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Cole stared at the doors leading into the restaurant. He couldn’t recall the name of the place or take his eyes off that point to look at the sign. Ever since his phone call with Cal and Eve this morning he’d been operating in a daze. This wasn’t the hangover or lack of sleep. He was wound too tight for that. Anticipation and anxiety had his stomach in knots. He’d changed his shirt twice before leaving the house due to sweat.
He was a wreck.
Without looking at his phone he hit dial again and listened to the ringing.
Once. Three times. Five.
Voicemail.
He ended the call before Scarlett’s voice could tease him.
She’d been pretty rough that morning. Chances were she’d gone to work and was passed out already. He wanted her to be there with him, but this was all happening so fast. He couldn’t fault her for nursing her hangover.
A couple strolled toward the door of the restaurant. The man was in cargo shorts and a T-shirt. The woman wore leggings with a long, loose dress that draped over her pregnant belly. The entry light caught the man in profile as he glanced down at the woman with strawberry blonde hair, a grin curving his mouth.
Cole knew that face. That grin. His cheeks had been rounder with that chubby baby fat thing still going for him, but it was the same smile. Cal had always been a happy kid. Infectious. It was hard to tell anything else about Cal other than his hair was still dark.
And he was twenty feet away.
“Shit.” Cole blew out a breath and scrambled to open his door.
What did he say?
Was this a bad idea?
Why couldn’t Scarlett have answered his SOS?
“Cal?” Cole blurted.
The man and woman froze with the restaurant door open.
Cal’s wide eyes locked with Cole’s.
This was really happening.
Cole put one foot in front of the other, both dreading and excited about this moment. Just because Cal had been excited to hear from him earlier today didn’t mean history hadn’t reared its head.
Eve put her hand on Cal’s arm. He glanced at her then let go of the door and took a step toward Cole. One step turned into five, then they were toe to toe. Cal didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arms around Cole in a tight bear hung, saving Cole from trying to figure out the appropriate greeting.
“It’s great to see you,” Cal said and pounded Cole’s shoulder.
Up close he could tell that Cal’s hair was still curly. His eyes had darkened to a deep green and he no longer had that gap between his front teeth.
“You, too.” Cole squeezed his brother back, noting that even as an adult Cal was barely chin-high.
“I see freckles are still a family thing.” Eve stood back, one hand on her stomach.
“Yeah, and he got all the height.” Cal turned and gestured at his wife. “Cole, meet my better half.”
“Nice to meet you both.” Cole glanced at her stomach. He couldn’t help it. His baby brother was going to have a baby.
“Let’s go inside and sit down.” Cal ushered them through the doors.
Cole stood back while Cal got them a table, one hand always brushing his wife’s arm or on the small of her back.
They were in love. And happy from the looks of it.
The hostess seated them in a cushy booth. Their waiter was there immediately to deliver menus and take their drink order, all which gave Cole a moment to catch his breath. A few months ago when he’d begun this search he’d thought it would be pointless. And now here he was sitting across from his brother and sister-in-law.
He had family. Real blood family.
For a moment they sat there staring at each other.
“Can I just say that I’m so excited to meet you?” Eve leaned forward.
“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.” Cole dragged his hand over his face. “I was out late last night with my girlfriend. Today just feels like a blur.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Eve propped her elbow on the table.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Cal chuckled at his wife. “I want to know how you got here. What have you been doing? How are you? How did you end up here?”
“That’s...quite a story.” Cole wiped his hands on his jeans.
“Start at the beginning then. Make me wait to hear about this girlfriend.” Eve sighed heavily.
“Ignore her. She’s on a big romance book kick lately.”
“Lately?” Eve arched a brow at Cal.
“Fine. More than usual.” He leaned over and kissed Eve’s cheek.
“Well, I was engaged. My former fiancé grew up in Ransom and insisted she wanted to get married and live close to her family. She got cold feet and left me...” Cole frowned. It felt like months ago. “A month or six weeks, maybe two months ago? Doesn’t matter.”
“She left you and you’re here?” Eve stared, her eyes wide.
“We’d already leased a house. I’d quit one job, had another lined up. All our things were on a truck. It was a done deal. So here I am.” Cole shrugged.
“And your new girlfriend...?”
“Scarlett.” He nodded. “She manages the venue we were going to get married at. It sounds crazy and fast, I know. My ex and I weren’t in love, we were just...together.”
“And with Scarlett?” Eve had both elbows on the table now, her chin in her hands.
“It’s... We’re more serious about each other than I ever was with my fiancé.” Cole stared at the table for a moment. How had he ever thought he could be happy with AK?
“Was it love at first sight?”
“Eve.” Cal sighed.
“What?” Eve glanced at her husband and frowned.
“Don’t pressure him.”
“It’s a valid question.”
“It was something at first sight,” Cole admitted. “She was covered in mud fighting with a pig, so I don’t know if I’d call it love. But I knew when we met there was just something there.”
“Oh, that’s romantic.” Eve sighed. “Where is she? You should have brought her.”
“She was not doing so great this morning. We drank a little too much, and she’s a lightweight. I’m guessing she worked then crashed. I didn’t have the heart to go bug her into coming out with me tonight.”
“Well, I can’t wait to meet her. And the girls.” Eve glanced at Cal. “Your sisters are going to be so excited.”
“How are they?” Cole asked.
“Good.” Cal’s reply wasn’t as enthusiastic.
“Okay,” Cole said slowly.
“Cal.” Eve poked her husband. “He’s your brother.”
“Sorry.” Cal shook his head. “The girls are good. Really good. They’re both down in Austin on their first year of college. We’ve been really nervous about this. You remember our mother’s boyfriend right before we left?”
“I remember.” Cole clenched his hands into fists. “I always had a bad feeling about that guy.”
“I barely remember him. He’s like this...shadow? I do remember the girls being glued to you though. I’d wake up, and they were squished into your bed.” Cal stared at the table for a moment before clearing his throat. “After what that guy tried to do, Madeline hasn’t done well on her own. Which is why she did community college until Samantha was ready. They’re rooming together, getting on each other’s nerves, but doing well.”
“Madeline?” Cole frowned.
“Right. Sorry, the girls changed their names. They’re Madeline and Samantha. Mom and Dad gave us that choice when we got a little older. A therapist suggested it for the girls as a way of distancing themselves from the past. I obviously didn’t have the baggage they did.”
“God, I knew that guy was a piece of shit. I just didn’t think... I didn’t know.”
“You were a kid, Cole. You were all kids. Madeline still says nothing happened, that you stopped him,” Eve said softly.
“Mom gave her this huge, brown bear for her to sleep with when we moved in. She named it Cole.” Cal stared across the table at him. “I wish to God she’d let you come with us.”
Cole opened and closed his mouth. There weren’t words to describe the myriad of thoughts darting through his mind. For a moment they were all quiet.
“You know, it’s probably for the best I didn’t. Mom got better about the guys she picked after that one, but none of them were winners. The others needed someone there to look out for them.”
“Wait.” Eve leaned forward. “Are you saying your mother had more kids?”
Cole glanced from her to Eve.
“We have more siblings?” Cal’s face grew pale.
“Uh, yeah. At least two or four more. They’d be... Well, Samantha is eighteen now. That means the others are sixteen, fifteen and maybe thirteen and twelve? For all I know she kept having kids after I left.”
Cal and Eve shared a look. She lifted her husband’s hand to her lips and gave it a kiss.
“We were planning on doing one of those DNA kits over Thanksgiving.” Cal glanced at him. “I’d like for you to do it with us. If we can find the others, I want to.”
“Two of them were supposedly taken by CPS. I wouldn’t be surprised if she arranged an adoption like she did for you guys,” Cole said.
“Why not you?” Eve asked.
Cole could only shrug. He had theories, but in truth he didn’t know anything.
“Well, we’re going to tell the girls about you this weekend.” She glanced at Cal. “Between their exams and not knowing anything about you we figured it was better to hold off.”
“No. That’s totally right,” Cole said before Cal could speak. “You had no way of knowing what I’d turned out like. That was the right call.”
“Well, they’re going to lose their minds when they hear about you.” Eve smiled and her eyes sparkled.
“What’s your story?” Cole asked. “How’d you two meet? And how’d you end up here?”
“Oh, gosh.” She shook her head and laughed.
“Love at first sight, man. First day of freshman orientation. I don’t have a pen, paper, my phone.” Cal stared at his wife’s profile. “I glance over and there’s this beautiful girl that just so happened to have a spare pen and a notebook. It had purple glitter that got all over me.”
“And then he carried it around for a whole semester.” Eve rolled her eyes.
“It took me half the semester to talk her into going out with me.”
“It did not.”
“I have the date written down in that purple glitter monstrosity, if you don’t believe me.” Cal lifted his brows and gave his wife a knowing look.
“Fine.” She glanced away, her cheeks pink.
“Long story short, I proposed on our first date—”
“It was a ring pop. It didn’t count.”
“Hey, it counts.” Cal wrapped his arm around Eve’s shoulders. “She said no, but I remained determined. She finally said yes during our junior year. Things went pretty fast after that. Mom and Dad died. Eve’s parents totally stepped up to the plate, and we moved the girls in with them while we finished school. Eve and I got married, moved here and we’ve been working at Hope House ever since.”
“What is Hope House?” Cole asked.
“It’s a foster home aimed at the pre-teen and early teenage age group.” Eve glanced at Cal. “Cal’s the assistant director. My focus is on education and development.”
“It was another one of those kismet things that we both wanted the same thing. To help kids. Me, obviously because of our background.” Cal shrugged.
“My best friend growing up was in the system. She died junior year of high school. She made a real impression on me. I knew I wanted to do something that was more...hands on, I guess, than just being a teacher. This fit.”
“Wow.” Cole sucked in a deep breath.
“I don’t know about the two of you, but I am starving.” Eve tapped her menu on the table. “Someone had better feed the pregnant woman before she gets weepy.”
“Let me see if I can flag our waiter down.” Cal twisted to peer across the room.
Cole took in another deep breath.
This was happening. He’d found his brother. His sisters weren’t far away.
The only way tonight would be better was if Scarlett were there with him. But there would be time to introduce her later. His whole life he’d been looking for somewhere to belong and he seemed to have found it.
g
Scarlett pressed her back to the side of the house. She’d heard an engine, but was too chicken to see who it was.
It was going to be Cole.
She just knew it. But she couldn’t face him right now. It was too soon, and she didn’t know what to do.
Feet crunched in the gravel coming closer.
Shoot.
She peered at the back side of the house. Could she dart around there and over to the guy’s place? Climbing over their makeshift fence might give her away.
“Scarlett?” Benji called out. A light shone straight in her face.
“Hey.” She held up her hand and squinted at him. The fading light cast long shadows, partially obscuring him.
“What are you doing?” Benji picked his way around her ruined garden plot.
“Just looking to see if I can salvage anything. I think it’s a lost cause this year.”
“I thought we knew that already.”
“Yeah, well, I was just making sure. Coming inside?” She waved him to follow her.
“Sure.”
Maybe what she needed was a man’s perspective. Talking to the girls had confused Scarlett and sent her mind down a twisting path full of pitfalls and worry. Her stomach had been tied in knots for two days and the tension headache she’d woken up with was threatening to come back.
She froze with one foot on the bottom stair. Headlights on the road leading up to the hill caught her eye.
Was that Cole?
Scarlett squinted.
No, that was a truck.
“What’s with you? You’re so jumpy.” Benji gave her a playful shove.
She took the stairs two at a time, eager to be inside.
“Where’s your boy toy? I’d have thought he’d be over here sometime this week.” Benji followed her inside and shut the door.
“I don’t know,” she muttered and crossed to the kitchen.
“What’s up with you?” Benji didn’t sit. He stood between the island and the sink, hands braced on either side.
“Nothing. Why?” She hated how her voice went up.
“I came over here because you’ve been acting weird for the last three days. You’re still acting weird. You going to tell me what’s up or am I going to have to pester it out of you?” He kept staring at her.
“I’m fine.” No, she wasn’t. Why was she lying? She could talk to Benji.
“I can only handle one of you being weird, so either you or Garth has got to cut it out. Seriously.” Benji’s eyes narrowed. “Did Cole do something? Is that why he hasn’t been around?”
“No.” Scarlett leaned forward on the island and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know.”
“Scarlett, what happened?” Benji’s stern tone was almost comical. “Tuesday morning you were in rare form. You stood up to Garth. Since then you’ve been...weird.”
“I think I made a mistake. Maybe? I don’t know, Benji. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You, not Cole?”
“He’s part of it.” She peered through her fingers at Benji, already aware of what he was going to say to her.
“You.” He pointed at her. “Put your ass on that sofa, get comfortable then we’re going to get to the bottom of this. I’m not going to walk on eggshells around both you and Garth all damn weekend.”
Scarlett hung her head and crossed to the living room. She sat on the sofa, curling her feet under her while Benji dug out her vodka, carbonated water and grenadine. He made them both a little cocktail then joined her on the sofa, propping his feet on the puffy cushion chair rather than the coffee table. It had only taken her two years to break him of the habit that he could put his feet wherever he wanted.
“Do your thing,” he said and leaned back.
She sipped her drink first, gathering her thoughts.
“When’s the last time you talked to Cole?” Benji asked.
“Like, actual conversation or exchanged words?”
“Both.”
“The last time we talked was Monday. I mean, we traded words Tuesday morning, but you saw me.” She pushed a hand through her hair and resisted the urge to get up and pace.
“What?” Benji frowned at her.
“He’s called, okay?”
“And you aren’t talking to him because...?”
“I don’t know.”
“Scarlett.”
“Because I started thinking, okay?” She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. “This is happening super fast. He was engaged. I didn’t want to consider dating for another year. What if this is all a mistake? What if he wakes up tomorrow and decides he still wants to be with AK? What if—”
“Wait.” He held up his hand. “Let me get this straight, this is all going on in that crazy brain of yours?”
“Benji.” She glared at him. “I’m trying to be realistic. What I’m getting at is that I know what I want. Cole doesn’t. What if this keeps going? What if...”
“Oh, boy.” He drained his glass then set it on the coffee table. That done he scooted down the sofa and placed his hand on Scarlett’s knee. “Kid, I love you. But you’re being a crazy chick. I’m going to need you to dial back the crazy like, ten clicks. Okay?”
“I know.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “The girls were here most of Tuesday. I know they meant well telling me it’s okay if it’s just a for now thing, but...”
“You’ve always been a long term kind of girl. Come here.” Benji wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve saved up two years worth of crazy and you’re trying to work through it all right now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” She settled her head on Benji’s shoulder.
“So the girls talked you into a mess, then what?”
“Yesterday I just knew Cole was going to call and break up with me. I couldn’t handle it. Not yet—”
“Did you do that thing where you avoid the guy to prevent the breakup?”
“Yes...”
Benji barked a laugh and bent forward. She scowled at the back of his head, well aware of how she sounded.
“Has your level of psycho girl dawned on you yet?” Benji sank further down so they could look each other in the eye. He was enjoying her distress far too much.
“A little.” She stared straight ahead. “Today I looked at Cole’s texts.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know, okay?”
“You know what your problem is, don’t you?”
“No.” She glanced at him, dreading his words.
“You’ve gone old school Scarlett on him.” Benji’s grin widened. “You liked him a lot in the beginning. Now that he’s reciprocated you’ve really fallen for him. In high school this is when guys started getting freaked out by how invested you were and they ran. The problem is that your mind is trained for the breakup. Grown ass men don’t run from commitment.”
“Do you hear yourself?” She squinted at him. “When was the last time you dated a girl for more than two weeks?”
“I’m just playing the field. Sampling the buffet. Nothing wrong with that.” He shrugged. “You’re not like that.”
She nodded. That was her. No use in being offended or surprised by that pronouncement.
“Now that you’ve created a mess out of nothing, what are you going to do?” Benji asked.
“I don’t know. Is it worth getting invested in a relationship if I don’t know we’ll work out?”
“What’s the fun in knowing the future? We’d all stay in our safe bubbles. No one would really live. Nothing would be exciting.” He smacked her thigh. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”
“I fall in love with him and then one of two things happens. One, he decides he doesn’t want to get married or have kids. He leaves me and I die of a broken heart. Two, he decides he wants those things, then he gets hurt in some freak vet accident, dies and then I die of a broken heart.”
“You are a ray of crazy sunshine, you know it?” He shook his head. “The curse stuff is a bunch of bullshit.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged.
“Now, what’s the best-case scenario?”
“We fall in love, get married, have kids and die of old age.” That sounded like a far better story to her ears.
“You’re going to have to put yourself out there if you want a happy ending like that. It’s going to mean that maybe you get your heart broken. Maybe not. Stop being silly and talk to the guy. Cole seems like he’s got his shit together. I think he could even handle a little of your crazy girl mode.”
“Am I really being crazy?” She winced, already knowing the answer. She’d spent most of the day coming to the same conclusion.
“Totally. All of this is in your head.”
“Crap.”
“To be a fly on the wall when you sort things out with Cole...”
“What do I tell him?”
“The truth?” Benji shrugged so hard he jostled her.
“Maybe I’m too messed up to do this.” She stared down at her hands.
“No. No, you don’t get to say that.” Benji sat up and faced her. When she wouldn’t look at him he grasped her chin and lifted it. “You’ve got a big, damn heart, Scarlett Lively. You loved someone who didn’t deserve to kiss the ground you walk on. You see, the best in people. That doesn’t make you messed up. Understand me?”
“Yes,” she whispered around the lump forming in her throat.
“I didn’t hear you.” He tilted his head toward her.
“Yes, damn it.” She swiped at her eyes.
Benji pulled her in for a hug.
Her life would have turned out so different if it weren’t for her cousins. Garth might have been their guardian, but it had taken both of them to raise her. She was lucky to have two great men to lean on.
“Okay, that’s about as much mushy stuff as I can handle.” He patted her back. “What are you going to do about all this?”
“Talk to Cole, I guess.” She cringed.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Awesome.” Benji sighed. “This is going to be a fun weekend.”
“What’s going on with Garth?” She was eager for any other topic.
“I don’t know. At first I chalked it up to the marketing costs, but I don’t think that’s the real deal anymore. He usually snaps out of that funk. This is something else.”
“Any idea what it is?” Scarlett twisted to face Benji. She’d been avoiding Garth so much she barely knew what he was up to these days.
“He’s had a few errands into Fort Worth lately. I didn’t think to ask about them.” He frowned. “It can’t be money. He spends nothing. We all know what’s in the bank. The houses are paid off. The property taxes are paid. The bills are up to date.”
“Could he be seeing someone?”
“Garth?” Benji stared at her.
“I’m just throwing out ideas.” She held up her hands.
“I don’t know. Honest.”
“You want me to log into his email? I might find out that way.” She had everyone’s accounts and passwords stored as a precaution, but she’d never used them.
“Nah. Doing something like that might make it worse, you know.”
“Yeah.” She sighed.
“So.” Benji slapped her thigh again. “What’s for dinner.”
“The real reason why you’re here.” Scarlett rolled her eyes and pushed to her feet.
Deep down she was glad he was there. She needed the distraction.
• •
