by Elise Noble
“Yeah, she adopted the mutt from the shelter two weeks ago. And she’s in Baldwin’s Shore.”
“Visiting?”
“No, she moved back. Decided the city wasn’t for her and rented the Crowes’ garage apartment.”
Ah, fuck. Why the hell hadn’t Aaron told me that? Actually, I could answer my own question: because every time he mentioned his baby sister, I changed the subject.
“I thought Brooke had a car?”
“She does, but she went out hiking on the Eagle’s Nest Trail.”
Brooke was on the trail? Alone? There were cougars up there. And bears, and rattlesnakes. I had one leg in my pants before I finished the thought.
“How far did she get?”
And where was my gun?
“She’s waiting at the trailhead. Do you remember where the veterinarian’s office is?”
“Behind the feed store?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
I threw on a T-shirt, tossed a handful of mints into my mouth, and debated shaving. Nah, didn’t have time. And besides, women found the stubble sexy, or so they said. One night in a bar, an army buddy had asked a group of Rangerettes to rate my attributes, and the stubble had come in third, right behind my muscles and my smile. For some reason, chicks dug the dimples. Which kind of made up for being nicknamed “crater face” in junior high, but—
Hold that thought right there.
I didn’t need to look sexy around Brooke. There was only one thing worse than wanting my best friend’s little sister and not being able to have her, and that was knowing she wanted me too. And once upon a time, she had wanted me. Two weeks before I left for boot camp, she’d broken down in my room and told me she didn’t want to lose me. That she liked me. That she’d wait for me. And I’d done the honourable thing and lied. I’d lied and told her I didn’t feel the same, and then I’d sent her away.
Fuck.
Okay, no smile, no muscles, no stubble.
I spotted a plaid shirt someone had left on a workbench, pulled it on over my T-shirt, and grabbed a razor from my washbag. I could shave at the stop lights. When I got to the trailhead, I’d act like an asshole and everything would be fine. In a week, maybe two, I’d get offered another security contract and ship out to some godforsaken sandpit, and everything would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
I made it to the trailhead in thirteen minutes and screwed up almost immediately. Brooke was exactly where Aaron said she’d be, and she looked fucking radiant. Stunning. She’d turned from a pretty teenager into a beautiful woman, curvier than I remembered but with the same sparkling eyes. Her thick chocolate-brown hair was braided into a pair of pigtails just made for tugging on, still long, and my mind went from zero to filthy in nought point five seconds. So much for not smiling. I grinned like an idiot before I caught myself.
Had she noticed? Probably not—it was a sunny day, and the glare on the windshield covered my mistake.
The dog lying in the dirt beside Brooke had the head of a German shepherd and the stocky body of a pit bull. He might have been intimidating if it hadn’t been for the tongue lolling out of his mouth and the fact that the tip of his tail started wagging as soon as I got out of the truck. A couple I hadn’t seen before was standing with them. Friends? The man was staring at her tits, and as I got closer, I could hear the blonde woman chattering about a Japanese tea garden and Turtle Rock. Probably tourists. I had no idea where the Japanese garden was, but Turtle Rock was the town’s biggest claim to fame, although that wasn’t much to brag about. It was a rock. Shaped like a turtle. Rumour said a ghostly siren had made it her home, but that was just bullshit, probably invented by some hotel owner in the dim and distant past. Tourists wanted their photos taken in front of it, and idiots swam out to sea to try and climb it. Lucky there was a coastguard station nearby.
“Ready to go?”
“Luca?”
She seriously had to ask that question?
“We’ll have to put the dog in the back seat.”
“I-I don’t think I can lift him. I hurt my back carrying him the first time.”
“You should have waited.”
Brooke’s mouth set into a thin little line. “I didn’t want to stay in the forest.”
The blonde’s head was swinging back and forth as she followed the conversation, and judging by her scowl, she didn’t think much of me either.
“Uh, do you want us to come with you?” she asked Brooke.
Translation: that guy seems like an asshole.
“No, I’ll be fine. He’s friends with my brother.”
“Okaaaaay. If you’re sure.”
“I really am, and thanks so much for helping me.”
“Maybe we’ll see you at the craft store?”
“I’d love that. And I promise you won’t regret a visit to the tea garden. It’s lovely all year round.”
Time to get going. “Will the dog bite me if I pick it up?”
“Vega. His name is Vega. And I don’t think he’ll bite, but I only just adopted him and sometimes he gets scared.”
I knelt down and petted the mutt, and he licked my hand. I’d never had a dog of my own, or any other sort of pet, mainly because my father would have beaten it the way he beat me. But when I was stationed in Afghanistan, a pack of stray dogs hung around at the base and I used to buy food for them. We’d gotten along okay.
“Hey, boy, you wanna go visit the veterinarian?”
When he didn’t seem averse to the idea, I wrapped my arms around his belly and heaved him into the cab. He must’ve weighed sixty pounds at least. No wonder Brooke had struggled—how far had she carried him?
“Should we tie him to the seat belt or something?”
“He has a harness for the car, but I didn’t bring it today, only his leash.”
“Well, unless you want to jog home and pick it up…”
“I don’t think he’ll move. As long as you drive carefully, that is.”
“Have I ever not driven carefully?”
“Well, there was that time when you parked your dad’s truck in the ditch…”
It had been icy that morning, and Dad had beaten me black and blue over the dented fender. Brooke didn’t know that, of course. I’d kept the bruises hidden the same way as I always did because I didn’t want her to realise just how bad things had gotten at home. And in some ways, the accident had been a blessing. At sixteen, I’d stood over six feet tall, but I’d always been kind of skinny. Then Aaron got a weight bench, only a cheap thing he’d bought second-hand from an internet auction, but we used to pump iron every weekend in Nonna’s garage and we thought we were the shit. By the time I turned seventeen, I’d begun to fill out. I started watched old boxing videos on YouTube, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, “Sugar” Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, and when I couldn’t sleep, I’d shadow-box in front of the spotted old mirror in my bedroom. Night after night after night. It gave my anger an outlet.
So when my father finished with his fists and took off his belt, I decided enough was enough, and I broke his fucking nose. He came at me with a whisky bottle, and I broke that too.
It was the last day he’d ever laid a hand on me.
Why didn’t I simply leave, you ask? Why didn’t I join the army at seventeen? Fair question—I mean, my dad would’ve given his consent just to get rid of me. But I had a sister Brooke’s age. Romi was smart and beautiful but vulnerable too, and I didn’t trust our father not to hurt her. To break her. When he drank, he just…lashed out. So, I stuck around for another three years until she could graduate and get the hell out of town too. We’d spent a lot of time with the Bartletts in those days. Hell, Mrs. Bartlett had insisted I call her “Nonna” the same as Brooke and Aaron did. In the eight years before today, I’d returned to Baldwin’s Shore twice, once to attend Hannah Haines’s funeral and most recently to attend Nonna’s. On that cold,
clear January afternoon, I’d stood there silent and full of regrets as the casket was lowered into the ground in the little cemetery by the ocean. I should have visited more often. I should have done more than send money. I should have said a proper goodbye. That Brooke and Aaron’s grandma had passed away while my father was still—presumably—breathing showed how little justice there was in the world.
“Yeah, well, I learned my lesson. I’m not gonna crash, okay?”
Brooke climbed into the passenger seat, and I dragged my gaze away from her legs. Shit, coming here had been a bad, bad idea. I should’ve taken a vacation instead, sat on a beach somewhere with hot women and ice-cold beer. Instead, I was stuck in a truck with a farting dog and a woman I could never have. She folded her arms when I started the engine, leaving me under no illusion as to where I stood in her affections. She thought I was a jerk.
I should have been relieved.
Why, then, did I feel so damn hollow inside?
3
Brooke
What was Luca Mendez doing in Baldwin’s Shore?
Why had he come back?
Was his father sick? One could hope.
And why did Luca have to look so horribly good?
The last time I’d seen him, he’d been standing solemnly at Nonna’s funeral in his dress uniform, although he’d looked kind of blurry through my tears. The asshole. First, he’d treated me like a virtual stranger that day—he’d hugged my brother, then shaken my freaking hand—and afterward, he’d left town without saying goodbye. I understood that he’d felt awkward after I offered myself to him on a plate—okay, his bed—but I’d been a month past my eighteenth birthday and stupid. Couldn’t he cut me a little slack?
“Vega’s torn his cruciate ligament, Ms. Bartlett,” the veterinarian said, dragging me back to the present. Vega tried to slurp at his face, and he ducked out of the way with practised ease. The dog seemed to lick people as a defence mechanism, I’d noticed. Almost an apology. Please don’t hurt me. “See the way his tibia slides forward when I move his leg? It’s not meant to do that.”
“Please call me Brooke,” I said out of habit.
“And I’m Isaac.”
Isaac Ward had bought the veterinary practice after Dr. Stockton retired to Florida to be near his daughter. I’d never visited before, but Darla had brought her cat for shots a few months ago, and when she got back to the store, she’d giggled and said he was a definite improvement. And now I knew why. His bedside manner, obviously—nothing to do with his tousled brown hair or the way those blue eyes twinkled when he looked up at me.
Isaac’s charms didn’t have the same effect on Luca, though. He leaned against the wall by the door wearing the faintest scowl, which I ignored. It wasn’t as if I’d asked him to come inside, anyway. He could have waited in the car.
Or gone back to Deals on Wheels.
Or flown to a whole other country.
Isaac cleared his throat. Ah, right, Vega’s leg.
“Will it be okay? I mean, will it heal?”
“In a smaller dog, an injury like this can improve with rest, but for an animal of Vega’s size, surgery’s the best option.”
“S-s-surgery?”
When I adopted Vega from the shelter, I’d been looking for a guard dog, but I also wanted to give him a happier life. He’d looked so sad sitting at the back of his kennel, head hanging down, and the volunteer who showed me around the dogs said most people walked right on past because he never came over to greet visitors. But I saw him. And I saw that he’d lost his spirit the way I’d lost mine.
So far, he’d kept to himself at home, or as “to himself” as he could keep in a one-bedroom apartment. In the evenings, he curled up in his bed in the corner of the living room, but he liked his dinner and he happily trotted along beside me on walks. Last night, he’d crept along on his belly as I watched TV, getting closer and closer to the couch. He’d stopped halfway, but it was definite progress.
And now he was hurt. Because I couldn’t keep my fear under control, he was hurt, and I’d only had him for two weeks. Well done, Brooke. You score a D-minus as a pet owner.
“It’s a fairly straightforward operation, and there’s an excellent orthopaedic surgeon in Coos Bay. If Vega doesn’t have the surgery, his limp might improve slightly, but without stabilisation, the bones will rub together, and that’s going to lead to arthritis later in life.”
“How soon can we get an appointment?”
“I’ll send over a referral right away.”
“Do you know how much it might cost?”
“With today’s appointment, the surgery, medication, and follow-ups, I’d estimate around fifteen hundred dollars.”
I swallowed hard, but what choice did I have? Vega deserved the best treatment. I had money set aside to buy bathroom fittings for my new apartment at Deals on Wheels, but who needed faucets anyway? The Crowes’ garage apartment came with the basics, and I could stay there for as long as I wanted. Renting for a few more months wouldn’t kill me. Adeline’s grandma had been good friends with Nonna, and the Crowes charged me way less than they should have.
“Right. Okay.”
Isaac must have felt sorry for me. There was no mistaking his look of sympathy. Had he heard about my sudden move back to Baldwin’s Shore? Or the fact that I was always first in line at yard sales? That was the problem in a small town—gossip travelled faster than a hat in a hurricane.
“The surgeon might be willing to work out a payment plan. Do you want me to call the practice and see what they can do?”
“Thank you,” I said around the lump in my throat. “I’d be grateful.”
Vega expressed his thanks by farting—again—and Isaac wrinkled his nose.
“Maybe I’ll just open a window first.”
That’s what I did at home, but only the bathroom window and the small one above the kitchen sink because an intruder couldn’t fit through those. The rest of the time, I lived with the smell. And got angry. Angry that a man’s selfish actions had left me jumping at my own shadow. Angry that he’d come back to torment me. Wasn’t scaring me out of Coos Bay enough for him?
Speaking of Coos Bay, the specialist veterinarian had one appointment left that afternoon, and if I skipped lunch, I could make it in time. I owed that much to Vega.
“I’d better check that Deck doesn’t need his truck this afternoon.”
What was Luca talking about? “Why does that matter?”
“Because it’ll take us a half hour to get to Coos Bay and a half hour to get back.”
“I’m sorry—us?”
“You were planning to drive yourself? How are you gonna lift Vega out of your car at the other end?”
“I’ll manage.”
“You already hurt your back, Brooke.”
I’d rather take Tylenol than spend another minute in the truck with Luca Mendez. It would be less painful, both to my heart and to my head. I already had red-hot needles stabbing behind my eyeballs. And could he stop scowling, just for a minute? Yes, I understood that he’d rather be somewhere else, a fact that made his offer to come to Coos Bay all the more mystifying.
“So? I might as well get used to carrying him—I live in a walk-up apartment.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose the way he always used to when he got stressed. “Fuck.”
“Luca, what are you doing here?”
“Driving you and your dog to the veterinarian,” he said, using his “isn’t it obvious?” voice.
“No, I mean why did you come back to Baldwin’s Shore? Why now?”
“It’s my home.”
“But you always hated the place. You couldn’t wait to leave.”
“No, I hated living with my father. There’s a difference.”
“I thought that maybe you’d come back to see him. He broke his arm falling out of the Cave not so long ago, and…”
Now Luca turned to look at me, and that gaze had only grown more intense over the years. I was close enou
gh to see the gold that flecked his rich brown irises, to wonder whether the network of fine lines around his eyes had been born out of laughter or out of stress. I knew from my brother that he’d transferred into special forces soon after he joined the army, and every time I heard a news story about soldiers being injured or killed in a high-tech operation, or a daring raid, or a rescue mission, I’d prayed Luca’s name wouldn’t be mentioned. But I’d never thought about the toll the job would take on him. Probably because I’d tried to avoid thinking about him at all.
“I didn’t even know for sure that my father was still alive, and I don’t give a shit that he broke his arm. I always figured he’d drink his way into an early grave.” Luca sighed. “Why did I come back? Habit, I guess. I always used to crash with Aaron in New York when I came to the US on leave. But don’t worry; I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Worried? Why would I be worried?”
“I’m not a fuckin’ idiot, Brooke. I feel the daggers you shoot at me every time my back’s turned.”
Had I been doing that?
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
They were more like…craft knives. And the blades retracted and bounced right off him anyway. Luca was one big wall of muscle.
Luca’s shrug said that he either didn’t care about my thoughts or didn’t believe my words. “While I’m here, I promised I’d help your brother out, and that means carrying your dog into the veterinarian’s office. He’d be pissed if I let you hurt yourself. And one of us will carry him into your apartment too. He said you were staying at the Crowes’ place?”
I might be able to convince Luca to leave me the hell alone, but when it came to Aaron, I had no hope. Ever since our parents died in a car crash, he’d played the protective older brother. The overprotective older brother. Even when he was living in New York, he’d called or texted every day and come home to visit whenever he could. He’d drop everything if I was in trouble. During his first year at college, I’d slipped and fallen during a late snowfall and fractured my wrist, and he’d flown back to Oregon the very next day to help me out. And then struggled with his first set of exams because of all the lectures he’d missed.
