The Clarke Brothers (Complete Series)

by Lilian Monroe

  She’s quiet for a few moments, and I stare out my hotel room window, chewing my bottom lip. I always feel like I need my mom’s blessing, even though I’m a grown woman. If she’s not happy with this idea, then it will break my heart to go through with it. My head is spinning. What if Audrey is being bullied? How could I have missed the signs? I knew there was something off about that friend of hers — what’s her name? Megan! I could tell by the way Audrey talked about her.

  My mom sighs again, and it feels like a hand is slowly squeezing my chest so that I can’t breathe.

  “But it’ll break my heart to see you go, Zoe,” she almost whispers. I hear her clear her throat and her voice betrays her emotion. “I’m being selfish, and I’m sorry.”

  “Mom, you don’t need to apologize,” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “I should be happy for you. I should be celebrating. Instead, I’m sad that I won’t have Tuesday night dinners with my girls anymore.”

  “Mom…”

  She sniffles and clears her throat. “I’ll tell Audrey when she gets home from soccer camp, and then you can call later and explain everything.” Her voice is harsher, as if she’s forcing herself to suppress her emotions.

  “Mom…”

  “I’ll go over to your house to get anything that you might want her to bring. When were you thinking of flying her over?”

  “Mom, stop!” I finally say. “First of all, I’m flying you both over. I’m not having my eight-year-old daughter come here on her own. And plus, I want to show you this place too! Who knows, maybe you’ll want to move here with us!”

  My mom pauses and sniffles and clears her throat again. “Alright, honey. I’ll talk to you later when I have more control over myself.” I can hear her voice relax ever so slightly. “Love ya.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I hang up the phone and flop backward onto my bed. I hadn’t even thought of my mom! I’d only thought of Audrey, but of course my mother would be sad we were leaving! She has no one else in Seattle. My heart squeezes. She might feel like she was being selfish, but now I feel like that too.

  I close my eyes and put my hand over my forehead. I stay like that for many minutes, until I take a deep breath and force myself to get up. I glance out the window at the setting sun, and I try to shake off the heaviness in my heart.

  I’ve been here for over two months, and the sunsets never cease to take my breath away. I watch the colors shift and change as the sun goes down, the dark mountains cutting jagged lines through the sky. I lean my head against the window frame, and I stare off into nothing as I try to quiet my whirling mind.

  Ever since I got that phone call earlier today, I haven’t been able to make sense of what’s right. I want to take the promotion. I want Audrey to come here and I want to build a life with her, away from the memory of her father’s death and away from the city. If she’s being bullied at school, then I definitely want to get her out of there. I want her to experience something different, and I feel like I’ve found something special in Lang Creek. They’ve accepted me into their community so warmly, and I’d love for her to experience that before she’s old and jaded.

  And of course, I want to keep seeing Ethan. The look on his face when I told him about the promotion wasn’t exactly jubilant, but when we kissed in the parking lot, his eyes had softened and his smile had been brilliant.

  I jump when there’s a knock on the door. I open it to see Katie, dressed in her regular clothes with her bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Just finished work,” she says. “You want to come to Harold’s with me and Mara? There’s a band on tonight. You might know the lead singer,” she winks.

  I open my mouth just as my stomach grumbles. Katie’s eyebrows shoot up and she laughs. “Sounds like your stomach wants you to come!”

  I smile and glance at the time. It’s almost time to call Audrey. I nod to Katie, who smiles warmly. She, Mara, and I have become close over the past two months. Little Hailey reminds me so much of Audrey when she was born, and I think Mara has appreciated having us around to help out. Going out with them tonight will be a nice way to unwind after telling Audrey about the promotion and the possible move to Lang Creek.

  “I just have one quick phone call to make and I’ll be right over. Save me a seat?”

  Katie smiles and nods. I close the door just as my phone starts to ring. My mom’s face pops up on the screen and I take a deep breath, clicking to answer the incoming video call.

  “Hey, monkey!” I say when my daughter’s face appears on the screen. She smiles at me, and my heart softens.

  “I’m not a monkey, Mom,” she says, rolling her eyes like only eight-year-olds can.

  I laugh. “You’re my little monkey!”

  “Grandma says you have some good news for me.”

  “I do. How would you feel about coming to visit me?”

  Her eyes brighten and a smile breaks over her face. “Really?!”

  “Really.” Audrey jumps up and down excitedly and I laugh. Maybe this is the right thing to do.

  I take a deep breath. “Audrey, when you get here, I want you to tell me if you like it here. I’ve gotten an opportunity to stay here, and I want to make sure you like it, too.”

  Audrey’s smile fades a little and she frowns. “I would leave here?”

  “Yeah, munchkin. We can see if you like the school and if you meet anyone that you’d like to be friends with.”

  Her face falls and a frown appears over her forehead. “A new school?”

  My heart squeezes and I take a deep breath. “Audrey, are kids at your school ever mean to you?”

  She looks away from the camera and down at the ground in front of her. A pain passes through my chest and I wait for her to speak. She shrugs. “Just Megan, sometimes. And then everyone laughs at what she says.”

  I take a moment before I speak again because I don’t trust my voice. Anger flares in my stomach, and if that little Megan brat was in front of me, I’d want to wring her neck. I take a deep breath.

  “How would you feel about meeting some new kids? If you don’t like it here, you can tell me and we’ll figure something out.”

  Audrey chews her lip, finally lifting her eyes back up toward the phone. “What about Grandma?” Her voice is getting higher with every question and my chest tightens. A lump forms in my throat and I try to swallow. I’m starting to regret this.

  “Honey, don’t worry. Let’s just start with a visit and we’ll see from there, okay? Grandma will come with you to visit. It’ll be an adventure! You can climb a mountain and scream when we get to top!”

  Audrey’s eyes brighten and she laughs. “Really?”

  “Really. I can’t wait to see you, I’ve missed you.”

  “Me too, Mom.”

  I lie back in bed and before I know it, I’ve been speaking to Audrey for almost an hour. She eases the stress in my soul and soon I’m laughing with her as she tells me about soccer camp and piano and all the things that an eight-year-old finds to talk about. When we hang up, I sigh and clutch the phone to my chest.

  I hope she likes it here. I have to put aside my feelings for this town and for Ethan and do what’s best for my daughter. No matter what happens in my life or in my job, she has to be the priority.

  22

  Ethan

  “Calm down, Zoe,” I laugh. “You’ll wear my carpet out if you keep pacing like that.”

  “What if Audrey doesn’t like it here?”

  “She’s eight. She’ll adapt.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to rip her away from everything she knows. Her father died when she was young and that was trauma enough for one childhood.”

  “Come here,” I say, opening my arms and wrapping them around her. “It’ll be fine. It won’t be traumatic for her. She’ll get here tomorrow morning and she’ll love it.”

  Zoe has been on edge ever since she got the phone call offering her the new position last week. She’s so tense in my arm
s, and I try to rub my fingers through her hair to massage her scalp. She groans, and the tension in her body eases just a little.

  “What will I tell her about you? What is going on between us?” Her voice is muffled in my chest, and she pulls away to look at my face. Her eyes are shining, and her eyebrows are drawn together.

  “She’s met me. She knows I exist.”

  She searches my face and I sigh. “I know. Do I say you’re my boyfriend? My special friend? I haven’t dated anyone since Mark died.”

  Her eyebrows raise in question and I sigh again. “I don’t know, Zoe. I’ve never dated someone with a kid. I like you, Zoe.” It’s hard for me to say more, because a lump has mysteriously appeared in the middle of my throat. Zoe nods.

  “I like you too. I feel like a bad mother.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Because I’ve been here, shacking up with a sexy mountain god, and my daughter is back home by herself!”

  “First of all,” I start, touching the back of my hand to her cheek. “She’s not by herself. She’s with her grandmother, and from the sounds of it she’s having a blast.” Zoe scrunches her face and reluctantly nods. “And second of all,” I continue as the corners of my mouth tug upwards. “Did you say sexy mountain god?”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” she says with her face stern but her eyes smiling.

  “Sexy mountain god,” I breathe, staring off out the window as Zoe smacks my chest and pulls away.

  “This is serious!”

  “So when you say sexy mountain god, is that just physical, or sexual, or…?” I glance at her and see her fighting to keep a smile off her face.

  “I’m prone to exaggerating,” she says, shrugging and glancing at her nails. “It’s just an expression.” Her mouth is starting to curl upwards and I stretch my arms behind my head.

  “Right. Of course. I’ve just never heard that particular expression before. And it seemed to ring pretty true to me, so I was just trying to clarify what exactly–”

  “Oh my gosh, Ethan, be quiet, please,” she says, wrapping her arms around my neck and finally laughing. “You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen. Physically, you’re perfect. Sexually, you turn me on like no one before. Mentally, you’re intriguing and captivating. Happy?”

  She tilts her head to the side and raises an eyebrow. I press my palm in the small of her back and run my other hand over to the soft curve of her bottom.

  I shrug. “Your words.”

  She laughs then, and her shoulders relax. I pull her closer and brush my lips against hers. She shivers and sighs.

  “Thanks, Ethan,” she whispers. “I’m just freaking out.”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  I dip my chin down again and lay a soft kiss on her lips. She curls her fingers into the nape of my neck and pulls me in for a deeper embrace. I hold her close, feeling every tremor that passes through her as if it were my own body.

  The heat in my veins fires up, as it always does when I touch her, or look at her, or think about her. All I want to do is kiss every inch of her body and feel her skin against mine. I run my hand under her shirt and feel the heat of her skin again my palm, and another tremor passes through her.

  She moans gently, and her kiss becomes more insistent.

  I groan and pull her closer. I can’t get enough of her. We’ve seen each other almost every day for the past two months, and somehow, I still miss her when she’s not beside me. I inhale, filling my nostrils with her smell as my body tenses with desire. I kiss the soft patch of skin behind her ear and brush my lips down her neck.

  Somehow her shirt evaporates, and so does mine. I press my chest against hers and wrap my fingers into her hair. My body is on edge, and my vision is zeroed in on only one thing: Zoe.

  Just as my hand drops down to the fly of her pants, my front door bursts open. Zoe yelps. She jumps away from me and grabs the nearest thing to cover herself, which happens to be a cushion from the couch. Her eyes widen as she sees the hulking man in my doorway. A blush warms her cheeks and I turn to the intruder.

  “Aiden,” I say. “You heard of knocking?”

  My eldest brother grunts, and I notice the darkness in his eyes.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Hi, Aiden,” she says, still clutching the pillow to her chest. I find her shirt and hand it to her. She hides behind me and shrugs it on.

  “What’s up?” I ask my brother, who has politely averted his eyes as Zoe gets dressed.

  “Margaret McCoy is back,” he says, and the blood drains from my face. Margaret McCoy – Mara’s mother. The woman who tried to buy this town by building the big hotel. The one who vowed revenge on my brothers and me for burning down the hotel. I glance at Zoe, who’s looking at me with her eyebrows drawn together.

  “What do you mean, she’s back?” I ask, glancing at Aiden again.

  He shrugs. “Wanted to meet her granddaughter, I guess. Dominic is mad. You need to come.”

  My thoughts flash back to last year, when Dominic got so mad he decorated his front yard with shards of broken furniture. He smashed a chair so completely that we were finding splinters of it for weeks. So, if Dominic is mad, it’s not good. I nod to my brother, whose face darkens as he turns and stalks out the door.

  Zoe looks at me, wide-eyed.

  “She’s the one who disappeared after Dominic and Mara became an item?”

  I nod, trying to ignore the hollowness in my chest and the dread creeping into my heart. Zoe chews her lip.

  “Do you want me to wait here? I can go back to my room at the hotel when all this is blown over.”

  I shake my head. I want her beside me. Whatever Margaret McCoy wants, I’m sure there is some ulterior motive. She never cared about her daughter, so I doubt she cares about her granddaughter. Zoe is good at reading people, and it will help to have an outside opinion.

  “I’d like you to come with me.”

  She swallows. After a pause, she nods without saying a word.

  23

  Zoe

  My heart is in my throat as Ethan parks the car in front of Dominic and Mara’s house. He grabs my hand and we hurry to the front door together. I glance up at the windows, trying to glean some sense of what’s going on inside. Most of the windows are dark, like black eyes staring out at us in the night.

  “So why did Margaret McCoy leave again?” I ask, breathless, as we head toward the door.

  “She tried to use Mara as a bargaining chip in one of her business deals by marrying her off the highest bidder. Dominic had to go all the way across the country to get her back.”

  My eyebrows shoot up, and I look at Ethan. His face is dark, and he squeezes my hand. We step into the lobby and I expect to hear shouting and fighting, or at least raised voices.

  Instead, I hear nothing.

  The whole house is silent. Ethan pauses long enough to glance around as his brows draw together. He slips his hand out of mine and a sense of dread starts seeping into my heart

  I shouldn’t have come. This is a family issue. Why am I here?

  Ethan nods his head toward the front door, taking a deep breath. We stand on the front stoop and still, I can’t hear anything. Ethan looks at me. I raise my eyebrows in question and he shrugs.

  Raising a hand, he raps his knuckles lightly on the door.

  “Come in,” Mara’s voice floats through.

  Ethan wraps his fingers around the door handle and takes a deep breath before pushing it open. My heart is thumping, and I’m not even sure why. I brace myself for what I’ll find on the other side of the door, peering around Ethan’s body through the opening.

  It’s not what I was expecting.

  Based on Aiden’s tone before, and Ethan’s reaction, I was expecting something… I don’t know… morbid? Some sort of fight?

  Instead, Margaret McCoy is sitting on a rocking chair with little Hailey in her arms, cooing gently at her granddaughter. Mara is tidying up the baby changing table. I look
around for any sign of the older Clarke brothers, but they’re nowhere to be found.

  Mara sees me and smiles. Her face looks drawn, but there’s nothing in her demeanor that would say that something is seriously wrong.

  “Zoe! Come in. Hi, Ethan,” she adds with a nod of the head. “You guys want some tea or coffee?”

  “No thank you,” Ethan says in a low voice. “I was actually looking for Dominic.”

  “He’s at the workshop,” she answers. I glance between Ethan, Mara, and Margaret, not understanding what is going on. There seem to be layers and layers of history between these people that I can’t even begin to comprehend.

  Mara’s mother looks up from the baby and glances at Ethan. I see something flash across her face–a look of pure disgust mixed with anger–and a shiver passes down my spine. Her look is gone in an instant, and I’m left wondering if I imagined it.

  It could be that I’m just taking what Ethan’s told me about her and projecting it onto her. From where I’m standing, she looks like a doting grandmother.

  “Ethan Clarke,” she says slowly, looking him up and down. He freezes beside me, and I can sense the tension emanating from him.

  “Margaret,” he replies through clenched teeth. I’m afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid to do anything that might get in the way of this meeting. Mara glances at the two of them but avoids my eye.

  “What are you doing here?” Ethan continues.

  “I heard I had a new granddaughter. Can’t a grandmother come visit her first and only grandchild?” She clutches the baby closer to her chest and I feel Ethan tremble beside me. The baby starts fussing in her arms and Margaret shakes her head. “Go find your brother,” she says sharply. “You’re upsetting the baby.”

  “I’m upsetting the baby?! I’m nowhere near the baby!” Ethan says a little too harshly, and Hailey starts crying. I put my hand on Ethan’s arm. He looks to me, and I give him a loaded look. His shoulders slump and he stalks out the door.

  I watch him leave, wondering if I should follow. Mara clears her throat and forces a smile.