disjointed thoughts spun in her brain. Call her new boss, ask for an extension on her start date; call the new landlord to plead for a refund of her deposit. Find Beth and Kent’s will and their checkbook; call Deidre to tell her about Beth. How would she tell Connor?
Never in her wildest dreams could Brooke have foreseen herself leaning into Hunter, sobbing.
CHAPTER THREE
GROWING UP THE youngest of four boys, Hunter hadn’t had much experience with touchy-feely stuff, but when Brooke melted against him, his arms automatically held her.
Unexpected? To be sure. Uncomfortable? Most definitely. Because the DVD in his inside jacket pocket was the only reason he’d come here today. When her brother-in-law handed it to him the week before their islands vacation, he’d sworn Hunter to secrecy. No one could know about his living-color will, not even Beth.
Listening to Kent’s vindictive portrayal of Brooke almost made him sorry he’d agreed to carry out its terms...and made him feel like a voyeur. “A woman like that,” Kent had said, “should not be allowed to raise my kid just because she’s connected by blood.”
Kent had left nothing to chance. In the note tucked into the DVD case, he had written:
In the event that something should happen to Beth and me on our trip, you, Hunter Stone, are to deliver one copy of this disc to a family court lawyer of your choice and another to my sister-in-law. You are then to immediately and permanently remove my son from her care.
Frankly, Hunter didn’t understand that level of hostility, because it seemed to him that Brooke was crazy about Connor, and the feeling was mutual. If she was guilty of anything, it was stubbornness and grudge-holding...against him.
So no, he didn’t understand Kent’s attitude, but after fifteen years of dodging Brooke at every O’Toole function, it would probably feel good to have the upper hand for a change.
At least, that was what he’d thought until he saw her on the porch, damp-eyed and rumpled, and couldn’t bring himself to deliver it. Finding out that her sister was dead, seeing the video, losing Connor all in the same morning? Only a heartless heel would do that to her.
So he’d left the DVD in his jacket pocket, told himself there would be plenty of time after the funeral to hand it over. Plenty of time to get a handle on his own grief at losing the friends who, for eight of the past fifteen years, had been more like family than neighbors. Time to find ways to support Brooke any way he could, because it was what Beth would have wanted.
He searched his mind for a word, a phrase that might comfort her, that wouldn’t sound phony or trite. Ironic, he thought, that his contractor’s toolbox was full of gadgets and gizmos, yet he didn’t know how to fix the brokenness in Brooke.
She spared him by stepping back. Way back.
“Sorry for soaking your shirt,” she said, plucking a napkin from the basket on the table.
Those eyes, sad and scared, looked so much like her mother’s that he could scarcely breathe.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, meaning it.
“Next time you come over, bring it with you—”
Even her hair, illuminated by the fluorescent ceiling fixture, reminded him of that night.
“—so I can wash and iron it. It’s the least I can do after blubbering all over it.”
Brooke blew her nose, hard, then tossed the napkin into the trash can and got busy cleaning up the floor. “I’ll bet imitating Canada geese wasn’t on Beth’s ‘My Sister Isn’t All Bad’ list.”
No, but plenty of other things were. For starters, Beth had assured him that despite the way Brooke had always treated him, she was a good and loving person; her bitterness, Beth insisted, was proof that her sister’s loyalty ran deep. “Give it time,” she’d said. “Brooke will come around, just like I did.”
He hadn’t believed it then. He didn’t believe it now. Still, he got onto his knees to help her sop up the melting ice cubes.
When they finished, Brooke stood at the sink and lathered her hands. “I have to email my electronic signature to Florida before Connor wakes up.”
A hint that he should leave? He could hardly blame her for sounding less than enthusiastic about spending time in his company. Besides, he’d been in her shoes when his dad died a year ago and knew that after emailing her signature to the deputy, she’d have her hands full making appointments and searching Beth’s office for documentation to bring to the meetings.
The DVD was out of sight, but hardly out of mind. It didn’t seem fair that with it, he had a virtual arsenal of ammunition to shoot down her attempts to keep Connor, yet she had to make all the final arrangements.
“Guess I ought to go. Call me if you need any—”
He didn’t understand the anger in her eyes. Especially since, not five minutes ago, she’d soaked his shirt with tears.
If she thought he’d gotten off easy after her mother’s death in the convenience store shootings, she was wrong: he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than two hours at a stretch or a night when his dreams weren’t filled with the sounds and images of the shooting. Beth had been wrong, too: Brooke would punish him with her dying breath.
As she’d stood crying in his arms, a weird thought had crossed his mind: Give her the disc. Don’t fight her for Connor. Tell her you’ll help her raise him...to prove how rotten you feel about that night. But in this moment of lucidity, he realized how wrong that would be, because Connor deserved better from life than to spend it under the thumb of a woman so consumed with hatred and bitterness.
He took a few steps closer. “You might not believe this, but I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate me for what happened that night,” he said, meaning every word. “But, Brooke, can’t you set it aside, even at a time like this?”
He prepared himself for a scathing retort.
“A time like this,” she grumbled, putting her back to him. “Connor hates eggs,” she said, grabbing oatmeal from the cabinet. “He’ll be up soon, so I need to get his breakfast ready.”
He stood, gap-jawed, wondering what any of that had to do with what he’d just said.
“I’m not the least bit hungry,” she continued, “but I’ll eat...to stay sharp. For Connor.”
She riveted him with an unblinking stare, and he felt like a bug, caught in a spider’s web. He’d been a fool to come over here; should’ve taken the disk to a lawyer, like Kent told him to, and let the chips fall where they may.
“Eat. Don’t eat,” he said. “It’s none of my business.” And he meant that, too.
“Your coffee’s getting cold. Have a seat, will you?” she said. “Because I need to get something off my chest, and I prefer to do it eye to eye, without you towering over me like Goliath.”
Oh. Great. Hunter exhaled a ragged sigh. He had a good idea that what she needed to get
