Her Best Friend's Brother

by Kay Stockham

  “Shelby—”

  “I need to know the truth. I need—” her voice cracked with strain “—for someone to be honest with me instead of lying to me.”

  Seconds passed. Jerry exhaled and the gush disturbed the sunlit dust. The particles jumped and whirled.

  “I was laid off. Your cold turned into pneumonia and your fever went sky-high. We had to give you ice baths to bring it down. But the damn doctor didn’t want to treat you because he knew we couldn’t afford to pay and we didn’t have any insurance.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She…went to him.”

  Of course. “And knowing Mom, she probably rubbed it in your face.”

  “She didn’t have to. I was ashamed I couldn’t provide for my family. Your mother was scared out of her mind because her baby was sick and there was nothing I could do. Then she disappeared. I figured she’d gone to get Alex’s daddy, but when she came back she walked into the house carrying a wad of cash like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He snorted, shook his head. “Thousands of dollars. Just like that. I wanted to give you everything and couldn’t, and here was a man who wouldn’t acknowledge you publicly, but he’d toss his money around so long as no one knew.”

  “I was his dirty little secret.”

  “You were a beautiful little girl he missed out on raising because of his own stupidity.” He growled the words, making it clear he didn’t like her reference. “But seeing her with that money…I’d never contemplated murder before but I did that night.” Beneath the scrub on his face, his jaw firmed. “I even accused her of sleeping with him to get the cash, called her a whore. I know it wasn’t true. Your mama has her faults but she’s not like that.”

  A sound came out of her throat, derisive.

  “She’s not, Shelby-girl. Your mama is…She’s like a child. She’s bright and colorful and wants a lot of attention, demands it and finds a way to get it if she thinks she isn’t getting enough. But if you look below the show you see she’s got a good heart and, most of the time, she means well. She’s just…needy.”

  Immature and self-centered were better descriptives. “You’re making excuses for her.”

  “I’m tryin’ to get you to see that people are who they are. You can’t change them.” He inhaled and sighed again. “Shelby, the point is that many a man has gone to prison over stupid things done in anger. I was this close to going after that son of a—” He broke off and wiped a hand over his mouth like he wiped away the curse. “He wasn’t worth the dirt on my shoes, but I was that mad about it. Your mother and I—We could’ve conquered the world together, but when we fought we rubbed each other raw and bleeding. And after I knew the truth our fights always revolved around Bennington. Maybe we were divorced during the time you were conceived but she was my wife. It’s a wonder someone didn’t get hurt.”

  Someone had gotten hurt. Her.

  Shelby rubbed her hand on her jeans, able to feel the grime on her fingers from where she’d swept and cleaned the mill house floor like a madwoman until sliding down the wall to rest.

  “Once I cooled off and calmed down I wondered what kind of man would’ve chosen pride over your health? I admitted that she’d done the right thing. You needed help and that was all that was important, not my pride. Your mother took me back.”

  “But you left again. You didn’t stay long and you got divorced the third time. Why?”

  “That third time was because…accepting money to get you the medicine and help you needed was one thing, but I wasn’t going to let that man support us.”

  “Support you? How?” Shelby searched her mind for events, comments, but so much of her childhood had been spent outside to get away from the tension. When she wasn’t riding her bike or hiding in her room, she’d practically lived at the Tulanes. Anywhere but home.

  “She wanted me to take money from him. The man was a banker. He could arrange things and be discreet but I couldn’t tolerate a handout. Especially not from him. Pride is a dangerous thing. You and Alex were friends and all, but I didn’t want her daddy or anyone else thinking I couldn’t take care of you, and no matter what your mama said, I knew there would be talk.”

  “So you left again.”

  A tired smile crossed his face and he nodded. “After we split up that third time, I got a job clear-cutting a place outside town.” He grunted. “That damn tree took me down quicker than a blink. Your mother heard and came to see me. She brought me food. Cleaned the place up. She fussed over me something fierce, and I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I didn’t like it. I missed her. Missed you both.

  “I’d had some time to calm down and I realized she’d made some good points about the money in regard to you. He owed you. Not me or your mother, but you. Every father bears a responsibility to his child and there isn’t a man out there that should be getting by with shirkin’ on it.” He scratched his chest, his callused skin rasping against the fabric. “Anyway, I set down some rules about if and when we’d ever take money from Bennington again, that it had to only be for you when you needed something or got sick. Your mother agreed. We got back together and had a stretch of a few good years.”

  “Until—” She shifted sideways and stared at him in horror. “My car?”

  Jerry’s smile was grim. “Among other things. You weren’t sick. And there was nothing wrong with you not having a car like that at sixteen. It’s dangerous putting a know-it-all behind the wheel of something that drove that fast. A BMW,” he muttered, shaking his head. “But Pat said Bennington wanted you to have it.” He swore softly. “Then she turned around and got it early saying you needed to practice in it and I knew your mother wanted the thing for herself. She drove it the first six months until you got a job and needed it.”

  “She chose a car over your marriage? I wish she would’ve told him where to stick it.” She shoved herself to her feet and stalked across the floor, thankful it was getting darker inside the building because she wobbled drunkenly.

  “You weren’t sayin’ that at the time. Shelby, sit down before you fall down.”

  “I’m fine. I just…got up too fast.” When her head stopped spinning, she went to the door and stared out. A deer stood at the corner of her yard, and three more jumped from the woods across the road and made their way to the apple tree by her mailbox. She’d have to buy a case of soap again, otherwise her fruit trees would be history. It looked silly to have soap hanging from strings in the limbs but the scent seemed to keep the deer away.

  “Those were divorces three and four. Do I even need to guess why you divorced last time?” Her words sent the deer running, out of the yard, across the creek and into the field beyond. “Even though he never acknowledged me, I’m Zacharias’s heir. That’s why I got this place, isn’t it? Why Grandpa left it to me instead of her. That’s why you left once and for all.”

  Her fault. So many of their marital problems could only be blamed on her, because she existed. More proof that she and Luke had to do right by the baby and not repeat her parents’ mistakes.

  “No. He gave this place to your grandpa to pass on to you two years before I left. You just didn’t know about it. I divorced your mother that last time because Bennington’s wife finally passed and I got this fool idea in my head that since she was gone, maybe he’d finally do right by you both. I wasn’t going to stand in the way. The name Bennington held more clout than Brookes.”

  Shelby turned back to face him, anger filling her. That didn’t make sense. “You fought all those years and then just gave up? I don’t want his name. Why would I when he wasn’t here for me?”

  “I did what I thought was best. With his wife gone, he could man up and give you the life you deserved.”

  “All I ever wanted was for you and Mom to get along!” She thought of the hours she’d endured her mother’s drama, the tears, the way her mother had torn the house apart each and every time Jerry left. All the years, the ups and downs. Things had finally settled down, then the rug had been pulled
out from under her again. And all because Jerry wanted to be noble?

  She’d barely finished college and gotten her business degree because it had been everything she could do to work her regular job, go to school and keep her mother’s salon running until her mother had managed to drag herself out of her funk. And for what? Zacharias hadn’t married her mother or acknowledged Shelby. It was all for nothing.

  “I don’t expect you to understand my decision.”

  “Good. Because I don’t. I can’t fathom why—” Her head spun and she reached out to balance herself.

  “Shelby?” Her father hurried to her side and took her arm. “Did you eat today?”

  “I’m fine, I—”

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and pushed her gently over the threshold, across the stone porch and yard to her house. “Look at you. Damn hives are back. Why do you do this to yourself? It’s all right to get mad. It’s not your fault your mama and I couldn’t get along. We screwed up, not you. I should’ve been a bigger man but—”

  “A bigger man?” She stumbled on the second step leading to her back door but her father’s grip kept her on her feet. “You did everything you could to make her happy but she never was. Why did you keep coming back? Why not just forget about my lying, cheating mother and her Daddy Warbucks and live your own life instead of acting like a revolving door?”

  Inside the kitchen, he yanked a chair from beneath the table. “Sit down.” Her father grabbed a turnover from the cooling rack and shoved it into her hands. “Eat that and listen to me. I did what I did because I loved you like the daughter I thought you were the first five years of your life. It doesn’t make sense, I know that. I’ve said that to myself time and again, but I loved your mother. Simple as that. She was always high-strung, that’s just her way, but I knew that when I married her the first time. I couldn’t even blame her for shackin’ up with Bennington because if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

  Shelby swallowed the small bite she’d shoved into her mouth and battled the queasiness. “No one is worth what you went through.”

  His shoulders sagged at her words, and he sat back in his chair. “You were both worth it. Don’t you believe love is worth fighting for?”

  “Love? If she’d loved you, none of that would’ve happened. Nothing is worth setting yourself up for that much grief and upset.” She shook her head. “It just proves that love is one of those things people dream about but never get, much less keep. It’s just…a moment in time that doesn’t last.”

  Jerry pushed himself to his feet. “I hope you realize you’re wrong before it’s too late. And you are wrong, Shelby Lynn. True love is worth every moment of pain you might feel as a result.” Her father bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got to be on the job at four o’clock tomorrow morning and I need to head back, but I want you to call me, day or night, if you need me or anything else happens. You hear me?”

  She nodded. “Thanks for coming all that way.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. I had to come see for myself that you’re okay.”

  Shelby smiled. Okay was far-fetched. Still on her feet was more apt, but only because she’d had so much practice over the years. Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. The silly jingle from her childhood sounded in her head. She was definitely part of the Weeble toy club. “Be careful driving back. Watch out for deer.”

  “Always do.” He walked to the door and paused. “Shelby…you said you didn’t want his name. I’d be mighty honored if you’d keep mine.”

  Her thoughts immediately shifted to Luke and his proposal. What would Jerry say if she told him? “Don’t worry. I have no intention of changing it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “WHERE WERE YOU this weekend?”

  Anne-Marie followed Luke into his office like she always did. The habit had started after her separation from her ex when she’d come in with coffee, prop her feet up and try to distract herself by brainstorming with Luke.

  “I dropped by your place Saturday night but you weren’t home.”

  “Another of my brothers got married this weekend. I flew home for the ceremony.”

  He glanced up in time to see Anne-Marie inhale, her recently enhanced chest lifting beneath the black, slinky top she wore. Paired with white pants and no sign of a bra, she made California casual the hottest thing since Blu-ray. Too bad she’d gone more than a little overboard since her divorce.

  Once voted the up-and-coming female entrepreneur to watch, Anne-Marie’s midlife crisis had occurred at the age of thirty-four and included the boob job, revealing clothes and a sad bent toward sleeping with losers, a result of being blindsided by her now ex-husband’s affair. Even so, she possessed a great brain for business—if she’d lay off on the vanity clothes and get back to why she’d hired them all.

  “You should’ve said something. I haven’t been to a wedding in ages. We could’ve danced again.”

  The first and only time they’d danced was right after her separation. She’d had a few too many drinks and practically mauled him during the four-minute song. “I guess I thought Tennessee would be too boring for you.”

  Luke lowered his messenger bag to the desk and removed his laptop and the notes he’d taken on the flight to Tennessee. The return trip to California had been a wash because he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything but Shelby and the baby, the way she’d looked when he’d left her house. Shell-shocked. Confused. Determined to do things her way. And while he’d come to the realization that he’d settled for a one-night stand with her because he’d thought it was all he’d ever be able to have, he was tired of settling for less than what he wanted. Especially with this new development. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the thought of being a father, but he was also excited about it. He loved kids.

  “Did you get the notes I e-mailed for Mystic Magi?”

  He’d gotten them all right. “Yeah. Someone’s been busy.”

  Anne-Marie shrugged her bare shoulders and braced her hands on the desk, the move pushing her breasts together in an impressive display revealed by the hole in her blouse where the straps of her top crisscrossed in front and wound around her neck. “That’s why I stopped by. I wanted to go over them with you in person.” She leaned forward and smiled. “What did you think?”

  He thought they needed to have a talk, friend to friend. “Anne-Marie—”

  “You didn’t like them? Luke—” her tone turned chiding “—it’s just a few suggestions.”

  Horrible suggestions that would lower the high quality of the game. He dropped his gaze, found himself staring at a hefty amount of cleavage and jerked his eyes back to her face. She smiled a slow, teasing smile, aware of where his eyes had gone. What had happened to the woman with the plan to set Galaxy Games at the top of the charts? Where had she gone? If something didn’t change soon, if she didn’t get her head in the gaming world and stop coming on to every guy there, he worried for the health of the company. And for her.

  “Look, when I was reviewing the progress slides I could tell you’ve been stressed lately. What was the deal with adding that old mill to the castle keep? And why did you change Aiya’s hair color back to that mousy brown? I liked the new look we were working toward.”

  If he was stressed, it was because he was doing her job and his own with very little to show for it. He smiled grimly, once again reminded of how much Mystic Magi was based on Beauty—and Shelby’s home. Not to mention Shelby herself? He’d changed the heroine’s hair and added the mill after that night with Shelby. “The colors throughout are jewel tones, and her hair is golden-brown, not mousy. She looked too Goth with hair that black.”

  Anne-Marie flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Now she looks very…masculine.”

  “Think of her as low maintenance.” This time his teasing smile was genuine. “Something I doubt you know a lot about.”

  She arched an eyebrow high, but a grin curled h
er red lips at the corners. “Well, I see you’ve returned in a mood. But I’ll admit, I’ve learned to like my feminine comforts.”

  The old Anne-Marie was tough as nails and ballsy. She didn’t care about feminine comforts. A slightly polished-up Goth kid herself, she’d worn combat boots, spiked jewelry and cami miniskirts when he’d first come to work here. And he’d liked her that way. She’d shot straight from the hip. But now?

  Her husband’s betrayal with a softer, more feminine-looking woman had cut Anne-Marie’s confidence to the core. And even though Luke understood Anne-Marie’s initial response and commiserated with the pain of her marriage ending, he thought her dive into self-pity and surgical enhancement, her grand makeover scheme, should’ve ended before now. It was time to get back to business. “We’re going for the best imagery possible, right? That means you can’t put a heroine in the jungle with three-inch nails and long hair and expect a gamer to consider her realistic.”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine,” she said, seating herself on the edge of his desk. “I’ll trust your judgment. For now. Guess I’m getting nervous. We can’t afford to let this chance slip through our fingers, Luke. We have to keep our momentum going. So, maybe the two of us should make plans to get together this weekend and brainstorm how we’ll approach the purchasing team. My place or yours?”

  He paused in the act of emptying his messenger bag, his instincts kicking up in awareness. He respected Anne-Marie as his employer, but his deference to her authority was taking a nosedive. Hadn’t she learned her lesson the last time she’d mixed business and her personal life? “Uh…this weekend isn’t good for me. I have plans.”

  “For the entire weekend?”

  “My brother is leaving the country on a humanitarian medical mission to Niger and we’re having a party to see him off.”

  “Ethan?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

  Luke could practically see the cranks turning in her mind as she cycled through the many conversations they’d had about their families.