he been wrong? Had she been telling the truth the entire time? He’d spent his life imagining the worst, prepping for disaster, knowing before anyone else in the room what was going to happen next. It was the only way to protect himself and Web from a chaotic world where no one answered why. Bad shit just happened, end of story. He couldn’t have gotten it wrong. Not this time. Not when it mattered this much.
Then why can’t you sleep at night, dumbass?
“Damn, you look like shit,” Web said as he walked into Will’s office like he hadn’t been ignoring his twin for the past week.
“What, you’re talking to me again?” Will asked.
Web shrugged and plopped down in one of the two leather chairs in front of Will’s desk. “I figured you’ve had enough time to sit and marinate in your own idiocy and were ready to go grovel to Hadley.”
Grovel? Why in the hell would he do that?
Because you were a class-A dick.
“And to think people consider you the nice one,” he said.
“There’s more to me than a pretty face and my naturally charming personality.”
As if he wasn’t well-aware of that. While the rest of the world saw this one-dimensional nice-guy version of Web, he knew his brother too well for that. Their parents’ death and how their grandmother raised them had left their marks on Web, too—he was just better about hiding them. Will, however, knew his twin’s control-freak, manipulating ways all too well.
“You know, one of these days, your natural inclination to be way too interested in things that are not your business is going to get you in trouble.”
“Maybe, but not today,” Web shot back. “Hadley is my best friend. You’re my brother. And I know where she’s going to be tonight.”
All week, it had taken everything Will had not to go to Hadley’s apartment—yeah, he’d done a Google search—drop in to check on her, get another look at that smile…or more likely hear her curse him out. He’d even gone so far as to have a cab drive him down her street. Pathetic? Fuck yes, but he wasn’t himself without her, and that was the real truth of it.
“I’m not interested in that information.” Desperate for it was more likely.
Web threw back his head and let out a big, full-throated, oh-my-God-you’re-a-jackass laugh. “You’re full of shit,” he said once he finally stopped being so loudly amused.
“Fine.” Will ground out the word, admitting if not in so many words that lying to his twin was impossible but he had to try anyway. “Let’s pretend I don’t know my own mind, that she hasn’t blocked me, and that for once you’re right—where is she going to be?”
“A Holt Foundation fundraiser. One of us has to be the smart Holt brother and that sure as shit hasn’t been you lately, so I hired her because she’s good people and fucking fantastic at her job.”
All the hot air and desperate denial making Will spin his wheels instead of go after the woman he loved whooshed out of him. “You think I was wrong about Hadley.”
“I know you were and so do you.” Smug didn’t begin to describe the look on Web’s face. “That’s the magic of twin-o-vision.”
Because pride was a helluva drug, Will was about to tell his brother that he had no fucking clue what he was talking about when a sharp knock sounded on his office door. “Come in.”
His assistant, Barry, walked in carrying a box. “The delivery instructions said you were waiting on this, and I was supposed to deliver it right away.”
“I don’t—” Will took the box, looked down at the return address, and made a quick verbal left turn. “Thanks, Barry.”
He carried the box over to his desk and opened it using a combination of poking a pen through the shipping tape and sheer determination. A note sat on top. Will picked it up and flipped it over to the side with the block letters printed on it.
Time to cowboy up.
PawPaw
A bit of black was visible underneath the balled-up copies of the Sandhills Senior Living Village weekly newspaper. Will reached in and pulled out his black cowboy hat. It still smelled of wide-open spaces and what could have been. Just seeing the black brim had him picturing Hadley when she’d teased him by trying on the hat. It had looked so damn good on her. Hell, everything did.
Holding the Stetson instead of her was a punch in the gut. It made him want. It