Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  Georgia laughed at the incredulous look Monty shot her way. “She’s precocious. We’re very proud.” She gestured at where the girls had come in. “Why don’t you two show my friend your doll demolition factory? Maybe he can help you take off the heads of those tricky ones you were telling me about.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Her mom emerged from the kitchen to come to Monty’s rescue. “I’m taking him in here to help me finish dinner.”

  “But, Mom—” Georgia began, but she caught the martial look in her mother’s eye and stopped. She knew that look. She respected that look.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Lennox,” Monty said politely. “I’d love to help.”

  Vanquished by good manners, Georgia had no choice but to let him go. And Abby and Emma, buoyed by the idea of finally getting to the stuffing of the vintage Cabbage Patch Dolls, dragged Georgia off to the beheading in his stead.

  * * *

  The comforting smells of pasta and garlic bread assailed Monty’s nose as he followed Georgia’s mother into the kitchen. Gluten had been all but banned up at the Manor—his stepmother, Serena, was a health nut of the highest order—and he could practically hear his stomach rumbling at the prospect of filling up with deliciously bland carbohydrates for once.

  “I don’t really need much in the way of help,” Mrs. Lennox said as soon as he stepped into the green-tiled kitchen, worn from use and somehow more comforting than all the rooms in his own house combined. “You can stir if you want to, but I won’t tell anyone if you take a seat and relax.”

  “Do I look that tense?”

  “Yes. You do.” She turned to him with a smile. Although she was considerably shorter than her children, leading Monty to wonder just how tall her husband must have been, he could see pieces of them in her. The yellow ring around the eyes, the unruly hair, a certain set around the mouth that dared anyone to mess with her. And while she had a softer, more feminine look than her daughter—she had jewelry and makeup on, for one—he found he preferred Georgia’s transformative smile and belligerent air.

  He preferred them so much he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Jake’s idea of getting in here and making nice with the family was a great first step, but it was just that. A step. Short of cutting himself open with one of the butter knives set out in front of him, he wasn’t sure how to get these people to like him.

  He didn’t know how to get anyone to like him. That was the problem. He could fix Georgia’s staffing issues in under an hour flat—and had almost made the call to do it—but it wasn’t what she wanted. Nor did she want what all the other women in his life had asked for, which was for him to put down the spreadsheet and mingle at cocktail parties.

  Those two things were all he knew. Those two things were all he had to offer.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mrs. Lennox said, and dropped a plate of carrot sticks in front of him. He took one out of politeness and began munching. “They can be a bit much, those four. They sometimes forget that they’re grown adults and not a band of thugs living out of a tree fort.”

  And then she turned to the kitchen counter, humming to herself as she grated a bowl of parmesan cheese.

  His teeth crunching the carrots sounded overloud to his ears, but he found himself relaxing despite the strangeness of the situation. While she was alive, his own mother had never picked up a fork unless she was eating, and he wouldn’t have parked in the kitchen to keep her company if she had cooked, but he liked to think that he could still participate in these traditional rituals.

  You could teach an old dog new tricks. The training period took longer, that was all.

  “So, you’re the oldest one, right?” Mrs. Lennox asked after a few minutes of companionable silence.

  “The oldest in my family? Yes.”

  “The one who does all the nonprofit stuff? You run the Montgomery Foundation?”

  Monty nodded before realizing she couldn’t see him. Aware that she was making an effort to draw him out, he cleared his throat and said, “Among other things, yes. I’d prefer to focus solely on the foundation, but I find my time increasingly taken up with hotel duties. It’s been hard trying to strike a balance between what I want to do and what I have to do.”

  He thought maybe he’d bored her with details—that a simple yes or no had been all she wanted—but she nodded. “Ah. That makes sense.”

  “It does?”

  Mrs. Lennox turned to face him, her smile warm. “I was curious, at first, what it was she might see in you, but I’m starting to understand. You two have quite a lot in common.”

  “We do?” He was beginning to sound like an unintelligent parrot, so he tried again. “I mean, I realize we have quite a few similarities, but I wasn’t sure anyone else saw it. She takes her Homeward Bound duties seriously.”

  “Very.”

  “And she doesn’t like to ask for help.”

  “Not if she can possibly avoid it.”

  “And, uh...” He toyed with a carrot stick. “She doesn’t make things easy on a man. If he’s interested in her romantically, I mean.”

  If he was afraid he’d gone too far with that statement, putting into words thoughts best kept to his own counsel, Mrs. Lennox swept away all doubts with her pearly laugh. “That’s a nicely phrased way to put it, and I applaud your discretion, but there’s no need to tiptoe around me. I’m not the one you need to impress.”

  “But the only thing Georgia is impressed by is arm wrestling,” he said, sounding as petulant as he felt. “I refuse to arm wrestle her for her affection.”

  “Oh, you dear, sweet man—she’s not the one you need to impress either.”

  Now he was confused. “She’s not?”

  Mrs. Lennox wiped her hands on her apron and handed him the block of cheese. He accepted wordlessly, picking up the grating where she left off. “It’s my own fault, really, but you have to understand what it was like for them as kids. Their father was gone, I was working long hours—you know how it is—and they were left to fend for themselves most of the time.”

  “They seem close.”

  “They’re not close. They’re downright feral.” She laughed and showed him how to better angle the cheese grater. “I find it’s easiest to imagine them as a pack of wolves. They hunt together, defend their territory together, kill together—they’re an all-or-nothing deal, and woe to the outsider who tries to lure one of them away.”

  He stopped his motions. “I’m not trying to lure her anywhere.”

  “I know that,” she said with a smile. “But you have your work cut out for you getting them to see it. They’re wolves, John. And as much as I love them, I’m afraid they’re not particularly gentle ones.”

  * * *

  “You don’t have to do this.” Georgia stood at the base of the elm in the backyard, a towering beast of a tree that had been earmarked for city removal a decade ago. Every few years like clockwork, an engineer would notice how close it was growing to the power lines and put in a work order for it to be cut down. And every few years like clockwork, Danny hacked into the system and changed the order for a limb trimming only.

  They couldn’t let the city take Old Hardwood. Old Hardwood was a legend. Old Hardwood would remain standing until one of them managed to make it all the way to the top to extricate the Frisbee that had been lodged there some twenty-two years ago.

  “I mean it, Monty.” She broke the touch barrier she’d imposed over dinner and placed a hand on his arm. “They’re trying to get you to kill yourself. It’s their goal. Murder without all those nasty legal implications.”

  He smiled, apparently undismayed at the idea of falling from a height likely to kill, paralyze or otherwise maim him.

  It was happening again. The Testosterone Trio was bringing out all the whimsical qualities in Monty—the daring and the fun, the determination to w
in, that latent dormancy she’d thought was some kind of sexual potency, but was actually a juvenile need to pee into the snow farther than the other boys.

  “Are you worried about me, Georgia?”

  “Yes.” She refused to be sucked into that smile. That smile might have won over her mom and Nancy, made Charlie unbend enough to talk about complex chemical compounds, but it wasn’t going to work on her. He’d actually kept his knife in his right hand the entire time they ate dinner, acting like some kind of English lord while the rest of them shoveled the food in. She couldn’t stand up to his fancy English lord eating. She barely knew how to hold a fork. “The same way I’d be worried about any human being facing his demise.”

  “Since when are you such a chickenshit, Georgia?” Danny came to stand beside them, staring up at the tree. “Damn. I don’t remember it being so high up there.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s not that high—” Adam joined them and let out a low whistle. “Did we get shorter? That’s sixty feet if it’s an inch. Can you even climb trees, Montgomery? Did they teach that at the fancy Swiss boarding school you went to?”

  Monty stared at him. “I didn’t go to boarding school.”

  “See what I mean? You can’t even do being rich right.”

  Monty didn’t respond, just shrugged out of his suit jacket before handing it off to Georgia. He rolled his shoulders and worked his hands, for all intents and purposes a man preparing for battle.

  “This is ridiculous.” Georgia had to keep trying. She didn’t like Monty meddling in her work stuff—and sure as hell didn’t need him to gaze soulfully in her eyes and promise to make men respect her—but she didn’t want his blood on her hands either. She’d really be out a valuable client then. “You don’t have to climb a tree to prove yourself. They were just joking when they dared you to take the Old Hardwood challenge.”

  “I know. But I saw my brother do something similar last year, and it worked out really well for him.” He paused and examined the tree. “He only broke one rib.”

  That was it. Georgia tossed Monty’s jacket to the side and placed her hand in the middle of his chest, doing her best to ignore the firm beat of his heart and the way the hard-packed muscle of his torso elicited indecent thoughts about the tree falling on the house and trapping them both.

  “Fine. You win. But if you insist on doing this, I’m invoking Ladies First.”

  “What? Georgia—no,” Danny said.

  “You hate Ladies First.” Adam pushed his way forward. “You said it makes a mockery of your ovaries.”

  “Why are we talking about Georgia’s ovaries?” Charlie piped up from the rear.

  “She’s going to try to get the Frisbee so her man friend doesn’t hurt himself.” Adam scowled. “But she’s not doing it. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Oh, nice.” Georgia had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Her brothers were as easy to read as cue cards. “It’s not too dangerous for Monty to go up and try, but it’s too dangerous for me. What are you trying to say? He’s better than me? Stronger?”

  “Goddammit.” Adam turned to Monty with a finger out. “This is your fault, Montgomery.”

  “What?” Monty shook his head as if clearing it. “I’m still stuck on the Ladies First thing. You guys seem to make up a lot of arbitrary rules.”

  This time Georgia had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. Arbitrary rules were pretty much a Lennox staple. “It’s a real thing. If there’s ever a competition, the lady gets the option to draw first blood. It’s only polite.”

  “Really?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Nancy made us incorporate it a few years back. She’s kind of a sore loser about things like this.”

  “Watch yourself, Charles,” Adam warned.

  Monty was beginning to understand what Mrs. Lennox meant when she said these four were part of a wolf pack. He was also beginning to understand what Nancy said about the collective intelligence level plummeting when they were in proximity. Taken alone, he was fairly sure each and every one of them was a sane, somewhat ordinary creature capable of rational thought—himself included. But something about the spark of challenge in the air had him forgetting everything except a desire to make his way up that tree and fetch that stupid Frisbee.

  They weren’t the only ones with canine instincts.

  “So, Georgia gets to try first, and then me.” Monty stepped back to allow her the playing field. “That’s fair.”

  “Thank you, Monty,” Georgia said with a beaming smile he lapped up like honey. Half the reason he was doing this at all was because of all the attention she was giving him. She’d done a decent job of ignoring him through the meal, but ever since talk turned to the post-dinner entertainment, she’d been gradually thawing toward him.

  Climbing a tree was nothing. He’d scale Mount Everest if it meant he had another chance.

  “For fuck’s sake, Montgomery—what’s the matter with you?” Adam planted himself in front of the tree, arms crossed. “Georgia, you can’t go up there and you know it.”

  “Don’t you remember?” Danny said. “You broke your wrist the last time you tried.”

  “Scaphoid?” Monty guessed.

  “It doesn’t feel like any rain is coming,” Georgia confirmed, meeting his eyes with a sparkle. “Now get out of my way, Adam. I’m about to bring down Old Hardwood. God, victory is going to taste so good.”

  “If you want up, you have to go through me first. You’re a grown-ass woman, not a monkey. Montgomery, I’ll give you one more chance to back me up here.”

  Oh, no. He wasn’t falling for that again. He knew what kind of things happened when he tried to tell Georgia what to do. He might want to throw his body over hers and force her to the ground to prevent her from breaking her neck, but Georgia wouldn’t appreciate him for it. He’d known, that first time she opened her legs to him, that gaining her respect would be a tricky, upward path.

  He just hadn’t realized how literal that upward path would be.

  “Not a chance, Lennox,” he replied. “I know when I’m being led to the gallows.”

  Adam pushed off from the tree and stalked a few paces away, his movements jerky. “May I have a word, if you please?”

  Monty looked to Georgia in alarm, but she merely shrugged and started stretching. Although her stretches were in and of themselves worthy of his attention, a dance of flexibility and strength he could watch for hours, curiosity compelled him to hear what Adam had to say.

  “I’m not sure what it is you want me to do,” he said as he approached. “You’re the ones who told me to back off.”

  “From telling her how to do her job,” Adam said, biting the words off. “Not from trying to kill herself to flirt with you.”

  “Flirting? Is that what she’s doing?” He glanced back at the tree, where Georgia was circling, looking for a foothold. That didn’t look like any flirtation he’d ever encountered.

  Adam’s scowl only deepened. “I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t want you to think it means I approve of you coming here and making nice with my wife and kids, okay?”

  In any other man, that could be construed as an olive branch. In this man, it could be construed as an olive branch about to knock him unconscious. “O-kay.”

  “She likes you. She likes you enough to invite you to her job site, to forgive you for fucking up on said job site and to allow you to break bread with us. You follow?”

  Not really, but he did feel a spreading warmth in the region of his chest. She liked him?

  “As her brothers, we’re allowed a very small amount of control in her life. We can oust the scumbags she dates and back her up when the scumbags don’t get the hint the first time around—” Monty received a very pointed stare for that one, “—but our influence stops there.”

  Monty still didn’
t follow.

  Adam swore under his breath. “I see you’re back to being a stone wall. She’ll listen to you, okay? I don’t like it, and I sure as shit don’t understand it, but there it is. You win.”

  Monty blinked, and blinked again, and blinked once more for good measure. “You want me to prevent her from climbing that tree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’m the only one who can?”

  “Yes.” Through his teeth this time. “Do you want me to have it notarized, Montgomery? Shit—just go stop her, will you?”

  Monty did. Or rather, he attempted to, his feet propelled by the cloud he walked on, his thoughts still somewhat hazy. Had he broken through the Testosterone Trio barrier at last?

  “Hey, Georgia?” he called. She was about ten feet up already, her face screwed up in concentration as she searched for a handhold.

  “What? Did he convince you I’m likely to fall into a maidenly swoon and come crashing down? Don’t listen to him—he’s a lawyer, remember? He lies.”

  Monty hoped not. He wasn’t sure he’d heard any words more welcome than the ones Adam had oh-so-begrudgingly imparted. “I won’t do it if you don’t.”

  “What?” Her gaze turned sharply his way.

  “If you come down and promise not to kill yourself, I promise not to make the attempt either.”

  “Oh.” She dropped her hand from a large knot in the side of the tree. “Okay, then.”

  And that was it. With a quick and alarmingly agile movement, she let go of the tree and came leaping down in a neat crouch near Monty’s feet. In that moment, he almost regretted calling her back. She probably could have made it.

  “Should we shake on it?” she asked, and extended her hand. “No more using Old Hardwood to woo my brothers?”

  “I wasn’t wooing your brothers,” he said, but he took her hand in his own. Her touch was still rough and callused—and this time covered in splinters of bark—but he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt a more welcome palm against his. There was forgiveness in that handshake. And desire. And a feeling of expansion in his chest that went on for miles.