by Kim Law
A crack seemed to split her from the middle of the chest down, and though she gritted her teeth and told herself to pull it together, the next thing she knew, tears poured from her eyes. Bree pulled her back into her arms, and they sat there like that for several minutes, Erica clutching her wineglass to her chest, certain the glass would shatter between her fingers, while Bree gently rocked her back and forth. The first time Erica had cried over her divorce, she’d done so alone. Having a pair of arms around her was nice.
Finally, when the tears began to subside, Bree peered down into Erica’s face. “It’s time to move on,” she whispered. “Why are you so afraid of doing that?”
“Because I might be so boring that he’s the only one who’ll put up with me.”
The words came as a surprise to both of them, and as Erica realized she’d finally put words to her fear, her sister sat back on the couch. Her eyes turned to thin slits.
“Boring?” Bree’s voice had gone brittle.
“You know I am. You tell me that all the time.”
“But I’m your sister. I get to say that. Are you telling me that that douche canoe has also called you boring?”
“Come on, Bree, it’s the truth.” But Erica couldn’t say that she hadn’t wanted to kick JC in the gonads every time he’d said it. “I wear khakis,” she explained. “I drive a beige car. I’d rather sit at home and read a book on weekends than go out and do things like hike Crow Peak.”
“That fucking asshole.”
“Bree,” Erica admonished. “Quit cussing so much. If Mom were here to hear you . . .”
“Oh, no.” Bree stood, her head shaking and her brown eyes glittering. “I’ll cuss as much as I want to over this. That little turd doesn’t get to get away with that. He’s the boring one. He always has been. He has to throw money around just to get noticed. And let’s talk about his never growing up. For crying out loud . . . his car,” she spit out in distaste. “That’s a classic case of little-dick syndrome if ever I’ve seen one.”
Erica snorted at her sister’s final words, her earlier tears now history. Her ex-husband did drive one of the sexiest sports cars she’d ever seen.
And it had a really big motor.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Bree pointed a finger at her in accusation. “The man has a tiny penis. That’s why he drives that damned car.”
“Hey! I like that car.”
“But do you like his dick?”
Tears squeezed from the corners of Erica’s eyes. This time from laughter. “Bree.”
“Tell me it’s tiny.”
“It’s not . . . tiny.”
“But it’s little.”
She couldn’t believe they were sitting there talking about her ex’s penis, especially only moments after she’d been crying over the idiot.
A light coming on behind the double windows across the street caught Erica’s attention before she could figure out how to respond to her sister, and she quickly dipped her head as a wayward thought snaked through her consciousness.
“What?” Bree asked when Erica didn’t manage to fully hide her smile.
If they were going to talk about penises . . .
Erica peeked back up. She couldn’t help but remember her time with Gabe. “I have . . . seen larger.”
A bark sounded from outside, and Bree’s gaze tracked to where Erica’s had just been. Gabe now stood on his porch, those same frayed jeans that he’d had on last Saturday hugging his hips, and his hair once again standing on end. He appeared most every evening at this time with the dog, looking exactly that “relaxed.”
Bree gasped as she caught on. “Gabe’s is bigger?”
“Stop it.”
“Ohmygod.” She moved to the window. “How much bigger?”
“I am not going to talk about that with you, and please get away from the window. He can see you. Plus, he’s mad at me right now,” Erica grumbled. “So I really shouldn’t be talking about the man’s genitals.”
Bree’s only movement was to pick up her glass of wine before backtracking to the window. “What’s he mad at you for?”
Erica made a face. “Because I said that I’d do things a little differently than him.”
“What things?”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Something with his daughter.”
Bree’s brows shot up. “You told him he was raising his daughter wrong?”
“No! It was about a very specific situation, and I . . . maybe . . . implied that he could go a different route.”
“You were bossy with him, weren’t you? Like you are with everyone else?”
“I was not bossy with him. I simply had an alternate opinion.”
Bree turned up her glass as she contemplated Erica’s story, then finished with a decisive nod. “You were bossy. You always are. And men, especially men like”—she stopped talking as she looked back at Gabe, one finger lifted in his direction.
“What?” Erica sat up straighter. She craned her neck to see.
And then both she and her sister watched as Gabe pulled one arm back, bicep bulging under his T-shirt and a football gripped easily in his wide palm, and powered forward. The ball zoomed across the front yard, the dog barking after it as if he stood a chance of scooping it up between his jaws . . . while both women finished off their wine.
“Men like that don’t like women being bossy with them,” Bree finished a little breathlessly. Then she shook off her trance and looked at Erica, one finger still pointed at the window. “And I swear to all that’s holy, Erica Alexandra, if that man doesn’t have a big dick inside that pair of jeans, then that’s just a very cruel joke.”
Erica howled with laughter.
As if he’d heard, Gabe turned toward her house. Bree flattened against the wall while Erica slumped on the couch, and after a round of giggles between them, Bree dropped to the floor and turtle-crawled across the room. By the time she reached the couch, she’d pulled herself together enough to reach out to Erica. “JC never deserved you.” She squeezed Erica’s arm. “Not for one second. You’re such a brighter light than he could ever be.”
Erica put her hand over Bree’s. This was why she’d needed her sister to visit her.
“Do me a favor?” Bree asked.
“What’s that?”
“Put that man behind you for good.”
“I’m trying, Bree. I promise.”
“Then help it along. Have a crazy fling, if that’s what it takes.” She angled her head toward the window. “Enjoy a man with manly size parts for once.”
“Seriously, Breedom.”
It was Bree’s turn to snort.
A comfortable wind blew off the lake Monday afternoon as Gabe and several members of his family sat scattered around his brother’s backyard. They were mixed in with Nick’s in-laws, miscellaneous kids and spouses, and a handful of local friends. This was the second Labor Day they’d all gotten together at Nick and Harper’s house, and someone had already declared it official. They would congregate there every year.
“Beer?” Harper held a bottle out to Gabe.
He looked up from his perch by the fire pit. “Thanks.”
She handed another to Cord, who sat next to Gabe, then continued passing drinks out to the group. Once finished, she settled in next to Nick and immediately giggled when Nick pulled her close and whispered in her ear. The two of them still wore their honeymoon glow, and Gabe couldn’t help but go back in his mind to his honeymoon phase. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d been over the moon for Michelle when he’d first met her. Logically, he could state that with certainty. Yet after years of putting up with her self-important ways, there was zero ability for any warm feelings to remain.
The bad parts far outweighed any good, and Gabe could only hope his brother didn’t have the same ending in store. Though Harper was a good person—and by all accounts, she was nothing at all like his ex-wife—all the Wilde children had been raised by the same woman. And because of that, it would be a miracle if
any of them could truly maintain healthy relationships.
The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, long rays of light beaming down toward the lake, and Gabe’s stepmother stood from her lawn chair to peer off in the distance. “The view from here is so beautiful when the sun hits the water,” Gloria said to no one in particular.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Harper’s mother rose to join Gloria, and Gabe turned his attention elsewhere. He looked at the house. Erica hadn’t shown up yet.
Dani had mentioned that she’d invited his neighbor, and Gabe had bitten his tongue to keep from telling her to rescind the invitation. Erica had pissed him off at the school Friday afternoon. Royally. And he wasn’t yet ready to face her again. However, at the same time that she’d made him angry, she’d also planted a seed of confusion. He knew what he was doing with his daughter. He knew that he was the best thing for her. And he also knew that not helping Jenna to be her best would never be the right solution.
However, with everything he’d tried, Jenna continued to lash out.
He’d taken her math book home after Hannah had let him know that she’d “forgotten” it at school, and then Jenna had spent the remainder of the weekend holed up in her room. Today, she was worse.
Gabe sighed. Too many days, even before letting Erica Bird get in his head, he’d asked himself if he had any idea what he was doing with his daughter.
“I love the changes you guys have made since last year.” Dani’s words filtered in. “I want a fire pit like this someday.” She had her feet near the natural stone surround of the custom fire pit, her body rocked back in a zero-gravity chair, while her six-and-a-half-months-pregnant belly sat like a bowling ball in her lap. A bowl of pretzels was balanced on top of her belly.
“I’ll add it to my to-do list,” her husband replied. Ben reached out and snagged a pretzel.
Several of the others were gathered around the pit as well, making use of the stone benches built in a circular pattern around the fire, while the older couples relaxed in lawn chairs under the shade trees. The kids ran through the yard, their laughter announcing their locations even when they couldn’t be seen. And then there was Jenna. Gabe took a drink of his beer as he eyed his daughter. She sat huddled with Haley on a quilted blanket in the far corner of the backyard. They’d been like that since Haley had shown up.
He thought about this day the year before. Michelle had been with them then.
Not that she’d made it better for Jenna by being there, but it had been the last gathering Jenna’s mother had made it to. She hadn’t come home with them for Christmas—and then she’d been gone when they’d returned. He wondered if Jenna had been thinking about her mother today. If that might be playing into her sullen mood.
Or was she just being her new normal self?
“I’m more partial to the bricked-in grill, myself.” This came from Ben. “Maybe I should add that to the list, too. Upgrade the one you and Haley got me last year.”
Talk continued around the group, skipping from last night’s football game—another loss, though not quite as humiliating—to the temperature forecast for the coming winter to the trees for the pick-your-own cherry lot that Gabe and his dad planned to set out in the coming weeks. Though Gabe wasn’t actively involved in the day-to-day family business anymore, he kept a close eye on things now that he was back in Montana, and given that output had dropped with that year’s crop, Gabe had pushed the idea of trying something new. They’d once been on the cutting edge of the cherry farming business, but over the last few years, things had gotten a little stale. If the Wilde Cherry Farm intended to be around for another generation, though, it had to move with the times.
Of course, the unspoken question in his family’s minds was whether anyone truly wanted the orchard to exist for another generation. But that was a discussion that none of them had so far been willing to put out there.
Dani opened her eyes at the sound of someone coming out of the house, and Gabe found himself holding his breath. But it was only Jewel, one of Harper’s sisters, returning from a diaper change.
“We have a new arrival,” Jewel announced, baby snug on her hip, and again, Gabe whipped his attention to the house.
With a squeak, Dani shot out of her chair faster than Gabe would have thought possible and hurried to the woman stepping out the back door. The woman’s multicolored dress, sheer in places, seemed to float around her as she walked toward them. Its coloring made Gabe think of a peacock.
“Who is that?” Cord spoke at Gabe’s side. Cord was the only brother who’d made it in from out of town that year.
“Beats me. I’ve never seen her.”
Their sister hurried the other woman to the group. “Hey, everyone. I want to introduce my new office manager. The timing of her move into town was just perfect, showing up the very day the position became available.” Dani beamed. She had a thriving marketing business consisting of both local and national clients, and though she’d hired someone to help out in the office the year before, that person had recently moved on. “I hired Arsula on the spot,” Dani continued, “and I couldn’t be happier with her first week.”
“Arsula?” Cord muttered.
Gabe had the vague notion that his sister might have lost her mind.
“Hello, everyone.” Arsula’s smile was both polite and hesitant as she looked out over the small crowd. “I hope I’m not intruding, but Dani couldn’t stand the thought of me sitting at home alone today.”
Gabe smirked. His sister had issues with that.
Harper quickly assured Arsula that she was more than welcome, and someone asked where she’d moved there from.
“Cheyenne. I’ve lived there all my life, and honestly, I never thought I’d leave. But I had a dream last week that told me to come here.” Arsula’s smile widened. “So I loaded up my car and hit the road, and the first person I saw as I pulled into town was Dani.”
“A dream?” Gabe said. His sister had lost her mind.
Arsula turned to him, the move making him realize two things at once. One, he’d spoken out loud. And two, she was a freaking bombshell.
She nodded, her jet-black hair seeming to bounce in slow motion. “I do general office work by day, but my real passion happens in the evenings. I read people’s dreams. I’d never heard of Birch Bay before I arrived, but I had a vision that couldn’t be ignored. There’s someone I need to be here for.” She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, and her long hair seemed to shiver with the move. “I don’t know who it is yet, but I’m here for them whenever they want to show themselves.”
“Yes, ma’am, you are,” Cord added under his breath. He pushed off the stone bench and headed for the new arrival.
Gabe looked at his sister as Cord “took” the woman away from her and couldn’t help but chuckle at Dani’s incredulousness. Their oldest brother was not a man to let a good-looking woman go unshepherded. Annoyance crossed Dani’s face as she watched Cord lead Arsula to the patio bar and offer her a drink, but she soon let it go as her lounge chair seemed to produce a louder siren call than that of rescuing her newest employee. She returned to her seat and stretched back out, and, as smooth as a fine whiskey goes down, conversations picked back up.
Gabe took another peek at the house, wondering if Erica had changed her mind about coming.
When he turned back, Dani was watching him. He lifted his brows in question, feeling defensive at being caught keeping an eye out for his neighbor, and his sister’s reply was a pointed look at the back door. Damned woman was far too good at reading her brothers. He scowled at her, but it didn’t seem to faze her. She simply tucked back into her seat and once again closed her eyes.
Gabe ignored his sister and scanned the yard for Jenna, relief whipping through him when he found her with the other kids. As he watched her smile and then heard her laugh, he silently reiterated that he did know what he was doing when it came to taking care of his kid. And he didn’t need someone who’d just come into Jenna’s life to tell him a
ny differently.
“Well, if it isn’t Erica Yarbrough.”
Gabe jerked around at his father’s words.
His dad—and every other person in his family—stood from their seats and practically ran for the patio. They surrounded Erica and her sister before the two of them could take more than a few steps outside the back door, and they all began talking at once, all offering hugs and saying how good it was to see them. But Gabe merely stared. This wasn’t the teacher his daughter saw in class every day.
And it wasn’t the woman he’d dated years ago.
This was Erica . . . part two. And she’d taken style cues from her baby sister.
He dropped his gaze to Erica’s feet. The handful of times he’d seen her over the past two weeks she’d either had on tennis shoes or some sort of dark loafer that seemed appropriate for teaching. Today her toes and most of her feet showed in a seriously strappy number, and her toenails were hot pink.
He lifted his gaze. That was also no ordinary “Erica” skirt. It had to be her sister’s because it rode several inches above the knee, had stars splashed across the front that were as pink as her toes, and looked as if it had literally been stretched over her body. As he stared, he remembered with great clarity how great her rear used to be. His mouth went dry. He wanted her to turn around so he could see what her butt looked like today. How had he not thought to check that out already?
A groan slipped from between his lips, and he found himself thankful to be sitting alone.
“I’d better get to the hot dogs,” he mumbled, knowing no one would hear. He didn’t need to look at Erica anymore. Especially since the fit of her T-shirt had also imprinted itself on his brain.
Why hadn’t she just dressed like normal?
He rose and stalked toward the grill, not taking another look in Erica’s direction, and several minutes later Ben joined him. The two of them went back to their college days together where they’d met as roommates, and since neither was especially adept in the kitchen, they’d been assigned to grill duty today. Someone deposited platters of beef and bison patties at their elbows, another brought a tray of hot dogs, and additional food was transferred from inside the house to out. The volume rose while more drinks were handed out, and the party seemed to suddenly be in full swing.
