by Sara Whitney
Shit. No. Aiden wasn’t here. She’d gotten exactly what she asked for that morning when she’d made it clear he had zero place in her life. She and Blue were flying solo, and it was miserable. But she forged onward, chatting with cousins, neighbors, and a big-eared, broad-smiling fellow graduate she suspected was more than a little head over heels for her sis. Good luck to them both.
After twenty minutes, she hit the screw it point and turned to brave Peter and his guffawing posse of fellow white male insurance agents. Not like the day could get worse, right? She crossed to the all-male cluster—still gathered around the massive silver grill—and greeted her stepdad with a perfunctory kiss on the cheek.
“Hi.” She kept it short and waited for him to rain down hell about the fact that she was there without her boyfriend.
Instead, he surprised her by saying, “Good to see you. Fellas, this is my stepdaughter Thea. She works for the Brick radio station.”
“Hello, gentlemen! What’s new in insurance?” she said brightly to the half dozen ruddy-faced polo shirt wearers surrounding her. She’d mastered the art of doe-eyed obsequiousness over the course of her many jobs, and she knew this crowd would eat it up like she was driving a golf cart full of imported beer into their midst. “Isn’t everyone so excited for Annabelle? She’s going to love Northwestern.”
“Hope so.” Peter used a red-and-black Happy Graduation napkin to mop at his sweaty forehead. “It’s going to cost us enough.”
The men all nodded and harrumphed about tuition and highway robbery and student loans, leaving Thea free to glance down at Blue. Now, girl. Do your dirty, sinful business on Peter’s stupid tassel shoes. That little bit of petty revenge might be the only bright spot in her weekend. But Blue just rolled to her back and waved her paws in the air in a blatant invitation for a belly rub. All the men ignored her friendly overture, the monsters, so Thea bent to do the honors.
“Gonna have to hold off on getting that boat, huh Pete?” one of the men asked.
Peter clapped a hand over his heart. “Bite your tongue. That Cat 34’s got my name on it.”
Thea glanced up sharply. “Oh! I was just out on a Cat 34 with my… friends.”
The men all turned surprised faces to her, and as she stood, she dug through the recesses of her brain to recall any factoids Trip had offered about the Hammerhead the day before. “Its motor will absolutely get you where you need to go, but on a breezy afternoon, you won’t find any better mode of transportation than those big, beautiful sails.”
Although the memory brought nothing but pain, she offered the group a toothy smile and breathed a silent sigh of relief when they all muttered their approval of her sailing prowess. Peter’s surprised gaze rested on her for a long moment, and she braced for some cutting comment about her getting her boat lingo all wrong.
But he just raised his beer bottle in salute. “I was in your neighborhood the other day. House is looking good.”
She mustered a smile. “Thanks. I’d love to have you and Mom for dinner sometime soon.”
“Let’s schedule something,” he said. “Landscaping could use some work though. Need the number of our gardener?”
Just like that, her equilibrium vanished, and she cut the conversation short and handed Blue off to Annabelle for a spot of sisterly dog-sitting so she could escape for a few minutes. She skirted the kitchen, where the family matriarchy was gathered to dissect the latest gossip, and headed to her old bedroom on the second floor. It no longer had a decor aesthetic straight out of Lisa Frank’s trippiest nightmare, but it still had her old twin-size bed. She kicked off her flats and flopped onto the boring beige comforter, the bed frame creaking as it had for a decade. If she closed her eyes, it was just like being back in high school. Of course, back then she’d only imagined what it would be like to get to kiss Aiden Murdoch. Now she knew: it was incredible, and only a deeply damaged person would toss it aside lightly.
She curled onto her side and pulled her knees to her chest as if that would ease the ache in her heart. If only he hadn’t taken her by surprise with his declarations of love. If only he’d eased her into it, given her the chance to get used to the idea that he truly felt things for her that went past friendly affection. If only…
If only you weren’t a coward.
She curled even tighter into herself and fought back a sob.
“Honey?”
Her eyes flew open at her mother’s voice, and she swiped at her tears before she sat up. “Hi, Mom.”
“I was hoping to catch you before you left. I’ve got something for you.”
Carly sat at the foot of the bed, and Thea took the opportunity to tap out a quick text to Annabelle: Mom distraction is a go if you need it. Belly was too good a kid to actually sneak out, but it was still the sister code.
She hit Send and reached out for the framed photo her mom was holding. The tears she’d been trying to suppress hit her in force when she recognized the two people in the center of the shot. “Is this…?”
“You and your dad. You’d just turned six.”
She blinked to clear her eyes and studied the father and daughter duo standing on a front porch with an explosion of greenery off to one side. Her dad was crouched with his arm around her, his T-shirt and khaki shorts coated in dirt, and her knees showed a telltale layer of topsoil too. They were both squinting into the sun and beaming with identical smiles.
“Look closer at the background,” Carly said.
She looked past the two figures front and center and almost dropped the frame when she recognized the round-topped door they were posed in front of. “My house!”
“He was doing a landscape refresh when you and I stopped by to bring him lunch. You insisted on helping him with some planting. The homeowner came out to watch and said it was one of the sweetest things she’d ever seen.”
Thea brushed her fingers over the glass covering her dad’s broad grin as a tear tracked down her cheek. “I think I remember that day.”
“I hope you do. It was a good day.” Now her mom was the one barely holding back tears. “He loved that house. He used to tell me he imagined you living in one just like it someday.”
“You knew about my princess house?” Thea’s voice emerged thick from her throat.
“Of course. Your dad and I shared everything.” Carly tipped her head back, the soft line of her jaw working as she swallowed hard. “I was looking through old photos for Annabelle’s graduation announcement and stumbled across it. What are the odds, huh?”
Thea hugged the frame to her chest, almost too overcome for words. “I love it. Thank you.”
Her mom patted her knee, then said the worst possible thing in the world. “Aiden’s not with you today?”
Her stricken expression must have been answer enough because Carly’s face fell. “Oh. I see.”
“Another one bites the dust, right?” Thea didn’t even have the strength to put any heat behind it. No breakup had ever hurt like this one had.
“Honey, no. I’d never joke about that.” Her lips thinned. “And Peter’s not going to joke about it anymore either, not after Annabelle and I yelled at him all the way home from your new house.”
“You did?” She couldn’t help the little spurt of joy at the thought of those two sticking up for her.
“Of course. You’ve always brushed him off before, but you seemed really upset that night. So we let him have it.”
Thea closed her eyes and let herself imagine that scene for a few seconds. “I’m sorry I missed that.”
“And I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Aiden. He was always the nicest boy.”
She sighed. “He really, really is.”
Silence fell over the bedroom, punctuated by the party chatter barely audible from the yard.
When her mother spoke again, her voice was halting. “I… know what you really think about my marriage to Peter.”
“I doubt that very much,” Thea said flatly.
“You think I was scared
to be on my own, so I married the first man who came along.”
Well. Maybe her mom did have some decent insights.
“Well, you’re right. And you’re wrong.” Carly twisted the wedding band on her finger. “I was terrified to raise a daughter alone after your dad died. But then I fell in love with Peter, and yes, it was a big change for all of us, but I’ve never regretted marrying him.”
Thea wasn’t able to mask her expression quickly enough, and her mom burst out laughing. “Really! For one thing, he gave me Annabelle. And I know he’s opinionated, but those opinions are almost always meant to keep the people he loves safe and healthy. And that includes you.”
“His love language is tactlessness?” She and her mom laughed softly together, but then again, how often had Peter fussed at her about upgrading Juniper to a safer car? She’d always assumed it was because he was image-conscious, but maybe he’d actually been concerned about things like side airbags and crumple zones. Too bad he didn’t know how to be concerned in a less abrasive way.
“Everybody shows love differently,” Carly said quietly.
And like that, Thea’s mind got stuck on the idea of Aiden’s love language. He’d taken her by surprise that morning with an out-and-out declaration, but hadn’t he been telling her what he was feeling all along? He’d yelled at her about going onto the balcony. He’d trusted her with a dog. He’d begged her to take a key role in his family company. He changed his plans for her, for God’s sake, turning something fake into something very, very real. Maybe all that had been his way of saying he loved her. And if she’d cherished every one of those moments, along with countless others she’d shared with him, did that mean she’d fallen in love right back?
“You grew up to be so strong. You stand on your own two feet, and I love that about you. But there’s one more thing to think about, sweetie,” Carly said. “Your dad and I got married after knowing each other for three weeks.”
“You did?”
Her mom nodded, a secretive little smile on her lips. “Three incredible weeks. And we just knew.” She picked up the picture frame and smiled down at her husband. “There’s no right way to fall in love. And yes, there’s no guarantee that it’ll last. But what a tragedy not to find out.”
Her words knocked the breath from Thea’s lungs, and Carly leaned forward to press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “I’d better go see if Annabelle’s managed to sneak out with her friends yet. See you down there.”
“Yeah,” Thea said faintly. “See you down there.”
But she didn’t leave her room right away. She stared at the twenty-three-year-old photo of her, her dad, and her princess house, and she wondered if there was any way she could undo the mistakes of the past.
Twenty-Six
“Look sharp, gentlemen! Soft hands on deck!”
Aiden gritted his teeth at the shouted greeting but immediately replaced it with his usual grin as he joined the three-man crew in a kitchen swathed in tarps and plastic sheeting.
“Hardly. Ladies dig calluses.” He addressed the loudmouth in the group. “Speaking of, your daughter still dating that firefighter, Mendez?”
Ben Mendez’s eyes narrowed. “You stay the hell away from my little girl, desk jockey.”
Aiden raised his hands—sporting his many honestly earned calluses, fuck them very much—and said innocently, “Just asking.” That earned an over-the-top relieved sigh from Mendez, which he ignored as he turned to Gene Fitzsimmons. “Figured you could use a hand on the wall teardown today.”
He also figured if he spent another day chained to his desk, he’d lose his mind.
Fitz merely nodded, his dour face immobile. “Plenty of sledgehammers to go around.”
Leaving Mendez to chip away at the old tile with an assist from the kid they’d hired last week, he and Fitz approached the massive wall running the length of the kitchen to separate it from the living and dining rooms. He gave a low whistle. “This is it, huh?”
“Yep.” Fitz didn’t have to tell him how much work it would take to knock that beast down.
This time Aiden’s grin was genuine. “Let’s do it.”
Mendez’s barbs had hit home; now that he was officially running Murdoch Construction, he wasn’t much more than a pencil pusher, and compared to telling yet another client about the benefits of granite counters or figuring out why the hell his phone wouldn’t sync to the master calendar on their new management software, knocking down a wall was so much simpler. A safe way to channel the anger that had been dogging his heels since he’d stormed out of Thea’s house two weeks ago. So he pulled on a pair of work gloves, settled safety goggles over his eyes, grabbed a hammer, and got to work.
Swing, slam, repeat. He fell into the rhythm like he was rediscovering an old friend. The brainless, brutal work was the only good part of his June so far. Even better, Fitz wasn’t a talker, and even if he was, the radio was turned all the way up. Nobody was asking for an updated timetable or a delivery date or an estimated total. And thank fuck, nobody was hitting him with sympathetic eyes about the fact that his girlfriend wasn’t coming around anymore. Instead, he swung his sledgehammer and worked out his frustration through the magic of swing, slam, repeat until his Murdoch Construction T-shirt clung to his sweaty chest and his back and arm muscles screamed for mercy.
“I think that’ll do it,” Fitz announced after a solid sixty minutes of grunting and drywall dust.
Aiden pushed his safety glasses on top of his head, absurdly pleased at the job he’d just done.
The older man turned to Aiden and clapped him on the back. “See? You’re not as useless as they all say. You can still do a man’s job.”
From the kitchen, Mendez and the new kid chortled, and Aiden deadpanned, “My delicate hands. I think I got a splinter.” Then he made a show of pulling out his phone. “Would you look at the time? I’ve got to get back to my pansy-ass office. Guess that leaves you guys with the cleanup.”
More laughter. More backslapping. But as he stepped through the front door, Fitz followed him out and walked with him to his truck with a serious look on his leathery face.
“Just wanted to let you know you’re doing a good job, son. Some of the guys were worried about the transition, but you and Trip are keeping things going.”
All Aiden could manage was a single nod of his head. His dad was likely never going to be in a position to see how his sons were running the family business, but praise from the longest-serving Murdoch employee was a strong second place to that paternal approval.
The older man fell silent, and Aiden’s neck tightened as he waited for whatever complaint or problem was about to roll his way. Instead, Fitz’s eyes searched his face for a long moment before he said gently, “I’ve got a granddaughter. Nice girl. You let me know when you’re ready to get back out there, yeah?”
The clearheaded bliss of destruction faded. “Thanks.” He managed a semblance of a grin. “That’s… Thanks. I’ll let you know.”
He sure as hell wasn’t ready to move on with someone else, but unexpected emotion clogged his throat at the realization that Fitz considered him a worthy potential partner for a family member. Fitz clapped him on the back with a beefy paw and headed back into the house, leaving Aiden to trudge down the driveway to his truck. Once he was safely shut away inside, he dropped his veneer of normalcy and let himself sag into the husk of depression and anger that he’d become. He’d thrown himself into work both to keep the company humming and to bury any inconvenient shock waves of pain from his wounded, limping heart, but he still dragged around most days like the broken idiot that he was.
His muscles exhausted, his heart sore, and his brain empty, he drove to Murdoch Construction on autopilot. He parked and headed into the building where a sour-faced temp greeted him when he walked past the lobby.
“Mrs. Park dropped this off for you.” She waved a paint-sample card covered in sticky notes.
“Thanks. And did—”
The stony-fac
ed brunette held up an imperious finger to silence him when the phone rang. “Murdoch Construction,” she said snippily, and he didn’t have the heart to stick around to hear the rest of the conversation.
From the quiet of his office, he added details to the new software about Lin and Mary Park’s color choices for their master bedroom and imagined a world where the front desk was staffed by someone warm and welcoming and goofy and beautiful. Instead, they were on their second temp this month as the company rotated through the available workers, and he was going to bed alone.
This would be the perfect night to pick a woman up at a bar and get his head on straight. He could probably use a couple of nights like that, frankly, and a couple of women. But none of that appealed to him. Not the bar scene, not the empty sex, and certainly not random women. Just a few months ago, he’d worried that he’d backslide into his womanizing ways, but it turned out the cure to that was falling in love. All he wanted was Thea, who’d burst in with her noisy sunshine and shown him that his life could be bigger and more joyful than he ever imagined.
Thea, whom he hadn’t heard a word from.
“Shit.” The word sighed out of his lungs, and he slammed his laptop closed. What had he done with his time before Thea? Surely it had been something more fulfilling than listening to the clock in his office tick down the seconds of his interminable life.
He reached for his phone to text Daniel, but hitting the gym and working his body until he couldn’t move didn’t sound all that appealing, especially because his shoulder had been throbbing since the wall teardown that morning. Plus Daniel was likely to either gloat over his heartbreak or offer way too much sympathy, and neither option sounded particularly appealing.
