One Week with her (Ex) Stepbrother (Eden Manor #2) (3 page)

His
look of scrutiny proved she didn’t entirely succeed in her attempt. But all he
said was, “Do you think you can get that stuff ordered quick?” He nodded toward
the crumpled list on her desk.

“Yeah.
I’ll do it right now.”

“I’ve
got to go out to Eden Manor later today. Do you want to come with me?”

Her
eyes widened. “Do you need me?”

“It
helps to have someone to take notes.”

Of
course, that was what he wanted her to come for. “I’ve got some showings later
this morning.”

“I
don’t need to go until the afternoon.”

“Okay.
That’s fine. I can do it.”

She
sat down and started to work, acutely conscious that he was still watching her.
She ignored him so studiously that he finally left the building without a word
and went back to work.

***

At
about two that afternoon, she and Zach drove out to Eden Manor—a huge Victorian
mansion on a lake about ten minutes outside of town.

Missy
had sold the house to the young couple who had bought it a few months ago. It
was the largest commission she’d ever earned, and she still felt a satisfied
pride every time she approached the old house.

Her
showings that morning had gone really well. They’d even wanted to make an
offer. Things were going well with her real estate business—better than she’d
expected for this year, anyway.

Zach
was strangely quiet as they drove out, and she was afraid he was still thinking
about her mood that morning. He was a smart guy. It was possible he could put
together pieces and figure out she had feelings for him that she shouldn’t
have. She would have to be very careful.

To
distract him, she asked, “So, have you seen Cassandra yet?”

He
shook his head, turning to meet her eyes. “No. Someone said she was thinking
about moving back, though.”

“So
the artist thing didn’t work out for her?”

“I
guess not. Or maybe she was just tired of New York. I sure would be.”

“Yeah,
but that’s you. She was always wanting to go to New York.”

“Have
you heard anything about her folks? Maybe they’re not well.”

“I
haven’t heard anything. I don’t know.” She tried to convince herself that it
would be a really good thing for Zach to get together with Cassandra. He could
settle down, and her foolish fantasies would die a quick death.

She
couldn’t quite convince herself, though.

Zach
pulled his old truck up the driveway to Eden Manor and parked on the side next
to an SUV Missy knew belonged to Vanessa.

Vanessa
and Joe had both been hired as contractors for this project, so they came out
almost every day.

Looking
around, Missy saw Vanessa standing near the front door, talking to Kelly and
Peter Blake, the new owners of Eden Manor. All of them were smiling, so they
must have been having a pleasant conversation.

Joe
and Vanessa were deeply in love. It was obvious to anyone who saw them. And
Kelly and Peter were so young and ambitious. They’d just married earlier this
year, and now they were opening a bed and breakfast.

“What
is it?” Zach asked, after he put the car into park.

She
shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Tell
me.”

“Did
you know that Kelly is only twenty-one? She was telling me some about her life.
Her parents died when she was a baby, and she was raised by her eccentric
grandmother, who was always trying to marry her and her sisters off to rich
men. They lived most of their life really poor, and Kelly had to work hard to
keep the house in working order. Then she got married in Vegas after one
drunken night.” She sighed again, wondering what it would feel like to have
such an eventful life.

“Why
does it bother you?” Zach’s voice was strangely quiet.

“It
doesn’t. I really like Kelly. It’s just that so much has happened to her. And
look at Vanessa. She was a widow when she was twenty-five, and she taught
herself how to do his business. She’s just lived…so much.”

“I
know you wouldn’t want to have to deal with having a husband die. Your mother
died when you were a kid. You know what it’s like.”

“Of
course I know. Of course I wouldn’t want that. It’s just that things seem to
happen to other people. They do things. They move to New York. They get married
and have kids. They go through different stages of life. And I’m just…”

Zach
turned her head so she was facing him, and he held her gaze steadily. “You’re
just what?”

“Nothing
ever happens to me. I’m still living here, working for Dad, doing the same
thing I’ve always done.”

“What’s
wrong with that?”

“Nothing.
It’s just that…I always feel like I’m waiting for life to happen to me, and it
just never does.”

His
forehead wrinkled. “You don’t have to stay here, you know. You can move and do
something else.”

“I
know I can. But I don’t want to. I love it here. I love all my friends. I love
this area and this community. I don’t want to move.”

“Well,
your real estate business has been doing well. You’ll eventually be able to do
it full time.”

“I
know. It’s not even that.”

“Then
what is it?” It sounded like he really wanted to know, like it bothered him
that he was having trouble wrapping his mind around what she was saying.

“You
know that pile of rocks in my backyard?” she asked, trying to think of some way
to explain.

“The
stones that came from your aunt’s old well?”

“Yeah.”
Two years ago, Missy’s Aunt Ginny had died and left Missy her house. It was an
old farmhouse and way too big for Missy on her own, but real estate prices were
so low right now that it had made more financial sense for her to live in it
rather than sell it.

“I
offered to haul them away for you,” Zach murmured.

“I
know. All this time, I’ve been wanting to do something with them, but it just never
felt like it was the right time. Like…like life hadn’t settled around me enough
to make it worth the effort.”

“What
did you want to do with them?”

“I
wanted to make some sort of wall, like a mini secret garden.”

“There
aren’t enough for—”

“I
know. It can’t be a real walled garden. I just had this idea…” She exhaled
deeply and gave him a sheepish look. “Anyway, the point was I’ve been waiting
for the right time—when things are settled, when I really know what my life is
going to look like. But the right time never seems to come. I know it’s silly,
but I just sometimes feel like…life forgot to stop at my door.”

He
chuckled at her choice of words, and he was still smiling when he cupped her
cheek with one hand. “You’re living life, Missy. You have more friends than
anyone I know. Everyone loves you. I can’t get through a day without someone
saying how amazing you are or how you helped them out with something. Your dad
wouldn’t make it without you.” He paused. “Neither would I.”

She
shivered at the break in his voice. She parted her lips, but no words came out.

“You
don’t have to leave or be someone different to really live. I wouldn’t want you
to be anyone different.”

It
felt like her whole body was shuddering. “Really?”

“Of
course not. Why would I want you to change? There’s never been anyone like
you.”

She
barely managed to suppress a shaky gasp. She couldn’t look away from his
intense eyes, and she even leaned toward him a little. His hand was still
pressed against her cheek. “Thanks.”

The
sound of a car on the driveway behind them distracted Zach at last. He gave a
little jerk and dropped his hand, turning back to see who was approaching. It
was Joe Coleman, Vanessa’s boyfriend, in his fancy new truck.

“But
if there’s something you’re not happy about with your life,” Zach said, picking
up where he had left off, without all the emotional tension, “you can always
change it, you know.”

She
sighed. “I know. It’s not always that easy, though. Sometimes, trying to change
something good can make it…less good.”

Zach
gave a soft huff and stared at a blank spot out the windshield. “Yeah. I know
that. Really well.”

She
wondered what he was talking about, but Joe was waving at them, so they had to
get out to greet him.

For
the rest of the afternoon, they focused on work, and they didn’t drift back
into personal conversation.

Missy
couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if they hadn’t been
interrupted.

The following day, Zach went out to Eden Manor early, since he hadn’t finished
all he needed to do the day before.

Missy
needed to help her dad in the shop, but she preferred to be out on a site,
helping Zach, so she drove out after lunch. They’d taken a delivery this
morning that included some of the stuff they’d ordered for Eden Manor, so that
was a good enough excuse for her to make the trip over there.

Instead
of her own car, she’d driven her dad’s pickup truck with the back loaded down
with plants and other materials. She parked it near Zach’s truck and got out to
look for him.

She
wasn’t sure where he wanted all this stuff, and she wasn’t too keen on
unloading it all herself anyway.

She
looked around the front yard and didn’t see him, so she walked around to the
back of the house to check if he was there.

There
were guys working everywhere—on the outbuildings, on the windows of the main
house, and probably inside as well—but she didn’t see Zach anywhere. She kept
walking farther onto the property toward the walled garden. Maybe he working in
there.

A
stone wall surrounded the garden, and the door was made of old, heavy wood and
iron fittings. There was a lock, but no one knew where the key was, so the door
was never locked. She pulled it open, cringing at the loud squeaking sound.

She
blinked when she stepped inside and saw Kelly standing up from the dirt where
she’d been kneeling. Kelly’s expression looked slightly guilty, as if she were
doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

Missy
smiled and say, “Hi there! Sorry to barge in like that. I was looking for
Zach.”

Kelly
was very pretty with long dark hair in two braids and little wire-framed
glasses. She wiped her hands on her denim shorts and grinned sheepishly as she
came over to where Missy stood. “I saw him earlier, but that was a couple of
hours ago. I don’t think he’s been in here yet.”

“Okay.”
Missy couldn’t help but look over to the ground where Kelly had been kneeling.
“Sorry to bother you.”

“You’re
not bothering me. I was just…just being silly.”

“Really?”
Intrigued by the other woman’s expression, Missy walked over to the spot and
saw that Kelly had been pulling up weeds. “What’s silly about pulling weeds?”

“I
know it’s not my job. I know Zach said he wasn’t going to get to this garden
until the end. But I was just in here looking around and imagining what it will
be like when it’s done, and then I guess I just started to pretend I was Mary
from
The Secret Garden
.”

Missy
laughed in a surge of understanding and delight. “I always wanted to be Mary
and have an old walled garden to bring to life that nobody knew about. I used
to hide out behind the garden shop and dig up a little secret garden of my own.
I even have a pile of old stones in my backyard. I keep wanting to turn them
into some kind of secret garden.”

Kelly
clapped her hands as she laughed too and then crouched down in the same place
she’d been kneeling before. “I was just going to clear this one area. I know
it’s stupid, since we’re paying your brother to work on the garden later and
there are tons of things in the house I should be working on, but I just
couldn’t help it.”

Missy
felt a sense of kinship she hadn’t experienced for a really long time—not since
she’d first met Vanessa. Today, she was wearing a long cotton skirt, but she
hiked it up so she could kneel down beside Kelly. “I’ll help. It’s too much fun
to resist.”

Together,
they started pulling up the weeds from the space between a stone bench and a
rotting old planter. Missy could already see seedlings trying to sprout up
between the weeds.

“I
guess you’ve been gardening all your life,” Kelly said, wiping her forehead with
a dirty hand that left a light smudge. “Because of your family business, I
mean.”

“Yeah.
Kind of. I mean, I helped out in the shop as a kid, so I know my way around
plants pretty well. But we never had a real garden at home.”

“Why
not?”

“My
mom died when I was little, and my dad was always too busy working to do a lot
of work in our yard. Zach did some, after he came along.”

“So
he’s your stepbrother?”

“He
was for a year. Then his mom and my dad divorced. He got his own place in town
when he was eighteen, but he still came over to the house to help with the
yardwork. Otherwise, I’d have had to do it all.”

“I
guess you guys are pretty close then.”

“Yeah.”
Missy’s smile was slightly bittersweet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
“We are, I think.”

“You
know, I’m kind of jealous of how at home you are in this area.” Kelly had been
pulling weeds steadily, but now she straightened up and met Missy’s eyes.

Missy
straightened up too. “What do you mean?”

“I
mean I’ve never really known what it was like to be in a tight community like
this. You know everyone, and everyone knows you, and it’s like having one big
extended family. Everyone I talk to around here says how great you are and
knows all about you.”

“Uh,
yeah, that can have its disadvantages too, you know.”

“I’m
sure, with everyone always in your business. There was a little bit of that in
Savannah, but I was never a real part of a larger community there. I had my
grandmother and my sisters and the old house I was raised in, and I clung to
them so tightly because they were pretty much my whole community.”

“What
about Peter?”

Kelly
blushed slightly, a fond look on her face. “Oh, well, of course, Peter. But you
know what I mean, don’t you, about being part of a real community?”

“Yeah,”
Missy said. “I do. I really do love it here, and I don’t want to leave. But,
it’s funny, because I was just thinking yesterday that my life has been really
boring and uneventful.”

“Events
that happen to you aren’t always good.”

“I
know they aren’t. I do know that.” Missy sighed, feeling better about her life,
pleased that Kelly had recognized and appreciated something about her—her life—that
she wasn’t always fully conscious of.

She
still felt that little pull of something—reminding her that there was still
something missing, something she really wanted but still didn’t have.

“My
grandmother is visiting this weekend,” Kelly said, evidently thinking of it
because of their conversation. “I can’t wait.”

“Maybe
I’ll meet her.”

“She’s
hard to forget.”

They
worked for about a half-hour, until they’d weeded the whole area and carefully
cultivated the seedlings. They were moving the weeds into one big pile when a
loud squeak alerted them to someone coming into the garden.

It
was Zach. He’d obviously been working in the sun, since his face was damp and
flushed, and his hair was a mess. He stared at Missy, clearly confused by her
presence here with Kelly Blake.

“He
caught us,” Kelly whispered mischievously. “Now we’re in trouble.”

Missy
laughed, although she was irrationally taken aback by Zach’s sudden appearance.

“What
are y’all doing in here?” he asked, his eyes moving from Missy’s face to the
ground they’d been working on behind her.

“We
were pretending we were in
The
Secret Garden
,” Missy said,
deciding there was no reason not to tell him the truth.

“You
were
what
?” He came forward, and Missy felt an entirely inappropriate
surge of attraction. He looked, smelled, and felt so masculine and natural. She
wanted to reach out and touch him.

“We
were just playing around,” Missy said in a slightly different tone. “
The Secret
Garden
is a book we read when we were kids.”

“Oh.
Okay.” He smiled over at Kelly, evidently remembering that she was the
homeowner and scolding her for messing with his gardening work wouldn’t be
appropriate. “You gave me a head start, I guess.”

“I
guess that’s all we have time for,” Kelly said, after glancing at her watch.
“Peter’s probably wondering where I am. I’ll talk to you later.” She briefly
touched Missy’s arm as she left in a friendly gesture that confirmed they were now
friends.

“I’ll
see you later,” Missy called as the other woman left.

When
she turned back toward Zach, she sensed him bristling internally, as if he
didn’t approve of whatever she’d been doing.

“What
are you all tense about?” she demanded, as soon as Kelly had closed the garden
door behind him.

Zach
frowned. “I’m tense because you’re in here working on the garden, without even
asking me first.”

“Kelly
was doing it! I just joined her to get to know her better. Are you going to
tell me I should have stopped Kelly from doing whatever she wants to her own
house?”

“Of
course not. But you didn’t have to help her. How is she going to feel when I
have to redo the work she’d done. All that wasted effort. You could have
diplomatically discouraged her from doing it.”

Missy
rolled her eyes, all of her soft confusion about Zach disappearing in familiar
annoyance. “You’re not going to have to redo anything. We just pulled up some
weeds. Take a look for yourself, unless you’re too arrogant to believe that
anyone else is capable of doing work you’ve claimed for yourself.”

Zach’s
eyes narrowed as he stepped over and peered at the area of dirt they’d been
working on.

“See?”
Missy said, crossing her arms on her chest. “Or are you going to pretend that
we somehow did it wrong?”

“That’s
not the point.”

“Then
what is the point?” She was irrationally angry about such a silly argument. She
was used to this kind of thing. She and Zach had been doing it for years. There
was nothing to be angry or upset about here, but she was.

She
was.

“The
point is you’re not supposed to run off and do things behind my back.” He
looked just as angry as she was. His eyes flashed, and his jaw was visibly
tensed.

Missy
gaped at him. “Behind your back? What the hell—” She rubbed at her face, trying
to get her mind to work clearly enough to articulate exactly what she felt
about this. “Despite what you think, I’m not some kind of kid who has to check
with you before I make a move. I was hanging out with Kelly. We were doing
something to a garden that she and her husband own. It has absolutely nothing
to do with you. My world doesn’t revolve entirely around you, you know.”

Deciding
she better get away from him before she said anymore, said something too
revealing, she turned on her heel and walked away from him, toward the door to
the garden.

She
half-expected him to come after her, to stop her, but he didn’t. She left him
standing, stewing with his hands clenched at his sides.

He
wasn’t happy with her, but she didn’t care.

She
wasn’t happy with him either.

***

She
had almost reached the truck when Zach caught up with her.

He’d
come after her after all.

She
tried to hide the wave of relief as he grabbed her arm and swung her around.

They
usually made up after their arguments quickly, so she would have hated for this
one to last.

“What?”
she said, raising her eyebrows and trying to look as cool as it was possible
for her to look.

Which
honestly wasn’t very cool.

“This
was a stupid argument,” Zach said. He didn’t look angry anymore, but he looked
urgent, as if something strong were driving him.

“I
know. But you’re the one who wanted to have it.”

He
exhaled in what was almost a groan. “I know. I know. It was me. It was all me.”

One
of the best things about Zach was he never hesitated to admit he was wrong. It
wasn’t a common trait among men of Missy’s acquaintance, so it made Zach even
more special in her eyes.

“Thanks
for saying that. I’m sorry if I overreacted. What…” She cleared her throat,
suddenly nervous about the question. “What was so wrong with what I was doing?”

“Nothing.”
He was still holding onto to her upper arm, and now he seemed to realize it and
released her quickly. “Nothing was wrong with it.”

“Then
why did you act that way?”

“I
don’t know. It was stupid. I just came in and saw you, and it was like…”

“Like
what?” Her voice broke with an emotion that had come on very quickly and that
she didn’t understand.

His
face twisted, and he looked away.

“Zach,”
she murmured, lifting a hand so she could turn his face back to look at her.
“Like what?”

“Like
you were…different. Far away.” He mumbled out the words, as if he were
embarrassed by them.

Her
heart was pounding now, and she couldn’t bring her hand down from where it was
gently touching his face. “Why would I be far away?”