“Of course they had to pick the coldest day of the year for this,” Nora said, pulling her collar up against the bitter cold wind that poured in through openings that would soon be windows. “The windchill has to be ten below zero.”
Eve pulled out her phone and checked. “Close, fifteen degrees.”
“I feel warmer already,” she joked.
“Have you talked to Mom?” Nora asked Eve.
Eve frowned and shook her head. Despite their parents’ divorce, and their father’s very public reputation for womanizing, the news that he had fathered a child with Cynthia Newport had hit their mother, Celeste, pretty hard. It had also been difficult for her to accept that Eve was in love with Graham, and that her grandchild would have the Newport name.
“She’ll come around,” Nora said, wrapping her arm around Eve’s waist and giving her a squeeze.
“I know,” Eve said, clearly holding back tears. “It still hurts, though.”
Of the three sisters Eve was by far the toughest of the bunch, but Gracie had the feeling her hormones were out of whack from her pregnancy and making her weepy.
“I’m sorry,” Nora said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It will all work out,” Eve said, but not with her usual confidence. “It will just take time.”
There was a moment of silence, then Nora asked Gracie, “So how did the fund-raiser go Friday? I’m sorry I couldn’t be there but the wedding plans have me chasing my own tail.”
“It was great,” she told her sister, but it was the memory of Saturday that was making her feel all warm and toasty under her coat.
Nora frowned. “That’s it? Just great? No juicy gossip to share?”
“Honestly the whole night is kind of a blur.” She glanced over at Eve, who was looking straight ahead with a wry smile on her face. Had she said something to Nora about Gracie being there with Roman? And the fact that she’d gotten drunk.
If she had, or if someone else had mentioned it, Nora didn’t let on.
“Did you meet your fund-raising goal?” Nora asked her, and Gracie wished she would just let it go.
“I haven’t talked to Dax yet, so I’m not sure.”
Nora looked at her funny. “I thought you would be all over it Saturday.”
She’d been all over something, but it wasn’t fund-raising.
“It’s a busy time for me at work,” she said, hoping Nora would drop the subject. She didn’t want to think about the fund-raiser or work or anything else. She didn’t even want to be here today. Where she wanted to be was back in bed with Roman. And at the same time, the reality of how quickly and effortlessly they had reconnected scared the hell out of her. This was not a good idea, this thing they had started. It had never been her intention to sleep with him. Not that it wasn’t some of the best sex she’d ever had in her life. But they had crossed a line, and she was afraid that she would never be able to cross back over it to where she was before. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go back, and that was probably the scariest thing of all.
She wanted to trust him, and believe that he had nothing to do with the recent smear campaign targeting her father, but that didn’t erase what had happened seven years ago. He had taken responsibility for his mistake, and his time in the service went a long way to prove his character. She wished she could just let it go, but it still lingered there somewhere in the back of her mind. She wasn’t sure if that residual little sliver of doubt would ever completely go away. And that lack of trust would eventually become their undoing.
Or maybe she would get over it and they would live happily ever after. If that was even what he wanted. Or what she wanted. Was she obsessing over something that he might not even want? Was she assuming things that had no basis in reality?
It was all so confusing.
“Well, if it isn’t the Winchester girls,” someone said from behind them and they turned to see Brooks Newport, smug as usual, walking toward them.
“Oh great,” she heard Eve mutter under her breath, but not quietly enough.
Brooks, with acid in his voice, said, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
Gracie was typically nonconfrontational, and tried to stay out of family spats, but she was feeling particularly snarky today. “Grow up, Brooks.”
Her sisters both turned to her, looking as if they couldn’t believe that had come out of her mouth. Brooks looked a little taken aback himself, but he recovered quickly.
“So the spoiled little heiress has a voice.”
“She does,” Gracie said, and though she had never been comfortable using profanity, she calmly, but forcefully, said, “and she’s sick of your bullshit intimidations. This is a special day for your family and your inability to behave like an adult does a great disservice to your brothers and disrespects your mother’s memory.”
He obviously didn’t like being called out as the immature, narcissistic ass that he was. “Your father is the one who disrespected my mother,” he said smugly, with a top-that look.
So she did. “And that makes you no better than he is.”
Brooks blinked, and she could see that the comment stung. Well, good. She hoped it would make him stop and think about his actions.
She could see the wheels in his head spinning, but before the situation could escalate further, Carson appeared at his brother’s side.
“We’re getting ready to start,” he told Brooks.
Brooks looked at Gracie and her sisters, as if he wanted to say something more, but then turned and stalked away.
“Everything okay here?” Carson asked his half sisters.
“Fine,” Gracie said. “Brooks was just being Brooks.”
Carson shook his head sadly. “I wish I knew why he’s so bitter. I understand his anger toward Sutton, but there’s no reason to drag the three of you into it. I’m sorry if he upset you.”
“I think I speak for me and my sisters when I say we’re over it,” Gracie told him.
“You’re my family,” Carson said. “I don’t want Brooks’s behavior to have a negative impact on that.”
“Brooks’s behavior has no bearing on our connection to you,” Nora told him. “Family is family.”
Gracie figured that they had proved that by accepting Carson as their sibling, despite the extramarital affair that was responsible for his existence. Sutton’s actions were in no way Carson’s fault, and it wasn’t fair to blame him for their father’s poor judgment.
“I have to go,” Carson said. “Maybe we can talk more afterward.”
When he was gone, Eve looked at Gracie and asked, “Wow, what’s gotten into you today?”
Riding on the edge of a guilty conscience, Gracie asked, “Was it wrong of me to stand up to Brooks?”
Nora laughed. “Heck no. He expected you to defend Sutton, and when you didn’t he had no idea what to say.”
“You blindsided him,” Eve said. “And it was thoroughly amusing.”
Gracie’s phone buzzed with a text. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw that she had a message from Roman. She was almost afraid to open it on the chance that he would say their encounter had been a mistake, and there was