by Lee Kilraine
“Excuse me?” What was he talking about?
“I’m just saying—you weren’t just some shag. You mean something. And you did not hear this from me.”
* * * *
“Tessa, what are you doing here?” Gigi stood in the doorway of her apartment, out of breath. She wore her tennis clothes, which meant she’d just finished giving the tennis pro a run for his money.
“I came over to cry on your shoulder and for a cup of your special tea.”
“Special tea? Come on in.” She closed the door behind us and I plopped down onto her soft-as-a-cloud goose-down couch. Sully abandoned me for Gigi.
“Well, hiya, Sully.” My grandma had his whole body wagging with her attention.
“Yes. When I was little, Mama used to bring me over to your house. I’d play on the floor with your collection of stacking dolls while you and Mama drank tea. And it always made you two feel better. You laughed and—oh, my goodness—you two were spiking your tea in the middle of the day.”
“Special tea coming up.” Gigi grabbed a bottle of peppermint schnapps from her antique bar cart and carried it into her kitchen. “I thought today was one of your volunteer days?”
“It is. It was. I was going to go, but then I got stuck in the car with Paul trying to jump start the relationship he killed three years ago. I couldn’t take another minute. So I bailed.”
“What else? There has to be something else to make you give up your volunteering,” she said, glancing up at me from setting out her pink cabbage rose china tea cups and saucers.
“Gigi, it’s over. I failed. My plan to win over Gray Thorne crashed and burned and now, since my inner voice has deemed he’s my soul mate, I will live alone, become a sucrologist, and live out my lonely days watching episodes of Murder, She Wrote while I work Sudoku puzzles. Unless my inner voice was wrong. That could happen, right?”
“No. Sorry, dear. The inner voice is never wrong.” She poured hot water over tea leaves and the soft scent of peppermint made its way through the kitchen. “But that doesn’t mean that it will work. Your soul mate has to get with the program too, or it could be like two ships passing in the night.”
“Oh.” I stood, moving to one of the barstools at the island, hoping Gigi would put out her shortbread cookies with the tea. I felt like I needed a cookie. And special tea. “So you’re saying it’s not a sure thing.”
“That’s what I’m saying. The planets have to align. That’s what makes love such a miracle. That’s why you can’t give up just because it’s hard.”
Can’t give up. This was becoming a theme… Heck, I’d just said that to Paul. You gave up on me even before I did. My family never gave up on me because they love me.
“Tell me what happened.” Gigi poured out the tea, added a healthy shot of the schnapps, and slid my cup over to me. “The last we talked you were going with my ‘just be yourself’ advice. Where did it crash and burn?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure. I thought things were going well. We were spending time together. Getting to know each other. I’d stopped slamming the door in his face. And then boom.”
“Boom?”
“Pretty much. Gray showed up at my house and said it was over. He can’t do us together anymore. Back to a professional relationship. I’m the client. He’s the designer. Boom.” I took a healthy sip of my tea.
“Hmmm. Just totally out of the blue, you say?” She must have seen how pitiful I was because she did bring out the shortbread cookies. Parked the tin right in front of me.
“Thanks, Gigi.” I took out four and placed them on my saucer next to my tea cup. If ever there was a cookie emergency, getting dumped was it. I kept the tin close, in case this was more than a four cookie and four churro emergency. I dipped a cookie into my tea and took a bite while I recalled the whole conversation with Gray. “Maybe not totally out of the blue…”
Gigi raised her eyebrows and waited.
“The Thorne brothers have a brother who’s been missing for ten years. Ryker. They’ve been searching for him for a long time. Gray has this deep-seated guilt that it was his fault that Ryker ran away.” My throat went tight remembering Gray’s pain. I moved on to my next cookie. “They finally got some news about him. From what his brother Eli said, it wasn’t good. And Gray blames himself.”
“Seems to me you know exactly what that’s like.”
“Different. Very different. And I’m working on it.”
“Work harder, Contessa.”
This is where I always fell off the rails. Because Gigi had lost her daughter. Daddy had lost the love of his life. And they were dealing with the loss and pain with so much grace. But they hadn’t been the one behind the wheel. The one responsible. I folded up the pain and tucked it into the back of my heart. For now. I just wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. I knew Gigi felt that by not letting go of the guilt I was stuck, but I wasn’t. I’d come a long way from lying in the ICU. I was moving a baby step at a time.
“Maybe it just isn’t meant to be. The planets didn’t align.” I dipped the next cookie in my tea before taking another sip. “Thanks for listening, Gigi. And for the tea. And the cookies.”
“Contessa Imogene Madigan, I’m shocked. You’re simply giving up?” My grandma pulled out her disappointed face, which was the absolute worst. I hated disappointing my grandma. “You’re giving up just when your man needs you the most?”
“What do you mean? He broke it off. He—”
“It sounds like he’s hurting, Tessa. He’s at a weak point. What if we’d given up every time you were at a low point—ready to give up during your recovery?”
Like Paul did.
Eli’s last bit of advice echoed through my brain. Don’t give up on him too soon.
And I remembered what had drawn me to Gray in the first place. The fire and passion in his face when he talked about the brother he refused to give up on. So six brothers. Always. Because we want him to know he’s always a part of our lives.
“You don’t give up on people you love,” Gigi said.
“You don’t give up on people you love,” I whispered. “I can’t give up on Gray.”
“You can’t. That’s not who you are, Tessa. You’re a fighter. You don’t give up. That’s how you came back from near death. You go back there and fight for what you want. Life’s too short. You know that.”
I set my tea cup down and stared into my grandma’s eyes. She believed in me. And she believed in love. In soul mates. In loving passionately even if it hurt because not loving hurt worse.
“You’re right, Gigi. I’m not a quitter. I can regroup. So my first plan didn’t work. And my second one crashed and burned. Third time’s the charm, right?”
“That’s the Tessa I know.” Gigi gave me an approving nod.
It took me another cup of special tea and three more cookies, but I came up with a plan. I could do this. I could at least try one more time. I grabbed my phone from my purse and called him before I lost my nerve.
“This is Gray,” he answered.
“Gray, I need to talk.”
“About your house?”
“Not about my house.”
“Tessa—”
“I’m only asking for thirty minutes.”
“I’m slammed with work the next couple days.”
“Fine. A week from today. Say… One o’clock. At my place.”
“No. Not your place.”
“Okay, then your place,” I said, trying to be accommodating. Plus I had fond memories of his place.
“No, that won’t work either.”
“The SBC offices?” Not that I wanted his brothers as a built-in audience.
“No. Let’s meet at Big Eddie’s.”
“Fine. One week. One o’clock. See you then.”
I hung up and reached for another cookie. “What a pai
n in the ass. He’s going to make me grovel in a public place. I actually love Murder, She Wrote and Sudoku puzzles. It might not be a bad life.”
Gigi laughed like I was kidding. “It sounds like he’s afraid to be alone with you. That’s a good sign, darling.”
Chapter 29
Gray
A week later, I was sitting in my office pulling together all my paperwork on Tessa’s job. Gathering it together to hand off to Eli. I’d gone to her house once last week to meet with a subcontractor while she was off volunteering. All it took was one step in her house, one whiff of her perfume lingering in the air to know I couldn’t work with Tessa for the rest of her renovation and not go crazy.
“Heard you were looking for me.” Eli stuck his head in my office. “What’s up?”
“I’m passing the Madigan job to you,” I said, staying focused on my piles of paperwork. I could predict the look I’d find in Eli’s eyes and didn’t need it today. Especially since I’d agreed to meet with Tessa this afternoon.
I simply needed to hold it together until Tessa was done having her say, and then I’d lock up all things Tessa and regain my control. Maybe my sanity. Who the fuck knew? I didn’t anymore.
When Eli didn’t say anything, I looked up. He stood inside my office now, arms crossed over his chest, frowning at me. I held the folder out to him, trying to hurry this along.
He still just stared at me. And then he came further into my office and slid onto one of the chairs in front of my desk. My client chairs. For clients. Not brothers. Not brothers who were about to give me a hard time.
“This is bullshit, Gray,” Eli said.
“We shuffle jobs all the time when needed. This is not bullshit.” I tossed Tessa’s file back onto my desk. “Fine. If you can’t take it on, I’ll pass it to Wyatt.”
“You know how I know it’s bullshit? Because you’ve never let me handle a client selection appointment. Never. You said either my taste sucks or I’m color blind. That’s how I know this is bullshit.”
Okay, well, he had me there.
“I think you like Tessa—maybe you’ve even fallen for her—and that has you scared. Because you don’t do relationships, do you? Because then you’d have to let someone in. And that leaves you vulnerable. But you’re only vulnerable if you love them…”
I pushed back from my desk and out of my chair, turning my back on Eli to stare out the window but not actually seeing anything outside. This wasn’t about denying my feelings for Tessa. I was aware that she meant something to me. When a guy falls as hard for someone as I had for Tessa—you feel it. It takes you out like a full-body cross check. There was a reason I’d experienced so many firsts with Tessa Madigan. This wasn’t about what I felt for her.
“If you want to go to her, you should. It doesn’t make you weak to want or need someone. If you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know.”
“What are you talking about?” I forced out, but it still didn’t expel the burning in my chest. I loved my brothers, but I still wasn’t going to have this conversation. It was hard to keep living in denial if I went around thinking about things that just could not happen. If I kept getting a picture in my head of a future that I had no right to. Not while Ryker was still not with us on account of me.
“Look, the way I see it, we’re all on the spectrum of dysfunction. Me and Wyatt aren’t quite as far gone as you guys. I figure Ash is somewhere in the middle, even though Dad was a fucking asshole when Ash came out to him. You and Beck, you two are in the upper part of the spectrum. Over-achievers when it comes to being messed up.”
“Over-achievers?” I turned my head toward him, not quite getting where he was going with this.
“Yep. Beck because of being the oldest. You—I’m not sure what your deal is. I figure it’s something that happened in the foster home you and Ryker were in. I know it was a bad situation. I figure you’ll share when you’re ready.”
“Do you have a point, Eli?”
“I fucking do. My point is watching Beck and Wyatt turn their shit around, I think they gave us all hope. The true test is going to be you. Dude, if you can fix whatever it is you’re dealing with, then I know I’m going to be fine. So, what I’m saying is I need you to get your shit together, for me.”
Fuck. I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned, resting my back against the window, dropping my head to stare at my boots. Fuck. I’d already let Ryker down. Now I was about to let Eli down. Fucking great.
I stared back up at Eli, my chest so tight it felt like it might burst. “It’s my fault Ryker isn’t with us. It’s my fault he’s been gone all these years.” I turned back to the window, not ready to see the look on Eli’s face as I told him. I’d held this secret for so long it was a piece of me. “It’s my fault his eyes are cold. My fault he has scars covering half his face. If I’d just said yes the one single time Ryker had asked me for something.”
“What did he ask you for?”
“He said he needed to leave. He was going to run away, and he asked me to go with him.” This was the second time I’d said it out loud, once to Tessa, now Eli. It didn’t fucking get easier. Both times it was like being sliced open.
“You said no?” Eli asked, no censure in his tone. Just asking.
“I asked him to wait. I should have known he couldn’t. Couldn’t stay. I should have fucking gone with him. No questions. No delay. Just, you bet your ass I’ll go. You need to leave, I’m right there with you.” I choked up and had to swallow it down to breathe.
“Not your fault, Gray,” Eli said. “You’ve got to let it go.”
I rested my forehead against the cool pane of glass. “How? How do I move on knowing I don’t deserve it? Why should I get to be happy when Ryker’s all alone out there hurting—because of me?”
“Why? Because it’s not your fault.”
“Eli’s right, Gray,” Beck said. I hadn’t heard him come in. He was standing with his shoulder up against the doorway. Guessing he’d heard most of the conversation. “We’ve all played the ‘what if’ game before. Probably me more than anyone. What if I’d started searching for Ryker sooner? What if you’d said yes? What if our mom hadn’t left? ‘What if’ is the oldest game in the world. It’s also the most soul-destroying.”
“But Ry didn’t ask any of you. He asked me. I was the one who failed him.”
“Here’s a thought. Instead of the ‘what if’ game, let’s turn this around…” Eli stood and walked to stand in front of me. “Don’t you wish with everything inside you that in all these ten years Ryker’s been apart from us, he’s been happy? Even if he hasn’t been in your life? Isn’t that what you would want for him?”
I frowned at Eli. “Of course.”
“Don’t you think that’s what Ryker would want for you? Don’t you think he’d want you to be happy? Don’t you think he’d want all of us to be happy?” Eli’s eyes bored into mine. “And here’s the last thought, how do you think he’s going to feel if he does show up, say tomorrow, and finds out that you’ve been using him as an excuse?”
Well fuck.
Don’t you think he’d want you to be happy? Don’t you think he’d want all of us to be happy?
Ryker? The eternal optimist? Yeah, I think he’d want that.
Damn, I was supposed to meet with Tessa in only a few hours and my head was all over the place. I had a lot of thinking to do and not a lot of time.
“I’ll be out back if anyone needs me,” I said, leaving the room.
Nothing like batting practice to think things through.
* * * *
“So, this is where you hide from your brothers.”
I stepped back from the batter’s box and turned to find Hope leaning against the cage.
“Don’t you mean ‘our’ brothers? How’s it going? I heard you were hanging out with Wyatt today.”
“Yep. Ju
st trying to get to know all my brothers. Is Wyatt quiet or what?”
“He’s quiet. He and Eli sort of cancel each other out.” It was still weird to look at a female version of Eli. We’d get used to it. It was just weird.
“Good to know. You’re late with your swing, by the way. That’s why you’re popping them up.”
“Thanks. Where are you headed?”
“Airport.” She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.
“You’re sick of us already?” With everything going on with Tessa, I hadn’t spent much time with Hope.
“I’ve got to get back to my job. But I’ll be back.” She stuck her hand out, slipping a card through the fence. “I want you to have this. It’s Ryker’s number.”
“Why are you giving it to me?” I dropped the bat and stared at the card in her hand. “Does Beck know you have the number?”
“He knows. He called. Left a message. Now we wait.”
“Okay, so again, why give it to me?”
“Because when Ryker handed me the card he said if I ever needed anything to call him.”
“Right. You told us that.”
“What I didn’t tell you is he also said if I couldn’t reach him, call Gray. Which made no sense because I didn’t know anyone named Gray. Now I do. So, if he trusted you, then I will too.” She held a hand over her eyes to shade them, making sure I saw how serious she was. “Just hang on to the number in case something happens to me. And we’ll wait for him to call together.”
“What’s going to happen to you?” My heart rate spiked. We’d only just found her, but already I didn’t want to lose her too.
“Nothing. It’s just in case, you know like if I fall off a horse and end up with amnesia or something.”
“Great, thanks for planting that seed. I’m going to worry about you riding a horse while you’re gone.” I gave her a stern older brother look and threw in a finger point too. “Now you have to call me every day so I know you’re okay.”
“Jesus, you’re the third brother to require a daily phone call. It’s starting to feel a lot more like parole than a new family.”
