Spiral of Bliss: The Complete Boxed Set

by Nina Lane

  I rested one foot on the terrace railing and stared out at the blue expanse of the lake.

  Different. That was just one of the reasons I couldn’t get her out of my head. Aside from her simmering repression and insane sex appeal, she was different. Uptight, yeah, but also interesting. A straight shooter who didn’t play games. All sharp edges and self-confident intelligence.

  A breeze rippled the water’s surface. Felt good, the cool air, even though I’d always liked the desert. I liked that the desert was empty, hot, dry, dusty. Sharp cacti, gnarled Joshua trees, snakes, and lizards baking in the sun. It was a wild place, dangerous. Sometimes even the dawn seemed scared to rise. Like it was afraid the desert would bite.

  Mirror Lake didn’t even have teeth. It had flowers blooming from window boxes, sailboats gliding over the lake like huge birds, people strolling and chatting.

  It was all so goddamn nice. Perfect. I wasn’t at all surprised Dean had ended up here.

  I put the lid back on a cup of take-out coffee and pushed to my feet. It was midday, so I figured Dean would be at work. Good time to see if Liv was home and maybe meet Nicholas.

  I dug the address out of my pocket, checked the numbers of a nearby coffeehouse, and walked east. I stopped across from a row of stores.

  Between a craft store and an art gallery was a worn wooden door painted with Dean’s address number. I shaded my eyes and looked at the second floor, which had large windows framed by blue curtains and a balcony filled with plants and flowers.

  I didn’t get it. If that was their apartment, what was Mr. Overachieving Professor doing living in a multi-use building on a downtown street? I turned and started in the opposite direction.

  “Archer?”

  I stopped and looked across the street. A dark-haired woman in her early thirties was holding the wooden door open, peering at me.

  Liv.

  “I thought that was you,” she called, waving me toward her. “Come on in.”

  Even though Liv was part of the reason I’d come to Mirror Lake, I had a rush of old embarrassment. I crossed the street. Liv smiled at me as if I were a long-lost friend, which made me feel worse.

  “Dean told me you were in town,” she said, holding the door open. “It’s good to see you, Archer. Come on in.”

  “Thanks.”

  I followed her up the interior stairs to their apartment. The minute I stepped inside, something loosened inside me. It was filled with bright, airy colors, nice paintings, striped upholstery, plants, and a good smell like chocolate and cinnamon. Now I understood why Dean lived here, though I sensed Liv could make any place feel like this.

  Sarah would have loved it. She’d always liked those interior design websites and magazines. She’d been making decorating plans even before we had any hope of living in a house.

  “Toss your jacket on the sofa and make yourself comfortable,” Liv said as she went into the kitchen. “I was just trying out a new cookie recipe, so your timing is perfect.”

  I shed my jacket, suddenly wishing my T-shirt was cleaner. I wiped my palms on my jeans and went into the living room. A baby swing leaned against one wall, a few soft toys and blankets scattered around.

  “Have a seat.” Liv emerged from the kitchen with a plate of cookies, gesturing for me to sit on the sofa.

  I did, making a mental note not to get crumbs on anything.

  “Dean said you were in Nevada,” Liv said, holding out the plate to me. “You were working there?”

  “Yeah, at a garage.” I took a cookie and thanked her. “Where… uh, where’s Nicholas?”

  “Napping.” Liv glanced at the clock. “He could wake up in five minutes or two hours. He’s not exactly on a regular nap schedule yet.”

  She smiled again. She was pretty. Always had been. She looked the same, too, wholesome and sweet, her dark, straight hair falling to her shoulders and pulled back with a blue headband. She wore a blue skirt and white shirt, with a medallion on a silver chain around her neck.

  The only two times I’d seen her, both at the house where Dean and I had grown up, Liv had seemed kind of unsure of herself, like she didn’t know if she fit in anywhere.

  I knew what that was like. But now she looked comfortable in her skin, more confident. Like she’d found her place. Like she’d found herself.

  A strange feeling of relief filled my chest. Good for you, Liv.

  “My mother told me you own a café now,” I said.

  Liv nodded. “My friend Allie and I opened it about a year ago. It’s called the Wonderland Café, and it’s geared toward families and children. We have a Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland theme, a kid-friendly menu, birthday party packages. It’s been great. A lot of work and a lot of fun.”

  “You and Allie are the owners?”

  “Yes, and our friend Kelsey is a partner too, but she’s not involved in the day-to-day operations. She’s more of a silent partner.”

  “Kelsey the weather girl?” I couldn’t imagine that hot, blonde spitfire being silent anywhere, at any time.

  A sudden image flashed in my brain of Kelsey being not silent in bed. I wanted to see that. Wanted to hear it.

  “Don’t call her a weather girl to her face unless you want to lose a body part,” Liv said with amusement. “Oh, hold on a sec. The lion awakens.”

  A baby’s muffled wail came from the other room. Liv went in and emerged a few minutes later with five-month-old Nicholas. He had a shock of dark hair, a cherubic face reddened from sleep, and dark eyes. He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with a picture of a cartoon dragon.

  “This is Nicholas.” Liv picked up the baby’s hand and waved it at me. “Nicholas, this is your Uncle Archer.”

  Uncle Archer. It took me a second to remember I was blood-related to this kid. I waved back at Nicholas. He blinked in response.

  “He’s cute,” I offered.

  “Thanks. He’s good, too, except for when he’s hungry or tired. Then he gets pretty cranky. Not unlike his father.” Liv grinned. “Hey, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I need to get Nicholas changed, and then we’re going to see Dean.”

  “On campus?”

  “No, Dean doesn’t have classes this afternoon, so he went up to do some electrical work at the Butterfly House.”

  “What’s the Butterfly House?”

  “We bought an old historic property when I was pregnant with Nicholas,” Liv explained. “It seemed like a terribly romantic idea to buy this dilapidated house so that we could restore it together and live there eventually.”

  My jaw tightened involuntarily. Old, jagged darkness encroached. I’d once had a similar plan to fix up a house with the hope of living there.

  “How much work have you done on it?” I asked.

  “Most of the exterior work and interior restructuring,” Liv said. “It took a long time to go through the purchasing process, then make the plans and get all the permits… so we’re still working on stuff. We’re getting down to the wire, though, because our apartment lease expires at the end of July.”

  “The house is here in town?” I asked.

  “Yes, up near campus,” Liv said. “It’s part of a residential neighborhood, but the lot is pretty big and surrounded by trees, so it’s nice and quiet. It’s a great property.”

  Sure it was. Dean wouldn’t buy anything less than great.

  Liv shifted the baby to her other arm. “I told Dean that Nicholas and I would stop by around three today. Would you like to come with us?”

  I didn’t know if I would like to since Dean was there, but I nodded. “Sure.”

  “Good.” Liv looked pleased. “Just give us a few minutes to get ready.”

  Twenty minutes later, we went down to Liv’s car and drove through town. Liv turned onto a gravel driveway toward a house that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale—mul
ti-storied with a gabled front porch, bay windows, decorative awnings, and even a tower rising from one corner.

  I lowered my head to peer through the windshield. “Wow.”

  “It was built in the late 1800s,” Liv explained. “The man who built it was a naturalist with a specialization in butterflies. He did all kinds of traveling looking for new species, and apparently had a big collection of live butterflies he kept in a greenhouse.”

  “How big is the property?” I asked, getting out of the car. The house was perched on a hill, with a view of the lake and downtown spreading out in the distance.

  “A few acres.” Liv unbuckled Nicholas from his car seat. “Dean’s going to fence off the boundaries just for safety reasons.”

  She glanced toward the house.

  “Oh, hi.” Her voice warmed suddenly.

  I turned to see Dean approaching. Wearing an old T-shirt, jeans, and work boots, he looked like a regular guy today rather than a professor. He stopped beside Liv and brushed his lips across her cheek.

  “Hey, beauty.”

  Liv smiled. Dean took the baby from her, and she went to get a stroller from the trunk.

  I looked at my brother. I knew he was wary about the fact that I’d obviously been spending time with his wife and son. My defenses locked together.

  “Liv saw me outside the apartment,” I told him. “Invited me in.”

  “I know.” He crouched to buckle Nicholas into the stroller. “She texted me. Come on, I’ll show you the house.”

  After Nicholas was settled, Liv pushed the stroller around to the garden. I followed Dean into the house. I had a flashback of a beat-up, clapboard bungalow that could have fit in the Butterfly House’s front room. The house I never got to start, let alone finish.

  By contrast, the Butterfly House had multiple rooms, a big spiral staircase, and three stories including the tower, which Dean told me was going to be his home office. They had taken down walls to increase the size of a few rooms and put in picture windows facing the garden and lake.

  After Dean gave me the full tour, we went back outside to the garden. Nicholas was sitting in his stroller, playing with a stuffed elephant. Dean bent to squeeze the elephant’s nose. The toy let out a trumpeting noise. Nicholas gurgled.

  “So what do you think?” Liv asked me.

  “It’s beautiful. I like that you’re making modern renovations to make it a really livable family home, but you’re keeping the integrity of the original house.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Liv said. “Did you see the blueprints for the kitchen? That’s the next big project.”

  “I’ll show them to you.” Dean gestured for me to follow him to a trailer at the edge of the property.

  It was a typical, basic trailer with a kitchenette, pullout bed, and a table littered with papers. Dean unrolled the blueprints and explained the plans for tearing down walls to create an open-plan kitchen and dining area. The whole house would be Architectural Digest quality when it was finished.

  “It’s really nice,” I said, as Dean put the blueprints away. “The whole place.”

  “Thanks. We’ve been working hard on it.”

  “You sleep here sometimes?” I asked, indicating the trailer as we left.

  “No. We just use it as an office, a place to keep food and drinks for the construction crew, when we have one.” He glanced at me. “Where are you staying?”

  “Room at a hostel.”

  I hoped he wouldn’t offer to put me up in a hotel. He didn’t.

  We walked to the front of the house. They’d replaced all the siding and trim with solid redwood.

  “So you don’t have a crew?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Dean said. “I contracted out most of the exterior work, but that’s done. A few guys from a local construction company have been helping me out, but they got busy with another job last week. I’m doing most of the work myself.”

  “Still a lot to do.”

  “Yeah. I need to get the electrical work done and floors laid before we can move in. The kitchen, too. I don’t want Liv dealing with a bunch of construction work with the baby to take care of and her work at the café. I have a call in to a contractor since I don’t have the time to do it myself before our apartment lease expires.”

  I looked at the house. No aluminum siding here. No linoleum or Formica or laminate floors.

  “I can help out,” I said. The offer came out before I could even think, as if someone else had just spoken.

  Dean looked at me. “Help out?”

  “Yeah.”

  I had nowhere I needed to be, not unless Mick wanted more help at the garage. I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to the desert anytime soon. There wasn’t anything to go back to.

  And, unexpectedly, I was starting to like frilly Mirror Lake with its window boxes and painted white shutters. I liked Liv with her home-baked cookies, and Nicholas with his dragon shirt. I liked sitting on the terrace by the lake, drinking coffee. And though I didn’t like my brother much, I could deal with him.

  Especially if staying here meant I could see Kelsey March again.

  “I’ve done a lot of construction,” I said. “Had jobs laying hardwood and tile. I’ve done electrical work. Drywall. Painting. There was a house I was supposed to restore near Vegas, but it didn’t get finished. I’ve worked on a lot of other houses, though. ”

  Dean scratched his head. “I thought you were leaving soon.”

  “I can stay for a couple of weeks.” I shifted and shoved my hands into my pockets. “You, uh, you wouldn’t have to pay me.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right about not paying you.”

  “I’m not asking for paid work.” I wasn’t asking for anything. Except that I didn’t want to go back yet. Back to the dry heat and nothing else. “Look, if you let me stay in the trailer, we’ll call it even.”

  “The trailer?”

  “Yeah. It’s got everything I need, and it’d be much better than the hostel. Hell, it’s a palace compared to some of the shitholes I’ve lived in.”

  Dean’s expression darkened. My fists clenched. I went on the offense.

  “I’m not using anymore,” I said. “Been clean for almost three years.”

  Some of his tension seemed to ease.

  “That’s great, Archer. Good for you.”

  “I can work,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  I’d never been able to read my brother’s thoughts. He had a good poker face when he used it. But he also had a tell. He always shrugged right before he agreed.

  He did that now. “Okay. Thanks for offering. I could use the help, especially with summer coming up.”

  “When do you want me to start?”

  “As soon as you can. Let me know when you want to stop by the apartment, and I’ll give you the spare key to the trailer.”

  “Dean, we should get going.” Liv approached from the garden, carrying Nicholas over the rocky path. “Nicholas is getting hungry, and I’m working the dinner shift at the café.”

  Dean tilted his head toward me. “Archer’s going to stay in town for a couple of weeks and help with the house.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.” Liv looked as if she really meant it. “We could use your help with the time crunch and all. Thanks so much.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Liv gave Dean’s arm a quick squeeze. “I’m leaving Nicholas with Marianne for a couple of hours, so you can pick him up at her house. Call me if you need me.”

  Dean leaned closer to her and murmured a response too low for me to hear. I figured I wasn’t supposed to hear it anyway.

  Liv smiled at him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before she headed toward the car with the baby. I started to follow when Dean’s voice stopped me.

  “Arc
her.”

  I turned. He leveled his gaze on me with unmistakable warning.

  “I appreciate your offer, but you watch yourself around my family,” he said. “Because I’ll be watching you, too.”

  I got it. I had a history of asshole behavior. I couldn’t hold a job. Slept with a lot of women. Talked our mother into giving me cash. I’d gotten into countless fights, did drugs, spent time in prison for theft. Dean had once beaten the crap out of me after I’d insulted Liv. He had no reason to trust me. No one did.

  But I was also fucking here.

  I took a step away from him, my fists tightening again. “What the hell do you think I’d do, man?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

  I shook my head. I knew coming here was a stupid idea. Knew there would be hundreds of little cuts. Most of which I deserved.

  But I’d be damned if I was going to run now.

  “You watch me, then,” I told Dean, backing away toward the car where his wife was waiting. “You just watch.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KELSEY

  THE WONDERLAND CAFÉ WAS HOUSED IN a Victorian building at the corner of Poppy and Emerald Streets. A whimsical sign held by a sculpted white rabbit hung from the roof, and red rockers sat on the front porch. Inside, the first-floor rooms were decorated with murals of the Mad Hatter tea party and Munchkinland, with a painted, “yellow-brick road” staircase leading to the upstairs rooms.

  Though I didn’t have much to do with the café’s daily operations, I dropped by every so often to see how things were going and to sample the newest chocolate confections or cookies. Plus, though I’d never admit it aloud, I liked the crazy bustle of the place, the noise of birthday parties, the lively chatter, and the way Liv and Allie were always sailing around like happy little boats.

  Today, however, I had the added motivation of thinking it would be easier to ask Liv rather than Dean about Archer West.

  When I went into the café, I found her talking to Max Lyons, Allie’s father, whom I hadn’t seen in months. A handsome, older man, Max smiled and stood as I approached the front counter.