Sterling

by Willow Summers

  “Me, Aunt Bessie?” Cynthia asked, touching her fingers to the center of her chest. Her great-aunt had been calling her Charlotte ever since she’d moved back home, but it was always wise to ask, since that wasn’t, in fact, her name. Not even her middle name.

  “Yes, dear.” Aunt Bessie tilted her head and squinted, as if it was Cynthia’s sanity that was being called into question.

  The doctor had warned them about this. He’d diagnosed Aunt Bessie with the early stages of dementia. Said she might confuse people and places. Maybe even get lost in her own head.

  It all sounded very feasible, except Aunt Bessie had acted her way into misdiagnoses in the past. She’d come down with a terminal illnesses—or so she’d tell the family—only to be miraculously cured a year later. One just never knew what was acting and what was legit when it came to the ultimate black sheep in the family. And given some of the characters on both sides of Cynthia’s family, that was really saying something.

  “Butter, sure,” Cynthia muttered. “Here you go.”

  Cynthia handed off the small plate of butter before grabbing a bag of Cheetos out of the cabinet to accompany her sandwich.

  “A fork and knife?” Bessie asked, as though Cynthia was dense for not providing utensils.

  “Um.” Cynthia ran her gaze over the table next to her great-aunt. Completely bare. Then over the counter. No food stuff except for what Cynthia was preparing for lunch. “O-kay…” She grabbed a fork and knife and handed them over, curious to see what would happen.

  Aunt Bessie set the three items on the table before abruptly turning her wheelchair, knocking chairs to the side as she did so.

  “Here. Let me help you.” Cynthia hurried to move the chairs out of the way, giving Aunt Bessie more room to maneuver.

  The old woman pushed herself up to the table, straightened the butter in front of her, and picked up the knife and fork.

  “You’re not going to…eat plain butter, right?” Cynthia said.

  Aunt Bessie sliced off a hunk, stabbed it with the fork, and lifted it to her mouth.

  “What is— Bessie!” Cynthia’s mother rushed in, her heels clicking against the tile floor. She grabbed Bessie’s wrist and forced the butter back onto the plate. “That is an unacceptable lunch. How many times must I tell you?”

  “When did she start eating plain butter?” Cynthia asked, backing up to give her mom room.

  “She saw little Baby Ray doing it the other day.” Tamie huffed and pulled the butter dish off the table.

  Baby Ray was Cynthia’s youngest nephew, belonging to Ellen, the middle child of the Bell sisters. Ellen had two kids and a husband who earned oodles but didn’t much care for family life. Tera, the eldest, had three kids and tried to be Super Mom, but her home life was much the same—her husband was a cash cow she rarely saw. Her sisters might as well be single mothers, considering how much their husbands participated. They’d continued on the image of home life Cynthia’s family had projected. Cynthia had barely seen her father, or the other guys, since she’d been home.

  Strangely, they had no idea why Cynthia was single at twenty-eight. They weren’t great at solving mysteries, clearly.

  Tamie stood in front of the open refrigerator, staring at the empty butter drawer. “Who has been letting her eat butter? This is the last stick.” She stowed the butter plate she’d just rescued in the fridge before shutting the door. “Cynthia, honey, head to the store and get some more, would you? Oh, and you might as well get a few staples while you’re there. We need to keep this house stocked for all the visitors.”

  “It’s Ellen’s turn to go,” Cynthia said, taking a handful of Cheetos out of the bag and transferring them to her plate.

  “Ellen has her hands full with the kids. Cynthia…”

  The warning tone made Cynthia sigh. “Fine. I’ll go right after I finish my sandwich.”

  “That’s a good girl. And make a sandwich for Bessie. She needs to eat something proper.” With that, Cynthia’s mother was striding out of the kitchen, her pants free of wrinkles, her hair perfectly in place, and her makeup pristine.

  Cynthia didn’t bother looking down at her T-shirt, featuring a picture of Jesus riding a T-Rex, and her faded blue jeans. She knew she couldn’t compare to the model of excellence her mother and sisters emulated. If Aunt Bessie was the original black sheep, Cynthia was the new generation. No husband and, since the boyfriend she’d just broken up with had been her boss, no job.

  She glanced back at her great-aunt, who had turned her wheelchair to provide a prime view of Cynthia.

  “I’m having ham. Do you like ham?” Cynthia asked her. She’d only been home for a couple of weeks, so she didn’t know much about what Aunt Bessie liked. Except for butter, obviously.

  “Yes,” Aunt Bessie said.

  Cynthia nodded and got to work, putting a pile of Cheetos on Bessie’s plate when she was through. She didn’t need to ask if those were liked. The deliciousness of Cheetos was universally acknowledged.

  “What day is it, Charlotte?” Aunt Bessie asked as Cynthia dropped her plate to the table.

  “Tuesday.”

  “Will Tamie be at the Thanksgiving dinner?”

  Cynthia frowned. “Of course. It’s her house. Where else would she be?”

  Aunt Bessie made a noise that sounded like a groan, then reached for her sandwich.

  After a quiet meal in which her great-aunt didn’t say anything strange, probably a record for Aunt Bessie, Cynthia cleaned up and headed out of the large house into the neighborhood she’d grown up in as a child, stopping only to take a shopping list from her mother. Well-kept houses with manicured lawns and professionally designed landscaping ran down either side of the road in the sleepy Northern California town. Expensive vehicles sat in driveways or parked in the street, everyone’s houses overrun with holiday visitors.

  She eyed the beat-up Honda waiting for her by the curb, sorely out of place in this money extravaganza of a neighborhood. Sure, she could’ve gotten a sweet little ride along the way. She was good at her various jobs, having a skilled eye in all things marketing. She could’ve moved into a more expensive place in Sacramento. Instead, she’d dumped her extra money into her retirement account. Locked it away for the future.

  Which had been pretty dumb, it turned out, since now she couldn’t get to it without paying some serious taxes and fees. Her savings would’ve done her for a while, but she hadn’t wanted to waste it all while looking for another job. She was tired of moving from company to company, getting new bosses, outgrowing them, and then having to leave because they wouldn’t give her a promotion or more challenges. This time, she wanted to take her time finding and picking a job. Something that would allow her to grow—keep her from getting bored.

  Wanted was the operative word. Now, forced to live with her parents while she job-searched, she wasn’t so sure it was the best idea. No one was hiring around the holidays.

  “Right. Grocery store.” Cynthia waited for a shiny Range Rover to pass her before pulling into the street. She made it to the store on autopilot, since she’d basically done all of the household’s grocery shopping in small increments since she’d arrived, and pulled in next to the Range Rover she’d seen earlier.

  “Show-off,” she muttered, climbing out of the car and peering through the window at the sea of leather. “Beige. No personality. I might’ve guessed.”

  She shook her head, looking around the car to see if the driver was making his or her way inside. Seeing no one, she shut her door, considered locking it, and decided not to bother. Who in their right mind would be caught dead trying to rob her car in this neck of the woods? Even thieves would be embarrassed to get inside.

  Even though she’d been raised by the rich, she’d never identified with that lifestyle. Smirking to herself, she dropped her keys into her canvas bag, slung it over her shoulder, and made her way into the store. A gush of warm air greeted her. Neat rows with artful signs spread out before her. The produce secti
on, off to her right, was giant, much bigger than anything she’d encountered in Sacramento. The produce was mostly, if not all, organic.

  She patted her pocket, heard the crinkle of paper, and pulled out the list her mother had given her. Even her mother’s writing was neat and perfect.

  After grabbing a basket, Cynthia headed to the dairy section at the back of the store. Having selected the milk, yogurt, and butter she needed, she stared down at her mother’s elegant script on the paper. Lettuce. Potatoes. Pouches of applesauce (baby).

  Pouches of baby applesauce? What the hell was that, and where did she get it?

  In the baby section, she glanced over the diapers, remembering that Ellen had complained about being low. Rather than having to head to the store tomorrow, she checked over the options, trying to remember her nephew’s size.

  A shape emerged in Cynthia’s peripheral vision, someone entering the aisle. She tilted her head down and shuffled closer to the shelf. She wasn’t in the mood to face the usual condescending looks of the patrons who frequented the store. They all probably thought she’d wandered in off the street and was trying to shoplift. That, or they suspected the truth: that she was someone’s unruly adult kid, jobless and homeless, sponging off her parents. It was easier to just get her stuff and go.

  She surveyed the sizing on the diapers. That lump of love was a chubby little thing, certainly more than eighteen pounds, but she estimated that the size threes, for babies up to twenty-eight pounds, would have him covered.

  She added the pack to her basket, knowing it was probably wrong but hoping for the best, and kept walking. Her eyes were still on the basket as she neared the end of the aisle. The shape registered in her peripheral vision right before her basket crashed into the man’s body. She slammed into his solid frame, hitting her face off his hard arm, and watched the milk wobble out of the tipped basket and fall toward the floor.

  “Shi—” She kicked out with her foot to catch it, something soccer players were trained to do. Her foot caught the milk container, but it had been a long time since she’d played. It skittered across the floor.

  The rest of the items in her basket tumbled out as the male issued an apology. The milk rammed into the shelf, sprang a leak, and slid to a stop as it bled white all over the floor.

  “Mother—” She barely stopped her swear as she hurried after it.

  The man stepped forward to help at the worst moment.

  She hit that solid wall of muscle for the second time. Since his body had no give, she bounced off him and staggered into the shelf on the other side, knocking down plastic baby bottles. Potatoes rolled. The lettuce had broken free from the plastic bag and kissed the dirty floor.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked, reaching for her with large hands.

  “I’m okay, yes. The milk is not okay.” She dodged his reach and made it to the milk, drowning in its own contents. She straightened it up in a feeble attempt to stop the leaking.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, leaning toward her.

  She laughed as she looked around their feet. Her groceries littered the floor, surrounding the overturned basket. “I ran into you. It’s fine.”

  She finally brought up her gaze. Heat rushed to her face immediately.

  Dirty blond hair graced a face with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and deep brown eyes surrounded by long, thick black lashes. Holy hell, the guy was a looker. He wore a crisp white button-up that outlined huge shoulders and what looked to be perfect pecs. His gray trousers hugged his strong thighs, and if he’d only turn around, she could affirm that they also hugged a rounded, squeezable butt.

  “Cynthia?” he asked as an extremely handsome smile drifted across his face, making him even more striking.

  Her stomach dropped. This was Noah, she realized. From down the street. He’d been hot before he’d left for college, the eligible bachelor of the town that her sister and all her friends pined after, but now he was a fucking legend.

  And he was here. Now. With her looking like this.

  Why me?

  “Noah Arnold, right?” Cynthia tried to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, a nervous movement, before she realized that her hair was in a messy ponytail because she hadn’t brushed it for two days. She really needed to try a little harder at looking like a human. This might get embarrassing. Well…more embarrassing.

  “Right, yes. How are you? Do you have kids?”

  “Oh!” She kicked a plastic baby bottle away for no reason. “No. Ha ha. No. I have two sisters with kids. As you know. About the sisters, I mean. Remember Ellen? Anyway, that makes me the gofer. I’m just getting some—”

  “Do you need help— Is that spilled milk?” An employee, a gangly kid with acne, stalked up the aisle with a furrowed brow.

  “There are so many jokes about spilled milk rolling around my head right now,” Cynthia muttered.

  Noah focused on her for a moment, and she thought she saw his lips tweaking upward into a smile, but the next second it was gone. “Yes.” He pointed at the milk. “I knocked it out of this lady’s basket. I apologize. Can you have someone clean it up?”

  The man-boy started. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

  Clearly Noah had moved on to a high-powered job, as befitted his family. She could hear it in his tone of command.

  Cynthia smoothed her T-shirt. “So…um. Thanks for bumping into you. No…wait. Sorry. Sorry for bumping into you.”

  He flashed her a smile, showing straight white teeth. Nervous tingles ran through her body, not her normal reaction to hot guys. But, of course, this was not a normal hot guy. This was Noah from down the street.

  “No problem,” he said. “We’ll just get this cleaned up. Are you staying at your parents’?”

  He bent to the ground, grabbing her stuff and righting her basket. He returned the salvageable contents.

  “Yes…for the holidays. Just for the holidays.” Hopefully.

  A slight crease formed between his shapely brows. They were better groomed than hers, which was way more embarrassing than him looking impeccable while she looked like a lump of dryer lint. Of all the days to meet a really hot blast from her past…

  “Through Christmas?” he asked.

  She stared at him. That was a long time. She’d seem like a deadbeat, and for some reason, that really mattered right now. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m…between jobs. I mean, I’m just trying to find the right job. So I thought I’d squat over the holidays, and then just…” She was making it worse. “Anyway. Ha! Hilarious meeting you. I mean running into you. Nice meeting you. I’ll just grab some milk and…”

  Abort! Abort! Abort!

  She grabbed her basket and hurried from the aisle. The applesauce could wait. She wasn’t about to dig an even bigger hole for herself in front of the hottest local, a title given to him before this new development of muscle mass and eyebrow waxing. She didn’t care about most people, but she suddenly realized that she did care about this person, if only for nostalgia’s sake.

  Three

  Noah laughed to himself as Cynthia ran from the aisle. He couldn’t believe it. She looked exactly like he remembered her, but with more curves and female sensuality. Same beautiful face, same crazy dress code, and same wild spirit. She resembled her sisters, one of whom he’d somewhat dated off and on—Ellen—but was nothing like them. Growing up, he’d thought she was a little weird. Now…

  He shook his head with a smile as a store employee hustled in to clean up the milk.

  After grabbing the items his brother had requested, he made his way to the front. Cynthia was there in the express lane, counting her items.

  “Dang it.” She glanced up at the checker in desperation. “Each individual potato doesn’t count, right?”

  The checker stared at her with a blank face. He probably wasn’t used to being accosted by a wild thing.

  She’d get along perfectly with Janie, Noah thought.

  “The sack of potatoes is counted as one,” Noah said as he
filed in behind her. “Though it probably would’ve been cheaper to buy the actual sack of potatoes, and not that many loose ones.”

  She jerked as though slapped and looked at him with rounded eyes. After a strange moment of blank staring, she looked back at her items.

  “I have to peel them,” she muttered as she tapped the carton of milk for no reason. “The ones in the bag are small and annoying to peel. My mom is paying for grocery runs, so she can handle it.”

  He laughed as he put his items behind hers on the conveyer belt.

  She pointed at the bottles of baby food in his grouping. “Do you have kids?”

  “No. Nieces.”

  “Ah. How old?”

  “Three and one. They’re here for Thanksgiving. It’s a full house.”

  She snickered as though he’d said something ridiculous.

  “What?” he asked.

  She watched the clerk scan her items. “Nothing. It’s just…your house is the same as my parents’ house, right? Same size?” He nodded slowly, not sure where she was going with this. “And you have just one sibling, who has a wife and two kids?”

  It dawned on him. His mom had said all three Bell sisters were back for Thanksgiving, though he’d only been half paying attention. “Do both of your sisters have kids, then?”

  She shuffled toward the card reader. “Yes. Five kids, one super mom, and one mom who only pretends she enjoys staying at home. That is speculation, you understand. It could be that she’s perfectly happy—Tera does have a way of making other people seem miserable in comparison.”

  “Tera is the super mom?”

  Cynthia rolled her eyes as she fed the credit card into the reader.

  “Do you want to buy bags?” the teller asked her.

  “No. I’m good. Just put it…in here.” She dropped her purse on the counter. To Noah she said, “Is she ever. She’s ridiculous. The woman plans every detail of her kids’ lives. I don’t know how she does it. She’d be an excellent survivalist, I suspect.”

  She tucked her card away, waited for the groceries to be crowded in, and slung a frumpy-looking sack over her shoulder. “Anyway, good seeing you. Aren’t you a lawyer now?”