I didn’t even know the man, not really. But I knew this—Dean was only trying to protect his sister, protect her and keep her safe from all the stupid mistakes that would teach her how easily she could be broken.
She grinned, then pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “But you can’t bubble-wrap a person’s heart. You can’t keep the people you love from making their own mistakes.” Her gaze dipped to my hand, then returned to my face. “Sometimes our mistakes are the only thing that can teach us what life is really about. And sometimes they aren’t mistakes at all—just paths to an ending we can’t see coming yet.”
The door eased open then, and a woman stepped inside the bathroom—cutoff shorts, long, dark hair that spilled over her shoulders, and I recognized her immediately. The woman fromthe deck. The one Dean had hugged so hard she was almost airborne.
She hovered in the doorway, saying nothing, eyes skimming from Helen to me.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Helen said, clapping her hands in one soft burst. “Blair, it’s so good to see you again. This is Vivienne Blackwood, Dean’s fiancée. Vivienne, this is Dean’s little sister, Blair.”
Sixteen
I walkedout of the bathroom feeling the weight of the old woman’s words pressing down on my chest. I didn’t head toward the noise and lights. I went the other direction—down the quieter stretch of deck where the music faded into the chirp of crickets. The air was cooler here, the shadows thicker, and for the first time all night, no one was looking at me.
I leaned against the railing, let my head tip back, and drew in a slow breath.
The woman with the long legs—the one I’d assumed was Dean’s ex—wasn’t his ex at all. She was his sister.
His sister.
The thought rang like a bell in my head, each echo pulling another thread loose. The woman in the bathroom wasn’t just some sweet stranger either. She was hisgrandmother. Which meant Mr. McHenry—the sharp-eyed man with the knowing smile—was his grandfather. The one Dean built cars with. The one who taught him how to fish.
I pushed away from the railing. The boards creaked under my shoes as I walked down the stairs at the back of the lodge, my chest heavy, and my thoughts racing to keep up.
It all made sense now—too much sense.
The way Thomas and Trisha told childhood stories. The way Blair’s arrival stirred whispers. The way everyone seemed to already know who I was without me saying a word.
I’d been brought into the lion’s den blindfolded, and I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was halfway down a dirt path that faded into trees when I heard him.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
I froze. Took a beath. Turned.
Dean stood five steps behind me, hands buried in pockets, moonlight catching in his eyes.
“The cabin’s that way,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder with a nod of his head.
Something in my gut twisted. “You lied to me. This isn’t a corporate retreat—” I jabbed a finger toward the deck. “That’s your family.”
He stopped mid-step, watching me carefully. “You’re right,” he said finally, his voice calm. “The people back there are my family?—”
“And that wasn’t part of our deal.”
“But I didn’t lie. We work together. McHenry and Associates is our family business.”
I hesitated for a moment, my throat tight with emotion. “Then why didn’t you just say so?”
He moved toward me slowly, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I did.”
“Oh, please. Don’t gaslight me, Dean.”
His mouth curved—not in mockery, but in something that looked a little like disbelief. “I gave you a whole binder full of information.”
I blinked, searched his face, expecting smugness but finding nothing of the sort. Just quiet honesty.
“I thought that was… background,” I said.
