Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing) (17 page)

“I’ll get it,” Lucy said. “It’s probably Genevieve. She mentioned she was going to drop off the curtains she sewed for this room today so we can hang them as soon as we’re done painting. You stay here. I’ll grab it.”

The puppy, chunky and adorable, yipped when she passed the tall-sided box where they had restrained him while they painted.

“You’re probably due to go out, aren’t you?” Max wasn’t anywhere close to being trained but they were doing their best to reinforce the basic concept with him.

She scooped him up and headed for the door and down the stairs as the doorbell rang again.

“I’m coming,” she called.

A quick glance in the ornately carved mirror hanging in the front hall revealed the damages were worse than she imagined. Her hair was falling from its braid and she had a small smear of lavender paint on her cheekbone. She scrubbed at it with the rag from her back pocket, which left her cheek reddened but at least removed the paint.

She was a far cry from the polished, perfectly groomed professional who rushed out the door every morning with a go-cup in one hand and a laptop case in the other.

At random moments, she missed a few things from her previous life but mostly she was too busy to think about it.

The bell rang a third time—Genevieve wasn’t always the most patient of people—and she hastily headed over and yanked it open. “Sorry. We’re in the middle of painting the lavender room...”

The words caught in her throat, and her heart did a happy little jump when she realized her visitor wasn’t her designer and friend after all, but the big, gorgeous fire chief of Hope’s Crossing.

She drew in a breath, telling her heart to simmer down. That scene upstairs seemed burned in her brain suddenly, and she knew her face must be suddenly bright red.

“Brendan. Hi. This is a surprise.”

Too embarrassed to meet his gaze, she focused on his left earlobe—which, naturally, was perfectly shaped, just like the rest of him. If an earlobe could be perfectly shaped, anyway.

“Hi,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Hi, Aunt Lucy!”

Ah. Here was a person she wasn’t afraid to face. She had been so busy stewing in her own embarrassment and trying to avoid making direct eye contact with Brendan, she hadn’t noticed Carter standing next to his father.

“Why, if it isn’t my favorite almost-six-year-old!”

“I know. That’s me.”

She smiled and leaned down for a kiss, deeply grateful for the buffer.

“Come in. Excuse the mess. We’re in renovation mode.”

“Looks like you’ve had a busy week.”

“Yes. Things are progressing nicely. Can I get you guys something? I’ve got soda, juice or water.”

He shook his head, but Carter tugged her hand eagerly. “Hey, can I have a juice box?”

“Sure, kiddo. You know where they are, right? Same place as last time.”

“Yep.”

He left, and she suddenly realized what a strategic error that had been as she and Brendan were now alone in the foyer except for one four-pound puppy.

“Wow. Max is growing. Hey, dude.”

He reached out to take the puppy from her. Their fingers brushed as she handed Max over, and she felt a corresponding tug in her gut. It seemed grossly unfair that a simple touch could leave her insides quivering.

He didn’t help matters when he held Max to eye level and started talking to him, nonsense about how much he was growing and how he hoped Max was behaving himself and using good manners.

Unfair,
she thought again. How on earth was any woman supposed to resist a big, tough firefighter who could talk sweetly to a tiny puffball of a puppy—and even more sweetly to his children?

“How’s Daisy?” she asked.

“Growing a ton. Just like Max. Her new favorite game is hide-and-seek. She loves to hide under the sofa and jump out and scare you.”

“You’re so keeping her, aren’t you?”

He made a face. “You knew we were goners from the beginning. How can I rip her out of my kids’ arms?”

“Softie.”

“The writing was on the wall for us the minute Faith held her.”

She relaxed enough to smile a little at his disgruntled tone, which didn’t fool her for a second. “Yeah. Same here. Crystal is in love. She’s working hard on her parents to convince them if they let her keep Max when she goes back home, she’ll never cause them another moment’s grief.”

“She still leaving this week? This is the end of her two-week’s grace period, isn’t it?”

“I’m a sucker for puppies
and
teenage girls, apparently. Things have been going so well, I’ve agreed to let her stay another few weeks. We’ll see what happens. So far, everything seems to be working out.”

“Have you heard they found the guy who dumped the puppies?”

“No,” she exclaimed.

“Chief McKnight probably hasn’t had a chance to call you yet. He updated me this morning. Turns out, he traced evidence he found on the box markings to an idiot twenty-year-old half-stoned ski bum, Andy Barfuss, who left town the day before we found the puppies. It turns out, Max and Daisy’s mother was a stray Andy’s roommate had been taking care of over the winter. When the roommate took off after the ski season ended, he dumped the responsibility on Andy, who claims the mother was run over by a car the night before he was supposed to leave for another job at some resort up in Jackson Hole. He says he was desperate and didn’t know what else to do.”

“So he just dumped them in a garbage bin? It never occurred to him to call the Humane Society?”

“He figured they would die, anyway, without their mother. I get the impression from Riley that Barfuss is a few peas short of a casserole.”

“I guess it was lucky we found the puppies when we did.”

“For them, anyway,” he muttered, not fooling her for a moment. He might complain about having a dog, but she couldn’t see anything but affection as he held Max—and this puppy wasn’t even the one his children adored most.

“I was just going to take him out,” she said.

“I’ll do it,” he said, and headed out the front door just as Carter returned from the kitchen poking the straw through the top of his juice box.

“I found an apple one. That’s my favorite.”

“Good job.”

“Hey, where’s my dad?”

She pointed out the door. “He took Max out to the grass.”

“Oh.”

The boy headed out onto the porch. “Did you give it to her, Dad?” he called to his father, who stood on a little patch of grass waiting for Max, who seemed to be more interested in sniffing Brendan’s shoes than taking care of business.

“No. That was your job, remember? I guess you got distracted by Lucy’s goodies.”

Brendan aimed a quick look in her direction then glanced away again, making her wonder if he was also distracted by her...goodies.

“You have it, though, right?” Carter pressed, heading down the steps. Lucy followed out of curiosity.

“Right here.” Brendan pulled an envelope out of the breast pocket of his shirt and handed it to Carter, who in turn delivered it to Lucy with an elaborate flourish.

“Wow. What’s this?”

“It’s an invitation! I want you to come to my party!” Carter beamed at her.

“A party? Wow! What kind of party?”

“Birthday, silly! In five more days, I’m going to be six years old. And guess what? I’m having two parties. One is just my friends. We’re having pizza and going swimming.”

“That sounds fun, but I might have to go buy a new swimsuit.”

He giggled. “You can come swimming if you want to. It’s at the recreation center on Saturday. Then Sunday night, on my real birthday, we’re having a party at Grandpop Caine’s house, and my dad said I could invite you and Crystal if I wanted. We’re having hot dogs and cake and chocolate ice cream.”

“Three of my very favorite things. Thank you! We would be honored to celebrate your birthday with you.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?”

“Yes. We’ll be there.”

“You can bring Max, too. He and Daisy can play with Tucker and Tina. That’s my uncle Andrew’s dog.”

“Are they having their own party?”

“It’s a dog party. A big dog party!” Carter chortled. “I love that book. I always laugh so hard at the page with all the dogs in the tree wearing funny hats.”

She had read him the classic
Big Dog...Little Dog
one of the times she had stayed with the children and remembered that particular laugh-inducing page.

“What can we bring?”

“A present,” Carter said promptly. “A good one. I would really like a LEGO Star Wars set. The one with the real X-wing fighter.”

“Carter,” Brendan chided, rolling his eyes—at the specificity or the cupidity, she wasn’t sure.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You don’t have to bring a present. Just yourselves,” Brendan said pointedly. “Isn’t that right, Car?”

When his son was disgruntled, he looked remarkably like his father. “I guess,” he said in a long-suffering voice. “Hey, can I tell Crystal about the party?”

“She would love to hear about it, I’m sure. We’re painting one of the bedrooms upstairs. Follow the sound of the music to find her.”

He rushed off with his usual energy, leaving her and Brendan alone with the puppy, who was now exploring the wonders of a dandelion puff.

“You don’t really have to get him a LEGO set,” Brendan said, his voice embarrassed. “Man. The kid is ruthless.”

“He’s just a kid. You know I think he’s adorable, right?”

“That’s part of the problem. Everyone thinks he’s adorable.”

“I’m sure it’s a curse,” she said with a smile. “Funny, this must be my day for invitations.”

“Oh?”

“I’m officially invited to a bridal shower being held by Claire McKnight and Katherine Thorne for Genevieve and Charlotte. It’s a week from Friday.”

He looked faintly amused. “Good luck with that one.”

“Oh, no. What am I in for? With those two as hostesses, I figured it would be tasteful and safe. No male strippers or condoms on cucumbers.”

“Good Lord, no.”

She had to smile a little at his horrified expression.

“Then why wish me luck?”

“They’re just a fairly terrifying group of women as a whole. I do my best to stay out of their way. Oh, and go along with whatever they ask me. It’s safer that way.”

She had the rather sobering realization that she found Brendan every bit as adorable as his son.

She was developing feelings for him, she realized. Seeing him again after a week made her realize how very much she had missed him. This was far more complex and layered than the slightly ridiculous crush she’d had on him so long ago.

She pushed away the shock of that as Crystal walked outside with Carter’s hand in hers.

“I understand someone’s having a birthday party next weekend. And he apparently would like a Matchbox pickup truck, red not blue. If it’s not too much trouble, anyway.”

“Carter!” Brendan’s long-suffering tone made her laugh and want to kiss both of them.

“What?” his son said, genuinely confused.

“You have to admire a guy who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to let people know,” Crystal said.

Lucy wondered why that made a muscle flex in Brendan’s jaw.

“Now that we’ve raided your juice boxes and left the birthday wish list, I guess our work here is done,” he said. “Come on, kid. Let’s go before you ask for a green pony with purple polka dots.”

“Ponies don’t have polka dots, Dad,” Carter said. “But I wouldn’t mind having a regular one. A black one, though. Not green.”

“See you next week,” Brendan said.

She knew perfectly well that shouldn’t fill her with this giddy sense of anticipation.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

W
HEN
HIS
ENTIRE
family gathered, the volume usually shook the walls of Dermot’s big rambling house on Winterberry Road. This time, most of the party had moved outside to take advantage of the lovely May Sunday afternoon.

Five of his six siblings were there—even Aidan, much to his shock. He hadn’t known his brother was flying in from the Bay Area until they pulled into Pop’s driveway and found him driving up in the car he kept garaged at the Hope’s Crossing airport for his frequent trips home.

Even when a guy had his own private jet, it was kind of a big deal for him to fly over a thousand miles for a nephew’s birthday party.

Of his six siblings, only Jamie hadn’t made it, but since he was currently stationed in Alaska, that was completely understandable.

Brendan stood at the kitchen sink wishing he was outside where all the men seemed to be gathered around the grassy area off the patio to listen to Charlotte’s fiancé, Smokin’ Hot Spence Gregory, give batting tips to his nephews.

For once, it was an unusually stereotypical gender division in the kitchen, with all the men outside and the women—and him—in the kitchen.

The Caine family was far from a chauvinistic patriarchy, where the women always cooked the meal and the men sat around watching sports and drinking beer.

Pop was usually the one running things in his kitchen and his big mantra was,
if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

Still, Brendan was happy to see him out there in the middle of the baseball chatter. Pop didn’t take enough time to relax.

He could see Faith sitting in the grass not far away with Daisy on her lap and Dylan’s big coonhound, Tucker, bigger than she was, snuggled up against her leg. The birthday boy, Carter, was right in the middle of the action, of course, running from group to group.

He would much rather be out there in the soft evening sunlight than stuck here in the kitchen prepping his famous burgers, heavy on the diced onion and the Worcestershire sauce.

That would teach him not to volunteer to take care of the grilling duties for the party, though he imagined once he actually started things up he would have any number of volunteers standing around with tongs, trying to pretend they were helping.

For now, instead of talking baseball, he had to listen to Charlotte and Genevieve and his sisters-in-law Erin and Allison discuss flowers and dresses and other wedding-related topics.

“Only six weeks. Are you both just going crazy?” Erin asked. “I remember how stressful that last month was leading up to our wedding.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I wailed to Patrick that I just wanted to jump in the car and run to Lake Tahoe and be done with the whole thing,” Allison said.

“I’m not nervous at all,” Charlotte said. “But then, Spence happens to be very, very good at stress relief.”

The women all gave throaty, knowing laughs that made Brendan clear his own throat.

“I’m still here, just in case you all forgot.”

Damn, he missed, er, stress relief.

“Sorry,” Charlotte said with a grin, looking not at all repentant.

He didn’t begrudge her joy. Charlotte deserved a great guy like Spence, who plainly adored her. It was about time she found somebody worthy of her, and he knew she had loved Spence most of her life.

As for Genevieve, he could admit now that he had been wary when Dylan started seeing her, worried his brother was only setting himself up for more pain in a lifetime that had already held too much, but it only took a few weeks for him to want to pick up Genevieve and smooch her right on her perfectly made-up lips for somehow working a miracle and helping Dylan begin to heal his battle scars.

She might have been the pampered princess daughter of the Hope’s Crossing mayor, who had spent the past two years hobnobbing with the hoity-toity in Paris, but somehow she fit right in with the rest of the crazy Caines.

Dylan loved her, and she adored him right back, and that was all Brendan cared about.

“I thought you and Carter invited guests,” Charlotte said.

He glanced at the clock above the refrigerator. The invitation had been for a half hour earlier. Yeah, he was running behind on the burgers and needed to step it up to keep the hungry masses happy.

“I guess Lucy and Crystal couldn’t make it,” he said. He told himself the disappointment in his gut was only for Carter, whose feelings would be hurt.

“Maybe they’re just running late,” Genevieve offered. “I can text her and see.”

He didn’t need his sisters-in-law—prospective or otherwise—to feel as if they had to jump in, nor did he want Lucy to feel pressured in any way to come if something else had come up.

“No. It’s not necessary,” he began, but Genevieve had already pulled out her phone.

Before she could finish the text, the doorbell ring.

“That’s so funny!” Gen exclaimed. “I bet that’s her.”

“I’ll get it!” Peyton Gregory, Spence’s daughter, called out from the living room, where she was hanging out with Ava and Maggie, Patrick’s daughters.

A moment later, he heard Lucy’s voice as she and Crystal talked to the girls. Something churned inside him, something warm and sweet.

When she walked into the kitchen carrying a deli bag and looking lovely and casual in jeans, a white cotton shirt and chunky multicolored beads, the strange feeling bubbled up, making his chest feel tight with something.

Happiness.

It had been so long since he’d felt truly happy, it took a moment for the feeling to register.

He was happy.

Seeing her there with her hair up in a loose, casual style, her toes peeking out of strappy sandals and her cheekbones edged with an appealing pink filled him with bright, incandescent joy.

“Hi,” she said, sounding breathless.

Her gaze met his and he wondered how the hell he had stayed away from her for a week. He was crazy. He should have been up at Iris House every single spare minute.

He suddenly remembered that kiss—the strawberries-and-cream taste of her, the silky slide of her hair through his fingers, the luxurious softness of her skin.

Raw craving left his knees weak. How could he get all these women out of the kitchen
now
so he could do it again? Would an impromptu fire drill do the trick? Surely he had the authority for that...

Her gaze met his. For long moments, they just gazed at each other while the color on her cheekbones seemed to rise.

“Sorry we’re late. It’s all my fault.” Crystal had followed her sister, and he was in such a bad way, he hadn’t even noticed.

Lucy seemed to gather herself. “It’s not,” she protested, her voice a little husky. “I was the one who decided to go into Denver today to find a certain LEGO set for a certain young man’s birthday present.”

“But I was the one who wanted to stop and pick up a few things at my house, where we ended up stuck talking to my parents for two hours.”

“Neither one of us had anything to do with the flat tire, though.”

“You had a flat tire?” Genevieve asked, wide-eyed. “Did you call roadside assistance?”

“No. I taught Crystal how to change it the old-fashioned way, just like Annabelle taught me.”

He had to smile at the pride in her voice. Out of the corner of his gaze he caught Charlotte looking at him with surprise and spotted the speculative look she sent back to Lucy.

“You’re here now,” Charlotte said. “That’s the important thing. Anyway, we haven’t eaten yet. Bren is still throwing together the hamburger patties while he listens to all our boring chatter about caterers and flowers and such.”

“And our favorite stress relief,” Genevieve added cheerfully, which made all the women laugh.

“I’m prone to Hatha Yoga,” Lucy offered. “Something about the downward-facing dog just makes me completely loose.”

“An oldie but a goodie,” Erin said with a straight face, which sent all the women busting up again.

Brendan could feel his face heat and was really grateful Lucy didn’t know the subtext of the conversation.

“Okay, I think I’m done here,” he said. In more ways than one. “I’m just going to check on the coals to see if they’re ready yet. I’m glad you made it, Lucy. Carter will be happy to see you.”

He told himself his son’s happiness was the important thing—and that he didn’t have any business feeling the same.

* * *

H
E
WASN
’
T
COMPLETELY
surprised that Lucy managed to charm his entire family within a few moments of walking outside with the other women.

His father obviously already had a soft spot for her, but within minutes, Drew and Patrick were deep in conversation with her, though he was too far away to hear the subject matter.

He had noticed the skill of hers before, something he wasn’t sure she fully recognized. He got the impression from a few things she’d said to him that she considered herself fairly humorless, all-business. She was certainly focused and driven, but she also had the rare ability to fit into any situation and make whomever she was talking to feel as if he had her undivided attention.

“Did I ever tell you how Jamie and I both tried to hit on Lucy at your wedding?”

He glanced over at Dylan, who had ambled over to the barbecue grill so he could pretend to help him. This was a very different version of his brother than the man he had been six months ago, mostly because of Genevieve Beaumont and her stubbornness.

He was glad his brother had lost all those hard edges, but he still didn’t think he wanted to hear the story Dylan was obviously itching to tell. “I missed that, I guess. I was a little busy. You know. Getting married and all.”

“Trust me when I tell you she was, by far, the hottest thing there. Really hot. All those long dark curls and those big green eyes. She was great-looking, and we were two just two lonely soldiers with a few days’ leave, trying to get la— Um, find a little company,” he amended quickly.

He suddenly wanted to punch his brother, which wouldn’t be the first time. For so long after his near-death injuries in Afghanistan and then the demons he had battled after he returned, they had all walked so gingerly around Dylan, Brendan sometimes forgot what a pain in the ass he could be.

“Did you?” he asked, trying not to grit his teeth.

Dylan snorted. “With Lucy? Hell, no. Not for lack of trying, you can be sure. I believe we may have even wagered about it.” His gaze narrowed. “And if you tell Pop that, I’ll deny it to my dying breath. He would still box our ears over it, even though it was a decade ago. Didn’t matter, though. Wager or not, neither of us had the stuff to collect on it. She shut us both down tighter than The Speckled Lizard on Sunday morning.”

“Nice to know she has that much good taste, anyway.”

Dylan shrugged. “We figured maybe she played for the other team.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just because a woman’s not interested in a couple of horny military dogs, you think she must be a lesbian? How arrogant is that? Maybe she just didn’t like either of you idiots.”

Dylan shrugged. “That was Jamie’s hypothesis, anyway, after none of his usually fail-proof helicopter-pilot-mojo techniques yielded anything more than mild amusement on her part. Though I do think he was a little drunk when he said it.”

“She’s not a lesbian,” he said, with a little more force than he intended.

“And you know this, how?” Dylan asked with a smirk.

Brendan’s grip tightened on the tongs to keep from reaching out and wrapping them around that smirk and twisting it right off. “None of your damn business.”

His brother only chuckled, with an affectionate amusement that made Brendan want to growl when he realized he’d just been played. Dylan’s intention by starting up the conversation about Lucy in the first place had only been to dig a little and try to get a reaction out of him.

For all he knew, Dylan had made up the whole damn thing about a competition between him and Jamie over Lucy, just to tease out some information from him about what she was doing here and what their relationship might be.

The man was an army ranger, trained in interrogation methods, for crying out loud. When would he ever learn? He was thirty-six frickin’ years old. At what point in a man’s life did he decide to stop letting his brothers goad him?

Now that Dylan had the information he apparently had been seeking, Brendan had to give his brother points for not gloating. In fact, he seemed actually happy. “Good for you, man. Lucy is great. I’ve always thought so.”

A few weeks ago, he might have argued, but he was beginning to see things very differently. Amazing how a man’s perspective could shift so abruptly.

“She is.”

“It’s time, don’t you think?”

“Time for what?”

Dylan brushed away a fly that had landed on his arm above his prosthetic hand. “After I was injured,” he said after a long moment, “I thought that was it. I was done. Even after I started to heal, I didn’t want to. I couldn’t understand why I survived that ambush when everybody else didn’t and I didn’t see the point in going on when I had lost so much.”

He met Brendan’s gaze, and the raw sympathy there from his brother who had fought more wars than he could imagine made his stomach cramp.

“I would never dare to equate losing an arm to losing your wife,” Dylan said quietly. “They’re not anywhere near the same level. But one of the things I’ve learned from working at A Warrior’s Hope is that whenever anybody has been through something hard—losing a spouse, losing a dream, losing an ability—there eventually comes a point when everyone comes to a crossroads. Life rolls on, no matter what. Like a convoy of Humvees, you know? You can either be squashed beneath the treads or jump on and grab tight and enjoy the ride.”

Trust his brother the former army ranger to come up with a military analogy that somehow managed to fit the situation.

“Turning into quite the philosopher, aren’t you?”

“I’m full of all kinds of BS. You know that by now.”

Except this had been remarkably insightful of him. “I appreciate the advice,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you with the wrong idea, though. As great as Lucy might be, she’s a friend. That’s all.”