"I DON'T KNOW ABOUT this." Pru bit her lip as they all scanned Joan's sitting room.
"With the half-bath, this room makes the most sense," Maggie said practically. "Clients can undress or dress in there and feel a bit more private than they might anywhere else. Plus, it's got a door and can be closed off from the rest of the house if something else were going on. It's quiet. That was the whole reason Mom picked it."
"But it was Mom's space," Pru said. "To do this, we have to move all her stuff, and that just feels...wrong. Too soon."
Kennedy wrapped an arm around her. "We're not getting rid of anything. We're just rearranging. You agreed that having a room for your massage clients to come here makes the most sense for now."
"I know, but..."
"And the guys are going to be here soon to help move furniture, so we need to clear things out as best we can. Plus, I have a plane to catch, so this is literally the last thing I can help with before I go," Athena added. "Chop chop."
Pru sighed. "All right. We'll shift things to Mom's room for now."
They all pitched in, packing up the books, the knitting supplies, the prodigious supply of yarns, and all the other detritus that made up their mother's personal space. Often with so many children in the house, she'd needed a room to get away from all the noise and chaos. This one, at the back of the house, looking out over the mountains, had been her retreat. Kennedy remembered many long conversations, where she'd curled up on the floor at Joan's feet helping to ball yarn. Pru stared at that same spot on the floor, her hands hesitating over the contents of the little writing desk, while Athena and Maggie carried the ottoman out of the room.
"I don't know how my clients are going to take to this. They're used to me coming to them."
Determined to be positive, Kennedy continued to load the contents of the bookcase into boxes. "It's a good room for relaxing. That's what your clients ultimately want, right?"
"Of course. But I don't know how well they'll relax if I can't. I don't know if I can work in here."
"Is it that everything in here reminds you of Mom?"
"Doesn't it you?"
"Sure. I will forever see her sitting in that chair with her knitting needles. But she'd want the space to be used. You know she wasn't the kind of woman who was into having a shrine."
"I know. I just...this is hard."
"We need to make you think of something else when you come in here," Kennedy declared.
"How?"
"We'll make it look different. Once we carry out the furniture that's in here, we can have the guys haul in that cabinet from upstairs. You can use it for towels and supplies. We'll put up some gauzy curtains, set up a little sound system so you can play relaxing music. Maybe get one of those little water feature things. How much better might people be able to relax if they aren't looking through the hole in your massage table to see that one random toy they didn't get kicked out of the way before you showed up. We should really play up the idea of a sort of mini-spa."
Athena came in on the tail end of that. "A spa? Really? Because anybody would come to Eden's Ridge for that? Maybe we'd like to hook it on to the Snort and Curl and make a real high class establishment."
Kennedy glared. "Don't be a snob."
"Not a snob. A realist." She plucked up another huge basket of yarn. "I've been to high class spas. Nothing about the Ridge is high class."
Kennedy bit back whatever retort she might have made. This was about making things easier on Pru and Athena wasn't helping. "Whether you're in the French Alps or in Tennessee, massage is a luxury."
"My kind of massage is physical therapy," Pru said.
"It can be both. Athena's right that we aren't crazy and high class. We're not trying to be. That doesn't mean you can't still give clients an experience that takes them temporarily out of their lives, out of their worries for a little while."
"I do have at least some clients who would probably be into that."
"And it's possible that kind of setup could attract some more clients."
"More business would certainly not be a bad thing."
"If you're not having to add in travel time, you would actually have more time available to book extra clients," Maggie added.
"Not to mention the savings on gas," Kennedy added.
"I'll get used to it. And having the room look different would help," Pru conceded.
Happy she seemed to have made things at least a little better for her sister, Kennedy threw herself into packing, half her mind on how they could redecorate the room. Filling one box, she reached for another. The top shelf was full of albums. As Pru came back in, she asked, "When did Mom get into scrapbooking?"
"About the time you started sending postcards home."
Curious, she opened one at random and found postcards and letters she'd sent from Prague. There were also emails and printed pictures.
"She's got your entire time abroad covered in there," Pru added.
Kennedy stared at her. "Seriously?"
Pru grabbed another volume and opened it to the front to display a map with a route highlighted. "She saved everything you ever sent and even made notes when you called, what news you shared or what you'd been doing. I think it made her feel closer to you, when you were so far away."
A lump set up in Kennedy's throat. "I...I had no idea. I mean, I know my being gone was hard on her, and I tried to keep in touch as best I could. But I never imagined..."
This time Pru was the one to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "She missed you. We all did. But she was so terribly proud of what you were doing, all the adventures you were having."
After all the flack she'd caught from her sisters about being immature, selfish, aimless, the idea that her mother had actually been proud was a bittersweet pill to swallow. Her eyes burned with a fresh round of tears.
"I wished she was with me. So I tried to paint as vivid a picture as I could so she sort of could be."
"She loved that. I did too. It was exciting to hear about what all you were doing. And she loved the trip you took her on more than you can possibly know. You gave her something there that none of the rest of us could."
Kennedy thought of her blog. She'd never told anyone in the family about it. It had been easier to share with strangers. But her mother would've loved it. And she would've been ecstatic about the idea of turning it into a book. But Kennedy had never responded to the editor, and the window for that opportunity was no doubt closed. It didn't matter. She couldn't afford to be so self-indulgent. There were other things to worry about.
They both lapsed into silence as Athena and Maggie came in for another load. When they'd walked out again, Kennedy wrapped Pru in a tight hug. "Thank you. I can't tell you what it means to me to know that. To know that she didn't hate me for going. That you didn't."
Pru squeezed her back and looked after where their sisters had disappeared. "They don't hate you either. They just don't understand. They'll come around eventually."
Maybe. But at this point, Kennedy was looking forward to both of them heading back to their own lives and having some time to actually heal.
She boxed up all the albums and carted them to her own room. Later, when she wasn't feeling quite so raw, she'd go through them. It'd be nice to see what Mom thought about where all she'd been. And it might be fun to revisit her travels. She spent most of her focus on the present or the future. Rarely the past.
The sound of the front door opening drew her to the top of the stairs. Xander stepped in, his eyes seeming to zero in unerringly on her. The quick curve of lips was so familiar, so welcome, she almost trotted straight down the stairs to lay a big, fat kiss on him, as she would have years ago. Then another man, slightly shorter, stocky, with a close cropped beard, came in behind him and saved her from herself. Whatever was happening between her and Xander, letting themselves fall back into old habits and pretending the past decade hadn't happened would be a mistake.
"Thanks for coming," she told him.
"No problem. This is my buddy, Logan Maxwell." Xander thumped him on the shoulder. "He's a farmer by trade, so he's got a good, strong back."
Logan looked utterly unperturbed. "I take it you're Kennedy."
"I am." She shook his hand.
"Heard a lot about you."
Kennedy's gaze flicked to Xander.
"Mostly not from him," Logan added.
"Then I'd wager only about thirty percent of it is actually true," she said.
Her sisters came into the foyer, Athena laden with bags, and Xander made introductions to Logan.
Athena actually made nice for a full ninety seconds. "I hate to hi and bye, but I've got a plane to catch."
"And I need to drive her." Maggie winced.
"Don't worry about it. We've got things covered here," Kennedy assured her.
Maggie didn't look entirely sure of that, but what was she going to say? It wasn't as if Kennedy and Pru couldn't handle the finger pointing required to get a few pieces of furniture moved.
Pru wrapped Athena in a hug. "Be safe. Call us when you land and when you get home."
Athena rolled her eyes but squeezed Pru back. "I'll call when I land, but I'm going straight to the restaurant. I'll be home super late."
"Text at least."
"Yes, ma'am." Athena pulled back and faced Kennedy. She fidgeted. "Keep the little one out of trouble, will you?"
It was a task that presupposed she was actually staying. Kennedy decided that counted as progress. She nodded. "We'll let Ari know you said goodbye."
Athena scooped up her bags, dashing any vain hope that they might make more of a connection.
"Have a good flight," Kennedy told her, and led the guys to the back of the house to show them the sitting room.
Xander cornered her in the hall, while Logan was sizing up the furniture. "You okay?"
She tried to work up a smile for him. "Getting there."
He looked at her with dark brown eyes that always saw too much. She'd never wanted to hide from that compassion before. She didn't actually want to hide from it now. She wanted to revel in it, take the comfort and closeness she knew he'd offer. Fighting those urges was getting harder every time she saw him.
"Let's get to work."
By the time they'd relocated Mom's favorite chair to Pru's room and shifted the bookcase to a different wall, Maggie and Athena were pulling out of the driveway. Without the pair of them in the house, it felt like maybe Kennedy could breathe again.
"Now comes the fun part," she declared.
"Yeah? What's that?" Xander asked.
"Treasure hunting in the hay loft."
When the attic had been converted to bedrooms, Joan had taken to storing spare furniture and other assorted junk on the second floor of the barn. It wasn't the easiest place to haul furniture in and out of, but there were, at least, stairs. Kennedy dragged a reluctant Pru out to see what they could find.
"I'd forgotten how much stuff was up here," Pru said. "There are probably some pieces we could sell." She wandered on down one of the haphazard aisles.
"Long as you don't sell this," Xander murmured.
"Sell what?" Kennedy asked.
He tugged her behind a stack of boxes and pointed down another aisle to a dusty day bed at the other end. At the sight of it, her cheeks caught on fire.
"I have particularly fond memories of rainy afternoons and that bed." His voice was a low rumble in her ear, part seduction, part amusement. He wasn't holding her, but she could feel the heat of his body bare inches from hers.
"Maybe you want to buy it for your place," she suggested, her tone coming off a lot more flip than she felt. Careful, girl. You're playing with fire.
"Maybe I do." Heat flashed in his eyes.
Kennedy felt an answering tug low in her belly. Not a good idea. But her inner voice of protest was getting weaker, lost somewhere behind the part of her that had been drooling watching him use those big muscles to heft furniture. If it had just been her, she wouldn't have acted on the heat. She wasn't the kind of woman to throw herself at a man. But the fact that he unquestionably wanted her back made it so much harder to choose the right thing.
"So I'm gonna owe you for moving all this crap. You should probably be thinking about what you want as payment."
Why was she bringing this up right now? When they both had sex on the brain?
"Oh, I already know what I want."
The thumb he rubbed down her forearm should not have been arousing. It should have been an easy, affectionate sort of gesture. But it set her on fire.
Maybe...maybe they both needed this. He needed to get her out of his system and she needed...him. She'd always needed him. Maybe this could help grant them both some resolution and clarity.
"Do you now? And what, pray tell, is that?"
"Dinner."
Not what she'd expected him to say. "What?"
"I want you to come cook me dinner. At my place."
"You want me to cook for you?"
"Well, you already proved you're a pretty damned good cook with breakfast for Ari. And I want to spend some time with you. We've got a lot of catching up to do, and I'd just as soon do it without prying eyes or ears."
Kennedy could get behind that idea. At the Sheriff's Office, she'd felt on display during their conversation. And that had been before her run-in with his father. The thought of Buck had her hesitating, her enthusiasm dimming.
"Your daddy still hates me."
"I'm not in the habit of doing what my father wants."
The last ten years would seem to contradict that, but maybe Xander was up for letting her corrupt him again. Kennedy thought she'd enjoy that a helluva lot.
"How's tonight?"
"Sounds perfect."
* * *
"I can't believe you bought old man Miller's place."
Xander stepped back to let Kennedy inside. "The irony is not lost on me."
She breezed past him, her arms loaded down with bags. "Worse, I can't believe we were this close to your house the other night, and we sat in your Bronco until dawn."
He trailed her into the kitchen, effectively boxing her in against the counter as she set the groceries down. He let his lips curve, his voice drop to a growl. "I don't think either of us was complaining about close quarters that night."
She pressed a hand to his chest, and he thought she might push him away. Instead, her pupils dilated and her fingers curled in the front of his shirt.
"How hungry are you?"
Xander knew they weren't talking about food. "Starved."
"Me too." She tugged his shirt and he went willingly.
Her mouth took his, warm and insistent. An answer to the question that had been humming between them for days. Apparently she'd thought about them and had finally come up with an answer. Thank God. She'd always been the answer for him. Twining her arms around his shoulders, she took them deeper, a quick, reckless slide toward madness. They weren't outside. They had no audience. And he'd wanted the possibility of this when he'd invited her over.
Running his hands down her back, he cupped her exquisite ass and pressed her against the evidence of his need. She nipped his lip before licking to soothe, then running her tongue along the seam of his mouth. He welcomed her, stroking his tongue against hers and bending until he could hook his hands behind her legs and lift her onto the island.
Something clattered. Kennedy's head jerked toward the noise, and she reached out to nab the bottle of wine before it rolled off. "We'll just put that over there, where it'll be safe." She stretched, putting it and the other bags out of harm's way before looping an arm back around his shoulders and pressing her free hand to the pulse in his throat.
Xander could feel it hammering against her touch, could see an answering flutter at the base of her throat, and knew they could lose themselves. He wanted that, wanted to feel the softness of her skin sliding against his, the warmth of her body closing around him. He wanted it like he wanted his next breath.
But he saw something in her eyes. Some trace of desperation that had nothing to do with arousal. He knew if he kissed her again, they'd finish this. But he had a sense that if they did, it would be less about him, less about them, and more about distraction. Not that he had a problem being her distraction, but he didn't think that's what she actually needed right now.
"Tell me what's wrong."
"We are both wearing entirely too many clothes."
Xander huffed out a laugh. "That is probably true. But I didn't actually invite you over here for this."
One blonde brow shot up. "After all that innuendo in the barn?"
"I didn't say I wasn't thinking about it." He glanced down at the irrefutable evidence below his belt. "But I wasn't going to push."
She hooked her fingers in his belt, looking at him through lowered lashes. "I believe all evidence indicates that I was pulling."
Her words and the proximity of her hands had Xander thinking about those slim fingers wrapped around him, as, he imagined, she'd known it would. His dick jumped, totally on board with that plan. In a bid for some kind of sainthood, he grabbed her wrists and moved her hands back to the counter. "You forget that I know you. Sex is always your favorite distraction."
"I don't recall you complaining."
No. No he hadn't.
It had been her idea to lose their virginity together at seventeen. Who was he to say no to that? He'd had a pulse, and he'd have done anything she asked. He had. It hadn't been until later that he'd found out she'd gotten word that her father had been killed in an accident, when his rig jackknifed during a thunderstorm. Their first time had been as much about losing her grief for a while as it had been about them.
And now Joan had been victim of a weather-related accident as well. He should've seen the parallel sooner.
Xander laced his fingers with hers and kept his voice gentle. "Talk to me. You used to be able to."
"You were prettier than my therapist."
"Kennedy."
She sighed, irritation quickly being chased by resignation across her face. "Fine. I might as well start supper. I need something to do with my hands."
He had another quick mental flash of those hands on him, but he stepped back as she slid off the counter. She turned her back to him, shoulders stiff, and reached for the bags of groceries. For one last moment, he crowded in behind her, sweeping her hair to the side, so he could press a kiss to her nape. She stilled, hands fisted in plastic sacks, as if absorbing the connection. She'd said there'd been no one serious. He wondered if there'd been anyone at all. She seemed as starved for affection now as when she'd first come to Joan.
"What can I do to help?" he asked.
She tugged a bag over. "Peel these carrots and scrub up the potatoes."
Okay, not exactly what he'd meant, but he could work with that. He took the bag. "Tell me how you're really doing being back. I know it can't be easy."
The corner of her mouth quirked. "Not even a little emotional foreplay?"
"You were always more a rip the Band-aid off type. You'll feel better when you talk about it."
"It should be annoying that you still know me so well." She pulled a pair of fat pork chops from another bag. "No, it's not easy. Though I daresay the Ridge in general is more accepting of my being back than my sisters, if for no other reason than I'm a new and interesting topic of gossip."
"I've gotten my fair share of that since you got back."
"Have a cast iron skillet?" she asked.
Xander pulled one out of the drawer, and she set the oven to preheat.
"Things are rough with your sisters. You'd mentioned a fight the other night."
"We're all messed up in our own ways. Adding all our grief over Mom has made things kind of ugly. They were already angry with me, and that's been bleeding over."
"Bleeding over how?"
"Pot shots from Athena. Which is entirely to be expected. She's always had anger issues, and she'll take them out on the nearest target. I think she may be angrier with me for not coming home when Maggie got pregnant than Maggie herself. Or, I don't know. Maggie was...is pissed, too, but it's not her way to let it all hang out there. She represses every damn thing and tries to control every last detail. It's just been...shitty. To Athena, I haven't been a participating member of this family in a decade, so I really shouldn't have a say in anything going forward. I don't have the right or the basis to say what Mom would've wanted. With the house. With Ari."
"That's ridiculous. It's not like you were excommunicated."
"I think Athena feels like I excommunicated myself. And I sort of did. Not that I think that gives her license to take shots at me. But I know her. It's part of her grieving process, so I'm not fighting back." Which was a far cry from the all out wars they'd sometimes fought as teenagers. Athena had usually won those battles. He'd often been the one to deal with the aftermath.
"That's got to burn. Just sucking down whatever you're feeling about it."
She mixed together salt, pepper, garlic powder, and thyme in a small bowl, then sprinkled both sides of the pork chops with the mix. "Not half as much as Maggie's disappointment in me."
Xander frowned. "Why is she disappointed? Because you weren't here during Babygate?"
Kennedy twitched her shoulders. "That's a big part of it. And she thinks I never grew up. I've been running around the world in pursuit of my own selfish, Peter Pan dreams, while the rest of them became productive members of society."
The snap of defensive temper left him speechless for a moment. "She said that to you?"
"I'm sure, under better circumstances, she'd frame it as being upset that I'm not meeting my potential or some similar crap. But in a nutshell, due to my aimlessness and total lack of ambition, she's worried I'll just end up another burden on the family."
"How can she think you'd be a burden? You've worked. You've always worked. How else does she think you've lived all over the world?"
"Ah, but it was all temporary, short-term, low-skill and therefore low-wage kind of labor. None of which applies here. In her eyes, I have no degree, no education, no long-term job experience, and thus, very little to recommend myself to prospective employers."
"Your mother just died and you've changed your whole life to come back here. Does she seriously expect you to have it all figured out already?"
Another shoulder twitch. "It's Maggie. She would. Or she'd try. She is trying to sort out the state of Mom's finances with Mom's attorney." She took the carrots and potatoes from him, chopping with a chef-like efficiency before drizzling everything in olive oil and tossing with the remaining herb mixture. "But she doesn't understand that she doesn't need to sort me out, too. And I don't think any of them really believe that I'm here to stay."
"Have they seen you with Ari?" he demanded. "Are they blind? She's attached to you, and I saw you the other morning. You aren't going to walk away from her. That much was obvious in five minutes."
Kennedy slid the skillet into the oven and set the timer on the microwave. "She reminds me so much of me. If she sees even a glimmer that she's going to be turned over to someone else without her own wants being taken into account, she'll bolt. So, no, I'm not going to walk away from her."
"Do you think she's a flight risk?" Xander had worked his fair share of runaway cases and knew that too often they didn't turn out well.
"I would've been under these circumstances."
"Have you talked to your sisters about all this?"
"I was trying the night of the fight. But they assume that since I haven't known Ari before now, that I don't understand her and I don't have anything of value to offer on the discussion."
Xander kept hearing echoes of the same things - value, worth, merit - all things she'd struggled with since they were kids because she didn't fit the traditional mold for anything. And it infuriated him that her sisters would add to that rather than build her up.
"What about Pru?" he asked. "What has she had to say about you being back?"
Something flickered over Kennedy's face. "We had a good talk the other day. While she maybe doesn't know what I bring to the table in terms of the future, she's happy to have me home. And I admit, it's nice to have at least one person on my side."
Xander stepped into her, brushing a thumb over her cheek. "I hope you know she isn't the only one."
Kennedy angled her face into his touch, but she didn't move her gaze from his. "Why?"
Because I still love you. The certainty of it sank into his bones, and with it, a realization that she could absolutely slay him. Again. But it was her. For him, it had always been her, so he was willing to take the risk.
Xander framed her face between his palms. "Because of this."
He kissed her, not with an intent to seduce or to spread the heat that always seemed to bubble in his blood around her, but to pour out the deep well of sweetness she inspired. No one else had ever made him want to give tenderness. But she did - his beautiful, broken gypsy.
By the time he eased back, she was shaking. Her pupils were huge and her hands were curved around his forearms. Xander didn't feel entirely steady himself.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her expression stricken. "I'm sorry I walked away from you. And I don't know if it matters to you or not, but I thought of you every day. I missed you every day."
"It matters." He wrapped his arms around her. "But I'm not worried about the yesterdays anymore. Let's just focus on the now."
