Page 18 of Fortune’s Control (Fortune’s Creek #1)

Lilah sat alone on the porch swing, one leg tucked under the other, with a foot pressed on the wood floor to keep up a steady sway.

“Your iced coffee.” I passed it over and took the space beside her. Lilah shifted and cuddled into my side. “Did I get it right?”

She sucked on the straw. “It’s perfect. You want some?”

I raised a hand, stopping her. “That’s a sugar bomb.”

“Yes, that’s the whole point.” Lilah took a sip and sighed. Her voice quieted, growing wistful. “Mornings have become my favorite part of the day since arriving. It’s cooler, and the birds all sing. Look at the crows over there.”

A pair jumped and danced on the grass.

“They’re eating,” I said.

“Eating with so much joy, they’re forced to dance.”

“Well, don’t let Pirate see them.” The cat didn’t hunt birds, but two dead mice had appeared on the front door. Our efforts to bring the cat inside still progressed, but Pirate resisted, racing for freedom every time a door opened.

“Our precious kitty knows better than to upset a pair of crows. They have long memories, you know. Pirate is smart. She won’t attack them.”

“They wouldn’t have any memory because they would be dead.”

“A collective crow memory. Pirate knows the other crows would remember. ”

“That’s not a thing.” I checked my watch. “Where’s your friend?”

“Emma? Awake and dragging. Jobs do that. She needs to turn into a lazy slug, like me.”

I ignored the subtle reference to her jobless state. It would happen once the right opportunity appeared. “My sister and I plan to visit my parents soon.” I rechecked my watch. “Any minute now.”

Lilah’s features softened as she leaned in and offered a tentative kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be with Emma the entire time. I mentioned the antique stores, and now she wants to shop. We’ll probably drop by Aiden’s demolition derby later.”

I smiled at her for letting me know she wouldn’t be alone.

“I’m glad she’s here for you.” Emma took over the downstairs guest room, putting Lilah upstairs, next to my bedroom.

The closer location led me to wake at the ass crack of dawn for my morning run, which didn’t bother me.

Years of pre-dawn wake-ups as a Marine inured me to it.

Plus, my runs were short, only thirty minutes, which allowed me to shower and dress while the world slept.

I squeezed my knee. “As long as she’s with you.”

*****

Our footsteps echoed down the stone pathway, breaking the graveyard’s somber atmosphere.

“This is our first time visiting them together.” Sophie stroked Mom’s headstone.

I wanted to protest, but I realized she was correct. We came for the funeral, and rarely after it. Once I joined the Marines, and she went to live with relatives, our visits grew sparse, and we never came together. “We’re here now. I think that counts. ”

“Almost twelve years.”

I came to be alone and think during my last visit, when Lilah found me. It was the first time I connected with someone else in a year. She opened up about her family, and a deep appreciation filled me. She trusted me enough to share, so I did the same in return.

“We should come here more often. Together,” I said.

“Lilah put you up to this, didn’t she?” My sister’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and I noticed she kept our mother’s headstone between the two of us. We were together, and she still placed a physical barrier between us.

“She played a role.”

“I knew it.”

“She’s also right. Lilah has no family, or at least none worth speaking of. We do, Sophie. Do you really want to go the rest of your life angry with me?”

“You dumped me on strangers,” she spat out.

“Family. I couldn’t take care of you.”

“Because you went off to see the world. You could have left me with Lainey’s mother.”

I enlisted before our parents died, and canceling that kind of contract wasn’t possible. I wasn’t the first person to join up with family obligations. “She was a single mother of two kids, and they lived in a trailer park. I know it was difficult for you.”

“You have no idea how difficult it was,” she hissed at me. She moved from behind the headstone and approached. “You’ve been this way our whole life, Shane, ever since I was a baby. Mom declared me old enough to date, and you scared off every boy in the county.”

“I let you date Jack.”

She held up a finger. “One, note your choice of words. Two, you didn’t deny it at all.

Three, you imply Jack does what you say, and you know what?

He does.” She held up three fingers. If we kept going, she’d move on to her other hand.

“Four, you don’t get to boss me around anymore. I’m a grown woman now, Shane.”

“I don’t boss people around.” My friends would all take Sophie’s side on this one. Hell, so would Lilah, and most everyone else. “Much. My choices also paid for your college, saved our house, and created a trust in your name.”

“It’s unused.”

“I know. Use it. That money is for you.” I sat down to give my leg a rest. “Use it to make your dreams come true.”

“I’m working on that part.”

“Do you want to share any of it?” I asked.

“Not a single damn word, because you’ll try to talk me out of it.” Sophie paced in front of me.

“Even more reason to tell me. And sit down, you’re making me nervous.” She frowned. “It’s a request, not a demand.”

She sat. “I like your wife.”

“Lilah said the same about you. You came home to meet her, didn’t you?”

Sophie’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “I planned the trip before learning about her, but I will admit I moved up the dates.”

“Is this trip for your secret plans?”

“The ones I decided not to share with you. Yes, those secret plans.”

I tried again. “I won’t steer you away from whatever you’re planning if you tell me what it is.”

She scoffed. “Neither of us believes that.”

Dean’s contact helped before, and I could get him to do the same again. “We can talk more about it later.”

“You don’t quit.” Sophie stood, shaking her head. “Why did you marry her?”

“I asked you first.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk first. Diane called it love at first sight, but we both know it wasn’t. Did you know Lilah thinks it’s temporary? She thinks you did it out of pity.”

I looked past Sophie’s shoulder rather than acknowledge the accusation. It’s not correct, but it’s also not wrong. “She witnessed a murder. That’s why she’s in town.”

Sophie drew back on her heels. “She did what?” Her shock faded as concern settled in her features. “Will you tell me the rest?”

I caught her up, skipping the part where I asked Dean for assistance. “She stays here for now.”

“And after?” Sophie glanced at my left leg. “Lilah doesn’t know, does she?”

“She will.” My neutral expression hardened. More than a year of worry from my friends and concern from townsfolk added to my reticence, as I didn’t appreciate seeing my darker thoughts reflected on their faces.

“If my advice matters, don’t let her find out another way. Did you forget Dean is the one who told me? Do you know what it’s like to find out your brother was in a horrible accident three months earlier and didn’t bother telling me? He didn’t even do it on purpose.”

“I know.” Dean called her instead of me about a simple household repair, informing her in the process. “You had a life, and there was nothing you could do.”

“That right there.” Sophie shook her finger at me.

“That’s five, because I should have been with you.

Look where we are.” She waved her hand toward our parents’ conjoined headstones.

“You dragged me here because we’re the last of our family, right?

” She groaned. “I should have been with you. You’re my brother, and you deserved that, Shane.

You deserved to have your family with you. ”

“We’re here now.” I hugged her close. “I may drive you crazy, but you know that’s because I love you.”

“You take care of the ones you love. You always have, in your own frustrating way.” Sophie hesitated before returning the embrace. “I love you, too, even the annoying parts of you.”

Lilah’s push led to today’s breakthrough. She kept a running list of favors I did for her, and this one conversation outweighed them all. “Those are my best parts.”

“I hope Lilah agrees with that because we need her to stick around. We need more family, and I like her.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Without trapping her here against her will, because not even you would get away with kidnapping a person. Don’t make me find a number six.” She gave me a lopsided smile and sat down once more.

“Can you do me a favor for her and keep it between us?”

She drew back. “I’m suspicious again.”

“It’s not like that.” I shook my head. “Lainey knows, too. Lilah has a grandmother here, or she might. All we know is that her last name isn’t Mayberry, and she had a daughter who left home almost thirty years ago.

Maybe less than that. The daughter’s current name is Sarah Jane Mayberry.

If anyone can discover if this woman exists, it’s you. ”

One of Sophie’s favorite hobbies was Fortune’s Creek history. She studied old deeds and maps, and took trips to the university to read journals and letters. I appreciated Lainey’s help, but my sister knew the area’s history better than anyone alive .

“Why doesn’t she ask?”

I hesitated. Lilah’s initial eagerness waned after the newspaper effort failed, even as her hope stayed.

It confused me until she revealed more about her mother.

Any further searches meant speaking directly to women, and that carried risk.

Lilah experienced enough rejection with her mother; finding her grandmother could mean more.

“We tried. If this woman exists, I’ll find her. ”

“I’m guessing you want me to come to you before her.”

“Please.”

“Will do. Don’t let that blow up in your face, either.”

“I won’t.”

“I miss them.”

An undercurrent of anger attached itself to Sophie during every visit home. She preferred it to grief, which I understood because my actions over the past decade weren’t that different. Fixing others’ problems is always preferable to confronting your own. “I miss them, too.”

*****

“Every time I visit, the gray lady is here, with her little for sale sign out front.” Sophie leaned out the window and waved at the miserable relic as we drove past.

“It’s been for sale since we were in preschool. Jack calls it the gray bitch.” I winced. Jack’s name wrecked her mood. Whatever passed between them, her anger towards my best friend engulfed her annoyance with me.

“Why does he call it that?” Sophie kept her head out the window as I turned the corner and the old resort faded from view. She rolled up the window. “With work, it’d be stunning.”

“Work and money. That place is Jack’s dream. You know how much he enjoys restorations. He has the knowledge.”

“But not the money. Or the ambition.” Sophie hummed, reminding me she didn’t care what Jack dreamed of. Jack drifted, but if the opportunity presented itself, the gray lady might be the push he looked for. “Let’s see Aiden’s new business and these cars he’s working on.”