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Working with family made everything more challenging than it had to be most of the time. Instead of listening to me like I was a grown man who knew my own mind, Jasper treated me like I was still the seven-year-old who believed in monsters and comic book villains. Since I wasn’t a total dick, I inhaled a deep breath and closed my eyes until my lungs were empty and then I looked at my oldest brother.
“No fucking shit, Jas. This dude looked just like Brendan; except he had a huge fucking burn scar on one side of his face. So, tell me…if he’s dead, where’s the body? When was the funeral? What the fuck?”
Jasper shook his head, unwilling to listen. “It’s not possible. You saw someone who looks like him.”
I looked to Virgil and then Ma for backup but none came. “Fine. I’m out of here. Good luck, fuck off or…whatever.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I stopped in the doorway of Ma’s salon and turned to face my family. Everyone but Kat was in attendance, which probably explained my frustration. These three were a unit, could easily operate without Kat or me, and had always been a team of sorts.
“I’m going to my place. You don’t need or want me here, and you don’t listen. So, when you have some silly fucking task for me to do, you know how to find me.”
With those words, I walked out of the office and down the hall, stepping out into the darkening sky to the entrance of my own part of the Manor.
Thank God, we all had separate living quarters, otherwise, I’d live someplace else, like a penthouse apartment in New York or a fancy London flat, maybe even a beach house in Malibu. But here I was, still at Ashby Manor, walking around the mansion that had been my home since birth.
I loved it here. I really did. But days like this made me wonder, not why I stuck around but why I wanted so badly to be a major part of the Ashby organization. The answer didn’t come easily. I tried to shake it off before I stepped inside, but my thoughts were interrupted by the scent of garlic and herbs. Someone was cooking. In my house.
“Hello? Bonnie?”
“In the kitchen!”
I couldn’t help but frown at the smile in Bonnie’s voice, not because it wasn’t welcome, but because it was so out of place. And when I actually stepped into the kitchen to see the chaos all around, I had to shake my head to make sure I hadn’t walked into the wrong house.
Pots and pans everywhere, tomato sauce splattered on a dozen different surfaces, Bonnie’s cheeks flushed red and the kitchen, filled with music and the most delicious scents. “What’s going on in here?” I asked, half-smiling, half-worrying she’d gone off the deep end.
She looked up, eyes bright and her smile just on the wrong side of brittle, but it was a big difference from the woman who’d been moping around the house for the past few days. Depressed and sullen, quiet and withdrawn. Today she was different.
“Dinner,” she said and flashed a smile that was almost like the one she’d greeted me with on our first meeting, only less uptight and disdainful. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“Always,” I answered honestly. “What are we having and more importantly, what brought this on?”
“The urge to cook? No idea.”
Bonnie laughed, so full of life and laughter that I had to do a double take. She was still too thin and too pale, her jeans barely clinging to her ass and thighs. The lightweight pink tee hung off one shoulder but not in the sexy alluring way, just proof that she’d lost too much weight too quickly.
“I rarely cook, but after a long and emotional talk with Sadie, I had to do something.”
That was a lot to think about, but Bonnie’s hazel gaze looked in every direction but mine before she turned back to the stove.
“Smells incredible. What is it?”
“Meatball lasagna. I wanted to make regular old lasagna, but the more my hands started to work, the more distracted I became, and I wasn’t thinking about anything. Not my parents or Father Eric and definitely not Squeaker.”
I wanted to ask if she’d thought of pills or drugs, but I already knew the answer. “Then I can’t wait to taste the source of this distraction. Need some help?”
She shook her head and bent over to look in the oven, proving that underneath those jeans, she hadn’t lost so much weight that her feminine curves were gone. Not at all. It wasn’t something I should’ve been thinking about. But damn.
Things were too complicated with her drug use, not to mention living with me, but I couldn’t look away. When Bonnie stood up straight, her skin was flushed pink from the oven heat, and she wore a girlish smile that made her, once again, seem like the old Bonnie. The sweet church girl who didn’t know her beauty.
