Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,5

why doesn’t just one of us settle down already.

Fletch is shoveling meatloaf into his mouth while Forrest sneaks looks at his cell phone in his lap. Bowen is being typical Bowen, looking angrily off into space as if the whole world has offended him.

“I had to retrieve a pair of pink underwear from a dog’s butt today,” I say, hoping to break the tension.

Almost everyone at the table lets out a laugh, and I launch into the story, welcoming the hilarious distraction.

The only thing I leave out is the saucy redhead who won’t seem to leave my thoughts.

4

Presley

“Girl, how do you even have a high school diploma?”

Grandma chides me as she rips the packaging envelope from my hands, shaking her head so that the white-gray curls cut close to her scalp bounce.

“I’m just getting used to the machine, that’s all,” I grumble, chastising myself on top of her insult.

Working a postage machine shouldn’t be this hard, but I’ve never used one and Grandma’s teaching about any process is usually one clipped sentence that makes no sense. Thus, I’m left to figure almost everything out on my own, which ends in mistakes and her criticism.

This won’t work for long since the whole reason I moved to Fawn Hill was to take a majority of the responsibility at McDaniel’s Books & Post. Grandma had started the shop with my grandfather when they were newly married at the age of eighteen, back when you couldn’t buy books on the Internet or print out your own packing slips. The store doubled as both a place to buy novels and a center for all shipping, mailing, copying and any other business needs. Honestly, the concept was kind of genius, and McDaniel’s was the only post office in a twenty-five-mile radius, so Grandma did well for herself.

Until this fall when the doctor diagnosed her with debilitating glaucoma. She’d had an operation, after which my dad, her son, had come to town to care for her. But the surgery hadn’t worked like they’d hoped it would, and she was essentially losing more of her vision daily. She needed someone to help her out at home and in the shop. I don’t know what made me volunteer one random afternoon when Dad had called to ask how my, multiple, jobs were going, but I had.

Maybe I’d needed an out from my crappy life in New York. Maybe I needed to prove something to my family … that they could count on me. Maybe I wanted to spend more time with the grandmother who’d been so much of a mystery to me growing up.

Either way, here I was. With said grandmother bossing me around as I messed up time after time in her store.

The bell over the door jingled, and a petite woman with dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, and a kind smile walked to the counter holding a small package.

“Hello, how can I help you?” I asked her.

Grandma came bustling out of the back supply room, her sturdy, thin body hustling around. “Oh, Eliza, hello!”

The woman who had just walked in, Eliza I guess, smiled wider. “Hattie! Good to see you, how are you feeling?”

“Well, those damn doctors keep trying to off me, but here I am. And if this one would learn quicker, I’d be able to retire.” Grandma rolled her eyes at me.

My blood pressure shot up. No one said anything about her retiring since my stay here wasn’t permanent. But hell … what did I think? I couldn’t just help for a while and think her blindness was going to reverse itself. Yet, I hadn’t thought about it until this very moment.

Was I really going to stay and live my life in Fawn Hill?

“This must be your granddaughter. I’d heard she was in town but haven’t had the pleasure yet. Hi, I’m Eliza Nash, it’s so nice to meet you.”

Nash, huh? I studied her as she set her package down on the counter between us. Yes, she did look like him. The eyes mostly, but the man I’d met almost a week ago must be her son.

“Presley McDaniel, it’s nice to meet you.” I smiled back.

Small-town niceness was slowly working its way into my blood.

“Eliza here has four boys; all live in town. You met her oldest, the vet, Dr. Nash, when Chance ate your underwear the other day.” Grandma pats me on the back.

Eliza lets out a laugh. “That was Chance? I should have suspected, the troublemaker. Keaton told us about that over Friday night