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Chapter Five
Emilia
My head is pounding as I arrive home after a long day. Ms. Adams tells me that Grams is already asleep, so I take a sweater and a book and hang out in the backyard for the rest of the evening. I settle on the outdoor couch, shoving my favorite pillow—dark blue with silver stars—under my head. Perfect reading position. But as I crank my book open, my mind flies to my encounter with Max yesterday. Now that twenty-four hours have passed, I can view the event critically.
Of course my hormones went haywire when I saw him. He’s a drop-your-panties gorgeous guy. Not that I plan to drop my panties, or anything else. But I’m a woman after all, so seeing him in all of his gorgeousness confused me. This is all that it was though. Confusion. As I attempt to dive into my book again, my phone beeps with an incoming call. A fleeting look at the screen tells me I don’t know the number, but I answer anyway.
“Hello?”
“Sword, or bow and arrow?” Max asks.
I grin, sitting up straight so abruptly that my book tumbles on the floor. “Bow and arrow. Always.”
Playing pirates was one of our favorite games as kids. The first time we played it, he shoved a makeshift sword in my hand. I dropped it as if it were a snake, proudly claiming that the bow and arrow was my weapon of choice. We launched into a long debate about the benefits of each weapon before finally agreeing to disagree. In ten-year-old behavior, that meant a mud fight.
“Still making the wrong choices,” Max says. “Swords will always win the fight.”
“Suit yourself.” I grin like an idiot. “How did you get my number?”
“I called the clinic.”
“But they don’t give out our personal numbers,” I argue.
“I can be very persuasive, Jonesie.”
His tone jolts every nerve ending in my body alive. “I bet,” I murmur. “Well, I’m glad you asked for my number.”
“I want us to catch up. We need to exchange fifteen years’ worth of information.”
“This will be one long phone call, then.” My grin stretches even more as I lean back on the couch. It’s been a while since merely talking to a man brought me to this state of excitement.
Not a man. You’re talking to your childhood friend.
“We have plenty of experience with talking for hours,” he says.
“Yeah, but I have to say, spending said hours on the roof had more edge to it than talking over the phone.”
Max had a habit of sneaking up to my house in the dead of the night. We’d go up to my roof so Grams couldn’t hear us.
“You start,” I tell him. “You and Bennett Enterprises have been in the papers a few times, but I want to hear everything from you.”
“After you moved away, Sebastian asked my parents to sell the ranch because he needed capital to start Bennett Enterprises, and—”
“Oh, no… I loved your ranch.” I’d spent so many afternoons there, it felt like a second home.
“Then you’ll be glad to know Sebastian bought it back for them about two years ago as a gift for their wedding anniversary.”
“Wow! Your brother is something.”
“True. My parents turned it into a B&B. We could go see it sometime.”
“I’d love that.” That place holds many dear memories for me. “So I know quite a few of you work at the company, but what are the others doing?”
“Alice owns a restaurant and is about to open a second one, Summer is a painter, Blake opened a bar a few months ago, and Daniel is looking to open his own business.”
“Holy crap, there’s a lot of stuff going on.”
“Never a dull moment in the clan. I was in London for a few years, expanding the business.”
