by Katy Regnery
He’d paid his goddamned dues. He’d stayed here for years, when all he’d wanted was to strike out on his own. When would it be his turn? When would his life be his own?
“Well, that’s that,” he muttered.
“Rory?”
Certain his gaze would be stormy, he took another deep breath, blinking before he locked eyes with her and attempting a neutral smile. “Let me walk you back to your car.”
“No more tour?”
“What’s the point?”
She took a step toward him, her brown eyes clear and earnest. “I still want to book it for my wedding. That’s the point.”
“Wait. What? You do?”
She nodded, a small smile tilting her lips up. “Of course I still want to. Summerhaven’s changed, but so have I. So have you.” She paused, giving him a look. “Though you still brood like a champion.”
“I what like a champion?”
“Brood.” She screwed up her pretty face into an exaggerated grimace, lowering her voice to a growl. “Dark scowl. Narrowed eyes. Tight lips.”
“I do not look like that,” he protested.
“I wish I had a mirror,” she said.
“So, you’re still interested, huh?” He was still processing the fact that he hadn’t lost her business after all.
“I’m still interested,” she confirmed.
Just when Rory was about to suggest that they take a look at the Cambridge cabins before returning to the office so that he could take a deposit, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He withdrew it, glancing at the screen and cringing.
Tierney.
He looked up at Brittany. “Um…I’m sorry. I need to take this. It’s an emergency.”
Her eyes widened in concern. “Please. Go ahead.”
Turning his back to his guest, he answered the call as he took a few steps away. “Tierney? What’s up?”
“Ian, quit it!” she yelled half into the phone and half to their brother.
In the background, he could hear his brother throwing a tantrum: “Go hifreann leat, Tierney!” which translated to Ian telling their sister to go to hell, followed by “Where are your goddamned, fucking keys?” in English.
Glass was smashed against a wall, and from a loud bang, he knew that some furniture followed.
“Jaysus, Ian!” yelled Tierney. “Stop it! You’re not going anywhere!”
“Get out of there,” said Rory, clenching his jaw in anger.
“Nah. He’s just being an arsehole,” said Tierney. “Woke up vomiting on my floor. Sweating all over. Shaking. He wants my keys to go buy himself a drink.”
The DTs.
Deep tremors. Withdrawal.
If Ian hadn’t had a drink since arriving at Tierney’s last night a little after midnight, he’d been without a drink for about—he looked at his watch and noted it was almost three o’clock—fifteen hours. It only took six for withdrawal to start. Ian was fast approaching the stage of seizures and hallucinations.
“He’s withdrawing.”
“And how!” Again, her voice slid away. “If you break that, Ian McAllister Haven, I swear to Christ, I’ll—” Something glass or ceramic fell to the floor with a crash and Tierney gritted out, “Damnú!”
“Get out of there, Tierney. Now.”
“He won’t hurt me, Rory. He wouldn’t dare!”
“The fuck he won’t.”
“He won’t. He’s just wrecking my house on the excuse of looking for my keys.”
“Fuck that. This is totally unacceptable. Put him on the phone.”
“Rory, don’t make it worse.” She blew out a puff of breath. Her voice was smaller and softer when she spoke again. “But can you get here sooner?”
“Put him on the phone, Tier.”
She was holding out the phone to their brother because their voices were muffled.
“Here. It’s Rory.”
“Fuck Rory. Give me your keys.”
“Talk to Rory first.”
“What?” shouted Ian into the phone.
Rory’s voice was lethal. “You calm yourself the fuck down, brother. I’m coming up there in three minutes, and if you aren’t the bloody picture of calm when I arrive, I’ll put my fist through your gob and knock you out. Hear me?”
“Fuck you, Rory.”
“No, Ian. Fuck you! You can’t keep doing this.”
“Then I’ll go.” The phone dropped onto the floor with a thud, and Rory heard Ian demand, “Give me my phone, Tierney, and I’ll get an Uber to come pick me up.”
“You can’t have your phone right now. Why don’t you go lie down?”
“Fuck you, Tierney! Why don’t you go lie down?”
Rory ran a hand through his hair, hissing a string of curses before turning around to find Brittany Manion standing there, wide-eyed, mouth loosely open, obviously listening to his conversation. Fuck. He’d forgotten she was even there.
“Ah, shite!” he muttered. “Sorry.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “Don’t be sorry! Sounds serious.”
“It is. My sister is—”
“Rory?” Tierney’s voice was back on the phone.
Rory held Brittany’s concerned brown eyes. “I’m here.”
“He’s gone back to throwing up. When can you get here?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Bring Gatorade? And, um, saltines? And maybe some ice cream?”
“Dairy? He’ll throw it up.”
“He’ll throw up anyway. At least that’ll feel nice going down,” said Tierney.
“Tierney!” sobbed Ian’s voice from the bathroom.
“He’s calling me. I’ve got to go.”
“I’m coming now,” said Rory, pocketing his phone.
There was no point in trying to smooth this over for Brittany Manion’s benefit. Maybe he’d lose her business, or maybe he wouldn’t, but right this minute, his siblings needed him, and he needed to be with them. “I need to go help my sister.”
He stood there, frozen, his heart racing, dreading the next twelve to twenty-four hours with his brother.
Brittany reached for his hand, entwining her fingers through his and squeezing gently in a gesture of comfort.
She didn’t say she was sorry. She didn’t lift her chin in judgment. She didn’t offer useless platitudes. But her eyes were soft and kind when she squeezed his hand again, then tugged on it, pulling him back up the path toward the office.
“Then let’s go.”
CHAPTER 5
Brittany didn’t say a word as they walked briskly back to the office, hand in hand. She was distracted by the strong, warm grasp of Rory’s fingers, all of her nerve endings unavoidably focused on their flush palms. What would she have given to be walking up the path like this with Rory Haven ten years ago?
Grow up, Brittany. He’s in the middle of a crisis.
Whatever was going on with Ian Haven was bad.
She’d heard the word withdrawing, and she’d heard Rory threaten to “knock out” his brother. She didn’t want to make assumptions, but based on the volunteer work she’d done with A Better Tomorrow, she was fairly certain that Ian Haven was a drug addict or an alcoholic going through the early stages of withdrawal.
Either way, it wasn’t her business to ask.
But it was her mission to get Rory back to the office as quickly as possible.
As they approached the largest structure in the campground, Rory dropped her hand, running both hands through his hair. “Shit!”
“What?”
“I have a group coming. A—a corporate retreat. They’ll start arriving in an hour.”
As he muttered incoherent, curse-sounding, foreign words in an impressive string, Brittany rubbed her hands together. “From where?”
“Boston. The Crockett Group.”
She knew of the Crockett Group. They were a private equity firm. Well respected. Old-school, but young.
“Leave it to me.”
He looked up at her. �
�What are you talking about?”
“I can help. I can…greet guests, hand out keys, show them to their lodgings. I lived here for four summers and just got the grand tour. I know the campground like the back of my hand. Why not let me help?”
Rory gave her a long look, like her suggestion was utterly ridiculous, then walked right past her and up the stairs to the office, letting the screen door slam behind him. She hurried to follow him.
“Mrs. Toffle, I need to go to Tierney’s, and Miss Manion is leaving,” he was saying as she entered the office. “Can you call Doug and see if he can come in to help?”
“Doug’s in Iceland,” she answered. “Remember?”
“Who’s Doug?” asked Brittany, stepping up to the counter with her hands on her hips.
“The assistant manager,” said Mrs. Toffle. “He took a vacation before the season really started up in May.”
“God damn it!” yelled Rory. “Mrs. Toffle, you’ll need to welcome the guests and show them to their lodgings.”
“But Mr. Haven,” she said, “who will be here in the office to greet them and check them in?”
“What about one of the housekeeping staff? Or Victor! I’ll go get Victor!”
“Victor the waiter?” asked Mrs. Toffle. “But the kick-off event is cocktails and dinner in the dining room from six until nine. Victor will be busy setting up.”
“He can still take people to their cottages,” insisted Rory. “There are six other waiters working the event tonight, and Chef Jamie and his staff.”
“Does Victor know the camp that well?” asked Mrs. Toffle. “I’ve never seen him anywhere but the dining room.”
“Give him a map!” said Rory.
“So he can fumble through walking them to their cottages?” asked Brittany.
“Then he can stay here in the office and greet them. Check them in!” thundered Rory.
The office seemed to shake with Rory’s voice as Brittany looked up at Mrs. Toffle, who shook her head. “He doesn’t know how to check them in on the computer. Only you, Doug, and I do.”
“Mrs. Toffle,” said Brittany in her best no-nonsense voice, rounding the counter to stand beside the receptionist’s desk, “you will be in charge of greeting the guests and checking them in. I will show them to their cottages in small groups. Which rows are booked for tonight?”
“Cambridge and Oxford,” said Mrs. Toffle.
“Excellent. My favorites. I assume I can use the golf carts out front for luggage?”
“Of course, Miss Manion,” said the older lady, grinning at Brittany.
“Brittany,” she said. “Or Britt. But I’ll still call you Mrs. Toffle.”
“Or Mrs. T,” said Miranda, beaming at the younger woman.
Brittany turned to Rory and lifted her chin. “See? It’s all settled. Now stop bothering us and go help your sister.”
His eyes were stricken. “I can’t let you do this. I can’t let a potenti—”
“A potential client help?” asked Brittany crisply. “Then consider this, Rory Haven: if you refuse my help, it will hurt my feelings and I won’t book my wedding here. How does that sound?”
“Bad.”
“Oh, dear. Very bad,” added Mrs. Toffle. “If you don’t book your wedding here, then Rory won’t be able to—”
“Okay!” cried Rory, cutting off Mrs. Toffle.
Rory won’t be able to…what?
“Mrs. Toffle,” he said, “print a copy of the full roster and guest room assignments. Do we have another Summerhaven polo shirt? If we do, find it and give it to Britt.” He turned to her. “The keys are up there on the board. The names are on the—”
“You do know my last name is Manion, right?” she said. “As in Manion Hotels? I can figure this out, Rory. It’s in my blood. Now please go to Tierney.”
“Damn Ian,” muttered Rory. He shot a look to his receptionist. “You good with this, Mrs. Toffle?”
“Over the moon, dear.”
Rory turned his attention from her to Brittany, scanning her face, his gaze resting for a split second on her lips before he met her eyes again. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I do. Stop wasting time and go help your sister,” she said, trying desperately to ignore the billowing warmth in her stomach, which felt like the wings of a thousand butterflies flapping madly. “Just go.”
He lurched forward and pressed his lips to her cheek. “Thank you, Britt.”
By the time she opened her eyes, he was gone.
***
Rory had driven from the camp in Center Sandwich to Tierney’s place in Moultonborough a hundred times, but this afternoon he felt an added urgency to get there as soon as possible. He’d even hated having to stop at the convenience store for supplies.
Then again, he knew that Tierney was probably right: Ian wouldn’t hurt her. They’d been through withdrawals twice before with him, and both times, even once when he was hallucinating, he hadn’t hurt them. The biggest problem was, if he started seizing, Tierney wasn’t strong enough to hold Ian down to ensure he wouldn’t bang his head against the floor or a wall. He could seriously injure himself—causing a concussion, or worse.
Rory stepped on the gas.
He stopped at the main gates of Moonstone Manor, punching the code into the keypad and thrumming his fingers on the steering wheel as the gate slowly opened for him. Screeching through the gates as soon as there was enough space, he sped up the winding road through a small portion of the five-thousand-acre woods that led to the eighteen-room mountaintop estate, known locally as the “Palace in the Sky.”
Turning off the main road, he pulled into a small gravel driveway and parked his truck beside Tierney’s Grand Cherokee at the caretakers’ cottage, where Tierney lived. Without knocking, he opened the Spanish-style wooden front door of the small stone dwelling and kicked it shut behind him.
The room before him was in total disarray: shards of broken glass were scattered on the floor. There was an overturned coffee table with two legs missing and a bookcase that had been yanked from the wall, littering the hardwood floor with books.
“Tierney?” he yelled.
“Up here.”
Placing the paper sack of supplies on the floor at the foot of the staircase, he took the narrow steps two at a time to the second floor of her home, where there were two tiny bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Standing in the doorway, he covered his mouth at the scene he found, choking back a gag from the stench.
The floor was splashed with pinkish vomit in which Ian knelt, his head over the bowl of the toilet while Tierney sat on the side of the bathtub behind him, the knees of her jeans soaked with throw up and one weary hand rubbing her brother’s back. As she looked up at Rory, her green eyes filled with tears.
“Ror. You came.”
“Of course I came.” He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it down the corridor, then took a deep breath of clean air before turning back to Tierney. “What do you need?”
Visibly shaken with a combination of grief and exhaustion after several hours of dealing with Ian, she blinked rapidly before clearing her throat and saying in a shaky voice, “I need to get a mop. Can you stay with him? Maybe clean him up and get him back in bed? I’ll change the sheets, and then I’ll mop up in here.”
“How long has it been since he puked?”
Tierney stood up wearily. “About twenty minutes.”
She sidestepped by him into the hallway and Rory swapped places with her, sitting down on the edge of the tub and reaching out to place his hand flat on Ian’s back.
“Go get some air,” said Rory to Tierney, who stood in the bathroom doorway. “I’ll get him cleaned up and into bed. Come back in half an hour.”
“I’m okay. I can get the bed ready.”
“Tierney,” said Rory, his green eyes boring into hers, “so can I. You’re off duty. Go take a break.”
Her face cracked for a second as she nodded, taking a deep, shaking breath before turning away. She lef
t her brothers alone, her footsteps progressively softer as she headed downstairs.
Ian’s hair was soaked with sweat and hardening bits of sour-smelling puke. He groaned softly into the toilet bowl, his voice low and rough. “Ror?”
“I’m here, Ian.”
“You hate me?”
Rory clenched his jaw, surprised by the tears that suddenly burned his eyes. He shook his head, his hand reaching for the back of Ian’s neck, his warm, dry palm flush against his brother’s clammy skin.
“I love you, Ian. We both do.” He rubbed his brother’s neck. “That’s why this sucks.”
“Sorry, bro.”
“I know,” said Rory, swallowing back a million other things he wanted to say about how Tierney deserved an apology and how Ian was going to fix every fucking thing he broke downstairs and how much he wanted Ian to kick this addiction and how much he wanted his funny, mischievous brother back. “I know, Ian.”
They sat together in silence for a few minutes before Rory spoke again. “How about a shower?”
“I can’t move, bro. Everything hurts.”
“I’ll help you.”
Under his hand, Rory felt his brother’s great shoulders shudder, and a loud sob echoed into the toilet. “I’m such a fucking asshole.”
Rory blinked back his own tears. “Yeah. But we already knew that. Old news.”
Ian’s sob was punctuated by a chuckle. “You’re an asshole too.”
“Takes one to know one.” Putting his hands under Ian’s shoulders, Rory pulled him up to a seated position.
Ian looked over his shoulder and Rory was careful to keep his expression neutral, though it was difficult. His brother’s long dark hair was slick with sweat, dirty and speckled with puke. And his eyes—his bright-green emerald eyes—were soupy, bloodshot, and tired. They were the eyes of a man twice Ian’s age and just as world weary.
“That bad, huh?” asked Ian.
Rory gulped. “I’ve seen worse.”
“You’re a shit liar.”
Rory stood up and turned on the shower, reaching out his hand to be sure it was warm, but not too hot. Then he turned back to Ian. “I’ll help you up, okay?”
