“Far as I know, I’m the only one going back to Ohio. Becca has no interest in joining me.”
“Good.” His mouth flattens and he watches the same squirrel dart about before shifting gears. “I married a smart woman. A woman who told me that you made a valid point that night at Dad’s.”
Wow. I didn’t see that coming.
“The night I almost kicked your ass,” he adds.
It’s a cheap shot I let him have. I smile against the rim of my mug.
“I don’t trust Becca for one simple reason. She’s never given me a reason to trust her not to hurt herself. She’s the baby. She’s the one who jets off without notice, or leaps into traffic without looking, or—”
“Goes zip-lining without warning?” I interject.
“Did she make you do that too?” For the first time, I witness him lightening up. He sighs, his concern evident. “She’s careless. She doesn’t worry, which means I have to be the careful one. The one who worries about her. Someone has to look out for her.”
“You feel responsible for her.”
“She’s my sister and I don’t want to see her hurt.”
“So your idea was to boot me out of Grand Lark not because of what I did but because—”
“Of what you’re doing with her.” We glance at each other and then he frowns. “Of what I thought you were doing with her. You’re not using her, are you?”
“Not at all.”
“You were serious about Ohio.”
“I was. She’s not interested.”
I watch his face as that info sinks in. Then Tad’s expression changes altogether. Suddenly he’s a guy who can relate to another guy who likes a girl a lot more than she likes him.
“She shot you down and you backed off,” he concludes with a nod.
It’s not a question, so I don’t answer. I didn’t exactly offer, and she didn’t exactly shoot me down, but close enough. The result’s the same.
“But she’s still seeing you.”
“On her terms,” I tell him.
“You’re letting her do what she wants. Come and go as she pleases. It’s what she does best.”
I drink my coffee.
“Shit, Vaughn.” He laughs. “I don’t need to kick your ass. Sounds like Bec did it for me.”
I let him have that one too. I promised Becca I’d be who she needed me to be while I was here. Socking Tad in the mouth isn’t about her at all—it’d be about me. And as we’re all clearly aware, I’m checking out soon. No good could come of punching him in the face, save a fleeting moment of triumph.
Tad stands and walks down the porch steps. When he reaches his truck, he opens the door and pauses to call out, “Guess I should’ve warned you about my sister when you sat down at my bar. She’s the heartbreaker, not the one whose heart is broken.”
“I wouldn’t have listened,” I call back.
“Yeah.” He nods, adding another head shake as he climbs in the truck. “Yeah.”
He drives off and I toss the remainder of my cooling coffee in the greenery below as the friendly neighborhood squirrel dashes from tree to tree like he’s already had a cup or three.
I wouldn’t have listened, but would I have approached our time together differently?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But I would’ve approached her. No doubt about it.
Chapter 24
FRIDAY, LATE MORNING
Becca
Tad left the house at the ungodly hour of six A.M.—and he was whistling this morning. Whistling! I went back to sleep for several glorious hours before straggling in at my scheduled time of eleven.
Okay, okay, 11:20.
“Sorry! Traffic!” I announce when I walk into Grand Lark’s restaurant. “I allowed extra time, I swear. I don’t know where it goes. If minutes were made of marbles instead of thin air, I could keep better track of them.”
To my surprise, one side of Tad’s mouth goes up in an amused half smile. He lifts a plate from a table and wipes it down. I help, clearing a glass and the silverware.
The place is otherwise empty, so I take the opportunity to ask, “You okay?”
“Yeah, Bec. I’m okay. When you have a second, though, we should talk.”
My heart leaps into my throat. Sounds bad already.
He tosses the damp towel on the bar top and takes the glass and silverware from my hand. “Give me a minute.”
In the office, I attempt to put the “we should talk” phrase out of my mind while I check email and answer a few phone calls. I’m successful until Tad shows up, leaning in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest.
I end the call with the liquor supplier and swivel my chair in my brother’s direction. “Let’s hear it. What’d I do?”
“It’s not what you did.” Arms still crossed, he pushes off the doorframe and then lowers himself to sit on the only clean corner of the desk. “It’s what I did.”
“Knock me over with a feather. This is beginning to sound like an apology.”
He laughs. Actually laughs.
“Or a dream. Did I doze off?” I make a show of pinching my arm. “Nope. Still awake. Unless this is like Inception and I’m in a dream within a dream.”
“No one understands that movie.”
“I know. It’s good, though.”
“The best,” he agrees.
“Leo,” we both say at the same time.
My love for Leonardo DiCaprio started with the movie Titanic. Tad was a late bloomer with Scorsese’s The Departed, which didn’t tickle my fancy since Leo’s character— Well, I won’t spoil it for you in case you’re an even later bloomer and haven’t watched it yet. But seriously. Watch it.
“I’m sorry, Bec. I treat you like you’re a kid and you’re not. It’s not right and I’m going to do better.”
I tap my chest just above my heart. “I’m having cardiac arrest. An actual heart attack. Has anyone ever died of shock?”
He ignores my theatrics.
“I paid Dax a visit this morning to kick his ass out of here. A guy doing you wrong has no place in my resort.”
I open my mouth, but he holds up a finger to shush me.
“But. He told me he’s heading back to Ohio without you. I also believe that you’re in complete control of your faculties. He can stay.”
I was going to yell at him for butting in, but I’m blown away by Tad admitting I’m in control of my faculties. He’s never admitted I owned faculties, let alone believed that I was in charge of them.
“Plus, he wasn’t wrong when he told me I don’t trust my staff enough. I’m a control freak.”
I snort my agreement.
“Believe it or not, Bec, this has nothing to do with how capable you are and everything to do with the fact that I’m worried I can’t keep this place running. With a business, a wife, two kids, and us trying to have a third, I’m under a lot of stress.”
“A third?” I repeat, stunned.
Tad stops running his fingers through his hair.
“But Lara drank wine yesterday.”