After they’d cleaned up the bakery as much as possible, Harrison slapped a hand on Caleb’s shoulder and said he was going to take him for a drink. “You look like you need it,” he said.
Caleb wasn’t sure he was the person who needed a drink the most—Megan probably was the number one candidate—but he wasn’t going to turn down free booze. His shift now over until morning, he let his older brother buy the first round of drinks at the Fainting Goat, a watering hole opened a few years ago in Fair Haven’s small downtown.
Owned by Trent Younger, a family friend of the Thorntons, the Fainting Goat had been successful the moment it had opened its doors. Trent now owned a number of restaurants in the area, and last Caleb had heard, he was looking to open a location in Seattle. Trent also had a history with Lizzie Thornton, about which Caleb had always wondered but had never tried to pry. His younger sister, a musician traveling the country at the moment, tended to be tight-lipped about her personal life. As far as Caleb knew, she only ever confided in her twin, Seth, but with Seth overseas in the Marines…
“Hey, you two,” Heath DiMarco said as he approached their table. Heath had become good friends with Harrison and Caleb ever since he’d moved to Fair Haven five years ago. A teacher who worked at Sara’s elementary school, he seemed quiet and even slightly nerdy, in Caleb’s opinion, with his glasses and messy hair and suits that didn’t seem to fit quite right. But underneath that exterior was a man who had his own host of secrets. Caleb had yet to get Heath to tell him anything about his life before he’d moved to Fair Haven.
Caleb stared at his beer, smiling wryly. We all have secrets, don’t we?
He most of all. Secrets that goaded him, kept him awake, and haunted his every step, no matter how many years had passed.
He tipped back his beer, letting the bitter liquid cool his throat. He didn’t want to think about Megan, or her bakery, or how she’d seemed so lost until they’d started the cleanup. How he’d wanted to embrace her and let her draw on his strength for once. Watching her standing alone, her head held high and her determination clear, had cleaved him in two. Perhaps he’d wanted to let her lean on him because he had nothing else he felt he could offer her. If she rejected that, what could Megan Flannigan be to him? What could he be to Megan?
Caleb realized that Harrison had asked him something. “What?”
“You okay there?” His older brother peered at him. “Something happen while you were interviewing people next door?”
“Nothing happened. I can’t talk specifics, but I can say that nobody saw anything.” Caleb shrugged. “We’re at a dead end at this point.”
Heath frowned. “I’m sorry for Megan. I know how hard she’s worked at that bakery. Does she need any more help cleaning up?”
Caleb bristled, and Harrison, sensing his brother was on edge, replied, “I think they’ve got it covered, but I’ll be sure to let her know you’ve offered.”
Staring at his drink, Caleb felt rather morose. Morose, because he felt powerless, and because the thought of Heath getting close to Megan sent him into a lather like a wild dog. Why couldn’t he get her out of his mind?
“Gonzalez is fairly certain the robberies are connected,” Caleb said. “It would make sense. This is a small town. Robberies like this aren’t exactly commonplace to begin with, and whoever it is definitely wanted to make someone know they were pissed off at them.”
“But who would do that to Megan Flannigan?” Harrison asked. “She’s prickly, sure, but she’s a good person. Works hard and has worked to overcome her past.” He frowned at his own drink. Harrison was all too well aware of the struggles both Flannigan sisters had experienced growing up. While Sara had taken on a motherly role, Megan had rebelled until she’d gotten arrested at age seventeen for public intoxication and underage drinking. And because the universe had a wicked sense of humor, Caleb had been the one to arrest her.
“She’s not exactly the nicest person.” Caleb looked at both his brother and Heath, who had their eyebrows raised in question. “What? She’s not. Every time we see each other, we fight.”
“So are you saying you’re the one who trashed her bakery?” Heath bit back a smile. “Considering she only ever fights with you. She’s always been perfectly pleasant with me. And Harrison here. And pretty much any human and animal that comes into her bakery.”
“She and I…have our issues.” Caleb finished his beer and waved at the waitress. “We’re working on it. And by working on it, I mean that we argue and bait each other and then go home and think about how much we hate each other.”
After they gave their orders for a second round, Harrison said, “You know, I’ve always thought that hate and love were related.”
Caleb groaned. “Not this again.”
“No, I want to hear this,” Heath said. “What’s your theory?”
“Only that love and hate both make people do stupid things, and they both bring out strong emotions. If you love somebody, you care about them; if you hate somebody, you care about them, in a twisted kind of way. You have a connection.” Harrison sipped his beer in thoughtful silence.
“So you’re saying, what? That Megan and I actually love each other?”
“No, not necessarily. Just that you two clearly have some kind of connection, no matter how much you try to deny it,” Harrison said. “It’s been ten years since you arrested her. You’d think by now any anger would’ve settled and passed.”
“It is strange that she would hold that against you,” Heath said. “It’s not like you committed a crime. She screwed up, you did your job. End of story. And she was lucky that the charges were dropped, right?”
Caleb didn’t want to think about that night, when he’d just joined the force and been called to a party that had gotten out of hand on the outskirts of town. When he’d arrived, he’d recognized multiple high school students, and there’d been drugs, booze, and God knew what else. Caleb hadn’t wanted to arrest any of those kids for being young and stupid and loud, but Megan Flannigan had been drunk off of her ass. A month away from turning eighteen, she was underage and also completely wasted. She’d decided to pick a fight with him, and when she’d pushed him—barely moving him an inch, she was so off-balance—he’d known he’d have to take her in. Mostly for her own safety. He’d seen the looks some of the college guys had given her. He’d known what could happen to a vulnerable teenage girl at these types of parties.
So Caleb had arrested her, taken her to the small Fair Haven jail, and kept her until she’d sobered up. Since it was Megan, it hadn’t been so simple as waiting for her to sober up.
It never was with her.
Ever since that night, she’d hated him. She’d made no secret of that fact. The irony? She had no idea that the guy she had taunted as a stick in the mud and as a boring prude had done something even more stupid, more damaging. More devastating. Something that made him feel like a fraud every day he worked as a police officer, adhering to the rules, when he’d skirted the rules that night and every night since.
“As I’ve learned with the Flannigan sisters,” Harrison said wryly, “there’s probably another side to the story. Probably twenty different sides. They’re a mysterious pair.”
“Not so mysterious that Sara didn’t make the very terrible decision to get engaged to you.” Caleb couldn’t stop himself from needling his brother, who was also ridiculously in love with his fiancée. “You two have a wedding date set? And why am I asking that at all?” He looked at Heath. “You see what happens when one of us gets caught? We all start to fall in line.”
“Next you’ll be shopping for bridesmaids dresses,” Heath rejoined with a grin. “What’s your favorite color for a wedding, Caleb? I’m partial to blues, if I’m being honest.”
“Shut the hell up, you two,” Harrison growled, although based on the smile on his face, he wasn’t really annoyed. “The day you two fall in love is the day I make a national holiday to rub your noses in the dirt.”
“Ease off, old man.” Caleb lifted his glass. “A toast to Harrison and Sara: may we all be lucky enough to find a woman to put up with us.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Heath said.
The trio clinked glasses before Harrison began to talk about Sara, her young son James, wedding planning, Harrison and Caleb’s mother Lisa’s antipathy toward Sara that was only now starting to defrost, and a discussion of the merits of a spring wedding versus a summer wedding. Caleb’s mind drifted, mostly to the one topic that he could never seem to get away from. It didn’t help that Harrison was marrying Megan’s sister: that just meant he was tied to the Flannigan sisters even if he didn’t want to be. Caleb couldn’t stop himself from imagining Megan getting married. Would she wear a traditional wedding dress? He had a feeling she’d wear something different. Something colorful.
He blanched when an image of Megan in a wedding gown popped into his mind. He almost groaned out loud. What the hell was wrong with him? He needed an exorcism. Or at least another beer.
An hour later, Heath said his goodbyes, leaving Harrison and Caleb alone. The two brothers sat in companionable silence. As the first and second eldest of the Thornton siblings, they’d had their share of responsibilities growing up in a family as lively and dynamic as theirs. With four younger siblings, they’d taken on the protective brother roles from the very beginning, especially when Jubilee had been going through cancer treatments as a young girl.
Mark, the third oldest, had preferred his own company and had left Fair Haven for his own kind of haven on a ranch down south; Lizzie, the fourth eldest, had been too pretty and talented for her own good, but she’d run off to pursue her musical dreams right after high school and after she’d broken up with Trent Younger; Seth, the fifth eldest and Lizzie’s twin, had been inseparable from his twin until they’d parted ways after high school when he’d joined the Marines; and then Jubilee, the sixth and youngest, was the baby of the family who’d been coddled due to her childhood leukemia that had returned when she was thirteen.
“So you’re going to be a security guard now?” Harrison asked with a raised brow. “And at Megan’s bakery?”
“Hilarious, right?”
“Was it really your boss’s idea for you to be given that position, or did you have some hand in it?”
Caleb stilled. “What are you saying?”
“Exactly what I just said. Everyone has seen how you react when you’re around Megan. You don’t see anyone else in the room.” Harrison finished off his beer and pushed it away across the table. “A word of advice?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope, so listen up. This bickering with her? The arguments and fighting and whatever it is you two have decided is some kind of foreplay? Either get to the deed, or let it go. Either ask her out once and for all, or leave her alone.”
Caleb gritted his teeth. “It’s not like that.”
“Really? You could’ve fooled me.” Harrison lowered his voice. “Look, you’re my brother, and my best friend, besides Sara. I know how you tick, and I think you’d say the same about me. Don’t let what happened years ago keep you from getting what you want. Don’t ignore feelings you have for Megan out of some kind of misplaced guilt.”
Caleb’s throat went dry, and his heart started pounding. He pushed the memories away—the crash, the sirens, the screaming—and he had to close his eyes for a moment. “I don’t have feelings for her,” was all he could say.
“I won’t argue with you, but, just think about what I said. Okay?” Harrison bumped shoulders with him. “I want to see you happy.”
“Since when did you turn into Oprah?”
“Since I found the best woman to love.” Harrison’s lips quirked into a grin. “Now, are you going to buy the next round or not?”
Megan hadn’t wanted to go to dinner with her family and Harrison tonight, but Sara had convinced her to come along. They’d decided to eat at Harrison’s place, mostly because it was easily three times the size of Sara’s house, which she shared with their mother Ruth and Sara’s son James. Everyone chatted as they ate, but Megan found herself pushing her food around on her plate.
She couldn’t stop thinking about her bakery. She felt like she’d left her child behind when she’d closed up last night, after they’d cleaned up as much as they could before dropping from exhaustion. She’d returned that morning to finish the cleanup and work with Jubilee to order ingredients that had been dumped or damaged.
It hadn’t helped that Caleb had been lurking the entire time she’d been at the bakery today. When he’d told her he was going to watch over the bakery, he’d really meant it. Megan was torn between frustration and gratitude for his help. She couldn’t help but feel safe with him right outside. She might not like the guy, but she’d never doubt his efficacy as a police officer and his ability to protect people.
She pushed her green beans to the corner of her plate. Looking up, she saw Sara’s concerned gaze on her. Seated right next to each other, the sisters had only hugged before helping Harrison get dinner ready.
“You doing okay?” Sara asked in a low voice. “You look like you could fall asleep right here.”
Megan laughed, but it was a sad sound. “I can’t stop thinking about everything I have to get done. I couldn’t sleep last night, and I ended up getting up at three AM to make a list of things to do.” She barely stifled a wide yawn.
“You’re already making amazing progress. You’ll reopen next week, right?” Sara rubbed Megan’s arm. “You got this.”
Megan smiled. Her older sister had always been her number one supporter, and she knew only too well how lucky she’d been to have a sister who’d looked out for her while their mother couldn’t.
Their mother Ruth had given them their blue eyes and freckled skin, but—at least in Megan’s eyes—little beyond that. Ruth had been an alcoholic throughout the majority of Sara and Megan’s childhood, only getting sober within the last few years. Sara had mostly forgiven Ruth for what she’d put them through, but Megan hadn’t gotten to that place yet. She was civil to her mother, but she had no real desire to have a relationship with her. How could Ruth make up for the days and nights where she’d been so drunk that she’d collapsed onto the couch and not wake up for what felt like days? The stints in rehab that never stuck? The humiliation of having a parent come drunk to a parent-teacher conference? Or when a friend’s parents had to drive the girls home from school because Ruth was passed out drunk at a bar somewhere, and they’d missed the bus?
Megan had never been very good with forgiveness. She knew all too well it was one of her worst faults. She often felt that forgiveness was akin to forgetting, and she could never forget. It wasn’t in her DNA.
“You’ve barely eaten anything,” Ruth said, pointing at Megan’s plate. “Makes me think of how you’d try to hide your vegetables in your sleeve when you were little.”
Megan swallowed the retort that sat on her tongue, wanting to remind her mother that there had been few dinners where she would’ve even noticed Megan’s vegetable-hiding underneath the haze of booze.
“I’m just tired. Sorry I’m such terrible company,” she said instead.
“Are you sad about your store?” James asked. James, at the age of six, had just finished first grade and was growing like a weed. Nobody knew where he was getting his burst of height from—Sara was average height and so was James’s father. James liked to say that he got his height from his soon-to-be stepfather Harrison.
“Yeah, I am sad,” Megan replied. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
James nodded sagely. “I told Travis what happened. You know my friend Travis? He says that it was probably ninjas. He saw something on TV about how ninjas can hide in the shadows and you wouldn’t even know it.”
Everyone laughed, including Megan.
“Where does Travis come up with these things?” Harrison ruffled James’s hair. “Sometimes I think you shouldn’t hang out with him. He says the craziest things.”
“No, Travis is my friend! Mom, you won’t let Harrison do that, right? And you messed up my hair.”
Sara replied seriously, “No, of course not. Besides, he lives right next door, so I don’t think I could keep him away anyway.”
James returned to eating, but not before he fixed his hair. He’d decided a week ago that he wanted his hair spiked with hair gel, and after persuading his mom that it was very important, he had perfectly coifed hair everywhere he went. He also hated when anyone messed it up.
Megan felt her mood lighten a little. Her family was exhausting, but they were good people. She was happy to see Sara so happy, too: after her divorce, she’d been too afraid to let herself love Harrison, but he’d shown her it was worth it. He adored Sara, and Megan was both glad and a little bit jealous of their relationship.
What would it be like to have a man love you that much? She couldn’t imagine it.
Unbidden, an image of Caleb’s face came into her mind, but she brushed it away. He’s never going to be that man for you. No matter how much you may want it.
Yes, she wanted Caleb. She’d admitted that to herself long ago, although outwardly, she acted like she hated him. It was easier than acknowledging that he’d hurt her—multiple times. It was easier than accepting that he’d never care for her in that way. He’d rejected her—and arrested her!—enough times for her to get the hint.
Now her mood shifted back to morose. When dessert was brought out, Megan declined a piece of cake.
“You sure, honey?” Ruth prodded. “Here, come on, have a little piece. Your sister went to a lot of trouble to make it, and you need to eat something.” She pushed the plate before Megan and patted her shoulder before sitting down.
It was strange to have Ruth act like a mother. How could she act like nothing had happened before? Megan gritted her teeth, the old hurt welling up inside her chest.
“Isn’t carrot cake your favorite?” Ruth asked. “I thought you loved carrot cake.”
Megan couldn’t stop the memory from welling inside her: for her eighth birthday, she’d asked Ruth to make her a carrot cake. She’d loved carrot cake. Ruth had agreed, and she’d promised that she make it for Megan’s birthday, along with having a party with friends.
Ruth had dreamed up the greatest party—a piñata, pin the tail on the donkey, gifts galore—and Megan had barely been able to sleep, she’d been so excited for the following morning. Yet when she’d woken up, she hadn’t seen any kind of party preparations. Megan found Ruth sprawled on her bed, an empty bottle of vodka next to her, and Megan had known that there would be no party. No gifts, no friends, no piñata. No carrot cake.
It was stupid, to feel hurt over something like that. Megan hated that Ruth could hurt her, even now. She was twenty-seven. How could she continue to cry over the fact that she didn’t have a birthday party over twenty years ago?
“Actually, I hate carrot cake.” Megan pushed her cake aside and rose. “I’ve hated it ever since you promised to make me one on my eighth birthday but were too drunk the next morning to even get out of bed.”
Ruth paled, her hand going to her throat. She swallowed. “Megan…” she murmured.
Megan looked at Sara, who looked unbearably sad. “Thank you for dinner. I need to get going.”
She kissed James goodbye before she headed out.
As she drove home, she knew she shouldn’t have said that to Ruth. It had been a low shot, and unfair. Ruth had only been concerned about her wellbeing. Yet the little girl inside Megan rejoiced that she’d said it. Perhaps it was immature, but she refused to feel guilty about it. At least not yet. In the morning, when Sara would call her and ask why she’d said that, she’d say she was sorry.
Megan winced. I really fucked up, didn’t I?
She was always going to be the screw-up, wasn’t she? Arrested at seventeen, her bakery almost destroyed, and lashing out at her mother at a family dinner. The feelings of inadequacy pushed at her, almost choking her. After her arrest, she’d lost her scholarship to the University of Washington, and she’d hated Caleb for it for years. It hadn’t been fair to him, of course. But his arresting her had revealed a side of her she’d feared becoming for years: just like Ruth. Drunk, disorderly, and a failure. He’d made her confront that side of herself—and she’d blamed him for it.
When would she ever feel like she wasn’t a failure?
After getting home, she collapsed onto the couch. Her cat Gary jumped onto her lap, purring like a motor cage. Gary was orange and white striped with a smashed face and a propensity to drool when you scratched his cheeks. He was Megan’s best friend. Or at least the creature with whom she spent the most time lately.
“Did I fuck up, Gare-bear?” she asked the cat. “Should I call and apologize?”
Gary kneaded her legs. She scratched behind his ears just to hear him purr louder.
She’d call in the morning. She’d apologize to everyone, and she’d try to make things right with Ruth. Sara had wanted Megan to work on her issues with their mother for years, but Megan had always resisted it. What did it matter? The past was the past.
And yet, despite everything, the past always managed to bleed into the present no matter how much you tried to staunch the old wounds.
For the strangest reason, Megan wanted to talk to Caleb. To feel his protective presence, to allow herself to lean on him. Physically, emotionally. Her emotions regarding Caleb Thornton were as tangled as a skein of knotted yarn, and sometimes she didn’t know if she resented him or wanted him more.
Gary finally curled into a ball on her lap. Megan stroked his soft fur as the night pushed onward, not sure of anything anymore.
