by Jill Shalvis
“I don’t think I can do this,” Winnie whispered, and although Piper had no idea what “this” was exactly, it almost seemed like Winnie was saying everything, which was heartbreaking.
As was the way that Cam wrapped an arm around her sister and she buried her face in his shoulder, taking strength from him.
Something Piper knew a little bit about.
“It’s not fair to her,” Cam murmured. “You need to tell her.”
Piper agreed, even though she wasn’t sure she was strong enough for another hit. But she managed to walk closer on wobbly legs.
Gavin silently offered her the ice cream.
She shook her head, eyes on Winnie and Cam. “Tell me.”
“Wait,” Gavin said. “Would you prefer a shot of vodka? Because probably, you don’t want to do this without a sugar or alcohol rush. If not for you, then do it for me.”
Piper watched as Cam kept his gaze on her sister until she nodded. Then he rose to his full height and turned to Piper. Reaching out, he squeezed her hand, but she pulled away. She didn’t know why.
Okay, she did know why. Whatever the hell was coming, he knew about it.
And she didn’t. “What is it, Winnie? What’s happened? Just tell me.”
Her sister sighed and lifted her head, eyes wet. “I . . . got something in the mail today. A check. It’s from Rowan’s life insurance policy, the one none of us knew he had. It’s a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Wow. Okay,” she said, seriously confused. “Why did the check come here? That’s probably just a post office delivery mistake, it happens all the time. You can give it to Emmitt.”
Winnie shook her head, her eyes overflowing. “The check’s written to me. I was his beneficiary. I didn’t know he’d done that—” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “He must have done it when he found out I was pregnant.”
Piper dropped to her knees beside Winnie. She was incredibly aware of Cam, who’d backed up to give them space but hadn’t left the room. It felt like he was both angry and worried, and yet she somehow knew it wasn’t directed at her. “That was incredibly generous of Rowan,” she said. “But I’m not sure I understand—”
Winnie murmured something so softly that she missed it.
Piper glanced at Gavin, her usual Winnie translator, but he was avoiding her gaze, so she turned back to Winnie. “I’m sorry, honey. I couldn’t hear you. What does you being pregnant have to do with Rowan having you down as his beneficiary?”
Winnie lifted her head and pressed both hands to her belly as more tears spilled out of her eyes and ran unchecked down her cheeks.
“Oh,” Piper breathed, sitting back on her heels, wondering how the hell she’d missed this. “He’s the baby’s daddy.”
Winnie nodded and it all fell into place. Winnie hiding the pregnancy from her for as long as she could because her sister knew how she’d felt about Rowan not being responsible. Emmitt infusing himself into Winnie’s life, teaching her how to do things, being so kind and welcoming—he was going to be a grandpa. Cam being so patient with her because . . . because this baby would be his niece or nephew. And he’d never told her. That hurt. As did the way her mind was spinning.
Gavin didn’t meet her gaze.
“You knew,” she said. She then turned to Cam, who absolutely met her gaze. In fact, he’d never stopped looking at her. “And you,” she said softly, because her throat was tight and on fire. “You knew too.”
The answer was in his expression, and the tight, grim set to his mouth.
She nodded, trying to absorb the blows. “I see,” she said to the room, even though she didn’t. Everyone had known about the pregnancy before her. Everyone had known about Gavin’s rehab before her. And it turned out that everyone had also known the baby daddy. They’d all known everything.
And she’d known nothing. She’d been kept out of the loop on purpose by her siblings, whom she’d put her life on hold for. And also by the man she tried not to fall in love with—and failed, by the way. He’d known more about her family than she had.
And hadn’t said a word to her. In fact, he’d told her he’d come to help his dad. On the heels of all this, some other uneasy realizations were coming hard and fast. One, Cam was right. He wasn’t the no-strings fling she’d set out to have, the no-strings fling she’d been up front about wanting.
Two, and even worse, he’d lied to her, or at least omitted the part about him knowing things about her family that she hadn’t. Important, life-altering things.
Which led to a third, extremely hard-to-process realization. The people in her life rarely put importance on her needs. Her parents. Her siblings . . . Now Cam as well, reminding her that once again, she was not important enough to come first, and never had been.
“Piper?” Winnie asked tearfully. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.” Okay, maybe a little. “But I’m hurt about the lack of trust and faith in me. But . . .” She rose to her feet, grabbed a tissue box off the counter, and handed it to her sister. “Your baby, your decisions.”
“It wasn’t about trusting you or having faith in you. It was more about my inability to actually believe I’d ever find my way in life.” Winnie blew her nose. “I’m getting there, but . . . there’s more.”
Piper closed her eyes for a beat. “Twins?”
“No.” Winnie looked horrified at that. “God, I hope not. But . . .” She bit her lower lip. “Well, the insurance payout was unexpected, but I’ve decided to put the whole thing into a trust for the baby’s education. And in a separate decision, Gavin and I want to buy you out of your third of the property. You can go to school, and we’ll stay and start up the B and B.”
Piper stared at her. And then Gavin. “What?”
“You wanted to sell so you could go to school, right? After all, you’ve sacrificed for us to do that very thing, including putting off your schooling for years. So it’s important to us that we give you the same chance. We got a property appraisal and a loan.” He pulled something from his pocket.
A bank statement of the family account, with a balance bigger than she’d ever seen or dreamed of, thanks to a large deposit dated the day before.
“I know you really wanted to sell,” Gavin said while she stared at it. “That this place is too much for you. But you’re not alone in it anymore. The three of us are a team now. You made this happen, turned us into functioning adults, and we’ll never forget all you’ve done for us. But this time, we’ve got you.”
“But a loan,” she heard herself say. “The costs, the interest—”
“Manageable,” he said. “And worth every penny. The money’s yours, Piper.”
She stared down at the statement, at her golden ticket to go. “But what are the terms and conditions? Are you sure you got a good deal?”
“Yes,” Winnie said. “Because Cam gave us the loan.”
Piper felt herself freeze for a single heartbeat, then only her head moved, like she was in the movie Carrie, turning to look at Cam. “What?”
“He got his attorney and accountant to look over our whole business plan,” Gavin said. “He said it looks solid. Plus, Cam wanted to invest in the B and B, for Rowan. He said Rowan would’ve wanted that.”
Piper hadn’t taken her gaze off Cam. He was watching her too, and giving nothing away while he was at it. Absolutely zero. And her heart died a little bit.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Rowan sooner,” Winnie said softly.
“Are you?” Piper asked. “Because I think that was a conscious choice, and now I have to live with knowing you didn’t trust me enough or want me to know.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Winnie said.
“What was it like?”
Gavin shifted uneasily. “Piper,” he said with censure, and she whirled on him.
“Don’t,” she said tightly. “Don’t you dare.” She turned back to Winnie. “I’d like an answer.”
Winnie looked well and pissed now. Guess they all were,
as the room was humming with tension and the weight of so many things left unsaid.
“Honestly?” Winnie asked.
“Sure,” Piper said. “Let’s try honesty for once.”
Winnie winced, but answered. “I didn’t want to hear about my bad choices.”
Yet another hit. “You really think that I’d do that to you right now?”
“No,” Gavin said, showing his middle-child status by interfering and playing peacemaker. “She just means that sometimes you get a little . . . bossy.”
Piper pointed at him. “I said don’t.” She pointed at all of them. “Each of you kept things from me, purposely.”
Cam said her name softly and took a step toward her, and she glared at him. “Are you kidding me? You told me you had my back. You told me I could trust you. You made me feel like we were partners. And then you lied. You lied and you hid stuff. And you . . . lied! You all lied to me, and probably laughed about it behind my back!”
“No. Never,” Cam said quietly. “And I get and understand why you’re upset, but—”
“No buts.” She shook her head. “I’m over all of this.”
“You’re missing the bigger picture here.”
“Yeah, I missed that you’re an asshole. All of you are.”
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Winnie murmured to Gavin.
“It is our family motto.” Gavin looked at Piper. “Let us tell you everything, okay?”
“No. I don’t care. You’ve surpassed the statute of limitations and I’m done.”
“Piper,” Cam said, his voice quiet and calm, although interestingly enough, his eyes weren’t either. “Before you go to battle, please at least hear everyone out. Because if you speak now without knowing everything, you might say something you shouldn’t. I know far more about this than I want to. The last thing I said to Rowan was pretty much ‘fuck you,’ and now he’s gone and I can’t take it back. He died with those words in his ears.”
Piper understood that, but she couldn’t function with the anger and betrayal flowing through her veins. “There’s not going to be a battle. I’m done.”
He looked at her for a beat, gave a single nod and left through the front door.
Okay, so he was done too, she supposed, and it felt like her heart cracked in half. Letting out a breath, she eyed her siblings, realizing Cam had been right about one thing. “I need a time-out before we do this.”
Winnie pushed to her feet. “I know I should’ve told you everything, but I got scared. And I felt like shit because I knew you’d think that my problems were about to become your problems, like always. And I didn’t want that. Not this time. Not after all you’ve done for me.”
“For us,” Gavin corrected. “Piper, I know we fucked this all up, but I swear, our intentions were the opposite. Please tell me you can get to the place where you believe that.”
Piper realized she was holding her breath, and slowly let it out. “I’m going to take my time-out now.”
They looked at each other and then nodded and walked away, leaving her alone.
Huh. That was one of the first times they’d ever done something she’d asked without having to nag. Okay, then. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself and her newfound knowledge that everyone she knew and loved had betrayed her. She turned and stared out the window at the lake, but found no peace. She knew she needed to talk to Cam. She was still furious, but . . . God. That look in his eyes when he’d talked about Rowan, and it being too late to take back the things he’d said.
She wasn’t the only one hurting, and dammit, that was hard to ignore. She went outside to look for him, but he was gone, and so was the boat.
Clearly she hadn’t been the only one in need of a time-out.
Hoping she’d find him at the tire swing, she headed that way on foot. She wasn’t a runner. She hated running. It was actually her personal idea of hell, but her feet seemed to forget that, because she was suddenly sprinting down to the lake and moving along the path around it at a pace that had her heart bursting out of her chest.
Or maybe that was just the emotions of the day. But when she got to the tire swing, there was no Cam.
So she kept going. After what was probably only half a mile, she got a kink in her side that hurt like hell and slowed her to a walk, but she still didn’t stop. She had no idea how long it took her, but she didn’t really start thinking again until she got to the hidden cove where she and Cam had moored that day, the one that seemed so long ago now.
She went to the rocky shore, where she sat, with her back to the stones, knees bent, staring out at the water.
It was cloudy. Fitting. The sky matched her mood, dark and turbulent.
With a sigh, she pulled the journal from her pocket and began to write down her feelings. Gavin had kept his secret because he’d wanted to wait until the right moment to tell her. Fine. Winnie had kept her secret/secrets because . . . well, because she was Winnie and she marched to her own beat, no drummer. Piper understood both of them, she got them, she accepted them. She also loved them deeply, which was the only reason they could hurt her at all. Her siblings’ needs had changed. They needed comfort and home, and she’d not understood that—which was on her. She stopped writing. Because there was no list for this, for a way to deal with it.
She wasn’t in control. Not even a little bit.
Because then there was Cam. She’d thought, mistakenly of course, that he was . . . well, hers. Her own little safe haven from the storm that was her life. Okay, yes, when he’d asked for more she’d freaked out a little bit. Or a lot. That was her bad. She’d needed time.
But it was mortifying to know that while she was angsting over whether she could give him all of her including the good, the bad, and the ugly . . . he’d already known it all, and more. He’d known what she hadn’t.
And he’d left her in the dark.
Everyone had known everything and she, the oldest, the only one who’d ever tried to keep them all together, hadn’t known a thing.
Her phone buzzed. She intended to let it go to voice mail, but it was Jenna. The one person who’d have her back in all this. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Jenna said. “I’m at the house and your siblings are looking like someone killed the cat. Which isn’t true, because the she-devil is yelling at me for food. Where are you?”
“Taking a time-out.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Piper told her everything, including the fact that she felt betrayed by everyone going behind her back.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Jenna said. “In the end, Gavin and Winnie managed to figure out how to get you the money to go back to school and still keep the property.”
“Without my input or knowledge, even though I’m one-third owner of this property.”
“Okay, they should have told you, but they did a great thing, Piper. Don’t lose perspective on that.”
“Cam helped.”
“Wow, what a bastard.”
Piper sighed. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Piper, they worked together to give you everything you wanted. What’s so wrong about that? Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you’re afraid.”
Piper squeezed her eyes shut tight. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Yes, I imagine you do. It’s probably annoying hearing that you’re sabotaging your own happiness to prove your deepest fears are true—that no one could possibly love you for you. Which of course is ridiculous since we’re all lining up to love you. You can hang up on me now.”
So that’s what she did.
Chapter 28
“You know exactly who you are.”
Piper finally left the lake, but she didn’t go home. She went to town and straight to the Whiskey River, because sometimes a girl needed a damn drink.
Boomer took one look at her face and made her a Shirley Temple.
Any other day she would’ve laughed, but
this time, now, she was horrified to find her eyes fill with tears.
“Oh, shit.” Boomer brought out a box of tissues from beneath the bar and set it in front of her. “Sucky day, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Works for me.” He brought her a bowl of peanuts and pretzels.
She stuffed her face for a few minutes and sighed. “Men suck.”
“No arguments there. It’s a genetic defect, I’m pretty sure. Want me to beat him up for you?”
“No.”
“Good, because honestly, I don’t think I could. He’s pretty badass. Rumor is that on his last mission, his unit took out an entire terrorist cell hiding in the waters off South America, where they were planning attacks on our allies.”
She downed her drink. Whether that was accurate or not, she knew the truth was probably even more heroic. “I’ve got this,” she said.
“Do you?” Boomer asked doubtfully.
“Hey, as my bartender, you’re supposed to bolster my confidence.”
“Sorry. You’re right. You’ve got this.”
Not so sure, she left the bar and went to Emmitt’s. The boat was back, but no Cam in sight. Emmitt wasn’t home either.
So she’d do what she knew Cam would do for her. She waited. After all, she had to learn to face her fears instead of burying them. So she walked back down to the marina and had a little stare down with the water.
Fear number one.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said out loud, lying through her teeth, of course. “But I’ll give you this. The sun shining on your pretty white caps is a nice touch.” Never one to do things half-assed, she made her feet take her to the end of the longest dock. Heart pounding, she stood there for a long moment watching the way the sun’s rays shimmered and danced across the water.
Then, very carefully, so as not to accidentally make a nightmare come true and fall into the water and drown, she sat. And then pulled out her journal and flipped through some of her entries. She had a list of books to read. Her sleep log. A school tracker filled with the classes she needed to take. Her calendar complete with stickers. Her bad-habit tracker . . . Damn. She really was a nut. She paged through to her secret secret bucket list and had to shake her head at herself. Maybe she hadn’t aimed high enough. She made another entry. Fear number two.
