The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,27

of overwhelming paternal affection, I don’t know what is.

Flashing the security guard the special clearance badge I’ve been issued as the Major’s daughter, I’m waved through the gate and onto the Joint Air Force Base on the outskirts of Charleston. My father is a military lifer, born and bred. He enlisted the second he turned eighteen, and I don’t think he’s ever wanted to know anything else in life. He met my mother in his early twenties when he was stationed in Tampa. She was fresh out of high school and married him right away instead of going on to college.

After they had Ross and I, the Major moved us around the country a lot. We rarely stayed in one city longer than two years. I’ve only lived in Charleston since my junior year of high school, and I was determined to make a life for myself here after I graduated. It just so happens that the Major was offered a cushy gig at the Joint Base around that time, so he and Mom decided to make Charleston their permanent home base, as well.

Truth? I don’t really know my father. Like, at all.

I barely know my mother.

But my brother and I couldn’t be closer.

I love Ross so much, I have no idea how I would have survived my childhood under the Major’s roof if it wasn’t for him. Which is why when Ross enlisted in the Navy at nineteen, I wanted to hate him. I went a little batshit teenager crazy on him, screaming that he was going to end up just like our father—a cold, emotionless cyborg. I ranted and raved that he was carelessly abandoning me, all because he didn’t want to disappoint the Major. Everyone knew he had expected Ross to go military at some point.

Thankfully, my panic and hysteria were just by-products of adolescent hormones.

Ross is nothing like the Major.

He had just been wading through the limbo of uncertainty back then. Hadn’t yet figured out what he wanted to do with his life and had joined the Navy to at least get his college paid for while he did. Turns out, he actually liked what the Navy had to offer. He completed his term of service and now works for the Charleston Coast Guard.

I let myself into my parents’ two-story, cookie-cutter house that looks identical to every other house on the street. Their nine-year-old Australian terrier, Luna, eagerly greets me at the door, nails clacking on the hardwood floor, tail wagging excitedly.

“Hey, girl,” I coo, scratching behind her ears. “Mom stuffed you full of roast yet?”

Since she isn’t passed out on her pillow that’s the size of an innertube with her tongue lolling, I’m guessing not.

“Gretch, that you?” Ross calls from the kitchen.

I shrug out of my jacket and hang it on the coat rack. “Yeah!”

“Would you please get in here and convince Mom that I’m actually capable of stirring the gravy? Since apparently there’s nothing else I can be trusted with.”

I enter the kitchen, holding the pumpkin roll I bring every year. It’s literally the only dessert I can make successfully. I figure if I can bake just one thing amazingly well, it’s better than being mediocre at a bunch of others.

“After last year with the cranberries, I can’t say I blame her,” I say dryly.

Ross’s head whips around to me. “They boiled over once, and a tiny bit spilled onto the stove.”

“The smoke alarms went off, Ross.”

“And did anything catch on fire? I don’t think so.”

I catch Mom’s eye. “Well, I’m sold. Let’s just let him cook the whole meal.”

Mom nods as she cuts up sweet potatoes on the butcher’s block. “As long as you didn’t bring your appetite with you, I think that’ll work.”

Ross stomps across the kitchen, scowling. With that expression he looks exactly like his father’s son. Dark complexion that never has to see the sun. Curly, black hair. And the same shape of narrowed, brown eyes, though the color is from our mother.

“Why don’t I just go crack a beer and watch the Major grill outside?” Ross snipes.

I point at him. “That you excel at. Stick with what you know.”

He grabs said beer out of the fridge and kisses the top of my head on his way out the back door to join our father at the grill where he’s smoking the turkey like he does every year. I just had dinner with Ross last weekend, but he always greets me like that, no matter how much time has passed