Page 25 of Frankie (Big Northwest #5)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

FRANKIE

F rankie stared at the rhinoceros standing outside her office at the warehouse. The thing was huge and ugly and had definitely seen better days. Its rough, dull, dark gray skin was starting to flake off in spots and the bristly black hair at the end of its tail was dry and missing chunks. The poor thing looked terrible.

But that only meant it was in the right place.

She pulled out her phone and placed a call, slowly circling the beast as she waited for her sister to pick up.

Danny answered after a couple of rings. “Hey. How are you doing?”

“Better than your new pet.” Frankie reached out to gently touch the taxidermied animal’s hide. “Where in the hell did you get this thing?”

Danny groaned. “Is it awful? ”

Frankie hesitated. “I mean, he’s not great looking.” She bent to peer at the rhino’s undercarriage, checking the accuracy of her statement. “Yeah. It’s a he.”

“Ugh. I’m coming to look at him. Be there in a sec.”

Frankie disconnected the call and slid her cell into the front pocket of the jeans she’d bought the day before during her shopping trip with JD. They were decently comfortable, but not nearly as broken in as the ones she normally wore. The ones that were now incinerated along with nearly everything else she owned.

Frankie paused, waiting for the pit of loss to form in her stomach. But it still didn’t come. She kept waiting, expecting it to hit her at some point, but her insides felt fine.

There might be something wrong with her—besides all the obvious and diagnosed things—because she still wasn’t feeling the devastation that should have come with watching her house burn to the ground. Was it sad? Sure. Inconvenient? Definitely. But lately, her house hadn’t been feeling the way it used to. It had gone from a place where she could relax and recover to a spot where she was isolated and alone. Plus it didn’t have a hot tub. Or a fireplace.

Or JD. And that might be the part of all this keeping any feelings of loss at bay.

“I guess we’re both a little fucked up, big guy.” Frankie gave the rhino a pat on the rump as she walked to her office, hoping to get a little work done while she waited on her sisters. JD dropped her off before going to find Kenneth to figure out what they’d missed. Her warehouse was only about a half mile outside of town, so Danny would probably take one of the side-by-sides. If she managed to get everything accomplished before Danny’s arrival, they could ride back into town together, saving JD a trip.

She’d been angry at JD for so long, it was a little weird to be looking for ways to be nice to him. But here she was, thinking about his happiness. Trying to make things convenient for him. Wanting to take care of him the way he took care of her.

It was ridiculous.

Shoving her office key into the lock, she tried to twist the knob, but the thing seemed stuck.

“What the?—”

Crouching down, she frowned at the line of scratches across the metal. She pulled her key out and found more gouged metal around the hole. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

This wasn’t the first time someone had dragged something across the knob of her door and damaged it. They were constantly moving vehicles and equipment into and around the space and shit regularly got broken.

Enough that she kept a backup doorknob and lock set on hand for issues like this one.

“Fuck me.” Like there wasn’t already enough to do, now she got to spend a half hour on that.

After carefully working her key into the lock and jiggling it around for a couple of minutes, she finally got the deadbolt to disengage. She’d barely managed to dig the new doorknob out of its spot in her desk drawer before Danny’s voice carried through the open area of the warehouse.

“Hello. Anybody home?”

“In here.” Frankie sliced open the plastic clamshell packaging with a utility knife and dumped the contents out onto the floor beside her. “Putting on another freaking doorknob.”

“Ugh. Again?” Danny’s voice was closer now. “You might need to partition that area off with caution tape.”

“I wish that would work.” Frankie squinted at the screws holding the hardware in place. “I could probably put a whole barricade around it and they’d plow right through.” She glanced up, intending to greet her sister, but did a double take when she saw who all was standing around her. “Uhh…”

Charlie held up both hands. “Surprise.” She wiggled her fingers, lips spreading into a wincing smile. “It’s an intervention.”

Frankie looked from Danny to Charlie to Sam to Alex. “Do I look like I’m doing cocaine?”

“Sometimes.” Alex leaned back against the wall next to where she was working. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

“We’re here because you’ve been weird.” Sam sat down on the concrete floor next to her and started organizing the parts to the handle. “We want to know what’s up.”

She knew this moment would come, just didn’t quite expect her sisters to be the ones to initiate it. In her head, she’d casually mention her diagnosis one day before a meet- and-greet. That way her sisters would have an hour to simmer on the information before she had to deal with their reactions.

But now she was about to be confronted with the full force of it. And had to find a way to make a quick escape.

“Well…” Frankie finished removing a screw, letting it drop to the concrete. “Umm…”

This was harder than she expected it to be. Not just telling her sisters she’d been keeping something so significant from them but also saying the words out loud.

Admitting the truth.

Taking a deep breath, Frankie braced. “I have lupus.”

Her sisters didn’t erupt into questions and distress the way she thought they would. They were quiet, each of them studying her as she continued to work on the knob.

Finally, Sam spoke up. “When did you find out?”

“Yesterday.” Technically that was true. She hadn’t gotten the official diagnosis until meeting with the doctor. The specialist had the results of the blood work she’d had done when JD took her to the ER, which confirmed it, but she’d ignored their calls and the patient portal like the plague. She could only deal with so much at once, and that shit would have pushed her right off the edge.

Danny’s brows pinched. “What’s the treatment?”

“Basically they treat the symptoms as they show up.” She fed the new knob through the hole. “Right now I just take anti-inflammatories when I need them. They said I have to stay out of the sun because I guess that can flare everything up.” She blew out a sigh. “Basically, I won’t be able to spend as much time out at the job sites.”

That circled her back to the most pressing of her current issues. Right now was the worst possible time for her to have to fire Carl. It would take a little while to train his replacement, so she would have to be involved in his team until the new foreman was in place.

“You look really stressed out.” Charlie reached out to rest a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “Is JD not doing a good job of relieving your stress?”

Danny started to cough, sounding like she’d choked on her spit at Charlie’s question.

“You don’t have to answer that.” Sam shot Charlie a glare.

Charlie’s eyes widened. “What? Why not?” She turned to Frankie. “It’s a serious thing. If he’s bad at sex then?—”

“Oh my God, no.” Alex shook her head. “I can’t hear about JD and Frankie fucking.” She turned like she was about to walk away. “I’ll never be able to look him in the face again.”

Charlie propped both hands on her hips. “I look Edward in the face every day and I can hear you two?—”

“Agh.” Alex clamped her palms over her ears. “I don’t want to hear this.”

Frankie pressed her lips together, trying to stifle a smile. She might have been overthinking her sisters’ reactions a little, because this was actually kind of amazing. They weren’t freaking out. They weren’t showering her with pity or concern. And they weren’t looking at her like she was broken .

They were treating her the way they always did. Because they knew her. Saw her for who she was. Even though she was a fucking idiot. A dumbass of epic proportions. Had her head shoved so far up her own ass it was a wonder they didn’t try to surgically remove it at her doctor’s appointment the day before.

She waited for Alex to drop her hands before saying, “I think if Charlie has to hear what she hears, it’s only fair that you know JD has the biggest?—”

Alex slammed both hands over her ears again, this time shaking her head as she hummed loudly.

Frankie cackled, head tipping back as some of the weight trying to smother the life out of her lifted.

Wiping at the tears of laughter dampening her eyes, she sobered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was just?—”

“You needed some time to hibernate on it.” Charlie shrugged, seeming unhurt by Frankie’s withholding. “That’s how you’ve always been. You have to stew on things alone before you’re ready to stew on them with us.”

“It takes you time to come to terms with shit, so we try to give you a minute.” Danny wrinkled her nose. “But this time there was so much happening we were worried about waiting.” Her expression was worried as she looked Frankie over. “We knew it wasn’t just your house that was an issue.”

“You were right.” Frankie huffed out a laugh as she screwed the deadbolt in place. “But it’s even more than the lupus too. ”

Alex’s brows lifted. “Is JD?—”

“JD’s great.” Frankie wrinkled her nose. “It still feels weird to say that, but he’s been really fucking fantastic through all this shit.”

She finished up with the knob and straightened. “I’m having issues with one of my foremen. I’m going to have to let him go and it’s making me miserable.”

She was coming to terms with the fact that she’d been giving Carl way more credit than he deserved. Just because he was a good dad didn’t mean he was a decent employee. And it didn’t mean she had to put up with his bullshit.

“That fucking sucks.” Sam frowned. “Want me to fire him for you?”

“No. I’m the one who has to do it.” She chucked the old knob and lock into one of the commercial trash cans spaced around the warehouse, dread settling into her gut at the thought of that conversation. “I know it’s not going to go well, but it’s his own fucking fault.”

“Is JD going to go with you when you do it?” Sam asked.

A hint of a smile settled onto Frankie’s lips. “I don’t expect he’ll let me go alone.” She decided to rip off the whole Band-Aid. “Not after that tree almost fell on us the last time we were at a job site.”

Danny’s eyes slid to Alex, then to Sam. “We might have already heard about that.”

“Shocker.” Frankie rolled her eyes. “Craig has a big fucking mouth. ”

Danny’s eyes widened. “Craig knows?”

Frankie blinked, her brain taking a few seconds to connect the dots on who actually told Danny about the tree. “Fucking Foster.”

“I mean, at least he knows we’re paying him to tell us what he finds out.” Alex pursed her lips. “I guess we don’t have to worry about him not telling us what he finds out about James.”

Sam angled a brow. “Why would we have to worry about that?”

Charlie snorted. “Umm, did you forget that James can make any man fall in love with her and do whatever she wants?” She smiled gleefully. “That’s how she makes so much money.”

Alex’s brows lifted. “She’s gonna shit her pants when she comes home and finds out how much she has now.”

All the sisters contributed to the purchase of Shadow Pine, including James. Even though she didn’t stick around, their youngest sister insisted on doing her part and never missed wiring a payment. At some point, her money was no longer needed, and Alex started investing it.

And holy shit was Alex good at investing. At this point, all the sisters had a decent nest egg, including James.

“ If she comes home.” Sam’s serious gaze moved around the group. “Just because Phillip Foster finds her, doesn’t mean she’ll want to come home.”

“She wants to come home.” Charlie was the closest in age to James and the one most certain something wasn’t right with her. “For some reason she can’t.”

Frankie didn’t disagree. Up until right before Craig showed up, they’d been in regular contact with James, getting phone calls and the occasional package with random shit she found on her adventures. But one day it all stopped. The only reason they knew James was still alive was the steady stream of money she wired into their account.

“I guess we’ll find out.” Danny finally turned to the rhino that was supposed to be her whole reason for coming and gave him a quick scan. “At least I’ll have something to keep me busy while we wait.”

“Not as busy as Sam’s going to be planning her wedding.” Charlie gave their oldest sister a wink. “You hate your life yet?”

Sam shot Charlie a scowl. “If you rub your freaking destination wedding in my face one more time…”

“Listen, I’d love to hear all about everyone’s awful wedding plans, but I have work to do.” Frankie thumbed over her shoulder in the direction of her office. “So if you’re done getting all up in my business, I’m gonna get to it.”

Charlie blinked at her, wide-eyed. “You’re not going to marry JD?”

That was a good question. One she hadn’t had even a second to consider. “If I do, you won’t know about it until it’s done.”

Alex smirked. “Unsurprising. ”

Danny gave her rhino one last look before turning away. “Come on. Let’s let the secret keeper get back to what she was doing.” She flashed Frankie a smile over her shoulder. “I’ll be here Monday to work on that guy.”

“I’ll be here.” Frankie offered her sisters a wave as they filed out the door, leaving her alone in the quiet warehouse. The side-by-side they drove over fired up, tires grinding against the gravel as they pulled away.

That was… kinda nice, actually. Maybe made her feel like a complete ass to find out her sisters understood her way better than she gave them credit for, but other than that, it was a good conversation.

Did it mean she’d be more open with them in the future? Highly unlikely. But at least they saw it coming. And wouldn’t judge her for it.

Going into her office, Frankie sat down behind the desk and started her computer, ready to get through the invoices she needed to send to Alex and the schedule she had to write.

She’d barely looked over the jobs lined up when she heard one of her sisters coming back inside. “What are you here to try to get out of me now?” She lifted her eyes to the open doorway of her office, expecting to see Danny or possibly Charlie.

But the woman staring back at her was not family.

She also wasn’t a stranger.

Frankie pushed to her feet, but stopped short as Lena pointed a pistol her direction. She automatically lifted both hands. “What the fuck? Are you seriously gonna kill me over a man?”

“Not a man. The only man who matters.” Lena’s hate-filled expression soured further as she slowly stepped closer. “My father.”