by Rose Wulf
Nate sighed, his head falling back against the headrest of his large, overstuffed armchair. “That’s what I thought.”
Kirk shrugged, pausing to take a long swallow of his drink, before adding, “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” When Nate lifted his head to give him a funny look, Kirk added, “Think about it: first, there’s no use worrying about something that hasn’t become an issue yet. You’ll only give yourself a migraine. And second, your tenant situation is a lot different from Blake and Brooke’s situation.”
“I doubt the bad guys are that reasonable, Kirk,” Nate challenged. At length, however, he hedged and allowed, “But you might have a point about that migraine thing.”
Grinning, Kirk said, “And let’s face it, you’re not fun to be around when you’ve got a headache.”
“Is anyone?” Nate returned, grinning as well now. But his grin fell just as quickly and he looked away as another thought struck him.
Catching the change in his friend’s countenance, Kirk straightened and both of his feet landed on the rug-covered floor as he asked, “What is it?”
There was a long stretch of silence before Nate finally said, “I’m sorry.”
Frowning, Kirk took a moment to drain his soda before asking, “Sorry for what?”
“Now that I’m thinking about it,” Nate began, refusing to meet his friend’s gaze, “if anyone’s likely to be dragged into this fight because of me, that person’s probably you.”
Silence again settled over the room, but it was short-lived. And then Kirk’s empty soda can was sailing through the air, colliding solidly with Nate’s head.
Nate jerked, reflexively reaching out and catching the projectile as it bounced off of his head, and turned startled eyes toward his friend.
Kirk spoke before Nate had recovered, his voice calm and serious. “Remember what I said about worrying before anything even happens? That applies to me, too. I appreciate it, really, and I’m not in any way saying that I want to be struck by lightning, but let’s not go assuming I’ll get pulled in either, okay?” He paused, but he could see Nate gearing up for another comment, so he added, “And if I am, let’s get one more thing straight right now: it won’t be your fault, got it?”
“How would that not be my fault?” Nate demanded, leaning forward to drop the can onto the coffee table.
“Because you’re not responsible for what some crazy psycho decides to do,” Kirk declared. “And I’m not going to walk away from my best friend over something like this.”
Nate paused, silent, before releasing a heavy breath and sinking back into his chair again. “I think you might’ve gotten brain damage from one of those times we went skydiving into the ocean back in high school.”
Kirk laughed, leaning back into the couch and letting his feet rest on the table as he said, “I suppose that’s entirely possible. In fact, I might have had brain damage back then. But it was always fun.”
“Well, sure,” Nate replied. “Although sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t so much fun just because we knew we’d get in trouble if we got caught.”
“Possibly,” Kirk admitted. Aiming a smirk at his friend, he added, “But, in my defense, you’re better than a parachute any day.”
Nate laughed as he recalled those days. Mom probably would have grounded me for life if she’d known about that.
“Now,” Kirk said, pulling in a breath and smothering his remaining laughter, “I have a very important question that I only just thought of.”
Quirking an eyebrow, Nate asked, “What’s that?”
“Has Angie dumped that guy yet?”
“No!” Nate exclaimed, exasperated, as he threw his hands over his face. Voice muffled, he added, “I have no idea what she sees in him! She even told him about our secret after all this craziness started, and he didn’t run away!”
Kirk chuckled, voice teasing, as he suggested, “Wow, really? Man, that might be destiny at work, there. You might have to get used to having him around.”
Nate reached behind himself, yanked the extra pillow from the back of the chair, and chucked it across the living room at his friend. “That’s not even funny!”
Catching the pillow, Kirk’s lips remained grinning and he said, “Maybe I was being serious?”
Nate groaned, arms hanging awkwardly over the arms of the chair, and said, “Please, no. That’s the last thing I need to think about. And, seriously, what’s with you? I thought you didn’t like him, either?”
“I don’t,” Kirk assured him, tossing the pillow to the opposite side of the couch. “But sometimes it’s so funny the way you react to all this. Really, I can’t imagine what the four of you will do to the guy she marries.”
“I take back what I just said,” Nate declared, squeezing his eyes shut. “That’s the last thing I need to be thinking about.”
Kirk laughed, stood, grabbed the forgotten soda can, and started for the kitchen as he called, “Please tell me you have leftover pizza or something in here. I just realized I haven’t had lunch.”
Chapter Three
For the next week Nate and Madison had only fleeting interaction. He helped her unload another round of boxes on her final day of moving, and they exchanged passing greetings late Wednesday night as Nate and Logan made their way into the diner for a late dinner. Then it was Saturday, the final weekend of May, and Nate was heading out to his family home for their monthly dinner.
He made his way to the garage, where his recently restored Ducati was waiting, as he shrugged into his favorite leather jacket.
Madison was stepping out of the garage as he neared it, and she paused for a beat, startled at suddenly finding herself face-to-face with him. She recovered quickly, however, and smiled as her arm fell to her side and she said, “Hi.”
Nate stopped as well, coming to rest a comfortable distance from her for his own sake, and offered her a grin. “Hey, how’s it going?” Why did he want to kiss her so badly all of a sudden? Gorgeous or not, she was his renter. And she was fresh off the heels of a bad living situation.
“Good,” she assured him. She moved out of the way of the door, adding, “I’m sorry. You’re probably trying to get somewhere.”
“I don’t think a two-minute conversation will make me late,” Nate replied, hooking his thumbs through his jeans pockets. Kissing her would definitely be crossing a line. “Speaking of, isn’t it a little early for you to be getting home?” He had certainly never seen her getting back from work while the sun was still out. Though, after he asked the question, he suddenly felt like a snoop. It’s not exactly my business. Except it sort of was, in the sense that he’d taken it upon himself to keep an eye out for her.
Another reason to keep his hands off.
Seeming less than bothered by his inquiry, Madison laughed lightly and replied, “I’m just taking a late lunch break today. Saturdays are busy.”
Nodding with understanding, Nate said, “I suppose that makes sense. Sorry, sometimes I ask before I think.” Better ask than act. Maybe.
Grinning now, Madison said, “I think we’ve all had that problem from time to time, so I’ll give you this one.”
With a laugh, Nate inclined his head, saying, “I appreciate it. Anyway, I’ll let you go before I waste your lunch break. See you around.” He lifted one hand and offered her a casual wave as he started toward the garage once more. It was definitely a good idea to keep some distance between them.
****
Madison watched him until the door had closed behind him and her lips fell into a subconscious frown. Every time she saw Nate she was reminded of her conflicting reactions toward him. He was always perfectly friendly, easy to talk to, and even easier to look at. She trusted him implicitly, and her smile was always honest and immediate when they spoke. It had been years since she’d reacted like that toward a man. And, while that in itself made her nervous, that wasn’t the problem she kept going back to.
The slightly-muffled roar of Nate’s motorcycle only seemed to ech
o the conflicting emotions in her heart, and it failed entirely to remind her that she was still standing just beyond the garage entrance. Because it reinforced her real dilemma. She and Nate were simply from two different worlds.
Nate was a man who had known wealth from birth, and while she was mature enough not to hold that against him, that upbringing alone put a large distance between them. She doubted he’d ever had to scrounge for food, or worry about being kicked out onto the street because his parents were late with their rent payments. From what she’d seen so far he didn’t seem to have a full-time job, and he certainly didn’t seem to need one, but without having to learn the responsibility of work she wondered how he could really learn the responsibilities of life. The lessons that came from struggling, and scrimping, and working too hard were important. Madison couldn’t think of another way to learn them, and she worried that that meant he hadn’t learned them at all.
As the large garage door rolled up and Nate backed his Ducati into view, Madison’s frown deepened. Nate seemed like a good man, it was true, and she didn’t want to sell him short or judge him unfairly. But she couldn’t help but wonder if his easy-going, kind nature would persevere if he ever found himself having to work for the life he lived.
The grin she saw in his eyes, shining at her beneath his helmet, certainly suggested otherwise.
****
Nate eased his motorcycle into the space between Logan’s truck and the garage door in his parents’ driveway a few minutes later, his mind still replaying that strange expression he’d seen on Madison’s face. It occurred to him that he’d never seen her sporting a genuine frown, and somehow the expression struck him as wrong. She was almost always smiling when they talked, and that smile suited her much better than the severe frown she’d been wearing when he’d left. But it isn’t my business, and I shouldn’t stick my nose into it.
He was still shaking himself out of his unexpected obsession over Madison’s frown, making his way across the gravel to the stone steps that led to the front porch, when he heard the gentle crunch of an approaching vehicle. Expecting to see Dean’s Camaro—as that was the only vehicle he hadn’t noted as he’d pulled in—Nate turned around, prepared to greet his brother. And his eyes landed on the silver Bentley easing to a stop before him and he had to fight to keep his own frown from his face. The Bentley belonged to Emma Matthews, which meant that Angela’s boyfriend, Emma’s younger brother, was joining them for dinner again.
Knowing his sister would pull him aside—if he was lucky—and yell at him if he turned and walked away before Eric was out of the car, Nate held his ground and waited impatiently. He offered a small, easy smile to Emma when their eyes met through the slightly tinted windshield, and she returned the gesture as her brother popped the passenger door open.
“Thanks for the ride, Em,” Eric said as he stepped out of the car. He smiled at his sister before shutting the door and turning to walk toward Nate. The smile on his face never faltered as their eyes met, and he slipped his hands into his pockets as he said, “Hi, Nate.”
Keeping his tone casual with well-honed practice, Nate inclined his head and replied, “Hey. Haven’t found yourself a car yet?”
Eric chuckled, pausing to wave at his sister as she started backing down the driveway, and said, “I’m just waiting for the car that speaks to me.”
“That’s always an important factor,” Nate agreed as he led the way up the stone steps. “But you probably want to have your own car before you move out on your own.”
“Yeah, I know,” Eric replied with a poorly hidden eye-roll. “Fortunately, I’m not too worried about that. I haven’t technically graduated high school yet, remember?”
“I’m pretty sure you count as a graduate now that classes are over,” Nate argued with a faint grin as he followed Eric into the foyer and pushed the door shut. Projecting his voice, Nate called out, “I don’t smell food!”
“I haven’t started cooking yet!” Nate’s father, Christopher, hollered back.
The pair made their way easily down the main hall, toward the large living room. In no time they had joined the family already gathered, and Eric quickly claimed the open seat beside his girlfriend.
Nate tuned out his mother’s polite greeting as she spoke to Eric and dropped lightly onto the couch next to Logan. Logan was leaning back, his ankles crossed beneath the coffee table, but he nodded in silent greeting to his brother, a shadow-grin tilting one corner of his lips. On his other side were Blake and Brooke, with Blake beside his brother and Brooke claiming the corner seat, leaning slightly into the arm of the sofa. The couple offered amusingly similar smiles as Nate passed them.
“Nate,” Lillian, his mother, suddenly said, a familiar scolding tone in her voice, as his feet came to rest on the coffee table.
“Sorry,” Nate said quickly, setting his feet properly on the floor and sitting upright to avoid giving in to the temptation again.
“Where, exactly, did you pick that up, anyway?” Angela asked, directing her question at him with a teasing smile and laughter lighting her eyes.
Shrugging, Nate replied, “I must have gotten it from Dad’s side of the family.”
An exaggerated look of horror on his face, Christopher said, “That’s impossible.”
Before another word could be uttered a new voice, coming from the hallway, called, “Why do you all always insist on showing up early? You’re making me look bad!”
Nate grinned and hollered back, “Don’t feel bad, Dean—every family has its black sheep!”
Dean Hawke, the youngest brother by fifty-two seconds, sauntered into the room with a laughing grin and a shrug. “You’re just saying that to make yourself feel better.”
“You know what I think?” Angela began rhetorically, aiming a teasing grin at her newly arrived brother. “I think you should start setting your watch ten minutes fast. Then maybe you’d show up on time.”
Returning her teasing grin easily, Dean detoured up to her and dropped a large hand on her head as he said, “What good would that do when I use my phone to check the time?”
Shoving his hand off of her head, Angela replied, “There’s probably a way to adjust the clock on that, too.”
Dean laughed and turned toward an open spot on the second couch, settling down beside his father and spreading out comfortably. “So, are we waiting on anyone else?”
“Not that we’re aware of,” Christopher replied casually.
Lillian turned her gaze back to Nate, and asked, “Is it true that you’ve rented out your guest house again?”
Inclining his head, Nate replied, “Yeah. She finished moving in on Monday.”
“She?” Dean asked immediately, turning curious eyes to his brother. “What’s she like?”
“Dean,” Christopher mumbled on a sigh.
Before Nate could reply, Brooke spoke up and said, “She’s the new Head Chef at the diner, so do us a favor and don’t go chasing her out of town?”
Dean’s brothers laughed while he rolled his eyes and said, “I feel like I’m getting that a lot lately. What’s the big deal if I ask about her?”
“That was a rhetorical question, right?” Logan asked with laughing eyes.
“Not that it’s any of my business,” Eric interrupted carefully, flicking his gaze around the family before settling it on Nate, “but is it really a good idea to rent out your guest house right now? I mean, you know, with everything that’s going on…”
A tense silence eased into the room for a long minute, the family largely averting their gazes to the coffee table or their feet.
At length, Nate replied, “I don’t really know. I didn’t exactly consider that danger until it was a little too late.”
“You could be endangering that woman’s life,” Lillian said. Her tone was firm but not lecturing, a matching expression on her face as she met her son’s gaze.
“I know,” Nate said, disliking the taste of the idea in his mind. “And I wouldn’t have done it if I�
��d thought of it that way.”
Christopher jumped in next, saying, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s no guarantee it will even become an issue. Nothing ever trickled over to Perkins, even during everything that happened a couple of months ago.”
Glancing over at her husband for a beat, Lillian released a breath and nodded. “That’s true.”
After another short stretch of heavy silence, Angela looked across the living room to her father and asked, “So, Dad, what’s for dinner tonight?”
****
Kirk sighed as he clicked off the television. Barely eight o’clock on a Saturday night and not a damn thing on. He was pulled from his internal grumblings a moment later when someone knocked on his door. Curiosity overtook him, but he shrugged it off and pushed to his feet. Just because his best friend was likely in the middle of an after-dinner game night didn’t mean he didn’t have other friends who might have forgotten to tell him they were on their way.
When he pulled the door open, however, he quickly found that he didn’t recognize the man standing before him. The unknown man was tall—taller than Kirk, at least—and had a hard look in his brown eyes.
“Can I help you?” Kirk asked carefully. He’d lived in Darien all his life, and though it wasn’t unusual to run into a person he didn’t know, they rarely ended up on his doorstep.
“I’m here to give you a warning,” the man replied coldly. “You need better friends.”
Before Kirk could do more than raise his eyebrows in confused surprise the man had reached out and wrapped one strong hand tightly around his forearm. Pain immediately seared through him, sharp and hot and tingling all over. Kirk cried out, unable to stumble back due to the grip the stranger had on his arm. He felt his muscles spasm uncontrollably, the internal fire raging through him, until his mind blissfully went blank.
****
Nate’s ringing cell phone interrupted the laughter as Angela failed, once again, to guess what Eric was attempting to act out. All eyes turned to him curiously as he extracted the device from his pocket, an apology on his lips. After a glance at the screen, he said, “It’s Kirk,” and stood to step out of the room and take the call. “What’s up?”