The Patriot A Small Town Romance - Jennifer Millikin Page 0,34
live in Sierra Grande for the foreseeable future. As nerve-wracking as it all is, I’m excited. I love living with Abby, but I need my own space. I need to stand on my own two feet, and she doesn’t need the added stress of taking care of her wayward little sister anymore.
I’m digging through my purse for house keys when I see the late notices I’d stuffed in there before we left a few days ago. It’s a sad fact of life that most problems follow you no matter where you go.
Dad drops me off and I walk into the house, finding Abby in the kitchen, also known as her happy place.
“Hi.” She has her back to me and she’s sliding a tray of brownies out of the oven. “For me?” I ask over her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have.”
She blocks me with her side and shakes her head. “They need to cool. Welcome back, by the way.” She slides the pan onto the top of the stove. “I got a call for you yesterday,” she says, turning around and laying her big sister look on me. “A bill collector.”
Which one? I keep the question to myself. She doesn’t know how I spend my money. I’m sure she’s confused about what I’m doing with what I earn. Certainly not using it to pay her rent.
“I’ll take care of it,” I answer in what I hope is a nonchalant way. “Probably something of Barrett’s that lists me as a contact.”
The answer works. She drops it and asks, “How was Sierra Grande?”
I take a seat at the kitchen island and fold my feet underneath me. “Good.” I picture Wes’s face. “And weird. By the way, Dad says he wants to come over to visit tomorrow.”
Abby nods and sticks a finger in the glass bowl with the brownie batter stuck to the sides. “Weird how?” She puts her finger in her mouth and passes the bowl to me.
I do the same as her and lick my finger clean. “Is that healthy?” I ask, pointing at the mostly-empty bowl.
“I’m not telling,” she singsongs.
I peer around her at the counter and spot a can of black beans. “For real?”
“Shush. You’d never know it unless you know it.” She turns on the water in the sink and rinses her hands. “Now, tell me why Sierra Grande was weird.”
“It wasn’t the town that was weird so much as the client Dad and I met with.”
“Six fingers on one hand?” she guesses.
“No.” I laugh.
“Warts on his lips?”
“Ew.” I make a face. “Stop guessing, you’re terrible at it.”
She shrugs. “Continue.”
“I had a one-night stand with him a long time ago.” According to Wes, it was not a one-night stand, but I beg to differ.
Abby’s eyes become the size of dinner plates and her arms flap at her sides. “Lake Guy?”
She’s the only person who knows about Wes. And after I told her, I tried to forget about it myself.
“Yeah,” I say, the word drawn out. “So, we’re buying the land and Dad wants me to oversee the development.”
Abby turns serious. “From here, you mean?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to move there temporarily to work.”
“Why don’t you sound excited? Is it Lake Guy?”
When she calls him Lake Guy, it makes me think of a merman emerging from the water with seaweed dangling from his body. “Wes. His name is Wes.”
She nods slowly, as if she approves of the name. “Okay, is it Wes? Are you still attracted to him?”
I nod. It’s amazing how that one small motion can confirm something that feels like it could swallow me whole.
“Are you going to start something?”
My head shakes. “He’s guarded. It seems like he keeps everyone away. Besides, you know how I feel about men.”
She makes a face. Barrett lives in her recent memory just as he does mine.
I tap the center of my bottom lip, thinking. “There’s something else about him, though. Like there’s a current running underneath everything. Like he’s a string pulled taut.”
“Wes is a military veteran, right?”
I blink, surprised she remembered that detail. “Yeah.”
“Have you considered that he might have PTSD?”
I think back to the night I spent with him, how he opened up just the tiniest amount and his emotions came rushing out. I wonder how much he keeps inside, stuffed to capacity, making it so he cannot take on anything else.
Abby’s suggestion rolls around in my mind. “Maybe…”
“When you’re around him, do you get a feeling? A sense?”