Saving Serendipity (Serendipity Ranch #1)

CHAPTER ONE

LIZ

The house is quiet. I knew it would be, but knowing and understanding are two different things. A lesson I’m learning all over again in recent weeks. Ever since my phone rang at four twenty-three in the morning on April twenty-ninth.

I’d fallen asleep only an hour prior and with an early appointment coming up fast, I was annoyed to wake up to my phone ringing.

At four twenty-three in the morning.

On April twenty-ninth.

The day my sister died.

The day after Lena and her husband, Trent, were fatally wounded in a car crash caused by a nineteen-year-old idiot too drunk to see straight and tragically misguided enough to get behind the wheel of his Ford pickup. The day after her birthday.

That phone call should have been hard to understand too. Like this empty, quiet house is hard to grasp. But it wasn’t. I knew before the words were even spoken what they would be.

You don’t get calls from Camden County Hospital at four twenty-three in the morning when it’s good news. They let you sleep through that.

No. You get ripped from sleep and the blissful foolish notion that the world makes sense for bad news. Tragic news. Deadly news.

Nearly two weeks later and the phone calls haven’t gotten any easier. Worse, now I'm the one making them.

Calling family members to notify them. Making funeral arrangements.

Checking in with local authorities for updates in the case against the driver who killed them.

Talking to the neighbors who have been kind enough to help with the horses.

Last I heard, Trent had close to twenty of his own and seven more he was working with, all left in his care before he died.

On top of that, I’m dealing with Trent’s parents, Tammy and Abe, who have constant concerns about their children’s long-term care.

Tammy, especially, is eager to have guardianship finalized.

Yet another thing that's been delayed due to their deaths becoming a criminal case.

Everything feels like it's taking second place to the investigation.

Including the funeral and the reading of their will.

Which brings me to the worst calls of all. The kids.

Remmi is seven going on thirty and she’s been such a trooper, I struggle not to burst into tears at how tough she’s become in the span of two weeks.

The sweet girl who used to spend endless conversations explaining the different names and respective magical talents of every My Little Pony to me now has neither time nor interest for such trivial things.

Now we discuss whether her Nannie and Grandpop will be able to make mac and cheese without letting the noodles get mushy or how she struggles to keep Gavin from getting in trouble for leaving his juice cups in the most inopportune places.

Gavin’s only three and I can’t get through one conversation with him where he doesn’t ask where his Mommy and Daddy are and when they’re coming back any more than Remmi can convince him to stop storing his plastic tumblers upside down in Grandpop’s work boots.

Maybe I shouldn’t have fought their grandparents on bringing them to the funeral. Maybe it would have offered some closure, some sense of understanding Gavin seems otherwise incapable of gaining. But it didn't feel right to give in.

No matter how much I tried to reason Tammy and Abe had every right to make that call, I couldn’t let them go through with it. Couldn’t bear the thought of what traumatic memories might haunt both children if they’d been allowed to come. Not when I struggle to tolerate my own.

“Hey.”

A deep male voice startles me, and I turn in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Jovi Daniels. My brother-in-law’s best friend since high school and my least favorite person in the entire world.

“Same thing you are, would be my guess.” He moves from the kitchen doorway into the hallway where I got held up three feet in from the front door, unable to move any further. “Trent’s lawyer emailed me. Asked me to meet him here.”

I nod, staring him down, undeterred by the challenge of his six-foot-three frame.

Jovi looks the same as always. Dirty blond hair pulled away from his face in a messy cross between bun and ponytail.

A day's worth of scruff along his jaw and dark brown eyes that never seem to miss a thing.

Today, the ever-present glint of amusement he flashes as often as his smile, is absent.

So, maybe not exactly the same as always. But close enough.

Last time I saw him was almost six months ago at Trent and Lena’s big anniversary bash. Nine years they were married. Ran out and tied the knot the year Lena graduated from high school. No one thought they would make it, least of all me. Maybe I just didn’t want them to.

Back then, Trent was as cocky and obnoxious as his best friend. Of course, where he grew up and grew out of it, Jovi did not.

“I’ll let you meet with the lawyer first,” I tell him, slowly starting to move again.

Not that I have a destination in mind. Anywhere that offers some smidgen of solitude, I suppose.

The day has already pummeled me with heartache and fury.

I don’t need Jovi to say something stupid and piss me off on top of everything else.

At the rate I’m going, I may lose my shit completely, and frankly, that’s not an option right now. “That way you can get done here and get back to whatever else you have going on.”

He frowns, his furrowed brows making his eyes look darker. “You’re joking, right?”

“You think I’m in the mood for jokes the same day I bury my sister?” I snap, stopping short of the arched doorway I was headed for.

“About as much as I have other things going on the day I bury my best friend,” he counters.

“Call me crazy, but I went ahead and cleared my schedule for this one.” He shakes his head, and I can’t help but notice how stiff he looks, as if tension has wrapped itself around every reckless, carefree bone in his body.

Then he exhales, the breath harsh and audible, reminding me to be on guard.

Verbal battles are an ongoing thing between us.

Normally.

“Let’s not do this, Liz.”

I guess nothing about today is going to be normal.

“Not today," he says, his deep voice more gravelly than usual. "Not with everything we’re already dealing with.”

“You’re being uncharacteristically mature.

” And clearly, I’m not. I don’t know why.

Maybe I simply needed one thing to be like it always is.

One thing that still feels like it did before.

One tiny smidgen of proof the world as I know it hasn’t completely vanished just because my anchor in it has left me.

But no, Jovi has to choose today of all days to be a decent human being.

“Maybe you’re right," I concede. "We should be able to manage one day of our lives like civilized adults.”

He nods, turning toward the living room and the sofas to his left. “Should we sit?” He gestures for me to go ahead, and I accept despite my desire to get away from him. It's unfair that even after the only physical link between us ceased to exist, I still can’t be rid of him.

“When did you get back in town?” I ask, doing my part to make some sort of polite small talk as I drop into the loveseat.

As soon as I land, it's like the cushions sap every ounce of remaining energy from me and I have to force myself to sit straight.

Remain upright. To not crumble into the cracks of the sofa.

Once I'm seated, Jovi chooses the recliner to my right. “The day after the accident.” He doesn’t lean back or appear any more relaxed or comfortable than I do.

Instead of sitting ramrod straight like me, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands folded as if he’s trying to keep from popping his knuckles.

That much at least, I can be grateful for.

Nothing grates my nerves quite like that annoying habit of his.

“Was surprised to hear you didn’t get back until this weekend. ”

“I’m sorry. Some of us have businesses to run that weren’t handed to us by our parents,” I say snidely. “I came as soon as I could.”

“My apologies. I had no idea life as a boudoir photographer was so demanding.” He doesn’t sound like he’s apologizing. He sounds like he’s calling me out. And he’s right to. I’m full of shit.

Even if my photography business extends far beyond the private boudoir shoots I offer. Most of my work is commercial these days, my images gracing the covers of countless romance novels or being used to promote them.

“Fuck you.” But I’m surrendering, so my request he go fuck himself is lacking in self-righteous anger and thus fizzles before I finish getting the words out.

“Fine. I put off coming home. Go ahead, tell me what a coward I am. How I should have done better by my sister. Hell, better by her kids.” I bite back the emotions threatening to leak through every orifice of my face to explode all over this living room.

That’s where I’m at.

Seconds from vomiting my grief and shame all over Jovi and his superior ability to be a friend where I can’t hack the same level as a sister.

“I wasn’t going to tell you any of those things,” he says, his voice low and face turned toward the floor. His brown eyes slowly creep upward to meet mine. “This shit is hard. There’s no right or wrong way to navigate it. And I know you’ve been calling the kids every day.”

“Remmi tell you?” She mentioned he’s been coming by to see them damn near every morning, bringing breakfast from the Biscuit Barn like their dad used to on weekends.

“Trent’s parents.” He looks down at his feet again. “You know it’ll be hard for them when they find out.”

“Find out what?” If there’s more bad news in store for us, I haven’t heard it yet either.

He tilts his head slightly to the side, his brow furrowed like he’s confused. “That Lena and Trent appointed you as the kids' guardian.”