Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,65
that same regret on her face now, and wondered what damage she’d left in her wake this time.
Our older brother was a gentle, patient man. Dad had had the highest expectations for his only son, the firstborn. The successor. He’d been hard on Walker. Yet Walker had somehow emerged with a sense of humor and a soft spot for his three sisters.
Over and over again, I’d warned Tavia not to exploit that kindness.
She never listened. Never.
“What happened?”
The waiter appeared with a platter of grilled eggplant and we ordered entrees. I noted Tavia somehow managed to look smaller during that time.
“I made a move without telling him,” she admitted.
I stirred my iced tea. “Again?”
“Are you going to listen or not?”
“Go ahead.”
“You know that industrial property, right on the edge of town? The original owners foreclosed on it, and the lien is held by one of our Knoxville-based competitors.”
“Okay . . .”
“And I’d already been eying it, so when I got word that they were doing a silent bid—”
“Tavia. You didn’t. Without telling Walker?”
She hung her head. “I know I shouldn’t have. But I already knew what he would say, and I didn’t want to waste time trying to explain—”
“How much?” I raised a brow at her silence. “That bad?”
She named a figure that made me whistle.
“How could you?”
She dipped a pita point into the eggplant. “It’s done now. I won’t know if mine was the winning bid until around a week or so from now. And if it is, well . . . We’re in business. He’ll come to see my point and he’ll eventually agree I was right. Now, we just have to move forward. Will you help me, get him to start speaking to me again?”
A month ago, before Nick had reappeared, I likely would have handled things differently. But at that moment, already flattened under exhaustion, worry, and fear, there wasn’t room to swallow another emotion.
“No. I will not help you manipulate our brother. I’m not the referee or the clean-up crew. Figure it out on your own.”
Tavia gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh, so you decide to retire from your lifelong stint as the bridge builder now? When it’s really bad, when I’m in this deep? I didn’t know it was an option to bail on your family.”
“You’re not acting like family, and if you think ‘family’ means anyone can just make asshole, dictatorial decisions that affect everyone else, maybe you need to keep your distance from Walker.”
I realized I’d raised my voice only when the couple in the adjoining booth turned to look back at us.
Tavia’s head pulled back as if I’d slapped her. We glared at each other in silence.
Tavia broke eye contact first, wrapping her arms around herself. Her jaw jutted, her dimpled chin gained prominence, and I marveled not for the first time how much she was like our father. She was the spitting image of him, yes, but she shared his strength of will and stubbornness. I’d never been successful at connecting with either of them, not in a profound way. Would it always be like this? Would my sister, my twin, always be a stranger to me?
“Tavia—”
“I’m not wrong to want more than this,” she hissed, gesturing vaguely around the restaurant, and I knew she was referring to Knoxville, Green Valley, and beyond. Some extraordinary emotion took over face, briefly distorting her features as her shoulders fell inward.
Love and empathy for my difficult, headstrong sister filled my chest and stung the back of my eyes. Maybe we weren’t all that different after all. I understood her in that moment, recognized myself and my own yearnings in her plaintive appeal. I wanted more too, I realized, albeit in a very different way. It seemed we were both trapped.
“Tavia—”
“I’m not you, Zora, and I don’t want to be. You want to fight the world so that others can get a chance at a piece of it. Well, I know better, and I’m fighting for myself, for my own share, for more than my share if I can help it. For me. And no one’s getting in the way of that. Not even my brother.”
I examined her fierce expression, the gentle flare of her nostrils, the fierce grip of her fists on the table and gentled my voice. I loved my sister and admired her naked ambition, even if it was jagged-edged and bled everyone around her dry. How could you not appreciate the sheer will it took to purse something with such a single-minded