Her parents obviously had the same playbook as his dad.
“So, where did you study then?” he asked, reluctant to let go of the halcyon picture he’d painted of Maeve with a baby sling and a Stanford sweater frolicking around campus with her cooing college friends.
“Jackson University.”
That made Brodie pause. “I didn’t even know Jackson had a university.”
She laughed and said diplomatically, “It’s very small, but it’s okay.”
“It’s not Stanford, though.”
“No—” she shook her head “—it’s not Stanford. But it worked. My grandma, she lived in the house in Autumn Falls, she let me come live with her. She went against my parents, which I know was really tough for her.” Maeve stopped talking and reached down for the champagne glass that she’d put on the deck.
In that pause, Brodie tried to think what he’d been doing at that time. A world tour. Having, he hated to admit it, an absolutely fantastic time.
Maeve clearly needed a subject change and, looking out toward the lake as she took a sip of the sparkling wine, said, “I’ve never seen the river this still, it’s perfect.”
The sun had disappeared behind the pines, the last shafts of light dancing between the branches and glinting off the river like silver fish.
Brodie said, “Go for a swim.” He felt weirdly guilty thinking about how he’d been jetting across the globe, soaring over the crowds at various international stadiums on high wires while Maeve was living with a screaming baby—his screaming baby—a grandma, and at the same time commuting to nowheresville, Jackson to study for a medical degree.
“No way!” She looked at him like he was crazy for suggesting a swim. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“That’s not a proper answer.” Then gesturing toward the view, he said, “Go, honestly, you won’t regret it. I’ve got it covered here.”
He had an ulterior motive for suggesting it, he craved a bit of time to sit back and relax, to think of nothing. He tried his hardest in life to avoid any kind of heavy conversation, it was a good tactic until it thwacked into him like a freight train. It seemed to be happening more and more recently. First when his older brother Jack died a few years back, and now this news about Zoey.
He tried not to think too much about things he didn’t want to, but these big moments would sideswipe him when he least expected it.
It still shocked him about Jack. He had seen him so rarely in the years leading up to his death that it was easy to imagine him still alive, living in LA, shooting his new movie. Jack and Brodie hadn’t been the closest as adults, but as kids, Brodie had spent a lot of time hiding out with Jack avoiding ranch work. Jack knew all the best places to lie low. They’d spent many hours together sniggering in the gap between the wall and the chicken coop as one of his brothers called their names, trying to find them to help. They’d eat cookies snuck out from the house and talk trash. It was only when his dad’s booming voice would cut across the yard with the threat of some hideous punishment that Jack would push Brodie out and make him take the first round of the verbal lashing. Jack would saunter over later when the worst of Emmett’s annoyance was over. It happened time and again, Brodie never learned. When Jack died, it was like all those memories of their childhood antics flared back to life, popping up when he’d least expect it, filling him with equal amounts of disdain and nostalgia for life in Autumn Falls, a place he had previously thought very little about. Those memories had kept burning bright ever since, however much he tried to tamp them down again.
ChapterSixteen
The last eight years were kind of a blur for Maeve. It was like looking back on running a marathon, she knew it had been hard, but the only evidence were the aches in her body and the tiredness that went deep to thecore of her being. Never in all that time did she think she would be swimming in the Redemption River at twilight while Brodie Carter kept an eye on Zoey.
The water was luxuriously cool, rippling over her skin with every stroke she took. When she turned and dipped her head back, a delightful chill crept over her scalp and then as she lay fully submerged she could hear nothing but a low hum of the water. She floated like Zoey would, arms outstretched. Above her, the faint outline of the moon as the sky darkened. She felt cocooned away from the world, levitating above real life.
Then she heard Zoey calling and immediately pulled herself upright in the water and scanned the view of the cabin to see what was wrong. But all she saw was Brodie piling up logs to make a fire just in front of the veranda. She called over to ask if it had been Zoey and he shook his head. Then he smiled. That infamous crooked grin that had sold a million albums and graced posters on bedroom walls.
Maeve’s insides fluttered, her breath caught. Berating herself, she started to swim toward the shore.
It was dangerous to relax too much. There were too many shadows—too much coming that she needed her strength for, her armor. She must never again allow herself to be distracted by—succumb to—that grin.
“Good swim?” Brodie asked, ambling casually to the shoreline to hand her one of the navy bath towels.
The brief interaction felt strangely intimate, like they were a couple. Their hands brushed as she took it and she was suddenly hyperaware of wearing only her bathing suit. It made her take a few steps away as she wrapped herself in the towel. “Thanks, yes, it was lovely.”
Brodie held her gaze for a second longer than normal. She wondered if he, too, had felt the jolt as their hands touched. But then he just nodded and went back to the fire.
Small flames licked at the base of the pile of logs. It surprised her that he knew how to build a fire, which was stupid because he’d grown up on the ranch, but he was so golden nowadays it was hard to imagine him getting his hands dirty.
He had brought the chairs down from the veranda and placed them either side of the fire.
Part of her wanted to call it a night and the excuse of getting changed was the perfect opportunity to do so, but she also knew that there wouldn’t be many opportunities where they would be alone. Especially in a setting so remote from real life. And there were things she needed to say to him still.
