Page 47

So even after I’d given it the water it’d wanted from the beginning, it was still winning the war. Low water pressure. What absolute bullshit. Just suck it up and make coffee with the pressure you’ve got, asshole.

At dawn, I’d considered hiring a high-end installer from the home goods store, but I’d dismissed that idea almost immediately. I, Holden Thayer, was going to finish installing the overpriced caffeine factory myself, even if it killed me in the process.

It was now mid-morning, however, and my brain was completely fried, so I took my coffee, which had been brewed from a cheap French press Tasha had dug out of a closet, and retreated to the overgrown backyard to take a break.

I hadn’t really been out here before, though I’d seen it from the window and I’d skirted the edge whenever I’d left the house through the back door, but the state of the garden was slightly worse than I’d realized. In certain places, fingers of ivy crawled up the brick walls while the grass stood so high, it could easily be housing a population of wild animals.

As I sat on the weathered wooden steps of the porch, I looked out at the lawn that so desperately needed to be mowed. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit about landscaping. Growing up, our lawns had been manicured by teams of professionals who’d arrived in unmarked trucks and vanished before breakfast.

After that, Isaac and Colin had taken turns keeping it from getting out of hand. Then Alex had appeared in our lives, and suddenly, the professional teams had been back.

Staring at the unruly grass now though, it seemed to me that mowing a lawn was a traditional husband activity. It’s probably a normal weekend task a guy performs while the wife is inside cooking… or something.

When I realized how absurd my internal monologue was becoming, I muttered a curse under my breath and stood, setting my mug down on the step beside me. Instead of thinking about it, I could just mow the damn lawn and get it over with. I walked over to the small, detached garage and peered through the grime-streaked windows.

I had to squint past the dust to be able to see what was inside, but I still managed to make out the faint outline of something that could possibly be a lawnmower. After a few minutes of yanking at the rusty metal door handle, I finally made my way inside.

Inhaling a deep breath that smelled like old gasoline, motor oil, and more dust, I looked around for a beat to get my bearings, but my gaze snagged on three bicycles against the far wall. Like everything else in here, they were covered in a thick layer of dust, two large, adult road bikes with a little girl’s bicycle tucked between them, its purple paint now faded and the white streamers hanging from the handlebars almost completely disintegrated.

Previously, Alicia’s parents’ deaths had registered in my brain as a generic tragedy, something that had happened long ago and was sad, but not heartbreaking. Looking at the tiny frame of that bicycle now though, the reality of it hit me like a punch from a cage fighter.

It hit so hard that it stopped me right in my tracks.

When she’d lost them, she’d been nothing but a kid. A really little one, at that. One day, she’d been riding a tiny purple bike with training wheels, and the next, the floor had been cruelly ripped out from under her entire life.

I swallowed the sudden, dry lump forming in my throat, my head shaking as I forced myself to keep going. To keep moving. But I was starting to realize that there might’ve been more to Alicia’s motivation to marry me than simply taking a shortcut.

Finally, across the garage, I spotted the green lawnmower I’d seen from outside and I dragged it out a few inches, unscrewing the cap to check, but unsurprisingly, it was bone dry. It would need gas before I’d be able to do anything with it.

Since I was already in here, I began picking through the shelves of old tools left behind by her father, looking for a fuel canister. As I reached past a support beam near the back wall, however, I froze again.

Carved directly into the wood were a series of neat, horizontal pencil marks. My heart gave an uncomfortable roll as I read the faded handwriting beside them, realizing what those marks were for.

Alicia - 4. Alicia - 5. Alicia - 6.

The lines climbed up the wood in steady increments, tracking her growth while none of them had known what was coming for them, and stopping abruptly at number seven. It fucking hurt to see it, if I was being honest.

For a long second, I just stared at the blank space above the final mark, guilt creeping up from the pit of my stomach. The first night I’d met her, I’d written her off as rude. Back in the kitchen, I’d heavily implied she was gold digger and I’d told Wyatt she was just another user who’d taken the easy elevator ride to wealth.

But now, I felt like the biggest dick in the entire city of Chicago. Maybe even in the whole state. Shit, I really have been an asshole.

Determined to channel the unexpected wave of remorse into productivity, I decided to check over the lawnmower to see if it needed any new parts while I’d be going out for gas anyway. Grabbing the handle, I hauled the heavy machinery out of the garage and into the grass, but I was still hunting around when Alicia suddenly spoke up from behind me.

“What on earth are you doing?”

I jumped slightly, twisting at the sound of her voice. Watching me from the back porch, it looked like she’d been there for a while, leaning against the railing with her fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee and her blonde hair loose around her shoulders.

In a cream-colored sweater that looked soft and new, mild amusement twinkled in her eyes even as her brow furrowed in confusion. My brain turned to mush at the sight of her looking like that. On zero sleep, she looked so soft and pretty that I just sort of wanted to cuddle up with her in front of a fire and go to sleep.

“I wanted to mow the lawn,” I muttered, averting my gaze before I tackled her into the overgrown grass and went to sleep with her as my stuffed animal right here in the garden. “Nature is going to reclaim the house soon if we don’t.”

She walked down the steps on bare feet, a smile spreading across her lips. “It’s fall, Holden. The grass is completely dead anyway. Why are you trying to landscape at this time of year?”

“It looks untidy,” I lied gruffly, feeling so bad about being mean to her that I just kept fiddling with the choke valve on the engine like I knew what I was doing. “Besides, this old thing needs a little maintenance. Now is as good a time as any to do that, right?”

“Right,” she said slowly, but I practically felt that amusement leaking from her as she watched me.

“Oh, uh, when Maggie called yesterday, she asked if we wanted to go to the Halloween festival with them this afternoon,” I said, changing the subject with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “My whole family will be there. Apparently, Cameron is insisting. I think it’s really Maggie who wants us all to go, but she won him over to her side. Anyway, do you want to go?”