Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(94)

“Since I went back to work. She’s just part time. And yes, I really think he’s cheating on me.”

“Based on?”

“Based on the fact that he got a vasectomy and yet we never have sex. And why don’t we ever have sex?” Mindy asked. “I miss sex! I need a man-made orgasm! Or new batteries!”

“Geez, Min, TMI much?” Brooke grimaced. “So . . . this all happened; Linc, the nanny, your, uh, lack of new batteries, and instead of fixing any of that, you what, ran away to mom’s and dad’s in Palm Springs?”

“I know!” Mindy tossed her hands up. “I don’t know what I was thinking, okay? Mom thinks Millie needs therapy because she’ll only answer to Princess Millie, and that Maddox should be talking by now. And dad says Mason shouldn’t wear pink shirts—but hello, it’s salmon not pink, and he picks out his own clothes! Dad also thinks that my ass is getting fat—and maybe that’s why Linc won’t sleep with me!” Then she collapsed in sobs again.

“Mommy! ”

At the little kid voice, Brooke and Mindy both froze and turned. In the doorway stood a young girl outfitted in a yellow dress with black elephants and giraffes on it. Her hair was held off her face by a headband that matched the dress. But it was her eyes that got to Brooke. They were the same jade green Mindy’s. And her own, she supposed.

“Hi, Aunt Brooke,” Millie said politely before turning back to Mindy. “Mommy, Mad Dog peed on Mason again.” She held up her hands like a doctor before surgery waiting to have his gloves put on before running the pads of her thumbs across the tips of her fingers four times in a row. “I’ve got to wash my hands. Can I wash my hands?”

Brooke nodded. “Down the hall, first door on the right’s the bathroom.”

Millie ran down the hall. They heard the bathroom door shut and then the lock clicked into place. And out of place. And back into place. Four times.

Brooke’s heart pinched. Clearly the Lemon OCD had been passed down. “Mad Dog?”

“Maddox,” Mindy said. “Like I said, he doesn’t talk much yet, but he does bark. Hence his nickname.”

Okay then. Brooke didn’t know much about kids, and she was in no position to tell her sister how to live her life, but things did seem a little bit out of control—some things Mindy had never been a day in her life.

Her sister’s car was parked in the short driveway in front of the condo, the doors open. Two little boys were rolling around on the grass. One was naked.

Mindy stared at them like one might stare at an impending train wreck.

“Yours, I presume,” Brooke said.

“Yeah. Want one?”

She ignored the way her heart took a good, hard leap. “Tell me about Linc.”

Mindy sighed. “I keep up the house, work at the shop thirty hours a week, and handle all the kid stuff. I’m the heavy,” Mindy said. “The bad cop. And I get that Linc works at the medical practice something like seventy hours a week, but when he walks in after a long day, suddenly I’m invisible. The kids always love the good cop. I want to be the good cop.”

“So be the good cop,” Brooke said. This didn’t seem hard, but hey, what did she know?

“I can’t be the good cop. I’ve tried.” Mindy turned to face her and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I hate my life.” She grabbed Brooke’s hand and squeezed. “I want your life. Can I have your life? You’re so lucky, Brooke, you’ve got no idea. You get to bounce all over the planet, living out wild adventure after wild adventure, and you get paid to do it. No wonder you never come home.”

Brooke managed to hold back a defensive answer. Because it wasn’t adventure that kept her away. Shame, maybe. Certainly. And also regrets.

But it wasn’t the wild adventures, at least not anymore. That life was long over.

“I see your Instagram pics,” Mindy said. “It’s all so amazing.”

Whatever Brooke posted these days were either throwback pics or stills from the show.

“It’s like a dream come true, Brooke. I want your life.”

Brooke stared into Mindy’s red-rimmed, disparaging gaze. She knew despair. She knew it to the depths of her soul, and she felt some of the pent-up resentment she’d been holding for her sister very slightly shift. Not fade away exactly, more like it just moved over a little bit to make room for a teeny tiny amount of compassion and empathy. “Go into the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of wine,” Brooke said. “I’ve got this.”

“You do?” Mindy asked with anxious disbelief.

“Yeah.” If there was one thing Brooke had down, it was the ability to bullshit her way through any situation. She’d summited the roof of Africa—Kilimanjaro. She’d been one of the few to get to and photograph the limestone formations of the Stone Forest in China. She’d gone swimming with giants—migrating humpback whales—along the waters of Ningaloo Reef in Australia. Certainly, she could handle her sister and her kids.

Probably. She waited until Mindy vanished inside before calling out to the boys wrestling in the grass. “Hey.”

Neither of them looked at her.

She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Loudly. All destruction and mayhem stopped on a dime and two sets of eyeballs turned her way. “Inside,” she said. “Everyone to the couch.”