CHAPTER TWO

“Thanks for holding down the fort,” Josh said as he entered the kitchen later that night. “How’s your head?”

Parker gingerly touched two fingers to the small goose egg on the back of his head. “It’s fine.”

Josh grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top and then took a long pull. “It meant a lot to Anna to have you here.”

“I should have been around for her treatments. If I’d known—”

“I had it under control,” Josh said without emotion despite the pain etched across his features. For a second Parker barely recognized his kind, gentle, teddy bear of a brother.

“Your daughter had cancer and your wife left you.” Parker shook his head as he reached for the final length of pink streamers hanging across the breakfast nook. “Hell, Josh, I’m good at what I do. At least I could have helped with the divorce.”

“I didn’t need help, and I told you I don’t want to talk about Jenn. It’s fine.”

“Then do you want to talk about where you went tonight?” After the guests left the party and Anna was tucked in for bed, Parker had been ready to head back to Seattle when his brother asked him to stay at the house so he could run a quick errand.

“Not really.”

“Is it a woman?” Parker had a feeling the explanation wouldn’t be so clear-cut, but he had to ask. “If not Mara then—”

“There’s no woman,” Josh insisted, placing his beer on the counter. “Definitely not Mara.” Josh grimaced. “That would be like dating my sister.”

“We don’t have a sister,” Parker felt the need to point out. He couldn’t imagine how his brother—or any man—wouldn’t be attracted to Mara.

“You know what I mean. Tonight was business.”

“What kind of construction emergency happens at eight on a Saturday night?”

Josh stared at him a long moment and then said, “I bought the Dennison Lumber Mill.”

The breath whooshed out of Parker’s lungs like he’d been punched in the gut. “How? Why?”

“It was right after Anna finished chemo. Jenn had left and I was overwhelmed. I felt like I didn’t have control over anything and I wanted—”

“To saddle yourself with an abandoned building?” Parker scrubbed a hand over his face. “The building that was the bane of Dad’s existence. When I think about all the frustration that place caused him and the ways he took out his anger on us…” He stalked to the edge of the kitchen, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat.

His father’s long tenure as mayor of Starlight had been marred by one huge failure. Mac Johnson had tried to prevent the lumber mill from closing, and the fact he hadn’t been able to plagued him and triggered his temper on many occasions. Almost a hundred local jobs had been lost when the mill owners pulled out, a hit a small town like Starlight couldn’t afford. Parker hated everything about the mill and what it represented in his childhood. How could Josh tie himself to that building?

“I wanted to succeed where he failed,” Josh said into the silence that stretched between them. “I needed something—a project, a goal—something to make me feel like I had control.”

Parker schooled his features and turned to face his brother. He wouldn’t show how much the thought of that place got to him. “Has it worked?”

“I can barely step onto the property without wanting to puke. I’d planned to turn it into a multiuse space. Adaptive reuse is all the rage in historic preservation these days. But I’m so behind schedule and now…” Josh let out a humorless laugh.

“Tell me.”

He watched as his younger brother’s fingers tightened on the edge of the counter. They were only fourteen months apart, but Parker had always taken care of Josh, or at least he’d tried to when they were younger. That had mainly consisted of keeping them both out of reach of their mercurial father, who’d been beloved by the community but feared and hated within his own home.

Parker still wondered what would have happened if his mom had found the courage to leave Mac when he and Josh were boys. But there was no changing the past. Lillian Johnson had done the best she could, he supposed. Yes, she’d stayed with an abusive husband but had attempted to prevent Parker and Josh from becoming targets. She’d hidden her bruises and kept a smile on her face, but both boys had known how difficult Mac made life for their mother.

Josh, a quiet boy who never developed the subtle skill of staying out of his father’s crosshairs, had been particularly sensitive to the violence. Parker had made it his mission to protect his brother, although it hadn’t always worked and more often than not, Parker would end up comforting Josh in their darkened bedroom after one of Mac’s violent tirades. After a sudden heart attack killed Mac during Parker’s senior year of high school, all bets were off. Parker left Starlight and the difficult memories behind, hoping his brother would do the same.

But Josh had stayed, working on construction crews in the area and eventually getting his general contractor’s license. He’d met Jenn at a local bar and they’d gotten married in Vegas after a whirlwind romance. Parker hadn’t even known about the wedding until months later.

Despite their distance, Josh had seemed happy, which made Parker happy. He hadn’t pushed for a closer relationship with his brother or his young niece. They had their own lives, he told himself. Up until a few months ago, he believed that dinner once a year and a few texts back and forth were enough.

Not anymore.

“I’m going to default on the loan if the project doesn’t open on time,” his brother said, his eyes drifting closed as if saying the words caused him pain. “There’s a second mortgage on the house, and I’m behind on those payments, too, so…”

Parker muttered a curse. “What do you need? How much?”

“I’m not a stupid kid.” Josh shook his head. He’d always been quiet, sweet and stubborn as hell. “I don’t need you to bail me out.”

“I know you’re not a kid.” Parker forced himself to take a slow breath. He could hear the thread of agitation in his brother’s voice. “Despite the struggles, you’ve made a great life for yourself. I don’t know how you made it through Anna’s treatments on your own. To take on a project like the mill at the same time is amazing. But if you need help—”

“I’m not taking your money.”

“It doesn’t have to be money.” Although writing a check would be easy, Parker knew it wouldn’t solve the deeper problems of their past. Returning to Starlight reminded him of all the things he’d done wrong in his life, and top on that list was leaving his younger brother. “You’re not alone in this. You never have to feel like you’re alone.”

Josh pressed his fingers to either side of his head. “I can’t fail. Dad always expected me to fail.”

“He’s been gone for years,” Parker murmured, even though he understood the way memories could hold a person hostage. Physical injuries healed quickly enough, but they’d never discussed the lingering emotional scars each of them harbored as a result of growing up with an abusive parent.

Josh had always seemed so much like their mother, and Lillian flourished after her husband’s death. She became a totally different person, no longer the broken, scared woman he’d known growing up. Mac’s death had been a release of sorts. Unshackled from her horrendous marriage, she’d reinvented herself.

She’d gone back to college, and now worked as a nurse at a pediatrician’s office two hours away in Spokane. She had a large group of friends and had dated the same man, a retired postal worker, for the past few years. She rarely came to Seattle and didn’t ask Parker to visit her. She seemed to expect nothing from him, never pressuring him to settle down the way some mothers did.

It was almost as if she’d blocked that whole period of their lives from her memory, and Parker thought Josh had done the same thing. Parker was the son who’d taken after their father, both in looks and temperament. He hated his resemblance to Mac more than anything and tried to ignore it, which was part of the reason he kept his distance from Starlight. Locals loved to walk down memory lane with him, never realizing the way they remembered his dad was categorically opposite of the man Parker had known.

“I think you need to talk to Mom, too,” Parker told his brother.

“She helped enough when Anna got sick. She took time off work to stay with us during the worst of the recovery and stocked the freezer with meals.”

“If you asked for more help—”

“I can’t do that to her.” Josh forced a smile. “Or to you.”

“I’m offering.” He understood Josh’s desire not to revisit the past or relive the details of the abuse that had almost broken them. Of course Josh had never really had it all together. Parker didn’t either, even though it might look that way to an outsider. How could either of them ever be truly stable and steady given the way they’d grown up? Too much had been broken to ever be fully fixed.

“I won’t take no for an answer,” Parker continued. “We’re going to make your plan a reality.” He had no idea how but knew for certain he’d find a way. He had to, given what the mill had meant to them as children. If they didn’t make it work, it felt like somehow their father still controlled them. He wouldn’t give that hateful man the power to ruin his brother’s life from beyond the grave.

“I won’t take your money,” Josh repeated.

“Put me to work.”

Josh laughed. “Not a lot of need for a divorce attorney on a construction site.”

“You know what I mean. It will be like the old days. You and me side by side.” Parker and Josh had gotten summer jobs working for a local construction crew in high school. It had been one of the best summers Parker could remember, with a reason to leave the house early each morning and then working all day. The physical labor gave him an outlet for his pent-up frustration and the feeling of helplessness that pervaded their home.

“What are you talking about? You can’t just put your life on hold.”

“I’ll make it work.” Parker’s mind raced with the logistics. His calendar was full at the office. Divorce was good business. But if his secretary could switch client meetings and appointments around so they were clustered once a week, he could drive into Seattle for a marathon day at the office and then manage most everything else remotely. He was at the point where he had to turn away new clients because he hadn’t wanted to hire an associate. Parker liked being a one-man show. He’d spent much of his life having no control and wasn’t willing to share it with anyone.

“I’ve been feeling kind of burned out lately,” he told his brother, which was both true and not. “This will give me a chance to reevaluate. Plus, there’s this new guy…he graduated from my alma mater in the spring. He submitted his résumé months ago and now pesters me every week about a job…maybe it’s time I give the kid a chance.”

“If you’re serious…” Josh gave him a grateful smile, and the hope in his brother’s eyes made Parker’s throat tighten. It reminded him of all the late-night promises he’d made to Josh when they were kids—how Parker was going to take care of things and give them a better life than the one they were living. He couldn’t help feeling like he’d failed his brother back then.

As heartless as it sounded, it had been a stroke of luck for their father to die. Parker hadn’t had anything to do with it. While he was grateful to be rid of the violent man, the heart attack had robbed Parker of his mission to save Josh. Now was his chance to atone.

“When are you scheduled to open?”

“Three weeks from yesterday.”

“How far behind are you?”

“Close to a month,” Josh admitted quietly. “A couple of the tenants have pulled out. I lost my flagship restaurant. Nanci Morgan from Main Street Perk has agreed to open a second location for the coffee shop in the space, but it’s not enough. I have a meeting at the bank tomorrow to talk about an extension.”

Parker nodded, keeping his features neutral. He wasn’t sure if he could actually pull this off, but he’d never let his brother know that. “I’ll go with you. Finn will understand.” One of his best friends from high school, Finn Samuelson, had recently moved back to Starlight to take over running his family’s bank, First Trust. He trusted Finn to help.

Josh blew out a long breath. “We can do this.”

“You bought the Dennison Mill.” Parker remained unsure how to process the information.

Neither of them spoke for several moments, and Parker couldn’t help but wonder if his brother was reliving all the ways they kept their father’s violence a secret from the community.

“How do you stay here?” Parker asked suddenly.

Josh blinked, as if not understanding the question. “It’s home.”

“Don’t the memories get to you? Everywhere I go in town it feels like he’s a part of it.”

“I’m making my own memories, ones that don’t involve him. Ones that aren’t tied up in my failed marriage or with Anna being sick. I have to keep trying.”

Parker blew out a breath, leveled by his brother’s inherent optimism. “I admire you, Josh.”

“Give me a break. I’m on the verge of losing everything. You’re the big success.”

“You won’t lose,” Parker promised. He might not know much about adaptive reuse and he hadn’t built anything in years, but he’d figure it out.

Josh gave him the goofy thumbs-up Parker remembered from their childhood. “Not with you on my side.”

Parker opened his mouth to argue then snapped it shut again. He hoped he was worthy of his brother’s confidence. It was difficult to admit, even to himself, the guilt he still harbored over his failure to protect his younger brother when they were kids. Now he had a chance to finally make up for that, and he wouldn’t let either of them down again.

* * *

“It must have been worse than you described.”

Mara looked up from the dough she’d been rolling in her aunt’s kitchen, Evie tucked in her bed upstairs. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I couldn’t sleep,” she told Aunt Nanci, who stood yawning in the doorway, wearing her favorite red flannel pajamas. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s almost two in the morning,” Nanci said, her voice gentle.

Mara glanced from the clock hanging on the far wall to the six trays of sweet rolls lined up on the counter. “Yeah.”

“Did you actually push Paul’s attorney or did he trip? You seemed upset so I didn’t want to ask earlier. You know I wouldn’t blame you if you’d helped him out of the bounce house. It must have been a shock to face him.”

Mara bit down on her lower lip then sighed. “He tripped, but I wasn’t sorry he fell. What kind of parenting role model does that make me?” Guilt twisted her stomach, both from the example she’d given her daughter and for causing such a commotion at Anna’s birthday party. Yes, there were a lot of things she’d do differently in that moment. “People are going to talk and make it a bigger deal. If you want me to take off a couple of days until the gossip dies down, I understand.”

Nanci let out a small laugh. “Are you kidding? I imagine people will be flocking into the shop to get a look at you. You know how this town loves fresh gossip. Although I doubt any of the regulars will be surprised. Most of them are half terrified of you on a good day.”

An uncomfortable sensation flitted along the back of Mara’s neck, and she picked up the final tray of rolls, turning to place them in the preheated oven. She was aware of her reputation, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

“I’m not scary.”

“Right.” Nanci laughed again then drew closer to the wire racks the held rows of cooling pastries. “Lucky for both of us, you’re an artist with coffee and bake better than anyone I’ve ever met. The Sunday-morning crowd will be thrilled at the extra cinnamon rolls. Usually we run out by nine.”

“I’m not scary,” Mara repeated with more force than was probably necessary. “I don’t want to scare people.”

“Intimidate is a better word,” Nanci told her. “Although I suppose Parker now has reason to watch his back.”

“I’m done with Parker Johnson,” Mara said. “According to Josh, he was only here for Anna’s party. I’ll be able to avoid him if he comes for another visit.”

“You might be the only woman in the world who’d want to avoid that fine specimen of a man. His father was quite the looker back in the day, and Parker is the spitting image of Mac with those piercing eyes and that chiseled jaw. Heck, he might be better looking than his dad was and that’s saying something.”

Mara absolutely did not want to think about how handsome Parker was or the way it had felt to have his warm hand touching her back. “It’s difficult to imagine he grew up here.”

“Why?”

Mara shrugged, wiping her hands on a white dishtowel. “I can’t see him as a child. It would seem more fitting that he sprang fully formed as the ruthless shark I know him to be.”

“I understand your divorce was awful, but we both know Parker was doing his job for your ex-husband.”

“Don’t defend him,” Mara said through gritted teeth. “He helped Paul take everything that mattered from me. My ex-husband made me out to be…crazy and unstable. He ruined my professional reputation just to be spiteful.” She threw up her hands. “He got to move on with his mistress and I had to start over.”

“I’m on your side,” Nanci said, coming forward to offer a quick hug.

The gesture made Mara’s heart pinch, like it was suddenly too large to fit into her chest. Nanci had hired Mara at the coffee shop before she’d even moved to town and had been willing to work around Evie’s schedule, first at day care and now kindergarten. Mara still had no idea what made the aunt she’d barely known growing up take Mara and Evie under her wing, but she was eternally grateful for the chance.

She hadn’t planned on staying in Starlight when she’d arrived for her cousin’s wedding, but the town had offered her a way to rebuild her life and leave the past behind in Seattle. Now that it was home, she’d do whatever she could to make a future here for her daughter.

“I actually have something I want to talk to you about.” Nanci pinched off a corner of one roll and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes drifted shut, and she moaned in pleasure. “It’s so darn good,” she murmured. “How do you manage not to eat any of what you bake?”

Mara felt a blush rise to her cheeks at how happy the compliment made her. “Sugar isn’t my thing. You know that.”

“I still don’t understand it.”

Mara simply shrugged, unable to explain it herself. She’d only started baking after her separation. When Paul had first moved out of the house they’d shared, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Every noise or creak had set her on edge. She’d spent way too many nights watching reruns of baking competitions on the food channel.

The process had intrigued her—the mix of chemistry and magic involved with baking. She’d taken Evie to the grocery and bought all the ingredients she’d need to replicate what she saw on television, her mind whirring with inspiration. Having something to think about besides her imploding marriage had been a blessing. Her first couple of creations were inedible, rock-solid cupcakes, and cookies that resembled Frisbees.

Somehow those failures spurred her on to work harder. She made her first successful batch of cookies the day Paul fired her from the luxury hotel management company he owned, where she’d worked as an interior designer since graduating from college. She brought the treats to Evie’s day care and the women there had gone crazy for the cookies. A trivial win, but at that moment it meant the world to Mara.

Nanci hadn’t known about the baking when Mara moved to Starlight, and it still wasn’t part of her job description, but her aunt was happy to have her in the kitchen at home or at the shop whenever the mood hit. “What did you want to talk about?” Mara asked.

“The reason I woke up is because Renee called.” Nanci wrapped the rest of the sweet roll in wax paper. “There have been some complications with the baby, and the doctor is putting her on bed rest for the final few weeks of her pregnancy.”

“Why didn’t you say something right away?” Mara wrapped her arms around her aunt, sighing when the older woman sagged against her. Renee and her husband, Brett, had moved to Texas right after the wedding because Brett was in the army and stationed in the Lone Star State.

“I’m trying not to overreact,” Nanci said, pulling back. “They’re going to need me to be calm. She phoned from the hospital. She’s okay but the doctors are keeping her for a few days to monitor the baby’s vitals. Brett leaves for a week of training tomorrow, so I’ve already booked my flight.”

“Of course you have,” Mara agreed. “What can I do to help? I’ll watch the house and the cats. If you need me to pick up extra shifts at Perk, I’ll find a way to manage Evie’s schedule.”

Nanci placed a hand on Mara’s arm. “You’re sweet. I’d appreciate your help at the shop, but I also need you to step in and take over plans for the second location. Josh needs more help than he’s letting on at this point. Not just with the coffee shop but in the overall design. He needs you.”

“I can’t.” Mara swallowed back the nerves that surfaced at the mention of planning and design. “I walked away from that kind of work. I’m a barista now.”

Nanci arched a brow and Mara was reminded that her sweet, maternal aunt had also been a single mom who ran a successful business. “Don’t pretend you aren’t overqualified for what you do around here. I understand your ex-husband screwed you over in the divorce and tried to annihilate your career in the process. You’ve taken more than your share of blows. But he didn’t wipe out your talent, Mara. I’ve owned Perk for ten years, and I love it. Starlight is my home and now it’s yours, as well. I’m starting to think I bit off more than I can chew agreeing to open a second location in Josh’s new space. He might be over his head, too. I was there on Friday, and I don’t know how that boy expects to open next month with all the work still to do.” She shook her head. “I guess I could back out at this point.”

“No.” The word escaped Mara’s lips with more force than she expected. “Josh will be able to pull it off.”

“I hope so,” Nanci said after a moment. “You can make sure he does.”

Mara nodded despite her doubts. She didn’t understand the exact reasons he’d invested so much in repurposing the mill but knew it meant a lot to him. Josh was a friend and she wouldn’t let him down. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she agreed.