his life.
Well, feck a deck on that. I’m more than a spider that shits everywhere, and even if this man is glowering at me, I came all this way to accomplish something. It’s not for me. It’s for Jace , and that matters more than anything.
“I quit my job to come out here.”
Patrick blinks. His eyes aren’t just dark. They’re smoky. Like barbequed pineapple. I shouldn’t make myself want to laugh. He’ll think I’m laughing at him, and Patrick McDonald doesn’t do the smiling or laughing thing, and the last thing he looks like he’ll ever do is enjoy being insulted.
“That was rather…silly of you.” He says it. Even though he paused like he wanted to not say it.
If Jace could have told me more about his bestie, it would have been nice. I imagine him sitting me down and telling me that Patrick McDonald acts like an asshole, but really, under all of it, he has a ton of redeeming qualities.
Maybe Patrick thinks this is the worst kind of practical joke. Perhaps I’m the wrench gumming up his work. Maybe that’s why he’s so grouchy. Or it could be he’s got a resting asshole face because this is the way he expresses grief. Maybe he misses Jace so much, and the letter picked open a wound that had barely even closed up.
I guess I can see why he’s less than thrilled to find me here. I’m the pesty little sister, the one he’s just been charged with looking after. As in, getting married to. Or like taking care of. And he very clearly doesn’t want the obligation. I’m the promise he never wanted to put his name to. The millstone around his neck.
“The letter we both got…I’m assuming it’s basically the same,” he snaps. His voice is deep, raspy. He doesn’t have an accent, but his words are still somehow musical, in a death metal sort of way.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should come in, and we can discuss it.”
“The idea of marriage seemed optional to me. As in an option that neither of us are going to take. Your brother wants me to look after you? I can do that.” He’s obviously doing okay if the house is anything to go on. “That’s fine. Yeah, I’ve got money now. I’ll give you some. You won’t want for anything again. That’s how I’ll look after you.”
No can do, doodly doo. I raise a brow. “He also wanted me to look after you .”
His jaw ticks. His beard is one of the most epic ones I’ve ever seen in person. It’s auburn, like his hair, and also like his hair, it’s shot through with copper and gold strands. It’s a beautiful beard, if slightly shocking, as it’s so bushy. Maybe he wants to teach bushcraft and live in the wilderness too, and this is just temporary until he can start living his dream, but he wants to look the part.
His beard is so epic that it kind of makes me want to stroke it like one would pet a very bushy cat.
Back to the picture I had in my head of Patrick McDonald…he was kinder, taller, and darker with jet-black hair. Freshly shaven. Kind of like the rugged, handsome men from movies and books. I imagined his eyes would dance. That he’d be funny. I thought he’d be a few years younger than Jace, so the age gap between us wouldn’t be huge. I imagined him slightly serious on the surface, but underneath, he was always ready to burst out with laughter.
My brother also had the best heart.
I thought it should follow that any friend of his would be the same.
I didn’t think this man would open the door to find me here and be immediately cold, rude, and dismissive.
His eyes rake over me now, and there’s absolutely no emotion in them. He doesn’t need emotion. His scowl is more than enough.
“It’s not going to be a thing. The marriage bit. I’d very much like it if you’d accept my offer of money and head back home.” He’s repeating himself now, and he’s not happy to have to do it. He passes his hand back and forth between us like he’s trying to swat me away, not just indicate me, the letter, the marriage part, and himself all in one sweep. “The letter is pure nonsense.”
Oh, really? He’s going to go there ?
My eyes fill with hot, angry tears, but I blink them back. I’m too pissed to cry. It’s not going to happen, I swear. But no, that’s not the thing that’s not going to happen. The thing that’s not going to happen is this man telling me I’m not going to fulfill my brother’s last wishes. He’s not going to take a shit all over that. If he was truly his best friend, and I think I might actually be at the wrong house here, he would never say something like that.
Everything about this is all wrong. He’s all wrong.
He’s not the tall, dark, handsome, gallant, sweet, kind, brave, good man I imagined. He might be tall enough—around six feet—but he’s way too broad, too muscular, too powerful. He’s menacing , not handsome. With all that coppery hair and huge Viking-style beard, he’s not dark either. He’s not a beautiful man. He’s not classically handsome. He’s not ruggedly gorgeous. His face isn’t…well, I don’t know what it is, but I guess it is interesting. It’s the kind of face that maybe won’t be attractive until you look at it a few times and then a few times more. Until you get used to looking for the stuff that no one else will see at first, and then finally, it hits you. Even if you can’t fully put your finger on what is actually doing the hitting.
“What the nuts? It’s not nonsense, you butthole! The letter was Jace’s last wish. He wrote it knowing full well that if we were living it, then he wouldn’t be here, yet he still did it anyway. He arranged for us to get it a year later. He thought all of it out, and how painful would that have been, planning for your own death like that?”
There is zero change. Zero sympathy. Zero compassion in this man’s eyes. “I burned it.”
My jaw unhinges, and I feel like the rest of me does too. “You burned my brother’s letter? How could you do that? It was something he wrote to you. Something you had of him, and you just…just wrecked it like it was worth nothing?”
Shit, I’m shouting. I’m standing here on his expensive ass doorstep in his expensive ass neighborhood, getting shrill. And maybe I’d be embarrassed about it if I actually cared, but the only thing I care about is that this butthole has taken the level of butthole up to the level of asshole, and that is not okay.
I might have been persuaded to talk rationally about this and be all calm as we came to some kind of solution, but now? Now I’m freaking digging in. I’m going to be stubborn. Shitting all over this with his asshole ways is not okay.
Whoa, breathe. This man was Jace’s best friend. He’s the man your brother picked out of all the men in the world and planned for you to marry. If that didn’t work, he wanted you to be in each other’s lives. He wanted you to care about him. That has to mean something, even if you can’t see it now. Jace didn’t make mistakes. Not mistakes like this.
I know full well that anger is sometimes a mask for grief, and I have to remind myself of that again. Men deal with it differently. They can’t grieve the same way women do, and the way women have to grieve in this society is bad enough. It’s not healthy. Jace didn’t get a celebration of life. He got the full deal military funeral. I think he would have liked that, but he would have hated it too. He would have wanted a celebration for close friends and family. He would have wanted laughter and jokes and all the good memories. He would have wanted us to take joy in the fact that he lived at all, even if our hearts were torn apart and ripped wide open. He would have—
Funeral .
“Were you there?” I’m all over the place. “Were you at Jace’s funeral? Did you even go?”
“That is not fair,” he growls.
“Did you even care? Do you? You burned the letter. Maybe Jace meant nothing to you. Maybe he wasn’t like a brother at all. Maybe he had you all wrong. Maybe—”
“Alright.” Patrick doesn’t move. He doesn’t even raise his voice. It’s still a low growl, but there’s something different about it. Something final. Something that’s the equivalent of a foot stomp and an angry crossing of the arms. “You’ve made your point. Come inside. We’ll talk. I was a jerk. Just…let’s just…we got off to a bad start. That isn’t what he would have wanted.” He lets out a shuddering, ragged sigh like I’ve ripped him apart too. I’m all sick with trembling regret. My stomach feels like a milkshake made of all the nasty things, times a merry-go-round and multiplied by a ship tossing about in bad weather. Those dark eyes of his drop down to the doorstep. It’s not made of regular concrete. It’s something fancier and a little bit sparkly. It seems like it would never chip or flake. Something stronger than concrete? What could be stronger? “He was like a brother to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t burn the letter. I said that to be a jerk. I…just come in. Please. We’ll talk, but we aren’t getting married. Not over a letter. Not for any reason.”
I can be as stubborn as a big old mule. I can make him pay for his surly ass meanness, but I honestly don’t have it in me to make him pay. Even if it’s just regular me without a letter persuading me with all the love in my brother’s heart to take care of this man, I won’t be able to do it.
“Okay.” I don’t agree, but at least this gets my foot in the door, literally. If that’s all I get, then at least I tried my darndest, and it’s important that I feel like I’ve done that. “Let’s talk.”