“And Dante?”
Finn cocked his head. “Still think you’re not hiding behind him?”
She wanted to deny it, but the longer they talked, the harder it was to pretend that she hadn’t relied on her brother a little too much. “That doesn’t stop him from being an important part of my life.”
“Whatever Dante’s other problems with Bryce are, old or new, he’ll get over it. For you. More than anyone, he’s always put your happiness first. Do you really think he’d just turn his back on you now?”
“He’s worried I’ll get hurt.” Or she’d assumed as much. She glanced at the closed door, not as entirely sure that’s what was on his mind now.
“You’re hurting now,” Finn said gently.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” she whispered, wishing she knew how much of her fear stemmed from the emotional upheaval of the last few days.
“If you really believed that we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve been where you are.”
Darby just wished she knew exactly where that was. “And Thomas Lancaster?”
He gave her a grim look. “I’m afraid he’s part of the package.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that he hates us so much?”
“I don’t think he does. I think he hates whatever it was that came between our families in the first place.”
Rising, Finn followed Dante’s lead and dropped a quick kiss on her head. “Get some rest. Things will look better in the morning.”
“Is that the old Calder optimism talking?”
He winked and let himself out of the room.
* * *
“From bad to worse,” Bryce mused, catching sight of Dante Calder weaving around tables and chairs and heading right for the bar.
Exactly where Bryce was. Where he’d been the last couple of hours, though he’d done more staring at the beer in his hand than drinking.
As if reminding himself, he lifted the bottle to his lips. He set it aside, watching in stunned fascination as Dante actually slid onto the stool next to him.
“Don’t tell me. You couldn’t find any puppies to kick.”
Darby’s twin merely motioned to the bartender. “Something on your mind, Lancaster?”
“Yes, actually. I’m trying to decide what’s worse. Getting on another plane in the morning or talking to you.”
Dante nodded. “I would have thought getting dumped would have made the top of that list, actually.”
If the stick-up-his-ass Calder was looking for a fight…
“Sorry.” Dante waited for his beer, taking a long drink before turning to face Bryce. “I never said thank you.”
Hiding his surprise, Bryce took another drink of his own beer, finding it empty. “A text message would have sufficed.”
Dante ignored the dig. “You looked after her out there.”
He shook his head. “We looked after each other.” He motioned for another beer. He was pretty sure he was going to need more of them to get through the rest of this conversation. “Your sister is the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
Dante grunted.
“Are you two also wondering if anyone is looking over here thinking you two are a couple?” Coming out of nowhere, Riley leaned against the bar on Bryce’s other side.
“And it just keeps getting better,” he muttered. Christ, he was going to need hard liquor at this rate.
“Don’t worry, I’m not staying. Just making sure you two aren’t about to throw down.” She paused. “You’re not, right? I wouldn’t want to miss that show again.”
He and Dante exchanged puzzled glances.
She shrugged. “You suck at keeping secrets from the rest of us.” She pointed at Dante. “But at least you’ve gotten better at knowing when you’re being followed.” She switched her attention to Bryce. “And you suck at keeping your swimmers upstream apparently.”
Bryce just shook his head. “Is there anyone who doesn’t know about what happened between Darby and me?”
Riley pursed her lips. “I don’t think Violet knows. I should call her. Distract her from the labor pains.”
“She’s in labor?”
“Yes,” Riley answered at the same time Dante said, “No.”
“Seeing as you two are playing nice and I’m down twenty bucks—” she waved at where Alex was sitting in the far corner, “—I’ll leave you guys to it.”
Moving out as quickly as she had in, Riley walked away.
“How does she do that?”
Dante stared after his sister. “I have no idea.”
They both took a drink, and Bryce waited, debating whether he wanted to ask Dante anything about it. “Was it bad?”
Piercing blue eyes that so closely mirrored Darby’s pinned him in place. “So you really never knew about the baby?”
“She wouldn’t have gone through that alone if I had.”
Dante gave Bryce another steady, assessing gaze that seemed bent on seeing inside him. “She wasn’t alone.”
“She had you.” He had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Taking another drink of his beer, Dante nodded. “It was bad.”
They sat in silence, a decade’s worth of animosity hanging on the air between them.
After ordering another beer—the guy drank them like water, it seemed—Dante folded his arms on the bar. “She’s crazy about you.”
“She’s furious with me.”
“She’s more upset that she was the last one to know.”
He shook his head, confused.
Dante arched a brow. “Did you really think you could try to keep tabs on a family of private investigators and they wouldn’t find out?”
It hadn’t been about keeping tabs on them, so much as being prepared for damage control. Once upon a time, he’d thought it was necessary. Now…not so much.
Not that it mattered.
Bryce sat back, just going with the obvious. “Why are you even talking to me? You don’t even like me.”
“You’re in love with my sister.” He set his beer down hard enough to slosh some of the contents down the neck of the bottle.
“And that pisses you off,” Bryce guessed.
“You loved her then, too, didn’t you?”
Was he serious? “Did you think I kept showing up at her door and trying to call because I liked getting my ass kicked?”
“So that is how you remember it,” Dante said it without even cracking a smile, but somehow Bryce knew he was trying to be funny.
Could the day get any more strange?
“Yes, I was in love with her then,” he added just to be clear. It was still different than the intense emotions he felt for her now, as if his love had only been in its infancy then and had needed time to mature.
“You need to go find her.” Dante stood, taking his beer with him. He signaled the bartender for his bill.
“She won’t talk to me.”
“Then you need to be more stubborn than she is.”
“How?” he asked, unsure if he was more shocked that he’d just asked Dante’s advice or that Darby’s twin was actually encouraging him to go after her.
Dante shrugged, scrawling his name and room number on the tab. “Something will come to you.”
He clapped him on the back, a gesture that was so unexpected it might have been disturbing if Bryce hadn’t picked up the pen Dante had left behind and grinned.
* * *
“Can’t you just let yourself in?” Groggy and all-around miserable, Darby stumbled from bed.
The light in the main room had been left on, making it impossible to miss the note Dante had left for her. You don’t need me.
“Yes I do,” she whispered to no one. Maybe she didn’t need him to help her deal with Bryce but that didn’t mean she’d ever stop needing her big brother.
Which was exactly what she planned to tell him when she yanked open the door and found…Bryce?
&
nbsp; His foot slid into the jamb before she got the door all the way closed again.
It should have annoyed her, but it gave her time to glance at Bryce. Jesus, he looked as awful as she felt.
And insanely attractive and wonderful, all at the same time. Who was she kidding? She wouldn’t have been able to slam the door in his face in a million years.
“Can we talk for a minute?”
A part of her ached to tell him not to talk, that it didn’t matter. That after everything they’d been through, his investigating their family wasn’t even a blip on the radar. The other part needed to hear whatever he’d come to say, needed to know that they really could trust each other before she gave in to the instinct to launch herself right into his arms.
She nodded, holding the door open for him to come in.
He walked past her, something in his hand.
“What’s that?”
Bryce held up an oversized, zipper-sealed plastic bag crammed to the top with…pens?
She frowned. “What are you doing with those?”
“I figured I needed all the luck I could get.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You stole all those?” She didn’t know whether to be worried or impressed. How had he found so many from the resort? She could tell by the different colors that there had to be numerous ones from businesses in the States.
Had he hit up every tourist he’d come across at the resort?
“So you think that luck will get you what you want? Do you even know what that is?”
He nodded. “Magic.”
He’d lost her already.
He set the pens down long enough to tug her toward him, and she realized how much she wanted to be tucked against him where everything felt perfect and right.
“I know you’re worried that the stupid feud between our families will come between us, but it won’t.”
She shook her head. “It already has.”
“Finn and Bree make it work.”
“Bree likes my family.”
Bryce flattened a palm to his chest. “I like your family.”
She didn’t even try to contain her snort.
“I just had drinks with Dante and Riley. I’m growing on them.”
That she would have to see.
“Your name doesn’t matter to me. It never did. I just didn’t want to scare you off when we were younger, so I lied about my name. It didn’t matter what I had grown up hearing my father say about your family, I needed to know you.”
God, she wanted to believe he meant every word, needed to believe it if they even had a chance of making this work. She’d been half-convinced that too much damage had been done, but staring at Bryce, feeling his strength, his unwavering determination, it did seem like they could overcome anything.
“I was wrong,” he tacked on.
“About what?”
“I don’t want to kiss away a single thing.”
“They gave you some real strong pain meds for your leg, didn’t they?”
Laughing, he shook his head. “When we were on the island and you fell in the mud,” he began.
“When you laughed at me,” she reminded him, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Technically it was after I laughed.” He grinned, that heart-stopping, cocky grin she couldn’t get enough of. “I pulled you up and all I wanted to do was kiss every bad memory away. Every harsh word, every betrayal, every moment that we weren’t there for each other. But that would be like erasing all the crazy things that have shaped you into who you are. Who I am.” He cupped her cheek, his fingers warm and possessive. “But I swear to you those moments are behind us.”
She leaned into his palm, her heart thumping against her ribs. Something in his voice—the heat, the hope, the promise—made her believe that they could find a way to make things work, no matter where they were.
“I fell in love with you because of who you are. Your name, the magic you embrace, the relationship you have with your family, your frustrating, pain-in-my-ass family. Everything.”
She pursed her lips. “How many bags of pens did you bring with you?”
He laughed, and she couldn’t imagine her life without hearing that sound every single day.
She swallowed past the thickness in her throat. “Bryce—”
“I’m not done.” He touched his forehead to hers, lingering a moment before straightening.
“I never said I was sorry. That I wish I had been the one with you when you lost our baby. That it should have been me holding your hand, wiping away your tears. And I would have. I would have done anything to make it even a little more bearable.”
Her vision blurred, his thumb catching the tear that slipped down her cheek.
“And,” he continued, “if things had been different, I would have been excited, would have wanted to pick out baby names with you—”
“What one?” she asked, interrupting him.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Han.”
She bit back her smile. “And if it had been a girl?”
“Leia?” he offered, suddenly laughing and kissing her until she wasn’t sure which they were doing, but it all felt so amazing and incredible it didn’t matter.
“I think you’re forgetting something.”
She was?
“You forgot to tell the incredibly handsome man who adores you more than anything that if things ever get hard or difficult again, you won’t run to your brother for help.” He nipped her bottom lip. “That’s my job now.”
She slipped out of his arms long enough to hand him the note that Dante had left for her. “Lucky for you I have an opening for that role.”
He stared at her. “I’m still waiting.”
Careful of her arm, she slipped them around his shoulders. “I promise not to go running back to my brother, or any family member, whenever things get rough. And with our families, there are bound to be more rough moments.”
He took her hand, tugging her away from the door and toward the bedroom. “You forgot the incredibly handsome part.”
* * *
“You didn’t have to do that,” Alex said when Dante joined him at his table in the bar.
The other man only shrugged, offering no explanations.
Alex hadn’t really expected one.
“Want another drink?”
“Why the hell not?” His friends were safe, tomorrow they were going home and his cast was off. Things were looking up. Finally.
Dante ordered them both a round. Then another. Alex lost track after the fourth. Or was it the fifth?
There wasn’t a lot to be said, leaving more time for drinking. Finn and Bree turned up at some point, though they spent more time dancing and staring at each other like they were only moments from ripping each other’s clothes off than they did anything else.
“Need a roommate?” Dante asked.
Alex frowned, half wondering if he was being set up for something.
“Bryce and Darby are in my room, and I don’t think they—” he pointed to indicate Finn and Bree, “—want me bunking with them.”
“Not a problem. You know which room I’m in?”
Dante nodded. “I’m not ready to call it a night though. Not just yet.”
Leaving the other man to his thoughts, Alex pushed to his feet, wincing at the lingering pain that told him he probably should have left the cast on a little longer.
Nothing to be done about it now.
Not paying attention to where he was going, he ended up taking the long way back to the resort’s main building. Or that was the plan, right up until a shiver cut across the back of his neck.
Glancing back over his shoulder, he retraced his steps, stopping in front of a row of peach-colored bungalows. Thomas Lancaster was still up?
He turned away, then stopped. Something wasn’t right.
A sliver of menace crawled up Alex’s spine. He hobbled up the steps much faster than he would have with a cast. The door was already ajar. He nudged it open, taking a
small step inside.
“Thomas?”
He took another step, and pain slammed into the back of his skull.
* * *
Darby couldn’t sleep, and it was all Thomas Lancaster’s fault.
She and Bryce were going to make this work, whether he liked it or not, but she’d really prefer the former. A lot.
Bryce might be less than thrilled that his father hadn’t told him about her pregnancy, but they’d all made their share of mistakes years ago. She and Bryce had started over. Why couldn’t she and his father do the same?
Thomas Lancaster loved his son. She’d seen the evidence of that when they’d gotten back to St. Lucia and he’d been the first one to reach for Bryce.
It was that bond that drove her out of bed, leaving Bryce asleep behind her. He’d fallen asleep almost the moment their heads had hit the pillow less than an hour ago. As exhausted as she was, she couldn’t seem to fall back asleep without knowing what to expect from his father.
She told herself it wouldn’t make a difference, but when they flew home in the morning—the thought made her stomach cramp up—she wanted to know where they stood.
Bryce didn’t stir when she scooped up her clothes and dressed in the bathroom. After running a brush through her hair, she slipped on some sandals, grabbed the key to the room and let herself out.
She might not be winning any points going to talk to Bryce’s dad so close to midnight, but if he’d already made up his mind to disapprove of her permanently, what was one more black mark on her record?
Knowing the Lancasters had had the misfortune of being assigned a bungalow almost directly across from her parents, she left the main building behind and crossed the grounds at a brisk pace.
Crossing paths with only a few people—the bigger crowds still lingered around the resort bars—she made good time, but found herself hesitating at the end of the walkway.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
She turned away, then forced herself back around and up the steps to the porch. A light was on inside. At least she wouldn’t be waking anyone up.
She knocked on the door and waited a few seconds, then knocked again after no response. Still nothing.
Must Be Magic (Spellbound Book 4) Page 22
