by Natalie Ann
“One can only hope,” he said, putting his beer to his lips and enjoying the underlying banter and sexual tension.
Things might have just gotten interesting with his new neighbor.
6
Strong Shield
“So where is this grill you want us to put together?” Marcus asked when he stepped onto the deck with Jeremy. They’d both shown up twenty minutes ago and she’d given them a tour of the house.
“Over in the corner. Thankfully it hasn’t rained and I could have the delivery truck leave it there. Of course, if anything, the box is the only thing that would have gotten wet and that doesn’t matter.”
“Where are your tools?” Jeremy said. “And two beers.”
“Coming right up,” she said, walking back into the house. She could hear them opening up the box and pulling everything out.
She liked having her brothers around. Even when she was a kid she didn’t mind them. They were protective but not so bad with it that it drove her insane.
More like they wanted to make sure she could protect herself if she ever needed to. And she could and she did.
She had a strong shield that she put up for a lot of people, hence no reason for many to get close to her. Most thought she was a bitch anyway. At least most men until they got to know her.
She’d found many were intimidated by her and that was the last thing she wanted.
Her father was a strong businessman and very successful. She supposed he might be a hardass at his job and that was how he got to be where he was.
But at home, her mother ruled the roost and her father allowed it. Or he let it go because he got enough headaches at work and didn’t want to deal with it at home. She wasn’t sure and never asked nor would she. It wasn’t her life and she was glad to be out...the same with her brothers. The tension and underlying snarky comments from their mother got to everyone at times.
She walked back to the deck with their beers, then went in and got the toolbag and set it down.
“I love you’ve got everything we need,” Marcus said. “Most women might be lucky to have two screwdrivers and a hammer, but you’ve got drills and probably a saw somewhere.”
“No saw,” she said. “And neither of you need to worry about cutting off any digits. But I’ve got the basic tools and know how to use them. What did you think of the colors in the house?”
“Looks good,” Jeremy said. “Much calmer than what we grew up in.”
“None of us have Mom’s taste,” she said.
“Thankfully,” Marcus said. “And you know damn well you could have put this together yourself, so why are we?”
“Payment for dinner,” she said. “Give and take.”
Jeremy laughed. “I told you she’d say that. This is a nice house. Not as big as I worried it would be. I think you should be fine maintaining it. So have you met any of the neighbors?”
“I met the guy across the street,” she said. “My packages keep being dropped over there. He’s nice.”
“Bet he loved meeting you,” Marcus said. “Anyone we need to vet out if he knows you’re here alone?”
She wanted to snarl at them but knew if she did then they’d know she might be interested in Evan and the last thing she wanted was any interference.
Once she got past the fact that someone wasn’t trying to steal her box she realized Evan was the guy in the truck that had nodded to her. She felt like a fool for not remembering his face when she thought he was handsome a few days ago.
“I’m sure it’s fine. He built this house. Or his family did. Evan Butler lives across the street. I thanked him for bringing over the package and then offered him a beer. I figured it was the neighborly thing to do.”
Jeremy looked up from the instructions he was reading. “A beer?”
“The same one you’re drinking. Do you have a problem with me being neighborly? What if I needed help? He’s close by and someone I could call or check in with.”
“Someone you could ask if there was a problem with the house,” Marcus said. “Why not ask him to put this together for a beer?”
She knew her brother was joking, but she didn’t find it funny. “I don’t need a man to do anything for me like Mom.”
“Then why are we putting this grill together?” Marcus said laughing. “I could go buy dinner and not have to be put to work.”
“Ass,” she said to him. The three of them laughed, but while they were working she went in and got some snacks for them. It’d be hours yet before she had dinner ready.
“How is work going?” Jeremy asked when she returned.
“Good. I think I’ll like not visiting the airport so much.”
“But you’re still gone from home a ton,” Marcus pointed out.
“Just like the two of you. Do you think we got jobs on purpose to keep us away? That maybe our home life was so crappy we’ve got PTSD or something?”
“Don’t start to sound like Erin,” Marcus said and then stopped himself. “Sorry. Uncalled for.”
“No, it wasn’t. We’ve got to be able to talk about this. It’s not healthy if we don’t. Mom refuses to even acknowledge it was her idea to bring her to that self-help woman’s group.”
“And you need to move on from it too,” Jeremy said. “Mom doesn’t want to admit her part in it, but you forcing her to or telling her she’s trying to turn a blind eye isn’t helping.”
She knew that but couldn’t always stop herself. “It pisses me off. We could have prevented this. I saw what was happening. It was right there. I told them that, but Erin said no. It was like a sisterhood of sorts.”
“Some sisterhood,” Marcus said.
“Yeah.” She picked up the bottle of water she’d brought out with her and took a sip. A sisterhood where she had to call someone master and then get branded and told she had tasks and jobs to do. Seducing the leader of the cult was one of them.
Erin was so brainwashed that years into it she’d felt it was an honor at that point to get the leader’s attention. She was so lost and it was hard to get her out.
The branding had done it though. Marcus walked in on Erin when she was trying to put ointment on it and he’d flipped out.
When her parents found out, her father was almost crying and it seemed to be the only thing to get through to their sister. She left or tried to. She’d gotten sucked back in a few times, but her mother took her on a long vacation, got her therapy, threw her phone out and they tried to make themselves scarce for a few months.
But when Erin returned back to the area, things only got worse.
When her eyes started to fill, Parker looked up and Jeremy came over and put his hand on her leg. “Let’s change the subject. I know there are things in the news and the documentary was released last fall. I haven’t watched it. I can’t.”
“I can’t either,” she said. “We know enough and I don’t need to know more. They got what was coming to them and they can’t hurt anyone again.”
“They can’t hurt Erin again,” Marcus said. “She wouldn’t want us to feel this way.”
Parker shook her head and swallowed. “No. She wouldn’t. So tell me about anything interesting you’ve got going on at work.”
Marcus grinned. “Had a gastric bypass patient that wanted lipo a few days ago. I’m not sure I’ve ever removed that much fat from one person at once. Three nurses had to try to stuff her into a full body compression garment.”
“Eww,” she said. “That’s gross.”
“It was, but fascinating too. She called the office today and said she was in pain and I had to bite my tongue when one of the physician assistants who was in the surgery said, ‘she had fat sucked out from her eyeballs to her toenails, of course she is in pain.’”
“You can’t suck that much fat out of someone,” Jeremy said.
“I’m kidding,” Marcus said, throwing a piece of cardboard at him. She needed this again. Watching her brothers pick on each other like when she was a kid. When things were differ
ent. Or better.
“Where did you remove the fat from?” Jeremy asked.
“She wanted a flat belly, waistline, back, hips and thighs. She’ll be happy but not as much as if she got the skin cut off.”
“Talk about gross,” she said.
“Not everyone looks like you,” Marcus said.
“I work hard at this body. I run three or four times a week and do yoga another several days. You’re never touching my body.”
“I hope to hell I never have to,” Marcus said. “For anything.”
“And here we go again. Down the rabbit hole.” Marcus had tried to remove the brand from Erin’s hip. It was on her pelvis bone almost near her genitals. The embarrassment Erin felt made her not want anyone other than family trying to get it off her body.
The initials of the leader of NXIVM. Erin had been told it was some kind of symbol, but anyone who looked at it could see it was the leader’s initials.
Just sick.
“No more rabbit holes,” Jeremy said. “Tell us what you made us for dessert.”
“You were always ruled by your stomach,” she said but was glad for the change in subject and the three of them would try hard to not venture into the garden again and get stuck in the weeds.
7
A Good Team
Over a week later, Evan walked into his cousin Whitney’s office to check on the progress of a few shipments and get an update on the status of new home purchases. It was easier to do that than go back and forth with emails, and their meetings a few times a week filled him in better.
“Got time for me?” he asked, knocking on her door.
“Sure do. Give me two minutes to finish up this email with Ruby.”
He walked over and pulled open her filing cabinet that housed snacks and candy that she’d kept full for anyone in the office. He had a feeling that it was just family that ate most of it, but she was always good at being a little mother like that.
Too bad she hadn’t had any kids of her own in her decade-long marriage. He’d hate to think she couldn’t have them, but he knew she’d tried for years. Or at least he’d been told that.
But she was the proud aunt to Shannon’s two little ones. Jeffrey and Maddie. He’d never thought he’d see the day Ryan settled down, let alone was a parent, but hey, everyone changes.
He had his Whoopie pie in his hand, going on his second bite, when Whitney said, “You and Christian are the only ones who eat them.”
“Thanks for buying them for us then,” he said around a mouthful. Whitney was good at knowing who liked what too. She was great at her job. Calm, collected, and she could put up with a great amount of shit from the men in the family when they were moody.
“So you want an update on where we stand with vendors and any other new home contracts coming up?”
“Yep,” he said, finishing off his sweet treat, then throwing the wrapper in the basket.
She went through everything one by one and he made notes on his laptop. “We’ve got three more new builds possibly coming under contract. That is what I was emailing Ruby about. They wanted timelines on when they could be finished.”
“What did you say?”
Whitney lifted her eyebrow at him. “What I always say. I give a six-month turnaround but say I’ll check with you.”
He laughed. “You know how long things take at this stage. That is you pushing it off on us.”
“Which is what you do at times too,” she said, smiling.
“We’re a good team here. If they sign at this point, we’d have shells up in a few months and it’s work we can do over the winter. That is always the plan. If someone can hold off more than six months, even better for work during the slower months.”
“Which Ruby is fully aware of. I believe two of the people might not be ready to start anyway since they need to sell their own houses and that could slow it down.”
“And there are always a few of our rentals that will take people temporarily while their new houses are being built.”
They didn’t just have Paradise Place, but two other developments in the Capital Region, plus plenty of apartment complexes. They tried to have a few of those apartments open at all times for new homeowners to temporarily rent for a month or so if they were in a transition. It actually went a long way toward making sales and was a nice perk and completely worth leaving the places open.
Hell, even Christian had to stay in them a time or two when he was flipping a house and closed on it before he could move into the next one he was renovating. How he lived in that construction mess was beyond Evan.
No, Evan needed his space nice and tidy at all times. Christian, he went where the wind blew and got it done on his time. Not much ruffled his feathers. Not even moving into a different house every year for the past ten-plus years.
It was a nice side gig for Christian that Evan put plenty of time in when needed too. It just wasn’t the life he wanted.
“So now that that part of the business is complete. Have you met your new neighbors across the street yet? It’s been about a month since Ruby was in here. They had to have closed by now.”
“They did a few weeks ago,” he said.
“And, did you meet them or have you been avoiding them like you try to do to everyone?” she asked.
“I met them,” he said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk too much about the interactions he’d had with Parker just yet. Sometimes Whitney got stars and rainbows in her eyes with other people. Why she wasn’t jaded, he had no clue after what Kevin did to her.
“Wow, it’s like pulling teeth. What are their names so I can update the database? Or do I have to wait to get it from the public tax records?”
Whitney kept a database of who owned every house in Paradise Place. It wasn’t easy to do when houses sold and they weren’t always privy to that, but she did check listings or with Ruby to get updates on what might be up for sale.
It’s not like they charged any HOA fees, but they did have the development picnic every year and information was posted on the website, but Whitney also liked to do things like send out Christmas postcards from the entire family. No one in the family ever wanted Kevin in the shoot when she was married, but now with Ryan getting married soon, she suggested that his family be in it and everyone agreed, even Shannon. Kaelyn didn’t work for Butler Construction and since Harris was a celebrity of sorts, her name and family were left off of it.
“It’s a single woman that lives there,” Evan said. “Two of her deliveries were dropped at my house. The second one I rang the bell to hand it over since I saw the garage was open.” No reason to say Parker accused him of stealing the package.
“And her name?” Whitney asked, typing into her computer.
“Parker Reed.”
Whitney stopped and looked up. “The Parker Reed?”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
“Evan. What does she look like?”
“Explain what you mean first?” What the hell was he missing here?
“If it’s who I think it is, she was on Survivor two years ago. I loved her. Man, the night she was voted out was epic. That’s why I remember it. That and because she was from this area. It’s hard not to remember that name.” Whitney’s fingers were moving on the computer faster and then she said, “Is this her?”
He got up and walked over. “Damn. Yes, it is. I had no idea.”
“Because you don’t watch Survivor.”
“Who the hell has time?” he said. “And she looks dirty there.”
“Of course she’s dirty. She’d been on the island for weeks only washing in the ocean.”
“That’s gross,” he said, surprised she’d done that. He didn’t picture her the type to get filthy like that, though he had a feeling she was independent. She did buy that house on her own and seemed to be doing everything. Even if her brothers were over putting her grill together for her.
“It’s part of the game. She was a favorite in my eyes to win it all. She was
strong. She spoke her mind. You should have seen her bring her team back from last place during water competitions to win it. What a freaking swimmer. It was crazy and gave me chills watching it.”
He was looking at her sitting there on a stump in the front row with a dirty teal bikini on. It was an athletic sports bra type top and he couldn’t see the bottoms other than she had legs for miles. But he’d known that already from watching her running.
“So she got voted off?” he asked. “Why was it so epic?”
“First, no one knew she had an immunity idol,” Whitney said. “Most people blab it, but there were two in play and only those watching from home knew about it. It was crazy that the other person didn’t tell anyone either. And Keegan, the other person, he couldn’t stand Parker. He was a cocky son of a bitch that didn’t like strong women. Anyone could see it. Sexist prick.”
And he knew Parker was strong. You could tell by looking at her, but he wasn’t going to make that comment to Whitney. She’d want to ask more questions of how he knew that.
“Okay,” he said. “So he wanted her out?”
“The plan was everyone was voting out Keegan, but they were telling Keegan everyone was voting out someone else. It’s not even like it was Parker’s idea, but someone else’s and she was all for it, I mean why not, right?”
“I suppose so. I don’t watch the show,” he said.
“Well, watch what happened that night,” she said and played the clip for him.
He watched the few-minute clip and then said, “Damn. Good on her for being a good sport when he was such a dick about it at the end too.”
“Yep. If they still had a fan favorite, I think she would have gotten it. Jeff Probst stated in an interview after that she was one of his all-time favorites. Her competitive streak and no bull but logical thinking won over a lot of people.”
“Except Keegan?” he said.
“Yeah. He was threatened by her. His downfall came two shows later when he was voted off and one of Parker’s allies threw his words back in his mouth, saying ‘Parker has spoken...through us.’ That was great too and even got a laugh out of Jeff.”