Unexpected Delivery (Paradise Place Book 8)

by Natalie Ann

  No, that wouldn’t look good to anyone, especially driving in a Butler Construction truck.

  But he couldn’t help it if she had one smoking body on her and a face to match.

  He drove another mile home, pulled to the top of his driveway and hit the garage door to go in and find what he was looking for, then grabbed it quick and went back to the site a few miles away. By the time he drove back down the road, she was gone. He had no idea who she was or where she lived, not that he cared either.

  Keeping to himself was what he liked to do most times, even if he was finding it rather lonely.

  Parker slowed down to a walk when she got to the start of her street and then made her way to her house at the end. There were only about ten houses on this end of the street and she was fine with that. She loved having no one on the other side of her and was told that no one could be there either. That it was protected land by the woods that were also in her backyard.

  When she got to her driveway, she realized she’d never grabbed the curtains that were delivered earlier today. She hadn’t been thinking about anything when she’d gotten home an hour ago other than changing and eating a fast granola bar before she started off on her forty-minute run.

  She’d gotten kind of lost running up and down the streets and at one point had to pull her phone out of the side pocket of her leggings to figure out what streets to turn on to get back home. It’s not like she worried she’d be wandering for hours by any means, but she wasn’t strolling peacefully gazing at the scenery like some of the people she’d passed on her run.

  Everyone she went by waved to her or nodded their head. It was definitely a nice friendly neighborhood. She was a nice friendly person despite what some people thought of her.

  There was a time in her life when she didn’t care if she was judged, but now as she was a bit older, she’d have to say it bothered her more. That maybe if she’d been more aware of things before, her life and her sister’s might not have turned out the way it had.

  Not that she was complaining about her life much.

  She was proud of her career and she worked hard for it. She wanted to be the best but not at the expense of other things like before.

  Maybe she matured. Or maybe life smacked her upside the head with a wet rag like Marcus had hinted at too.

  With her box in her hand, she moved to the panel on the side of the garage door and punched the code in, then waited until it was lifted all the way, walked in and hit the button to shut it, going in the house.

  It was eighty out today and the sun was still shining as she ran, heating her up and adding to the sweat dribbling down her back and between her breasts.

  She dropped the box on the kitchen floor and then made her way up to her master to try to peel these clothes off and jump in for a cold shower.

  When she turned her hairdryer off twenty minutes later, she heard her phone ringing and jogged to her bedroom to get it off the dresser. She couldn’t let a ringing phone or text go.

  She saw it was her brother, Jeremy, and answered. “Today must be the day for my brothers to call me. Do you miss me like Marcus?”

  Jeremy laughed on the other end. “Just checking in on you.”

  She wanted to sigh but didn’t. Her brothers had been doing that more in the past two years and she understood why, but they had no reason to. She wasn’t Erin.

  Yes, they hated that she was on the road so much and worried about it, but she was fine and not always alone.

  She made friends easily and she wasn’t stupid. She didn’t have drinks with strange men; she didn’t have dinner with them either. Her hotel room was always locked up tight with her phone on her pillow for easy access.

  But the family took a hit and it was hard to move on and not worry about the rest of the members.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just got back from a long run.”

  “Something I should do, but I’m too tired. It’s been a long day.”

  “At least you’re home now,” she said. “Marcus said he’d be a few hours longer doing notes or something.”

  “The life of a doctor. I got home a few minutes ago myself. How’s the new house?”

  “Quiet,” she said. “I went for a run in the development zigzagging around the streets. Lots of people waved and nodded to me. Seems like a great place, just big.”

  “And wealthy,” he said.

  “Not sure about that. I mean, yes, I drove down the new section, and man, there are some houses that probably cost close to a million easily or more, but there are other sections that are just average.”

  “Average for Paradise Place is starting at more than a few hundred thousand and you know it.”

  “Do you want to know what I paid for my house?” she asked laughing. “You can see it on Realtor.com if you do.”

  “It’s not my business.”

  “Then why bring it up?” she asked.

  “No clue other than I don’t want you to get in too deep.”

  “Not going to happen. Why, do you need a place to live? Want to move in with your baby sister and split the costs?”

  She was joking because there was no way she was going to do that. Not unless someone was in a bad spot and she didn’t think her brother was.

  Both Marcus and Jeremy rented nice apartments, but neither wanted nor were even in the market for a house. They didn’t have the time to take care of one.

  “We don’t need to be crimping either of the other’s style. And now that you won’t be flying all over the place as much, you’ll be around more. But if you said you were going to cook for me nightly, I might be persuaded.”

  Which meant he didn’t want to do it either but felt he should ask anyway. She wondered if Marcus wanted to do that too, but then figured he would have said. Neither of her brothers ever had a problem speaking their minds.

  Growing up with their mother pitting the boys against each other to see who would come out on top, always comparing their grades and achievements, got old. Her mother was lucky that her brothers didn’t hate each other for it, but rather bonded over their distaste for their mother’s actions.

  No, Emma Reed had a way of pissing her kids off a lot.

  Just like she’d done with her daughters. Parker was stupid enough to fall for it and wanted to win her mother’s approval early on. She was smart, she was athletic, she got along with people and was liked. She made her mother proud.

  Until middle school when others didn’t like her competitive nature and felt it came off as bitchy. That she was a mean girl because she didn’t always follow along and wanted to lead.

  She brushed it off because she was confident enough in herself to do that.

  Erin—she lacked the confidence that her older siblings had.

  Her younger sister was quiet and shy and didn’t like attention on herself. She’d get upset when she tried her best but didn’t get the same grades as Marcus or Jeremy.

  Heck, even Parker stopped trying to compete with them. Which was why she didn’t go into medicine. She loved science and chose biology, but then got her MBA after. She had visions of hospital administration. Didn’t her mother always preach medicine was recession proof?

  But then she met a few people who worked at the company she was at now and said she’d be great at it. It piqued her interest and from there she was sold.

  Being twenty-eight and the top salesperson last year ruffled a lot of feathers, but she was a hustler and wiped it off like cookie crumbs on her pants.

  “How about I make dinner for you this weekend? Marcus already invited himself over too. Does Sunday work? You guys can put my new grill together and I’ll put it to use.”

  Jeremy started to laugh. “I see how it works. Deal.”

  “I’ll see you guys on Sunday. Bring an appetite.”

  “We always do.”

  She hung the phone up and went downstairs to find some dinner herself.

  When she was in the kitchen, she realized she didn’t have much other than t
he few bags of food she’d bought two days ago when she’d gotten out of work. Everything else was frozen, as it was hard to plan when she’d be home. Guess yogurt would be good enough for the moment.

  She opened up her box on the floor and looked at her curtains in between bites and was pleased with the simple light blue that would go well in her office. Then she pulled out the ones for the other rooms.

  As much as she loved to shop, she didn’t have the time to do it, so online shopping on planes and in hotel rooms was the way to go for now.

  Once her yogurt was done, she pushed her work aside and decided to iron the curtains and get them up before she tackled more boxes to unpack.

  It seemed like the list was endless lately but supposed that was part of being a homeowner. She said she could do it on her own and fully planned on it.

  She could put her grill that she’d had delivered the other day together too, but since her brothers were going to be here and they’d be asking to do something, she’d give them that.

  It’d make them feel better, she knew. They knew she knew that too.

  Wasn’t that what family was about? Being there for each other?

  At least it was for her now.

  4

  Hold Together

  The next day Parker made sure she got out of work as early as she could since she had to figure out what she was going to cook for her brothers. She had some more shipments coming on Saturday and wanted to spend time getting the house ready to show it off. Even her mother made a comment about wanting to stop over, but they were busy this weekend.

  That was fine with her. She’d rather have the house set up and perfect before her mother could come in and start to criticize things. Her mother and she didn’t have the same style.

  Emma Reed liked things that were pricey even if they were tacky. From art, to cars, to clothing, shoes and handbags. If she could say where she got it, who made it, or how much it cost, she was slipping it into a conversation. Status meant more to her mother than anything.

  Parker liked nice things. She liked quality. If it cost money, like it normally did, then she weighed her options on when to buy it, but dang it all, she was buying it with her own money and not the money some man could provide her. Unlike her mother.

  But to her, quality could be simple and plain. She didn’t need labels on anything to brag or show off.

  Well, her car did. But she bought that four years ago before life changed.

  She’d been working about a year and wanted to splurge on something. She knew you had to look the part to be a good successful salesperson. And though her clothes were trendy and expensive, no one knew she got a lot of them on sale. That she could hunt and shop until she got the best bargain.

  She’d bought her car brand new, spent more than she should have, but it was paid for and there was no way she was getting another one. She’d packed the miles on it for the first year and then she ended up flying more than driving and refused to have it sitting at the airport so she took Ubers there.

  Now that she had a company vehicle, she could drive her car for fun when she wanted on the weekends.

  But since she was coming from work, she pulled into the grocery store and got out of the SUV. The heels of her Michael Kors nude pumps were clicking on the pavement as she strutted across the parking lot turning heads like she always did.

  Walk the walk, talk the talk.

  She did that in her navy pencil skirt and white sweater today. Simple and understated spoke more than loud and tacky any day in her book.

  She grabbed a cart and started to make her way up and down the aisles browsing what she had and what she needed to go with her roast, then picking up some more staples and snacks, beer and soft drinks. Her brothers would love a beer so she got a few she knew they liked.

  Maybe she’d throw one back with them. She’d rather have wine now and again, but beer would do in a pinch. She could handle anything to blend in. She believed that had a lot to do with why she was so good at her job too.

  “Hey there.”

  She turned to look at the guy that said that. “Hi,” she said, trying to picture where she’d met him. She’d seen him before and had to go through her mental Rolodex. “Dr. Stevens, right?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Good memory. Parker, correct?”

  “It is. Same to you.” She remembered now since he’d flirted with her a few months ago. She’d never met him before, but it’d been at her new territory and it was local. Right at St. Peter’s to be exact.

  “It’s hard not to remember a woman with the name Parker,” Dr. Stevens said. “And call me Patrick.”

  “Funny meeting you in here on a Friday night, Patrick.”

  “Just the exciting life of a surgeon,” he said. He was bragging. He was doing it in case she didn’t remember his field of work. She hadn’t been meeting with him when she was at the hospital, but he’d made a point to come in and make introductions.

  “Same here,” she said. “Just picking up food to have for my brothers when they come visit this weekend. You might even know one or both of them.”

  Patrick stopped. “How is that?”

  “My brother Jeremy is a cardiologist at St. Peter’s.”

  “I see the resemblance now,” Patrick said, his smile not as bright. Her brothers were both big intimidating guys that had been star athletes in school too. She ran track and swam. Individual sports got her more attention than team ones. Some would say she probably wasn’t a good team player, but for her, she knew she had a better shot at a scholarship that way.

  “My other brother is Marcus Reed. He’s a plastic surgeon. He’s in private practice, but has rights at all the hospitals in the area.”

  “I do know Marcus,” Patrick said, his smile gone now. “I had no idea Jeremy and Marcus were brothers.”

  “We are all one big happy family,” she said, smiling. “It was nice seeing you again. I should get going.”

  Patrick nodded his head and then moved off fast and her own smile dropped. She heard laughing behind her and turned. It was just her luck to see a coworker standing there. Not another sales rep but someone in the office doing the ordering. One with a big mouth on top of it.

  “Hi, Connie.”

  “Parker. That was pretty funny,” Connie said.

  “What was?”

  “Oh, come on. He was flirting with you. Nice looking too. Instead of flirting back or saying you weren’t interested, you mentioned your brothers and his smile lessened with the mention of one and then dropped with the other. Why is that?”

  “No clue,” she said, turning her head and reaching for crackers on the shelf. She didn’t need them but wanted to get on with her shopping and get out of here on top of it.

  “I bet your brothers are some big names?” Connie said.

  “They aren’t old enough to be big names or carry that much clout,” she said.

  “Then they are big men since you’re tall yourself.”

  “They are,” she said, forcing a smile on her face. She didn’t have time for this petty bull. “I really am in a hurry, but it was nice to see you.”

  “You too,” Connie said, moving off fast. Parker was betting that Connie’s fingers were going a mile a minute on her phone texting people over what she’d seen. She’d never told anyone her brothers were doctors. It was no one’s business and she kept her personal life private.

  When Erin died, it was hard to keep that quiet, or as quiet as they’d liked. Then when the leader of the NXIVM cult was arrested, it was all over the news in their area. Actresses and heiresses all arrested too. Money laundering, pyramid schemes...sex slaves and sex trafficking.

  Many of those women had been sucked into it being a self-help organization housed right in the Capital Region. A way to make them more confident, to feel like they belonged, to give them an edge in society and build stronger people.

  What it did was prey on the weak and when Parker’s mother dragged her and Erin to one of those meeting
s for a women’s society, Parker could see right away how jacked up it was and told her mother that.

  Her mother replied back that it wasn’t for everyone, but Erin was interested. And Erin continued to go to meetings and put money down and learn. She got stronger. She got more confident. And then she changed.

  Not for the better, but for the worse.

  She was thin. She had her phone with her nonstop and no one could touch it. If it went off, she had to stop what she was doing and answer it right away.

  Sometimes she’d smile when a text came through. Other times she’d cringe or look sad, but she’d leave the room and then come back.

  Her family would ask Erin what was going on and she’d always say it was a friend with a problem and they let it go since Erin was going to school for psychology. Erin wanted to help people and her trusting and caring soul was the one that got sucked in as a tentacle to better the way she dealt with others in her future career.

  Or that was what Erin said to people who asked her about NXIVM when she talked about it.

  And she talked about it often with people and how it helped her early on.

  Towards the end many didn’t even see Erin long enough to have a conversation with her.

  Parker shook those thoughts from her head and paid for her groceries, then drove home.

  Moving on, she’d told herself again and again. She couldn’t let this suck her back in.

  When she pulled into her driveway, she saw a car across the street. A woman and a little girl with something in her hand walked across the yard toward the front door, then opened the door and went in.

  She’d never seen the neighbors, but it looked like there was a young family when she saw a man pick the kid up through the window and give her a hug.

  She remembered her father doing that to Erin. She was sure he’d done it to her too, but she was too young to remember it.

  Erin was the Daddy’s girl. The baby of the family.

  And that drove her mother crazy too. That none of her kids had that close of a relationship with her, but they did with the man that wasn’t at home much when they were growing up.