Lauren
“Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?” my elderly friend, Millie, asked for the fifth time in the last five minutes.
I smiled as I watched her pack more things into a large tote bag as I sat at her kitchen table, sipping my tea. “I honestly don’t mind,” I assured her. “I can drop that stuff off. It’s on my way home.”
Okay, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be stopping by Cole Remington’s ranch on my way home, but it was better than Millie going out in the cold. Her arthritis had been flaring up lately, probably because it had been brutally cold in Montana. We were still another month away from spring in the small town of Crystal Fork, and February had been a crazy month so far. The Chinook winds had wafted through our area earlier in the month, giving us some unseasonably warm weather just a week ago. Unfortunately, we were paying for those nice days now. It had been frigid and windy for the last several days, and it didn’tlook like the cold temperatures were going to change anytime soon.
In fact, we were supposed to get what looked like a substantial storm tonight.
It was also completely unnecessary for Millie to expose herself to someone who might be sick, even if Cole was her nephew.
“I’m worried about him,” Millie fretted. “Cole will never admit that he’s getting sick, but he didn’t sound good when I talked to him on the phone earlier. I’m afraid that he’s getting the flu bug that’s going around, but I’m not sure that I like the fact that you’ll be exposed if you drop this bag off.”
“I took the flu vaccine,” I reassured her. “I’ll be fine.”
I’d been incredibly busy with work in October when I’d gotten stuck for the virus. I’d gladly taken the protection as I hadn’t wanted to be down and sick for a week or two with the flu.
Millie tossed some ibuprofen into the bag before she took her place at the kitchen table again to finish her tea. “I’m glad that I made an extra-large batch of chicken soup a few weeks ago so I could freeze some. So many of my friends have gotten sick this month that I’m almost out already.” She took a sip from her teacup before she questioned, “It won’t bother you to interact with Cole?”
My eyes widened a little before I responded, “Why would it bother me to talk to Cole?”
Millie sent me a knowing look. “I haven’t seen you with Cole since Devon and Reese’s wedding, but I think he made you a little uncomfortable. Please don’t tell me that you believe the rumors about my nephews.”
I let out a long sigh.
I loved Millie Remington. My parents had died in a boating accident while they were on an anniversary vacationwhen I was eight years old. Millie had become an honorary mother to me since my mom and dad had passed away.
She’d made it a point to be there for me whenever I needed a mother figure in my life.
She was the sweetest woman on Earth.
But…sometimes she was way too intuitive and observant.
I was close to Millie’s three billionaire sons, especially Tanner because he’d been my older brother Keith’s best friend before my brother’s death in a motorcycle accident years ago.
I also adored their wives. Anna, Reese, and Hannah had become close friends since I’d returned to Crystal Fork from Boston.
Cole and Asher Remington, Millie’s nephews, were an entirely different story.
The two brothers had recently relocated back to Crystal Fork from Austin.
Nobody was really close to Cole and Asher.
I finally shook my head. “I don’t believe those rumors for a single second,” I told Millie firmly. “I know that Cole and Asher didn’t kill their father.”
That particular rumor was nothing new. It had been flying around the small town of Crystal Fork for over two decades.
There was absolutely no proof that the gossip about Cole and Asher was true, and it amazed me how many in town actually believed that story.
Granted, the two brothers probably had a motive for wanting their father dead. Their father had been a mean alcoholic who had never really cared about his boys. At best, Cole and Asher had been neglected. At worst, they’d not only been neglected but abused as well.
Their father had been murdered at their home when Asher was eighteen and Cole was sixteen.
That murder had never been solved, and the brothers had left Crystal Fork two years later, as soon as Cole had graduated from high school.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame them for leaving as soon as they possibly could.
The town had judged both of them and labeled them as the black sheep Remingtons.
