Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Sentiment is a chink in your armor, Lucas. It’s a weapon your enemy will use against you. Stiff upper lip, son. You’re too old for Santa Claus anyway.
I can still hear his voice in my head, how much he seemed to enjoy cutting short what was left of my childhood.
I’d wanted to shoot back—Which is it, Dad, a chink or a weapon? Stop mixing your metaphors and prove you’re actually smart enough to tell me what to do.—but I didn’t have the courage. He was still a lot bigger than I was back then, when I was first told that I wouldn’t be going to Vermont anymore.
He insisted I couldn’t spare the time away from my “education.”
I was eleven. Elliot was eight. Bran was six, and Ashton was barely four.
“They’re babies, and all of them look so much like your mother,” he’d said, as if that explained everything. “You’re the oldest. It’s time you learned what matters.”
What mattered, apparently, was spreadsheets and profit margins and never, ever letting anyone see me give a damn. What mattered was learning that I wasn’t one of his children anymore—not really. I was the firewall, the one standing between my siblings and all the ugliness Dad brought into our lives.
I was the one who had to learn the hard way that our father wasn’t the brilliant businessman he pretended to be.
Before I took the reins in my early twenties, he was, in fact, quickly running a highly successful company that our ancestors had spent generations building into the ground.
I hid that from the others, of course. I spared them the stress and fear.
And in exchange, I became even more of an outcast, the brother they always sensed wasn’t being honest with them, even if they never knew why. It drove a wedge, one that remains to this very day.
I shake my head as I reach the square, banishing the thoughts.
Ruminating is what got me into this mess.
No more rumination.
At least, not tonight.
As I cross the deserted lawn by the gazebo, my gaze is inexorably drawn to the giant tree and its twinkling lights. I look up, up, to the very top where that fucking peg leg will be mounted tomorrow night, a season-long reminder of my loss of control.
Or of my pending arraignment on felony theft charges…
My jaw clenches.
I’m going to have to go along with Holly’s cheery version of blackmail. I don’t see any way around it.
But I don’t want to think about that, either. I just want to get home, drink a giant glass of water, pop an ibuprofen to ward off the headache I can feel coming on, and sink into a deep, hopefully oblivious sleep.
I cross to where Arthur, our long-time Vermont family chauffeur, idles in the black sedan, exhaust puffing white in the cold.
I pull open the back door and slide in, wincing as the gentle slam of the door sends a stab of pain through my skull.
Make that two ibuprofen…
“Good evening, sir,” Arthur says in that warm, gentle way that reminds me so much of my grandfather, and the fact that I didn’t get to say goodbye in person. I’d been in Japan on business the day he was rushed to the hospital. He’d told me not to worry about flying home, that a chat on the phone would lift his spirits and he’d be better in no time.
But he wasn’t, and a part of me will always regret that I wasn’t there with my brothers and sister at his bedside.
“I was beginning to worry,” Arthur adds. “That storm’s coming in faster than expected. I was just watching it swirl over the mountains on the radar.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Arthur,” I murmur, staring out the window as I fight to banish the tightness in my throat. “I ran into someone I knew when I was younger. We were just…catching up.”
And she was blackmailing me, I add silently, but in a very sunny way.
Holly Jo has grown into a confident, charmingly sarcastic version of the same sweet girl she once was. And I have grown into a jerk who treated her poorly, while having impure thoughts about her cleavage in that reindeer costume.
In my defense, she did have it unzipped quite a long way.
But still…
Having lascivious thoughts about a woman I once helped blow her nose because she was a baby who couldn’t manage the tissue properly feels…wrong.
“How wonderful!” Aruther puts the car in gear, pulling away from the curb with his usual precision, blissfully unaware of the vile creature in his backseat. “I hope that was nice?”
Define nice, I think.
Aloud, I say, “Very. Holly seems the same. Very kind and community-focused.”
“Holly Hadley?” When I nod in confirmation, Arthur lets out a delighted sound. “Oh, Mr. Luke, she’s the sweetest girl, and a godsend to this town. I don’t know how we would pull through the high season without her. Especially after Kim and Tim Miller had to step back from all their volunteer work. Tim’s just not as strong as he used to be, not since he beat cancer the second time, you know.”