The Lemon Sisters

by Jill Shalvis

  Her phone rang again and she glanced at the screen. “It’s Mindy.”

  “So answer it,” he said.

  “I can’t—she wants to know if I made Millie floss this morning and I didn’t.”

  Something about his amused snort made her hit answer on speaker. “Hey,” she said, in a false upbeat tone.

  This had Garrett’s small smile spreading, the ass.

  “Hey back,” Mindy said. “Why are you talking with your fake happy voice?”

  “I don’t have a fake happy voice.”

  “You so have a fake happy voice.”

  Garrett nodded in agreement.

  She flipped him the bird. “What’s up?” she asked her sister. “I’m super busy keeping your children alive.”

  “I’d freak about that,” Mindy said, “but when I talked to Millie, she said you were the best and that I could take my time coming home.”

  “Millie doesn’t know shit. You should most definitely not take your time coming home.”

  “You’re not swearing in front of my kids.”

  “You know what?” Brooke said. “I am. I’m swearing in front of your kids. Come home and kick me out.”

  Garrett laughed.

  “Who’s that?” Mindy asked.

  “Your annoying-as-shit neighbor,” Brooke said, glaring at him.

  “Oh good, you’re there, too,” Mindy said with obvious relief. “Listen, I was going to send Rafe over with food for the next few days. He’s the chef and owner of the new Mexican place in town. Be nice to him, Brooke, okay? He’s single and I’m going to set you two up. Don’t you think they’d be great together, Garrett?”

  Garrett shrugged. “Sure, if she likes assholes.”

  “Oh crap, really?” Mindy asked. “He’s an asshole? I guess that makes sense. He’s way too hot. Okay, no worries. How about Dennis? Remember him from high school? He runs his own landscaping company. He’d be perfect for her, right?”

  “Right,” Garrett said. “And I’m sure his fiancée wouldn’t mind at all.”

  “Seriously?” Mindy asked. “How did I miss the fiancée part? Damn. I thought if I fixed Brooke up, she’d stick.”

  “Standing right here,” Brooke said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll think of someone. Garrett, you think, too, okay? You must know a guy suited for her.”

  Garrett, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Brooke, kept mum.

  Brooke rolled her eyes. “I’m here to help you,” she told her ungrateful sister. “So get your shit together, woman.” She disconnected and put her hands on her hips. “And you’re here why?” she asked Garrett, baffled. Irritated. Embarrassed.

  “It’s my job.”

  Right. Unlike her presence in his barn, his presence here in this house had nothing to do with her. “I thought general contractors ran their companies from behind a desk, not getting their own hands dirty building homes,” she said.

  “Being behind a desk isn’t my thing.”

  Something she knew firsthand from all those long, hot summers they’d spent climbing every mountain and rafting every river within a couple of hundred miles of here.

  “I don’t build homes, I renovate them,” he said. “I like to do the work myself, with my own hands. Fixing something old is far more satisfying to me than building new.” His phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket, eyed the screen, and blew out a breath.

  “Hey,” he answered, his voice soft and . . . sweet? “Yeah, I planned to be there, just like I promised you the other day. Sure. Tonight, then.” Disconnecting, he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  And because she couldn’t help herself, she asked, “Wife? Girlfriend?”

  “Neither.”

  “Liar.”

  “Nope,” he said. “That’s your specialty.”

  She let him walk away because it was true. She was lying. Or at least omitting. Because even though he believed he knew everything that had happened to her, he was wrong. Not that she intended to tell him—or anyone—anything different.

  Chapter 6

  He was screwed, upside down and backward, screwed in every way but the way he wanted to be.

  It’s not you, it’s me.”

  This wasn’t the first time Garrett had heard the line, but usually he was the one saying it. He looked across the high-top table at Lisa Weston. Over the past month or so, they’d been out three times. On night one, before their drinks had even been delivered, she’d told him this wasn’t a friends-with-benefits situation because they weren’t friends, just benefits.

  Not exactly a hardship for him, since she was sexy and fun.

  On night two, she’d reminded him of their deal. In fact, her exact quote had been “You give good benefits, so let’s leave it at that.”

  Again, fine with him.

  On night three, there’d been no talking at all. Even better.

  Tonight was night four. They were in the Whiskey River Bar and Grill in downtown Wildstone—the word downtown being a bit of a deception as the main strip was two streets wide and two blocks long. And because Whiskey River was the only bar in town, it was packed. But Lisa wasn’t seated with him. She stood tableside wearing an apron, the pockets stuffed with tips and an order pad. She worked as a waitress in the restaurant part of the bar and was on a break.

  From everything, apparently, including him.

  “Actually,” she said. “I take that back. It is you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Man of Mystery and Very Few Words.” She shook her head, sighed, and put her hand over his. “Look, you’re great, okay? And better yet, you’re not only employed, you’re successful, and your work’s hugely sought-after. And you look sexy as hell in a tool belt.”

  “I’ll add that to my résumé,” he said dryly. “But if I’m all that, what’s the problem?”

  Her smile was just a little sad as she sat and looked at him. “We go out, we sleep together, and after, you get up and go home and I don’t hear from you for days or even a week, unless I contact you.”

  All true, although when she said it out loud like that, it made him sound like an asshole. “You made it clear you didn’t want to get serious,” he said.

  She met his gaze. “I lied.”

  He hadn’t expected that. She’d told him they weren’t going to be a thing, and he’d taken her at her word without putting much thought into it. But he could see by her expression that he’d hurt her. Not what he’d intended.

  “I want love,” she said.

  Hell. Okay, yeah, they had a problem. He wanted a family—actually, he wanted that quite badly. But to get there, he had to fall in love. Love hadn’t exactly worked out for him. In fact, love had led to a whole lot of loss. His mom. Ann. And then there were the people who’d chosen to walk away from him, like his dad. And Brooke. And in a way, being walked away from had been even worse, and Brooke being back in town had stirred all that up inside him again. “Lisa—”

  “Don’t panic,” she said. “I get that this is my fault. I wanted you, and I thought I could sneak my way into your heart.” She paused, clearly waiting for a response.

  He didn’t have one, at least not one she’d like. His heart was guarded. The last person he’d let “sneak” in was Brooke. He could admit he’d been half in love with her from the day he met her. Her adventurous spirit had drawn him in, but what had held him spellbound was her innate sweetness, proving quite the contrast to her bravado. Up until that point, he hadn’t had much sweetness in his life, and no one had asked so little of him and rewarded him so much for what he’d given.

  Lisa shook her head. “It was a mistake—my mistake, because you, Garrett Montgomery, are emotionally deficient.”

  He thought about that on the drive home. He opened up to people when it suited him. Didn’t he? He strained to remember the last time he’d done so, but couldn’t.

  Huh.

  He pulled into Ann’s driveway. No, his driveway, he corrected himself. Ann had been struggling financially,
unable to keep up with her mortgage, not to mention the house itself and all the land that came with it. At the time, the market had been shit. She’d been upsidedown on a loan.

  It’d taken some doing, but he’d bought the place just before she lost it. For most of his life, everything he’d owned could fit into a backpack, which he’d taken with him from foster home to foster home.

  Until Ann.

  He was twelve when he’d landed on her doorstep after a run of really bad homes. She’d kept him. Given him his first taste of home cooking, his first affection from an authority figure, and his first real home.

  No way could he have let her place go to the bank.

  So he’d bought it for more than what it was worth at the time, which had allowed her to stay in her home in her old age as she wanted. Not living far from her in a rental in town, he’d been able to help her out as needed after work and in between jobs. She’d wanted to renovate, and he’d just gotten started two years ago, when she died. That’s when he’d moved in.

  Shrugging off the memories, he entered through the front door and was greeted by three pissy old ladies who tried to tell him he’d starved them half to death. He sighed and crouched low, petting each in turn.

  He didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t need to, and also, the electricity in the entryway was faulty. He needed to get on the renovations, but he hadn’t. Hadn’t wanted to. He’d kept the house with the idea of someday filling it up with his own family. Except that hadn’t happened. Probably because apparently he was “emotionally deficient.”

  Feeling twice his thirty years, he stripped and stepped into the shower. He stood there, head bent, letting the water hit his shoulders and back until it cooled. As he stepped out, he heard a knock at his back door. Wrapping a towel around his hips, he strode through the house and into the kitchen, stopping short at the sight of Brooke looking at him through the square glass window.

  The woman who’d indelibly changed his life every bit as much as Ann had.

  Growing up next door to the Lemon sisters had been both the best and worst thing to ever happen to him. He’d thought they were both a little crazy, but in a good way. Their closeness had been magic to him, a kid who’d had no family to call his own.

  He’d been their neighbor, their ride-the-bus buddy and eager cohort in crime. As they’d all hit their teens, he’d known Mindy had sometimes crushed on him, but she’d been a little too tightly wound for him. Brooke, the easygoing, fun-loving one, had definitely been more his style, but she’d been too young. So they’d all just been friends.

  Mostly.

  Okay, he and Mindy had been just friends. He and Brooke . . . well, he’d lived through it and even he couldn’t put exact words to what they’d been to each other.

  From the other side of the door, Brooke was watching him watch her. Her wavy honey-blond hair had been wrestled into a messy bun on top of her head, but more than a few silky strands had tumbled loose, framing her face and giving her a tousled, just-out-of-bed look. She was wearing an oversized scoop-neck heather-gray tee that had fallen off one shoulder and a pair of knock-’em-dead denim short-shorts—emphasis on short. Her body was slim, athletic, and mouthwatering. The entire package screamed “sweet girl next door,” but Brooke had too much of an edge to be the girl next door.

  As he well knew. Something else he knew: He didn’t trust himself to keep his emotions in check when it came to her.

  When he didn’t make a move, she raised an empty measuring cup. “Got milk?” she asked through the glass, with not a little irony in her voice.

  He let out a long breath. Her face was freshly scrubbed and makeup-free. She looked the same as she had when he’d fallen head over heels for her, but he’d hardened himself to her. She’d destroyed him once, and he had no intention of letting her get another shot. With a good amount of annoyance at the both of them, he opened the door.

  “Hey,” she said softly, her small smile giving him a chest pain.

  He shook his head, because this was the problem, his problem. He had a hard time resisting her, always had. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Act like we’re still friends.”

  Her smile faded. “Okay.”

  Feeling like a complete dick, he took the measuring cup and filled it up from the gallon of milk he’d bought the day before. He made sure to pour an even eight ounces before turning to hand it back, where he caught her staring at him.

  She had the good grace to look guilty. “I’m sorry. But you still have the best butt in Wildstone—which is annoying as hell, by the way.”

  “I think we both know that’s not even my best body part.”

  She snorted, defusing his tension with that one little sound. He shook his head. “You were staring at my ass like you wanted to bite it.” He paused and sent her a knowing look. “Again.”

  “Hey, one time! And it was a very long time ago!”

  He couldn’t help it—he grinned at the memory, one of his few memories of her that didn’t give him a pang. “You nibbled on lots of things back then.”

  She blushed—which was fascinating—and stared at the milk he’d poured for her, running her finger over the eight-ounce mark. “We’re not like that anymore,” she said softly.

  “No kidding.”

  Something crossed her face at that, something he didn’t expect—sadness and regret—and seeing it wiped the amusement out from beneath him. Her eyes were the same deep, lose-yourself-in-them green with gold specks floating around. She had a slight sunburn across her cheeks and nose—probably from walking the beach with the kids, which he’d heard about from Mindy when she’d called to ask him to spy on Brooke. He’d refused.

  “I didn’t expect that you’d still be in Wildstone,” she said quietly. “I sort of assumed you’d be long gone.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have assumed that at all given how much you always did love it here.” She gestured around her. “I’m glad you’re in this house. It makes sense, and it suits you. You’re renovating.”

  “No.”

  She took in the tarps, the ladder, the tools scattered about, and gave him a questioning look.

  “The project’s on hold,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He was saved from explaining something he didn’t understand himself by Princess Jasmine, the only one of the three cats interested in a newcomer past bedtime. She rubbed herself around Brooke’s ankles, demanding love.

  Brooke dropped to her knees and gave it freely. “What a sweet thing you are.” She looked up at Garrett. “Never pegged you as a cat guy. How did that happen?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “And you called me a monster,” she said lightly, though he had the feeling she felt anything but light.

  “You were helping your niece look for the candy you’d just eaten,” he said. “And you know I was kidding.”

  “Do I?”

  They stared at each other, but he wasn’t going to touch that one. No way. Brooke had left him without a word and hadn’t looked back. Like he’d been nothing to her. Less than nothing. But hell if he’d give her the satisfaction of explaining herself now, all these years later.

  They stared at each other some more, and when he felt himself wanting to ask her questions, too—like, was Cole really just her boss?—he forced himself to turn away. Moving to the laundry room off the kitchen, he pulled a fresh pair of jeans from the dryer. Dropping his towel, he pulled them on.

  The choked sound from behind him meant Brooke had gotten a good look. He turned back to find her gaze unabashedly still on him.

  She didn’t have a false sense of modesty in her, never had. She’d always been very comfortable in her own skin, something he’d found extremely attractive. He loved a woman who owned her sexuality. In fact, the two of them had discovered their sexuality together, and she’d rocked his world and changed his life. He used to think she’d changed it for the better
, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  “How’s Ann?” she asked.

  He stilled, surprised she didn’t know.

  Taking in his expression, her eyes widened. “Oh no,” she murmured softly. “When?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Garrett. I know what she meant to you.”

  “I’ve lost people I love before.”

  She looked away for a beat and then turned back to him, eyes shadowed. “I was hoping we could talk about that.”

  He shook his head.

  “But—”

  “Leave it alone, Brooke. It’s best that way.”

  Her eyes were guarded now, mouth grim. She was, what, twenty-eight? Almost twenty-nine? And yet she still looked the same as when she’d been twenty-one, the last time he’d seen her.

  She was running her finger along the outside of the measuring cup, right at the eight-ounce mark, back and forth, back and forth. He hadn’t been sure if she still needed things in even numbers. Not that she’d ever told him about her OCD. As far as he knew, she’d never told anyone. Brooke just did as she did—accepted that she was different, and kept to herself about it.

  “Thanks for the milk,” she said.

  He nodded. “So you’ll be sticking around a little bit longer.”

  “Until Mindy’s back. As you heard, she needs a few more days.”

  And she’d given them to her. “That’s . . . kind of you,” he said. “And selfless.”

  “Well, we all knew I had to grow up sometime, right?” She looked away. “And anyway, I don’t really mind. The kids . . .” She glanced down at the kid monitor hooked on her belt. “They’re pretty amazing.”

  He nodded, something warming for her deep inside without his permission.

  “Anyway, thanks again,” she said, toasting him with the milk. “Maddox won’t eat his cereal without it in the morning, or at least that’s what I think he was telling me with all the barking.” She turned to go, and he let his gaze run hungrily down the body he’d once known as well as his own, feeling a soul-deep yearning to reach for her and remind them both of what they’d been missing.

  “Now who’s looking at whose ass?” she asked as she walked off into the night.