Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lane
I recline in the meeting room. We’re talking about our goals for the last quarter of the year and, ironically, a marketing campaign. I have nothing to contribute. Emerson shut down on me about the whole idea. I waited too damn long.
I thought it was a good thing that Emerson came to Bourbon Canyon with me.
But now, she’s closed off. There’s an invisible fortress I can’t get through.
On Saturday, she didn’t come check on me to make sure I was working in the shop like she asked me to.
She didn’t visit me at the tasting room, and on Sunday, she spent most of the day next door.
It’s Monday, and I’m staring down a new week of trying to get past Emerson’s defenses. Will she want to go out to eat?
“Lane?”
I could take her to Billings, but I don’t want to trick her into a date. That defeats the purpose.
“Lane?”
So how can I spend more time with her, legitimately, yet get close to her because that’s what we both want?
“Lane, fuck.” Cruz’s voice finally gets through.
I jerk my gaze off the table. The four guys are staring at me.
“What? Sorry.” How much did I miss?
Iverson puts his hands flat on the table. “I think that’s good for today.”
“No, I’m here. It’s fine.” It’s not. I can’t promise my mind will stay on work. A golden-haired goddess has tied me up in several different knots, and only she knows how to undo them.
Durban pushes back from the table. “We’ve all been there, Lane. Figure out what’s going on with your wife, and then we can talk about the holiday campaign.”
“I want to bring her in for it.” I scrub a hand down my face. “But she thinks it’s a bad idea.”
“Like he said,” Haven chimes in, “figure your shit out and then maybe you’ll get the girl and we’ll get the marketing ideas that you’ve been gushing about for weeks.”
“I haven’t.” I’ve been careful not to ask. It’s Emerson’s job, and she thinks I’ve messed with it enough.
“Trust me”—Iverson rises—“you have.” He nods at Cruz, who isn’t making a move to leave.
After the Hennessys filter out, I spin my chair toward Cruz. “Why did they flee and leave you?”
“They know you won’t really talk to them.”
“What do you mean?”
He steeples his fingers. “You don’t really talk to me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“About you.”
Frustration abrades the back of my neck. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Why do you still talk to Dad?”
The abrupt one-eighty leaves my head spinning. I’ve been consumed with Emerson; Dad’s an unpleasant thought. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He presses both index fingers together and points to me like double-handed pistols. “That’s the extent of what you tell me. He’s not an easy guy, and I bet he makes you pay each time he gets you on the phone.”
“He doesn’t make me pay. He boasts about how he’s a big shot in prison and tries to get me to play his stupid power games.”
“Well, you’re not naming your first kid after him.”
“You don’t have to either. He’s not fucking Rumpelstiltskin.”
Cruz rolls a shoulder. “A deal’s a deal, and I owe him for helping Elodie, and she’s on board. So, what happened last weekend?”
“Nothing.” When he flattens his lips, I roll my eyes. “You were there. It was a nice visit.”
“I swear, Lane—” He blows out a noisy breath. “Did you at least talk to Myles?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I did, and saying that might hurt my brother’s feelings. I’m the one who watches out for him. “She asked about a divorce.”
He doesn’t respond right away. “A divorce, not the divorce.”
There’s not going to be a fucking divorce. Irritation boils through my blood. Calm down. If Emerson doesn’t want to be married to me, I can’t force her. “Same thing.”
“Is it?” His gaze bores into me.
“I’ve got work to do.” I stand up. Dammit. I don’t have more work to do. I could find something, but it’d take me sitting at my desk, and then my mind would wander, returning to Emerson and how dismayed she was to find out that we were on a date.
“Why don’t you two come over this weekend? Invite Brooks and his daughter.”
“Why?”
“Why not have my neighbors over? Have you heard of a block party?”
We used to be the ones crashing parties around the neighborhood we grew up in. We don’t do that anymore. We’re invited now, or we’re the ones throwing the shindig. There’s no reason Emerson wouldn’t want to go, yet the thought of asking her and getting turned down pumps acid into my stomach.
“I don’t know if she’ll go. Emerson’s putting more distance than ever between us, determined that she and I can’t be a real thing.
Fuck if I know why. We get along, we have great chemistry, and she seems to care about me almost as much as I care about her.
” I hook my hands on my hips. None of that was supposed to spill out.
“She doesn’t have to come over. Ask Brooks and Hillary though.”
If they say yes, what’s Emerson going to do? Stay home while we all eat and laugh next door? What if Brooks says no?
I’ll take it less personally. And if they say yes . . . “I don’t like tricking her.”
“You’re letting her make her own decision.” He spreads his hands. “It’d be rude to not invite them just because she says no.”
“Always playing the loopholes.”
He grins. “I was never that tactful before, and you know it.”
Back in the day, Cruz never used to care about rules or the right way to do anything. Today’s Cruz is a standup guy. So that means his advice might be worth listening to. “I won’t go around Emerson and ask her brother first, but if she says no, I’ll invite them anyway.”
“It’s the neighborly way.”
Emerson
I squat in the middle of the lawn where Hillary’s refreshing the water for my dad’s old chickens. They look better than they did when I first arrived, and they’re laying more. Hillary’s started selling the eggs.
“You should see the new comforter Daddy bought,” she says.
I reach a hand out. Jack is waddling closer. I cluck and the hen looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You’ll have to show me a picture.”
“It’s washed and on my bed. Come on.” She tosses the hose and sprints for the house.
My stomach drops. I haven’t entered the house yet. I rise. I can do it. I can walk right inside. It’s not the place I grew up in; it’s Brooks’s home now. Only the trust requires paperwork for it to be official.
“Yeah, Bunny. Sure.” I follow her.
It’s a building. They’re only memories.
My dad’s voice drifts through my head. “Let’s go for a ride, Emmie.”
Then my mom’s. “I’m not taking her! I’m trying to get away, goddammit.”
“What am I going to do with her?”
I stare at the front door from the base of the stairs. Hutch was right. He didn’t know what to do with me. One moment, he was the best dad a girl could ask for. Then he was barely a roommate.
I haven’t been inside since.
Come on. It’s just a door.
My feet don’t move.
I’m not seven. I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl either. I’m a woman with my own company. I’m married.
The last thought doesn’t get me to budge. My breathing rate picks up.
I won’t be married for long. I had a family once, and when this is over, I’ll be alone again. Alone in Denver and alone in my apartment.
My inhales sound wheezy.
Brooks pushes out the door. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell Hill that you need to get ready for the dinner tonight.”
That slaps me out of my stupor. “The what?”
“Dinner?” He leans on the railing to my right. “What should I bring? Fuck, I should buy something. I don’t make salads and shit. I’ll just buy some cookies.”
His words jumble in my head until they click with Lane’s question this morning. “At Cruz and Elodie’s?” He nods. “I’m not going.”
Confusion creases his brow. “You’re not?”
“Lane didn’t mention that?”
“He said it was like a block party.”
“Of course he did,” I snap. I told Lane I was not going. I couldn’t do another happy family gathering. I couldn’t see what I wouldn’t get. But Lane never said he was inviting Brooks and Hillary.
He looks around sheepishly. “I know we’re the only ones in their neighborhood, but I thought it’d be good for Hillary to get out.”
Guilt twines through my insides. “She doesn’t want to leave here?”
There was a time I didn’t want to either.
“She’s loving it, Em. You should see how much confidence she has. There’s only been two meltdowns since we moved in.”
“Wow, that’s amazing.” Yet I’ve hardly noticed, all wrapped up in my own shit. She’s my family and we’ll only be in the same zip code for a little longer. “I can take her somewhere tomorrow. Maybe the library.”
“She loves that place. It’s open in the afternoon.”
“Okay. Well, have fun at the party.” I won’t hold them back. I’m the girl who can’t open that front door. “Maybe don’t bring cookies since one of the hosts is a baker.”
He winces. “Shit.”
“Bring some chips and dip.” I watch a chicken dart across the lawn.
What am I going to do, sit in Lane’s house while they’re all at Cruz’s? How is that making a point? What does it hurt to have dinner? The breakfasts with Lane have been our normal, but I’ve worked through lunch, and he’s at the distillery during most dinnertimes.
One dinner. With people around. It’s not a date. “I’ll make potato salad.”
Brooks screws his face up. “Mom’s recipe?”
“She sucks, but her potato salad doesn’t.”
I gush over the butterfly bed set that Brooks bought her.
I ruffle her hair. “I’ve gotta get going.”
“You should recite some facts.” She keeps poking at her phone screen.
“Why’s that, Bunny?”
“You don’t come into the house. It upsets you. So maybe you should recite some facts. You know? Like when I get stuck in my—what’s it called, Daddy?”
“Amygdala.”
My house issue has been noticed by my eleven-year-old niece, who’s doing more to cope than I am.
To be fair, Brooks also got her the help she needed.
I’ve been rawdogging my mental health issues.
Like standing up a handsome distillery exec, then ignoring him when we live together.
Perhaps it’s time to figure something else out, at least for one part of my life—like entering this house.
The handsome distillery exec who invited my brother behind my back will be dealt with in a different way.
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask her. She nods. “Send me a list of ten facts?”
“Yes!” She runs back into the house. I’ll probably get a text of a hundred in a chaotic voice message in ten minutes, but I’ll sort it out.
“What time is the dinner?” I ask Brooks.
“Six.”
That gives me plenty of time to get to town, buy supplies, and ask Lane what the hell he was thinking.