The Lemon Sisters Read online

  “Someone’s a little sure of himself,” she said, remaining in the doorway.

  “Trust me, we’re not going there. You need some sleep before you fall over.”

  Ali McClaw jumped onto the bed with an oof and sat on his pillow.

  “Ignore her,” Garrett told Brooke. “Although I wouldn’t try to dislodge her.”

  She looked amused. “Are you afraid of your own cat?”

  “Ann’s cat,” he corrected. “And hell yes, I’m afraid of her. She sits on my head, shoves her butt in my face, bites my feet, stretches out across my chest whenever she feels like it, puts her entire face in my dinner, and if I so much as touch one single little toe bean, she bitch slaps my hand, like, how dare I not respect her personal space?” He came to the doorway to get her, towing her to the bed. “Sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you in time to get the kids.” Then he turned to go.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  She climbed onto the bed. He had to look away because he was going to walk away, even if it killed him. She’d been through hell, and he ached for her to the depths of his soul. But that didn’t mean he trusted her with his heart. Because he didn’t. Couldn’t. Not ever again.

  He was just shutting the door behind him when he heard it, a tiny little telltale sniff that she’d clearly tried to smother, but couldn’t.

  Not your problem. But he couldn’t seem to get his feet to take him away, no matter that she’d done that exact thing to him. Kicking off his boots, he lay down on the bed with her.

  She was trembling with the force of holding herself together. “Hey,” he said quietly, rubbing his hand up and down her back. “The past is the past. It’s done and gone. Life moves on, and it’s okay for you to move on as well. You’re not a monster, Brooke. I never should have said that.”

  This caused another sniff.

  With a rough sigh, he pulled her to him, her back against his chest, spooning her as he wrapped an arm around her and held her tight. “Let it go,” he murmured, running a hand down her arm. “Just let it all go.”

  She exhaled the breath she’d been holding and shuddered as the storm broke free, leaving her sobbing as if her heart were breaking. His certainly was.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all of it,” she hiccuped out, clutching him. “But I couldn’t tell anyone. I was just . . .”

  “What?”

  “Ashamed.”

  Ah hell, she was killing him. “Never be ashamed of who you are,” he murmured into her hair. “That’s your parents’ job.”

  She choked out a laugh and craned her neck to look at him with those beautiful, drenched eyes, and in that moment he knew. He was screwed, upside down and backward, screwed in every way but the way he wanted to be.

  Chapter 7

  “Worried about shrinkage?”

  Brooke jerked awake and practically had to peel herself off the ceiling. Garrett’s ceiling. What the . . .

  Three sets of narrowed cat eyes glared at her for daring to disrupt their beauty sleep. Brooke shook her head, confused and befuddled from the first deep sleep she’d had in more days than she could count. She eyed the time. It’d been three hours.

  The kids!

  She leapt out of bed and realized she had a sticky note on the center of her chest, stuck to her upside down so she could read it: I got the kids, and Brittney’s back. She’s with them and I’m working.

  She let out a shaky breath as she looked around her. There was no evidence that Garrett had taken a nap with her, but she knew he had. She’d dreamed about that sinewy hard body holding her close, keeping her warm, his calm infusing her with the same. That calm fled in a single heartbeat when she remembered the brush of his mouth against the nape of her neck.

  She rubbed her hand to the spot and realized she had goose bumps. The very best kind of goose bumps. But clearly the kiss had just been part of the dream, because though Garrett might’ve held her while she slept and kept life at bay for a little while, the mental mileage between them couldn’t be bridged. Not after how she’d walked away. Yes, she’d apologized, and he’d seemingly accepted it with a grace she wasn’t sure she deserved.

  But too much time had gone by, not to mention that she wasn’t the same person anymore. But sometimes, like now, when she was fuzzy with sleep and especially vulnerable, she ached for all she’d lost. Her sense of home. Garrett. Her sister . . .

  Her mom said she and Mindy had been like a pack of kittens: They couldn’t stand to be together, but they couldn’t stand to be apart, either. They’d been quite the set, the two of them against the world.

  She missed that relationship deeply. And it was hard, so hard, to be with her sister’s beautiful, wonderful babies, because every second of every day she spent here, they wormed their way into her heart, and she was reminded on a visceral level that she’d never have her own.

  It was a terrible thing to feel, and she knew it, but it didn’t stop the emotions. Instead it cut to the deep insecurities she hid, the little whisper inside her that cruelly taunted her—you’re not whole.

  One of the things Brooke had always prided herself on was how capable she was. She could do anything she set her mind to. But that was no longer true. She’d lost a major option in the crash, and now it was gone forever, leaving a void, an empty place inside her.

  Garrett had been every bit as important in her life as Mindy, not that she’d ever told him so, and walking away from him had been more painful than her injuries. Far more. To survive, she’d learned to bury her feelings deep.

  It wasn’t smart to let those feelings surface now. But knowing that and keeping herself distant were two very different things.

  Leaving Garrett’s house, she walked across the yard and entered Mindy’s kitchen.

  Brittney was at the table with Maddox in her lap and Mason at her side. Princess Millie was seated across from them, and they were all playing cards while Ketchup the Tortoise ate from his tin. The twentyish-year-old at the table was everything Mindy had said she was: fit, cute, and perky.

  “Go fish!” Millie yelled cheerfully. She was wearing dishwashing gloves, for which Brooke needed no explanation—clearly the cards had germs.

  “Hey,” Brooke said, and the kids rushed to greet her with hugs and, in Maddox’s case, with two extremely sticky hands. It took everything she had not to go wash up, but Millie was watching her very carefully for just that urge, so Brooke had to mentally shake off the invisible germs.

  “I’m so glad you’re back in town,” she said to Brittney after introducing herself. “Mindy told me you go to your college classes in the morning and then you come here. I’ll be so grateful for your help until she gets back.”

  Brittney rose to her feet. Her smile was nervous now, and anxious, too, it seemed. “I love the kids. And I need this job, but”—she lowered her voice to a barely there whisper—“I’m giving my notice.”

  Brooke’s heart stopped. “What? Why?” She bent to pick up Maddox, who’d been very busy trying to climb her leg like a little monkey.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” Brittney said.

  Oh, shit. She gave the kids slices of sweet lemon bread and pulled Brittney aside. “Did . . . someone step over the line with you?” she asked the nanny carefully, thinking she’d have to kill Linc dead if that were the case. And that would be very sad, because she loved her brother-in-law, and not just because he made cute babies. He cared about Brooke and had always been there for her when she’d needed him, and even once or twice when she hadn’t wanted him to be there, just like a true brother.

  Brittney shifted on her feet and looked away. “Um . . .”

  “What did he do?” she asked.

  “He?” Brittney looked confused. “No, it’s Mrs. Tennant.”

  “Mindy?”

  “Yes,” Brittney said, looking pained. “She . . . doesn’t like me. I can tell. And she’s always so stressed-out and tense, and it makes the babies stressed-out and tense, and