Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  “That’s what she told me. She wanted to know if it was just her being recruited to help you get over your melancholia, or if it had become a family affair. Are you feeling melancholy, Monty? Do you gnash your teeth and beat at your breast in despair?”

  “Fuck!” There was no need to force the profanity out. It came all of its own accord. “This better not have anything to do with Willa Trentwood.”

  This time, Jake’s humming sound became a startled shout of laughter. “Oh, Monty. Please tell me the illicit love affair you called to talk to me about is with Willa Trentwood. She’s practically Dad’s age. I’ll give you anything you want—money, fame, the future rights to my firstborn child.”

  “I’m not sleeping with Willa,” he said, and kicked his desk. He didn’t feel much better, so he tried again. “Laugh all you want, Jake, but you’re not the one Dad is trying to set up on dates. He thinks I’m pining over Ashleigh.”

  “Are you pining over her?”

  “No.” Monty didn’t even have to stop and think about it. “I mean, I might have been upset when she first came to tell me she was getting married, but I never pined. And now that I have...”

  “A fuck buddy?” Jake prompted.

  “Is that what it’s called?” Monty asked, slightly taken aback. That sounded so much cooler than anything he’d ever had before.

  Jake laughed. “Yes, Monty. That’s what the kids are saying these days.”

  Okay, then. He could accept that. “Well, now that I have one of those, I don’t care what Ashleigh does with her life. Or Willa. Or Jenna, for that matter.”

  He could hear the sound of clapping on the other end of the extension, slow at first and then picking up speed. He didn’t have to see Jake’s face to imagine the ironic smile he probably wore to accompany it.

  “Very funny,” Monty muttered. “It’s not as if anything is going to come of it anyway. I think I screwed things up.”

  “Aha.” Jake extended the two syllables into about sixteen. “So you’re calling your resident Don Juan for advice?”

  “I refuse to refer to you as my resident Don Juan.”

  “What’d you do wrong?”

  Monty still wasn’t entirely sure. Meddled where he wasn’t wanted and undermined Georgia’s authority, yes, but there had been more to her anger than that. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was the apology that set her off more than his interference.

  That was when he remembered—she didn’t like apologies. Or doilies. Or presents. Or hugs. His list of things to avoid was growing quite long.

  “It’s complicated,” he eventually said.

  “Bored-her-to-death complicated or acted-like-an-idiot complicated?”

  “Acted-like-an-idiot complicated.”

  “Really? You surprise me. I thought for sure it’d be the first one.”

  “So far, you’re a really terrible Don Juan. I hope you realize that.”

  Jake laughed. Normally, his brother’s ridicule would set Monty’s back up, but it had the opposite effect on him now. He didn’t care if Jake mocked him as long as it meant he could fix things with Georgia. He’d give almost anything to hear her laugh again.

  “It’s probably not as dramatic as you’re making it out to be,” Jake said. “What’s the one thing she values most in this world?”

  Softball. Tools. Phone sex. Fixing things. “Her family.”

  “I’m ninety-nine percent convinced you’re making this person up. No one likes their family that much.”

  “Jake.”

  “Okay, okay.” He paused. “In my experience, fuck buddies and families rarely mix, but if you’re serious about wooing this non-lady friend of yours, it’s best to hit her where you can have the most impact. It’d be a hell of a lot easier if her favorite thing was jewelry or international travel, but you’ve never been very good at picking women. Maybe you can buy her family the jewelry instead. How do they feel about diamonds?”

  Monty smiled at the image of him getting down on bended knee and offering Adam a pair of earrings. “They probably crush them between their teeth at night.”

  “Seriously, Monty. Is she even human?”

  Monty just smiled. Jake talked big, but his wife was a bit of an oddity herself—and he knew for a fact his brother wouldn’t have it any other way. “Thank you for the advice. I’ll admit it’s not a terrible idea.”

  “Of course it’s not. It came from me.” Jake released a soft chuff. “I hate to say this, but I’m a little jealous of Jenna now. It’s almost worth coming home to watch if you’ve got a diamond-crunching fuck buddy and Dad is wooing Willa Trentwood for you.”

  “Does this mean you’ll fly out and save me?”

  “Not a chance, brother dear. But I’ll be calling in to see how things progress. Some things are too good to pass up.”

  * * *

  Monty had never crashed a party in his life.

  He’d seen Jake do it countless times in the past, sauntering through the front doors of clubs and ballrooms, sweet-talking his way past bouncers who could crush his head between forefinger and thumb. If he had to pinpoint how Jake managed to pull off his daring entrances, he’d say it was his brother’s monumental arrogance. Doors had a way of opening to a man when he acted as though the key to the universe dangled from his fingertips.

  But Jake had never faced this particular door before. White. Well-worn. A hook at the top for holiday decorations, a dent at punching level for any number of reasons it was all too easy to imagine. Monty could hear sounds of life going on behind the walls—there must always be life going on behind these walls—and knew his initial assumption had been correct. Wednesday night family dinners at the Lennox house. This aggressive, contradictory, combative family literally couldn’t go a week without seeing one another.

  And he was going to force his way inside to take part in it.

  The way he figured it, there was a fifty percent chance he was making it through that door alive. The other fifty percent held a multitude of colorful deaths.

  It’s worth it. Without waiting for his damnable caution to kick in with second thoughts and third thoughts and thoughts so far removed they could legally marry, he knocked. As no one in the Lennox family moved slowly or quietly, he could hear the thump of heavy feet and the voices of incredulous men on the other side of the peephole.

  “Oh, hell no. You will not believe who’s standing on our front porch right now.”

  “He’s got some nerve, showing up uninvited. Does he think he owns the whole fucking town?”

  “Ha-ha. I’m almost glad to see him again. Now we can show him what it means to turn on a Lennox.”

  Monty shifted from one foot to another, unsure what was supposed to happen next. He’d hardly expected a warm welcome, but he hadn’t thought they’d leave him out here either. He’d at least hoped to make it inside.

  “You know I can hear you, right?” Monty called back. “I’m standing right here.”

  “Get out of my way, you idiots,” a feminine voice interrupted. It wasn’t the sexy rumble of Georgia’s voice or the somewhat softer timbre that belonged to her mother. He barely had time to puzzle it through when the door swung open to reveal an attractive brunette dressed in a pink sweater set topped with a strand of pearls.

  He relaxed almost immediately. Women in sweater sets and pearls were his kind of people.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and shoved her back against the door so hard it caused several grunts to emerge from behind it. “They have no manners and even fewer brain cells. It’s not so bad if you can keep them separated, but the second they’re all under one roof, it’s as if their intellect implodes.”

  Monty smiled, relaxing further. This woman wasn’t just his kind of people. She was an ally.

  “I’m Nancy.” She extended her hand. “Adam’s w
ife. It’s so lovely to finally meet you.”

  The moment she stopped bracing the door, it gained enough momentum to start swinging back in Monty’s direction. He barely had time to stop it with his free hand when Georgia entered the living room.

  The sight of her marked the first time in the past decade he’d encountered her in neither coveralls nor robe. While she could hardly be said to have dressed up for dinner with her family, he couldn’t help but notice how different she looked—how much softer and more approachable. Simple jean shorts showcased her legs and made the most out of her athletic form. An oversized maroon softball jersey and tennis shoes gave her a relaxed, youthful appearance. And her hair was pulled back in the ponytail she never went without. While he could have enjoyed the sight of her like that—at home in her skin and around her family—for hours, he’d have been lying to say that he was drawn to anything but the expression on her face. It held more surprise than anger, more joy than pain.

  Whatever else he might read into the way she stormed across the room to join her brothers behind the door, he knew, in that moment, she didn’t hate him.

  Non-hatred was good. In his world, non-hatred was practically love.

  “Adam-Charlie-Danny-Georgia.” Mrs. Lennox said their names in one breath and with a well-practiced air. “If you don’t get out from behind that door and offer our guest something to drink, I won’t hesitate to make you eat at the kids’ table tonight.”

  The sudden lack of pressure pitched Nancy into Monty’s arms. She crushed the flowers he’d brought against his chest, filling his nostrils with the scent of bluebells, and for a horrified second while he righted the pair of them, he thought he was about to be accused of accosting Adam’s wife on top of everything else. But Nancy brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “Don’t worry—I’ll get you to neutral ground. Just play along.”

  Play along with what? he wanted to ask, but Nancy released a howl and sank to her knees, clutching her wrist as though she were in pain. Since her wrist had been perfectly fine two seconds ago, he felt only a mild fear as Adam dashed to her side.

  “Oh, hell, Nan. Did we hurt you?” He sank to his knees. “You weren’t supposed to get in the way. We had him right where we wanted him.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, her voice small. She looked up at Monty and winked, her oversized brown eyes holding nothing but laughter. He stepped back to allow her and Adam a wide berth. “It’s nothing. I may need some ice, that’s all.”

  The other three siblings emerged, looking sheepish and guilty—which Monty was sure was the point. He had no idea whether to applaud Nancy or be horrified at the lengths she had to go to stop a physical brawl with this crowd. She’d married into this family on purpose?

  “We didn’t mean it, Nancy.” Charlie rubbed the back of his neck in concern. “It was only a bit of fun.”

  “I’ll get the ice,” Danny offered.

  Monty waited to hear what Georgia would say, but she watched Nancy with less concern and more amusement. When she glanced up to meet Monty’s eye with a yellow-ringed twinkle, he realized this kind of antic was probably common.

  In times of extreme physical violence, feign an injury. Somehow, he thought that might not work as well for him as it did for the delicately mischievous woman in pearls.

  “Nancy has weak wrists,” Georgia supplied as her sister-in-law was led carefully to the couch. “And ankles. And head—the slightest bit of bickering gives her a migraine. It’s funny how her pain tolerance comes and goes. She gave birth two times with no anesthetic, and I once saw her take a baseball to the eye without so much as a whimper.”

  Monty’s eyes widened in alarm. “Did one of you throw the baseball at her?”

  Georgia laughed, unable to repress her inexplicable feeling of joy any longer. “No, we’re not that bad. It was at Adam’s lawyer league. A corporate defense attorney at a rival firm did it. You should have seen Adam demolish him in court the next week.”

  Monty shook his head, but Georgia could tell he wasn’t nearly as horrified by her family as he let on. She’d seen people be horrified by her family before. She’d seen people be horrified by her family so often she’d lost track. Sometimes, they pulled a Carl and ran out the door as fast as they could. Other times, they remembered a last-minute appointment or a grandmother on her deathbed. Still others went to the bathroom and never returned.

  Not one had ever stood on the other side of the door and pushed back.

  Until now.

  “These were for you.” Monty held out a sadly crushed bouquet of flowers. They were a kind of bluish purple, probably pretty once. Nancy might even know what they were called. “Or, if you weren’t speaking to me, I was going to give them to your mom.”

  “That was sweet of you,” her mom said firmly, coming forward to take them. “Wasn’t that sweet of him, Georgia?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Very sweet.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Monty said. “You can throw them out.”

  “Nonsense. I’m going to put them in a vase on the center of the table for dinner. They’ll serve as a reminder about what happens when good manners enter this household.”

  Monty released a sound that had equal chances of being a laugh or a choke.

  “I hope you’re planning on joining us for dinner, John. There’s plenty to go around, and we’d love to have you.”

  “Oh, please say you’ll stay,” Nancy called from her position on the couch. She added a groan and clutched her wrist when Adam opened his mouth to contradict her. If that injury wasn’t going to be milked all night as a means of passive-aggressive manipulation, Georgia would eat those flowers. “It’ll be lovely having the extra company for a change. I hate being the only non-Lennox around here.”

  “You’re a Lennox,” Adam said fiercely.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re a Lennox,” Charlie and Danny echoed.

  “Then it’s settled,” her mom said, and bustled off into the kitchen before anyone could argue with her.

  The sound Monty released this time was one hundred percent a laugh, and it reminded Georgia that she was still angry with this man. If anything, the fact that he’d showed up at her mom’s house like this, uninvited and bearing apology plants, was further proof of how justified her anger the other day was. The whole point of having a secret lover who worked a zillion hours a week was that he wasn’t supposed to intrude on workplace issues or family drama. He could rescue her from a zombie invasion or shark attack, should the need arise, but not from real life.

  Zombie invasions weren’t real. Shark attacks were pretend. They were safe and neutral territory, because once the danger subsided and the lights came back on, she could go back to being herself again. Georgia Lennox. One of four, beloved in her family, able to fight and climb and scrap as well as any boy, and don’t you forget it.

  But Monty was ruining things. Monty was swinging his handsome millionaire might and blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.

  “Laugh all you want, but she means it about the flowers.” Georgia affixed a frown on her lips. “We’ll probably each have a broken petal arranged on our plate as a warning. I think she learned a lot of her parenting techniques from The Godfather.”

  He wasn’t dismayed. “I like her.”

  “That’s because you don’t believe me about the cautionary garnish.”

  “But why would I get one? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Monty’s face fell as her meaning settled in. “Can we go somewhere more private to talk?”

  Oh, hell. She couldn’t let him derail her with chivalry and that sad-eyed look. She needed to throw him to the Testosterone Trio, who were quickly catching on that Nancy was faking her injury. As experience was proving, Georgia was worthless when it came to sett
ing up walls to protect herself against this man, but her brothers could build faster than any crew she’d ever overseen. They’d have the Great Wall of China erected by the time the salad course rolled around.

  “No.”

  “It doesn’t have to take long. You dismissed me so summarily on Saturday, I didn’t get a chance—”

  “No.” Georgia crossed her arms and stepped back, forcing distance between their bodies. She didn’t regret asking him to leave on Saturday, and if she were given an opportunity to do the day over, she’d make the exact same choices. Distance had been necessary for her to regather and regroup, but if he kept looking at her like that—like a puppy she’d kicked and then banished to the cold—she might do something terrible like forgive him.

  Monty’s lips turned down even more, but the flash of her two nieces running by saved her from saying anything. She reached down and grabbed each one by the collar to halt their forward progression.

  “Emma, Abby—you’re just in time. I’d like you to meet my friend Monty.”

  Monty’s look of pain flew immediately to panic, and Georgia had to halt the laugh that filled her throat. At eight and six and dressed in matching pink dresses, Adam’s daughters looked like cardboard angel cutouts who’d drifted down from heaven to play with rainbows and kittens. In reality, they had no use for rainbows or kittens or any other cliché that might prance across a young girl’s imagination. They had Adam’s ruthless cruelty and Nancy’s ability to manipulate any situation.

  Georgia adored them.

  “Is he going to work?” Emma asked, her big brown eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “No. He’s joining us for dinner.”

  “Is he the president?”

  “No. Not of a country, anyway.”

  “He looks like the president.”

  Monty squatted to face Emma—the older of the two and by far the most outspoken. “Thank you. I think that’s a very nice compliment.”

  “Whatever.” Emma shrugged. “But you should probably know that presidents lie.”