The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(75)

He’d made her promises and he was keeping them.

Extra impressive since it was Saturday, and usually he traveled to a rural clinic to volunteer on weekends. She doubted he remembered they’d been invited to a birthday party for one of the neighborhood kids, at a small family-run winery only a few blocks away. If he’d remembered, she knew he’d have gone as far as he could to volunteer his services.

She padded down to the kitchen and stopped in shock. The kids were dressed. The place didn’t look bombed. And Linc smiled at her in that way that had butterflies taking flight in her stomach. “We’re party-ready.”

She just stared at him.

“Do you want to stay home and enjoy the time to yourself?” he asked. “I’ve got this.”

“Wow,” she managed, and shook it off. “And no, I can’t miss the party. It’s at the Capriottis’ winery. They’ll have amazing food and mommy juice.”

He flashed a small smile. “You mean wine?”

She smiled back. “Yes. And my plan was to take notes for Mason’s birthday next month.”

“You don’t need to take notes. All we’ll need is a hose. Garrett and I will have the Slip ’N Slide set up and we’ll spray Mason and his buddies for as long as they want. Trust me, they’ll have a great time. You’ll get rave reviews.”

And then, as she stood there in her pj’s, crazy hair, and no makeup, he leaned in and brushed a kiss across her mouth. The pleasure curled her toes, but before she could so much as grab him and kiss him back, he pulled away and herded the kids toward the door.

“But . . . the party doesn’t start for two hours,” she said.

“We’re going to Ethan’s for a bit first,” he said. “Cousin playtime. Take a few hours to yourself, Min.”

That did sound good. She showered, dressed, and started baking for the shop, a chore that had never felt like a chore, but the house was too quiet. And . . . void of life.

What is wrong with me?

She quickly flipped through her binder to check her notes for the day and found herself staring at all the tabs, folders, and illustrations.

Huh. Clearly, Brooke and Millie weren’t the only OCD Lemons around here. She shook her head, having trouble connecting with the crazy lady who’d created this binder. She had an entire section on things Linc was and was not allowed to do during his time between getting home from work and going to bed, including locking himself in the bathroom for an hour at a time. Granted, she didn’t understand the appeal of sitting on the toilet and playing games on the phone, and also she could probably birth an entire baby in less time, but . . . who was she to judge his me-time?

She sighed. He’d been drowning every bit as much as she had, but he hadn’t crumbled. Not once. He’d been steady as a rock.

She could admit she was jealous as hell of that.

Brooke staggered in the back door and as always headed straight for Mindy’s expensive teas.

Mindy narrowed her eyes at her sister’s cute short denim skirt. “Wait—is that my skirt?”

Brooke looked down at herself and shrugged. “Guess you know how it feels now, huh?”

“That skirt’s my favorite.”

“Is that why it was in a bag of clothes by the back door that Linc said was going to Goodwill?” Brooke wrapped her hands around a big mug and blew on the hot tea.

“It was not in that bag.” Okay, that was a lie. The skirt was too tight on Mindy, but seeing it look adorable and also sexy on Brooke made her want her pre-baby bod back in a bad way. But more than that, she and Brooke had barely spoken all week. It was driving Mindy crazy. Her biggest fear was that Brooke would leave any day now, and they’d go back to barely ever seeing each other. “I wish you could talk to me,” she said quietly.

“Now, there’s a really bad idea.”

“Why?” Mindy asked, mystified. “You used to talk to me all the time.”

“Before you were judgy.”

“I’m not judgy!”

Brooke held up her fingers an inch apart, the universal sign for just a little.

Mindy rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”

“Remember that big summer bash Dad threw for you on your twenty-first birthday, the week after I graduated from high school?” Brooke asked.

“Yes.”

“I slept with Garrett that night.”

Mindy blinked. “You what?”

Brooke raised a brow.

Right. But her sister and her best friend . . . how had she not known? And why? In fact, there had been a time back then when she’d thought maybe Brooke and Garrett might end up together. She had to take a deep breath to try to slow her racing thoughts. “I’m not judging. But . . . please explain.”

“You won’t blow things out of proportion?”

Too late for that. “I’m just . . .” Jealous. Jealous as hell. “Um, curious on how Garrett, who was in my grade, who was in all of my classes, ended up in your bed.”

“Well, technically not my bed,” Brooke said. “We never did it here. The house was always too full. We did it at the bluffs, at the Playground, in his truck—”

“You slept with my best friend. He was mine, Brooke.”

“No, actually, he wasn’t. You had Linc. In fact, by the following year, you were preggers.”