“This is Margie,” he says. “Old friend from nursing school. She needed a job, so I hooked her up doing housekeeping atthe retreat center and staying at our cabin. And Decker offered Rhys here a place to stay in our cabin while getting him a job in security at the retreat center, so they’re accidental housemates as well as coworkers for a bit, and since Decker’s an asshole who didn’t fuckingtell us, Margie had a bad scare when Rhys showed up last night.”
Sabrina nods. “I’d be terrified too if a streaky-faced mountain of a man showed up at my house in the middle of the night.”
“You live with a mountain of a man,” Decker reminds her. “Married him. Had his mountain-sized baby who loves to cuddle with your mountain-sized dog. Ring a bell?”
Sabrina ignores him and leans over the bar toward Margie, scooping away the dishes from the previous customers. “You poor thing. You want some coffee? Tea? Breakfast? Kombucha? I have lemon scones in the oven. They’re legendary. And we harvest our own honey here for the biscuits. New secret family recipe. Oh, wait, let me back up. Hi. I’m Sabrina. I’m Lucky’s cousin. Decker’s too, but he’s on my shit list. If they haven’t told you, there’s a third who looks just like them, Jack. He knows I’m working today, so he’s definitely not coming in, but don’t let them pull the triplet swap thing on you.”
Margie’s smile grows the more Sabrina talks, like she has no idea Sabrina probably knows exactly who she is.
Margie shakes her hand. “It’s lovely to meet you, Sabrina.”
“Samesies. So. Breakfast?”
“Could I please see your tea selection?”
“Coming right up.” Sabrina grabs a dark wooden tea case and sets it on the now-clean counter, then pours me a cup of coffee. “Back in a few.”
Lucky and Decker share a look around me, and I take an opportunity to glance at Margie, who’s studying the tea packets in the wooden organizer.
Swear to fuck, I know her from somewhere.
“Sabrina didn’t take our orders,” Lucky says.
“You know she knows,” Decker mutters back, jerking his head at Margie.
Margie slides a look at them, half-friendly, half-forehead-furrowing. “About…how we met in nursing school?”
Lucky winces.
Decker winces.
“I meant it when I said Sabrina knows everything,” Lucky tells Margie.
“She’s chaotic good,” Decker says. “She won’t do anything to cause problems.”
Lucky nods. “She uses her skills responsibly. She actually swore off gossip a few years back, but it’s in her blood, so she’s just a lot more…”
“Smart and strategic about it now,” Decker finishes. “Not that she wasn’t smart and strategic before. But she’s more honed.”
“Expert-level,” Lucky says.
Margie’s eyes pinch the barest amount as she selects a tea bag and closes the wooden case. “That’s good.”
If this woman doesn’t have a secret, I’ll pour hair dye into my own eyes again on purpose.
Where thefuckdo I know her from?
Decker leans around me to nod at Margie. “Oh, hey. Hi, Margie. I’m Decker.”
The stress lines fade, her eyes crinkle when she smiles at him, and the way she leans closer, hope and a smidge of desperation touching the way she’s looking at him—fuck.
I know that feeling.
That’s longing.
Longing for a family.
The number of times I felt that after my mom married Xavier Yates, when his teenage sons would be at the house, boys whocould’ve been my brothers but wanted nothing to do with me, then the way they all treated me like I was a problem to be dealt with after my mom died?—
