Chapter 6
SIX
austin
She was prettier than I remembered, which was annoying as fuck and immediately put me in an even worse mood.
She was even prettier than she had been in my motorcycle fantasy.
Maybe it was that she’d let her hair down—it was wavy and pale blond and looked soft as cornsilk.
Maybe it was that she’d changed into shorts, putting her legs on display—she definitely had the limbs of a dancer.
Maybe it was that she’d washed the makeup off her face, and her blue eyes seemed even more vulnerable.
I could tell she’d been crying, and it weakened my defenses.
She caught me staring as we took seats across from each other at the dining table, and I quickly looked away.
Owen was to my right, Adelaide across from him, and they resumed eating their dinner.
Xander sat at their end of the table, tipping the legs back on the chair I’d made, even though I’d told him a million fucking times not to do that.
“Veronica, can I get you something?” Mabel asked from the kitchen, as if this was a social visit. “A glass of wine maybe?”
“No, thank you. I just need to charge my phone for a few minutes, and then I’ll be out of your way. I’m sure my friend in New York will send me train fare to get back to Chicago. I just need to call her.”
“I plugged it in, so it’s charging now,” Mabel said, taking a bottle of white wine from the fridge and pouring herself a glass. “But since it’s completely dead, I think you have time for one glass.”
“She already said no, Mabel. Leave it.” I glared at my sister, who stuck out her tongue at me.
Veronica spoke up. “Actually, a glass of wine sounds lovely. Thank you.”
When I looked at her, she met my eyes directly. A little defiantly.
Mabel came to the table with two full glasses of wine, setting one down in front of Veronica. “Here you go. Austin, can I get you a beer? Take the edge off that mood?”
“What mood?” I knew I was being a dick, but I couldn’t help it. Something about the woman sitting across from me had me tense as a tightrope. Maybe it was that mouth. Her lips looked puffy and inviting without the bright red color on them. Like a ripe peach.
“Maybe he’s hangry,” Xander suggested.
“Pasta is on the stove,” Mabel said. “Anyone is welcome to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I snapped. What I wanted to taste were those lips.
“So Veronica, how long will you be in town?” Xander asked.
“I’m not exactly sure.” She fit the tips of her thumbnails together and stared at them. “My circumstances are a little . . . uncertain at the moment.”
“Where are you staying tonight?” Mabel asked.
“Um, that’s sort of up in the air too.” She took a sip of wine. “My ex-fiancé already cut me off. The inn where I was staying kicked me out. And my credit card has been frozen.”
Mabel’s jaw fell open. “Seriously? Your ex did all that already?”
“He’s good at getting what he wants right when he wants it.”
“Rich guys always are,” I muttered.
“This guy was rich?” Xander asked.
“A Vanderhoof,” I said.
“Oh.” Xander nodded. “Yeah, I know that family. Bunch of douchebags. They used to come into the restaurant at The Pier every summer and complain about everything—their table, the service, the food. They were shitty tippers too.”
“Veronica, do you have another credit card?” Mabel asked. “Or somewhere you can go tonight? What if you can’t get ahold of your friend?”
“I’ll figure it out,” said Veronica, picking up her wine glass again. “I can always just sleep at the train station.”
I knew what my sister was going to say before she said it.
“I think you should just stay here,” said Mabel, right on cue.
“No,” Veronica and I said at the same time.
Our eyes met once more. The air crackled with electricity.
Veronica looked away first, shifting her gaze to Mabel. “It’s very nice of you to offer, but I really can’t accept.”
“Sure, you can. You can sleep in the room over the garage. I’ll sleep in here on the couch.”
“I couldn’t take your room,” Veronica protested.
“I insist,” Mabel said, like the place was hers to rent out.
“You can always stay at Dad’s house, Mabel,” offered Xander. “Your old room is empty, and I’m sure Dad would love to have a little extra time with you before you leave for Virginia.”
I gave him a scathing look.
“Good idea, Xander! That’s what I’ll do. I’m not quite done packing yet,” Mabel said to Veronica, “but it won’t take me more than an hour. I’ll put new sheets on the bed, and then the room would be all yours—if you’re comfortable staying here, of course.”
Veronica shook her head. “I really can’t.”
“But then where—”
“She said she’s not comfortable with it, Mabel.” I gave my sister a look that said drop it.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Huh?” I squinted at Veronica.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t be comfortable with it,” she clarified. “I just don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not a bother at all,” Mabel insisted. “In our family, we were taught to extend a welcome to everyone and offer a helping hand when it’s needed. And after what you’ve been through, you could use a little generosity. Clearly, my brother can see that.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You shouldn’t leave Cherry Tree Harbor feeling like it’s not a friendly place,” Mabel went on. “Right, Xander?”
“Right.” My dickhead brother nodded. “In this town, we open our hearts and homes to those in need.”
“Then it’s settled.” Mabel’s expression was triumphant. “She stays here for the night. Okay, Austin?”
I was caught in a trap. Unless I wanted my kids to see me act like a real asshole and toss this broke, stranded girl out on the street, I had to agree. “Fine. One night.”
“That’s really nice of you.” Veronica smiled at me. “Thanks.”
I swear I wasn’t imagining the look in her eyes that said, I won this round, didn’t I?
“Why don’t you grab your bag and come out to the garage with me now?” Mabel suggested. “I’ll show you the room and we can drink our wine while I finish packing. Then I’ll head over to my dad’s.”
“Sounds good.” Veronica pushed her chair back and stood up. Then she ran her fingertips over the smooth, glossy surface of the table, which I’d fashioned out of salvaged barn wood. “Wow. This table is really beautiful.”
Okay, fine. She had good taste.
“Dude, I can’t believe you turned her down for the job,” Xander said to me after Veronica and Mabel had gone out to the garage, the kids in tow. We were in the kitchen, filling bowls with pasta from the pot on the stove.
“You’d believe it if you’d been here when she interviewed,” I said, grabbing a beer from the fridge.
“Get me one too,” Xander said as he headed for the table.
I hooked a second bottle with my fingers before bumping the fridge door shut with my hip. Taking my seat again, I sent one bottle sliding toward my brother.
He caught it easily. “So tell me why you didn’t hire her.”
First, I uncapped my beer and took a long pull. “She wasn’t qualified.”
“But she’s hot.”
“If you had kids, you’d know that being hot is the least important quality in a nanny.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Xander said. “Listen, I love those two kids like they are mine, and I’m just saying, I’d give that girl a chance. She seems cool. Honest. Trustworthy.” He tapped his temple. “I have good instincts about that stuff.”
“She has zero experience. No car. No references. And she can’t cook,” I said, digging into the pasta. “We’ll starve.”
“So you eat takeout.”
“I’ll go broke. And I’m not crazy about a stranger living here anyway.”
Xander was quiet for a minute or two. “Don’t go all grizzly bear on me for suggesting this, but what about a longer visit in California?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not an option.”
“Austin, you have those kids fifty-one weeks a year.”
“And the one they’re gone is tough enough.”
“But they’re not babies anymore. Sansa can handle two seven-year-olds for a summer, can’t she?”
“Not an option.”
“But couldn’t you—”
I leveled him with a look. “Not. An option.”
“Okay, okay.” Xander backed off. “Just trying to help. And it’s never seemed fair to me that you’re the only full-time parent.”
“It’s how things had to be,” I said. “It was either full-time dad or nothing. She didn’t want kids.”
I hadn’t either—not yet, anyway.
I could still remember the panic that gripped my heart when Sansa—an art student I’d met on vacation in Santa Cruz and spent several tequila-fueled, sex-filled days with at the beach—reached out to let me know she was pregnant.
She was only twenty-one, still in college, up to her neck in student loans, scared out of her mind, not sure she even wanted children, and definitely not ready to be a parent at that point in her life.
She was willing to have the baby, she said, but then planned to give it up for adoption.
My reaction was immediate. “I’ll raise it,” I told her, even though I was terrified. “Have the baby, and I’ll raise it.”
Of course, the phone call two weeks later came as even more of a shock—she was pregnant with twins.
“Do you still want them?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said as the room spun around me. “I’ll raise them both.”
After we hung up, I passed out.
I helped Mabel load her bags into her car.
“Take care of yourself,” I said gruffly, as we hugged goodbye in the driveway. I wasn’t big on displays of affection. “Don’t fall in any holes on the dig.”
“I won’t.” She squeezed me tight—affection came easily to her. “Thank you for letting me go.”
“No thanks necessary. Go show them all how smart you are.”
“I will.” Lowering her voice to a whisper, she pulled me down so she could put her lips at my ear. “Listen, if you change your mind about Veronica, she could always use my car this summer. I’ll leave the keys at Dad’s.”
“I won’t change my mind.” I tried to release her, but she clung like a monkey.
“She could be good for you, Austin.”
I shook her off me. “Get lost.”
“Okay, okay. I love you.”
“I love you too.” My heart ached a little watching my sister leave. She was all up in my business when she was here, but I always missed her when she was gone.