by Melissa West
Then his dad’s heart attack happened, and Brady’s character was questioned once again. He spent years rebuilding that trust, but the need to prove to them that he wouldn’t let them down, that he wouldn’t fail the family, still lingered below his confidence.
The restaurant was filling up now, and Brady needed to disappear into himself. He’d always been the kind of person that could only handle a crowd for so long. Like a pretend extrovert, he could do the social thing, but deep down it was hard for him, and he needed a break to get his thoughts back to neutral.
“Keep the change,” Brady said, passing the check back to Lee. He downed the last of his beer, then clasped hands with Charlie and patted Zac’s back. “See y’all tomorrow.”
To their credit, they let Brady leave without more aggravation, and he got into his red Z06, parked at the road because hell if he would drive down Captain Jack’s gravel road. He started down the road, unsure when he’d decided to drive past Franny’s house, but he found himself turning right instead of left and then following the long stretch of road toward Franny’s. He didn’t know what he thought he’d find there, and that unknown scared him enough that he almost turned around. But Brady had always been a curious person. He wondered if he’d see another car in the driveway―a car that was sure to be Kylie’s. He had no right to seek her out, and shouldn’t after how things ended. She could be with someone else now, could have someone in town with her. Even a family. But something told him it was just her, which meant what? That she’d struggled to move on, too? That she thought about him as often as he thought about her?
Slowing the car, he crept past the house, only to find it dark except for a single light shining out from the second story. He knew without question that Kylie would be in that room, likely working late into the night to find a way to save Franny’s. Because that was who she was—the heart she had—and even though they’d fallen apart, he still considered her to be the kindest, best person he’d ever known.
He stopped the car on the road and peered up at the light again. There was no one on the road, only him, so if she looked out the window and saw his headlights, she would know that he was there, and she would know that he was there for her.
“How am I supposed to forget you now?” he asked. Then the sheer curtains in the window swayed and a form appeared. She was in pajamas, her hair a mess on the top of her head, glasses over her eyes because she’d long since taken out her contacts. It’d been forever since he’d seen her, and yet it felt as though no time had passed at all.
He could just as easily be in his old Mustang. Just as easily sneak up the trellis and into her room at Franny’s, where she would stay more often than at her own house. And never once did her parents notice or care.
Before the moment drew long and before she could walk away from him again, he put the car in drive and pulled away, his chest tight, the weight that had slowly lifted over the years now clamped back in place.
He needed to figure out how to get this woman out of his head and heart before she destroyed him for good.
* * * *
Kylie dropped the curtain and took a step back, her skin clammy despite the chill in the old house. Surely that wasn’t…it couldn’t have been. And yet she knew with every ounce of her being that it was Brady. The question was why.
Her thoughts went back to the last time he’d been outside Franny’s house, pellets of rain beating down all around him, a look of resolution on his face.
He had stared at her, and she stared back and wordlessly opened her window. It took longer than normal for him to crawl up the trellis, or maybe it was the anticipation of him getting there that made it feel longer.
But then he was there, in her room, his hair slick against his forehead and his clothes dripping on the hardwood, and without a thought she reached out, the decision made before she’d consciously decided to make it, and her hands went to his shirt. Easing it off, she dropped it to the floor, and then he undid his shorts and they fell to the floor with a clang that should have worried them, but the moment held them in place.
Brady was slow, gentle in the best and worst possible ways. She wanted to feel him all around her, on her, in her.
They were seventeen and so full of hope for their lives that it seemed impossible that the most important night for them would end up being the beginning of the end.
Shaking off the memory, Kylie sat down on her bed. A sinking feeling worked through her at the thought of their last year together, each month more painful than the last, until she landed on the last time she saw him and she couldn’t stay in the thought anymore.
Grabbing her robe, she draped it around her shoulders, even though she wasn’t cold, and shoved each of her feet into her bedroom shoes. She stepped out of her room and rounded the banister, the old wooden steps creaking as she walked, and then she padded down the hall and into the kitchen. Sure enough, Franny sat at the table in the breakfast nook, crocheting like always.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked without looking up. Franny had always been a night owl who pretended to go to bed early, which likely meant she knew when Brady was here all those years ago, even if she pretended not to notice.
“You know I’ll be up until one.”
Franny nodded. “So much like your mom.”
Kylie wanted to ask Franny not to say that, but she knew that Franny was far too nice to ever see her friend as the selfish woman she was. “I guess.”
“Can I make you some tea?” she asked without looking up.
“I’ll make it.”
The wind picked up outside, a cold front blowing in that would give the kids in town a thrill as meteorologists talked about the potential for snow. Immediately, Kylie thought of kids’ crafts to do at the shop—ornaments, snowmen, mini globes. She made a note to check Pinterest later so she could pull a supply list together.
“You seem deep in thought today,” Franny said, once again not looking up, but this time Kylie knew it was less to do with her focus on her project and more on respecting Kylie’s need to reflect on questions like that without being watched.
Kylie put the kettle on the stovetop and clicked on the gas stove eye. “Can you tell me something?”
“Of course.”
“Are you tired of the shop? Is that why you want to sell?”
Franny’s hands paused for the first time. “I don’t want to sell. I would never dream of selling my shop. You might remember, it was my mother’s, and I inherited it from her.”
“You used to say she worked even when she was asleep at night.”
A smile spread across Franny’s face. “She had a lot of great ideas and would wake to jot them down. She made the shop what it is, so when I took over, I wanted to continue that legacy.”
“So then why sell to Brady? Why even talk to him? Why not go to the bank?”
The kettle whistled from behind her, so Kylie gave Franny a moment to think while she turned off the eye and moved the kettle to a cooler one. Taking two teacups from the cabinet beside the refrigerator, she filled each with hot water, then dropped a teabag into each to steep. She walked over, set one before Franny, and took the seat across from her.
“I know you don’t like to worry me, but let me help you.”
Franny stared down at her teacup, then slowly glanced up at Kylie, tears in her eyes now. “You’re right, I don’t like to worry you. But you deserve to know the truth. I can’t afford to keep the shop open, and I am too old to consider a loan from the bank. I wouldn’t live long enough to pay it off.”
“Don’t say—”
She lifted a hand to stop Kylie. “Some things are just true, dear. Saying them out loud or ignoring them doesn’t change the facts. If my family history is any indication, my days are numbered. Without a loan, it would take a miracle to keep the shop running.”
Yeah, but that didn’t mean Kylie had to let this ha
ppen. She knew Franny as well as she knew herself, and it would break her heart to lose the shop. The thought made Kylie’s heart ache in a way it hadn’t in years. Franny was the only one she had left, the only person to ever truly care about her. Of course, she’d once thought that tiny group of people who cared about her was two, but Brady had shown her that he only cared about himself.
And then, as though a light bulb had popped on inside her mind, an idea occurred to her.
She sat up abruptly, her thoughts spinning. Brady cared about himself more than anyone else, so what if Kylie presented him with an offer that benefited him, an offer he couldn’t refuse?
Grabbing her keys and her purse, Kylie started for the door, too excited to remember that she’d just made tea for her and Franny.
“Where are you going?” Franny called.
Kylie grinned over her shoulder at her godmother. “To find our miracle.”
Chapter 3
Brady sighed heavily as he leaned back in his office chair. The walls of his office were a muted gray with off white trim. His desk was antiqued oak, and his chair was dark leather. Windows stretched from floor to ceiling on one wall, his finance degree from USC on the adjacent wall, and then shelves lined the back wall. A variety of books sat on the shelving, many he hadn’t touched, but some of his favorites showed wear from him reading them again and again.
These days his reading interests veered on the nonfiction side, almost always around business as he tried to keep up-to-date on trends and strategies.
But tonight he hadn’t time to think about reading. He’d been poring over the numbers Zac had provided him for the expansion for over an hour, all in an effort to figure out how to persuade Ms. Franny into selling. But at the end of the day, their goals for the space didn’t hold the same emotional tie that she would have to the Christmas shop. Which, in truth, was the reason he’d taken so long to pursue her. How could he go to her and ask her to sell her shop knowing how much it meant to her (and, at one point, to him)?
He thought of the time he and Kylie had gotten stranded there, a winter storm blowing in so fiercely that the roads weren’t safe to drive on. They were smart enough to not take the chance. They ended up baking cookies in the mini cookie oven Franny bought that year and watching Christmas movie after Christmas movie. Finally, just after midnight, the power went out and they bundled together under some of the down blankets Franny sold in the shop. They talked about everything and nothing as snow fell outside, until they were too tired to keep their eyes open.
Still to this day, it was the best night of his life, the night whatever was happening between them became more.
Finishing off a water bottle, Brady tossed it into the trash and stared at his laptop again. Still, he couldn’t think up a sales pitch that would work on Franny. He needed a break. And a beer.
Brady pushed his chair back and stood up, stretched until the joints in his back popped, then started out into the hall toward the kitchen. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was five sizes larger than what he needed, complete with a double oven and two dishwashers, more cabinet space than he’d ever fill, and a large eat-in area that would seat eight.
The house itself had four bedrooms and three and a half baths, but the original owners had been builders so they went all out with the details. Everything about it was custom, down to the shade of the hardwood floors, which had been a custom blend for the builder’s wife. Then life stepped in, and she passed away from ovarian cancer. The builder said he couldn’t live in the house he’d built for her any longer.
Brady paid the builder’s asking price, even though he could have offered less and the builder would have likely taken it. He had never been the kind of man to kick another when he was down, so he finalized everything with the bank, paid what he had to pay out of pocket, and moved on in.
For weeks, he’d gone from room to room, trying to find ways to make the house his own, paint, decor, whatever. But every time he attempted to move something, he felt a punch of guilt, like the wife was there watching him move her stuff. He ended up leaving it exactly as it was, with the exception of buying a few pieces of furniture, gutting the master bedroom, remodeling the office. The rest didn’t matter to him anyway.
Light rain pinged against the tin roof, and Brady made a note to check the weather for the next few days to see if they’d get any snow. It was early for snow, but then last year, Crestler’s Key had its first snow in late November.
He opened his fancy fridge and pulled out a beer, his third of the day, and felt a tinge of disappointment in himself. He tried to limit drinking, but these weren’t normal times. Kylie was back, and with her return, all the memories he’d tucked away came pouring back. Suddenly, he didn’t know how to go about his day in the same way, how to be in this town, without his thoughts conjuring up all the what-ifs that he’d tried to ignore over the years.
Cracking the can, he took a drink, then went to the pantry and pulled out some pretzels. He’d just decided to call it quits on the business stuff in favor of finding something good on TV when a knock at the front door pulled his attention from the bag of pretzels and to the random visitor.
No one came to see him except his family, and they would all be busy with their own families at this hour.
Another knock, and Brady set down his beer, but kept still. He was one of those people who despite all the lights being on and the TV playing would freeze up and pretend not to be there in hopes that a random visitor would go away.
But another knock, then three more came, and Brady knew whoever it was wouldn’t go away any time soon.
Brady padded around the kitchen island, cognizant of the fact that he wore nothing but an A-shirt and his usual red plaid pajama pants, his feet bare. He peeked out the side window, and immediately his chest tightened, the desire to flee so real it took all his effort to remain rooted to the spot.
Taking his time, he turned the deadbolt, then the lock on the handle, and eased the door open, his body blocking the rest of his house from view like he needed to protect it—or himself—from the person standing before him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
Brady stared down at Kylie, the person who’d once been so much a part of his world she didn’t bother to knock when she came over. And yet now, here she stood, asking if she could come in. Even more surprising, he was tempted to say no.
She wore simple black leggings and a long pullover, Uggs on her feet, the look so very Kylie-like that it made his heart clench. She had always been the kind of woman that preferred to dress in clothes as comfortable as PJs, and it’d always been something he loved about her.
“Is that a yes or no, or were you going to just continue to stare at me?”
His eyes narrowed as her hands went to her curvy hips. She was shaking, whether from anger or nerves he couldn’t be sure. “I’m thinking about it.”
“All right, let me help you with that.” She pushed past him and into his house, and Brady contemplated grabbing her little ass and taking her back outside. This was his house, his world, and she made it very apparent years ago that she wanted no part of it.
“Hey, I didn’t invite you in.” Brady knew it was a moot point, but he needed to maintain some semblance of control. Though he’d never once had control when Kylie was around. That was part of the problem.
“I didn’t ask you to invite me in.” She paused in the foyer, her eyes darting right then left, then straight ahead, taking it all in.
Like the rest of the house, the foyer was custom in every way. Decorative marble flooring, wood and stone columns leading into the formal dining room, a chandelier so nice it had no business being in Brady’s house, yet there it hung above them.
“Wow, I didn’t expect you to be…” She ducked her head into the dining room, took in the large table, the mismatched chairs
that somehow went together perfectly. Shelves lined the wall across from them, where there had once been fine china on display. Brady had forced the builder to take it with him when he left. Ornate curtains framed the double windows, with a second set of sheer curtains tucked inside the larger ones. It all made no sense to Brady, but he had learned over the year and half that he’d lived in the builder’s house that his wife had a design aesthetic that was all her own.
If Brady had a wife, he might have liked her to make the house her own, but then the closest he’d come to even entertaining such a word walked out of his life, only to crash back into it like a freaking meteor.
“Didn’t expect me to be what?”
Kylie adjusted her pullover in the front and then the back, an anxious tic no doubt, and he settled on that she wasn’t so much angry as nervous. He knew the feeling.
She rotated around to face him. “I didn’t expect you to be married.” Her eyes diverted the moment she said the word, and he had to wonder if it was as hard for her to entertain him being with someone else as it was for him to think of her with someone.
He crossed his arms and leaned against one of the columns. “Who said I was married?”
Kylie gestured around them. “Someone had to decorate this house.”
Brady stared at her. “Someone did.”
He knew he should say more, squash her fears and all, but he couldn’t bring himself to give her the relief she so clearly craved, when her being there made him want to vomit.
Her eyes widened a touch before she corrected. “Right. Well, if I’m disturbing you, then I can—”
“Ky, what are you doing here?”
Pausing mid-motion, she faced him again, and this time he caught the sadness in her eyes. He almost asked her what was wrong, but it wasn’t his right to ask that question, and he’d long ago told himself that he didn’t care.
