A Simple Twist of Fate (9 page)

His pacing ticked up in speed. Sneakers thudded against the floor as he walked back and forth in front of the kitchen island. Declan and Leah had stepped out for a movie otherwise Beck would have had to hide from an audience. No way those two would have missed the slamming doors or the books Beck threw against the wall after Sophie ran out of the library.

His mind raced and the arguments against touching her again piled up. He’d lived his whole damn life with secrets and lies. Inviting a woman into his bed who possessed even more was nothing short of emotional suicide.

But all that common sense didn’t stand a chance against the need pinging around inside him. It had been that way from the beginning. She walked into the kitchen, surprising him and Declan, and declared her position as housekeeper. Beck’s brain had been scrambling ever since.

What a fucking mess.

If his brothers had just followed the plan—come to town, sign the real estate document for the house and get out—none of this would be happening.

Oh, well . . . He blew out a long breath and let his head drop to the side as he massaged a sore muscle at the back of his neck. Something pulled at his attention and had him. He could see two men in the yard. Squinting, he focused on the one who wasn’t Callen. Yeah, Beck knew the guy. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had the irrational desire to punch that face.

Tom Erikson, right there at Shadow Hill.

This day just blew.

Before he could think through the consequences, Beck shoved open the back screen door and let it crash closed again with a crack. His long legs ate up the grassy space between the house and the caretaker’s cottage.

Where was that momma skunk when you needed her?

Callen leaned against the porch post then shot up straight again when the wood creaked. “Does it all need to come down?”

“Not all.” Tom flipped through the pages tacked to his clipboard. “But you’ve got rot, missing boards and holes everywhere. This is a massive redo.”

“We want to save it,” Beck said. In the kind of move Declan would come up with, Beck made the decision right as he said the words.

Callen didn’t question. He scanned the first paper Tom handed him. “You going to remove the skunks?”

“Nope,” Tom said.

Callen chuckled at the firm response. “Not in your job description?”

“Definitely not.”

The scene was too familiar for Beck’s taste. Callen joking with Tom. Sophie eating with Tom. Yeah, Beck got the landlord thing. That didn’t mean he fully believed it or trusted the assurances people automatically coughed up about Tom.

But Beck had avoided violence his whole life. He’d dodged bullies on the playground and the kids who chanted shit about his dad. Then there was that one client on meth who attacked a bailiff. Beck had a front row seat to it all.

So, the rushing need to punch Tom in the face was not a welcome feeling. Especially when both Leah and Sophie seemed to like the guy. That called for a trip on the high road.

Callen gestured to their guest. “Beck, this is—”

“Yeah, I know. Tom.” With gritted teeth, Beck held out his hand. “We met the other night.”

“What happened?” Callen asked in a deceptively innocent voice that begged for retaliation.

Maybe Beck would get to punch someone after all. “Shut up.”

Tom waved them both off. “I got in the way of something.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Except for the part where it was exactly like that.

“Really?” Callen asked at the same time.

Time to shortcut the personal stuff and get back to the clipboard. Beck scanned the wide yard and series of falling down buildings lining the edge of the property before it transitioned to forest. “What’s going on out here?”

For a second Tom and Callen didn’t say anything then Callen jumped in. “Tom is going to give us some help on the outbuildings and take a look at the main house to make sure we don’t have foundation problems there.”

“I do have a question.” Tom glanced around, his gaze stopping on the infamous swing set. “What’s with that?”

Callen swore under his breath. “No clue.”

“For some reason our grandmother kept the swing set when she bought the house.” Beck would have given more information if he had it. The swing set was just one of the many mysteries about the property, like how all the tools in the work shed were new yet their grandmother didn’t have the money to pay the mortgage for months and months.

Tom made a humming sound. “It’s in good condition.”

“We fixed it up.” Callen shot Beck the side eye while he said it, probably to highlight the broad use of
we
in this context. “The concrete pad underneath was new when we got here but the rest was shot.”

“Strange.” Tom’s hand moved on the clipboard in what looked like a signature. He unclipped the top sheet from his stack and handed it to Callen, but the attention moved to Beck. “You okay with me being on the property?”

Talk about a change in topics, but the deal meant someone else doing the rehab. It also meant Tom being on the property, right where Beck could watch him, rain or shine. That all worked for him. “Sure.”

Tom trapped the board against his chest with one hand. The dark sunglasses went on next, even though the shifting clouds made them unnecessary. “I’m not going to get in your way.”

No question what the older man was talking about. Or rather, who. Looked like Tom was doing some info digging of his own.

While Beck appreciated the protective show on Sophie’s behalf, he didn’t intend to play an unwanted game of you-show-me-yours with this guy. “I work upstairs, so the yard is yours.”

Callen laughed. “Yeah, because that’s what Tom meant.”

As if on cue, the momma skunk made her way to the front door of the caretaker’s cottage. She peeked her nose out, probably ticked off by all the talking so close to her nest. Beck applauded her timing but he didn’t want to be there for the show. “I’ll let you two get back to it.”

He turned, waiting for the distinct stink of a riled momma skunk. Instead, he heard Tom’s low voice. “She likes it here, you know.”

Beck froze. He shifted back to see Tom’s intense stare and Callen’s stupid grin. Beck could tolerate only one of those things, and even that one not for very long.

But he wanted to know what Tom meant. This was the first time Beck had gotten a sense Sophie could leave or that she might stay. He thought of her as being in such a state of flux that he never got to a timeline in his head that extended more than a few days ahead.

In the end, he went with the most simple response. “Excuse me?”

“She fits around here, in this town. I’m trying to convince her to stay in Sweetwater.”

Beck wanted not to care about the possibility or what it meant that Tom’s opinion might matter to Sophie. The churning inside him suggested the exact opposite of disinterest. “Her home is in Seattle.”

Tom shrugged. “People change.”

Not always enough, but still. Maybe Beck could take a lesson and be the first to give ground. And it all started with making Sophie feel safe enough to talk. “So I’ve heard.”

Chapter Nine

The next morning Sophie stood in the downstairs hallway at Shadow Hill and tried to mentally place all the members of the household without actually seeing them. She had work to do. She’d put off a full kitchen search long enough. Sure, she’d done the cabinets and all the obvious nooks and shelves. It was time to hunt for secret compartments and check under loose floorboards. Not an easy task because one Hanover or another always seemed to be in there grabbing a snack or standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and mumbling something about a lack of food.

Forget a housekeeper, these guys needed a full-time cook.

She slipped into the target room . . . and froze. She stood right in front of Beck and Leah. Technically, Sophie mostly faced Beck’s back. He whisked eggs in a bowl as he stared out the window over the sink with a view to the yard.

“Good, you’re here.” Leah shuffled the papers in front of her. “I need your help.”

“I don’t think . . .” Sophie swallowed the rest of her words when Beck glanced over his shoulder at her.

He stared at her, not through her like when she walked into the library. But he didn’t smile. He kept whipping the eggs. Much more of that and they’d turn into a solid block.

It wasn’t until the kitchen chair in front of her flew toward her that Sophie noticed how Leah slouched down in her seat with her foot in the air.

“Did you really just shove a chair at me?” Sophie asked.

“That was my not-so-subtle way of saying you should join me.” Leah sat up and took a coffee mug from the tray in the middle of the table. She put it in front of Sophie and poured without asking.

The buzz of the kitchen distracted her. Something sizzled in the pan as the smell of butter rose. Her mouth watered and not just from the food. Seeing Beck move to the next task, slicing a loaf of bread, while looking all hot in a faded blue tee probably played a role in the fuzziness crowding her brain.

Rather than slip into the comfortable setting and giving into whatever Leah had planned, Sophie stuck with her usual response. “I need to work.”

“You can take a break.” Beck made the comment as he switched from knife to spatula, all without looking up.

Leah patted the space on the tabletop across from her. “See, Beck wants you to sit, so do it.”

Right.
This from the same man who turned down a sure thing. No ego hit there. “He didn’t actually say that.”

Leah slapped six color photos in front of Sophie. She glanced at them before her gaze slipped back to Beck. He was whistling now. Flipping eggs and moving the pan around.

“Uh-huh. Earth to Sophie.” Leah stabbed her finger at the top of one of the photos. “I need your help.”

“What?”

“Which one do you prefer?”

Sophie blinked a few times at the change in topic before looking down. The photos trumpeted Sweetwater’s proximity to the mountains and the water. Each had a logo and photos of downtown and the park. Well, on some of them. Others had photos of the ocean and the historic Severn Motel on Main Street. Then there was one with a sign that said Rutledge Farm and Inn, whatever that was.

Tall trees, haunting ocean views covered by a layer of fog. Pretty photos but confusing in the context of a lazy breakfast morning. “What am I looking at?”

“Potential ads for Sweetwater.”

Sophie sat down and took a longer look at each photo. “I’m not sure what’s happening here.”

“You know I do marketing for the town, right?” Leah plowed ahead without giving Sophie time to answer. “Well, I’m putting an ad campaign together for travel magazines, most of them regional. I’ll use a version in online ads and for tourist sites.”

“Okay.”

“See, the plan is to lure folks here, to our stores and restaurants and all that stuff, during their vacation excursions. Have them love the place and spend money here.”

That sounded like a good idea, in theory, but Sophie had trouble figuring out the practical application part. “I really don’t think of Sweetwater as being open to new people.”

Beck snorted as he scraped the eggs out of the pan and onto a dish. “No kidding.”

“But everyone likes money.” Leah sat back with her arms folded over her chest, as if daring anyone to disagree.

Sophie didn’t. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Not that Leah would let you anyway.” Beck placed a small glass of orange juice in front of Leah then one in front of Sophie. The last one went to the empty space at the head of the table.

Leah waved him off. “You had your turn to be helpful and blew it. I’m listening to Sophie now.”

Between the homey breakfast scene and the bickering sibling-like conversation, Sophie’s head spun. Before she could point out she didn’t need juice, the conversation jumped again. The back-and-forth proved dizzying and more than a little welcoming.

“You already picked?” Something about the vision of Beck hovering over photos, studying them for Leah, made Sophie smile.

“He told me they all looked the same.” Leah ended her comment by sticking her tongue out at Beck.

He responded with a wink.

“Well, to be fair, they sort of do,” Sophie said.

Leah spun around in her seat and stared. “What?”

Sophie was about to explain how they had the same tone and all but two really popped, but she stopped when Beck shot her a wide-eyed, hand raised, finger slicing through the air signal behind Leah. Sophie took the hint. She picked the photos up and held them closer to her face. “Oh, now I can see them. Let me try again.”

“Women tend to plan family vacations anyway, so your view might be more helpful than Beck’s.”

The toaster dinged and he was off again, moving around the kitchen with ease even though his cooking choices were somewhat limited to dairy.

“Just being practical,” Leah mumbled.

He piled the pieces on a plate. “Funny how when you asked me to look you talked about me being so helpful because men wanted a say in family vacations.”

Leah made a
la, la, la
sound. “I can’t hear you.”

“Number four then one. Two and five look the same to me.” Sophie shuffled the other two off to the side. “These don’t stand out as much, and I don’t even know where this Inn is.”

Leah folded her arms and balanced her elbows on the table. Also let out a disgruntled humpf. “Well, damn.”

Not really the reaction Sophie expected. “What?”

Leah reached over and scooped up the photos. “Beck said the same thing.”

He started grabbing things out of the fridge. Those impressive arms held containers of butter and jelly, plus cartons of milk and juice. He dumped it all in the middle of the table. “I actually gave you a list of reasons why number four was the right one.”

“Yeah, like ten of them.” She shifted the breakfast items around, opening jars and clicking off lids.

Since it looked like they were on the verge of a homemade family breakfast, Sophie picked up the coffee Leah poured, ready to make a quick exit. But a question nagged at her. “Isn’t it a good thing if we both pick the same ad?”

“You’d think.” Beck reached over Leah’s shoulder and put the heaping plate of toast right in front of Sophie.

She inhaled and her mouth watered a little. Something about the fresh scent of warm bread made her want to forget about the big kitchen search . . . and her addiction to carbs. Not that she could stomp on floorboards now anyway. Food or no, Beck and Leah would pick up on that right away.

“This is an informal ad study with you all as my test audience. It just so happens, you two and Declan said the same thing and somehow missed the awesomeness of number three.” Leah’s frown morphed into a wide smile when Beck set a plate of eggs in front of her. “Thank you.”

“Which is her charming way of saying she wanted number three,” he said before heading back to the counter.

Oh my God, was that bacon?
Sophie had no idea how she’d missed that amazing smell, all crisp and salty, until right now. Now that it wafted around her, she had to fight the urge to snatch a strip off the edge of Leah’s plate.

Sophie tried to find a safe topic, one that didn’t revolve around stealing food. But, man, when bacon entered the picture it was hard to think about anything else. Especially when Leah left it unattended while she slipped a napkin into her lap.

Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate
. To get there, Sophie focused on the ads or whatever they were. “Did you design the one we both like?”

“I designed them all.” And then Leah munched on the bacon.

Sophie seriously considered diving across the table. Yeah, that wouldn’t be weird or anything.

She cleared her throat and tried to convince her brain the granola bar she ate each morning tasted good. “Then why are you upset about—”

Beck came around the butcher block island one last time. He held two plates. One thudded on the table in front of Sophie. He carried the other one with him and took his seat perpendicular to her at the head.

She glanced at the crisp bacon strips and then to Beck. She forced the words out. “You don’t need to feed me.”

He held up a fork to her, balancing it on the tip. “You never eat.”

She had a pair of jeans that suggested otherwise. “That’s clearly not true.”

“He’s right.” Leah buttered several pieces of toast then handed them out. “I’ve never seen you sit down for a meal with us. We’re not that scary . . . well, most of us aren’t.”

Sophie drew in a long breath, trying to get her brain clicking in normal time again. Beck went through his usual morning routine, preparing food and making sure everyone had what they needed. And this time he included her. No fanfare. No arguing. He acted like he did it every day, and for Leah and his brothers he did. Just not Sophie.

She was confused and more than a little touched. It had been a long time since anyone watched over her. Her aunt and uncle gave a shy and depressed little girl all they could—support, the necessities and love. But anxiety continued to thump inside Sophie. Some days just out of hearing and tucked away in a dark, walled-off section of her soul. Other days blaring out in the open and so loud and suffocating that Sophie struggled to breathe. Like every day since she’d known about Charlie’s con of Aunt Angela.

“I don’t live here.” At the moment Sophie barely lived anywhere. She walked away from her Seattle apartment rather than pay rent on a place where she temporarily didn’t stay. Most of her stuff sat in storage. She hid out at Shadow Hill. She imposed on Tom at his house.

If humans needed to belong in order to survive, she was in deep trouble.

“That doesn’t matter,” Leah said.

“Of course it does.”

Leah waved her hand in the air, like she tended to do whenever she was about to take the conversation in a new direction. “You should eat with us when you’re around the house.”

Sophie couldn’t let her mind go there. Couldn’t even spin the fantasy for a second. “I don’t think—”

“Agreed.” Beck continued to hold up the fork. He even waved it in the air.

Sophie’s mind went black. Alphabet, general addition—all gone. “What?”

“You’re not just the help.”

He stared her down as he said it, those blue eyes intense and focused solely on her. Since Leah had stopped eating and joined in the who-will-blink-first contest, Sophie snatched the fork out of Beck’s fingers. She was about to dig into the eggs when the whisper left her lips. “You spelled out the employer/employee relationship pretty clearly yesterday.”

Leah laughed. “Sorry I missed that.”

“No, you’re not, because I was wrong yesterday.” Beck shook his head as he broke a piece of bacon in half. “Boy, was I wrong.”

Before she could pretend she didn’t hear him, Sophie let out a small choking sound. Really, this guy could reduce her to a puddle of goo without even trying. Who knew something so simple as cooking her breakfast and making her feel wanted would send her stomach galloping toward her throat.

Leah’s gaze bounced between Sophie and Beck. The smile inching across her mouth grew wider the longer Leah looked. “Interesting.”

Beck’s hand shifted until it sat just inches from Sophie’s. “So, no more referring to you as the help.” The firm tone mirrored the tightness across his shoulders.

He clearly wanted her to understand, but after the library . . . “Then what am I?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Leah picked up her plate and got halfway to her feet. “I’m going to go—”

Beck pointed at her. “Do not move.”

“Uh, hello?” The you’re-one-step-from-death attitude dripped from Leah’s voice.

He answered her flash of anger with one of his killer dimpled smiles. “We’re going to sit here and eat like normal people.”

She still hovered between sitting and standing. “I’m not sure normal people, whatever that means, take orders to eat.”

“Did I really order?”

“Sounded like it.”

“Sorry about that. It’s just that my mom used to insist we have dinner together a few times a week. No games or arguing allowed.” Beck reached over and refilled Leah’s coffee mug. “We sat, talked and ate. Anyone who violated her rules did not eat.”

The words hit Sophie like a punch. Now she was desperate for Leah to sit down. Beck spilling personal information never happened. The tiny peek, the comments he made here and there: Sophie grabbed on to them. He came from a fractured home with an irresponsible, even criminal, father. Yet, Beck seemed to handle both the big things and the little things without going into extreme crisis mode. She wanted that skill.

“Sounds like a good tradition,” Leah said as she sat down and eyed Beck.

And it might have been if they didn’t sit in silence. A full minute ticked by before Sophie jumped in. “So what exactly were you allowed to talk about at these dinners?”

Beck shrugged. “The usual.”

Yeah, that wasn’t helpful. “I don’t know what that means.”

“School, sports, the idiot kids who lived across the street.”

The silverware clanked and the old farm table creaked as they ate. As the minutes passed, someone would reach for the toast while someone else grabbed a piece of bacon. All of the tension seeped out the windows, leaving a comfortable silence broken with a few questions. Most centered on the weather and other mundane, but safe, topics.