Page 3 of Hideaway Heart

Of course I would. Even if this gig was a total pain in the ass, I owed Sully my life. And his trust meant a lot to me. “I’ll do it.”

“Great.” He sounded relieved. “I’m sure the place she rented is nice. We were raised poor, but she’s got champagne tastes now. And you will be well compensated.”

“Fuck off. You know I won’t take your money.”

He laughed. “You might want to meet her before you refuse compensation. She’s sweet, but she’s got some sass to her.”

“Sounds like my little sister, Mabel.”

“It’s nothing you can’t handle. No matter what she says, just don’t let her fire you.”

“When do you need me there?”

“She arrives Thursday.”

“As intomorrow?”

“Yeah—sorry about the late notice.”

Fuck. This gave me less than twenty-four hours to prepare. “Text me the location.”

“I will.” He paused. “Keep her safe, brother.”

With one last deep breath, I resigned myself to two weeks of babysitting a stubborn celebrity who didn’t want me around. “I will,” I promised. “You have my word.”

* * *

Later that night, I drove over to my brother Austin’s house. I found him in the garage, which functioned as his workshop. By day, he worked side by side with our dad running Two Buckleys Home Improvement, but recently he’d announced he wanted to leave that behind and start his own company making furniture out of reclaimed wood.

It had taken him forever to work up the nerve to tell our dad that’s what he wanted, and even though I’d given him endless shit about that (what are siblings for?), I understood why he’d felt such loyalty to our father. Our mom had died when we were kids, and our dad had raised the five of us entirely on his own. Well, not entirely—Austin, who’d only been twelve when we lost our mother, had stepped up in ways no seventh grader should have to. I’d only been one year behind him, but he’d always seemed ten years more mature. While I spent my high school years chasing down girls and athletic records in cross country and swimming and track and field, he spent his working for our dad and helping out with the younger kids. He also kicked my ass regularly, probably because he had no other outlet.

I didn’t mind. I liked a good scrap.

But that motherfucker was so talented. He could take a beat-up barn door and turn it into something so beautiful, you wanted to eat off it. I’d conned him into crafting a bar for Buckley’s Pub by betting him he wouldn’t be able to keep his pants zipped around the nanny he hired for the summer—he hadn’t even lasted two weeks.

That bar was fuckingart.

“Hey.” I helped myself to a beer from his fridge and perched on the edge of his tool bench.

“Hey.” He didn’t even look up from measuring the planks across his work table. “Have a beer, why don’t you?”

I grinned. “Thanks, I will. Can I get you one?”

“Nah.”

“Veronica and the kids home?”

“They should be soon. They rode bikes into town after dinner for ice cream.”

I took a swallow from the bottle. “I got a phone call from Kevin Sullivan today.”

“The guy who saved your life?”

“Yeah. He needs a favor.”

Austin finally looked up. “I hope you said yes.”

“Of course I said yes,” I scoffed.