Page 9 of Twice in a Lifetime
“Blythe and I aren’t Tempie and Hayes,” I grumbled. The distinct difference between us and them was the fact that neither of them had moved on during their time apart. They hadn’t married or had kids.
Lincoln held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, if you say so. I’ll let it go.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Just answer one question and I’ll never bring it up again.”
“Christ,” I grunted. The throb that had been building behind my eyes suddenly doubled in intensity. “What is it?”
“In all your diggin’ into their background, can you say with certainty that the man she was married to and had kids with truly deserved her?”
Fuck me. I couldn’t say a word. He had me, and judging from the slow, knowing smile that tilted the corners of his mouth, the fucker knew it too.
“Thought so.” He pushed up on the arms of the chair and rose to his considerable height. “So are you gonna be the one to tell her that piece of shit had a whole other family on the side, or do you want me to do it?”
I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. I should have known he’d pull some shit like that. “Jesus, Linc. If you’re justgonna run your own investigation every damn time, why bother having me do it as well?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders unapologetically. “What can I say? I was curious and got a bit snoopy.”
That seemed to be the case more often than not. The guy was a nosy pain in the ass. But his question brought my back up straight. “I don’t think I should be the one to give her the truth,” I confessed. It had been obvious the moment I’d walked into Lincoln’s office that she hadn’t wanted me there, and she’d been hesitant to give me the story. There would be no comfort for her when she found out the whole truth—that it hadn’t just been an affair—and my gut told me that I was the last person she’d want to hear it from.
Lincoln nodded gravely. “I understand. I’ll take care of it.”
My ribs squeezed the hell out of my lungs again when I thought about how she’d take the news, and I would have given my own life to be able to comfort her when the time came. Unfortunately, I’d lost that right a long time ago.
I pulledmy truck to a stop in front of the big red-brick house on Magnolia drive and threw it into park, hitting the button to kill the ignition. The house that Marco had bought for Gypsy and the rest of us years ago was still the central hub for all family gatherings, which worked fine for me. I loved my family with everything in me, but when I purchased my house years back, I’d done it for the solitude and the quiet. I’d made sure it was big enough to house the entire Bradbury-Castillo clan if necessary, but I wasn’t really a fan of playing host, so as long as my oldest sister was game, I’d let her. I was more than happy to show up,eat, catch up with my crazy family, then head home when the noise and chaos got to be too much.
I pushed the front door open and was immediately greeted with the sounds of laughter and conversation coming from the kitchen at the back of the house. “I’m here,” I called out, and my words were met with the almost immediate pounding of tiny feet on the hardwood floors. I managed to brace just in time for a tornado of dark hair and an overabundance of energy to slam into my thighs.
My nephew, Cooper, looked up at me with a huge grin, a hole where his left lateral incisor had been the last time I saw him. “Uncle Rhodes!”
After raising the five of us, Gypsy and Marco had decided not to have kids of their own, saying we were all they needed, but now that we were grown, there was no limit to the amount of guilt my big sister was willing to lay on each of us to see to it that we started popping out kiddos of our own. So far, my sister Sunny was the only one to give her what she so desperately wanted.
Sunny and her husband, Aaron, had two kids: twelve-:year-old Brynne and seven-year-old Cooper. The rest of us had made it our mission to spoil them rotten.
I rustled the hair on the top of his head and returned his infectious smile. “Hey, bub. How you doin’?”
“Good! Can I go for a ride on your motorcycle?”
I let out a chuckle. It was the same question he asked every time he saw me, so I followed it up with the same question I always asked in return. “What’d your mom say?”
He bit down on his bottom lip and cast his eyes to the left in an obvious effort to think up a lie. “She said sure!”
“Uh-huh,” I returned skeptically just as the sister in question stepped into the entryway.
“I said over my cold, dead body, mister. And if you keep going around telling stories, you’re gonna lose iPad privileges.”
Cooper hit me with a sheepish smile before the expression on his face drooped into what could only be described as hangdog and turned to his mother. He’d even managed to perfect poking his bottom lip out and everything. “Sorry, Momma,” the little actor offered remorsefully.
Sunny rolled her eyes, but I didn’t miss the tension around her mouth as she tried to fight back a laugh. “Sure you are. Go help Auntie Holly and Uncle Lee set the table.”
My nephew bolted off toward the kitchen, and I moved to Sunny, bending to press a kiss to her cheek. “Hey, Sun. How you doin’?”
She wrapped her arms around my middle and gave me a quick squeeze before sliding herself beneath my arm so it was draped over her shoulders as she guided me toward the noises coming from the back of the house. “I’m good. Tired—as usual. Between Coop trying in every way known to man to break every bone in his body and Brynne morphing into an angsty pre-teen, it’s a wonder I haven’t pulled all my hair out.”
I gave her a squeeze and let out another laugh just as we hit the open concept kitchen and dining area.
“I remember when you were an angsty pre-teen,” Gypsy said as she moved around the massive island in our direction. “Hey, honey.” She lifted up on her toes to kiss my cheek, and I dropped my hold on Sunny in order to embrace my oldest sister and lift her feet off the ground. She might not have been the one to bring us into the world, but she’d been the closest thing the five of us ever had to a mother, so I gave her the respect and devotion usually assigned to the role.