His Kindred Spirit

by Sloan Johnson

  (Dane)

  NEED YOU to hurry! They have James, don’t know where. Please, come home.

  My heart raced in my chest as soon as I read the incoming text from Brook. I flopped onto Grady’s couch, doubling over as I tried to get my breathing under control before I passed out.

  “Hey, you okay?” Jen sat down next to me and rubbed my back. Little Pax reached out and patted my face, although I couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just a reflex of him reaching out for the nearest adult while his mommy was preoccupied.

  Unable to speak, I simply shook my head. I hated James for what he’d done, but knowing he was in danger while I shared a bottle of wine with friends, wishing more than anything that Brook was here with us, made me want to puke.

  She swiped the phone out of my hands and read the message. “Grady! We need you out here.”

  Ugh. I didn’t want to involve him any more than I already had. “What’s going on?”

  “We need to get him home,” Jen told her husband. “Sounds like shit’s gone south in a hurry and he may be running out of time.”

  “I’ll get the flight booked,” Grady said without hesitation. “There’s one leaving at six tomorrow morning.”

  “Not good enough. I could drive faster than that, but I can’t leave yet. Dad needs me here,” I argued. A weight dropped on my chest as I realized that no matter what I did, I’d be letting someone down. Rushing back to Brook would mean not being here when Dad was released and staying here meant leaving Brook to fend for himself. I told him I loved him, but was I showing him how much he meant to me if I let him deal with the mess my family created? “I can’t go anywhere until tomorrow night after he’s out.”

  “Yes, you can,” Grady insisted. “You and Jen leave tonight with Pax. I’ll pick up your dad and we’ll follow.”

  “You want me to take them with me? Are you fucking insane? That’s the most ridiculous possible idea. What if these guys hurt them?” No way in hell was this happening. Against all odds, Grady had forgiven me for what my dad had been accused of doing to his family; we wouldn’t overcome the damage if his family got hurt because of mine. “If I go, I’m going alone.”

  “No you’re not,” Jen argued, already hopping off the couch. “You’ve had a long day already and you’re tired. We go together and we can take turns driving. It’s almost bedtime, so Pax should sleep a good chunk of the trip. Have these guys threatened any of the guests so far?”

  “Well… no.” Their sole focus so far had been on James, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t change tactics if they realized he didn’t have the money to pay them.

  “And they haven’t messed with any of the staff other than being a general nuisance, correct?”

  “Not yet, but we don’t know what they’ll do. Until today, they’d never kidnapped anyone either,” I countered. The situation was escalating and these guys were unpredictable.

  “You don’t know for sure that they took your uncle against his will. There’s a chance he left on his own, trying to keep them from hurting the business.” Grady excused himself to make a phone call, and Jen dumped Pax into my lap and started shoving supplies into the diaper bag.

  I held him close to my chest, deeply inhaling the scent of a freshly bathed baby. I’d always thought people were morons when they claimed simply holding a baby could be relaxing, but as I closed my eyes, I realized they were right. I did feel a bit better.

  “And remember, this isn’t just about you anymore. We have a vested interest in making sure everything turns out.”

  “I know.” I slumped back on the couch, and Pax curled up against me. I slowly rubbed his back. It was wrong of me not to tell Brook that when we realized I didn’t have enough assets to liquidate on my own, Jen and Grady suggested buying into the business with me. This was supposed to be our fresh start, and I was kicking it off with a huge lie. No matter how many times I promised Brook that Grady was ancient history, I could tell by the way he quieted whenever I mentioned my friend that our past relationship, if you could even call it that, made him uncomfortable.

  “You keep saying you’re ready to make a change in your life,” Jen reminded me as she shifted to a basket of clean laundry. Without needing to be asked, Grady brought her an empty suitcase. “This is your first big test. It’s time for you to believe that people love you and want to help you. Not everyone is going to lie to you. Those who matter aren’t going to be scared off when times get tough. Let us in.”

  “Do I have much of a choice?” I quirked an eyebrow and glanced down at the already stuffed suitcase.

  “No, you don’t.” This from Grady, who was in the other room. “You should know by now that arguing with Jen is pointless. She will win every time. And in this case, she’s right. Once the paperwork is signed, your uncle gets the money and loses his claim to the inn. Honestly, she should be there since there will be paperwork for her as well. And once the trust clears, we can make the rest official.”

  “But what if something happens?” I repeated.

  “Nothing will happen because even if they have someone watching the inn, I have a plan,” Jen informed me. “You’re going to drop us off on the other side of town, and we’ll get a cab to the inn. As far as anyone else knows, we’re just a mom and her little boy in desperate need of a vacation. And that won’t be a stretch for one of us. Believe me, it’s no hardship to spend time at the beach, especially since Uncle Dane and Uncle Brook are going to show their undying gratitude once this is all done by babysitting so I can have a little me time.”

  I handed Pax to Grady, excusing myself to the guest room that’d always been mine when I visited. As I shuffled through the hall, I chuckled, thinking about how similar tonight was to the last time I’d seen Grady and Jen.

  I stared at my cell phone for a few minutes, trying to build up the courage to call Brook and come clean. It wasn’t fair to him to be left in the dark, and if Grady being my business partner was a sticking point for our relationship, I needed to know that sooner rather than later.

  He picked up before I even heard it ring on my end. “Hey, did you get my message?”

  “Yeah, and apparently we’re going to head out within the hour. We should be back by morning,” I told him. I let out a heavy sigh, trying to shake off the weight on my chest. “Tell me what in the hell happened. Have you heard from James again? Is there anyone hanging out on the property who shouldn’t be there? If there is, you need to call the cops. I don’t give a damn who it pisses off. They’re not going to intimidate you. I can’t be worried about you when I’m driving through the night.”

  “Dane, I don’t want you doing anything dangerous. You had a long day. Why don’t you wait until morning to drive down here?” Now that Jen and Grady had convinced me I needed to get back to the inn as quickly as possible, waiting was no longer an option.

  “Babe, it’s okay. Jen and the baby are coming with me so we can take turns driving,” I explained to him.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Brook said, and I wondered if there was something else he wasn’t telling me about what was going on back home. “Honestly, I’ve got things handled here for now, and your uncle swore up and down that he’s managing things on his end and no one’s going to bother us.”

  I nearly laughed at the idea of trusting anything James said at this point, when he had already proven how untrustworthy he was. Just because James said the situation was under control didn’t mean a damn thing to me. No, now that I’d resolved to get home as quickly as possible, that was what was going to happen.

  “It’s time we get the problem taken care of once and for all, Brook. And I know you’re worried about me bringing Jen down there. I was too,” I admitted. “But one thing you’re going to learn about Jen and Grady is they’re even more stubborn than me. Jen has a plan, and it’s a good one. But I need your help. I don’t care what you have to do, but I need you to block off a room for Grady’s family. I’ll text you all the details as soon as I can.”

&
nbsp; “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?” Brook let out a huff, and I could almost picture him with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, glaring at me because we both knew damn well that the inn was booked solid through the summer. Neither of us said anything as Brook typed away at the keyboard on the other end of the line. “Dane, I’m telling you there’s nothing available. The only thing we could do is put them up in your room, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to need a place to stay too. And what about when your dad comes?”

  “We’ll figure all that out. There has to be something we can shuffle around.”

  “I’m looking and I’m telling you there’s nothing,” Brooke shot back, words clipped. I knew he was upset with me, but there was no other way. I’d done everything I could do. Now I needed him to come through for me on this one detail.

  “Hadn’t you blocked off the room for my dad?” At the time he did it, I’d argued that my dad and I could share a room, but now I was grateful that he’d insisted we needed a private place and I needed space to get away when trying to reconnect after a decade apart got to be too much. “If you have to, put them in that room and my dad can stay with James, at least for a little while.”

  “Are you sure that’s the best idea?”

  It was possibly the worst option, but we didn’t exactly have many to choose from at this point. One way or another, Jen and Pax would be arriving at the hotel tomorrow, and in order to make everything look believable, they were going to need a room.

  “Once I get down there, we’ll work on a better long-term solution,” I reassured him. “But for now, just like with everything else, we just need to buy ourselves a little bit of time. If you hear from James again, tell him you talked to me, and he needs to be at the hotel tomorrow morning if he wants this problem to go away.”

  I lay back on the bed, closing my eyes as I imagined how Brook would react when I told him the part of the plan I hadn’t already. There was a good chance he’d be so upset with me for lying to him that everything I’d gone through this past week would be for nothing. A pit formed in my stomach and I pushed off the mattress, ready to sprint to the bathroom if I was about to lose the little bit I’d eaten at dinner.

  “I might’ve already hinted that to him,” Brook admitted. “I know you didn’t want him knowing what was happening before you got back, in case things fell apart, but Dane, you didn’t hear him on the phone this afternoon. He sounded so defeated. And I know it might be wrong of me to feel bad for the guy, but I wasn’t even thinking about him.”

  Hearing confirmation of James’s mental state had me pacing the room. I didn’t want this, didn’t ask for any of this. It was hard to believe that as little as a month ago, I’d only cared about myself, but now I was terrified for what James was going through even as I was pissed off at him for dragging the rest of us into his mess.

  “Babe, I’m not mad. You did what you needed to do, and you’ve already done so much more than any employee should be expected to do.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized how cold and distant they sounded. “I didn’t mean it like that, babe. You have to know I don’t see you as an employee anymore. You’re everything to me. The only reason I’m dealing with all this is because I can’t imagine what it’d be like to walk away from you.”

  “I know.” The words were right, but there was a palpable difference in the cold delivery of his response. This was why I didn’t do relationships. I absolutely sucked at knowing what to say and when to say it. I wished I was already back home, taking Brook in my arms and begging him to forgive me.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you,” I said, resigned to the fact that I’d already put myself on Brook’s bad side. “Jen tried to make the numbers work so I could buy the inn from my uncle free and clear, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t ready to give up without a fight, so when Grady suggested that they help me come up with the rest of the money, I agreed. At the time, I told myself it was the right thing to do, but I think even then, I knew it was wrong to make a decision like that without talking to you first.”

  “Thank you for telling me.” Again, his words were clipped, and I wondered if I’d be walking back into the inn as a single man, trying to escape the ghost of a relationship that could’ve been amazing. “I won’t tell you I’m not upset, but you had no responsibility to discuss your financial situation with me.”

  “You’re wrong,” I insisted. “Don’t you understand that I’m doing this for us? The only reason I’m trying to save that place is because of you. Yes, a small part of it is wanting to continue the legacy that my grandfather tried desperately to build for himself, but the inn has become more than a building or business to me. Everywhere I look when I’m there, there’s a memory of you. Please, Brook, let me fix this.”

  “It is not your job to fix everything for everyone else,” Brook argued. “And I’m not saying there’s anything to fix here either. But I need some time to figure out how I feel about you being business partners with your ex and what that means for us.”

  I might not be experienced with relationships, but I knew that typically when one person asked for time, it meant they wanted to be left alone. It meant taking a break. I slid down the wall, fighting back tears, hating myself for how badly I’d screwed this up.

  “Okay.” It killed me to think of Brook walking away, but I respected him enough to honor this wish. That didn’t mean I was going down without a fight. “Before you get yourself all worked up thinking Grady’s trying to get back together with me, I’d like for you to get to know him and his family. Believe me. If there was any chance of a future between me and him, it would’ve happened long ago. Even before he met Jen, I think both of us knew we were little more than good friends who liked getting off together.

  “Not once did he make me feel the way you do. There was a brief moment when I thought I was in love with him, but all it took was meeting you to realize it was a platonic love.” I dragged my fingers through my hair, hating that we were so far apart right now. This was even worse than the night I’d walked out on him at the restaurant, and this time there was no way for me to walk up to him and demand that he hear what I was saying. “You’re the one I love, Brook. You’re the one I want to spend my life with. And if you give me the chance, I promise I’ll spend every day trying to prove that I’m worthy of your love, even when I don’t believe that myself. You can do so much better than me, and no matter what happens, I will always be grateful to you for showing me that sometimes falling in love is worth the risk.”

  There was a long enough silence over the line that I pulled the phone away from my ear to see if Brook had hung up on me partway through my rambling profession of how much I loved him, but the call was still connected.

  “Say something. Please. Tell me we’ll eventually be okay.”

  “We will.” For the first time during our call, Brook sounded like he missed me as much as I missed him. “Once we get through this and I have time to stew in my pettiness, we’ll be fine. I love you too, Dane. God knows, you’re challenging on a good day, but I don’t want you thinking I’m giving up on us. And on the bright side, I’d say this is a damn good challenge to figure out if we’re strong enough to get through the hard times together.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Jen poked her head inside. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but if we’re going to head out, we need to get ready. Grady’s outside shuffling stuff around so there’s room for Pax.”

  I held up a finger to let her know I’d be out in a minute. “Babe, it sounds like Jen’s anxious to hit the road. We should be there early tomorrow morning if we don’t hit traffic.”

  “Drive safe, Dane,” Brook pleaded with me. “I’ll keep everything under control until you get here. Not sure how, but I’ll manage.”

  “I have no doubt you will. I love you.”

  “Love you too.” Brook sounded less irritated than he had earlier, giving me hope we really would be okay.

  Ch
apter 20

  (Dane)

  AFTER BREAKFAST the following morning, I left Jen and the baby at the diner waiting on a cab to the inn. I’d argued that I should wait with them, but she’d won the battle when she countered that it’d be harder to sell the story that she was just an early-arriving guest if we pulled up at the same time.

  As I crested the top of the bridge leading to the barrier island, I was overcome with a sense of home I’d never felt before. Not since the authorities raided my dad’s house when I was a teen had I felt so deeply rooted to a place on the map. And the comfort washing over me had nothing to do with the inn and everything to do with the man who waited for me behind the front desk.

  I’d hoped to get into town early enough to sneak Jen and Pax into their room before slipping into bed next to Brook for at least an hour, but a bad accident had closed the interstate completely just south of Washington, D.C. Now, I’d be lucky if there was time for a stolen kiss in the alcove between customers.

  My heart raced as I pulled into one of the reserved stalls beside the building. James’s car was there. Did that mean he’d come back? Probably not, since anyone who’d met the guy had to know better than to trust him to follow wherever they took him. God, I hoped I hadn’t gotten back too late and there was still time to get his signature on the paperwork so I could bail his ass out for the first and last time. I left everything in the truck; the only thing I needed was already inside.

  Instead of walking in the main door, which would be a sure way to distract my boyfriend, I snuck around to the deck, spying on him through the french doors. Brook was busy checking out a family with two kids on the verge of a meltdown. As he processed their paperwork, he spoke to the kids, who were captivated by whatever story he told them. It was a sentiment I understood well. Once they waved goodbye, I quietly opened the door, hoping to sneak inside.

  “You’re really here!” Brook squealed as he rounded the desk. I barely had time to brace myself as he leaped into my arms. It was hard to decipher what he was trying to say with his lips pressing repeatedly into my skin, but I got the message loud and clear.