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“I’m happy Chris has his brothers. He doesn’t have any friends here besides his cousin, Bridget, and her husband, Luke. They’re the only ones I’ve met so far. He’s keeping his life in Mobile separate and secret.”
“Hopefully it’s because he’s making a clean break from Mobile,” Katrina said. “Is he excited about his job?”
“I guess so. He has a week before he starts. So much other crap has cropped up that he hasn’t mentioned it. Anyway, enough about me. How’s your consulting going?”
“Great! Even with the holidays, I’ve never been busier. The only difference is that I get to do it from home and not have to travel. Dave is so happy about it; he’s so supportive. So yeah, it’s going well. I know you’re going to be happy to hang out your shingle soon! You’ll be the only therapist in town.”
“We’ll see. If this abuse thing with my mother-in-law comes to pass, I might not get any clients.”
“Oh hogwash. They’ll be flocking to your door! Trust me, she’ll be the best advertisement you could get.”
Chapter 4
As the brothers saddled their horses, Maggie showed up at the barn. “You thought you were getting out of here without me.”
“No way! You looked content with your friends,” Justin said, leaning to kiss her. “Do you want help saddling up Dale?”
Dale had belonged to Justin’s mother, and the family was thrilled that Maggie wanted to ride Dale. He was definitely her horse now.
“Nope. You go and I’ll catch up. Where are you headed?”
“To the plateau. It’s too wet to hang out down here.”
“Okay, the plateau it is.”
The men took off after Maggie reassured Justin she’d be right behind. Watching the riders gallop away made her smile. Justin brought up the rear, his broad shoulders a match for the girth of his horse, Spooky.
Raven, the black mare Maggie had adopted from the wild horses, sauntered over with her baby, Lightning, to nudge Maggie while she finished saddling up Dale.
“Hello, you beauty,” she said, smoothing Raven’s face. “You two are welcome to come along with us to the plateau.”
She got up into the saddle on Dale’s back and slowly left the corral, with Raven and Lightning following.
From the dock, Annie and Katrina watched the activity.
“Those brothers are so handsome,” Katrina said. “I think it’s hysterical that we three are with brothers.”
“It’s just what I wanted,” Annie said wistfully. “Why did everything have to pop up now to ruin it?”
“Annie, don’t allow anything to ruin it. You’re in control of that. So far, it sounds like the only thing you have on your plate is protecting your son, and you know Dave will make sure that happens. The rest of it, the crap with Chris’s ex, might peter out to be nothing. And his sons probably aren’t going to want to live with their dad unless it’s a free ride.”
“Yes! I told him his boys should be either working or looking for work. We worked since we were fourteen and I have a feeling his kids haven’t worked. Last summer, they were both free, hanging around the house, that kind of stuff. I haven’t had a free summer since I was twelve.”
“Ew, well, that’s not good. They seem like really nice guys though. I wonder why the parents don’t insist that their sons get jobs.”
“Chris got a little defensive when I said they needed to work.”
“You should dig around a little to find out why. Maybe his parents insisted he worked and he doesn’t want that for his kids.”
“He did admit that they didn’t see the value of higher education and when all he could afford was community college, which reminded him of high school, he joined the military.”
“It sounds like he had quite a different life than the Chastain boys,” Katrina said with compassion. “When I think of what charmed lives we lived, Annie. The three of us, only children, worshiped by our parents, it’s a miracle we didn’t turn out to be idiots.”
“Well, I sort of acted like an idiot with Steve.”
They rehashed their first year at Cypress Cove, all the changes both had gone through.
“I’m going to close my eyes for a just a minute,” Katrina said, lying back.
