Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
They all sat around the big long table on Logan and Bella’s deck.
It was plain to anyone there that this kind of gathering didn’t happen often in the Carter family.
Emmett, awkward, and often punctuating conversations with something that made at least one person shift uncomfortably in their seat.
It was people like Ren who kept the conversation light—she could win awards for glossing over awkward subjects with new facts or conversation starters.
Maeve asked Martha about The Silver Pantry, as the town was abuzz with news of it opening soon.
“Ren has agreed to run the coffee shop for me,” Martha said proudly, and Ren smiled bashfully at the news.
“That’s amazing,” Bella said. “Congratulations, both of you.”
“Thanks,” Ren replied, resting her head on Noah’s shoulder because she was embarrassed by the attention.
Bella topped up everyone’s water. “Did you hear John-Luke wants to sell the orchard?”
Martha gasped. “I did not.”
“Yeah,” Bella nodded. “My mom wants to travel. Go back to the UK for a bit. I think they just feel like they’re getting older and want a change of pace.”
Emmett reached forward for his glass. “It’s a beautiful orchard.”
“Isn’t it vines as well?” Logan sat back in his chair. “Brodie, maybe you should buy it?”
Without missing a beat, Emmett said, “Would be a shame if those trees died.”
Everyone round the table shifted this time. Maeve caught Bella giving her wide eyes across the table.
Brodie put his fork down and said, “Are you kidding me?”
“Brodie.” It was Noah, his tone a friendly warning not to rise to it.
But Brodie ignored him. “You know I own a very healthy vineyard, yeah?” he said to his dad.
Emmett wiped his hands on his napkin and, without looking Brodie’s way, said, “I’m sure you do, I’m just saying that’s an age-old orchard and it needs proper care. It is not something that should be bought on a whim.”
“And you think that’s what I would do?”
Emmett fixed him with a hard stare and said, “I know that’s what you would do.”
Brodie was all set to reply when Noah cut in with, “Zoey, how’d you like to be taught how to throw a rope?”
Zoey had already scraped her chair back. “Yes, sir.”
Noah laughed. “C’mon, then.” He stood up, taking a quick drink of water before leaving the table. “You got a rope in that barn, Logan?”
Logan stood up, too. “Yeah, I’ll get it for you.”
Noah glanced warily at Brodie, who sat visibly seething, and then at his dad and said, “You wanna help?”
Emmett shook his head. “I’m fine where I am.”
Noah narrowed his eyes a second, once again looked at Brodie all fired up and tight-lipped. “Fine,” he said to Emmett, “but I don’t want you telling her later that I taught her wrong.”
Emmett huffed at that idea, but it seemed to do the trick because, throwing his napkin on the table, he got up to follow Noah. Then he paused, as if remembering his manners, and said, “Thank you, Logan, Bella, for a very nice lunch.”
No one could quite meet anyone else’s eye.
“Yeah, thanks, guys,” Brodie muttered, getting up and stalking into the house.
Again, Bella made eyes at Maeve across the table and then nodded for her to follow Brodie inside.
Maeve thought that maybe someone else should do that and luckily Martha said, “I’ll go have a word with him.”
But to Maeve’s horror, Bella said, “Maybe Maeve should go, she’s a doctor, right? She’s good at talking to people, solving their problems.”
“I’m not that kind of—” Maeve began, with a glare at Bella, who shrugged, biting down on what was clearly a mischievous smile.
“Always good to get a fresh take on things, don’t you think?” she said.
“Absolutely, be my guest.” Brodie’s mom stood back willingly. “I think he’s heard everything I have to say.”
At the end of the table, Ren sat forward, watching, intrigued at the turn of events. Maeve felt herself blush at the undercurrents and, not wanting to draw any more attention to the situation, pushed back her chair and said, “Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”
Inside, crossing the palatial living room, she took a breath, tried not to think of what she knew would be covert looks between the women at the table behind her back, and went in search of Brodie.
She found him upstairs, where there was a second living room with a higher aspect, so the view was even more incredible. They could see Zoey getting her lasso lesson.
Brodie was standing in front of the window with his back to her, but he glanced over his shoulder when he heard someone approach and seemed momentarily surprised to see it was Maeve. “Sorry,” he said, “I just needed a break.”
Maeve nodded. She walked across the room, glancing around as she went at the stylish furniture, the large abstract canvases, the warm, muted tones of the walls that seemed to somehow accentuate the view.
“This is a really nice room,” she said, coming to stand next to him.
“Makes me think I should have done way more with my house!”
Brodie shook his head. “I like your house.”
It was funny to hear him say it with such honesty, her house still with her grandma’s furnishings was not somewhere she would envisage Brodie enjoying. “That’s kind of you to say,” she said, “but it definitely needs a bit of a TLC.”
They fell into silence, both watching Zoey out in the back yard, Noah showing her how to hold the rope, making her laugh. Emmett watching, leaning against the paddock fence.
Maeve said, “Bella was saying that you and your dad don’t get along so well.”
“You been talking to Bella about me?” Brodie’s eyes lit up at the idea.
Maeve shook her head and looked frustratedly down at the floor. “Can you ever just have a conversation?”
“Not when there’s a pretty girl around.” He moved so that he was leaning against the back of the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, tanned arms crossed.
“Okay, I’m going.” She turned to walk away.
Brodie laughed, jumping up and reaching out a hand to stop her. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll focus, I promise.”
All Maeve could think about was the touch of his hand on her arm. It was the guilty feeling of being a hypocrite that made her stay put.
She perched beside him on the back of the couch.
He rested his hands either side of him, legs stretched out again, then he screwed his face up and said, “My dad. Okay.” He thought about it.
“I guess I just annoy him.” He paused. “He’s very serious, always has been.
I like music and people and enjoying life.
He likes cattle and being alone, and I have no idea if he enjoys life or not.
” Brodie shrugged. “I disappoint him because he thinks I lack purpose.”
“You do lack purpose,” she said without really thinking.
“Whoa. Don’t hold back.” He laughed, lines fanning the sides of his eyes, dimples in his cheeks from the grin that always took the edge off a situation.
It was her turn to shrug. “Well, it’s true.”
“Maybe so,” he relented, “but even when I did have purpose, when I was in the band, when I was making it on my own, I still disappointed him, because I wasn’t doing it his way. We’re just too different.”
Out the window, Emmett had stepped in to correct Zoey’s hold on the rope, and Brodie said, “I might buy that orchard just to prove him wrong.”
“Then the trees really will die.”
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
She turned to look at him, at his mouth tight with irritation, a bit like his dad’s. “Because you can’t live a certain way to spite someone. It never ends well. You buy that orchard because you want to buy it—whether the trees die or not—not because your dad told you that you can’t.”
He weighed up the argument, then said, “Aren’t you working so hard all the time to spite your parents?”
Maeve went to speak, to defend herself, and then stopped and thought about it for a second and laughed that he’d caught her out. “I think my problem is that I’m trying to make them see that they made a mistake.”
“Interesting,” he replied, head tilted in encouragement for her to carry on.
She shrugged. “Being a doctor was all I ever wanted to be. Of course, I wanted to help people but I just knew that I’d be good at it.
I enjoyed it, I like the science of it and the work, and it felt right.
” She paused, glanced out at Zoey getting all tangled in the rope as she tried to throw it.
“I think what I realized when I fell pregnant, was that for them, me going to study medicine at Stanford was more about the prestige. The kudos, you know? It wasn’t about me. ”
She was surprised by how easy she found it to talk to Brodie.
How, when he looked at her, it made her feel like he didn’t want to be talking to anyone else, like what she had to say was somehow precious.
And it made her say things that were precious, that she didn’t say to many people.
“I didn’t work so hard to spite them, I think I worked so hard in the hope that they might notice me! ”
Brodie nodded in understanding. She imagined him with his platinum discs and number-one albums just craving a well done.