Before she was able to mask her reaction I saw a flash of amusement, and something else that wasn’t as easy to put my finger on but had my chest squeezing tight, dance across her eyes before they went blank.
“You wish,” she deadpanned before exiting through the green, swinging door to the kitchen.
For the next few hours, I sat there, letting Destiny get used to me being back. I watched as she finished out her shift and continued her one-woman campaign to ignore me. Completely. It was almost like I didn’t exist. The only chink in her self-protection armor was that, several times while I was catching up with someone who—unlike Destiny—was happy to see me, I caught her stealing glances at me with questions in her eyes. Even if I tried to explain myself now, she wouldn’t accept my words at face value.
She didn’t trust me anymore—which, although I deserved it, killed me.
Chapter 3
Destiny
“Who stuck a burr under her saddle?”
~ Grandma Dixie
“You could’a warned me,” I snapped at my best friend as she stepped into Gram’s kitchen.
Harmony’s face instantly morphed into a confused-slash-alarmed look. “About what?”
“About your brother. He just showed up at the Spoon.” I couldn’t help the tension in my tone. My nerves were bouncing around my brain like a silver pinball pinging the high-score flaps.
Drawing her head back, the lines in Harmony’s forehead grew deep as her brows raised. “Sawyer?”
“Nope.”
“Wyatt?”
“No.”
“Jackson?”
“Try again.”
Dang, we could be here for a while. Harmony had eight older brothers. None of them were as annoying, frustrating, infuriating or…sexy as JJ.
“Beau?”
I shook my head.
“Cooper?”
“Ehhh.” I answered, making a buzzer sound affect.
“Trace?”
“Uh uh.”
“Travis?”
“Negatory, morning glory.”
Harmony stared at me, emerald-green eyes clearly communicating she was at a total loss. Her long, chestnut hair swung around her shoulders as she shook her head in confusion. I stared back, waiting for her to realize she did, indeed, have one more brother. When her eyes widened and she flung her hand over her mouth, I knew she’d had her light bulb moment.
“JJ?” Her voice was muffled behind her palm.
“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.”
“What is he doing here? Is he here for the party? How long is he staying?”
“All good questions. Ones you should probably ask your brother.”
Leaning close, she whispered, “Did you talk to him?”
It wasn’t that she’d needed to whisper. Grandma Dixie was volunteering at the hospital two towns over in Parish Creek and we were the only two at her house. She’d whispered because she was afraid of saying the words out loud. I had told both her and Cara, who was our third “Angel” (we’d called ourselves Charlie’s Angels since the first grade) what had happened the night of prom. Yes, Harmony was JJ’s little sister, but she was also my best friend. Plus, with eight older brothers, she’d heard plenty of stories about them being jerks.
“As little as I possibly could,” I answered, handing her a pastry bag.
With a stunned expression frozen on her pretty face, she pulled a chair up and began piping frosting onto the tops of the cupcakes, which was why she’d come over to Gram’s in the first place.
When I had big orders to fill, I baked there and not at my apartment because Gram had double ovens and massive counter and table space. Five hundred cupcakes needed to be frosted before the next morning. I was taking two hundred out to Briggs Farm that night for the party, and then I needed three hundred for the Fourth of July fair in town square. I had saved up enough money to have a booth this year, and I had even had a sign made that said Sugar Rush, which was the name I’d chosen for my bakery.
Right now, my Sugar Rush clientele was limited to catering gigs since I didn’t have a storefront. But, I hoped all of that would change sooner rather than later. I had put in a loan application at the bank, and if it got approved, I could open before Thanksgiving.
The stationery store in town square had just gone out of business, which was sad, but it had left the perfect vacancy for my bakery. All I needed now was the cash to get started, and then everything I’d been dreaming about since I was little would finally come true. Well, not everything. But close enough for this girl.
“I thought he was still in Illinois, doing PT.” Harmony sounded just as shocked as I had felt when JJ showed up at the Spoon like he owned the place.
I shrugged, piping red frosting onto the cupcakes in front of me while Harmony worked with the white frosting.
For the display tomorrow, I was making the American flag. It had taken me longer than I’d expected to design and plan out how many of each cupcake color I would need. Still, it would be worth it. The presentation would get people talking. Even though I’d only minored in marketing, I knew that word of mouth was the best kind of advertising you could get.
“But you saw him, right? How long was he at the diner?” Harmony kept digging for more but I didn’t have any more info on her brother. Specifically what he was doing in town and how long he’d be there.
“A few hours.”
He’d sat there, at the lunch counter, for my entire shift. I’d done my best to ignore him, but that had been about as easy as putting a square peg in a round hole.
“And you didn’t talk to him?” She set the pastry bag and the cupcake down.
“Not really.”
“What did he do for hours at the Spoon?”
“Irritated me.” There was no question in my mind that that had been JJ’s intent. And, just like with everything else in his life, he excelled at it.
“I gotta tell Mama.” She pulled her phone out and started typing as the kitchen door swung open.
“Sorry I’m late.” Cara rushed in and dropped her bags. “Traffic was crazy. I think everyone is heading out of the city for the holiday weekend.”
After a cursory glance at what we were doing, Cara sat at the large, wooden kitchen table and picked up the pastry bag full of blue frosting.
“Mama said he just walked in but that she’s been getting messages all day that he was home,” Harmony announced like she was broadcasting a news report as she stared at her phone.
Cara looked up from the cupcake she was icing. “Who’s home?”
“JJ,” Harmony and I answered at the same time.
“What?” Cara gasped, her eyes darting to mine. “Have you seen him?”
I nodded as I caught her up. “He came into the Spoon around eleven and stayed until I got off at three.”
“Are you okay?” Her eyes filled with concern.
Cara, the blonde “Angel,” was interning at a magazine in Dallas, so she drove into the city a couple of times a week. She also happened to be in remission after a battle with leukemia that lasted from the time she was twelve to seventeen. We all worried that she was doing too much. Among the three of us, though, Cara was the nurturing one, which had made seeing her go through everything she had while battling cancer, constantly in and out of the hospital sometimes having to stay for months, that much more heart wrenching.
One time, when I’d been driving her to one of her treatments, I broke down and told her how bad I felt that she was going through what she was, and that I couldn’t be the kind of friend I was sure she would be if I were the one in her shoes. She would have made T-shirts and cookies. Made sure I felt supported but distracted. Basically, I’d lost it because I’d never be the kind of friend she was.
She’d just smiled and told me that she loved me and I was exactly the friend she needed—an entertaining one who made sarcastic comments about the not-so-nice nurses not behind their backs, but to their faces.
Hey, everyone has their
gifts. Gram had raised me never to say anything behind someone’s back that I wouldn’t say to their face.
“Oh yeah. How are you?” Harmony put her phone down and looked at me. “Sorry. I should have asked that sooner.”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. I probably wouldn’t have asked either, after gettin’ swept up in the drama of it all. “JJ’s back. It’s fine. Honestly, it was a lifetime ago. I never even think about it anymore. It’s no big deal,” I lied through my teeth.
It was a good thing I was wearing shorts. If I’d had pants on, they would’a caught on fire, ’cause I was a liar, liar.
“How did he look?” Cara asked out of genuine concern and not idle gossip.
“Fine, I guess.” I shrugged. “I didn’t really notice.”
Yep, Pinocchio had nothing on me.
“Sooo…when you saw him, you didn’t feel anything?” Harmony’s question sounded more like a challenge than an inquiry.
“You mean other than annoyance? Nope.”
Boy, oh boy. For someone who prided themselves on being honest, I had lies shooting out of my mouth like they were oiled pigs on a greased-up Slip’N Slide.
Cara quietly went back to frosting, but Harmony—being Harmony—did not drop things so easily.
“So, if you didn’t feel anything, why were you madder than a mule chewing on bumblebees when I walked in and you asked why I hadn’t warned you?”
Well, hadn’t I just painted myself into a cozy little corner? This was why I hated lying. One lie led to two, which led to three. Then four. It wasn’t long until you’d weaved a web o’ deceit.
“I just would’ve appreciated a heads-up. That’s all,” I answered in a less-than-gracious tone. Why I was taking my frustration at this situation out on my friends, I had no idea.
Luckily, they were real friends, and instead of getting upset at my undeserved irritation, they did what any good friends would do. Ignored it.
I glanced at the clock. If we finished these within the hour, I would have time to squeeze in my evening three-mile run, which would hopefully alleviate some of the pent-up anxiety, frustration, and something JJ’s homecoming had caused that I sure as heck didn’t want to name.
After I burned off all of this excess energy, all I had to do was ignore JJ for as long as he was in town, and then, when he left, everything would go back to normal. Which was exactly what I wanted.
Yep. That was what I wanted.
Chapter 4
JJ
“Better to keep your mouth shut and seem a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”
~ Grandma Dixie
“So, I heard you were down at the Spoon, stalking Destiny.” Trace grabbed two sandwich triangles from the platter on the island in my parent’s kitchen and popped them in his mouth.
My youngest brother was practically the same age as Destiny and had always been protective of her. I used to think he had a thing for her, but he acted the same way, if not more protective, towards the other pea in Harmony and Destiny’s best friend trio-pod, Cara. I figured that, since the three girls were always together, they’d gotten lumped in as sisters to him.
“Kiss my ass,” I shot back as I picked up a sandwich.
“I also heard that she didn’t give your ugly ass the time of day,” he goaded. “I always knew that girl had good taste.”
I decided not to respond to that jab—even though I wanted to tell him that I knew exactly how she tasted and it was good. If he knew what had happened the night of Destiny’s prom, he would try to kick my ass. Try being the operative word. No way in hell could my little brother get the jump on me.
I decided to change the subject. “How’s life, Trace? You seeing anyone?”
It didn’t work.
After opening the fridge, he grabbed a couple of beers, handing me one, before he pulled up a stool at the island. “You done with physical therapy? What are you doing here?”
“Just came down for the festival. Still have another month of PT.” As I took a swig of the cold beer and swallowed, I realized that I’d drunk beer all over the country—hell, the world—but nothing tasted as good as a cold one on a hot day in Wishing Well.
“Why?”
Damn, did I really need a reason to come home? Had I been so out of touch that a quick visit required the third degree? If my mom and Trace were any indication, then the answer was yes. Of course, my mom had been happier to see me than my little brother seemed to be, but she’d grilled me before her stylist had arrived and she’d headed upstairs to get ready for the party.
“I was homesick.” It was the truth. Well, a version of the truth, anyway.
“For Wishing Well? The Spoon? Or Destiny?”
All of the above. Not that I was going to share that with Trace.
“How are things going at Colton’s?” I asked.
Colton McCord owned Circle M Ranch. My two youngest brothers, Travis and Trace (nicknamed TNT because of how much trouble they’d gotten into with fireworks as kids), had been working there since Colton’s recent stint on a reality dating show had meant a lot of travel and extended periods when he wasn’t able to be home. I’d been happy to hear that my family had stepped in to help out McCord. I’d always liked Colton. He was a good guy, and he and his family had been through the wringer when Cara McCord—Colton’s little sister—had been diagnosed with juvenile leukemia. She was doing better now, but it had not been an easy fight. Colton and Cara’s parents had retired to Florida a year ago, and Cara had moved in with Colton after she graduated college. I was happy that TNT were there for backup.
The look in Trace’s eye told me that he knew exactly what I was doing—trying to move the conversation in another direction. Before he had a chance to answer or call me out, the door to the mud room, which was attached to the kitchen, opened and a mountain of a shadowy figure stepped into the doorway. The afternoon sun brightly framed the imposing silhouette, making it impossible to see any details on Sawyer’s face, but it didn’t matter. I knew that it was him.
Sawyer, my oldest brother, had always been the biggest and baddest of the Briggs boys, coming in at a whopping six foot six and two hundred and thirty pounds of pure muscle. It wasn’t only his stature that was legendary though—and not just to the small town of Wishing Well, but hell, to all of Clover County—it was also his badass-ness. Sawyer Briggs did what he wanted to when he wanted to, and he did not take shit from anyone. He’d been in more bar brawls by the time he was a senior in high school than most men saw their entire lives.
I’d always looked up to Sawyer, idolized him—not that I’d ever let him know that.
“Hey, bro. Check out who decided to show up and stalk Destiny,” Trace announced as Sawyer wiped his boots on the doormat.
Sawyer ignored Trace, walked into the kitchen, and pulled me into a one-arm, two-pat hug. “Good to see you. How’s the arm?”
The arm. My second-least favorite topic of discussion—right after Destiny.
“Good.” It was, but I didn’t feel like getting into specifics, like mobility and strength.
All anyone, including my family, gave a shit about was if I was okay and when I was going to be back up on the mound.
After quickly washing his hands, Sawyer snatched two sandwich triangles and shoved them into his mouth. “I need to go get cleaned up. You staying for the party?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
He nodded and turned towards the stairway at the far end of the kitchen. My shoulders, which I hadn’t even been aware had been tensed up, relaxed at the sound of his heavy boots as he strode across the tile floor. The last thing I needed was shit from him.
“Hey, JJ?” Sawyer’s deep voice filled the cavernous kitchen space.
Damn.
“Yeah?” When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Sawyer standing at the bottom step, a smirk on his normally unreadable face.
“Next time you want to stalk a girl, maybe do it from your car or online, not front row center at her job for the entertai
nment of the entire town.”
Trace practically fell off his stool laughing.
My only answer, though, was a one-finger salute.
I’d been prepared for Destiny to be less than enthusiastic and highly suspect about showin’ back up here unannounced, but I’d highly underestimated everyone else’s reaction to it. Small towns were worse than tabloids. At least, when those people wrote about you and readers read about you, they didn’t actually know you. Here, when people talked and rumors spread, it was personal.
That used to bug the shit out of me. Everyone being in everyone else’s business. Now, the only thing that truly bothered me was the hole a certain redheaded, blue-eyed girl had left in my chest.
I used to think that baseball could fill it. It didn’t. I’d thought that maybe money would make it disappear. It hadn’t. I’d been sure other women could, if not fill it, at least shrink that sonofabitch. They’d just made it bigger. Sure, they were fun distractions, but that was it, and afterward, I felt emptier than ever.
No one and nothing had come close to making the empty ache go away. The only person who could cure it was the person who had caused it. But, for the life of me, I still couldn’t figure out how “the one who got away” could be someone I’d never had in the first place.
Chapter 5
Destiny
“Every time I stand up, my mind sits down.”
~ Grandma Dixie
I stared up at the stringed lights hanging from the rafters in the Briggs barn and knew that it was official. I had lost my ever-lovin’ mind. I couldn’t think straight if my life depended on it. I had more voices in my head than Kim Kardashian had selfies. They all had different things to say, but seemed to be in one of two camps.
Camp Talk To JJ and Camp Ignore JJ At All Costs.
Over the last hour, I had lovingly nicknamed them Team Go For It and Team Play It Safe.
Team Play It Safe: “Leave that boy alone.”
Team Go For It: “Talking to him won’t hurt.”
Team Play It Safe: “Why did you wear this dress?”
Teasing Destiny (Wishing Well, Texas #1) Page 3