A small sound from the other side of the desk brought Brynn’s attention back to where it was supposed to be: Taylor, the job, making a professional impression on these people who had entrusted her with their celebration.
Silence hung over them. No one seemed capable of speech. Brynn realized that if anyone was going to get them through this, it had to be her.
Long months of caring for her two younger brothers while their mother was sick had taught her that a bright smile and brisk attitude conveyed confidence that usually reassured others, if not herself. She shoved the paper in her pocket and turned to the door. Big smile. Breezy confidence. Play the part.
“Mrs. North. Good to see you again. You, too, Carter, Hank. Taylor has told me about your thoughts for the festival, and they sound fabulous. I’m looking forward to bringing them to life. Now, I know you were thinking of horse-and-buggy rides, but did you have any specific...”
She continued chattering while guiding them into the conference room where the rest of the family waited. By the time everyone was seated, Taylor’s face was only slightly pink instead of horror-movie white, and Moxie had stopped breaking out in unnerving snickers. Carter still wouldn’t look up, but Hank—Hank was watching her again.
Quickly, so fast that she almost thought she imagined it, he winked at her from across the table.
Forget keeping herself from being a bitch to Carter. The real challenge here would be making it through the meeting without sinking through the floor.
* * *
WEDNESDAYS WERE HANK’S night off. When he’d bought the cabins and moved himself and Millie out of the home he had shared with his folks and Moxie, his mother had made him swear on her future grave that he would bring Millie back at least once a week. Usually they grabbed a quick bite together, then he was pushed out the door with orders to see a movie or “be social.” Ma said that it was so they could spoil Millie silly without him protesting. He suspected it was really part of her ongoing quest to see him remarried, or at least going out on a regular basis. Subtlety had never been one of her strengths.
As he walked to the sprawling old Victorian and yelled to Millie to slow down before she slipped on the ice, he braced himself for what he was sure was going to be another round of lectures. Tonight’s installment, however, was strictly his own fault. He knew he’d made a mistake the moment he let himself wink at Brynn during the meeting.
It wasn’t the gesture itself that he regretted. She deserved something after getting them through Awkward Central without anyone wanting to bleach their brains. She’d put on some cute little librarian half-glasses, talking about nothing like her life depended on it, and he saw why Taylor had said she was all about family. She’d been willing to make an idiot of herself if necessary to help her cousin.
Yeah, she had definitely earned a wink. If only he’d been smooth enough to wait until Ma was looking the other way....
Sure enough, no sooner had he and Millie walked into the house and hung their coats in the hall closet than his mother took him by the arm.
“Moxie, can you amuse Millie for a while, please? Henry and I are going to the laundry room for a little chat.”
Ah, hell. She’d called him Henry and invoked the laundry room. That was the spot Janice North reserved for the worst transgressions, the ones usually punished by a serious dressing-down and manual labor.
“Moxie, no. Save me. You know what she’s like when she gets talking.”
Moxie grinned and tugged on the collar of Millie’s lab coat. “Come on, sprite. Let’s get out of your grandma’s way while she knocks some sense into your daddy’s head.”
“Can I watch?”
Great. Even his kid was abandoning him.
Resigned to his fate, he preceded his mother into the room and boosted himself up to sit on the dryer—an instinct from childhood. It was harder to be spanked if his mother couldn’t reach his bottom. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“Henry William North. Before you and Millie moved out, you and I had a little talk, remember?”
“And here it is, your once-a-week dinner as promised.”
“There was more to it than that, and you know it. You agreed with me that you were well and truly over the divorce and ready to move on. Start dating. Start having a life again.”
Very true. ’Course, he’d had his fingers crossed when he said it, but come on. That was self-preservation.
“You know, Ma, most folks your age are starting to have trouble remembering things. Why is it that your memory is just getting sharper? Are you part of some secret government experiment to steal memory cells from one person and transfer them to another?”
“Be serious for a minute, will you? I know it took a while to get over Heather, and I understand. You had a lot thrown at you very fast, and you needed time. But it’s been long enough. You bought the cabins, you and Millie are settled there, you’re building the life you wanted all those years ago, back before things got knocked off track.”
Hank snorted. Knocked off track? More like knocked up.
“In any case, I’m getting worried about you. You haven’t shown much interest in a woman in heaven knows how long.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” He raised his hand. A man could only listen to so much before he had to defend himself. “Not true. In fact, the only reason I saw the last Batman movie was because it had—”
“Anne Hathaway in a catsuit. I know.”
“You do?”
“Honestly, Hank. You think your brothers never tell me anything?”
Ian was lucky he was out of the country. Carter and Cash, on the other hand, were dead meat.
“Be that as it may,” she said with a pat on his arm, “it’s time for you to stop fixating on Catwoman and start looking at the flesh-and-blood women around you.”
Wait for it...
“That Brynn... She certainly seems nice.”
Could he call them or what? “Drop it, Ma.”
“Why? She’s smart and funny, and Millie certainly seems to like her.”
“Plus, she’s living in my backyard, which would make things kind of awkward if it didn’t work out, don’t you think? Not to mention that she’s working for us. Did you even listen to that sexual-harassment training we had to sit through?”
“You’re not at the dairy anymore.”
And this conversation was a great reminder of another reason why he had left: to be his own boss. To not have his family telling him what to do, in one form or another, 24/7.
“No, Mom. Just...no.”
She narrowed her eyes at him before smacking his feet. “Move your legs.”
He did it on autopilot, realized how easily he’d slipped, and groaned. Lucky for him there was no punishment on the horizon. Just the squeak of the dryer door as she pulled it open and pulled out a clean undershirt.
“Hank...” She folded the shirt in half, her actions automatic after decades of male laundry. “I know you’re reluctant to think about trying again, but life is hard enough as it is, especially when you’re a parent. Millie is going to take more from you than you realize. Things are easier when you don’t have to go through everything by yourself. And no, I’m not talking about the chores, okay? I’m talking about having someone in your corner. Someone to hold you up. Everyone deserves that, Hank. Even people who had a lousy marriage the first time around. Maybe even more so.”
Hell and damnation, how was he supposed to respond to that? Janice North didn’t put her heart on the line very often. For her to talk to him so openly, so honestly...she really must be