by Abby Brooks
“I don’t need your money. Just your recommendations when the time is right.” I watched a breeze play with a palm frond in the backyard, then turned to Maxine. “Why does everyone hate on my truck?”
She laughed, then stopped when she saw my face. “This is a serious question?”
“Yes, it’s a serious question. The engine is in great shape and it’s never let me down.”
“It also rattles so much, I’m surprised you don’t roll down the road in a trail of rust flakes.”
“Books and covers, Maxine. You shouldn’t judge. Or you might have missed out on this fine, though grumpy, handyman.” I thrust two enthusiastic thumbs at my black-clad chest.
“Seems to me, you’ve lost the grumpy part of that equation. Not the outfit, obviously, but you’ve been very happy lately.” Maxine cradled the bowl in one arm and attacked her dough with a spoon. “For that matter, so has Kennedy. I wonder why that is?”
The toss of her purple-streaked hair and gleam in her eye told me she didn’t wonder at all.
I leaned on the counter and folded my arms. “I mean, I’m not saying I’m about to start wearing floral shirts, cargo shorts, and flipflops, but, Kennedy is pretty great. You are, too.” I shrugged as the angel in question walked into the room.
“Aww, Wiki. That’s so sweet of you. You’re pretty great, too, though, let’s be honest, it’s not like you’re Collin West, even if you would look amazing in floral shirts and flipflops.”
Maxine guffawed. “What is it with you and that guy?” She turned to me. “You better watch out. He’s her celebrity yes…the one person she’d quit her job for a chance to date.” She finished the sentence with air quotes and an exaggerated wink.
So Kennedy had the hots for Collin.
That was news to me—as was the fact that she hadn’t told Maxine she met the man.
A jolt of jealousy sparked through me, but I squashed it with a mental hammer. I’d promised to work on the trust thing and that was exactly what I planned to do. Who didn’t have a celebrity they fantasized about? The only weird thing about Kennedy’s was that he happened to be my brother.
And that she didn’t tell you, a quiet voice whispered.
I quirked a brow and hit Penny Dreadful with a curious look. She sucked on her lips and stared at her feet, then gave me a shrug as if to say “what are you gonna do?” before awkwardly steering the conversation in other directions.
“So…work has been terrible.” She leaned on the wall and sighed. “I thought I was making progress with Emmanuel, but he’s back to hating me. And I swear Ramsey is out to make my life miserable just to prove a point.”
Maxine shook her head as she tossed an odd array of candy chips into her bowl. “I’m still appalled they’re timing you on your visits with patients. I mean, who ever heard of someone wanting a doctor to care less?”
“I’m more appalled that guy is still causing you trouble.” Ever since the fiasco at The Drunken Goat Ramsey had been making things awkward at work, like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. It was everything I could do not to growl my annoyance.
Kennedy let out a long breath. “It’ll die off soon enough. Just have to put my head down and get through it. Which I’m capable of doing by myself, thank you very much,” she added with a sharp look my way.
Maxine finished baking her cookies—oddly dense things that had puffed up like muffin tops—then wrapped them in cellophane and headed out for the evening, book club with friends followed by dinner with Carl. The man must have the constitution of a moose or the personality of a saint for eating those baked-into-submission goods day after day.
After a round of hugs and goodbyes, Kennedy pulled out a chair and took a seat. “You realize her social life puts ours to shame?”
“Never you fear. You and I have plans to rival hers this evening.” I leaned into the fridge and collected an array of juices as well as several oranges. As Penny frowned her confusion, I cut the oranges in half, then pulled out a juicer with an attached measuring cup. Slowly, decadently, I rolled up my sleeves, then went to work grinding the fruit into the utensil while giving her a look that was pure sex.
“What in the world are you doing?” she asked with a laugh.
“My girl likes fruity drinks, so I talked Lucas’ brother into sharing his favorite fruity recipe with me. This is the beginnings of what’s known as a Painkiller. Fresh squeezed OJ, pineapple juice, cream of coconut, and rum. Grate some nutmeg on top and you’ve got the perfect drink to decide what to do with the stuff in the guesthouse we didn’t donate.” We’d whittled down her grandpa’s items to just a few we thought Maxine would cherish.
Kennedy grinned. “These are the plans that will put Nan’s to shame? Froufrou drinks and going through my grandpa’s things?”
“Almost.” I finished with the oranges and poured the rest of the ingredients into a pitcher. “After we’re done with George’s stuff, we’re gonna get drunk and have monkey sex. That’s the part of our night that really matters. Animal noises and orgasms.”
“It’s almost like you know me or something. I’m all for monkey sex.”
“The order of the evening is important, Penny. Drinks. Knickknacks. Then and only then, can we get on with the good times.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Joe
I poured Kennedy her first Painkiller, tossed in a paper umbrella, and handed it to her with a flourish.
She took a careful drink and her eyes screamed “Yum!” “This is delicious. Definitely a homerun.” With a toss of her hair that had me wondering if I should reorder the evening, she folded her arms on the table. “I was thinking we should pepper grandpa’s things around the house. That way, Nan gets another sweet surprise every time she stumbles on one. You know, spread out the joy.”
“Hmm. That’s a great idea, but let me counter it with a better one.” I flared my hands. “Picture this. A shadowbox, crafted by yours truly, where she can hang everything in a place of honor.”
I waited for the applause and approval the idea deserved, even going so far as to add some wiggling jazz hands in case she didn’t catch them the first time.
Instead, Kennedy frowned. “Don’t you think that might weird out Carl? Having a shadowbox full of memorabilia from her marriage suddenly appear?”
I shrugged, trying to decide how much to fight her on this one. Randomly putting George’s things throughout the house lacked oomph and possibly verged on creepy. But Maxine was Kennedy’s family, not mine.
She took a long drink and her face lit up again. “I don’t know if you made enough of these, by the way.”
“I was informed it earned its name for a reason. Consider yourself warned.” I poured myself a glass and decided to drop the topic of the shadowbox. In the end, it wasn’t my place to push, even though giving in so quickly went against my nature. But, I was working on a more trusting, easygoing Joe Channing and that meant giving in to Kennedy’s not-so-great idea about how to surprise Maxine
I dropped an umbrella into my glass and painted on a giant smile. All I needed was the floral shirt and flipflops to complete the transformation into happy island inhabitant. “Have you ever seen Carl?” I asked, leaning against the counter.
“Nope.” Kennedy slurped down more Painkiller, then covered her mouth with her hand and frowned at the ceiling as if she thought the answer was hiding up there. “Have you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s been here since I have. I wonder what that’s about?”
“With Nan, it could be anything. She’s experienced true love. She’s strong. Doesn’t let the world tell her what to do or how to be.” She polished off her drink and gave me a goofy grin. “If anyone could pull off a purple house, it’d be her. I don’t know why I keep trying to talk her out of expressing herself. I kind of want to be her when I grow up.”
“Why not just be you? Believe me, after a lifetime of being everything everyone else wanted, it’s so much better to relax and be myself.”
“I like you.”
“You hated me first.”
“My reaction to you was pretty…visceral.” I gave her my most charming smile. “I wonder what changed my mind?”
“Maybe you hit the ground harder than we thought when you fell off the ladder?”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s got to be the answer. Thanks for solving that mystery for me. I’ve been worried I was losing my edge.”
“We wouldn’t want that, now would we? I can’t imagine the horrors of having Joe Channing without his edge.” With a toss of her hair and a hint of sarcasm, she rolled her eyes.
I decided to give her a taste. “You know what I see when I look at you? A strong woman who knows what she wants and is prepared to put in the hard work to get it. A beautiful woman who calls it like she sees it and definitely doesn’t need me to protect her…even though if I could, I’d save her from every hurt the world threw her way.”
Kennedy blushed. “Careful, Wiki. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were being sweet.”
“If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and call you a liar.”
She tossed her head back to laugh and damn if that floral shirt didn’t sound like a good idea.
With a scrape of her chair against tile, she lurched to her feet and swayed in place. “Whoa. Maybe I drank that too fast.” She scooped up her glass and gave it a wiggle. “But that’s not gonna stop me from having another!”
I stood. Took the glass from her, put it down, then rested my hands on the counter, with her between my arms. A smile brightened her eyes. She leaned in and I brushed my lips against hers. Once. Twice. A third time.
I savored her taste. Her touch. Her smell. She was a sleepy morning, buried in blankets with nowhere to be. She was sunshine and fresh air. For the first time in my life, I felt like I’d found home. Like I had someone who wanted me for me.
The thought scared me to death at the same time it made me grin like an idiot.
“What was that for?” she murmured when I released her.
I ran a finger along her bottom lip then stepped away. “I wanted to remind you of the monkey sex portion of the evening before you Painkillered yourself into oblivion.”
“Consider your claim staked.” She giggled as she lifted the pitcher to fill her glass, spilling a little on the counter as she topped up mine, too. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should invite Collin over for dinner or something.” Her gaze was everywhere but on me as she sucked in her lips and blushed.
“Why?” I stepped back to lean against the counter. “You plan on sneaking around with him behind my back?”
The joke landed with a resounding thud as a heavy dose of “oh, shit” flashed across Kennedy’s face.
She guffawed, her eyes too wide, her smile too big. “What? I wouldn’t…I mean…that’s ridiculous.” Her cackling laugh echoed through the kitchen and had my bullshit meter twitching.
One of the first things I learned about her was that lying made her more nervous than missing fingernails and dislocated shoulders. The moment she told even a minor fib, her tells would go off like police sirens.
Like they were now.
One. After the other.
After the other.
Any other woman, I’d assume my joke wasn’t as ridiculous as she wanted me to think. It was that obvious she was keeping something from me.
Or, maybe those Painkillers did more damage than I thought they would.
Either way, I needed to know if I had something to worry about when it came to Collin. I couldn’t let the fear just sit in my heart and rot. Nothing good would come of that, especially when I was supposed to be working on trust.
With that in mind, I took a deep breath and said what needed to be said. “If there’s anything between you and Collin I should worry about, please tell me now. Spend a couple years touring with a guy that famous and you’ll find plenty of people willing to use you to get to him. It only takes a couple times of falling for that to start taking it personally.”
“No, no. I promise, Wiki. You have nothing to worry about.”
And yet, the more she protested, the more I worried. Something wasn’t right, and her urgent attempts to make me think everything was okay only proved the point.
She’s had too much to drink, I reminded myself. There’s no reason to be suspicious.
Yeah, well, you’ve said that before, I countered.
But Kennedy was different from those other women…
Even if she had listed Collin as her celebrity yes.
Chapter Thirty
Joe
With Maxine calling off projects for the next couple days, time stretched out crazy long in front of me. Instead of losing myself to my work, I stewed about the strange conversation with Kennedy the night before.
This wasn’t a good thing.
The more I worried, the more I paced.
The chances that I’d wear a rut into the flooring of the guesthouse grew with each hour.
As soon as I stopped distracting myself, my thoughts darkened. Hell, even when I was distracting myself, I wouldn’t exactly have called my state of mind healthy.
“Come on, man. Get your shit together.”
Desperate to think about anything else, I wasted a few hours looking into what I’d need to open my contracting business. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard to incorporate, though I expected the learning curve would be steep when it came to actually running the place. I read about how to handle employees, payroll, and advertising until my eyes burned and my brain threatened to overload.
Clapping my laptop shut, I blinked at the walls in search of anything else to do. My gaze went to the box of pictures under the bed. Old Joe would have pulled them out and studied them one by one, reminding himself how many times people had let him down. New Joe ignored the temptation, but contemplated giving in so many times he nearly lost his mind.
No matter what I did to distract myself, Kennedy’s weird reaction to my joke about Collin kept stealing my attention like a storm rolling in. I’d push my worries away, then boom, all the signs my Penny was lying lined up for inspection, using a Marine voice even Lucas would approve of.
Present and accounted for, Sir!
The stuttering response after I joked about the two of them meeting behind my back was the wind whipping through trees.
Her non-answer to my question was the palm fronds lashing back and forth in a violent dance of deception.
The lip biting and blushing were lightening flashing in the distance as thunder rolled my way in ominous, bass-filled waves.
And yet, I knew…I just knew…Kennedy was faithful to me.
I could feel it. I trusted her.
Even if my monkey mind didn’t.
For every doubt it raised, I reminded myself of her virtues.
She’s using you, it whispered.
She’s the kind of woman who volunteers at a free clinic, I retorted.
She hated you when you first met, it muttered.
Yeah, well, she likes me now, I countered.
Seeing as my monkey mind was as stubborn as I was, I needed to fight fire with fire if I had any intentions of finding peace. Since I was determined to think something was going on between my girlfriend and my brother, I’d surprise her with the dinner she asked about. I’d watch them together and prove that all my worry was ridiculous. I placed the call before I could change my mind.
Collin answered on the second ring. “You realize no one uses these things as phones anymore, right? It’s all about the text, brother.”
“Since when do I care what anyone else is doing?”
“Since never.” He laughed and the tension in my neck uncoiled a fraction. “How ya been? Life still good?”
“Life’s still
good.” I paced to the window of the guesthouse and stared at the backyard. “I’m crawling the walls this week, though. Maxine’s watching the market and doesn’t want me to spend money for a couple days, which means I have nothing to do.”
“That’s never a good thing.” Collin laughed. “Maybe it’s a sign for you to start making Channing Construction a reality. You know, so you don’t drive yourself and everyone around you crazy.”
“Way ahead of you.”
On both counts.
I launched into what I’d discovered about business owning, chattering away like nothing was wrong while he asked questions and seemed impressed with my answers. The more we talked, the better I felt. I trusted Collin, just like I trusted Kennedy. The two of them together were on my team. The beginnings of my tribe. I was sure of it.
“I’m here for you,” he said when I finished droning on about business. “You had my back, now I have yours. Whatever you need, I’m there.”
“Well, good. ‘Cause I’m gonna need you and Harlow here tomorrow night. All this research made me realize I haven’t seen my dear, sweet brother enough lately. I thought, hey, you know what? I should invite him to dinner.”
“Look at you, all domesticated and everything.”
“Actually, Kennedy suggested it. I’m just following through—though I guess that does make me domesticated, doesn’t it?”
With the mention of Kennedy, the last remnants of my tension dissolved. Her name hit the conversation with zero impact. Collin loved Harlow, not my girl. I’d been ridiculous to worry that anything shady was going on between them. The kind of guy who thought stalking was the solution to a business meeting gone sideways.
I really needed to work on my trust issues.
“Did you know she listed you as her celebrity yes?” I said with a chuckle, rolling my eyes at what a fool I’d been to worry so much. “The one person she’d quit her job for a chance to…uhh…date? I gave her even more credit for not freaking the fuck out when she met you after I learned that.”