I laughed slightly. “Wow, what you can do when you have money.”
“Baby, this had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the fact that I’m a Cortell.”
“And everybody in town loves the Cortell brothers,” I laughed.
“Hey, we’re charming and sexy. Who could say no to us?”
“Apparently nobody.”
“Anyway,” he said, pulling out the menus. “The transfer is made. I thought maybe we could look at houses next week.”
“Oh, I already have one in mind.”
“Yeah, Mr. Groverton told me that, but it sold two days ago.”
“Really? Damnit, I really wanted that house.”
“Well, I have another idea if you’re up for it.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“You know I’m not big on surprises.”
“I think you’ll like this one.”
“Robert, why do I have to have my eyes covered?”
“Would you relax and just go with me on this?”
I sighed and relaxed into the seat. I had no idea what he wanted. He just called me this morning while I was at work and told me that he had to show me something this afternoon. Then he showed up and dragged me away from work, even though I was trying to finish up some last minute things for Eric. I had been working hard all week to make it up to Eric for abandoning him the previous week. I got the feeling that all his grumpiness was due to the fact that he actually had to go through the mail, instead of me doing it for him.
“Alright, we’re here. Just hang on. I’ll come around and help you out.”
When the door opened and he pulled me out, I still had no clue where we were. “Can I take this off now?”
I felt his fingers slip through the blindfold and remove it. “Alright, now!” he shouted, slipping it off my face.
I stared at the house in front of me and frowned, then looked across the field to where my crappy trailer sat about a half mile away. “I don’t get it.”
“This is the house, remember?”
“Yeah, this is the property we always came to at night. What about it?”
He grinned and held up some papers. “I bought it for you.”
My jaw dropped. “You bought this?”
“Yeah, yesterday. This was the surprise I was telling you about last week. When I saw it was for sale, I knew that it was meant to be. What are the odds that just when you need a new place to stay, this house would become available? That’s not a coincidence.”
“Robert…you should have talked to me about this first.”
“I know,” he sighed. “This was something you wanted to do, but there was another buyer lined up. I didn’t want to miss out on it.”
I stared up at the two story house, tilting my head to the side as I stared at it. It was definitely old and in need of some repairs, but it was a cute house. “What does the inside look like?”
“Let’s go check it out,” he grinned, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to the house. “I had an inspection done first, and it passed. It just needs a little updating. I figured that might be something you’d like to do.”
I stepped into the house as he shoved the door open. The house was one of those early twentieth century houses that you see in magazines. It was beautiful. All the original wood was still there, and though everything was outdated, Robert was right, I would have fun making this place my own. I walked from room to room, checking out everything, and just taking in the fact that this was mine. I couldn’t believe it.
“Robert, you didn’t pay for the whole house, did you?”
He held up his hands and shook his head. “I promised you I would only make the down payment.” He nodded his head from side to side with a sheepish smile. “It may be a little larger than the average down payment, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t struggling if something needed to be repaired. Plus, now there’ll be room in your budget to start making this your own.”
I couldn’t believe it. I just didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to be angry with him, but the other part of me knew that there was more to this old house than just a place for me to live. We had memories on this property, and that’s what he was after.
“Come on, I want to show you something else.”
He took my hand and pulled me out the back door off the kitchen. His excitement was intoxicating as he dragged me across the yard that I remembered all too well from our youth. We were just about to the fence when he stopped and waved his hand to a blanket on the ground, along with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
“Do you remember this spot?”
I laughed and sat down on the blanket. “How could I forget?” I laid down and stared up at the sky, sighing contentedly. “This was my favorite place for most of our senior year.”
“Mine too,” he said as he laid down beside me. He intertwined our fingers and stared up at the sky. “When I saw this place on the market, I just knew, Anna.” He looked over at me, his eyes filled with trepidation. “Do you like it?”
I smiled at him. How could I be upset with him for taking the reins on this? His heart was in the right place, and I had to admit, he did good. “I love it. Thank you.”
He rolled over me and started kissing, slipping his hands under my coat. I laughed and shoved at him. “We have a whole house to christen. Let’s leave this for a warmer day.”
He shifted so he was leaning on one elbow and stared down at me. “I just want to make you happy, Anna.”
“I’ve never been happier.”
Robert
“I can help you pack,” I said as I followed Anna into her trailer.
“You could, but you would put everything in the wrong spot, and then I would have to go through and repack. Then I would be irritated with you for doing it the wrong way and we would get in a fight. This way is easier.”
“But the sooner we finish, the sooner you’ll be out of this place.”
She looked at me pointedly and tossed her purse on the table. “Robert, it’s not going to kill me to stay here for a few nights.”
“What about this…what if you pack and I’ll leave you alone, but then you have to agree to come spend the rest of the week with me in the city.”
“I can’t do that to your brother again.”
“He owes me.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, I’m not buying that.”
“Please,” I whined. “I have a busy week, and I know I won’t be able to make it down here until Sunday. I can’t stand to go that long without seeing you.”
“Robert, I have to be here for my job.”
“And I need you in my bed.” I kissed her neck and pulled her in close, nudging my growing erection against her. “Tell me you don’t want that,” I whispered in her ear.
She groaned and laughed lightly. “You have to talk with him. But if he says no, just leave it at that. I’m not pissing him off.”
“Fine,” I bit at her earlobe. “I’ll go talk to him now. You have three hours of packing before I drag you to the city.”
“I can’t pack in three hours.”
“My brothers will all pitch in to help you move this weekend. We don’t need a bunch of boxes. We’re literally moving you across the field.”
“Oh, so I suppose I should just toss it out the door on a blanket and drag it over there.”
“That’s one idea,” I laughed, kissing her at the crease of her neck. She laughed, pushing me away.
“Fine, if Eric says that I can work from your apartment, I’ll do it, but you’ll owe me big time.”
I grinned and kissed her hard. “Three hours, and then I’m dragging you back to the city.”
“Go,” she laughed, tossing an oven mitt at me. I ducked and headed out the door, glad that she was coming back with me. Now I just had to convince my brother to let her work from my apartment. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was pre
tty sure I could get him to allow it.
When I walked into his house, he was pouring over some papers at the kitchen table, and he looked pissed.
“What’s going on?”
He shook his head. “I’m being sued.”
“What?” I walked over and snatched up the paperwork from the table. “It says that you scammed him, charging him for repairs that weren’t in the initial contract.”
“Which is bullshit,” he said, tossing down one of the papers. “We had a contract for repairs to an office building. He just left out previous damage that had been done to the building before we got the contract. When we started tearing the place apart, it was way worse than we initially thought. Now, I always build in allowances into a contract, but this was going to cost way more than we ever anticipated. I made some calls to the previous owners and found out that they disclosed all the problems to the buyer when they sold the building. The guy flat out lied to us, and now he’s trying to get out of paying for the additional charges.”
“Who is this? I don’t recognize the name?”
He scoffed. “Destin Properties. It’s one of those destination wedding places. The office is about an hour away.” He shook his head and sighed. “I knew something was off. I had this feeling that they were hiding something from me. Anna thought so too. Now I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. If they take me to court, it’s going to cost me a shit ton of money, and I’ll start losing clients.”
I stared down at the papers, reading through everything. Something was definitely off about this. “I can look into this for you.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. You’re a divorce lawyer. This isn’t even your area of expertise.”
“No, but just by reading this, I know something’s off. Let me dig into this and see what I can find out.”
He stared at me warily. “What do you want for doing that?”
I grinned. “You know me so well.”
“Yeah, well, you deal in favors.”
I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m not asking for much.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Right, just my office manager.”
“Just for the week. She can work out of my apartment again. I’m gonna be slammed this week, and I won’t be able to drive down.”
“Then how the hell would you be able to look into this?”
“Don’t worry about this. I promise, you let me have Anna for the rest of the week, and I’ll make sure this is taken care of. I have a feeling that if I walk in and put a little pressure on this guy, he’ll snap like a twig. He just needs someone to tell him the legal ramifications of what he’s doing.”
“Seriously?”
“No guarantees, but I’ll give it a try, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll see what else I can do.”
He sighed in relief. “Thanks, man. I was going crazy here, trying to figure out what to do.”
“No problem.”
I walked over to the fridge and grabbed a beer, then took a seat at the table. “So, where’s Kat?”
“She’s still at work. She’s been working overtime so she can take extra time off at the wedding.”
“Yeah? Is Anna taking care of everything for you?”
“Yeah, but Kat hates all of this. You really screwed us when you messaged the whole fucking town.”
I chuckled and took a pull of my beer. “Call it payback.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything to you.”
“Not yet, but it’s coming.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You’re paying me back for something that hasn’t happened yet?”
“I never said it made sense.”
He shook his head, gathering all the papers. “So, this thing with Anna, is it going to last this time?”
“I don’t know. I hope so, but she’s not in all the way yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s scared. I got her to finally give me a real chance, but I can tell she thinks it’s not going to work.”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“Well, staying the week with me will help. And I got her a house-“
“You what?”
I grinned at his shocked expression. “That old house across the field from her. That’s the one I used to take her to when I snuck her out of the house.”
“Robert, when I said that you should use her eviction to your advantage, I didn’t mean that you should buy her a house.”
“Technically, I didn’t. I paid the down payment.”
“Yeah, and how much was that?”
I shrugged, scratching at the back of my neck. “Okay, it may have been a large sum.”
“How large?”
“Half the house?”
“What? Are you crazy? What if this doesn’t work out with her?”
“It will. It has to.”
“Why? I don’t understand why you’re chasing her so hard. I mean, I get that you have a history, but she’s right, there are a lot of missing years that have changed both of you. And you’re running ahead full steam.”
I ran my hand across my jaw, trying to figure out how to get him to see. “How did you know with Kat?”
“Easy, she was the only one I wanted to be with. I missed her when she was right in front of me. I just couldn’t get enough of her.”
“That’s how I’ve felt for the past thirteen years. Those feelings never faded for me. Every fucking day, I’ve been missing her, wanting her in my arms.”
“Then why the hell did you wait so long?”
I dropped my eyes. “I was ashamed. You have no idea what walking away from her did to me. And when she came home, I wanted to go to her and tell her I had fucked up, but I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t think she’d listen to me. Even back then, I knew that walking away from her was wrong.”
“So why’d you do it? You know that Ma would have listened to you if you’d told her you wanted to stay with Anna.”
“Because Corduroy was right. I was a coward. I didn’t want to give up my scholarship and I knew that if I did, I would ruin my life.” I huffed out a laugh. “Turns out I ruined her life in the process. I just had this idea that I had screwed up her life enough and she would be better off without me. I thought leaving was best for both of us.”
He nodded and sat there with me, just drinking beer for a few minutes. “It’s funny, everyone in town always loved the Cortell brothers. How the mighty have fallen.”
“Well, there’s still hope for Will, Joe, and Andrew.”
Eric snorted. “Will, maybe, but Joe and Andrew? Joe’s run off to join a biker gang and Andrew is a hacker.”
“Joe joined a biker gang?” I asked in confusion.
“Oh yeah,” he laughed. “You missed that one. He got caught up with Decker and now he’s convinced that joining an MC is the way to go.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh. “Is he gonna start wearing all leather?”
Eric grinned slightly, then leaned forward. “He walked downstairs yesterday in jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather cut. Most fucking hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Tell me you have pictures.”
He waved me over, pulling out his phone. I scooted closer and looked. My brother had transformed into a biker overnight. “He doesn’t even have a bike. How did he join a biker gang?”
“Hell if I know. But look at all the tattoos he has now.”
“How the hell did he go from a Millennial talking artist to a biker?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He claims they don’t do anything illegal.”
“Really? I’m not buying that.”
“He says that they’re all upstanding members of the community.”
I shook my head, not really believing it. “And what about Andrew? He’s a hacker? When did this happen?”
“I guess it’s been happening for years. We just didn’t know it.”
“What does he hack?” Then I held up my hand and shook my head. �
�You know what? I don’t want to know. I’m going to pretend like I don’t know any of this.”
A loud rumble sounded outside and I got up to look outside. A motorcycle pulled up in front of the house and Joe got off, heading toward the house with an entirely new swagger than he usually had.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked Eric.
“When did he learn to ride a bike?”
“Shit, he’s coming up the steps. Sit down.”
We hurried back to our seats, pretending that we hadn’t been staring out the window at him. I snatched Eric’s papers from across the table and pretended to dissect the information in front of me. The back door swung open and heavy boots pounded across the floor. I pulled my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing.
“Yo,” Joe said, slapping me on the shoulder.
I tried to hold back, but the laughter snorted out through my nose and my shoulders shook uncontrollably. Eric was sitting across the table, hand covering his face as he laughed.
“What?” Joe asked. “What did I miss?”
I glanced up at him, doing a double take when I saw he had a new tattoo running up the length of his neck. “Bikers ‘R Us called, they want their clothes back.”
He glared at me. “You have a problem with the way I dress now?”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head, still trying not to laugh. “Are you auditioning for Sons of Anarchy?”
“You know, fuck you, man. I’m trying to find myself.”
I burst out laughing, not able to control it any longer. “In biker boots?”
“They’re motorcycle boots, asshole.”
I nodded. “Right, of course. And a brand new cut.” I fingered the patch that said prospect, only for him to slap my hand away. “How long before they let you join their biker gang?”
“You know what? Fuck you. This is who I am now, and if you don’t like it, you can fuck off.”
He turned and stormed out of the room, heading for the stairs. “Does the town know about this?” I shouted, laughing when he flipped me the bird.
I turned to Eric and he shook his head laughing. “I think I just found a way to get back at Joe for all the shit he pulled on me when I was dating Kat.”
Collateral Damage: A Small Town Romance Page 22