It took a few long, silent seconds for Aaron’s breathing to return.
Chapter 4
Kennedy
Kennedy’s fingers fumbled with the silver lid, barely lifting it before she forced it back in place. It was a perfectly windy evening, a breeze kicking up the salty scent of the lake just in front of her feet. She bit her lip, staring down at the murky water splashing against the dock and rocking canoes tied up near the shore. Jared would love this exact setting—symbolically being set free among the subtle waves of his favorite lake.
Kennedy tucked the urn against her, using her free hand to cover her face. Crumpling in with her shame, she felt her knees buckle and she lowered to the dock, unable to trust the stability of her feet.
It’s been a year, she told herself. A year, a year, a year…How could a simple task be so…not simple? She was being selfish, wanting to keep Jared close for fear that the devastation of losing him would crash over her all over again once she opened the urn and poured the contents. She’d only just begun the process of moving on, of crying less, of working and going through the motions. In fact, the only conversation she’d had about Jared that was not accompanied by an overwhelming sense of loss was the one just yesterday afternoon, with a man she just met.
She curled herself around the urn, burrowing into the comfort of her own arms. “Don’t be mad,” she pleaded, never knowing if Jared could hear or if she was only crying into a void. “Please, I…I…” Her arms tightened, pressing the cool, smooth metal surface hard against her chest. “I can’t let you go again.”
As the words fell from her lips, a faint memory prodded its way to the forefront of her mind. A few weeks before his passing, Jared, weak and upset with his condition, had begged her to sit in his lap. Kennedy had refused, shaking her head with the worry of putting him in even more pain. He’d mustered up enough strength to take her by the arm, his touch so gentle and almost childlike. It had been the look in his eyes that weakened her resolve, not the muscles that had once been so hard and defined. She’d gingerly settled her weight on him, careful not to disturb any IV or oxygen tube. There was a small wince in his eyes that had her backing up out of the wheelchair, but Jared had coaxed her back down, a hint of a smile on his dry lips.
It had taken her a moment, but Kennedy finally relaxed into his hold, ran a hand over his smooth head, pressed a kiss to the tear that trailed down his thinning face. With what seemed a great effort, he’d reached up and pushed away at the fallen strands of hair hanging loose from her ponytail.
“I can’t,” he’d said, his voice thick and hoarse and so foreign. “I can’t let you go.”
She’d promised him he wouldn’t have to. She’d promised that there would be no one else.
He hadn’t argued, and she’d taken his silence as an acknowledgment that he didn’t want her to let go, either.
She spent a few moments alone on the dock, letting the breeze tickle her neck as she bent forward and rested her forehead on her knees. Deciding that she was more selfish than she was strong, she blew out a breath and wiped away at a tear in the corner of her eye. She was here to do this for him, no matter how long it took. Tonight just wasn’t the time.
Her knees cracked from staying in a crouching position and an ache ran through her spine as she straightened. “Next time, baby,” she promised the empty space around her before turning toward the quaint and cozy B&B.
It was only a short walk—maybe a football field and a half long, filled with long grass and trees, but it gave Kennedy the time she needed to compose herself before she was around people again. Chelsea, Daniel, and their two rowdy boys had given her space, but Kennedy craved any company she could get. Her work kept her mind preoccupied for only so long, and whenever she found herself resting on the fluffy bed, Jared’s ashes propped up on the pillow next to her with the window view of the lake just beyond that, it was so easy to go from feeling nothing to feeling everything. The distraction of fun and surface conversation was nothing short of welcome.
Once she felt assured that her expression had returned to one of indifference, she quickened her pace, practically jogging around the corner of the B&B. It was then that a giant ball of gray and white fur blinded her and knocked the wind straight out of her lungs.
“Charlie!” Chelsea’s voice was heard over a heavy set of lungs panting in Kennedy’s ear as her butt went straight into the dirt. “You get off her right now.”
Kennedy pushed at the soft underbelly of her attacker, cringing at the wet kisses being licked across her cheek. An undercurrent of panic ran through her chest when she realized she was no longer holding Jared’s urn.
“Chelsea,” she sputtered around the canine affection. “The ashes, the ashes.”
“They’re okay.” A strained laugh came from Chelsea’s lips as she tugged on the dog’s leash. “For the love of baby Jesus, will you get off of her, Charlie? Kennedy is not a puppy toy!”
Only after the dog went from licking to sniffing down Kennedy’s body did he finally back off enough to let her get to her feet. Chelsea shook her head, holding back both a laugh and a growl at the pup.
“Useless,” she said. “This dog went through training and for what? To listen to only one guy on this planet.” She stuck her forefinger in the air to emphasize her point, staring down at the very clueless and happy puppy. Kennedy smiled and ran both hands down her front and over her bottom to dust off the dirt from her clothes.
“He can’t be more than a year old,” she said, bending for the urn, grateful that she’d tightened the lid back at the docks. “Come on, give him a break.”
Chelsea huffed. “This is why I don’t do dogs. They are invasive, always sniffing at your lady parts.”
“Ah, he’s a sweetheart.” Kennedy ran a hand over the soft fur at the top of his head, admiring the fluffy beauty. “Look at those eyes.”
“That’s where they get ya,” Chelsea said, undeterred. “It’s the same with kids. They pull out those doe eyes and give you a hug whenever something horrible has gone down.”
Kennedy chuckled under her breath. “I take it he’s not yours then?”
“Heavens no. What’s left of my sanity would be long gone.” She let out a sigh and plunked down on the porch steps, patting the spot next to her for Kennedy. “Aaron’s the only one he’ll listen to,” she continued as Kennedy sat, too.
“Aaron?” The stutter in Kennedy’s voice had her gulping back an unexpected jump under her skin at just the mention of the man’s name.
“Charlie is his.”
“Do you watch him often?”
Chelsea shook her head, her pink and blue head scarf waving with the slight wind. “Aaron and he are normally joined at the hip, but Natalie isn’t a fan of dogs, and he’s with her tonight. Austin usually dog-sits, but he’s also out. Since dating is rarely on my calendar”—she gave the door of the B&B a pointed look Kennedy imagined was directly for her husband somewhere inside—“I offered to take him.”
Kennedy nodded, pushing away at the niggling picture of Aaron kissing the redheaded beauty. That shouldn’t matter to her. It didn’t matter.
“You aren’t a fan of dogs, either,” Kennedy said with a grin. “Why doesn’t Aaron’s girlfriend just…deal with it?”
Chelsea turned a suspicious eyebrow toward her, and Kennedy bit her lip and concentrated on running a hand over Charlie’s back, hoping nothing in her expression said anything other than casual conversation.
“Hmm,” she hummed under her breath. Kennedy turned her round eyes at Chelsea’s narrowing ones.
“What?”
Chelsea inhaled, her back straightening as she unclipped the leash from Charlie’s collar. He instantly took the opportunity to go sniff at some bushes.
“Natalie isn’t Aaron’s girlfriend,” Chelsea said after a moment, obviously not divulging the meaning behind her previous thoughtful hum.
“Oh,” was all that escaped Kennedy, a surprising amount of relief and confusion swirling arou
nd in her mind. It didn’t matter that he was available; he was obviously something with that woman, and she was obviously still very much broken inside. Jared still had her heart in his clutches, and the thought of tearing it away from him to give to another was devastating. So it didn’t matter how comfortable it was speaking to Aaron. Or how easy he made it feel to talk about Jared and feel joy from the conversation instead of sorrow. Or how very, very handsome he was. Jared was the love of her life, and she was a firm believer that you only get one. How unfair would it be to anyone else to pursue any kind of relationship based on physical attraction? How unfair would that be to Jared?
Her eyes flicked up to find Chelsea studying every twitch in her expression. A slow smile broke out on Chelsea’s lips before her gaze dropped to the urn resting on the steps between them. Kennedy’s eyes widened in worry that Chelsea had heard her impure thoughts.
“The Sheppards are two of the nicest and sexiest men to ever grace this planet.”
“Huh?”
“Austin and Aaron? Between the two of them, they’ve got the muscle and the brains. Growing up, this girl right here”—she pointed to herself—“had someone to turn to no matter what the problem.”
Kennedy jumped at the opportunity to turn the subject to the brother she hadn’t been thinking about. “How was Austin on the boyfriend scale?”
Chelsea let out a belly laugh. “You heard about that, huh? I guess Aaron was more talkative than usual.”
Kennedy tilted an eyebrow to encourage her to answer the original question; she hoped that Aaron’s name wouldn’t be brought up again.
Chelsea reached for the knot in her scarf and let it loose. The light material fell from her head and she crumpled it in her lap. “He was interesting, obviously. I think I’d always known he was gay, but it was still a bit of a shock when he said it out loud.” Her grin faded as the look in her eyes grew distant. Kennedy sensed a long history between the two families; she felt a twinge of anger seep into her heart that she’d never even heard of the Sheppard brothers until she ran into one of them. The anger was quickly pushed away—there was no room for it beside everything else when it came to Jared.
“He tried to convince me that I handled the news well,” Chelsea continued, her eyes now in the present. “But I don’t believe him one bit.”
The laugh that escaped her was contagious, and Kennedy felt her own smile take over. At the sound of their laughter, Charlie cantered over, his nose covered in dirt as he pressed it against Kennedy’s leg. She indulged him in his quest for attention.
“So, how did you…” Kennedy’s question floated off into oblivion as Charlie straightened his spine and took off at the sound of an engine coming up the drive. He leaped around a red SUV while Aaron, in the driver’s seat, maneuvered around his hyper pet. Kennedy’s thoughts were muddled at the sight of his closely trimmed beard, the grin that was more prominent without the overgrowth as he greeted the pup. She didn’t even notice Chelsea eyeing her with an intrigued grin until the creaking of the porch steps pulled her from the daze.
“You owe me a free website design!” Chelsea called out as she stood and set a hand on her hip. Aaron’s smile was in his honey eyes when they met Chelsea’s, but it faded quickly when they slid over to Kennedy. She jerked back in surprise at the formal expression.
He nodded to her as his only greeting before turning back to Chelsea. “You got it. Thanks again.”
Chelsea waved him off as if she were just giving him a hard time, but Kennedy had a feeling that he’d probably hold up his end of the bargain. Aaron patted Charlie on the hindquarters and he hopped up into the vehicle. Aaron waved goodbye to both women, keeping his eyes definitively on every other thing but Kennedy. Ignoring the curious—and unsettling—feeling that gave her, she turned her back on him, picked up the urn, and led the way back inside with Chelsea in tow. The possibility that the initial conversation she’d had with Aaron was a onetime occurrence made it that much easier to stomach. The only interest she had in Aaron…in both the brothers…was finding out how exactly they’d impacted Jared’s life while he lived in Lyra Valley.
Kennedy’s hands squeezed the urn. Or while he lived in general.
Chapter 5
Aaron
“She’s pretty, huh?” Aaron mused, reaching across the cab to ruffle Charlie’s fur. Now that he was out of sight from Kennedy, he could finally drop the mask he’d decided to wear whenever she was around.
His nine-month-old husky turned a wide, panting grin at him before stretching across the seat to rest his head in Aaron’s lap. A sigh fell from Aaron’s lips as he stroked the pup to sleep on their way home. It had been a long night, even though his normal outings with Natalie were much longer. But sitting through an entire meal listening to her throw every insult under the sun at him—followed by a near-full glass of red wine—made the evening feel like an eternity. Using a public place to break things off was supposed to be a good plan, but Natalie hadn’t had any qualms about using the highest decibel her voice possessed. By the time she left, half the town was aware of Aaron’s relationship status, and—if he was honest with himself—he’d bet most of them weren’t surprised in the slightest. There goes that Sheppard boy again, they’d most likely utter under their breaths. Another inevitable split.
He didn’t care much for the small-town gossip, but he deserved every bit of the negative rumors that were spread about him. Most people were good-intentioned neighbors, and when it came down to it, no one held a grudge against him for what happened years ago…with one exception.
Aaron shook his head hard, attempting to clear it like an Etch-A-Sketch with a major mistake that ruined the entire design. The only problem with ridding himself of those thoughts was that it left nothing to distract him from the thought he was desperately trying not to have.
She really is pretty.
Grateful that it was then he arrived home, he pulled into the dirt drive and shut off the engine, prodding Charlie to wake up. He hopped out with the husky bounding down between Aaron’s SUV and Austin’s work van. The anxious puppy ran to the front of the house, tail wagging so hard it clunked against the wooden rungs that surrounded the wraparound porch. Aaron nodded to his brother, who was animatedly talking on the phone, leaning against the dark wood of the railing. Austin gave him a wave, his mouth split open in a laugh caused by whatever was said on the other end of the call. Aaron whistled for Charlie, leading the excited puppy around back to do his business before heading in.
Charlie sniffed around the edge of the lake while Aaron leaned against the back porch and tried his best to keep his eyes off the B&B he could see clearly on the other side of the water. When they were kids, Jared and he would row or swim across it just to spy on the guests there. They’d pull stupid pranks that most of the time backfired, but there was the occasional scare. One man was still swearing that the place was haunted when he checked out in the middle of the night, demanding his money back. When the Teas wised up to what was happening, Jared and Aaron had to make up for the revenue the business had lost due to their antics, with manual labor. Aaron could still hear, clear as day, Jared’s laughter as they were bent over yanking weeds from the front garden as he said, “Totally worth it.”
A dull ache ran through his chest, and the grin that had settled on his face from the memory faded away with the rest of the sunset, and the sky turned from dark blue to inky black above the lake.
“Yo,” Austin said from behind him. “How’d it go?”
Aaron let out a humorless laugh and pulled at his red-stained shirt. “At least I’m not attached to it.”
“The shirt or the girl?” Austin teased, and Aaron lazily attempted to punch him for it. Austin easily avoided injury, leaned against the railing, and elbowed Aaron in the upper arm. “You need a drink?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. It wasn’t only the draining breakup he’d just gone through, but he needed to dull his thoughts…especially since those thoughts kept creeping
back to a certain guest who looked as if she was still awake, what with the light on in the top-floor guest room just across the lake at the place he swore he wouldn’t sit there and stare at. Obviously, he’d proved he was still no good at self-restraint.
Austin’s strong hand came down on Aaron’s shoulder. “Awesome. Go change.”
Aaron’s brow pulled together. “Why…?”
“I’m getting you a drink.”
Aaron shook his head. “I thought you were offering a beer from the fridge.”
“Not strong enough.” His brother tapped a rhythm against the railing. Aaron raised an eyebrow at the jovial mood, wondering who exactly had been on the other end of that phone call. Austin didn’t give him a chance to ask. “Come with me to Carson’s. I got a surprise for ya.”
Damn it. He knew he couldn’t say no now; Austin rarely insisted on anything and if he was this excited, it must be worth his while. Aaron hung his head, defeated as he watched his dog roll around in the overgrown grass. He’d been avoiding popular places in town ever since he arrived, regardless of everyone he had talked to telling him that no one gave a “hoot and a half” about why he left town in the first place. Most were thrilled to have a tech-savvy person to help upgrade their business systems. But beyond work, Aaron hadn’t been in very many social situations since he crossed the state line. The town watering hole on a Friday night seemed a lot like jumping into shark-infested waters with an open wound.
Aaron let out a groan that his brother assumed—correctly—was a yes. Austin whooped and headed inside through the back door. “Leaving in ten.”
“You’re buying!” Aaron called out after him.
—
As predicted, Carson’s Watering Hole was filled to the brim, patrons flowing from the front door. Loud laughter and raucous conversation could be heard from down the road, and Aaron braced himself for his grand entrance. Sure, he’d been seen around town—not an hour ago even, doing what he did best: breaking things off with a woman—but he knew there were a few Lyra Valleyites who’d only heard rumors of the evil Sheppard twin returning to town. Most of them were about to have physical proof.