Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
R eagan folded the sheet and blanket she’d slept on last night and stacked them tidily on the corner of the red sofa. It didn’t look like much, but it made a passable bed.
“What time did you get up, woman?” Her best friend, Kelly, yawned as she plodded downstairs in a bathrobe, her caramel blond hair tied into a sloppy topknot. “It’s 6:30. Why do you look as fresh as a daisy?”
“Thanks, but I don’t feel that way. I haven’t had coffee yet.”
Kelly clasped her heart and stumbled through the living room, miming a dramatic heart attack on her way to the kitchen. “Why not?”
“I started answering emails and didn’t get to it. It’s no big deal.” Reagan had been trying to be as quiet as possible. She’d showered last night and had run minimal water while brushing her teeth this morning. “I don’t want to disrupt your entire life.”
Kelly paused at the cabinet, coffee cup in hand. “Ray, you’re not disrupting my life. My philandering dickweed of an ex-husband, on the other hand, has earned the title of Disruptor.”
Reagan couldn’t help smiling at Kelly’s dry-as-toast delivery.
“You are my best friend and are having a little bit of a hiccup. That’s it.”
“I’m on the waiting list at Clifton’s Bluff, but I’ve been second-guessing my need for the garage.” The swanky apartment complex charged almost double the rent to add a coveted garage space beneath the unit. The complex was in a well-to-do area, near the golf course and Ike, with quick access to the highway for her calls in the city. It was perfect, save the hefty monthly rent.
“Don’t move until it’s right.” Kelly fished a coffee pod from the drawer. “You’ll be stuck in a dump like this with a year’s lease if you rush.”
“I like your place.” And she appreciated a couch to sleep on every so often. She didn’t want to cramp her grandfather’s style, even though he would have allowed her to stay with him full-time if she asked. “But I do need somewhere to call my own.”
The single-cup maker sputtered the end of its cycle, and Kelly offered the coffee to Reagan.
“No, you go ahead. I’ll make myself one.”
“Oh, thank God. I was being polite, but I need this more than air right now.” Kelly chuckled as she snapped in a fresh pod for Reagan.
The two had met in junior high. Kelly had been the only other girl in school as tall as Reagan, and they’d bonded over what they’d referred to as their “vertical advantage.” At five-ten, Reagan was two inches shorter than Kelly.
While she waited for her own cup of coffee to brew, she asked, “What do you know about the Crane family?”
“The Crane family? As in the hoteliers?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything.”
“ Anything? They’re the most famous family in town. Do you live under a rock?”
“No, but as I’m not living anywhere at the moment, that might be a good place to consider.”
Kelly snorted over her steaming mug. “They’re like local Kardashians if you read the gossip websites. I worked a few charities in town, so I have seen Elijah Crane in person.” She trilled her tongue, making a soft purring sound. “He’s hot.”
“I’ve seen photos, and you’re not wrong.” Reagan smiled. Kelly was in the catering industry, which had placed her front and center with wealthy—and sometimes famous—people. “I do know that he started a charity that fixes up houses for veterans who are in wheelchairs or have prosthetics.”
“Well, look at you.” Kelly gave her a proud grin.
“I like when rich people are charitable. It makes them more tolerable. Maybe that’s what Brody Crane is doing in Ike’s house—outfitting it for someone else.”
“Wait. Back up. Brody Crane?”
Reagan poured a dollop of low-fat milk into her coffee and then came to sit at the kitchen table with Kelly. “Yeah. The guy who bought the house.”
“The guy who bought your grandfather’s house is Brody Crane ?”
“Yes.” Reagan laughed. “Why do you keep saying his name?”
“Only because he’s a bestselling author who is living a posh existence in NYC. Or was, anyway. Why would he move to Merriweather?” Kelly’s face scrunched as she reached for her laptop.
“That’s why I wondered if he was redoing the house for Eli’s charity.”
Kelly hummed in thought, her fingers flying over the keys. “That doesn’t make any sense.” She stopped typing, her eyes flitting over the screen. “Says here he’s going to write a follow-up book to Billionaire on the Run .”
Reagan leaned in to study the screen.
“He’s a bestselling author. I’m not much for reading books about men bragging on their own pursuits, but this one got a lot of attention. Enough that the publisher wanted another book from him.” Kelly swiveled the laptop. Next to a graphic of the book cover was Brody’s headshot.
Reagan couldn’t take her eyes off the inset photo of Brody. In the picture, his hair was neat, not messy like it’d been the other day. He was sitting on a stool, leaning forward, his elbows balanced on his knees. No smile, which gave her an unobstructed view of the mustache-scruff combo. He wore it well, but it was his eyes that had her attention. They were locked on the viewer and warm in color—in between golden brown and hazel.
“Wow.” Reagan cleared her throat and tried to ignore the trickle of unexpected lust that seeped into her bloodstream. “A bestselling writer.” She dragged her gaze from the screen to find her best friend staring at her. “What?”
“You’re drooling.”
Reagan absently reached up and swiped the corner of her lips.
“It’s okay to admit he’s gorgeous. He is. All the Cranes are. I know it’s been a minute since you were attracted to a guy other than Dustin, but it wasn’t as if you two were a fire couple.”
“What do you mean?” Reagan hadn’t meant to sound defensive. There was no reason to be defensive. She and Dustin had split amicably. They were still friends. Sort of. They’d lost touch after he’d moved. Kelly had made a valid point. Reagan and Dustin had never been a “fire” couple, whatever that meant. If pressed, she wasn’t sure she could accurately describe anything between them as having been on fire…or smoking , for that matter.
“You don’t need a waiting period before you start dating someone else, you know.”
“Who said anything about dating?” Not Reagan. She’d just exited a relationship.
“You two had been growing apart for months before he took that job in Missouri.” Kelly’s voice shifted into Bitter Divorcee to add, “At least he didn’t cheat on you with his twenty-two-year-old personal assistant.”
“I’m not sure Dustin wanted one girlfriend, let alone two,” Reagan said for the first time out loud. He had never been unkind, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to make her feel loved or seen or heard, especially at the end of their relationship. They’d lived completely separate lives together. The only thing that seemed to excite him was his work. She debated silently for a few seconds before sharing, “He wasn’t exactly a tiger in the bedroom.”
“What? No! Are you—are you, Reagan Palmer, talking about sex ? Can we talk about sex? Please?” Her best friend’s excitement was palpable, and sort of cute. Reagan wasn’t a prude about the topic, especially with her bestie, but she hadn’t shared details about Dustin. She hadn’t had much to report, quite frankly. Part of her must have known that sharing would have tipped off how badly things had deteriorated between them.
“We lacked sizzle,” she admitted, because that was fair. “Not only were we not a fire couple, I don’t remember a single spark. There must have been one at the beginning, though, right?” That felt like eons ago instead of a handful of years.
Instead of being angry like Kelly, Reagan had felt more disappointment when the relationship ended. She and Dustin had deserved better. She’d deserved someone who hadn’t prioritized a job in St. Louis over his live-in girlfriend, and he’d deserved someone who refused to accept second place in his life.
One of them should have spoken up sooner. The house they’d shared was a sparkling, clutter-free example of perfection, but their relationship with each other had been steadily eroding.
“It’s like in Jerry Maguire when she tells him they could end up wasting years together by being polite. That’s what Dustin and I did.”
Kelly’s mouth screwed to the side in sympathy. “I’m sorry, babe.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine.” She tapped Brody’s photo. “But he sure as hell is fine. You should pop over and offer to fix his sink. Hammer a nail. Screw something for him.” She waggled her eyebrows. “If ya know what I mean.”
Reagan laughed off Kelly’s suggestion, but her cheeks grew warm. “And then what?”
“At the very least overcharge him. He is a billionaire.”
“Are you sure you know how to do this…what’s it called, sageing ?” Brody waved a curl of smoke away from his face as he followed Jaylyn through his house.
“It’s called smudging . And yes. My mom taught me. Do you question the great Vera Gray?”
“Never. I love your mom.” Jaylyn, like Brody’s brothers Dante and Zander, had a different mother than him. They all did. Their father, Octavius, wasn’t one for long-term commitment, though he’d remained close with his children’s moms after they’d parted ways.
Whenever O had been single, they’d spent Christmas at his Switzerland chalet. Four different women, the kids, and Octavius. Like a 70s commune. That’d been some real polygamy shit, though to Brody’s knowledge there hadn’t been any sex between their father or any of their mothers during those holidays. At least he hoped not.
He cringed at the bend of his thoughts.
“Stop freaking out,” Jaylyn said when she caught his disgusted expression. His younger sister by five years faced him, rolled bundle of smoking sage clutched in one fist. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not judging your abilities about the sage—er— smudging . I was wondering if our moms and dad had more going on at the chalet while we slept soundly in our beds.”
“Ew. Why are you thinking about that?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m male and think about sex constantly?”
“That’s not true. Bennie the keyboardist was very sensitive and a good listener.”
Bennie was the guy she’d met on New Year’s Eve at Reese Crane’s party. Brody hadn’t been there in person, but he had talked to Jaylyn and Zander via video chat that night. “I don’t want to know.”
“Nothing happened . We kissed at midnight, and he gave me his number. That was it.” She peeked over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. He followed, noticing when a floorboard creaked loudly underfoot.
“If you liked him so much, why didn’t you call him?”
“Because endings are sad. Would you like to expound on why you’re not still seeing Alexis?”
He felt his lips compress before he shook his head.
“That’s what I thought.”
After Jaylyn had finished smoking up his house—pardon him, smudging —they sat side by side on his bed facing the window overlooking the backyard. The grass was starting to turn green and grow after the cold winter. Oddly enough, he was looking forward to mowing it. Living in the city, he’d never had a lawn to call his own before.
“I like this house. It has a good aura,” she said. “Why the sage? Were you worried it was haunted?”
“No, but thanks for introducing that possibility. Tag came by earlier. Asked about the book.” He gave her a meaningful look, hoping he didn’t have to spell it out. When she returned his look with a blank one of her own, he sighed. “He mentioned a popular phrase that rhymes with lighters chock .”
Her eyebrows pulled down in confusion before it clicked a second later. “Ohh. Writer’s blo?—”
“Shh!” He looked over his shoulder, half expecting a demon to have materialized in the doorway.
“Brody, that’s stupid. Your energy’s fucked up from the move. Your concentration is on the wrong thing—you’re not blocked, you’re acclimating. Give yourself some time to find your groove. It’s not like you’re in your comfort zone.”
She could say that again. He’d become used to having a private chef or at least a meal delivery service. And a cleaner. Laundry service. His penthouse in New York had acted as a home base for whenever he returned from his most recent traveling stint. Comfort for him was having those people and services in place. He’d never enjoyed going it alone.
“I’m doing okay,” he defended. He’d been watching more YouTube than was healthy in order to learn how to update the multitude of things that needed updating in this house. Unfortunately, a lot of the videos were not only poorly filmed, but boring. Watching them had been like watching paint dry— literally at one point when he’d watched a tutorial about how long it took different types of paint to dry.
“Penthouses come with repairmen. In this house, you are the repairman. While you’ve dived into the role with gusto, I know it’s a challenge for you.” She sounded older than her years when she spoke to him like that.
“I want to do it myself. What will my readers think if I can’t change a light bulb?”
She gave him a slow blink. “You can’t change a light bulb?”
“Of course I can change a light bulb. I also puttied a hole in the ceiling yesterday.” He pointed up.
She tilted her head back.
“Pretty good, right?” He reconsidered as he looked with her. “Do you think I’m in over my head?”
“Time will tell.” But she was gazing out the window again. “Your yard’s not too much to manage, so that’s a plus. What a beautiful tree.”
She was referring to the maple tree in the backyard that could fall on top of the master bedroom at any moment, taking him out in the process.
“It’s too big. Makes me nervous. I called a tree service to take a look at it.” He’d nearly taken a chainsaw to it himself, but wasn’t sure he wouldn’t down the house or part of his fence in the process. Much as he wanted to prove himself, cutting down a tree that was older than he was seemed unwise.
“A reputable tree service?” Jaylyn was frowning.
“I don’t know. I guess. Do they have a special seal of approval or something?” He was a city guy. What the fuck did he know about trees outside of the ones in Central Park?
“If he wants to cut it down, get a second opinion. And if the tree needs cutting down, be sure and give it three days’ notice.”
“Give the tree three days’ notice?”
“It’s the polite thing to do. They’re alive, you know.”
He loved his sister, but sometimes she said the kookiest things. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you been to see Zander yet?” he asked. Jaylyn had flown in a few days ago. She’d come and gone as she pleased, driving Brody’s new SUV around at his insistence. He didn’t know what the hell she did with her time. For all he knew she was at the park meditating. Or talking to the trees.
“ No .” The word was a petulant syllable. “He’s monopolizing his girlfriend’s free time. I met her the same night he did, you know. And he sees her all the time! Now that I’m back in town, he owes me a night with Chloe.”
He chuckled. “What, like shared custody?”
“Yes, actually. Have you met her yet?”
“Not yet. He says he’s busy, but I think he’s keeping her from me.”
Jaylyn smirked. “He’s probably afraid you’ll warn him off relationships in front of her. Not that Chloe would listen. She’s completely and utterly in love. And she’s good for him. I haven’t seen him this happy since Emily.”
Zander’s wife. After she’d passed away, Zander had become even more of a shut-in than before. Their oldest brother had lived a quiet life as an art curator in London with the love of his life. After Emily passed, Zander hadn’t been himself for a while.
As much as Brody wasn’t sure if his older brother knew what he was doing in a relationship, Zander did seem happier with Chloe in his life. When he’d stopped by yesterday morning to see the house, Brody had been taken aback by the wide smile on his brother’s face. It’d been too long since Zander had smiled like that.
“It’s so soon,” he said anyway. “He met her on New Year’s Eve. It’s the middle of April.”
“That’s enough time to know someone. Plus, they met each other online first. It was kismet that they met at all.”
He didn’t know if it was kismet, but it was a hell of a coincidence. Zander hadn’t known Chloe’s actual identity until she’d told him at the party at Reese’s house. “Zander has always been reserved. Careful. Falling head over nuts for a woman in one night sounds like possession by an amorous spirit.” He gestured at the sage in Jaylyn’s hand. “Maybe you should smudge his apartment next.”
“The right woman can change someone. Even you, if you let one into that black-lump-of-coal heart of yours.”
He rubbed the spot where she’d poked him in the chest. “I treat the women I date with the utmost respect, thank you very much. Ask Alexis.”
“Ew. No thanks.”
His siblings hadn’t been fans of his ex. Him either, if he were being honest. He’d been passing the time until someone better came along. An ugly truth, but a truth nonetheless.
“Besides, it’s usually us women who end up puttying ourselves together after a relationship ends, not the other way around. Men simply move on.” Jaylyn made a shooing motion with her hand.
“I have puttied myself before.” At the same time, they looked to the ceiling. “Is that the real reason why you didn’t call the keyboardist back? Because you were afraid of him leaving holes behind you’d have to fix?”
“Not afraid. Just…wary.”
“I get that.” He took her hand. She squeezed his fingers with hers. His baby sister had always been rough and tumble and ready to rumble, but beneath that ballsy exterior lay a fragile heart.
“I hope you’re better at puttying yourself than that ceiling.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Me too.”