The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(10)

“No, yes, and yes,” came an almost unbearably familiar male voice.

Garrett Montgomery rose out of a porch chair she hadn’t even noticed and gestured to a small wooden sign that read:

THE CATS HAVE BEEN FED, DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR BULLSHIT.

Brooke had stilled at the sound of Garrett’s voice, but now she choked out a laugh. “Yours?” she asked, nodding to the cat.

He gave a single, barely there nod.

She had so many questions. How had he been, what was he doing here in this house he’d grown up in, did he hate her . . . In the end, she asked the only question she could. “What’s her name?” she managed.

“Princess Jasmine. She was abandoned a few years ago by a neighbor who moved on without her. Not that he deserved her, anyway. And yes, she thinks she’s hungry. She’s always hungry. I can’t quite convince her she needs a diet.”

Brooke was having a hard time getting air into her lungs. Not in the same way as she did in her nightmares; nothing as simple as that. This felt like a ball of nostalgia, yearning, and need all mixed together and stuck dead center in her throat. Garrett had been one of Ann’s foster kids. He’d also been Brooke’s first crush. Her first heartbreak. Her first everything.

And they hadn’t spoken in . . . well, years.

All her doing.

The air crackled with awkwardness and regrets. So much regret. And while she was shocked to the core to see him, she could tell he wasn’t surprised in the least to see her. She let out a shaky breath and met his gaze for the first time in seven years. His eyes were amused but distant—which she 100 percent deserved. “You adopted her,” she guessed. “And let Millie name her.”

“Actually, she adopted me, and yes.”

The ball of emotion in her throat swelled. It might’ve been seven years, but she knew this man, knew that he knew a little something about abandonment and had lived his life accordingly. “Sucker,” she said lightly, and scooped up the cat, who lifted her face to rub against Brooke’s. “You’d adopt a coyote if it came knocking at your door in need.”

He lifted a shoulder in a guilty-as-charged gesture.

They stared at each other some more, and something heavy slid through her. More regret, and the sense of a future lost. Swallowing hard, she handed him his cat. “How’ve you been?”

He gave one short, mirthless laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

Yeah, he was right. Turned out you really couldn’t go home again. She’d actually thought she could. She’d told herself he deserved the closure, and if he hated her, she’d just have to take it. And in the meantime, she’d get to know her niece and nephews before heading back to LA. But she’d been stupid to think she could handle any of it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

One sardonic eyebrow raised. “For?”

She was short of air again. Dammit. “You know what? It’s late. Good night.” And acting like the coward she’d been for the past seven years, she walked away. Actually, she ran, her sneakers making squeaky noises on the grass as she counted her steps. Because maybe the old Brooke had been fearless and brave, but the new Brooke was nothing but a big, fat scaredy-cat, and she’d just proven it.





Chapter 3


“You going to make mashed potatoes with that thing, or hit me over the head?”

Back at the house, Brooke collapsed in exhaustion on the couch in the living room. “That’s definitely enough todaying for today . . .” she murmured, and closed her eyes.

She was awoken an hour later by an unfortunately familiar sound.

Someone was throwing up. And that someone was throwing up while padding down the hall toward her.

Maddox.

He was crying, nose running, puke-faced, and she was torn between wanting to cuddle him close or run in the other direction. Her sense of auntie obligation won, so she scooped him up. She had to hold her breath, but she got him cleaned, changed, and tucked back into bed.

That’s when Princess Millie appeared and also threw up.

And where there were two, there were always three. Not ten minutes after she’d soothed Maddox and Millie, then Mason was also getting sick.

And then the cycle began all over again.

She’d stepped into her own horror flick.

HOURS LATER, UP to her elbows in poop and puke and exhausted to the bone, Brooke laid Maddox back into his little toddler bed and stroked his hair from his face as he clung to her hand.

“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered softly.

He sent her a sweet, sleepy smile and flashed that dimple, and her damn heart snagged in her chest. Seriously, how was she supposed to resist? He had huge green eyes and drooled when he smiled at her, and he hugged her with his grimy, disgusting hands and loved her with his sweet, undamaged heart. Gah.

Since dawn was making an appearance, she didn’t bother to attempt sleep. Instead, she obsessively scrubbed the sick germs from every nook and cranny of the entire house, including under the couch. She was demolishing all the dust bunnies when she found a tortoise.

A live tortoise.

She texted a pic of it to Mindy with a “WTF” and got a response that Ketchup the Tortoise was Mason’s; he was shy and considerate. He had an aquarium on the floor in the laundry room, complete with a heat lamp and drinking water, but it was left open so he could have the freedom of the place. He went to the bathroom next to his aquarium on a bed of paper towels and he ate out of a pie tin that Brooke should put lettuce and strawberries in once a day—which was all in the instructions Mindy had emailed, and why wasn’t Brooke reading her emails?