Page 15 of Burning For You

She was hours away herself and only returning for holidays and summers until she graduated and got her first job.

“No,” her father said. “He came to work for me. School wasn’t really his thing, but Brooke made him go.”

“That sounds more like it,” she said.

Ash had always been more into sports, girls and parties.

He tried to pull her into that world of his many times, but she’d resisted.

She wasn’t much of a drinker. One a month if she was lucky.

Maybe it was living with two functioning alcoholics that made it hard for her to pick up a drink for anything more than a special occasion.

“Well, now he’s a fireman,” she said. “Does he still work with you?”

“Yep,” Corbin said. “He works two twenty-four-hour shifts and then when he’s off, he’s helping me out or working events at the barn, sometimes helping Clay at the mill.”

“Huh? What?”

“Skye,” her mother said, shaking her head. “I know I told you. Clay Ridgeway returned home a few years ago. He turned the orchard into a hard cider mill. It’s a pretty big operation, I guess. One of the old barns is now a wedding and events venue.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I forgot.”

She didn’t really focus too much on her old hometown news.

For years she wanted to forget everything about the place that took so much from her.

But then she realized it also gave her so much more in return.

“Yeah. So Ash is working all the time,” Corbin said. “If not with me, then with Clay. He checks in with his brother first and plans around that.”

“Sounds like he’s not the partier I remembered him to be.”

“Hey, did the party start without me?” Tate asked, coming in next.

“You got your hug yesterday,” she said when Tate marched over to her. But he picked her up and squeezed the air out of her again, causing her to laugh, along with everyone else in the room.

“I might not get another if I don’t take it,” Tate said. “Everyone coming today?”

“Keegan, Brenna and Holden should be here soon.”

The door opened and closed in the back again. It was like everyone was trailing in at once.

First Keegan, giving her a much lighter hug. He didn’t lift her, even if he could have easier than anyone else.

Keegan was the biggest and the quietest of the group, but the most protective on top of it.

Then Brenna ran in, her arms open, squealing like she had a week ago when she’d seen her sister.

Might as well let everyone have their moment and return the hug.

“What did I miss?” Holden asked, striding into the room.

“The last to arrive as always,” she said. Though Holden was in the Lancaster home before her. Since he was four. It took a lot longer for them to adopt him because things were tangled with his parents not signing off.

Holden’s was an adult adoption, but the truth was, other than Tate and Corbin, he’d spent the most amount of time in the Lancasters’ home.

Maybe she was a little jealous of that.