by Tawna Fenske
I do one last sweep of the space, making sure all traces of evidence are gone. Shoving in his chair, I grab the stack of papers next to his placemat and stuff them into a drawer by the fridge.
With my father’s messes stashed, I head for the door. Swinging it open, I flick my napkin so Bree knows it’s dinner time.
“Good evening.” I clear my throat. “Did you need something?”
Her eyes light up at the sight of my sauce-stained napkin. “Oh, good!” She pushes past me, making a beeline for my dining room. “You made that meatball thing I love. Pretty please say I can have a couple?”
That meatball thing is a pot of frozen meatballs warmed in store-bought marinara with shredded cheddar over the top. Pretty lowbrow, but I never claimed to be a gourmet chef like my brother.
Right now, that doesn’t seem to matter to Bree. “I’m so starving,” she says as she pries the lid off the pot still warming on the stove and inhales. “This smells amazing.”
“Don’t you and Austin eat at like six-thirty every night?” I glance at my watch. It’s almost nine.
“Yes, but I’m hungry all the time these days.” She rests a hand on her belly, and I swear she’s grown by half since this morning.
“You sure you’re not expecting twins?”
“Shut up, jerk.” She pulls a plate from the cupboard and holds it out with a hopeful smile. “Please? Just two or three? I know you always make extras for lunch leftovers.”
Thank God she’s noticed, or I might have to explain why there’s at least two-dozen sauce-soaked meatballs still simmering on the stove. My father and his damned hearty appetite.
“Fine,” I mutter, aware that it’s impossible to stay irritated with Bree. “You can’t stay long, though. I’ve got work to do.”
She rolls her eyes as I dish up the meatballs. “You always have work to do.”
I can’t argue with that, but I can steal a surreptitious glance down the hallway. We’ve got thirty-six hours until my father’s plane leaves, so I just need him to stay hidden until then.
“Here.” I offer her the plate, but she looks up at me with hopeful eyes.
“Cheese, please?”
I sigh and add a handful of orange shreds to the top, then a couple more because pregnant women need calcium, right?
“I guess I can’t offer you wine.” I pry open the fridge and peer at the contents. Pretty pathetic. “How about Perrier?”
“Yes, please.” Her mouth is already full of meatball as she makes her way to the table and pulls out the chair our father just vacated.
Please don’t let it be warm, please don’t let it be warm…
“Thanks for this,” she says as I give up obsessing about my father’s butt print and focus on filling a glass with fizzy water.
Tumbler in hand, I return to the table and set it in front of her before taking my seat at the head of the table. My own meatballs are still warm, but I can’t bring myself to eat them. Not with this lump in my throat.
Bree catches me tugging at the neck of my shirt and smiles around a mouthful of meatball. “You look nice,” she says. “I never see you without a tie. You should dress down more often.”
“Is there a reason you came by?” I drop my hand to the table. “Besides to steal my food and criticize my fashion choices.”
She grins and stabs another meatball. “Maybe because I love my big brother?”
“Nice try.” I pick up my fork. “You could have at least called.”
“I did call.” She whips out her phone and pushes it across the table, showing me her call log. “You didn’t answer.”
“Right.” That would be because I left it in the other room, distracted by the task of cooking dinner for my dead father.
Bree studies me with the knowing smile that always precedes one of her interrogations. “I noticed you spending a lot of time with Lily Archer last night.”
“The redhead?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”
I sigh and fork a meatball into my mouth, hoping that’ll forestall this conversation. I take my time chewing, then wash it down with my own glass of Perrier.
Sooner or later, she’ll tell me why she’s here.
My sister doesn’t disappoint. “I spoke with Dr. Hooter.”
“Is that the shrink?”
That earns me another eye roll. “The family therapist,” she says. “And you know that’s her name, just like she knows damn well you don’t want to be there.”
“What gave me away?” I ask. “Was it during introductions where I said, ‘I don’t want to be here?’”
“That, and the fact that you emailed her to say you won’t make it to the next session,” she says. “Come on, I planned these weeks in advance to make sure they worked with everyone’s schedules.”
“My schedule changed.” I’m being an asshole and know it.
Bree sighs and sets down her fork. “This means a lot to me, James. We’re family. We didn’t get the benefit of growing up together like normal siblings, but now we work together every single day. I want us to mesh. Feel like we’re on the same team and we’re sharing things.”
“I’m sharing.” I point to her meatballs. “Case in point.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She grabs her fork again and stabs a meatball a lot harder than she needs to. “I just feel like you’re holding things back sometimes,” she says when she’s finished chewing. “Like you’re all bottled up.”
You don’t know the half of it.
I keep that thought to myself and keep my face in the most neutral expression I can manage. Leaning back in my chair, I feign supreme indifference. “I’m an open book,” I tell her. “What do you want to know?”
“How come you kept the table?”
“What?” I have no idea what she’s talking about. Maybe the fetus has eaten her brain.
“The table.” She pats the walnut surface beside her plate. “Dad had this in the Manhattan penthouse. Or maybe it was Vale?”
“Palm Beach.” I’m baffled we’re discussing my furniture. “Did you want it or something?”
“Definitely not,” she says. “None of us did, so I’m surprised you kept it. It’s not like you had some attachment to it.”
I sense that’s a question, though she didn’t phrase it as one. “No attachment,” I confirm. “But it’s a hand-carved organic relief French solid walnut trestle table that’s been in our family for four generations. Someone should keep it.”
“And that someone should be you.”
It doesn’t sound like a question, so I don’t bother answering. I fork a meatball into my mouth, chewing as an alternative to carrying on this conversation any longer than necessary.
“Are you clamming up now, or do I get to ask more questions?” she asks.
“Fire away,” I mutter. “Like I said, open book.”
Bree studies my face for a long time. Long enough to make me nervous. “Is it true you walked in on your mother having a three-way with Dad and Jonathan’s mom?”
“What?” Jesus, that’s the last thing I thought she’d ask.
“Jon told me about it back in high school,” she says, cheeks pinkening a little. “We came out to visit Dad the same weekend, and he told me the story, and I had to Google ‘three-way’ because I’d never heard of that before.”
“Score six points for the sheltered life of private boarding school,” I mutter, oddly relieved that this is what she’s choosing to ask. “Yes,” I tell her. “It’s true. I was four and Jonathan wasn’t born yet.” Quite possibly he was conceived that same afternoon, though I’d rather not dwell.
Bree shrugs. “I wasn’t asking because I was interested in Dad’s sex life. I guess I just thought—well, that seeing something like that probably had an impact on your childhood.”
No kidding.
But I fiddle with my fork like it’s no big deal. “I’d pretty much forgotten about it.”
“Because that�
��s what he asked you to do? Not to tell anyone?”
Jesus. Okay, now we’re getting into uncomfortable territory.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”
Only one of those things is true. It was a long time ago, but hardly the first or last time my father asked me to keep a secret for him.
But I’m ready for a subject change, so I wipe my hands on my napkin and nod at her empty plate. “Want a couple more?”
“Sure.” She smiles and hands me her plate, and I get up to pile it with another saucy load of meatballs.
My back is still turned when she hits me with her next question. “Did you stay the night at Lily’s?”
I force myself not to stiffen. Thank God my back is turned. “Why would you think that?”
“Someone saw your car parked in front of her house all night.”
The joys of living in a small town.
I say nothing, so Bree keeps talking.
“I know her pretty well,” she says. “Which means I know what she’s like.”
I drop the spoon in the pot with a splat and turn around. “What’s that supposed to mean?” There’s a tiny muscle ticking in my jaw, but I ignore it. “She’s smart and funny and beautiful and you’re coming here to warn me that she’s some kind of—of—”
“—man-eater?” Bree shakes her head, recognizing my inability to say the word. “Not where I was going with that, big brother.”
Oh. Well, now I’m the jackass.
Bree keeps right on going, too cheerful to hear my self-recrimination. “Honestly, I admire the hell out of her for being so open with her sexuality,” she says. “I wish I could be more like her.”
“You’re married,” I point out. “Or about to be, anyway.”
“Duh.” She rolls her eyes. “Also, not what I meant. You want to keep jumping to conclusions here, or could you take it down a notch?”
I hate when my sister has a point. “What are you getting at?”
Bree stares at me a second, then shrugs. “I’ve forgotten. Pregnancy brain.” She grins and accepts the second plate of meatballs I’m handing her. “I notice you were sure quick to jump to her defense right there. When you thought I might be calling her a hoochie?”
“So?”
“So, I think it’s great.” She stabs a meatball with cheerful efficiency. “I think Lily’s great. Even more because she rescued you last night.”
“Rescued me.”
“From yourself,” she says. “That’s what I meant when I said I know what she’s like. She’s the kind of girl who’d bend over backwards to help a guy save his dignity, even if it meant giving up a little of her own.”
Wow. I don’t know what to say to that. Is that how it happened?
“I—” Shit, I’m at a loss for words.
As always, my sister has plenty. “For what it’s worth, I thought it was fantastic. Seeing you let out your inner wild man?”
I cringe and pick up my water glass. “There is no inner wild man.”
“We all have an inner wild man,” she says. “Or woman. You’re just scared to death of yours.”
Good Lord. “You’re psycho.”
That’s all I get out before my brain flashes on the memory of standing in my front yard in a towel kissing Lily like my life depended on it. Talk about psycho.
I fork a meatball into my mouth to distract myself. “Anyway,” I say once I finish chewing. “Nothing happened last night between Lily and me.”
Last night. How’s that for careful wording, for not mentioning the something that happened on my lawn the next morning. Attorney evasiveness for the win.
Bree says nothing. Just shovels in another mouthful of meatball, her face scrunching up as she turns toward the living room. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” I lift my plate and sniff the meatballs. “The cheese was a couple days past the expiration, but—”
“No, not the cheese.” She surveys the hallway, nose twitching like she’s a goddamn rabbit. “I swear I smelled cigar smoke, but it’s gone now.”
Fuck.
Cursing my father—not for the first time—I offer a casual shrug. “I had one the other night,” I say. “Busted out a box of Cohiba Behikes for Sean’s bachelor party.”
Bree laughs. “I thought I recognized it.” She inhales again, then shakes her head and picks up her fork. “That’s the kind Dad used to smoke, right?”
“Right.” I pick up my own fork, on edge again. “There’s still plenty left. Tell Austin to be there for the next poker night if he wants to try one.”
Not that he’s a cigar man, but what guy doesn’t want to sample a cigar that runs $18,000 a box?
“I’ll let him know.” Bree shovels the last meatball in her mouth and chews, then leans back in her chair with her hands mounded over her belly. She watches me for a long time, not saying anything.
“What?” I run my tongue across my teeth. “I have something stuck?”
“Don’t be paranoid.” She grins. “For what it’s worth, I approve.”
“Of cigars?” I shrug and pluck my napkin off my lap, tossing it on the table. “I only smoke them once or twice a year at—”
“Not cigars,” she says. “You and Lily. I think she’d be good for you.”
Me and Lily.
Just the linking of our names twined together like that—never mind our bodies—sends a pulse of heat from my brain to my gut.
“There’s no me and Lily,” I tell her. “Not even close.”
Bree smiles and rubs a hand over her belly, her expression shifting from satisfied to…scheming?
“Maybe not yet,” she says. “But it could happen.”
I can’t decide if that’s a blessing or a threat.
Chapter 5
LILY
“So, you’re saying we should stop having sex.” I tip my head to watch his response.
Dr. Bradley Parker—aka my longtime friend with benefits—does a quick wince. He’s still smiling, and I doubt anyone here at Swirl Winebar caught his tiny flash of discomfort.
“You’re amazing,” he says, recovering beautifully.
“I know.” I steal an olive off the charcuterie tray he just ordered and check in with myself. Am I disappointed? Hurt? Surprised?
None of the above, as it turns out.
I’m actually sort of relieved.
“I’ve really enjoyed our arrangement,” he continues, nudging the plate so I can reach the cheese and prosciutto. “I just—I’m at a point where I’m looking for something more serious. A real relationship.”
“Not just sex.”
He grabs a hunk of smoked gouda and glances around. “Any chance you could stop saying ‘sex’ so loudly in a public place? I realize it’s a basic biological function, but my patients don’t need to picture me with my pants off.”
I refrain from pointing out that the reason his patient load tilts heavily female has little to do with his well-deserved rep as a stellar physician. The good doc is hot, and a damned nice guy to boot. It’s a shame we never clicked anyplace but the bedroom.
Even there, it was pretty infrequent.
Honestly, it’s been ages since we hooked up. I’m pretending the dry spell doesn’t coincide with the lip lock James and I shared on his lawn a few weeks ago.
I grab a slice of prosciutto and make a conscious effort to lower my voice. “So you’re looking for a relationship,” I say to Bradley.
“And you’ve made it clear you aren’t,” he says. “No hard feelings. But now seems like a good time to shake hands and part company.”
I grin and reach for another olive. “Is a handshake really the best you’ve got?” I’m trying for flirty and salacious, but the words fall flat.
Even Bradley seems to hear it. “You’re sexy as hell, and you know it. But can you honestly tell me you’d make a beeline for my bedroom if I asked you for one last fling right now?”
I open my mouth to make a sex joke—maybe someth
ing about birds and bees, or how a bedroom isn’t required, the table will do just fine.
But he’s right, dammit. I’m not interested. How did that happen?
“Small town,” he says, reading my thoughts. “I heard a rumor you’ve got something going with a CEO who may or may not have been your date to Amber King’s wedding.”
“She’s Amber Bracelyn now.” Yes, I’m nitpicking to avoid the meat of what he just said. “And James wasn’t my date. We just—ran into each other.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t believe me, but he also doesn’t press for more. That’s what I love about him.
Love.
All right, that was never part of our equation. That was the point, really, the reason our friends-with-benefits thing worked. At least until it stopped working, which might be my fault.
Or James’s fault…
“He’s a great guy,” Bradley says.
“Who?”
He levels me with the same look he probably gives patients who bullshit him about taking their vitamins. “James,” he says. “We play poker together sometimes.”
“Oh.” The fact that I didn’t know that is a depressing reminder how little Bradley and I really shared.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him,” he says. “About us, I mean.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“I figured.” He smiles. “For the record, I don’t mind anyone knowing. Part of me wishes you were interested in something more.”
The kindness in his eyes leaves my insides all twisty, but not in a lusty way. Maybe my luster is broken? “Sorry,” I tell him. “I’m just not a relationship kinda girl.”
“I know.” He’s still smiling, but there’s a glint of wistfulness in his eyes. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s Bradley.
“Hey.” I reach across the table and put my hand on his. “You’ll find someone amazing. Someone who wants more than your d—”
“—doctorly advice?” He grins, gaze skimming the wine bar again. It snags somewhere near the door and his eyes get wider. “Hey. Speak of the devil.”
“What? Oh.” My heart slams to a stop in my chest, flinging itself against my ribcage. I have to blink a few times before I’m convinced it’s really him. James, who I haven’t seen in weeks.