View With Your Heart (Heart Collection #5) - L.B. Dunbar Page 0,5
the decisions I made. He swore he never would, so I broke our relationship. At one time, he was my hero. He gave me the confidence to stand on a mound and pitch a ball. He taught me how to hold a bat and swing for dreams. When those dreams died, and I made a life choice to do something different, he didn’t want to understand.
Once past our greeting, I’m not sure what to say next or where to even start a conversation with my parents. It’s a reason I wanted the public location versus my mother’s invitation to the house.
“Gavin?” The call of my name again turns my head toward my younger brother, Ethan. Jesus, even he looks different. Then again, being over thirty and falling in love are bound to do things to a man. My brother and I embrace hard, slapping one another on the back. Speaking of hero worship, my brother worshipped me at one time. He was just as athletic as I was, maybe even better, but didn’t put his heart into it as I had. He didn’t want to be second best and always compared to me, so he played mediocrely. He didn’t get a scholarship because he never had the grades and he dropped out of college eventually.
He was living his dream now, though, and that’s all that mattered.
“E, you look amazing.” I hold his shoulders while I scan up and down his body. He’s taller than me by an inch or two and has filled out just as much. His hair is wild and wavy, like mine, which I keep shorter on the sides and controlled with gel on top. He even sports the same scruff. Everyone always said our eyes match, but Ethan’s are a shade lighter than mine. I have my dad’s eyes—deep, dark, puzzling.
“Gavin, meet Ella.” Ethan steps aside, and I meet a woman with vibrant red hair, lush and wavy, cascading around her shoulders. She also has a wicked scar on the right side of her face. I’d been warned, but nothing prepares me enough for the horror of it. I can’t take my eyes off the puckered, red skin, and then I do an awkward thing of looking away and back and away again.
“Don’t stare,” Ethan hisses, but Ella grins.
“It’s okay.” She holds my eyes as if she knows it’s difficult while rude, and my cheeks heat. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
“I’m Gavin,” I awkwardly restate, and she giggles. Without thinking, I cup her shoulders and lean in for a kiss on her left cheek. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Same,” she says. Her cheeks flush while she smiles. Ethan steps up to his girl, wraps a protective arm around her, and kisses her temple, right above her scar.
“Don’t fall for his charm,” he warns, keeping his lips to her head.
“And they’d differ from yours?” She laughs as she keeps her eyes on me, and I see in her expression how she’s completely enraptured with Ethan. He’s equally smitten with her.
“Let’s sit,” Ethan states, and I’m so grateful for his lead. I follow him to a table in the back corner. A fireplace, which isn’t lit, has a beautiful painting hanging over it of a man and woman dancing on a dock. It feels appropriate for a restaurant located only a few miles from a beach.
The process of ordering meals follows with casual conversation. I’m asked about the festival. I ask about the farm. My dad’s face twitches. He makes snide remarks, but my mother’s been holding his hand under the table. I’m assuming it’s like a Taser, warning him with continual squeezes not to say something he’ll regret.
Too late. Too much was said long ago.
Ethan talks about his restaurant. It’s been open since April, and I apologize again for missing the opening. I have to count back the months mentally to recall where I was last spring. The truth is, I just couldn’t bring myself to come home, but over the next two weeks, I have a purpose for being here.
Ella tells me about her new clothing line and retail store in our small town. I already know she pitched to New York design houses but then remained local. I don’t understand that decision, but it’s not my business, so to each her own.
“I designed your mother’s scarf,” Ella states, and I glance over at Mum’s head wrap. It’s pretty, but my heart squeezes as the reality of why she’s wearing it hits me