Chapter 33
THEO
The gates of Westwood Manor opened automatically after I’d keyed in the code. I rode up the long drive with Martha’s engine rumbling underneath me and the strange sensation that I’d traveled back in time, just dropping back into my old life on a dime.
It was hard to believe it’d been months since I’d last been here when it suddenly felt like I’d left just yesterday. In reality, though, I’d been on the road for three days and four nights, wanting to get back as soon as possible after leaving Quartz Pass.
If I hadn’t put as much distance as possible between myself and that place as fast as I could, I knew I’d have turned right around and gone back.
Westwood Manor appeared through the trees as I kept winding my way up the drive, as impressive and familiar as always, but somehow not feeling quite like home anymore.
I parked near the garage and killed the engine, the sudden silence ringing in my ears after pushing so hard to get back. Honestly, I was exhausted and heartbroken, but the front door burst open before I’d even climbed off the bike and Jennifer and Lu came flying out.
“Uncle Theo!” Jennifer yelled loud enough to wake the neighbors.
“You’re home!” Lu screeched in her wake.
Before I could even take my helmet off, my nieces launched themselves across the lawn like tiny missiles, practically tackling me off the motorcycle. I laughed and caught them both, hugging them as they yelled over each other.
“We missed you!” Jennifer squealed.
“Did you bring presents?” Lu followed moments later. “I heard you were in Arizona. That’s the desert, right?”
“Did you see a rattlesnake?” Jennifer asked excitedly, lifting her bright blue eyes to mine. “You didn’t die, did you?”
“No.” I ruffled her hair and finally straightened as I let them go. “I’m right here. Very much alive.”
A second later, another freight train arrived. This time, in the form of Bear barreling down the steps after them. Zach’s enormous German Shepherd hit me in the chest with so much force that I stumbled backward, feeling like I’d been involved in a minor traffic accident.
I laughed as I stroked behind both his ears. “Hey, buddy. It’s good to see you too.”
Bear whined and shoved his giant head beneath my arm while Jennifer wrapped herself around my waist and Lu grabbed my hand. As I did my best to hug them all at the same time, my chest started aching in a whole different way.
All across the country, it had had a Raquel shaped hole in it, but I still couldn’t believe I’d almost walked away from this. From Jennifer, Lu, and even Bear. Raquel was still heavy on my mind, but these people—and the dog—were my family.
And you don’t abandon family.
The screen door opened again and Zach came racing outside, stopping dead when he saw me. The confusion on his features turned into surprise, then concern, and then relief. A wide grin stretched across his lips as he jogged the few steps down to the pavement.
“Theo?”
I finally pulled off my helmet and offered him the best smirk I could muster through the heartache and his stepdaughters using me as a jungle gym. “Surprise?”
“I’d say.” He strode over and took my backpack, but he also looked at me so closely that I knew he was assessing at least seventeen different things at once.
My brother was nothing if not observant, which meant he’d see the exhaustion and the pain. The guilt, the remorse, and the longing.
He didn’t say anything in front of the girls though, eventually just reaching out to give my shoulder a quick squeeze. “It’s good to have you home, man. I’ll have your bed made up for you, but we need to talk when you’re ready, yeah?”
“Yep,” I managed, knowing in that moment that the adventure was fully over and the consequences had arrived. “Can I just have a shower first? Maybe a nap and something to eat?”
“Sure.” He grinned and fell into step beside me as we walked into the house that had once belonged to our family but was now owned by him and his wife.
“I need to call Jesse and Nate anyway. They’ll want to be here for this conversation, but we’ve also been worried about you, bro.
I can’t tell you how good it is to finally have you home. ”
Home. The word echoed dully around my head as I looked around the massive entryway, wondering why it didn’t feel that way at all.
Jennifer and Lu followed me around as I went to say hi to Adeline, Zach’s wife, then finally left me alone once she’d yelled at them to come help her make me some food while I took a shower.
The first few hours were warm and loving, but by sunset, I was in Zach’s home office, contemplating the best ways to fake my own death.
Jesse and Nate had arrived, a tumbler of top-shelf whiskey in everyone’s hand as Zach made himself comfortable behind his desk. It was the same one he’d always had, but it suddenly felt comically large and polished, even the whiskey too smooth for my tastes now.
Jesse sat in an armchair by the fireplace, looking for all the world like a responsible human being who’d never in his life slept his way around at least Florida, if not the world. Nate sat across from Zach’s desk with a tablet balanced on one knee, his eyes intent and curious on mine.
“So let me get this straight,” Jesse said, his whiskey already halfway done. “You broke down in the middle of nowhere, got picked up by some stranger in a pickup truck, and ended up in a tiny town in the desert.”
“Yes.” I groaned, leaning back in the armchair I occupied in the corner. “We covered all this when I spoke to you while I was still there. Why are we rehashing it all?”
“The better question is why you stayed there,” Nate said, frowning. “Also, not for nothing, but that dude who picked you up could’ve been a serial killer. Did you even consider the risks before you got in a truck with him?”
“Yeah, but at the time, the greater risk was dying alone of dehydration and starvation somewhere in Yuma County.”
As for why I’d stayed, that was a little more difficult to explain, especially without saying her name, but I didn’t really want to get into that right now.
It hurt too much to even think about her, let alone trying to tell my brothers about how I’d left behind a woman who’d felt more like home than the mansion I’d grown up in.
“I liked it there,” I finally said, settling for the simplest explanation that was still true. “It was a good town filled with good people, so I stayed while my bike was getting fixed.”
Three skeptical expressions stared back at me, which was fair. None of us were really the rural-life, country-bumpkin type. Although I had a feeling that I was actually that type. I just hadn’t known it before.
Either way, they didn’t need to know. “It was a great time, but I’m back now.”
Jesse watched me for another second while he swallowed his next sip. Then he smacked his lips and leaned back. “A good town with good people, huh? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I doubt that would’ve kept you there for so long. So what happened?”
He might not have come right out and said it, but I could read between the lines. My brothers could see that I looked like half my organs had been ripped out before I’d come home, and Jesse wanted to know why.
Why I’d shown back up in Chicago out of the blue, looking the way I did, without wanting to go into any detail about what’d happened while I’d been out there.
Jesse in particular had lived enough of a life away from the Westwoods that he could probably tell exactly how close I’d come to the edge and now I had a sneaking suspicion he was trying to work out if I still might jump.
I held his gaze and shrugged. “Look, it was a great time, okay? I made some friends and got really close to them. We went hiking, camping, tubing, and all sorts of shit. It was like a whole different life and it was fun while it lasted, but it was time to come back to reality, so here I am.”
He searched my eyes for a minute before he nodded. “Okay.”
“These friends of yours,” Zach said. “Anyone special?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, though I had no intention of telling him just how special. “A few of them even started feeling like family after a while, but I’m home now, right? Their life, as fun as it was to experience, isn’t mine.”
Nate narrowed his eyes, looking at me like he was searching for clues, but then he cleared his throat, audibly engaging business mode. “Okay, so you had your fun, but like you said, you’re home now. Does that mean you’re coming back to work?”
I hadn’t even answered yet when they started circling like sharks that’d smelled blood in the water. Zach spoke up first. “I think he should pick up where he left off in acquisitions. He was good in that role and he’s got clients who miss him.”
“This is why nobody likes acquisitions people, big brother,” I said lightly. “You come on way too strong.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “We’re literally the most profitable division and I’ve kept your office open and clean for you. Don’t I get a thanks for that?”
Jesse leaned forward, ignoring Zach to toss his own hat in the ring. “I’m going to pull rank here. As COO, I don’t agree that you need him back in acquisitions. You should come try out operations, Theo. That’s where all the cool people are.”
Nate shook his head. “Finance could always use the help from someone capable, and let’s be honest, shall we? He minored in finance. That’s my division and it’s where he should be.”
I scoffed. “You once threatened to make me cry over a spreadsheet.”
“It was a very important spreadsheet.” He shrugged. “Besides, who uses the purple highlight function? It’s ridiculous.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I shot back. “I’m pretty sure I literally got that from your wife. Kate told me to use the purple. Do you want to tell her she’s ridiculous?”
“I already have.” He let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh. “She refuses to acknowledge that purple is ridiculous.”
“Regardless,” Zach interjected, pointing his tumbler at me. “Theo was in acquisitions before he left and we should give him the opportunity to get back to learning about our actual business.”
Jesse snorted. “Obviously, you’d say that, but not all of us are into acquisitions, Zachary.”
Their argument dissolved rapidly from there, everyone once again having opinions about where I belonged. It was the same conversation I’d been listening to for years, so I tuned them out while they argued about my future, turning toward the windows and my bike still sitting in the driveway.
I could leave again. Right now. Just get back on Martha and go anywhere. Anywhere except here.
“Theo?” Jesse’s voice cut through the noise in my head after I’d tuned them out.
I blinked hard, refocusing to see him frowning at me. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?” he asked, Zach and Nate now staring at me too. “You looked a little out of it for a minute there.”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I forced a smile, a fake one I’d perfected years ago. “I’m good. Just tired, you know? It was a long ride.”
True, but not as true as the fact that I’m tired of pretending I’m not still bleeding over the giant part of my heart I left behind in Arizona.
“I think maybe I’ll just go to bed,” I said, tossing back the rest of my drink before I stood up. “You guys just decide where you need me and point me in that direction.”
I left the office knowing that my next conversation was going to have to be with Alex, and that it was going to be much harder.
Sooner rather than later, I was going to have to sit down across from him and explain why I’d disappeared for months only to make a surprise return before the actual deadline he’d given me.
And then, I was going to have to get down to the sordid, unimaginable business of choosing a bride, all the while knowing that I’d never love her the way I already loved someone else. Somebody I was never going to see again.