by Codi Gary
Which was probably why he’d never gone back to his hometown, except to bury his mother. The Welcome Wagon definitely hadn’t been waiting for him.
No, he wasn’t brave or a hero. Caroline was the brave one, coming back here and facing her past.
All he could do was try to make up for his.
When Zoe tried to hand the kitten back to him, he backed away, glancing toward the door, toward escape. “If you’ve got this under control, I’ve got things to do.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so sharp, but he was still surprised when Caroline said, “Then go.”
“See you at home, princess.”
As he left the room, he heard Zoe ask, “Are you together?”
“No, just roommates. Thankfully,” Caroline replied.
He gritted his teeth, irritation flashing through him.
What do you expect? Instead of trying to keep a casual, comfortable living arrangement with the woman, you barge in on her showers, fight with her at every turn, and can’t stop thinking about what she looks like naked.
After exiting the vet’s office, Gabe jogged back to the apartment, hoping to blow of some steam, but it just left him more keyed up. A cold shower didn’t help either, and by the time he climbed down the stairs to his bike, he wished for a pair of gloves and a sparring partner to unleash his demons on.
After he found the perfect spot for his shop, he was going to have to look for a boxing gym or something close to it. Living with Caroline wasn’t going to be easy, especially when he kept pissing her off at every turn.
In fact, this morning she’d seemed downright hostile about finding Kirsten in their apartment, but what was he supposed to do? He’d brought Kirsten back to have some fun, but when he’d had to help her up the stairs, he’d realized exactly how drunk she was. He’d tried making them coffee in the hopes of sobering her up, but she’d lain down on the living room floor after Caroline went to bed and wouldn’t get up. So, he’d done the right thing and picked her up, carrying her back to his bedroom. He wasn’t going to kick a woman out in the middle of the night, especially one who could barely stand, so he’d put her to bed and spent the rest of the night trying to sleep on top of the covers while the tiny blonde had snored like a trucker.
He would have probably headed back to bed after seeing her out this morning if he hadn’t bumped into Caroline. But after she stormed out, he’d followed her, intending to apologize and explain, only to find her crying in a Dumpster. The sight had left him nearly breathless. It had been the first time in his life he’d ever wanted to pull a woman other than his sister into his arms and comfort her. He had wanted to see her smile, her beautiful eyes twinkling . . .
Pulling the bike to a stop in front of the Realtor’s office, Gabe cursed the crazy turn his mind had taken. Since when did he get poetic about women?
Maybe he’d try to find a shop with an apartment above or in the back. It was obvious he had made a mistake, trying to be a good guy. It just wasn’t in his nature. He liked things his way, and he didn’t want to answer to any woman. Especially not a sharp-tongued beauty who only seemed to add to the regrets he carried.
Chapter Twelve
“As Cher once sang, ‘It’s in his kiss.’ The first kiss can tell you whether there’s a spark or the relationship’s doomed. Either way, the first kiss is my favorite.”
—Miss Know It All
CAROLINE TOOK A deep breath as she knocked on her father’s door and waited for Teresa to answer. She looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of Kyle’s car this time, thank God.
It had been four days since her encounter with him, and she still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to swing by and see her father. Finally, she’d called this morning and asked Teresa if her father was expecting company today. Teresa had said no, and Caroline had begged her not to say anything to her dad; she’d wanted to surprise him. Though it would probably seem more like an ambush to him.
Still, if she was going to help bygones be bygones, she needed to get her dad alone. Even alone, he was a bastard, but with an audience, he was completely unreasonable. It shouldn’t be this hard to put this one disagreement in the past, especially when she’d done so well for herself, but she still expected him to drag it out, if only for the theatrics.
Her father, the drama king. Must be where his youngest daughter got it from.
In fact, Val had called Caroline in the middle of the night, asking if Ellie was with her. While they were on the phone, Ellie had come home, and Val had hung up, yelling, blowing out Caroline’s eardrum.
Whatever was going on with Ellie was going to come to a boiling point, and Caroline had a feeling it was going to be bad. But as she’d told Val, Ellie was an adult. She had to make her own mistakes and learn from them.
She heard a slight mewl and looked down at the animal carrier she’d bought in Twin Falls after leaving the vet’s. She’d picked up this little carrier—a black tote with breathable mesh sides—along with bottles, formula, and some fleece material for the kittens to cuddle into, figuring it would be easy to wash.
Zoe had offered to find them a foster home, and Caroline had almost agreed . . . until her little cream-colored buddy had curled up against her neck and fallen asleep. She couldn’t give up him—or his brother—after that. Zoe had given her instructions, and they were lengthy. At first, the little babies would want to eat almost every one to two hours, but eventually, she would be able to get them onto some kind of feeding schedule. Until then, it was best to treat them like newborns. True to what Zoe had said, the little vermin had already devoured three bottles of formula today.
Teresa pulled the door open, her dark eyes widening before she shrieked. “Ah, niña, you are home.” The short round woman grabbed Caroline’s arm and pulled her inside, squeezing her so tightly that Caroline could hardly breathe. Wrapping her arms around Teresa’s shoulders in return, she realized Teresa was crying.
“Don’t cry, Resa, I’m okay,” Caroline murmured, awed by the woman’s emotions. Teresa had been with them since Caroline was five, and she had always felt more like an aunt than their housekeeper. After her mother’s death, she had even snuck out to Teresa’s home to cry on the older woman’s lap while she’d stroked her hair.
But now, to her shock, Teresa pulled away and smacked her arm. “You. Not a word in twelve years. If it wasn’t for Valerie, I’d have thought you were dead in a ditch!”
Caroline bit her lip to keep from laughing. Teresa’s accent always thickened when she was angry. She could still remember Teresa shouting at them when they’d eaten half the cake Teresa had made their parents as an anniversary gift. She’d chased them out of the kitchen, slipping into rapid Spanish, and made them scrub the kitchen and take another bath before their parents returned.
“I called you.”
“Only after I told Valerie that I would hunt you down!” Teresa reached out and cupped Caroline’s cheek, shaking her head. “You have grown more beautiful than when you left us.”
Covering the older woman’s hand with her own, Caroline took a breath and blinked. She didn’t want to cry before she saw the old man. “Thank you.”
Teresa pulled away first, wiping at her eyes and huffing, “Well, you stayed away far too long. I’m sure your father will be happy to see you.”
Ha. Not if his reaction at the hospital was any indication.
Caroline followed Teresa to her father’s bedroom and waited behind her as she knocked on the door. “Mr. Willis, there is someone here to see you.”
“If it’s Kyle with the new figures, tell him—”
Caroline stepped around Teresa and pushed the door open. “Hi, Daddy.”
Edward Willis looked up from a pile of papers on his lap, and although he appeared stronger than he had in the hospital, seeing her once-imposing father sitting in bed in the middle of the afternoon was still hard to get used to.
He had aged twenty years, in Caroline’s opinion. His once-dark, silver-flecked hair was nearly white
. His reading glassed perched on his nose, and the hard eyes gazing out at her were surrounded by more wrinkles than she remembered. Even his skin looked weathered, although he was still a handsome man. He was like Clint Eastwood; immortal even as he aged, his presence was still strong.
Caroline tried to remember the few times in her childhood when he’d been caring or affectionate—hell, even just proud of her—but they were hard to come by. She felt like those memories belonged to someone else. This wasn’t her home, and this wasn’t the man who’d raised her. They were just strangers who shared the same blood.
Things could have been so different if he had just tried. Opened up and listened to them.
Acted like a father, you mean?
But the past was the past, and she couldn’t change it. She could only try to move forward.
No matter how terrifying it was.
“I thought I made myself quite clear that you were no longer welcome here.”
Caroline heard Teresa suck in a breath behind her, but she refused to be rattled. “I thought maybe we could bury the hatchet—preferably not in each other’s backs.”
Edward watched her, his face flushed as he reached for something from his nightstand.
“How much?”
“How much what?” Caroline asked, knowing full well he was talking about money but wanting him to say it aloud.
“How much money do you need?” Edward asked, enunciating each word with a sneer.
Caroline wanted to wipe that condescending look off his face. Pulling out her scratched cell phone, she opened her bank account app and walked around the bed until she could hold out the screen to him.
“As you can see, Daddy, I’m doing okay for myself. I am here strictly on a personal level.”
Edward looked positively ill as he stared at her online bank statement.
Don’t smile. You are an adult who made good and do not need to rub it in his face like a child. Don’t smile.
She grinned. “Aren’t you proud?”
God, why do you have to revert to an angry, snotty teenager?
“If you don’t want money, then there is nothing for you here,” he snarled.
“So, let me get this straight,” she said, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “You don’t want me around, but if I did need money, you would be okay with that?”
“Anything to keep an embarrassment like you away from me,” he said.
Her eyes stung as if he’d slapped her, but she choked back her tears on a harsh laugh. “You are such a dick.”
Teresa gasped behind her, as Edward shouted, “Get out of my house, you little whore!”
During her time as a bartender and owner, Caroline had learned to master her temper, to speak calmly and rationally when dealing with unreasonable and sometimes drunk people.
But all it took was being back in her father’s presence to cause her temper to burn out of control.
“I am not a whore.”
“Please, do you think I haven’t heard about your escapades? I chose to ignore them as long as you continued to excel in your studies and didn’t cause undue embarrassment, but I knew everything you did.”
“Really,” Caroline said, her voice shaking. “So you know about how Kyle Jenner drugged and raped me at his family’s house party when I was fifteen? About how he threatened to hurt Ellie and Val if I said anything?” Sucking in air, a heavy weight lifted as she spoke, “Tell me, Daddy, if you know everything about me, then how could you hire the one man who destroyed my chance at a normal life?”
Unsurprisingly, her father’s face flushed purple with temper, and he shouted, “You’re lying! Kyle is a strong, upstanding—”
“Upstanding? You mean wealthy and connected!” Caroline hollered back, her vision blurring despite her attempt to blink back angry tears. “I know Val told you about her friend in college. Kyle’s other victim. You know that Kyle’s father would do anything to protect his reputation and his son. If you think Senator Jenner is blind to his son’s faults, look again. I guarantee that you’ll find a few skeletons in his closet.” Dashing at her eyes, she added, “Why would I lie about this now? It’s been fifteen years since that night, so why would I bring it up now if it never happened?”
Caroline didn’t give him a chance to answer before she continued. “The only reason I’ve kept quiet was because he said he’d hurt Val and Ellie exactly how he hurt me, only he wouldn’t drug them. That is the man you hired and treat better than your own children. You let a monster into this house.”
As he spoke, the blood drained from his face. “If you think I would have allowed anyone to hurt you or your sisters this way, you are gravely mistaken. I would have handled things. I would have . . .” He seemed to be collecting himself. “I would have protected you.”
He believed her. It was almost unbelievable, considering the several hundred scenarios of this moment that she’d played in her mind over the years; in only a few had he actually believed her. She didn’t know what to do with this. For years she’d held onto this secret, assuming that her father wouldn’t believe her unless Kyle followed through with his threat—a risk she was never willing to take.
In fact, he was looking at her with more emotion than she’d ever seen from him, even at her mother’s funeral. Anger was there but so was regret. Did he regret not knowing? That she’d never told him?
Suddenly, it was too much. Without waiting for him to say more, to voice his thoughts, Caroline spun around and pushed past Teresa, muttering an apology as she rushed out of the house. She heard mewls of protest as the kittens bumped against her hip, and she slowed down, brushing her hair out of her already bleary vision. She couldn’t see well enough to get her key in the lock, and cursing, she kicked the side of her car.
“Caroline? Are you okay?”
Caroline turned to find that the DJ, Callie Jacobsen, had pulled up alongside her. Callie was watching her with concern from the window of her SUV, her golden riot of curls pulled back from her face. Caroline opened her mouth to answer but stopped when a monster dog in the back of Callie’s car jumped into the passenger seat.
“Killer! Ratchet, dang it! Get down!”
If Caroline hadn’t been on the verge of breaking down, she might have laughed. “Killer Ratchet? What kind of name is that?”
Callie grinned sheepishly. “His real name is Ratchet, but everyone in town thinks it’s Killer. It’s started off as a joke, but you’d be surprised at how many people back away from a dog named Killer, as opposed to Ratchet.”
A surprised smile came over Caroline. “Is that to weed out the undesirables?”
“Something like that,” Callie said, scratching the giant dog behind his ears. “I’m not much of a people person.”
“Funny. Me either,” Caroline said.
“So, did you need some help? I thought maybe your car door was stuck or something.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just shaken up.”
“Well, okay then, if you’re sure.”
Callie’s SUV started to pull forward just as Caroline called out, “Hey, Callie?”
“Yeah?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of a social pariah around here, but right now, I could really use some company. Do you maybe want to come over and hang out?”
Callie hesitated, and Caroline almost opened her mouth to let her off the hook, but then Callie nodded. “Sure, that would be great. I’ll follow you. Is it okay if Ratchet comes?”
A mewling reminded her that the kittens were hungry, and she said, “As long as he doesn’t try to eat cats or me, we’re good.”
“I THINK IT’S a great space, man, and for the size, it’s the best deal.”
Gabe nodded, considering Chase’s opinion. He had to admit that he was happiest with the old firehouse too, especially since the rent had just been reduced. It was located at the end of Main Street, far from most other businesses, except for the tire shop next door, but that might work in his favor anyway. It was always
a good business tactic to create partnerships with the places around you, especially if you wanted to pave a larger parking lot, so to speak.
As they made their way back to Chase’s Blazer, Gabe said, “Yeah, you’re right. Hey, thanks for looking at it with me.” He had been surprised that Chase had agreed to go with him.
“No problem,” Chase said, heading around to the driver’s side. “I’m actually a little jealous.”
“How’s that?” Gabe asked.
“Well, I think, considering price per square foot, you got a better deal than me.”
Gabe laughed as he climbed inside, leaning back in the seat. “Sorry about that.”
As he started the car, Chase said, “Eh, it’s okay. I get better foot traffic in the main stretch of town anyway.”
Silence stretched in the car once the radio came on, and Gabe buckled in.
“How’s Honey doing?”
Chase’s question had been a long time coming, but it still knocked the breath out of him. Gabe swallowed down the knot of guilt and unease that had gathered in his throat and said, “She’s doing good. She’s started painting again, mostly landscapes. She’s got a great view from her room.”
“That’s great.”
The tension in the car thickened. Gabe was glad that Chase had finally brought up Honey, but now it felt like they’d lost what little ground they’d managed to cover over the last few days.
Desperate to get back to that place, Gabe asked, “So what’s Katie up to?”
“Katie’s working. That’s the only thing that sucks about our schedules; she works from ten until six, and I head in to open around five in the evening and don’t get home until she’s already asleep.”
“But you guys seem happy, so it can’t be that bad,” Gabe offered, catching his friend’s sly grin.
“You know, I never pictured this as my life, living in a small town. Hell, even marriage was way off the menu. But when it’s right, you just can’t help it.”