Cross Roads Preview
Here is your preview of the next book in the Lone Star Crossed Saga.
Cross Roads is now available!
***
PROLOGUE
Jasmine
I tugged at the dress Mom made me wear. The itchy lace trim put a rash on my shoulder like a mosquito bite. But it was her favorite, and we were going to visit Daddy. We came every year.
The car stopped, and she twisted toward the back seat.
“Take your water bottles. It’s hot.”
I hooked my finger around the loop at the top of mine and unbuckled my seatbelt. Nate picked up his mini-backpack.
“Just take the bottle. Leave the rest of that in the car,” Mom said.
My little brother’s face pinched. “My games!”
“We’re not here to play,” Carter barked from the front seat.
He thought being nine made him grown. Nate twisted in his seat and kicked his legs. Did he even know why we were here? He wasn’t even three. He never knew Daddy.
I was six, so I remembered.
Sometimes.
He used to sit on my bed and read me stories about magic and witches and spells. He tried to do the different parts, but his voice sounded like thunder no matter what he did. I’d laugh, and he’d try to sound like a girl and bat his eyes. Then, he’d tickle me and say, “If you don’t appreciate my efforts, I’ll take them elsewhere.”
I’d beg him to keep going because I loved it.
I wished he knew how much. If I told him more, maybe he wouldn’t have gone. That was probably dumb. Everybody told me so. God called Daddy home.
A-N-E-U-R-Y-S-M
My teacher looked about to die when I got that word at the spelling bee—even the fifth graders didn’t get it right. She really looked about to die when she asked how I knew it and I told her.
Mom got out of the car and bent into the back seat.
“Let’s go.”
We got out and followed her through long rows of rocks with names on them.
The sun was blasting, and the dry grass around Daddy was tall now. Weeds so big the giant white rock with his name was almost covered.
Carter Cross Sr.
1957-1988
I reached out to trace the letters, but yelped and snatched my hand away from the hot stone.
So I just whispered. “I miss you, Daddy.”
Mom tugged on my braided ponytail and smoothed the edges at my forehead. They were sweating out already. Then she put the roses she brought on the grave and swept away some dirt with her hand. Her shoulders shook. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She held on to the top of the stone, like it was keeping her from falling, then pulled me into a hug.
“I’m so sorry you lost your daddy, baby. Love means grief too sometimes, but it’s worth it. There’s no joy without love. Remember that.”
My throat closed up around a cough. She held me tighter against her shaky chest. I’d caught her crying like this before—bent over, tears falling, no sound, and so sad it made my stomach hurt.
I wanted to believe her. Most always, she was right, but it didn’t feel like it. I kissed her cheek, rubbing my still-tingly fingers on her back.
Nate ran over and pushed his hand at my face.
“Look!”
A grasshopper leaped onto my chest, and I screamed and smacked it away.
“Na-aaate!”
He laughed and took off running like we were at the park.
“He doesn’t know any better,” Carter said.
Mom pulled a tissue from her bag and wiped her hands. “It’s good he’s smiling. We should too. I remember how much your daddy loved summer. It’d be hot as blazes, and he’d still sit outside, sipping his iced tea and grinning.”
She choked back a sob but smiled.
We stood at the grave, and she told more stories. Then Carter told some. I just listened because they had more to tell. What did I have? Daddy reading to me. Daddy making pancakes in funny shapes. I squeezed my eyes shut like it would squeeze out another memory. It didn’t.
“Let’s get going,” Mom said finally.
She called Nate over and pulled a compact from her pocketbook to check her face. The little puff smoothed away the streaks on her dark skin. She pressed her lips tight, huffed, and put it away.
“I want to stop by the desk on our way out. Look at these weeds! Maintenance is supposed to keep things up. I’m going to read those people like the Sunday paper.”
She waved for us to follow and stalked toward the car. I raced to stay next to her and slipped my hand into hers, giving it a squeeze. She smiled and squeezed back. Her shoulders lifted high and square like normal.
I felt better when we got back in the car. The air cranked up, and my sweaty skin got all goosebumpy. The cemetery was so big we had a long way back to the main building. Mom parked and opened the door. Then, she turned to the front passenger seat, where Carter was fiddling with his old Game Boy.
“Watch your brother and sister.”
Then she got out, slammed the door, and straightened her back.
***
CHAPTER 1
Jasmine
When I saw Anthony’s name appear on my phone, I bit my lip and kept driving.
Safety first, right?
And I was half avoiding him.
Which I shouldn’t do.
Anthony had done nothing to warrant avoidance. Since discovering my family was a hidden branch on the famous Star family tree, my most charming cousin had welcomed us without hesitation.
Even Reese, whom I now counted as a friend, started off helping their mother undermine our inheritance. She did the right thing in the end. Now, Carter worked with Anthony’s high-powered sister every day. She and I hung out all the time when I was in town, having ladies-only brunches with Willa, my other Dallas-based cousin, and our growing circle of mutual friends.
I still avoided my scheming Aunt Theresa, but so did everyone else.
Including her kids—especially Anthony.
It wasn’t my fault, but I was the one who’d turned his life upside down. The guilt had me wriggling in my seat to shake off the tightening sensation in my stomach. Theresa’s decades-old lies were hers to own—not mine. Her affairs, covering up her husband’s embezzlement, and hiding Anthony’s paternity—all her doing. I was just the one to figure out the last bit of deception. He said he was thankful. The last time we talked, he had scheduled DNA tests to confirm my suspicion.
That he wasn’t Ken Hunter’s biological son.
Anthony was handling it well. Or at least moving on with his life. He married in the spring and just returned from his Italian honeymoon. Discussing his new marriage would normally be an easy way to avoid talking about family drama, except a deadline in our grandfather’s trust was the only reason he’d rushed down the aisle. He and Sarah hadn’t even dated before marrying.
Theirs was a marriage of convenience. Maybe.
Marrying just for the money didn’t fit the woman I met at their engagement party. Sarah had an independent streak. I liked her. Plus, that story didn’t match the longing glances and flirty smiles they exchanged or the moon-faced look Anthony had watching his bride walk down the aisle.
He was smitten. Maybe they could be happy. They deserved to be.
I punched the accelerator and exited the highway, cruising past the turnoff for Carter and Nisha’s place and continuing down the road to Mom’s. In the middle of the tree-lined block, a line of cars already stretched in front of the neat, one-story Tudor in Oak Cliff, where Carter, Nate, and I grew up.
I parked and took a deep breath before calling Anthony back. We exchanged greetings and pleasantries before he got down to what he wanted.
“When do you head back to California?”
With him, that was a casual question and good preparation for the inquisition I’d face from Mom in a few minutes. I was close to being late for brunch, which would spark her commentary about why I wasted money renting a place for my trips to town instead of staying with her like I used to.
“I don’t even want to know what you’re doing over there that you can’t do here,” she mumbled last month while giving me Olympic gold medal-worthy side eye over waffles.
Sadly, the answer was nothing, but admitting that would invite a lecture that was my ultimate kryptonite.
“Are you seeing someone I should know about? I want to meet him.”
No, and if I were, absolutely not. I didn’t bring guys home. My relationships were rarely serious enough to be worth the interrogation.
I turned up the volume on the dash, so I could better hear the phone connection through the car speakers. My cousin had asked a simple question.
“This week. One of the other nutrition instructors had to change her schedule, and I’m flying back to take her place.”
“Oh. Damn,” he murmured. “I was hoping we could all have dinner.”
“All? Who does that entail?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
“You. Nate. Carter and Nisha. Willa and Michael. Reese and, uh, Ty.” He stumbled over the name of his sister’s boyfriend and, as I suspected, his half-brother.
The branches of our family tree were more twisted than anyone imagined.
He continued. “I want everyone to get to know Sarah, and she’s, um, curious.”
“About what kind of family she’s just hitched her wagon to?” I snickered.
“Something like that. So far, this marriage thing has been nothing but surprises. Not all of them good.” He chuckled. “Most of them shitty, actually, and I thought a low-key family dinner might make everything seem more…normal.”
My brows knitted. “But everything is okay?”
“Yes. Finally. I think so. Sarah and I are officially relocating to Dallas. A fresh start for both of us. Someone needs to keep an eye on the house. Mom left. Dad’s…gone for a while.” Anthony let out a nervous laugh. That was one way to frame his father’s prison term. “We thought a dinner might be a good way to turn the page. Make some new, better memories here.”
“Count me in when I get back.”
“You know, we found more of your grandmother’s linens going through the butler’s closet. Tablecloths, napkins, all sorts of things. I saw the embroidery and checked for her initials, like you guys mentioned. Granddad and Grandmother Abigail had a collection. It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“I just wonder if your grandmother knew about my dad.”
“No one knows. She was always tight-lipped. But I was seven. What would she tell me?” He sighed. “Anyway, I told Carter and Nate they could take what they wanted. Same offer to you. They said you should pick first.”
We already had plenty of the items Grandma Etta used to make and sell through her design business. She’d even had a store in old South Dallas. Her business partners had their names on it. In the sixties, when she came to town, it would have been near impossible for a black woman to operate a housewares and design business, visiting the homes of most people who could afford the service. She did the work behind the scenes, and we had lots of her crafts to remember her by.
But I was curious what else of hers J.P. had. Anthony’s mom hosted a dinner last year, and I’d noticed the tablecloth was my grandmother’s. Stitched across the fabric were daffodils and deep red amaryllis—flowers that represent narcissism and unearned pride. Grandma Etta must have designed it especially for J.P., pointed message and all.
“I’m not sure I’ll want anything, but I’d love to see them. That and the dinner party will just have to wait a few weeks. Definitely by the July fourth. After the class this week, I’m sticking around for Gabe’s visit with Sofie.”
“Ah, that’s right. Her sweet sixteen birthday trip. He’s so nervous. I never knew teenage girls could be so scary.”
“When you were that age, you probably charmed them.” From what his sister told me, his ladies’ man reputation started early.
He laughed. “Not always, but I was never afraid.”
“You probably should have been.”
“Nah, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. Good thing, huh?”
“So things are really okay, then?” I ventured again.
“They will be. I talked to Dad again last week. He and I have never been better, strangely. And I talked to Ty. He sent me some pictures of our…of Hank. Pictures of him as a kid. In college. It’s hard to think how no one ever noticed the similarities before.”
“He wasn’t around much once you got older though. He was already in prison.”
Hank Bonham was an old friend of Theresa’s and Ken’s who worked at the Star family’s energy conglomerate until Ken and his conspirators framed him for their embezzlement.
“Mom accomplished quite a bit by getting him sent away and making sure Reese and Ty stayed away from each other. If Ty and I had been in more rooms together, maybe someone would have noticed our similarities sooner.”
“I dreaded bringing it up,” I confessed.
“Don’t feel bad. I finally know why Dad and I always had so much trouble. We can finally be honest with each other. It’s nice.” Anthony final upbeat neat made me feel better.
“And your mom?”
“She pretends we have nothing to discuss. It’s amazing. How do you act like lying to your kids about where they came from isn’t a big deal?”
I cast a glance at Mom’s doorstep. Hadn’t she and Grandma Etta done the same? They knew J.P. was Dad’s father, and they kept it a secret. She let us grow up thinking Thomas Cross was our grandfather, and since he died before any of us was born, we didn’t question it. None of us asked why the Crosses wanted little to do with us. We didn’t question why we never went to see them. We spent every holiday with Mom’s family, and the Williamses were our only people.
Since J.P.’s death, we knew the truth, but we hadn’t pressed Mom for answers. Grandma was already gone.
Having seen the Star family’s mess splattered in headlines over the years made it easy to accept the one answer we got. Grandma didn’t want us growing up with J.P. around because she thought it was too hard to straddle two worlds and not be accepted. It’s not like J.P. wanted to acknowledge us while he was alive.
In that way, as fearsome as everyone said he was, the man was a total coward.
Dad had been just as adamant about not telling us. Not that he had much opportunity. He died when I was so young I wouldn’t have understood anyway. Who tells their kids about being a secret baby between pouring us our Cheerios in the morning and making sure we brushed our teeth every night?
The ache of missing him still hit hard sometimes after all these years. I hated it—the missing him, the fading memories, the anger I felt at being abandoned even though I knew that wasn’t fair.
“It’s hard when the family you count on fails you,” I said.
“See. Y’all know what I’m talking about.”
“We do, but a grandfather isn’t the same as your father.”
Anthony grumbled in disagreement. “It’s all the same lies. Over and over. When I have kids, if nothing else, I’ll be honest with them.”
“Maybe we can be the first generation in the family without secrets.”
“Maybe.”
I glanced at the dash. I was now very late.
“I need to get inside. I just got to my mom’s. We’re doing an early Mother’s Day brunch since she wanted to go on a trip for the actual weekend.”
Carter, Nate, and I pitched in for Mom and her friends to go on a two-week Caribbean holiday, but she still wanted to get together. And she still insisted on cooking everything. “I just want your company,” she told us.
“I’ll let you go. I know how she hates people straggling in for her brunches,” Anthony said.
“I will definitely get stink eye.”
“How about the Saturday before the Fourth of July? Exact time and place TBD. We’ll do a family thing. Maybe Quinn and Ben can come down from Seattle,” he suggested.
“That would be fun. We hardly get to see her.”
His other sister escaped to the Pacific Northwest as soon as she turned eighteen and hardly came back. Given Quinn’s relationship with her family and everyone else’s troubles with J.P., Grandma Etta had probably been right to keep her secrets.
I had to believe she had her reasons. The clever, wise, upstanding woman I remembered always did.
***
I hustled to the door, and it flew open before I could ring the bell.
My older brother, Carter, stood there, shaking his head.
“What are you up to so late this morning?”
“Nothing. Shut up.”
I pushed past him, giving him an extra elbow for the self-appointed “man of the house” bossiness he’d had since Dad died when I was five and he was seven. These days, it was even worse because of our newly discovered inheritance and his role in securing it.
“Well, you better have your excuses ready. You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”
“I went to yoga this morning, and then went home. Sundays are supposed to be relaxing,” I reminded him.
Behind him, on the other side of the small living room, Mom entered the dining room from the kitchen beyond. She carried a steaming bowl and an air of annoyance.
“I try to have everything on the table hot. A running-late text throws everything off,” she said.
“I told you to start without me.”
Mom set the bowl down and met me on the other side of the table with an encircling hug. I squeezed her and laughed.
“I’m sorry. Happy early Mother’s Day. I fell asleep in the bath.”
She tsked and brushed a kiss on my cheek. “Just don’t drown. I don’t need that phone call from some stranger because you’re over there by yourself. Sit. Eat. I’ve been up since five and made it to church this morning.”
I turned to the small bar next to the table and started a coffee with her automated machine. Carter’s fiancé, Nisha, gave me a quick hug, and spoke in low tones obscured from the rest of the party by the buzzing and whizzing. “I can’t imagine why you want your own space.”
“They mean well.”
“I know. It’s nice to have people who care,” she insisted, although even she sounded a little stressed.
My future sister-in-law was in the thick of planning her fall wedding. I could only imagine how many conflicting opinions she had to juggle.
“That’s what I tell myself. Otherwise, I’ll need even more therapy.” I snickered and took my hot mug to the table.
My baby brother, Nate, strode in from the kitchen with a tray of mimosas and gave me a chin bob hello. Once we all had our beverages and seats, Carter called everyone’s attention.
“I just wanted to say a little something,” he began. “Mother’s Day isn’t until next week, but since Mom leaves Tuesday for her vacation—”
“Sitting on a beach with a cocktail will be the best way to celebrate,” Mom interrupted.
“It’ll be hard to get to St. Barts in a hurry, so you ladies better stay out of trouble. Bail money may take a while,” Nate joked.
Mom had invited her close friends on her Mother’s Day trip. Ingrid and Annette were from church. Deena, an old friend from high school, and Martha, a widow and new neighbor, lived down the street. When we asked her what she wanted for Mother’s Day this year, she’d balked at our usual crowded restaurant luncheon or taking a trip with us.
It made sense. We saw her all the time. She had us over at least once or twice a month on Sundays. A trip was more special.
“Beach, food, and shopping are all we have planned. I’d worry about yourself,” she replied and shoved a basket of biscuits at him.
“Anyway, I wanted to say happy Mother’s Day in advance,” Carter continued with a sigh.
“Thank you. But you kids chipping in for our fabulous rental is enough of a present. I can’t wait!” She grinned, eyes alight.
“You’re welcome. And thank you for brunch and everything else you’ve done since we were born,” I added, raising my coffee mug. “A trip is hardly anything by comparison.”
“It’s plenty—especially since you helped so much with our planning. The other ladies are so excited. Enough fuss.” She frowned at Carter. “Let’s eat.”
Since I’d done wellness retreats throughout the Caribbean, I helped Mom and her friends research where to go. They wanted beautiful, quiet beaches, luxe shopping, and fantastic food, and St. Barts sounded perfect. Carter, Nate, and I paid for the rental and for a private chef to cook for them twice a day.
“We like fussing over you,” Nisha replied.
My future sister-in-law didn’t have much of a relationship with her mother, so our mom had adopted Nisha into the Cross family. We all had. I finally had a sister. She balanced out Carter’s big-man-on-campus bluster with her pragmatic presence and gave me sympathetic looks when he got overbearing. Nisha was a master at keeping him in line.
She also helped rein in Nate and his…Nate-ness. He was getting too old and, admittedly, mature to dismiss as my pesky, flaky little brother. However, family dynamics didn’t change so easily, and he embraced his role as the happy-go-lucky baby of the family, instigator, and court jester. You had to dig sometimes to find the responsible adult Nate who worked as an engineer and ran a science and tech training academy for teens.
Mom mumbled her thanks to everyone and turned to me.
“When do you go back to California? I can’t keep track.”
“Wednesday. I have a slate of workshops starting. Nina and I are co-teaching about nutrition, movement, and meditation at the wellness center,” I said, referring to my business partner, Nina Fauset. She was a personal trainer and yoga teacher I met when I was in college in California. Nina and her husband owned Enchanted Oaks.
After the seven years since I quit my family medicine practice, Mom no longer looked confused when I talked about my career. I still used my medical training, but she worried I’d never pay off my med school loans and end up broke. I did just fine—if not as fine as she’d dreamed when I went to medical school. She had notions of me becoming a world-famous brain surgeon or a researcher who won a Nobel Prize.
When I quit traditional medicine to lecture and teach as a holistic health expert, she worried. “Your great aunt was a healer, and it didn’t cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars in school bills.”
I heard that a hundred times.
Thankfully, she didn’t say it anymore. I even convinced her and Ingrid to fly out for a somatic yoga retreat last year.
“Your workshop sounds interesting. Is it a week-long class?” Nisha asked.
“Five half-day sessions. The rest of the time, people can take other classes, hike, hit the spa, whatever they want,” I said.
“Is that what Gabe is doing?” Carter turned up his nose. “I don’t see him doing down dogs and in between pedicures and spa treatments.”
Gabe Hunter was head of geology and now also land management under Carter at J.P. Star Energy, the oil and gas company founded by the billionaire grandfather we never knew. He died a little more than a year ago. Gabe was also Reese’s and Anthony’s cousin. Or Reese’s, anyway. My mind tripped again over the reminder. Still, hyper-rational Gabe was sort of family. Her dad and Gabe’s were brothers.
“It’s not his choice. He’s doing this for his daughter, and she signed him up for all kinds of things.” I chuckled. “A class on intuitive tarot card reading. Elemental yoga with each session focused on earth, air, fire, or water. I can’t wait to meet the new spiritually awakened Gabe. Or at least the one who knows how to relax.”
“Gabe’s not a relaxation guy,” Carter countered. “You may have to slip him something.”
“He works too much. Reminds me of someone else I know.” Nisha kicked her fiancé’s foot.
As co-CEO with Reese, Carter worked long hours and hardly ever took a full day off. For now. The calendar he kept in his home office bore bold red X’s where he counted down the days until he’d fulfilled our grandfather’s will—two years working as CEO and then he’d be free. In the downtime he scratched out, Carter could kick back as much as anyone. Gabe grumbled with suspicion at anything freewheeling or imaginative.
I frowned over my plate of scrambled eggs and cheesy hash brown casserole.
Maybe I wasn’t being fair. Gabe was nice—when he wasn’t poking fun at my career or the foundational belief system of my existence. Grumpy and faithless. That was Gabe.
There I went. Being harsh again.
He wasn’t always grumpy. In his best moments, he had a dry sense of humor and cleverness that made me smile.
“I look forward to showing them around. Plus, watching Gabe try to sort swords from wands in the tarot class might be the highlight of the month,” I said.
My little brother smirked. “You seem real excited to see him hot under the collar. Very Queen of Swords. He better watch out.”
He wiggled his brows at me, but I ignored him. “Since when are you a tarot expert?”
“Please. I dated a girl in college who didn’t sneeze until she pulled cards in the morning. They were on the money about some stuff. Like when we pulled cards about our relationship and it was all swords and the Devil and sh—” Nate stopped, catching himself as Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Stuff. She was something else.”
I laughed. “Crushin’ and cupcakin’, were you?”
“Head was spinning. But so was she.” Nate tilted his head around and around, laughing.
I dropped my fork, almost gagging. Carter pretended to be outraged, but covered his wide smile with his napkin.
Mom shook her head. “I don’t like that tarot business. You have to be careful playing with that mess.”
“Does that mean you believe in it?” I teased.
“It means stick to prayer, and you don’t have to worry,” Mom advised. “Just like you don’t have to worry if you do your thinking above the shoulders instead of below the waist.”
She glared at Nate, who shrugged and looked down at his waffle. Nisha darted her eyes around the table and cleared her throat.
“It sounds like you’re going to keep an eye on Gabe while he’s out there.” Her voice was even and her face impassive, but that didn’t fool me.
“He picked Enchanted Oaks because when he mentioned where I worked to his daughter, she said she wanted to go,” I replied with a quelling look.
“It’s interesting that he was talking about you with his daughter,” Nisha said.
“She’s into this kind of thing,” I replied, pretending I didn’t catch her implications. “And I want to make sure they have a good time.”
She smirked. “Uh huh. I’m sure you’ll give him a good time.”
Nate added on. “Gabe does enjoy your company. You two got real cozy at Reese’s birthday party a few months ago.”
Mom perked up. “Really? I’ve only met him twice, but he seems nice. Is he?”
I stifled my annoyance when she turned to Carter, not me, for an answer.
“He’s smart. Hardworking. Honest,” my brother answered. “Jasmine could do worse—and has.”
“Worse as what? A guest at the resort?” My cheeks heated.
My relationship—friendship—with Gabe didn’t warrant this much conversation.
He and I had nothing in common except a handful of family-centered interactions, and while I might otherwise find him attractive—broad-shouldered, fit, dark eyes, and thick black hair—every conversation ended in an argument with that man. He meant well, but Gabe wasn’t my person. Thankfully. What a lifetime of frustration that would be.
“You should invite him to brunch. I’d like to get to know him,” Mom offered.
Oh, hell.
“Why would I invite one of Carter’s employees to brunch?”
Mom reached for the mimosa pitcher, keeping me in the corner of her eye. Somehow, her sideways looks had even more intensity than if she stared right at you.
“You can invite a friend. It’s been a long time since I’ve met one of your special friends.”
The sudden escalation to “special” had me too shook to answer.
“Not since…” Nate’s sentence faded away under the heavy glares from Mom and Carter.
Twenty years later, and they still tiptoed around mentioning Tommy, my college boyfriend, as if saying his name might conjure him back into my life.
I poured myself a mimosa, swirling the bubbles and remembering how quickly dreams could rise and vanish. Tommy Kent and I were hip shackled at frat parties, football games, and late nights at my apartment for two and a half years. Then, as spring semester of my senior year at Berkeley approached, he invited me to his place, hinting that he had something important to discuss.
I assumed he was going to propose.
Nope.
The discussion was less of a discussion and more of a pronouncement. Tommy got a great job offer in London and was moving there right after graduation. I fumbled through a protest about how I was starting medical school. I couldn’t move to London.
Then he’d shrugged and said the worst thing.
“I figured we’d just do long distance or whatever.”
Or whatever. That’s what I was to him.
One minute, I was expecting a diamond, and the next, I was watching him board a plane, my heart shattering with each step he took away from me.
Okay, not the next. He left months later.
Long distance lasted until he met a gorgeous Nigerian borderline supermodel with a degree from Cambridge at work. My devastation lasted until the stress of med school crowded out all other emotions. The crushing busyness of school and my residency distracted me from thinking about Tommy for years.
When I finally stopped to breathe, it came roaring back, and I saw how much of my life was distraction and people pleasing. I’d ventured so far away from myself to keep from feeling disposable in the face of Tommy dumping me for a new life.
Busy also meant I had excuses to avoid the pitying looks of my family. I loved them. They loved me—adored me, really. Being the only girl had its upside.
But especially then, they treated me like a delicate, damaged creature, waiting to be fixed by new love. They were more sure that was a solution than I was. I’d dodged a lot of cocky asshole bullets since Tommy and learned to be discerning.
I wanted something real, something that resonated in my soul and planted itself so securely it left no room for doubt.
Maybe I was waiting for a sign—a whisper from the universe to my spirit that said, “This one. This is safe.” Security with a little magic.
Gabe was a secure type, for sure, but magic was even less of his thing than relaxation.
“Gabe and I are friends. That’s all there is to it.”
“He doesn’t have to be that kind of friend for you to have him over,” Mom said.
A sharp why died in my throat. Today was about honoring her, not arguing with her. So I grabbed a biscuit and shut the hell up, hoping my obvious irritation meant everyone else would do the same.
“He’s crushing on Jazz. That’s why they bicker so much,” Carter taunted with a smirk.
I fucking hated my brothers sometimes. Nate had the shit-stirrer reputation, but our self-satisfied older brother was just as bad.
“You’ve finally fallen in love, and now you see crushes and love matches everywhere. I never knew you were such a romantic.” I slapped a chunk of butter on my biscuit so hard it crumbled, mushing the pieces together, and stuffed a creamy, doughy bite into my mouth.
“Crushes are for children. The way Gabe looks at you is very adult,” Nate said, enunciating the last word with provocative flourish.
“Does he now?” Mom flashed me a smile. “He’s very handsome. He’s got those Latin-Mediterranean kind of good looks. I know his father is Reese’s uncle, but is his mother Italian or Spanish or something?”
“She was born in Mexico, but she grew up here in Texas,” I said.
“Maybe you should give him a chance.” Mom’s tone had a worried edge. She never pressured me to get married, but she also didn’t know why I “insisted on going it alone.” In reality, I avoided introducing her to prospects because she got her hopes up and thought every relationship needed to have forever as a goal.
She was a romantic. I don’t know how she raised three commitment-avoidant kids like me, Nate, and Carter—though Carter was finally about to marry. And it only took him forty years.
“I’m not dating Gabe. He’s not my type. Can you imagine dating a guy fresh off a divorce with a moody teenage daughter? No, thanks. I’ll pass on that mess. Now pass the potato casserole.”
Nisha lifted the Pyrex and handed it down. Mom shook her index finger at me.
“All relationships have their challenges. That’s no reason to close your heart to possibilities.” The maternal pushing flowed out in a melody, but I nearly choked.
“How did this turn into a relationship? I’m just helping him plan a trip for his daughter’s birthday.”
Nate leaned in with a grin. “Gabe is interested in more than your ‘organizational skills.’”
His finger quotes earned him my worst glare, but Mom kept pressing her case.
“So you don’t think he’s handsome?”
I took a deep breath and huffed.
“We are incompatible.” I drew out the words syllable by syllable, so that even my annoying family could understand.
Carter cracked his knuckles. “I don’t know. Nate’s right. I see the way Gabe looks at you. I’m this close to knocking in that pretty boy face of his.”
“The caveman brother thing is a few decades out of date. I’m thirty-seven. I can handle myself. Drop it.” I barked at him with a snort and a mouth full of biscuit, both of which earned me a tsking from Mom.
“Last I checked, you were raised right here in this house, not a barn.”
I turned back to Carter and Nisha. “How’s the wedding planning going, you two?”
Nisha shot me a filthy look, but turnabout was fair play. She started us down this silly road about me and Gabe. Even if I were interested in him, the ink on Gabe’s divorce papers was only about two years old. And I got the feeling his marital issues lingered.
I didn’t need to chase some uptight, judgy guy with baby mama drama.
As soon as the thought popped into my head, I felt bad.
Harsh again.
But I needed those reminders that he and I didn’t suit more than I would admit.
Because he was pretty damned hot. I could tell he was attracted to me. But just because two attractive people recognized that in each other didn’t mean they had chemistry, our constant bickering notwithstanding.
When he first asked for my help to organize his trip, I thought it meant he was opening up, and his intense desire to connect with his daughter was sweet. If anything, he’d become even more of a curmudgeon throughout the process.
He was coming to California for his daughter, not a rendezvous.
“Everything will work out as it’s meant to be,” Mom said soothingly. She stood up and patted my shoulder as she rounded the table on her way to the kitchen. “While you’re making sure he has a good time, you should enjoy yourself too.”
I would. I always made sure I had fun, but starting up a romance wasn’t on my to-do list.
***