Cashmere and Camo

by Erin Nicholas

  Noah shook his head as he stepped onto the elevator. “You can’t just go around talking to strangers, Brynn.” He wasn’t going to smother her and keep her in the shadows, but he sure as hell was going to keep her safe.

  She leaned to push the button for the penthouse. Because, of course she lived in the penthouse. He was ninety-nine percent sure that Ava had picked the place out and moved Brynn into the place without even really asking her.

  “I thought one of the goals was to get me to open up and interact with people more,” she said.

  He was still holding her in his arms and he gave her a little squeeze. “The goal was for you to see that you have a lot to offer the world and people around you.”

  “Right. I’ve been giving money to people on the street too.”

  He squeezed her harder. “We’ve created a monster.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “I’m just looking around more, thinking about what makes me smile, and trying to do more of that.”

  This time when he squeezed her, it was with love and a desire that was almost painful. “I love you, Brynn.”

  She looked up quickly. “You do?”

  God, it killed him that she didn’t know that down to the very marrow of her bones. But that was a very good lifelong project to start working on. Right. Now. “I do. With everything in me. Everything I am.”

  “I love you too.”

  The sincerity and emotion in her eyes was enough to convince him without anything further. He lowered his head and kissed her, tasting her until the elevator arrived at the penthouse and the doors swished open. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “You need to get undressed.”

  Her eyes widened for a moment, then she wiggled for him to let her down, a sweetly seductive smile on her lips. “Well, I probably should warn you,” she told him, starting on her buttons as she stepped out of the elevator and into her apartment.

  For a second, Noah was a little distracted. The penthouse had floor to ceiling windows along two sides of the living room, and the view of New York was breathtaking. He had to admit that Ava had great taste.

  But he quickly focused back on the woman who was already down to her panties. Her very tiny, electric blue panties. He started for her. “You should warn me about what?” he asked, moving until he almost stood on top of her.

  “That thing you said, about creating a monster?” she said, pushing her panties to the floor. “I think you might be right about that—in the bedroom, anyway.”

  He couldn’t help grinning at that. “Huh.” He reached for her, drawing her up against his body, his hands roaming over her bare skin. “Then, I guess it’s a good thing I’m going to keep you right here in this living room. Bent over that couch.”

  Her eyes flared with heat and she took a deep breath. “That might be safest. For now.”

  Then Noah proceeded to teach her all about make-up sex. And New York sex. And living room furniture sex.

  And then road-trip sex. And fancy-hotel-room sex. And dive-hotel-room sex.

  And, most of all, madly-in-love-with-your-partner-forever sex.

  And, on the last night of the road trip back to Bliss, that had taken them five days to complete, he taught her about we-just-got-engaged sex.

  Epilogue

  March…

  * * *

  Ava Carmichael was worth twelve and a half billion dollars. Billion. With a B.

  It was official.

  It was the year anniversary of the triplets arriving in Bliss, and they were in another meeting with their father’s lawyer. But this was no conference room in Manhattan, and Evan was here as Cori’s fiancé, not an attorney. They were in the pie shop on Main Street in Bliss, Kansas and Parker, Noah, Ben, Walter, Roger and Hank were with them.

  “Thank you all for being here,” Hank started.

  The sign they’d hung on the door read Blissfully Brewed will be closed tonight for a special private event.

  They were done. The stipulations in the will had been completed. Their time was up.

  Cori looked around the room, her heart full. The truth was, their time was just beginning. They were just getting started.

  “I’ve brought you here together at Rudy’s request,” Hank said.

  Hearing his name, Rudy, the St. Bernard, yapped at Hank from where he was sitting at Cori’s feet.

  Hank laughed. “Not you, Rudy.”

  The dog yapped again and wiggled his butt, clearly excited, but he stayed by Cori. The months of puppy school were starting to pay off. She laughed and leaned forward, her hand on his head. “Good boy,” she praised. He turned his head and licked her cheek.

  “You father,” Hank said, clearly trying to avoid using the R word, “wanted to commemorate the one-year anniversary of you coming to Bliss. And he had a few things he wanted to say.”

  Cori focused on Hank, her heart suddenly pounding. Her fingers curled into the puppy’s fur and felt Evan’s hand on her knee and the little squeeze he gave her. “Breathe, Cori,” he said softly.

  God, she loved him. He knew exactly what she was feeling without her having to say a word.

  She looked at her sisters. Ava and Brynn both met her gaze, then glanced at each other. They looked equally nervous. Or maybe it wasn’t nerves. It was…something that was hard to name. They’d thought the last words they would hear from their father were in the trust he’d drawn up, mandating they come to Bliss, run the pie shop, and mind their love lives. Now there was more? And was that good or bad?

  Cori watched as Parker slipped an arm around Ava, and Noah threaded his fingers through Brynn’s, lifting her hand to his lips for a kiss.

  And just like that, Cori felt a calmness settle over her. It was going to be okay. Whatever this was, whatever Rudy said next, they were going to be okay. Together.

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” Ava, ever the leader, said.

  Hank pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. Then looked at the other older men in the room, the men who had been Rudy Carmichael’s first true friends.

  Hank unfolded the paper and read.

  “Dear Ava, Brynn, and Cori,” Hank started. “If you’re hearing this it means your year is complete. You’ve been in Bliss for twelve months and you have some decisions to make. I hope that you aren’t too upset with me anymore. Perhaps the stipulations were a little bit of an overreaction, but I was trying to put years of fatherly mistakes right and, frankly, I was angry when I wrote the thing. At the cancer. It didn’t give me time and that meant I had to act a bit drastically. It didn’t give me time, but it did give me clarity. So, overreaction or not, I’m not sorry about making you come to Bliss and try new things. I’m not sorry about making you bake pies and figure out the accounting and wait on the customers. If you’re angry, after doing all of that for the past year, then that just means I was wrong. But I’m not sorry.”

  Cori didn’t know how to feel. He wasn’t sorry for turning their lives upside down, for exerting this final bit of control, for manipulating them into coming to Bliss.

  But she wasn’t sure she wanted him to be sorry. He’d been right. About everything. She and her sisters had needed this, and it had all turned out perfectly.

  No one said anything, so after a glance around, Hank continued.

  “Ava,” he said, turning to face the oldest triplet more fully.

  Ava sat up straighter in her chair and Parker ran his palm up and down her upper arm. “You have always known exactly what you wanted and who you were. I hope that, by now, you’ve realized that the only thing, the only person, you really need to be the boss of, is yourself. If you’re happy and fulfilled, you’ll be someone people want to follow naturally.”

  Parker leaned over and said something softly in Ava’s ear that made her smile. Cori could only imagine what it was—surely something about Ava bossing him—but Cori loved him for being able to make her uptight, type-A sister smile and relax. Her previously uptight sister, Cori corrected mentally. Though Ava was still very type-A, sh
e’d definitely softened up and learned to enjoy life.

  “I hope,” Hank continued reading to Ava, “that you’ve learned that mistakes and failures and trials can help you as much, or more than, successes, and that when you go back to New York, you’ll remember that there are a lot of different ways to accomplish a goal. You need to find your way. You don’t need to follow in anyone’s footsteps, Ava. Make your own footprints with those amazing shoes you love so much. Don’t let my recipe be the only one you ever try.”

  Cori felt her eyes sting as she watched Ava swallow hard and sniff. Parker pulled her in and kissed the top of her head.

  “Brynn,” Hank said, turning to the next sister.

  Brynn met Cori’s eyes. Cori gave her a quick smile. Brynn nodded at Hank, indicating she was ready. Or as ready as she was going to be.

  “This town is full of wonderful people who see others for who they are, not for who they want them to be, or worse who they think they need them to be. And I hope that by being here, amongst them, that you’ve learned that not everyone is like me. Not everyone will fail to appreciate you.”

  Cori frowned and felt the urge to grab Brynn’s hand, but Noah was there, hugging her against his side and Cori took a deep breath.

  “You have nothing to prove to anyone, Brynn. You have no one to impress. In making you get out and interact, I wanted to show you that you are already perfectly perfect just how you are, and that the rest of the world is better than me at seeing and encouraging that. When you go back to New York, I hope it’s with confidence and a sense of your place in the world—which is wherever you want it to be. Don’t hide away just because I was too dumb to really see you.”

  Brynn swiped a finger under one eye and put her head against Noah’s chest.

  And Cori felt a sense of trepidation go through her. She was next.

  “Cori.” Hank turned to face her and Evan leaned in closer, squeezing her hand.

  “Ready,” she said, giving Hank a smile.

  He returned it. “I know, honey.” Then he looked down at the paper. “Cori, you and I had a hard time seeing eye to eye on nearly everything.”

  She swallowed hard.

  “And I think it was partly because I was jealous of you.”

  Cori felt a shaft of surprise arc through her.

  “I was envious of the way you refused to let anyone else tell you what your life should be about, what you should be about. Even me. Especially me. I never fought the mold and I have often wondered what else I could have been or done. You won’t ever have to wonder about that. But I hope that you’ve learned that when you’re with the right people, in the right place, like with your sisters, that some routines are worth repeating over and over. And when you leave Bliss, I hope you take that with you. Don’t let my failure to appreciate the things you did, keep you from repeatedly making everything around you bigger and better.”

  Her throat was tight and her eyes were stinging. She looked up at Evan and he met her eyes and smiled. That was all he did. That was all he had to do. She’d found exactly what her dad had hoped she would.

  But she wasn’t leaving Bliss.

  “And as for you boys,” Hank said before anyone responded.

  “There’s stuff in there about us too?” Parker asked.

  Hank nodded. “Of course. This is for all of his kids.”

  The guys all exchanged looks, and Cori realized they were now feeling the anxiety she and her sisters had felt. She squeezed Evan. “Breathe,” she reminded him.

  He smiled down at her. “Right. It doesn’t matter what he says.”

  “Right.” They were all exactly where they needed to be. Nothing would change that.

  “Evan,” Hank began.

  Cori felt him tense beside her anyway.

  “Thank you. Thank you for making my trust what I wanted it to be, thank you for dealing with the girls—I’m sure that was no easy task.”

  Everyone chuckled softly at that.

  “I know you thought I was crazy. And maybe I was. But you were my friend first and foremost and you made it happen. I know for sure that you did whatever you could to make the girls’ transition to Bliss easier. Because that’s who you are. You make the people around you feel good, you make them happier, you make sure that no one loses sight of what’s really important. And I’m sure the girls needed that. So, for all the things I know you did for them, thank you.”

  Cori frowned slightly. That was it? No “I hope you learned” stuff for Evan? She looked up at him. “I guess you don’t need advice.”

  Evan looked puzzled too. “Well, that’s definitely not true.”

  Hank turned to Parker. “Parker, thank you too. You are always you. You are exactly who we always expect you to be. You can always be trusted to say it like it is, whether we like it or not. As they were getting settled and the business going, I’m sure the girls needed someone like that. Thank you for being someone they could trust.”

  Cori watched Ava and Parker exchange looks. Ava smiled and shrugged. “It’s all true.”

  “I guess,” Parker said. But he seemed a little disappointed.

  Hank finally turned to Noah. “And, Noah. Thank you. You would give anyone the shirt off your back and the shoes off your feet and still feel like you hadn’t done enough. I know you looked out for them, especially Brynn, and I know that you bent over backward to be sure they were safe and secure. Thank you.”

  Brynn opened her mouth as if to say something or ask a question, but then shut it again. Perhaps realizing that the man who could answer any questions wasn’t here.

  “And to all of you together,” Hank said, addressing them all.

  Oh, good, there was more. Everyone shifted on their chairs and a couple even leaned forward slightly.

  “I hope that in the year that’s passed and with everything I laid out in my trust and told each of you boys, that you’ve realized the most important thing. And that is, fathers are not always right.”

  Hank paused and let that sink in for a moment. Cori felt like she was holding her breath. That was maybe the most insightful of all the things Rudy had written. It applied not only to him, but to Evan, Parker, and Noah’s fathers as well. Everyone here had a few “daddy issues”. But then again, who didn’t? Fathers, good or bad, present or absent, biological or not, affected their children.

  “All of your fathers loved you. That I know,” Hank went on. “They all did the best they could at the time they did it. But the bottom line is, you are not your fathers. You are not destined to do exactly what they did, nor are you destined to do the opposite of everything they did. You are destined to be you.”

  Cori blinked rapidly and felt Evan’s hand tighten around hers. She knew it was a sign of support, but it was also because he needed her support too. She smiled up at him. His eyes looked a little shiny too.

  “Learn what you can from us, kids. But then, go out and… find your bliss.”

  There was nearly a minute of absolute silence after Hank finished. He refolded the letter and tucked it back into his pocket. He stood, just letting them all think.

  Finally, Parker broke the quiet. “You stole that line about finding your bliss from Rudy, huh?” he asked Hank.

  Hank grinned. “I gave Rudy that line.”

  The dog yapped, coming up off of his haunches, his tail wagging excitedly over being talked about again. And that broke through the melancholy that had settled on the room. They all laughed.

  “You helped him write that letter?” Cori asked, swiping at her eyes.

  “Helped him?” Hank said. “Hell, he did probably eight drafts and read it to us every time.”

  “And Rudy—” Walter started.

  That was too much for the dog and he jerked forward, heading for Walter.

  Walter laughed as two big paws were planted on his lap. He rubbed the dog’s head as he continued, “Rudy made Hank practice reading the final version out loud three times. Said he wanted to be sure Hank wouldn’t break down crying.”
/>
  Ben nodded with a smile. “He wanted to be sure he got everything in there. We all kind of helped him.” He reached over and scratched Rudy’s ear.

  Cori smiled at the older men, her dog, then at her sisters, and finally at Evan. “But he got a lot of stuff wrong,” she said. “None of us are leaving Bliss or going back to New York.”

  Evan shrugged. “But we got a few things right. And that’s what really matters.”

  She sniffed and nodded.

  Rudy barked and suddenly swung around as a group of people walked by the front windows. He started for the front door. Cori sighed and went after him, snagging his collar just as he got up on his back legs, his huge front paws on the door, barking his greeting to the passersby. It wasn’t like he’d graduated from puppy school yet. And she wasn’t sure he’d ever not be excited by and overly friendly with big groups of people. She hadn’t known that side of her father, but more and more she believed that once he’d come to Bliss, he’d been like his namesake—perpetually happy, wanting to be in the middle of things, and making people smile.

  “And now, my check list is done,” Hank said, pulling another piece of paper from his pocket.

  “You really do have a checklist?” Noah asked. “From Rudy?”

  The dog yapped at him.

  “Oh yeah. You had yours in your head, but he made me write mine down,” Hank said. He unfolded the paper and held it up.

  Cori again felt her breath catch as she read it.

  Make sure Cori is happy.

  Make sure Ava is happy.

  Make sure Brynn is happy.

  Make sure Evan is happy.

  Make sure Parker is happy.

  Make sure Noah is happy.

  Make sure Walter gets his prostate checked.

  Make sure Ben gets a new hearing aid.

  Make sure Roger has a huge birthday party.

  Make sure they all know I love them.

  There were little checkmarks by numbers one through nine. And Cori let the tear roll down her cheek even as she laughed, her heart full, as Walter checked off number ten.