Page 87 of A Little Twist
Relief washes over me, and I run through the fence, taking a struggling Pinky from Ryan and walking her back to the dugout. She’s a little spitfire, and I love it. Still, in that moment, sitting with her in the dugout, making her drink water and walk it off, I realize with painful clarity.
Pinky is never going to know her mother until I remove myself from the situation. My stomach cramps, but I know what I have to do.
CHAPTER25
ALEX
“That Drake Redford is making a royal nuisance of himself.” Britt’s grandmother sits across the picnic table from me on Aiden’s back deck. “I’d like to turn him into a donkey.”
When my brother invited us over for dinner, he failed to mention that Britt’s mother Gwen and grandmother Edna, a.k.a., Eureka’s mayor, would be joining us.
Not that I mind. They’re just a lot with all the magic and supernatural elements.
“I ran into him when I left your office this morning, Aiden,” I quickly tell my brother, who’s pulling hot dogs off the grill for the kids. “He was so stunned I didn’t support him in all this.”
Edna’s brow furrows. “Why would you support him?”
“He’s trying to use the distillery as the major attraction. What he doesn’t know is I don’t need him. I’m having a hard enough time meeting demand now that Ben and Chip are spreading the word.”
“William Cartwright is good people.” Edna nods. “He was always a friend of your father’s and your grandfather’s.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Redford Park.” Gwen sits beside her in a swirl of paisley fabric and clinking gold bracelets. “I met with the Fireside Ladies Club this afternoon, and together we put a protective spell over the town.”
A laugh coughs up from beside me, and the skin on my neck tightens.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Jessica snorts in her beer.
Gwen levels cool hazel eyes on Pinky’s baby-mama. “The spirit world has never let me down, no matter how many years it requires.”
Jessica’s eyebrows rise, and she holds up her hands. “I meant no disrespect. I guess I’m just confused about why everyone is so against having a hotel in Eureka. It would’ve come in handy for me last night.”
“So Jessica, where have you been for the last five years?” Britt sits across the picnic table from her, smiling in that sunny way that removes the potential rudeness of such a question.
“Well, let me see.” Jessica picks at the label on her bottle. “For the first three years I was in Africa covering the rise of the Sudanese rebels. Then the war broke out in Ukraine, and I made the trip north to document that…”
“Wow!” Britt’s eyes are wide. “Was it for a particular paper or magazine?”
“I’m freelance, so I shop the photos around. Whoever offers the highest price wins.”
“I had no idea that’s how photojournalism works.” Britt wrinkles her nose at me.
“It’s one way,” Jessica replies.
Britt looks at me. “I guess I see where Pinky gets her fearlessness.”
“She’s also four years old in a town where no one has ever told her what she couldn’t do.” Adam walks up, joining us at the table.
That makes me laugh. “Not that we haven’t tried.”
He and Aiden swap a bro-hug. “Heard you had to drive to Kiawah today.”
“They were short-handed.” Adam leans down to me. “Heard you had a surprise last night.” Then he holds out a hand to Jessica. “I take it you’re it?”
“Jessica Meade.” She gives his hand a firm shake. “I’ve heard a lot about Alex’s brothers. You look the most like him.”
“Seriously?” Adam gives me an incredulous look. “That’s a first.”
“I guess I was sort of channeling your energy the night we met.” The night I slept with a woman I didn’t know.