Fool’s Errand: Cartwright Brothers, Book 4

by Anderson, Lilliana

  A Little Too Much

  Wedding receptions meant an open bar. Wine, beer, spirits and champagne. I drank them all, finding I cared less about how much I missed Abbot with each mouthful—I admitted how much I cared to myself after my third…no, fifth drink—and more about beating myself up for every shitty thing I’d ever done wrong in my life.

  “And I haven’t been perfect,” I said to a woman with glittery eyeshadow and bleach-burned hair. “I’ve done my fair share of arseholey things when it comes to love. When I was nineteen, I kissed a boy when I was dating someone else, simply because he gave me a lift to a party and I felt I owed him something. Stupid. It all came out and I looked like a tart, which was never what I wanted. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be seen for the woman that I am.” I blinked rapidly, squinting one eye before pulling off the fake eyelashes that had come loose. “I never wanted any of this.”

  “You might want to take the other one off too. You look a little unbalanced, love.”

  “Well, I feel unhinged.” I fumbled and tugged at the lashes on my other eye. “Ow.”

  The woman gave me a sympathetic pat on my knee and took the opportunity to bail.

  “Story of my fucking life,” I said, dropping my fake eyelashes into my empty glass before blowing a raspberry. Weddings sucked.

  A bottle of water was placed in front of me.

  “Drink,” Abbot commanded, taking the seat to my left.

  I looked at him over my shoulder, imagining it to be a coquettish move that in reality probably looked like I was about to pass out. I took a drink. He brushed my hair behind my ear.

  “I like you too much,” I blurted, the alcohol loosening my lips more than normal.

  “I know.” He spoke softly, his fingers brushing lightly over the skin of my arm.

  “I can’t be your friend.” The words came out in a loud whisper.

  “I know,” he whispered back, lowering his head to press his lips to my shoulder.

  I closed my eyes as his lips did warm tingly things to my alcohol-numbed body. “You can’t do that. I’m not playing anymore.”

  “Neither am I,” he said, holding out his hand. “Dance with me.”

  “I’m too unco to dance.”

  “Then lean against me and sway. Please, Sloane. Say goodbye to me.”

  That sobered me. “Goodbye?”

  “The warehouse is clear. You’ll have your money and your backpack by morning.”

  “So soon?”

  “Isn’t it what you wanted?”

  Tears pricked my eyes, but I nodded. “I just didn’t expect…” Instead of finishing, I cleared my throat and smiled. “Yes, I’ll dance with you.”

  Slipping my hand into his, I followed him onto the dance floor where he pulled me close and swayed like he’d promised. It was hard being this near to him again. I wanted to lean in and sink against his skin, peel his shirt away and run my hands over his chest like I’d done so many times before. I wanted to take him to bed and sleep beside him, one more time.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” he said, his eyes taking in my made-up features.

  “I feel like a painted clown.”

  He shook his head. “Far from it. I also like this dressy pants number.”

  “It’s a playsuit. Every time I pee I need to completely undress.”

  “I like it even more now.” He grinned, eyes twinkling as mine rolled back in my head. How can he tease when this is our end?

  “Yeah, well, I’m looking forward to getting back into a pair of leggings and a big T-shirt.”

  “And socks. Don’t forget your socks.”

  I smiled. “I do get cold feet.”

  “I know. Just like I know that you don’t like the wine you’ve been drinking half the night. And you’d rather wear my tux than that playsuit. That you watch happy couples with longing in your eyes and will do anything to be a good friend even though you want so much more. I know that you like to sleep on the right side of the bed, facing your left side, that you roll your eyes when you’re emotional, and you ramble when you’re excited or confused about something.”

  “You seem to have learned a lot in a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s because I like you too. A little too much.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Abbot.”

  “Don’t fight it, blue. Just put your head on my chest and let me hold you. I haven’t worked out what I’m doing with you yet.”

  You and me both. With a sigh, I placed my hands and my head on his chest, curling into him and listening to the beating of his heart and the intake of his breath as we swayed. We swayed to the slow songs. We swayed to the fast songs, and when the DJ called last dance, we stopped swaying and stood still, my hands curling into fists that contained the fabric of his shirt.

  “I’m not ready for you, Sloane Slater,” he said, swallowing hard. Tears burned my eyes, but I nodded, understanding. We didn’t want the same things. It was as simple as that.

  I uncurled my hands, flattening my palms on his chest, ready to push away. Then his arms tightened and he kissed my forehead for the longest time.

  “I need to go, Abbot,” I whispered.

  He released me.

  One last look.

  I drank him in from head to toe, taking a final breath of the air around him. Then I smiled. I walked away.

  And we were over.

  Ending before we started. Before we could get too deep.

  Our reasons were simple: I wanted more than he could give, and he liked me too much to string me along. There would be no compromise. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. There would just be two people, walking separate paths, forever changed by a game that had no winner.

  He’s not ready for me.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A Twenty-First Century Woman

  Minimalism. It sounded like a cool idea at first—get rid of my worldly possessions, my apartment, the shopfront, Lizzie…then live with the barest of necessities. Perhaps what I could fit into a backpack.

  When I began, it was cathartic throwing away the clutter I’d collected over the years. Participation trophies, shoes I would never wear again, books I’d bought to look smart but never read. I felt weight lifting from my shoulders with each unnecessary possession I discarded or gave away. But then I was finished going through my entire apartment and stripping out the store and I looked around, realising I still had a lot of crap left over. I didn’t want to live a life without a comfy couch, or a bed without great back support. I liked having more than one pair of runners as well as three different kinds of bikes. And Netflix was my spirit animal in the off-season, so a large-screened TV was key. Also, I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to Lizzie. She had been a reliable vehicle for so long that I couldn’t stand to list her for sale. So I made a different decision. Move near the sea and become a mobile locksmith. I was thinking of calling it ‘Chicks with Picks’. Get it? Because I’m a girl who can pick a lock. But then, it rhymed a little too closely to ‘chicks with dicks’ and would probably just make people think I was a lock-picking transvestite. So, maybe that name sucked. But it was a work in progress that would be a very easy way to clean the money I made on the safe job— the original two-fifty, because Toby took care of giving me the cash. He paid me, and I left without saying goodbye to everybody else the way an injured possum ran the moment you looked away.

  “Will they hate me for disappearing like this?” I’d asked when Toby had handed me my things the morning after the wedding.

  “What kind of a question is that?” he’d asked with kindness in his eyes. “We could never hate you. But, are you sure you don’t want to stick around? At least find out what your next job is?”

  I shook my head. “You can tell me when the time comes. But, Toby, if you find someone else who you trust, don’t tell me at all.”

  He nodded once, understanding. Then he gave me a hug. “In that case, stay away, Sloane. For another twenty years at least.”

  That made t
ears spring to my eyes. Leave and never see them again? I admit to crying a little (a lot) as I drove away. It was hard to leave the Cartwrights. Harder to walk away from the feelings I’d developed for Abbot. But I knew it was for the best. The Cartwrights were better left as a memory of fun times and fondness. Those misfit brothers occupied a special place in my heart that could never be replaced, but I wasn’t right for their world. I’d struggled with it twenty-one years ago, and time hadn’t changed that. Fearless and badarse might have been my descriptors once, but I didn’t feel like that anymore. It was as if being with Abbot had brought out those characteristics, and although it had been me, I felt…less now we were apart. And what Mark had called me—independent and capable—wasn’t really a true fit either. I’d thought myself independent, but it was only now that I was stepping away from what was comfortable that I would be acting independently. I was capable. I had proved myself an excellent locksmith and could be proud of that. Now it was time to discover who I was. I would prove to myself that I was self-sufficient and self-contained. I’d figure it out. Eventually.

  Sighing, I sat in my decluttered unit, sparkling clean because I’d just had an open house. I’d put my place on the market the moment I got home, and now I was reading an email from the agent, telling me I already had two offers. It was time to decide where I was moving.

  Scrolling through recommendations for family friendly coastal towns, I took a sip of milky tea and imagined doing this very activity with the sea breeze brushing against my skin. It had been a month since I’d felt it, and I missed it. Almost as much as I missed a certain brother. Abbot.

  Just as the mental picture of his teasing smirk took hold, there was a knock on my door to strip it away.

  “What happened to all your stuff?” my mother said, walking inside without an invitation.

  “I don’t recall giving you a key, Mother,” I said, turning in my chair.

  She shrugged. “I don’t need keys, baby.” Dropping her weight onto my couch, she let her head sink back and sighed out of comfort, closing her eyes.

  “Um…are you going to tell me why you’re here, or just take a nap?”

  “A nap would be great, but I do have a reason for stopping by.” She sat up and leaned forwards, her elbows on her jean-clad thighs, long silky scarf hanging from her neck, hair and make-up done to perfection.

  “I’m dying in anticipation,” I deadpanned.

  She grinned. “Oh, honey. It doesn’t seem like you’re happy to see me.”

  “Am I ever truly happy to see you?”

  “Understood. I’m a shitty mum. I get that.”

  “You’re a woeful mum. In fact, you were never a mum at all. Just some woman who breezed in and out of my life once or twice a year and fucked things up when she felt like it.”

  She swung her feet around so she was lying across the length of the couch. “That’s not true. We had some great times.”

  “When I was a kid and you fed me so much junk food I threw up? Yeah. Those times were awesome.”

  “Come on, Sloane. It wasn’t all bad.” She folded her arms behind her head and got a little more comfortable.

  “You’re right. It wasn’t,” I admitted. “But…I had needed you.” No outings, no late-night giggling and being silly, no flashy gifts or breaking of curfews would ever make up for all the time she missed. Fact is, I grew up and she missed it. She missed it all. “I needed you and you were never there for me.”

  “What happened with the Cartwright boy?” she asked, changing the subject before I could get too deep into what her absenteeism had meant for me. Typical.

  I sighed out of exasperation and shook my head. “Nothing happened. I finished the job and left.”

  “I really thought he’d marry you.”

  “Why? Because you offered to pay him.”

  “Well, he is a Cartwright.”

  “He’s not interested in marriage, Mum. I don’t think anyone could pay him enough to want the whole kids and wife experience.”

  “Meh. It was worth a shot,” she said, shifting so she could reach into her back pocket. She then leaned forward and flicked a folded piece of white paper across the room to me. It spun like a Frisbee and landed on the carpet two feet away from me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, leaning to collect it between two fingers.

  “Your inheritance.”

  “I thought I couldn’t have this until I got married?”

  She shrugged. “You could have it whenever I felt like giving it to you.”

  “Wait. That caveat was bullshit?”

  “As if your grandfather gave a shit if you were married or not. Open it. You’ll be happy.”

  I pressed the paper between my palms and looked my mother in the eye. “Why the hell did you say I had to get married?”

  Sitting up, she held her hands out to either side. “Because I thought he’d go for it. You two were obviously into each other. Jasmine and I thought you’d make cute babies together.”

  “You and Jasmine thought…? What the fuck, Mum!”

  “Hey, I thought I was doing you a favour. Get him to think marrying you is his idea and we all get what we want.”

  “We? What do we want, Mother?”

  “Babies. You want kids. I want grandkids. Jasmine wants grandkids.”

  “Jasmine has two grandkids on the way. Maybe more if all goes well for the others.”

  “Two grandkids to replace five sons?” She shook her head. “That’s not enough. She wants to retire, Sloane. I want to retire. If there’s no one to take over, everything we’ve worked for will go away.”

  I pressed my fingers into my forehead and tried to make sense of what she was saying against the throbbing in my head. Just being in the same room as my mother gave me a headache on a normal day. This was some migraine-level shit. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that it was no coincidence Abbot was the brother who hired you for that job.”

  “Explain.”

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asked while she lit up, giving me little choice.

  “Explain yourself, mother.”

  She blew cigarette smoke into the air, contaminating the orange blossom scent from the candles I’d burned earlier. “After Dad passed, Jasmine got in touch and we talked about the future. Our future. Your future. She and I have been doing this for a long time, kid. And it’s not something you want to be doing til the day you die. We want to live a little too, you know? Reap the rewards of our labour. So, she asked if you’d be open to taking on some extra work and whether you were still single.”

  “Single so she could set me up with Abbot?”

  She grinned, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth while she pointed at me with long red nails. “You’re catching on. Abbot had some mega crush on you as a kid, so she thought you might be the one to break through that Peter Pan syndrome of his. The job was the meet cute and the carrot in your hand was the incentive.” She indicated the paper I was holding. “But, he was a tougher nut to crack than we expected, so…” She sighed in a way that dismissed everything as no big deal. “No point in holding out anymore.”

  My jaw hurt from clenching so hard. My chest hurt from not screaming enough. My stomach hurt from swallowing bullshit. My head just plain hurt. How could she? How dare she?

  She’d colluded behind my back and tried to manipulate my life. Once again, she’d made a fucking mess.

  “Get. Out,” I growled through my teeth.

  “Sloane.” Her voice was soft, pleading. I couldn’t even look at her.

  “Get out.” I stood. “Get out. Get out. Get out!”

  Getting to her feet, she put her cigarette out in the soil of my pot plant. “I don’t know why you’re being like this.”

  “Get out,” I yelled.

  She raised her hands. “I’m going. I’m going.”

  I followed her to the door, ready to deadbolt and chain it after her. Nail it shut if necessary. Anything to make sure she didn’t come
back in.

  “For the record, Sloane, I was only doing what any mother would do when her only daughter is childless and pushing forty. Your eggs won’t keep forever, you know.”

  A scream erupted out of my chest as I tore up the piece of paper in my hands. “Get out of my fucking life and take your fucking money with you. I want nothing from you, do you hear? Nothing. All you do is meddle and make a mess. I just want to be alone.”

  “You don’t mean that, sweetheart.”

  I slammed the door and flipped the locks, sliding the security chain in place as my chest heaved and my eyes burned.

  Was I seriously that pitiful? So wretched that everyone else felt the need to make my decisions for me? First Pop and my mother, and now Jasmine?

  No wonder I was unhappy. None of my decisions were ever mine. They were all guided by older generations thinking they knew better and had the right to make my choices for me. Well, it was the twenty-first century and I was a twenty-first century woman. I could do all of this on my own.

  Pacing back and forth in my living room, I blew out huffs of air, trying to calm the swirling storm in my mind. I was so done with this life. Thank God I had offers on my apartment, because I was out of here.

  After I gave that other meddler a piece of my mind.

  With my mind made up, I picked up my keys and stormed out the door. Jasmine had lied and manipulated me. She needed to stay the fuck away from me too. I was done. So fucking done.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Consequences

  “Jasmine!” I bashed against the front door. “Get the hell out here. I have a bone to pick with you, you meddling piece of shit.”

  The front door opened with a dramatic pull. “Whoa, whoa,” Toby said, catching me by the elbows before I could rush past him. “What’s going on?”

  “Your mother is a meddling piece of shit is what’s going on. Jasmine!” I yelled past him.

  “She’s not here.”

  I stopped pushing and met his eyes. “Her car is out front.”