ONE
‘Laptop and mobile chargers packed? Did you check the oil in the car?’
Lu Sheppard stood in the east coast early-morning sunshine and, because she knew that throwing her arms around the hairy knees closest to her and hanging on tightly wouldn’t be appreciated, jammed her clenched fists into the pockets of her faded denim shorts. Turning her head away, she swallowed furiously before digging deep and yanking out her patented, much practised I’m-OK-you’re-OK smile.
‘Lu, you did,’ answered Daniel, the younger of her twin brothers. ‘Twice.’
That was right. She had. And she’d ticked it off on the list she’d made for them. Not that either of them had looked at it. Lord, how was she going to do this? These boys had been her life and her focus for the past decade. How was she supposed to just let them get into their car and drive across the country to university and, to all intents and purposes, out of her life? She’d yelled at them, cried with them and cried over them. She’d provided meals and lifts, helped with homework and bugged them to talk to her. She’d been father, mother, sister and friend.
She was twenty-nine years old and not only was she unable to stare empty nest syndrome in the eye, it was also kicking her non-sexy butt. But, like so many other emotions she’d experienced over the past ten years, the boys didn’t have to know that...
Daniel leaned back against the door of his jointly owned car and cleared his throat. Lu saw the look he gave Nate and felt rather than saw the nod Nate gave in reply. Nate moved to stand next to his non-identical twin, equally tall, equally good-looking.
Daniel cleared his throat again. ‘Lu, we are grateful that you stepped up to be our guardian when Mom and Dad died. If it wasn’t for you we would’ve ended up with some crusty relative who probably would’ve shipped us off to boarding school and holiday camps.’
Since their parents had both been only children, Daniel’s comment wasn’t far off the truth. All their relatives were old, crusty, and generally waiting for the light in the tunnel.
‘But it’s time for a new start...for us and also for you.’
Huh? ‘What do you mean?’
Daniel rubbed his jaw. ‘We think it’s time for you to do all the things you couldn’t do because you were raising us.’
Lu frowned. ‘Where is this coming from, guys? We talked about this—about you two leaving.’
‘Sure—about what uni was like, how we felt about leaving, what we were getting into. But we never spoke about you.’ Nate chipped in.
Lu’s expression was pure confusion. ‘Why did we need to? My life isn’t changing.’
‘It should,’ Nate retorted.
‘But why?’
‘Because nothing about your life is normal for a single woman of your age! When did you last have a date?’ Nate demanded.
Lu couldn’t remember. It had been a while—six, eight months? She could barely remember the man, just that he hadn’t been able to wait to get rid of her after she’d told him that her twin brothers lived with her and she was their guardian. She couldn’t blame him; his had been the standard reaction from the very few men she’d dated over the years: shock followed by an immediate desire to find the closest exit.
Add a large house, two dogs, an enormous saltwater fish tank, three corn snakes—no, they’d been moved to a reptile centre when she’d refused to look after them after the boys left—and cats to the pile of her baggage, and it was no wonder her dates belted away.
‘We need to talk to you about...you,’ Nate said.
‘Me?’ Lu yelped as she pulled a band from her shorts and finger-combed her straight, mouse-brown hair into a stubby pony.
Uh, no. She looked after them—physically, mentally—they didn’t look after her. That was the way their little family worked.
‘Look, Lu, we’re not only leaving, we’re leaving you. You know our plans: degrees, then we want to travel. We have no idea where we’ll end up but there’s a good chance it won’t be here,’ Nate continued. ‘That being said, it would be a lot easier for us if we knew that you were happy and busy and had a full life of your own. Take this house, for instance; we don’t want you hanging on to this mansion in the hope that one of us will want it one day. And right now it’s a huge house for you to live in by yourself.’
Dan jumped in. ‘We’re not asking you to sell the house, or anything like that... We just want you to know that we are cool with whatever you want to do with it: sell it, rent it out, start up a commune...’
Lu sat down on the steps leading to the front door and rested her forearms on her thighs. Nate sat down next to her and draped a muscular arm around her shoulder. ‘Just please don’t become a crazy lady who rattles around here talking to herself and rescuing cats. That was the first thing we wanted to mention...’
There was more? Really? Good grief!
Daniel dropped to his haunches in front of her and pinned her with a look that went far beyond his eighteen years. ‘Lu, you are going to be on your own for the first time since you were roughly our age.’
Well, yeah. That was why empty nest syndrome was wiping the floor with her face.
‘We want you to have some fun—to live your life.’ Daniel raked an agitated hand through his hair, which desperately needed a cut. ‘You need to stop being so responsible, to take a breath. To do the things you should’ve been doing while you were raising us.’
Lu cocked her head. ‘Like...?’
‘Like clubbing and—’ Daniel looked at a point beyond her shoulder and blushed ‘—hooking up.’
Hooking up? Heavens, if she couldn’t remember when last she’d had a date, she’d had absolutely no idea when she last had sex. She suspected she might need a high-pressure cleaner to remove the cobwebs.
‘So, here’s your “to do” list. We want you to try new things like...skydiving or learning to surf. Pottery classes or dance lessons,’ Nate suggested.
Daniel, her brand and fashion-conscious brother, winced at her faded purple T-shirt and battered jeans. ‘Some decent clothes would also be a good idea.’
‘I have decent clothes!’ Lu objected.
‘Then wear them!’ Daniel shot back. ‘And your hair needs a cut and you could do with a facial. You need a lifestyle makeover.’
Since their words plucked a chord somewhere deep inside her, she suspected that they might be right. But she certainly didn’t have to like it.
Lu growled. ‘I hate you.’ She glared at Daniel. ‘And you.’
‘No, you don’t. You love us.’
Nate grinned and her heart flipped over. God, she did. So much. How was she supposed to let them go?
‘You
