“But I’d like to try now. If you’ll let me. Lindy, I am so sorry for hurting you. For leaving you without saying goodbye. For not being here when you were struggling. Tell me it’s not too late,” Pat says, and if I had to describe his tone, I’d say he’s begging. I like it a little too much. “Please, Lindy—forgive me. Let me try to make things right. Let me show you I’ve changed. Let me have another chance. Please.”
No, no, and no. As much as I love the reformed bad boy in romance novels, I am not ready for one in my own life. Especially not with all the other emotional turmoil I’m already dealing with. I cannot possibly spare the emotional bandwidth for a relationship right now. Especially not one with a cargo plane full of baggage. But I can’t seem to make myself tell Pat no. The tiny, one-syllable word refuses to leave my mouth.
Pat looks like he’s about to say more, but I spot a tow truck turning down my drive, plumes of dust rising in clouds behind it.
I jump to my feet. “Catching up has been lovely. Apology accepted. And it looks like your ride is here.”
“Lindy—”
Before he can say anything more, there is a shrill shriek the likes of which I’ve never heard before.
And then Tank comes running around the side of the house. Jo follows a moment later, holding a small brown snake. It’s barely big enough to hang over the sides of her hands.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Tank! It’s not venomous,” she calls. “It’s a rough earth snake. They eat earthworms, not people.”
But Tank is still running. If I didn’t feel like my heart was just dragged across a cheese grater, I might laugh.
Instead, I climb down the steps and meet Jo. “Better let the snake go, Jojo. I don’t think Tank cares what species he is.”
Jo sighs heavily, then sets the snake down in the grass. “Fine.” It takes a moment for the reptile to disentangle himself from her fingers. In seconds, it disappears in the grass. I wish the human walking up behind me would disappear as quickly.
“Bye, snake,” Jo says solemnly.
“Let me guess,” Pat says, standing next to Jo with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Snakes are like sharks—they just need a friend?”
Jo grins. “Exactly.”
Pat glances at me, then away. “I better go collect Tank. He’s more scared of snakes than Indiana Jones. Bye, Jo.”
He offers her a smile and a fist bump, then starts up the driveway, where the tow truck has stopped near the broken-down sports car.
I’m disgusted to find myself torn watching Pat walk away. He may have wrecked me today, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate his backside in jeans.
I want him gone, but I also want to take him inside and tie him to the old wooden rocker so he can’t leave ever again.
I want to tell him yes, I forgive him.
I want to give him—to give us—a second chance.
“Hey!” I call. Pat turns, blinking in surprise. “What kind of pie?”
His brow furrows. “What?”
“What kind of pie did my mama give you?”
He squints, the sun is gorgeous slanting over his cheeks. “Buttermilk.”
I nod. “That was her best recipe.”
Chapter Seven
Pat
“Those things are disgusting,” Chase says, wrinkling his nose as I pass cigars around the poker table on Tank’s back patio. “Even unlit. You know that, right?”
“I know no such thing. Besides, we aren’t even smoking them,” I tell him. “And you’re family now. As a brother, you will take this cigar and not smoke it. Thank you.”
It’s poker night, a tradition we’ve kept for years as often as we can. Usually, once a month, but sometimes more if the stars and our schedules align. Harper is in the house with her and Chase’s dogs, watching a movie. She happens to hate poker, though I suspect if she played, she’d have the only poker face to rival Collin’s.
“Then why have cigars at all?” Chase asks.
But he takes the cigar I hand him. “Why protest when we aren’t smoking them?”
“Why have them when we aren’t smoking them?”
“It’s just the feel of it,” Collin says, dragging the cigar underneath his nose.
“Thank you!” I gesture to the most responsible of my brothers. He tips the cigar my way, and Chase rolls his eyes.
“Well, I’m smoking it,” James says.
When all of us, including Tank, glare at him, he sighs. The no-smoking rule on poker nights came into effect this year after Harper, the lone XX chromosome holder and most influential member of our family, found out she’s on the autism spectrum and also has sensory processing disorder. She had always complained about the cigar smell, and we had teasingly ignored her, like the brutes we are. When we realized we were being actual brutes, we immediately banished cigars from poker nights.
“Later,” James amends. “I’ll smoke it at home.”
Chase, for being a peacemaker, can’t seem to let this one go. “I just don’t get why—”
Tank clears his throat. “Can we move on, boys?”
Dad is not so much trying to rescue me as he is trying to deflect the question. He and I agreed on the drive home not to talk about Sheet Cake until we’d played a decent number of hands. The news would go down better after everyone was in a good mood.
As to why the cigars—they were an impulse buy at the gas station. I saw them sitting right by the register and had to have them. My insides are hosting their own ticker tape parade in honor of seeing Lindy again. I can’t help feeling like celebrating, even if not everything today was a win.
Definitely not the damage to the Aston. And more importantly, not the conversation with Lindy. I want to think of it as a start, like a nice, friendly comma after an introductory clause. But I’m pretty sure she saw it as a period at the end of a sentence—the last sentence just before the words THE END.