That Reilly Boy

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Cara

“What are we going to do about that Reilly boy?”

It isn’t the first time that question’s been asked in this town, by any means, and I know it won’t be the last. But it’s the first time I’ve heard that question come out of my mother’s mouth because the Gambles and the Reillys haven’t really spoken to each other since…

well, however long four generations is. Ignoring each other in a town the size of Sumac Falls, New Hampshire isn’t easy, but somehow our families have managed it.

Until now, apparently.

I ignore the familiar pang in my chest whenever I hear the Reilly name. She has to be talking about Aaron—the Reilly boy who did not leave town like his ass was on fire the day after graduation—but I don’t know why Mom would be talking about him.

“What about him?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. I’ve never been told how the low-key feud started, which was awkward considering I went to school with the two Reilly boys.

“One of them wants to buy the house,” my mom replies, and judging by the way she’s scrubbing the counter with a wet rag, she isn’t thrilled by the offer. Gin Gamble can scour the finish right off a hardwood floor when she’s in a mood.

My first grooming appointment of the day is in twenty minutes, so I had been making my way toward the door, but the bait of a potential buyer for this house hooks me.

It’s the first offer we’ve had on the house since my dad’s heart gave out on him five years ago, which makes sense because it’s not on the market.

It would be, if only I could convince my mom we really need to sell it.

But apparently, on his deathbed my father made my mother promise she’d keep the house in the Gamble family.

Unfortunately, a trust fund to maintain the house hadn’t been part of the inheritance and I should be logging things in the checkbook register with red ink to indicate the danger level.

Whether she wants to admit it or not—and she definitely doesn’t—we’re in trouble.

“Can you imagine?” my mother continues, either not noticing or not caring that I didn’t respond. “A Reilly living in the Gamble house?”

“To be fair, once the sale is final, it would be the Reilly house.” Feud or no feud, our lives would be easier if the house sold, so I care a lot less about whose name is on the mailbox than she does.

But Aaron and his wife already have a really nice house, so I’m confused. “Which one wants to buy it?”

“The older one.”

Hayden. That pesky pang in my chest hits a little harder this time, and I’m even more confused. Why would he want to buy our house?

“I forget which one that is, besides one of those Reillys,” Gin continues, “but he’s back in town and told his real estate agent or lawyer or whatever he is to contact me.”

Oh, I know who Hayden is.

I spent every study hall block of my freshman year staring at his gorgeously brooding profile from two desks over and one desk back. He’d been a sophomore at the time, and that study hall had been my favorite forty-six minutes of every school day.

And then came the glorious moment Hayden had bumped into me on our way out of class.

The way he’d put his hand on the small of my back had made my skin feel hot and prickly all over—a sensation I’d never felt before.

His blue eyes were even prettier up close, and a shock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead.

I left fingernail marks in my textbook from the effort to keep from smoothing it back.

“Sorry, Cara.”

I’d forgotten how to breathe because Hayden Reilly knew my name.

Of course he did because, again, small town with a small school, but logic had been no match for my raging teenage hormones.

We had two classes together my sophomore year, and Hayden talked to me whenever he had the chance. I can still picture him leaning against my locker, smiling at me in a way that made my common sense go right out the window.

When the school year ended, we found a secret spot in the woods. Whenever we could sneak away, we’d sit on a boulder by the river, eating ice cream and talking about anything and everything. Eventually we did less talking and more making out. That summer, Hayden became my entire world.

When school started again—my junior year and his senior—secrecy and stolen kisses weren’t enough anymore, and he asked me to be his very public date to the fall homecoming dance.

My parents didn’t know I was even seeing a Reilly and I knew they’d be angry, but I didn’t care. I was going to homecoming with Hayden.

And then…well, I don’t like to think about how the story of our star-crossed romance came to an end.

It wasn’t tragic on a Romeo and Juliet level, by any means—nobody died or anything—but seventeen years later, my heart’s still a little broken.

It’s not as if I’m still madly in love with him after almost two decades, but the old wound still hurts if I poke at it.

Hearing his name is a pretty hard poke.

“Your father would roll over in his grave if I sold the house to a Reilly,” my mom says.

Is there a good reason my dad doesn’t find me lying awake, wondering if this is the month I’ll have to choose between fuel for my car or fuel for the furnace, to be more roll-worthy than doing business with the Reilly family? “I don’t get it. Why does our family hate the Reillys so much?”

She sniffs. “We don’t like to talk about it.”

There has to be more to it than which grandmother brought better homemade pickles to be judged at the fair.

I’m on the verge of asking my mom if she even knows the story, but my phone rings.

It’s Brenda Eccleston, whose Irish setter is supposed to walk through the door of my shop in about eighteen minutes.

“Cara, we’re running a few minutes late.

Peaches is in a mood and she buried her collar in the new garden.

And yes, I know June is late to be putting in a garden, but I just got the urge.

Anyway, as soon as David finds it, we’ll be on our way.

The entire patch was just turned over, though, so it might take him a few minutes to find the freshly dug spot. ”

“I’ll be there whenever you get there, Mrs. Eccleston. Thanks for letting me know.”

As I slide my phone back into my pocket, my mom wrinkles her nose. “I’ll never understand why you insist on grooming animals instead of cutting hair for the ladies in town, who certainly smell better.”

“Because those ladies never stop talking, and I like animals more than I like people.” Also, people smelling better isn’t necessarily a given, but I keep that thought to myself.

I also don’t point out that Sumac Falls didn’t have a groomer before I opened Pampered Pets Grooming, but if you add up the barber shops, salons and the stylists who work out of their homes, I think there’s a chair for every roughly two and a half residents in this town.

I don’t know how they all stay in business, but I knew I couldn’t afford to scrounge for customers in an oversaturated market.

Mostly I’m in it for the dogs, though. With the exception of Mrs. Brophy’s Chihuahua, they never judge me.

“We need to consider his offer,” I tell my mother, bringing the subject back to Hayden.

“No.” She scrubs harder, and I feel bad for the speckled countertop that needed to be updated before I was born. “This house has been in the Gamble family since the day it was built. I made a promise to your father, and I’m not going to be the one who loses it.”

No, that’s going to be me. My sister, Georgia, is two years older than me, and she managed to get away before I was old enough to beat her to it. And as much as Mom likes to go on about the Gamble family, it’s down to just us. My mother, Georgia and me.

Oh, and my Aunt Tess. She’s my paternal great-aunt, and she’s never been okay with the house passing from her father to her older brother to my father while her inheritance consisted of an ugly broach and a fancy dinner setting for twelve.

She won’t contribute to the upkeep of the house—not that I blame her since it’s not hers—but she never misses an opportunity to remind me of my legacy.

That’s a weighty word for a money pit of a house. And honestly, there’s more value in the ten dollar bill she still sends me in a birthday card every year than in “the Gamble legacy.”

The bottom line is that if I leave, my mother will be alone.

And despite what Georgia says, I don’t think me walking away would give Gin the kick in the pants she needs to move on from this house.

I think she’d stay, and then she and the house would deteriorate together.

And no matter how many Instagram posts I see urging me to set boundaries and live my life, I can’t do it.

She’s my mother. I’ve already lost my father, so she’s the only parent I’ve got.

But I can tell by the set of her mouth and the way she’s intensely focused on an imaginary stain on the counter that the conversation is over.

For now.

I’ll give her some time to stew about it, but we’re going to talk about that offer again. And again and again, until I get her to at least consider hearing him out.

We scrape by okay—most months—but selling the house sure would relieve some of the pressure.

Even if we sell it to Hayden Reilly.