“So, you took him with you, even though you suspected that he might not be on your side.”
“Elizabeth, I’m not saying that I’m a good person, but I would like to think that I’ve always done my best to keep innocent people out of my problems. Taking him with me was the only way I knew of to keep him and all of you safe.”
“And you fell in love on the run,” she smiled.
“Well, not at first. Honestly, most of the time we ignored each other. But it gets lonely on the run. I was used to it, but Josh…he had this whole family that he was close with. Eventually, we came to rely on each other and it developed into more.”
She leaned forward, a little twinkle in her eye. “Do you love my son?”
“With all my heart.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Problem?”
“Oh, please. I’ve known my sons long enough. I can always tell when there’s a problem.”
God, this was awkward. “There’s someone else.”
She sat there stunned, so I took a deep breath and launched into the whole story with Levi, not leaving anything out. Well, I left out the fact that we used to be lovers, but I was pretty sure she already got the gist of things. By the time I was done, she looked more amused than anything.
“Well, it’s simple dear.”
“What’s simple?” I asked in confusion.
“My son doesn’t seem to be fighting for you. See, it’s the woman’s job to be chased, not the other way around.”
“So…you want me to do what exactly?”
“Well, obviously, you should make him work for it. This Lenny guy-“
“Levi.”
“Right, well, he has the right idea. You may feel guilty, but he’s holding onto you any way he can. He’s smart,” she smiled.
I frowned, feeling a little off about this. “I’m confused. Are you encouraging me to be with Levi?”
“Oh, honey, I would never encourage you to make my son believe there was more going on than meets the eye. Just like I would never suggest that you go see this Levi again and make it clear to Josh that that’s exactly what you’re doing. That would make me a terrible mother.”
“Isn’t that a bit like manipulation?”
She gave me a stern look. “Carly, I’ll pass down some advice to you. Women never manipulate. They maneuver until they get in the most beneficial position. It’s like playing battleship.”
“I think you’re thinking of chess,” Kat corrected.
“Yes, but you don’t get to blow up battleships in chess,” Elizabeth grinned. “Now, what we really need to discuss is this whole fake wedding thing,” she said, turning to Anna.
“Oh, we were only doing it for show. Robert and I are nowhere near ready to get married.”
Kat snorted. “Robert is. If he had his way, that wedding would have been real.”
“And you should be thanking us, because if it hadn’t been for his client, it would have been you and Eric getting married.”
“Wait, you didn’t come for the wedding?” I asked Elizabeth.
“Oh, we all knew that wedding wasn’t really happening. If it hadn’t been for Robert and Anna, either Eric or Kat would have run from the altar screaming. That whole fiasco was a pot ready to boil over. We figured we’d just wait for the invitation to the real thing.”
“What does she mean?” Anna asked.
Kat shrugged sheepishly. “Okay, we didn’t actually apply for a marriage license. It was all for show.”
“Are you serious? But you had a wedding dress and everything.”
“Yeah, that someone from town insisted I get.”
“Oh, thank God,” Anna said, blowing out a breath. “I really didn’t want to tell you, but that dress was hideous.”
“I know, right?”
I stared at both of them, wondering why they would go to all the trouble of having the wedding if they didn’t want it. “Wait, so you and Eric didn’t want to get married in front of the town, so you threw a fake wedding, that then turned into Anna and Robert’s fake wedding?”
“Basically,” Kat nodded.
“And I thought my family had problems.”
“Why’s that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well,” I squirmed in my seat, not wanting to step in shit. “Okay, from what I’ve heard, the brothers are all a legend around town, but for what I’m not sure. You all keep secrets and then air your dirty laundry on the facebook town page, but then you’re upset when the whole town gets involved in your relationships. There’s a page dedicated to Eric, where women basically ogle him while he’s working. You threw a fake wedding that turned into another fake wedding, all to prove something to a client of Robert’s. Another brother seemingly joined a biker gang on a whim. The other one is a hacker. I have no clue about Will, but I’m guessing there’s something lingering there that none of us know about. And from what I can tell, there’s only one sane brother amongst all of them, and he likes to play with knives for a living. And if what I overheard is correct, he dresses up as a superhero during sex.” I stared at all of them for a moment and then shrugged. “I’m just saying, your family is pretty fucked up.”
Josh
My loan had come through last week and I had gotten right to work, convincing the owners of the garage to sell to me. It turned out, they were happy to take the money and run. But going through all the books and trying to make heads or tails of that mess was driving me insane. Carly told me to take Alessa out for a while and she would work on sorting it out.
So, I pulled up in front of Eric’s business after calling him to meet me for lunch. He grumbled about it and pretended it was an inconvenience, but when I tried to back out, he yelled at me to shut up. I got Alessa out of the backseat and was just slamming the door when I heard a very familiar voice.
“So, I see you found a new woman.”
I turned and grinned at Carter Roy, standing on the sidewalk in his deputy’s uniform. “Maybe I do.”
“And a little girl,” he said, nodding to Alessa in her car seat.
“Alessa,” I filled him in.
He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, I guess this means you’ll stop trying to steal my girls.”
“Your girls?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” he scoffed. “The last time I saw you, you were outside your apartment, flirting with my girlfriend.”
“Madison,” I remembered. “Are you still with her?”
He scoffed, “Are you kidding me? When she heard you disappeared, that’s when I lost her for good,” he said in mock sadness. “Yep, she said that Josh Cortell was the only man she would ever love and she could never be with me after she had fallen for you.”
I shook my head. “That’s a real shame.” I stepped up to the sidewalk and held out my hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You too,” he laughed, shaking my hand. “You know, I spent a good year looking into your disappearance.”
“Really? I didn’t know you cared.”
“I didn’t, but I hoped that if I found you, I could win Madison back.”
“Yeah? From what I hear, I’m not the only Cortell brother that snatched a woman from your clutches.”
“Nah,” he waved me off. “I gave Anna to Robert.”
“You did, huh?”
We both turned to see Anna standing on the stairs leading up to the office, staring at Carter.
“I knew all along you never wanted me. I did what I could to make Robert jealous because I knew that was the only way he would get off his ass.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m impressed. You have such prowess with women.”
“I do what I can,” he grinned.
“Yes, he’s so good with women that he figured coming to Thanksgiving and outing my pregnancy to the whole family would be the way to win my heart.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” I said, clearing my throat uncomfortably.
“But what she didn’t tell you
,” Carter continued, “is that I also gave her away at her wedding.”
“Her fake wedding,” I corrected.
He shrugged. “You say potato…It was as real as it gets. If you had been there, you would have seen what the rest of the town saw. So, the real question is when are you and Carly getting married?”
“Why? Worried I’ll steal another girl out from under you?”
He grinned and turned to walk away. “Trust me,” he called over his shoulder. “You couldn’t steal a woman that was under me.”
I laughed as he walked away and turned back to Anna, who looked like she was just heading out. “Going for lunch?”
“Yeah, I’m bringing Robert some lunch.”
“You must be really happy to have him back in town.”
“As long as it’s where he really wants to be.”
I looked at her funny. “You think he doesn’t want to be here?”
“It’s just hard to believe sometimes. I mean, he just moved down here. He gave up his whole world to live down here, in the middle of nowhere, with me.”
I nodded in understanding. “Well, a man will give up a lot to be with the woman he loves.”
She shot me a knowing look. “You were forced to give up your life. That’s not the same thing.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I could have called Derek once I knew what was really going on. I could have tried to figure out a way to make things right, but as much as I missed my family, I also had something amazing with her. Maybe it wasn’t conventional, but I had the woman I loved, and that was all that mattered. I think Robert feels the same way. Maybe he’s not the powerful attorney I’ve heard about, but I see the way he looks at you. He would rather be here than anywhere else in the world.”
She nodded, giving me a small smile. “Well, I should probably get over to his office.” She turned to leave, but then looked back at me. “We’re all glad you finally decided to come home. No matter how much you love Carly, your brothers needed you too.”
I nodded and headed upstairs, taking her words to heart. When I entered the office, Eric was leaning over the garbage, brushing something off his shirt with a napkin.
“Problems?” I asked.
He glanced up at me and sighed, resuming cleaning his shirt. “Anna’s pissed at me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Hell if I know. She’s always pissed at me.”
I looked closer at his shirt and then in the garbage where I saw a donut. “Is that jelly?”
He snorted. “It wouldn’t be the first time. At least this time it didn’t hit my face.”
I stared at him in confusion. “Doesn’t she work for you?”
“You know, I’m not really sure these days. She’s pretty much run me out of my own office since day one.”
“And…you kept her?”
“Well, in all fairness, she did organize my office. And if I didn’t take her, I’d have to take Mrs. Cranston.”
“The old lady that takes pictures of you while you work?”
“So, you’ve heard of her,” he laughed.
“Not just her. Apparently, you’re famous on facebook. You’ve got your own page.”
“Don’t remind me. I’ve been floating ideas to Mrs. Cranston on the sly. I’m hoping she can spread the word about the values of my dear brothers.”
“You what?”
He looked up at me with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
“It sounds to me like you’re trying to pimp us out to other people in town.”
“Not pimp you out. Just…loan you out so that I’m not always the topic of conversation in town.”
“That’s the same fucking thing.”
“No, it’s really not. See, it’s more like getting them to be interested in you. Like Robert, he looks good in a suit. Plenty of ladies would love to have a page to look at where they see a strong, handsome man in a suit.”
I stared at him, shaking my head. “You’re fucked up.”
He sighed and dropped his head. “I know.” He shook his head, tossing the napkin into the trash. “Well, I think this one’s ruined.”
“If you can get blood out, you can get jelly out.”
“Have much experience in getting blood out?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Well, that’s a relief to know.”
“When I had blood on my shirt, there was so much that it had to be thrown out.”
“You know, sometimes I think we should just pretend these little conversations never happened.”
“Hey, you asked.”
“I’m sorry I did. Let’s go to lunch. I’m starving.”
“Can we go somewhere we won’t get stared at? I swear, every time I come into town, a random person comes up to me and asks me some really inappropriate question.”
“Like what?” he asked as we headed for the stairs.
“The other day, a woman came up to me and asked if during my time in the mob I had any mistresses. And then she asked me if I had any openings.”
He snorted out a laugh, trying to hold it in. “That’s not funny,” he said, clearing his throat.
“I wasn’t in the mob,” I practically shouted.
“Yeah, in their minds, you were in the mob, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
We walked out to the truck and I put Alessa in the back seat. “Look, I get that this is all fun to talk about, but I don’t ever want to be associated with that family.”
“Does that go for Carly too?” he asked as we got into the truck.
“Of course not. She’s not like them. I mean, she can kill, but she’s not interested in that life.”
“So, what’s your problem?”
“Who says I have a problem?”
“Oh, I don’t know, all the uncomfortable tension in the room every time you look at each other?”
I sighed and drove down Main Street toward the diner on the edge of town. “How am I supposed to make a life with her when Levi’s in the picture?”
“Does she want Levi?”
“She says she doesn’t, but what if that all changes?”
“What if you die in an accident tomorrow?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “That’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right. There’s a very real chance you could die in an accident tomorrow. The probability of her falling out of love with you and going back to a man that she ran from in the first place is just absurd.”
“How do you figure?”
“If she didn’t want to marry him then, she’s not going to go back to him now that she has you and a baby.”
“I wish I was as sure as you are,” I grumbled.
“Look, I get where you’re coming from, but you’ve got to let this go. She loves you, and if you keep pushing this, you’re only going to make her walk out that door.”
“But if I don’t push this, isn’t that like letting her walk all over me?”
“You need to ask yourself which is more important. Is risking losing her more important than having him out of your life?”
“I guess not,” I mumbled.
“I completely understand why you want to break all ties, but he’s nothing. She feels guilty that she pulled him into that mess and nearly got him killed. You have to give her time to get over that. She has enough guilt going on with just you.”
“I guess you’re right,” I grumbled, though I wasn’t at all happy about it. “I just wish I could tell her to get the fuck over it and move on with life. I hate that I have to placate her.”
I pulled into the diner and parked. Eric looked at me earnestly. “Let me give you some advice that has nearly saved me a dozen times.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“You’re either right or you’re happy.”
And with that, he got out of the truck and left me to mull over his sage advice.
Carly
Josh had forced me to wear a blindfold the whole drive. He hadn’t told me where we were goin
g or why I couldn’t see, but he seemed really excited. I felt the car stop and then he shut off the engine.
“Can I take this off now?”
“I don’t know. I kind of like you blindfolded.”
I reached out to smack him, but missed. “What’s going on?”
I felt his hands slip around the back of my head and then he undid the blindfold. I squinted at the light and glanced around. We were parked in town on a residential street.
“Okay, why are we here?”
He pointed out my window with a big grin. I looked outside and saw a row of townhouses in front of me. “That is Kat’s townhouse.”
“She still has a townhouse?” I asked in confusion.
“She hasn’t been able to sell it. After Eric and Kat lost the baby, he put a downpayment on this for her. They didn’t think they would be getting back together, so she moved in here. But it wasn’t exactly a buyer’s market when she decided to move back in with Eric, so it’s sitting empty right now.”
“That sucks,” I said, looking at the unit. I looked back at Josh, wondering what the point of all this was.
“They said we could rent it from them.”
“What? Why would they do that when they could still sell it?”
“Because he’s my brother and he knows we need our own space.”
“But…what about…” Josh had said that we couldn’t move forward until I cut Levi out of my life, which I had yet to do.
“That’s up to you,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “Carly, I want to be a family with you and Alessa. I would like us to start putting down roots. I want to marry you. Is that what you want?”
“I do,” I grinned, but it faltered. “I just…I don’t know how to cut Levi out of my life. I’ve been putting him off and I haven’t done anything to make him think that I want more, but I feel so disloyal to him.”
Josh blew out a breath and nodded. “Can you promise me something?”
Wanted Dead or In Love: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 3) Page 27
