The story went that Lucille Abernathy, of the famed haunted Abernathy Manor, had been engaged to my grandfather, but he fell in love with my grandmother and left Lucille at the altar. She’d put a curse on him that day, folks said, dooming any male in his bloodline who found love to either die or to lose that love tragically.
The “Comfort Curse” was not something I put much stock in. But if anyone would believe in it, it was Caroline Shaw, considering my uncle had been killed a month before they were set to walk down the aisle.
“And she said,” she continued, “that all the Comfort men had strong jaws, wide smiles, big hands, and kissed like the dickens.”
Those weren’t the words that were normally used to describe us. We were well-known for being associated for descriptors that started with F.
I ran my fingers along her jaw, and bent down ready to show her that I lived up to our reputation. “Is that right?”
My lips brushed across hers as she whispered, “And that you and your brothers were known for three things. Fighting. Flirting. And fucking.”
There it was. The three Fs. My older brother was the fighter. He could knock anybody out cold with one punch. My little brother flirted with anything with a pulse, and that left me. And as far as the last F…well hell, there was a reason that my nickname was Panty Dropper, and had been since high school.
She tilted her head and met my eye, a coquettish smile playing on those luscious lips. “Wonder which one you’re known for?”
I grinned. “Well, darlin’, I think it’s time to find out.”
She had just dipped her hand inside my pants when the door of the closet flew open.
There, standing on the other side and holding the handle, wearing his usual baleful expression, was my oldest brother Hank. The fighter. His jaw was set and his tone flat as he spoke, “Put it back in your pants.”
It was more words than he normally strung together and I knew playtime was over. Avoidance had fueled me, allowing me to be sidetracked by the temp receptionist who ended up being Miss Shaw’s niece, but it was time to face what I’d been running from and get down to business.
I had a will reading to attend.
CHAPTER 2
Reagan
I reclined in the leather high back office chair and tapped my pen against the file sitting on the table. It was the one sign of impatience I allowed myself. Being a lawyer, I often found myself in situations where I had to control my emotions in the face of conduct I found distasteful.
In most cases, it wasn’t from corporate raiders or criminals, but rather was fellow attorneys displaying deplorable behavior. As progressive as I’d like to think this field, or any field for that matter, was—I found that, for better or worse, it was a boys’ club. So I had a lot of practice not allowing repugnant attitudes and comments to affect me.
But the one thing I absolutely couldn’t stand was disrespect of people’s time. It was my Achilles’ heel. I didn’t need to have a PhD in psychology to figure out where my aversion came from.
Growing up, my mother had never been on time for anything. In first grade, I’d started waking her up to take me to school, and I still ended up rushing in after the bell rang half the time.
She was so late to my high school graduation that she missed my walk across the stage. And considering my last name is York, she’d had more than enough time to get there.
So, for that specific pet peeve, I allowed myself a small pen tap.
Right now I was employing the pen tap of judgment on William Comfort, AKA the missing offspring. He was keeping his entire family waiting while he did—God only knew what. When Daisy, the temporary receptionist, informed me that the entire Comfort family had arrived, I’d asked her to show them to the conference room and swiftly finished up the call I’d been on.
I’d expected to have this meeting concluded by now. Instead, we hadn’t even begun, since William had disappeared in the time it had taken me to wrap up with a potential client and walk down the hall from my office to the conference room.
He’d been gone so long, in fact, that his older brother had headed off to hunt for him.
After buzzing the reception area and not getting an answer, I’d suggested that perhaps William had become ill, but Henry, the eldest Comfort brother, mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “if you count being a jackass an illness,” before standing and walking out of the room.
The look on his face when he’d left said that this wasn’t the first time his little brother had pulled a stunt like this.
The remaining siblings and I sat in a loud silence, the only sound coming from the rhythmic beat of my passive-aggressive pen taps.
No one else appeared to be bothered by the delay.
I’d relocated to Firefly Island two days ago and was still getting used to the slow-as-molasses pace. Technically, I’d lived on an island before moving here, but comparing Firefly to Manhattan was like comparing a house cat to a mountain lion. Sure, they were the same species, but one was dangerous and wild, something you’d encounter on an adventure. The other was docile and tame, something you’d curl up in bed with.
This was my first official day and case as an attorney at Abernathy & Associates and I was doing my level best to keep my cool. It wasn’t easy considering the delay was only partially to blame for my current headspace. My life had just imploded and I was having a difficult time processing it.
A vibration cut through the deafening silence and I realized that it was the alarm on my phone. I looked down and immediately cleared the notification informing me I was due to meet my wedding planner at The Plaza, where I’d been scheduled to walk down the aisle in just two weeks’ time. I’d already canceled that meeting. And my wedding, for that matter.
Last Monday at this time, I’d had the next sixty years of my life plotted out. I was going to marry Blaine Lincoln Whitford, IV. Become a partner at Whitford, Thomas, Mane and Associates, where I’d worked for the past five years. Have two children. Live in a brownstone on the Upper West Side complete with a golden retriever named Buddy. The blueprint of my happily ever after was drawn up and signed off on.
But one ill-fated—or perfectly-fated, depending on how I looked at it—unannounced visit to my fiancé Blaine’s office when he thought I was in court, and I found myself single, unemployed, and homeless.
After making the X-rated discovery, I’d gone back to the penthouse overlooking Central Park we shared, packed up my things, and left. I’d had no idea where I was going, just that I couldn’t stay there.
Ultimately, I’d ended up checking myself into a hotel and scrolling through social media, as one does. That’s when I saw that my college roommate, Nadia, had commented on a job posting for a law firm in her hometown, seeking an attorney with estate and family law experience.
I hadn’t spoken to Nadia in years, but without thinking about it, I sent her a message. Within seventy-two hours, after two phone calls and one Skype interview, I was on a plane heading to my new life in Firefly and position as a junior partner at Abernathy & Associates.
Taking a deep breath, I did my best to embrace my fresh start. I looked out the large picture window in the conference room. The spring scene was bright and crisp. The leaves on the trees were rustling as the wind danced through them. A bluebird landed on a wisteria tree branch next to a squirrel who was chomping on a walnut.