Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,128

for just the two of them and compared to all the other homes in Fawn Hill; it was obnoxious. They’d knocked down the previous home on the lot and built this McMansion. Of course, there were other large homes in Fawn Hill, but they fit the landscape. My parent’s home just looked like a politician’s Stepford dream.

My mother deserved for cleaners to come in after everything she’d been through … the cancer treatments had worked but left her body a shell of its former self, even in remission. But I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t disappointed in how she’d allowed my father to transform her from a hard-working, small-town woman with a backbone to a politician’s wife. It seemed that she cared more about dinner parties and campaign rallies than she did about living her own life. Part of me wishes that my parents were still the humble, ambitious, bright-eyed innocents who lived in that ranch.

“Oh, come off it, Lily, I know you were seen canoodling with Bowen at the wedding. The town has practically been foaming at the mouth for two weeks.”

And there it is. I’ve been waiting for this moment since the morning I snuck out of Bowen’s hotel room, checking if the coast was clear like some sort of turncoat spy.

I sigh. “Yes … it was … we had a lot of drinks, Mom.”

“Oh, I call bullcrap. You’ve been lighter than air lately, stood up to your father at a charity dinner, have barely returned my calls for weeks, and now you’re seen kissing your ex-boyfriend at his brother’s wedding? You’re in love, my dear. And I couldn’t be happier!”

She claps her hands together like some kind of fairy godmother turning my pumpkin into a carriage. The glee on her face makes me kind of giddy if only for the fact that I love to see her jubilant any time now. My mother deserves it.

And now that she’s caught me, there isn’t much sense in denying it any further.

I hold my hands up, trying to rein in her excitement just a tad. “Okay, okay … we’ve been seeing each other, but—”

“Oh, I knew it! I’m a happy mama, that’s for sure. When can we have him over for dinner?” I can tell by her expression that she’s already scheming.

“Mom, please slow down. It’s early, and there is … you know the history. We’re taking things slow.”

“Slow? Honey, you’re nearly thirty. It’s time to bag that boy for good and give me some grandbabies.”

I slap my palm to my forehead. “This is why I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“Tell her what?” Dad enters the kitchen, all business in a navy striped suit.

“Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t think you’d be home for lunch. What can I fix you?” Immediately, Mom rises from her seat and goes to the fridge.

“Do we have any of the leftover meatloaf? I’ll take a plate of that. Thanks, darling.” Dad kisses her cheek as he passes her and heads toward me to take a seat at the kitchen table. “Now, what weren’t you telling your mother?”

I’m about to open my mouth when Mom beats me to the punch. “She and Bowen are dating again! Oh, Eric, I could just float I’m so happy!”

Mom is busy fussing around on the other side of the kitchen, but I’m sitting right across from my father. I see the way his face darkens, how his eyebrows furrow together and his jaw sets with a hard click.

“Is that right?” He nods slowly, his cold, blue eyes focusing on me.

There is something in his expression that has the hair on my arms pricking up, and my heart beating into my throat in a nauseous manner. That feeling of dread, of sick fear, right before something terrible is about to happen … it fills the air of my kitchen, unbeknownst to my mother. Only I’m privy to it, this primal anger rolling off my father.

In a flash, it’s gone, replaced by the smarmy, fake nice politician’s smile I’ve become so accustomed to. “Well, honey, that’s great. How did you two get back together? When?”

Something in my gut tells me not to reveal too many details. I’ve never felt this many alarm bells going off in my head, and heck, this is my father. It’s just … I saw something in him seconds before. Something almost … evil. I’ve never had that much split-second intuition in my life, but now I know what it feels like.

“Oh, it’s not an uncommon story. Mutual