by Candis Terry
“Go ahead. Dinner is almost ready. I set the table on the back patio. I figured the sounds of the creek might make it more relaxing for you.”
“Are you always this thoughtful?”
She propped a fist on her hip. “I’ve worked for you for four years and you don’t know?”
“I do know.” He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “I also know that apparently I am very bad at making a joke.”
Her dimples appeared. “But you’re good at so many other things it’s hard to hold that against you.”
“Careful, or you’ll have me eating out of your hand in no time.”
Did he really just say that?
Detouring around the obvious, he snuck a piece of asparagus and popped it into his mouth before grabbing the corkscrew to open the wine. “Tasty.”
“Me? Or the asparagus.”
Dec loved her sense of humor, but remarks like that put some seriously dangerous thoughts in his head. “Do you really want me to answer that? Especially after hearing you slice and dice Miranda Lambert in karaoke?”
She chuckled. “Maybe not.”
He pulled the wine cork and filled two glasses, handing one to her and lifting his own in a toast. “Here’s to my own personal chef.”
“Oh no. The next meal is all on you.”
Did he get a say in where she placed it on his body? And wasn’t he going to try to behave?
“Need some help in here?” he asked. He’d never shared cooking duties before. At least not with a woman who tempted him more than the food. And though he was dead on his feet, he wouldn’t mind sticking around just for the view.
“Nope. Almost done. Why don’t you go ahead and have a seat out on the patio. I’ll bring dinner out in just a minute.”
“You sure?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
When Dec opened the back door he found a truly romantic setting. The patio table had been set with a red checked tablecloth, a votive candle flickered in a glass Mason jar, the fire pit had a small steady fire crackling, and the creek added a relaxing melody. He’d never had anyone do anything like this for him before, and he was deeply touched by the sweetness of her efforts. He’d never been a hearts and flowers kind of guy, but right now, he wished he had a bouquet of spring flowers to give her. Roses were too . . . common. Wildflowers fit her country girl/fairy vibe much better. Unfortunately the only thing close by was a patch of dandelions.
A few minutes later she appeared in her floaty, sexy dress with two plates of the tender halibut, salsa and asparagus, setting one in front of him before taking her seat.
He inhaled the tempting aroma. “Looks and smells great.”
“I hope it lives up to my boasting.”
“Brooke?” He reached across the table and settled his hand on top of hers. It was a friendly gesture, he convinced himself. Nothing more than sheer appreciation. “The fact that you actually made the effort guarantees that I’ll love it.”
“Hmmm.” Candlelight flickered in her eyes as she smiled and winked. “We’ll see what you think after you taste it.”
He took a bite and let the lemony flavor roll over his tongue. “It’s delicious. You get to keep the bragging rights.”
“Yeah?” Her dimples flashed. The praise had pleased her.
“Definitely.”
He refilled her glass with the wine he’d carried out. “How’d you learn to cook like this?”
“My foster family. They owned a little European-style café. Everyone in the house helped out as soon as they were old enough.”
Her revelation lodged the halibut in his throat and he had to swallow down some wine to clear it. “You were raised in a foster home?”
She nodded without looking up and poked her fork around in the asparagus.
“Was it bad?” Maybe this was why she’d been so reluctant to talk about her past.
“Oh. No.” Her head came up then. “They were very nice. I got lucky I guess. They took in foster kids because they really wanted to help, not just the paycheck they got. I think they liked having a lot of kids around. It was quite a spirited house. Lots of chores. Lots of board games. Lots of love.”
“So . . .” His fork paused over his plate. “Since you opened the door, is this a good time to talk?”
“Hmmm.” She took a bite of halibut and looked up at the sky as though she was thinking it over. When her gaze came back to his she said, “You first.”
“About?”
“What upset you before you came home.”
Came home.
That had a nice ring to it. He could imagine seeing Brooke every night. Being with her. In fact, he could picture it very easily.
He drained his wine then refilled the glass.
“A woman came to the vineyard office today looking for our father. She was young and beautiful and she wouldn’t talk to any of us.” Brooke listened intently. She deserved total honesty. And he planned to give her as much as he could without overstepping or dishonoring anyone. “She said she’d come to see him and only him. When we told her he had died she left as quickly and as mysteriously as she’d arrived.”
Another bite of halibut and another sip of wine cleared his mind and allowed him to continue. “I knew you were making this dinner and I meant to come straight here when I left the winery office, but at the last second I decided to drive into town to see if I could find out more about her.”
“I don’t blame you. I’d have been curious as hell.”
“We are. The only thing I discovered was that she’d booked a three-night stay at one of the local inns.”
Brooke laid down her fork. “Did you get her name?”
“Lili MacKay.”
“And that doesn’t ring a bell for any of you?”
“No. But it sure as hell got some crazy twisted ideas racing through our heads.”
“Like?”
“Like . . . what if she was our father’s mistress.”
“Dec. Do you think your dad would really do something like that?” A slight move tilted her head and the candlelight shone in her hair. “From what you’ve said in the past, your parents had a wonderful marriage.”
“We all thought they did. But now . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t know. This woman seemed genuinely surprised to learn that he and our mother were both dead.”
“Then she couldn’t have known your father very well.”
“Hard to say.” Something gnawed at his gut that suggested the woman knew his father very well. But he had no proof. Just intuition. “Remember when I came back from the funerals, I told you we’d discovered someone had been stealing money from the company?”
“Yes.”
“It was our father.”
“But . . .” She shook her head slowly. “It’s his company. How could he be stealing?”
“Just because you own a company doesn’t mean you can take whatever you want from it. Both he and Ryan took a salary; the rest goes back into the company for expenses, expansions, taxes, licenses, and a million other things.”
“Was a lot of money taken?”
“Several hundred thousand over numerous years.”
Brooke snagged her bottom lip between her teeth as she waited for him to reveal more. When he didn’t she reached her hand across the table and covered his. She squeezed his fingers.
“Don’t let your mind go there, Dec. I can see in your eyes what you’re thinking. But do you really want to believe something like that about your father?”
“Unfortunately the seed has been planted. There’s something else.”
“What?”
He took a breath.
Brooke understood. She got it. And she cared. For those reasons he really wanted to leave it all out on the table. To share. Something he’d never been very good at before.
“For a long time Nicki felt our father treated her differently than the rest of us. She said he’d been distant. That he never attended any of her school events, and that he never spent any time wit
h her at all if possible. Before he and Mom left for Hawaii Nicki confronted him. He openly admitted that something in his past prevented him from being the father she wanted and needed him to be, but he didn’t clarify what that something was.”
“That must have devastated her.”
“It did. It still does. Now she may never be able to find out why he felt that way.”
“And you’re thinking this Lili MacKay could have something to do with that?”
“It’s possible.” He leaned back in the chair and pushed away his plate. “Hell, anything is possible.”
“Is there any way I can help?”
Once he’d heard a song about angels being among them. Right now, that’s how he saw Brooke. A sweet, sexy angel.
“Just talking about it helps. My brothers can be hotheads at times. In situations like this they tend to think force is a reasonable response.”
“Most alpha males do.”
“I guess so.” He never considered whether they were alpha males or just plain crazy. They were all the way they were and that was just life.
“Are you done?” She pointed to his plate.
“Yeah. Thanks.” He handed her the nearly empty plate. “It was really great.”
“There’s dessert, don’t forget.”
“Save dessert for later. How about you grab another bottle of wine, come back, and tell me your story now.”
Her shoulders stiffened slightly. “I guess that’s only fair.”
“I don’t mean to push.”
“No. You’re right. It’s my turn.” She chuffed a laugh and held up the empty bottle. “Maybe we should call the wine Spill Your Guts instead of Sweet Serenade.”
With the disclosure about Lili MacKay off his shoulders, Dec felt more relaxed. Could be the wine. Could be the company.
As Brooke turned to go back into the house the breeze caught her dress and molded it to her body.
With great consternation he realized the company did nothing to relax him. The company had him tied up in knots and was planting involuntary naughty thoughts in his head.
When Brooke came back out onto the patio, Dec had rearranged their chairs so they sat next to each other and both looked out over the creek.
“Clever.” She grinned as she sat down. “Is this so if I don’t spill my guts you can do me bodily harm?”
He uncorked the wine and refilled their glasses. “Keeping in mind that we are forgoing the boss/employee thing tonight, I have to be honest and say that there are a lot of things I could do to your body.” He handed her the glass. “Harm isn’t one of them.”
On a gasp, her lips parted just slightly and he was so tempted to lean in and press his mouth to them. To lick off the sweet wine and the essence that made her so damned special. Instead he smiled and tapped his glass against hers. “To world peace.”
“I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“You’re against world peace?”
“I’m all for world peace. It’s that other little shock-me-to-my-socks thing you just said.”
“I don’t believe you’re wearing socks.” Since he’d moved beyond childhood, he’d never remotely pretended to be playful. But as he glanced under the table, he realized Brooke brought out the playful side in him. And he liked it. “But I do see some blue toenail polish.”
“It’s called Tidal Wave.” She leaned in just a fraction and their shoulders bumped together. “I brought the bottle with me in case you’re interested.”
“Nice diversion tactic, Ms. Hastings.” Thinking of the tidal wave of a kiss they’d shared in the Pacific Ocean a few nights ago, he tapped his wineglass to hers. “Your turn to be storyteller.”
“Are you sure you want to hear this? Because it is all kinds of boring.”
“Yes.” Throwing everything sane to the wind, he reached up and wound an escaped tendril of her hair around his finger. The texture was cool and silky and made him want to bury his face in it. “I want to hear everything.”
“Promise you won’t judge me?”
Curiosity piqued, he said, “Never.”
“Oh boy. Here goes.” She squeezed her eyes and her chest rose on an intake of air like she was preparing for a long hard run. “My birth parents are part of a fanatical religious community that developed their own beliefs. Their own lifestyle. Their own laws. Those laws include the men having all the say and the women being the silent minority. The elders in the community made the rules, amended them to their own satisfaction, and commanded that everyone lived by the laws no matter what. They arranged all the marriages, forbade divorces, and no one had the balls to defy them.”
Dec sipped the wine but didn’t taste a thing past the bitterness her story put in his mouth.
“No one defied them,” she said adamantly, avoiding his gaze. “Except me.”
“How did you defy them?”
“I never fit.” She shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t want to be told what I could or couldn’t do. Who I could or couldn’t be. Or whom I had to spend the rest of my wretched life with. My sister felt the same, but she was too afraid to say anything or stand up for herself. When she turned fourteen the elders forced her to marry a man four times her age. My parents did nothing. They stood by and let it happen. By the time her nineteenth birthday was approaching, she’d already had three babies. When she got pregnant with the fourth six months after her third was born, she died due to complications.”
Dec reached out and took her hands in his. Her fingers were cool to the touch and he could feel her pulse pound on the inside of her wrist.
“At least that’s the bullshit story her husband and the elders told everyone,” she said, gripping his fingers tight.
“You didn’t believe them?”
“I saw her the day she died.” A stuttered breath puffed through her lips. “She looked exhausted and sad, but otherwise healthy.”
“Do you think her husband had something to do with her death?”
“I do.” Tears shimmered in her eyes as she nodded. “Especially since no one except the elders was allowed to see her body. The last time I saw her she hugged me and whispered, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to you.’ She made me promise.”
Dec felt sick to his stomach, both for the young girl who’d lost her life and for the one who’d felt the need to save her own. “What happened after that? Was the husband ever investigated?”
“No. The elders stood behind him a hundred percent and the authorities were never brought in for anything.”
“Your parents did nothing?” How could that be?
“Nothing. Two weeks after my sister was buried, her husband married a fifteen-year-old. She took over mothering my sister’s children and was pregnant almost as soon as she was forced to say ‘I do.’ My parents abandoned their grandchildren and allowed the new wife’s family to claim them as their own.”
Dec’s stomach turned. His heart faltered. The idea of a man marrying a fourteen-year-old and forcing her to have sex and produce children seemed so dark ages he couldn’t fathom it. “And how did you defy them, Brooke?”
“My fourteenth birthday was coming up.” Her hands nervously fidgeted with the dress fabric across her lap. “My father came home from an elder meeting saying that I was to be wed to a man who’d joined the community about a year before. He was in his late forties, but even his age wasn’t as bad as knowing this man was cruel to the bone. I’d seen firsthand the way he treated animals. Why would I ever believe he’d treat me any better?”
She stopped long enough to sip her wine and blink away the tears. It was clear to Dec that she’d steeled herself against what had happened. She’d completely renounced that part of her life and moved on. It was only the slight tremble in her full bottom lip that gave away the enormity of the emotional scars the situation had left on her.
For her sister she’d cried.
For herself she refused.
“That bucket list I told you I started making when I was ten years old?”
“I started creating it because it was my way of imagining a better life. I’d nearly been forced to live the life that had imprisoned and then killed my sister. The number one thing on my list has always been to marry the love of my life, because I refuse to let go of the dream that someone out there in this world will love me and treat me with respect. I refused to allow myself to be forced to marry a cruel, much older man who wouldn’t care anything for me and would demand I procreate until I was dead.”
A slight hesitation and another sip of wine touched her lips. Dec waited patiently for her to complete the story, even while he wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear the rest.
“So I planned,” she continued. “And I ran. One night I waited until I knew there would be no one out. I crawled out the bedroom window, and then I climbed over the big stone wall that encircled the compound. Then I ran the entire ten miles to the next town in the Arizona heat. Without water. Without anything except the clothes on my back and the fear in my heart. I ran to the police who were familiar with the community yet they’d never done anything to stop what went on there. When I appeared at their door, they had no choice but to call child protection services. The next day I was placed with the Hastings family.”
“So Hastings isn’t the name you were born with?”
She shook her head. “I left everything behind. My name. The little brother I loved. My sister’s children. Everything. My parents disowned me and my foster family helped me legally change my name. They’re good people. They took care of me and showed me that real love and a good marriage were the complete opposite of what I’d ever seen or had been brainwashed to believe.”
“Are you still in contact with them?”
“Of course. They’re my family.”
He lifted her hand and rubbed his thumb over the cool sterling bracelet around her delicate wrist. “And the bracelet?”
She smiled. “My foster mother gave this to me on my fourteenth birthday—three months after I ran away from the community. She said she’d never met such a fearless girl before, and that she knew there were great things in store for my life.”
She touched the bracelet and their fingers met on the now warmed metal.
