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His lips parted, and his eyes flickered to my mouth. In my mind I chanted,Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, and if there was any inherited magic at all in my entire body from any member of my family, it was about to happen.
His eyes met mine once more, and he seemed to be on the verge of saying something life-changing, something that might make me stay in Eureka…
Until Adam burst through the back door breaking the spell.
“Hey, bro, here you are. Time to hit the road. Everybody’s heading out.” Adam stepped forward, pulling me into a hug and away from his devastatingly sexy brother. “I’m going to miss you, Birgitte!”
I pushed him with my elbow. “Nobody calls me that.”
“Ow!” Adam cried. It’s possible I pushed him a little too hard out of frustration. “Sorry, Britt.”
“I wondered where you were hiding!” Piper was right behind him and Cass was on her heels.
Our special moment was officially smothered in an avalanche of my friends wishing me luck and telling me goodbye. I’d left the next day with a longing in my chest, wondering what might have happened if we’d have gotten two more minutes…
I never expected to be back so soon. Or that I’d nearly run him down with my truck. Or that he’d be my boss—or that he’d glare at me with such annoyance as he lifted my heavy suitcase, his body still as muscular and tempting as ever.
All I can do now is be true to my words by being seriously good at my job. I said I would distinguish myself from my family, and whether it’s in Greenville or Eureka, I’ll show him I can.
CHAPTER5
AIDEN
“Well, I’d better get going.” I pack all my dad’s tools in the red metal box and replace it in the garage.
Sunday lunch at my mother’s turned into trimming limbs off a Bradford pear tree in her garden, fixing a gutter that had come loose from the side of her house, and changing the filter on her HVAC.
“You never did tell me what was on your mind when you got here.” Mom crosses her arms, leaning against the door to the garage as I wash my hands. “I can always tell when something’s on my boys’ minds.”
“Is that so?” I pick up a towel to dry my hands, thinking about Owen’s questions about Jesus and magic.
“Call it a mother’s intuition.”
“I see where Adam gets it from.” Hanging the towel on a hook, I walk over to where she’s standing and signal to Owen on the tire swing. “Time to go.”
“You know, you could enlist your brothers’ help with some of these chores.”
It’s true. Between her house and mine, I feel like I never stop repairing shit, but today I had my own reasons for doing it all myself.
Adam had hung around for a little while before saying the waves were perfect today, and took off to go surfing. I’d practically escorted him to his car. If Owen had started his twenty questions about Jesus, my youngest brother would have been all too happy to engage, challenging me on my “lack of faith”—his words—and wanting to know how I explain love or the wind or a million other things I don’t care about explaining.
Alex, on the other hand, is possibly the one person in our family who works more than I do. He also brings in some major cash running my late maternal grandfather’s distillery Alex renamed Stone Cold.
When Alex left the Marines, he thought it was time to expand the generations-old business—a relic that had actually put my mother’s family at odds with my dad’s all the way back to Prohibition. Ma’s side were the bootleggers; Dad’s was law enforcement.
Through the years, the distillery had been more or less a hobby handed down to whichever relative was interested, but my brother saw an opportunity and ran with it. Now he takes home sixty percent of the profits and divides the remainder with twenty to Ma, and ten between Adam and me.
It was a manageable career until two years ago when a reviewer claimed our Stone Cold original single barrel was the best small-batch bourbon since Blanton’s. After that, money hasn’t been much of an issue for any of us.
I still serve as sheriff twenty-four seven, seven days a week, because I actually like doing the job. I care about Eureka, and it helps me feel close to my dad’s memory. Alex never gets a day off, and while he never complains, I can’t tell if the family hobby hasn’t turned into a burden for him.
“A mother’s intuition is stronger than any force of nature.” Mom puts her arm around my waist, and her head comes right to my chest.
She’s small, but she’s a force of nature herself, keeping three boys in line after my dad died.
“Dad doesn’t believe in The Force, Gram.” Owen skips up behind us, putting his small hand in hers as we walk to my truck. “He doesn’t believe in anything.”
“What the hell, Owen?” I snap.
