Page 6 of Endlessly Yours (The Wilder Brothers #10)

CHAPTER THREE

brOOKS

I had moved to be closer to my family, and I had done it knowing full well I would be spending more time with people than without.

Right after Amara had died, I had buried myself in work and tried to ensure to the world—including my parents and brothers—that I could handle being alone.

That while grieving, I wasn’t going to go off the deep end.

I’d only had one bad night of drinking, and of course, look how that had ended.

So when I had been summoned to a family meeting, I wasn’t surprised that while you could beg off if you wanted to, there had been enough urgency in the tone that I was now sitting here in my cousin Eli’s larger-than-life home that I had helped him build, wondering how I had made this my problem.

“There’s so much paperwork for her to deal with, and she’s not letting me help at all. And I know that Rory can do this on her own. I know she says that, at least, but we all know that there’s going to be a thousand little things that need to be done,” Ava rambled as she paced in front of us.

Most of the Wilders had come through here to try to figure out how to help Rory out of an impossible situation.

When Rory had nearly collapsed in my arms at that phone call, she had tried to push me away, but I had ignored her. Instead, I had held her up by her elbow as she steeled herself and listened to what had turned out to be the authorities on the other end of the line.

“So her brother-in-law was flying the plane, and it just went down?” Aurora asked as she slid her hand into my brother Ridge’s grip.

“That’s what the guy said,” I grumbled, trying not to picture exactly what had washed over Rory’s face when she had heard the news that her sister and brother-in-law had died in a small plane crash, leaving behind two little girls, a mountain of debt thanks to different state laws, and a group of people who did not want to relinquish rights to anything Beth and Nolan might have left that had value.

I didn’t know Rory’s family, and I didn’t want to know them. All I knew from hearsay at this point was that Rory and her sister hadn’t gotten along recently, and she hadn’t seen her nieces in years.

Hell, from what it looked like, the rest of my family knew more about Rory than I had. But that was understandable. I had done my best to ignore everything about her for long enough. So the only thing that I knew was what she tasted like, and the fact that she drew pictures for a living.

I tried my best not to know anything else.

I was seriously an asshole.

“Yes, apparently her brother-in-law Nolan was flying and had a pilot’s license.

The two of them were going to some other retreat as part of their group.

” Ava shivered. “Honestly, from the way that Rory explained the group, it sounds more like a cult than a community, but her sister and brother-in-law were higher up in the community’s power structure and were able to borrow the company plane.

It was engine failure, and the authorities don’t think it was tampered with. It was just bad luck.”

“I hate the idea that that would be bad luck,” Wyatt grumbled.

Of my brothers, Ridge and Wyatt had been able to come, Gabriel and Briar were out on tour again with his band.

My cousins Eli, Evan, and Elijah were here.

Everett and his wife were out in L.A. at their house there, while East and Elliott and their spouses were keeping the retreat running while we could have this meeting.

I still didn’t know why exactly I had been invited, but since I had been the one to call Ava when Rory hadn’t, I guess I was part of this.

Even though I wanted nothing to do with it.

“And she doesn’t have any other family?” Aurora asked, wiping away tears. “That’s so terrible.”

“There are a few aunts and uncles that are distant, but yes, the only family that Rory has are her two nieces. And now, according to what Rory said, she was in the will as their guardian.”

“How old are the kids?” Alexis asked as she leaned into Eli’s side.

Their two children were upstairs, napping, along with Kendall and Evan’s kids.

Elijah’s and Maddie’s kids were with the nanny at their place since I knew that they were trying to see if they could make a nanny work.

With all of us working full-time jobs, Wilder childcare was now a thing we cared about.

It was odd to think that though I had been the first to get married, I hadn’t ended up with children. Amara and I had wanted to start right away, but the cancer had come first.

And there had been no time for children when we had been trying every clinical trial out there to save her.

“Brooks, are you listening?” Ava asked as she blinked at me.

I shook myself out of my memories and frowned. “No,” I said, and Wyatt snorted.

“At least you’re honest,” my brother grumbled.

“Sorry. My mind was wandering. What’s wrong?”

“Cameron’s twelve, Alice is seven.” Ava shook her head.

“Right now she’s at her apartment, and while we did our best to make the guest bedroom no longer an office and a space for the girls, there’s just not enough space.

I was looking at rentals for her, but I just don’t know what to do.

There’s got to be something we can do to help. She hates taking help.”

It had only been eighteen hours since I had left Rory in Ava’s arms after I had called my sister-in-law to come to the apartment. I hadn’t said a damn thing, just stood there next to Rory as she shook, trying to comprehend the other line of that phone call.

There would be paperwork to deal with, and she’d need to fly out there and meet the children, but I hadn’t known what the hell I was supposed to do. So I’d run.

And yet, here I was, at the meeting.

“It’s all just so terrible,” Aurora said after a moment. “Their parents are gone, and they don’t even know their aunt. Do you know why Rory and her sister were estranged?”

I looked at Ava, honestly curious.

While I did my best to stay out of Rory’s way, the fact that Rory and her sister were so estranged to the point that she hadn’t seen them in years was a curiosity.

“It all has to do with that community they joined.”

“A cult?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know if we can precisely say it’s a cult, but it felt like that.

They both worked within the constructs of it and had risen to the upper echelons.

Hence why they could borrow that plane,” Ava explained.

“They were going to a retreat, and I don’t know all the details. But she hasn’t seen them in six years.”

I did the math, realizing that maybe there was a reason she had been drinking as much as I had that night.

No. I didn’t want to know more about Rory. Because part of me always wanted to know more about her. There was a reason I had stayed away, and it wasn’t that I didn’t like her.

It was that she reminded me of something that I wanted too much. Something I craved. And I wouldn’t be having that.

“When’s the funeral?” Aurora asked.

“Tomorrow,” Ava growled, and I narrowed my gaze.

“So is she going to the funeral then?” I bit out. Did she not want to? Or were others making it difficult for her?

“She’s not invited,” Ava said pointedly.

“Because while she is a guardian of the children, the will clearly states that the community gets everything. They’re going to organize the funeral, the remains, take the house, all funds, possessions.

Everything that wasn’t in those little girls’ rooms goes straight to the community. ”

“Are you fucking serious?” I burst out as the rest of them all spoke over one another, wondering how the hell that could happen.

“Is that even legal?” I asked.

“It sure seems like it,” Ava said as she wiped away tears. Wyatt pulled her in close, and she nuzzled into him.

“All I know is that she’s not going to be there to say goodbye to her sister, and she’s trying to get out there as soon as she can to see the girls and bring them back here.”

“To a place that they don’t know and away from people that they’ve grown up with,” Aurora said softly. “That’s got to be terrible and such a burden on all of them.”

“Is the community going to fight for the kids?” I asked, wondering exactly what kind of community this was.

Ava shook her head. “It hasn’t even been a day, and they’ve already explained in explicit terms that they won’t fight for custody if she doesn’t fight the will for anything else. And from what I can see, they have the money to make it a bloodbath.”

“So she’s going to bring them here. Because I’m pretty sure none of us want those kids anywhere near them,” I growled.

Ava met my gaze, and I knew she had questions. Hell, anyone who saw me around Rory had questions. It surprised me, though, that it had taken this long for Ava to even look at me in that way.

“She’s not going to be gone for long, and she’s going to bring those girls back home, and she’s not letting me go with her.”

Wyatt ran his hand up and down Ava’s arm. “Those girls are already going to be seeing a stranger in their aunt. Maybe seeing another stranger would be too much.”

“But that doesn’t mean she’s alone when everybody gets here,” Alexis put in.

“We Wilders are a loud bunch, and while Rory technically isn’t a Wilder, we adopted her long ago.

She’s a Wilder woman for wine night, at least, so she’s one of us.

What can we do?” She pulled out her planner and pen, and my lips nearly twitched at that thought.

Because while a sense of grief and confusion seemed overwhelming to the rest of us, we apparently were going to make plans.

“How is she going to fit two kids in her tiny apartment?” I asked as they went over supplies and schools and paperwork for the girls.

Everyone stared at me, and I shrugged. “Her office is in her guest room, and there’s already not enough space for her to walk around. Is she going to look for another rental? Are you guys going to put her in one of the cabins on the property?”