Iris made a face. “Actually…we’re not going to need it.”
“Ha!” Jack exclaimed in triumph and shot a smug look at Maisie.
“It’s tradition,” Maisie said, shaking the fabric. A three-inch piece of fur trim fell to the floor. “We can glue that back on.”
“We’re going to try something new,” Iris said in an assertive tone.
“If it ain’t broken, why fix it?” Maisie shot back, then added, “The jacket trim aside.”
Jack was about to intervene, but Iris held her ground. “You’re missing an opportunity, Maisie. You’re barely bringing in enough money to run this place, and I have no idea what you’re living on. Beatrice showed me that most months you don’t take home your full salary. People want to like dog shelters, and they want to give their money to cute animals. You just need to rope them in differently. That Instagram post last week got us attention. Did you know there was a ten percent increase in donations over the last week?”
“Everyone donates at Christmas,” Maisie countered.
“No.” Iris shook her head. “Beatrice showed me the books for the past five years. That money comes in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Charitable donations for tax write-offs. This was different.”
Maisie turned to the side, and Jack could see she was struggling with the call to change. He longed to comfort her, but something told him she had to do this on her own.
“Okay,” Maisie finally said. “We’ll try it your way. For now. What’s your plan? Because you obviously have one.”
“We’re going to call it the Dog Days of Christmas,” Iris gushed. “In the week leading up to Christmas, we’ll feature a new dog every day. We’ll have a picture and a short blurb for each of them, encouraging people to adopt not shop and also to donate to the shelter. If this works, we’ll look at bringing other guys in to model for future campaigns. Volunteers, of course.”
“What do you mean model?” Jack asked, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“Here’s where it gets slightly gross,” Iris said with a gagging face. “I need you to take off your shirt.”
“Say what?” Jack asked.
Iris held up her hands. “Before you freak out and think I’m a pervert, just know the shirtless part was Addy’s idea.”
Maisie burst out laughing.
“The Santa jacket is lookin’ pretty good right now,” Jack grumbled. On reflection, maybe Iris and Addy were getting too close.
“Not a chance,” Maisie said, holding the coat behind her back. “You had your shot and you blew it.”
“And no beard either,” Iris said. “I texted Addy and she agreed that the beard was a bad idea. Especially this beard.” She leaned over and pulled a Santa hat out of her bag. “Just the hat.”
“I am not posing nude!” Jack shouted.
Maisie burst into laughter again.
“Ew!” Iris shrieked. “No one asked you to! Gross! You can leave your jeans on, just nothing above the waist except for the hat.” She cringed. “Believe me, I’m not any happier about this than you are.”
Actually, he was plenty happy that he could keep his jeans on, but he was even happier Maisie was agreeing to break with tradition. It was obvious she was mired in her past, and he wanted to help pull her free. Posing for some pictures was an easy price to pay.
He started to unbutton his shirt. “All right, ladies. Let’s get down to business.”
Iris made a gagging sound. “Now I feel like I’m shooting a porno.”
The amusement in Maisie’s eyes suggested she was enjoying every moment of his striptease, and the lust that washed over her face when he slipped off his shirt let him know she remembered seeing him bare-chested. Then her text alert went off and she pulled her phone out of her back pocket, her expression becoming pained as she stared at the screen.
“It’s River. I have to call him.” She hurried out of the room, and Jack wondered what that was about.
Something told him it was nothing good.
Chapter Nineteen
SOS
Maisie and River had made a pact that they’d always drop everything and run out to call the other person if they ever texted that acronym. They both took the agreement seriously, and neither of them used it for non-emergent situations. The last use of SOS had been after Beau died. So it didn’t matter that Jack was sitting there shirtless, about to cuddle one of her babies. (God, had Iris peeked into her fantasies?) It also didn’t matter that he and Iris were looking at her like she was nuts. She had to make the call.
She ducked into Beatrice’s empty office, not wanting to see Dustin right now. He’d expect to be patted on the back for his role in arranging things, plus he’d probably want to talk for fifteen minutes, and although she adored Dustin, she didn’t have the time.
Hand shaking a little, she pulled up River’s number and touched it. Beatrice’s chair was comfortable—she’d rejected the somewhat crappy ones Maisie had bought for the shelter and brought in her own—but she couldn’t see her way toward sitting.
“What happened?” she said as soon as he picked up.
He didn’t tease her for starting their phone conversation that way or tell her it wasn’t a big deal. Voice unsteady, he said, “Georgie’s father called me. Me directly, not just Georgie.”
“And?”
“He made it clear he doesn’t intend to let her marry me. He told me in no uncertain terms I’m not good enough for her.”
Anger uncoiled inside of her, sparking all the way down to her toes. “You’re the man who saved his daughter’s brewery. Of course you’re good enough for her. And what the hell is this, the nineteenth century? She doesn’t need his permission and neither do you.”
She actually felt some righteous indignation on Georgie’s behalf. Prescott Buchanan hadn’t only been awful to Jack and Adalia, it would seem—he was an equal opportunity dick.
He barked out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I don’t intend to tell her that part. He doesn’t want her working at the brewery either. He said he’s ready to offer her a role in the family company.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Georgie used to want to work with him. What if she takes it?”
And just like that, Maisie found herself stepping into the role she’d played several months ago: encouraging the man she’d loved to be with someone else. Only this time it didn’t feel like she was speaking through the shards of a broken heart.
“She would never do that. In fact, you should tell her exactly what he said, because if you do, she’s not going to want him at the engagement dinner or the wedding.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “He’s already hurt her so much. He offered me a lot of money to stand down, and when I said I’d rather die, he told me he could make my life miserable in other ways.”
“River, you’ve got to tell her.”
“It’s too late, Maisie. They’re going to be here in a little over a week. Plus, Aunt Dottie tells me she has a plan for neutralizing him. She insists she needs to have dinner with him, and it’s the only way he’s ever going to leave us alone.”
Maybe it wasn’t a half-bad idea to let Dottie do whatever she had in mind, but it was strange that she wouldn’t come out and say whatever it was she knew. It wasn’t like her to be so circumspect.
“You sure she’s not just going to put a hex on him?”
He laughed softly, and it sounded real this time, like maybe he was relaxing a little. “That’d show him, all right.”
“I still think you should tell Georgie.”
He was silent for a second, then said, “I’ll think about it. But I know she has this hope he’ll come and be a real dad for once. And I really, really don’t want to crush that.”
“Oh, River, that hope is already dead.” Because she knew a thing or two about hopes like that—the kind that were dead in the water. Harboring them only made a person bitter and lonely.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Thanks, Maisie. How’s th
e bachelor party planning going?”
“If you think I’m going to tell you anything now, just because you sound all forlorn, you have another think coming. But look, I need to run. Jack and Iris and I are doing a Christmas photo shoot for the shelter.”
“Huh,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “I have fond memories in that Santa coat.”
“Yeah, you tell that to Jack,” she muttered. “He refused to put it on. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go check on them.”
A crash sounded from the other room, and she blurted out, “Gotta go. Bye!” and hung up.
Stuffing her phone in her pocket, she darted to the door and opened it. But she didn’t need to check out the playroom to see what had happened—Ruby was darting through the hallway with the old Santa jacket gripped in her jaws like it was a chew toy, and Jack was racing after her, the fluffy white throw from the chair wrapped around his muscular shoulders in an attempt to hide his chest that only brought more attention to it.
Iris stood in the doorway of the playroom, a smile twitching on her lips as she watched him go.
“Did you get a good shot?” Maisie asked as she ran by.
“Perfect,” Iris called after her, iPhone gripped in her hand.
Dustin had gotten in on the action up front, and he and Jack were trying to corral Ruby between them. The Santa jacket had lost several tufts of fake fur now, and it looked like what it was—a ratty old bit of red cloth.
When had it become so moth-eaten?
By the time she reached them, Jack had already pacified Ruby, and he was crouched on the ground hugging her, his perfect arms wrapped around her. Maisie motioned urgently to Iris, who still held her phone.
Then Beatrice’s new protégé—really, had she needed to share all of the financial info?—crept up on him like a nature photographer approaching a lion in the wild and got several shots of Jack comforting Ruby. And Maisie knew that whatever photos Iris had gotten before, these were better. This was the Jack she’d been so enchanted by the night of Dottie’s party.
He looked up, and he must have noticed the expression in her eyes, because she saw an answering gleam in his before he turned his attention back to his sister.
“Oh, come on. I don’t need my own paparazzi.” But she could tell he was pleased with Iris’s mood—almost giddy—and the quickness with which she was moved to laughter.
Whatever funk Iris had been in was lifting. She’d made good on her offer to help Maisie find bedding for her newly redesigned bedroom, although she’d laughed off the design suggestions Maisie had made in return, calling them too old-fashioned, to which Maisie had replied that she’d spent her life in a house decorated by two boomers. Dustin, who’d stopped trying to help and was watching everything as avidly as if it were a Lifetime movie, snapped to it and said, “Here, let me get Ruby back to her kennel and get the next dog.”
Jack got up, Ruby’s collar in hand, and passed her over to Dustin.
Dustin’s gaze shot to the Santa coat, which Ruby had dropped to the floor. “Was that the Santa coat?”
“Yup,” Maisie said, trying not to feel a pang. It really was a mess. Now it was covered in dog slobber, plus the missing patches of white fluff made it look like it had mange.
“Huh. I think I forgot to clean it last year after my Danish fell apart on it. Maybe Ruby smelled the cheese. They say hound dogs have a good enough sense of smell to detect a scent from ten miles away.”
Jack gave her a sharp-eyed look as if to say, I told you so, and suddenly she was laughing so hard she doubled over with it. Then Jack started laughing too, his eyes sparkling.
“You guys are nuts,” Iris said, but she snapped a picture of them on her phone anyway.
Dustin started whistling “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and headed off to get Ruby squared away. But there was no missing his smile either.
“Do you want me to throw that away?” Iris asked, nodding toward the ruined coat.
It itched in Maisie’s throat to say no, to shout it, but the response wasn’t rational, and she remembered the freedom she’d felt after letting go of a few other things. The casserole dish. The old furniture she’d had in her room since she’d picked it out at sixteen with her mother. A box of old kitchen things she’d quietly donated to a women’s shelter last week.
Part of her felt guilty for feeling good about those things, but she’d told Molly about it, and her sister had said, They’re just things, Maisie. Mom would have told you that. People don’t live in things. They live in us.
“Yeah,” she said through a throat suddenly clogged with emotion. “Yeah, you can throw it away.”
Iris grabbed it up like it was nothing—because it was nothing—and instead of throwing it behind the desk, she headed back to the playroom. “If you’re going to hang out here until Dustin gets the next dog, I’m getting you a shirt, Jack. You can’t just go around flashing your chest like that.”
“Yeah, you might cause a riot,” Maisie said to him in a soft whisper, because he had a look of righteous indignation on his face that almost sent her into another fit of laughter—he’d been bribed into stripping and then was chastised for it.
“Would you take part?” he asked.
“I’d be first in line. I’d trip everyone else.”
“I bet you would.” He paused, swallowed. “That was your father’s, wasn’t it? The Santa coat.”
She felt seen in a way she wasn’t sure she liked. What was it Dottie had said to her? We’re so rarely looking for the things we need.
And because Dottie was so often right, Maisie didn’t change the subject or refuse to answer. She just nodded. “It was. He used to wear it every year for the kids in our neighborhood.”
She glanced back to the door to the playroom, but there was still no sign of Iris. Maybe Ruby had left a mess in there. Iris had proven surprisingly stoic about cleaning up messes. She’d commented on it once, and Iris had just given her a look. “After Jack moved out, I was the only one who cleaned up anything.” She’d said it forthrightly, and that was that.
Maisie looked back at Jack, meeting his intent gaze. Taking in his chest and arms and all of him. And she knew with certainty that he was the reason this co-best man gig hadn’t been as hard on her as she’d feared it would be. This was the man she needed. Not River. She loved River—she would always love River—but that love had changed.
“It’s none of my business,” Jack said, misinterpreting her pause.
“Maybe I’d like it to be,” she said. “You’re right. As you’ve obviously seen, I have trouble letting go. It feels like if I get rid of their things or change my life too much, they’ll float away, and it’ll be like they never existed. My sisters say I need to stop keeping vigil, but sometimes I’m not sure I can stop.” She thought of River again and said, “But Iris is right”—she eyed the playroom again, taking in the door, still closed—“it’s time.”
He took her hand, pulling her to him just as commandingly as he had in the storeroom, but he didn’t kiss her this time, and he didn’t talk either. He just held her. He held her in a wordless silence that said it all, his strong arms wrapped around her, his chest warm against her shirt.
The sound of footsteps jolted her, and this time she was the one who pulled away from him, embarrassed to be seen so vulnerable by anyone—when had she last allowed that to happen?—and swiped at the tears that had escaped.
It was Iris, looking at them with eyes that saw everything. But she didn’t tease, nor did she act repulsed. She just handed her brother his T-shirt. The shirt, sadly, went on.
Iris grinned at them. “If that last picture got five hundred likes, I’m sure this series will get a thousand.”
Her words were optimistic, but that smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. Maybe Jack had gotten it right and she was actually upset by the thought of them being together. Or maybe Iris had just been through so much change she wasn’t sure she could take any more. Maisie understood that.
“What was that t
ext about, anyway?” Iris asked.
It took Maisie a second to place what she was talking about.
Why was she interested in River’s well-being? From what Maisie could tell, Iris was warming up to Georgie more slowly than Adalia, probably because Georgie was more of what Iris would call a “real” adult.
She rubbed her nose, thinking about the panic in River’s voice. Although she was tempted to tell them, she knew he hadn’t decided what to tell Georgie, and it would be a dick move on her part to spill the whole story. Not to mention it would be awkward talking about Prescott to Jack, knowing everything the man had done.
So she just shrugged. “Co-best man duties.”
Jack gave her a look, like he maybe wanted to press her for information, but he only said, “Oh yeah? How’s the bachelor party shaping up?”
It occurred to Maisie that Dustin hadn’t come back yet, and she looked around for him, only to find him lingering in the door to the kennel, Chewie at his heels. If snooping were a criminal offense, he would have been in jail years ago. She waved him forward, wondering how much he’d seen. Hopefully he hadn’t seen her tears.
“I can’t tell you, can I?” she said to Jack, letting her voice drop into a flirty register. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“Now I’m intrigued,” Jack said.
“Can I go to the bachelor party instead?” Iris asked for what was probably the hundredth time.
“Nope. Strictly twenty-one and up,” Maisie insisted. But she gave her a wink to soften it. “Lucky for us, Dottie has had a strong influence on Adalia’s plans. So you’ll get plenty of mayhem. And you can help Addy and me torment Victoria.”
“I can’t officially sanction that,” Jack said, but his slight smile gave him away.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Iris said. “Do you guys want to see the pictures?” She beamed as she said it, proud of what she’d accomplished, and Maisie marveled at the change in her. So much of her sullenness had been stripped away. For a teenage Molly, the key had been writing. For Iris, it had apparently been dogs. Or whatever else was going on with her that they didn’t know about. Because if she knew one thing about teenage girls, it was that they kept plenty of secrets.
Getting Lucky (Asheville Brewing Book 3) Page 17