Page 12 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

brIDGET

I reached into the dryer and pulled out a shirt, folded it and added it to the pile in my laundry basket. Lindy came in as I reached inside to grab the small pile of undies and socks that were left.

“Did you make a second pot of coffee?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

She was in a pink nightie that skimmed her knees and matched her toenail polish.

It had delicate lace edging around the neckline.

Where I wore an old t-shirt to bed, Lindy wore actual bed things.

Since she was a girlie-girl, that meant nighties.

No sleep shorts. No pajamas. Short ones in summer, long ones in winter.

If there were two women any more opposite, it was me and my older sister.

I had dark hair and green eyes like our father.

She was blonde and blue eyed like our mother.

I was small everywhere, she was tall and curvy.

She was a perfectionist. I was… not. Even on a Saturday morning and having just rolled out of bed, she looked perfect.

Her hair wasn’t even messed up from her pillow because it was long and sleek and yeah, perfect.

She was always perfect. Because I was considered ridiculously smart, everyone imagined me to be perfect, too. Except that was such a bunch of shit. I was always a mess. The day before was a realistic indicator of how my life went.

I was in my running shorts and tank top, my sports bra straps showing. On my feet were my older sneakers, worn out from pounding the pavement around Hunter Valley. My hair was in a sloppy ponytail and my skin was sticky with dried sweat.

I’d already had my morning iced coffee, run six miles and started a second pot all before Lindy woke up. It wasn’t that she slept late, but that I hadn’t.

After being caught by my boss snooping on his laptop, then making out with him, I drove Mallory back to the bar, but I hadn’t gotten out of the car.

I’d driven straight home, afraid of anything else happening.

She hadn’t complained, probably because she knew I couldn’t handle anything else about the printed sex quizzes.

I’d gone home and gone to bed, although I hadn’t been able to sleep. I tossed and turned, thinking about the kiss. No, that had been full-on making out, the adult version. There was no fumbling like teenagers. That had been hot and… fuck. Insane.

After that, I shifted my thoughts to how Maverick had only wanted to kiss me–and press me against the wall and let me ride his thigh–because the sex quiz had given him permission to break out of the confines of what was office appropriate.

I’d called him on it, but he denied that was the reason for his actions. Or at least his half. I had zero reasons for mine other than I was obscenely attracted to him, and I’d been momentarily crazy.

Then he’d said he’d fix it.

I had no idea how he’d do that because the email had been sent. He’d read it.

Thoughts of how he’d accomplish that lingered until dawn, so I climbed from bed and decided to burn off my frustration and anger on a run.

It hadn’t helped. I wasn’t sure what would.

He’d said I wasn’t fired. But what would it be like working with him every day after that kiss?

With him knowing no man had given me orgasms? What my secret fantasy was.

How could I work with a man–Maverick, especially–who thought my secret fantasy was to suck his dick?

Where was my credibility, my integrity, when all he would probably think of was me on my knees?

He would never see me as a professional.

I’d be demeaned and diminished like I had with my professor.

Like Jason, even though he’d never touched me.

What I wrote was, in one context, exactly what I didn’t want. A hard no. A safeword kind of limit. It was why I pushed Maverick away the night before.

“Earth to Bridge,” Lindy said, waving her hand in the air.

I realized I’d thought all of that after she asked me after the coffee, socks dangling from my fingers.

“Sorry. Yes. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Things going okay at work?” The question held concern, but also had the tinge of motherly worry. While Lindy was my sister, she’d been my parent since I was ten when our parents died.

I frowned, tossing the socks into the basket. Tried not to panic that the sex quiz fiasco got back to her. “Why, what did you hear?”

She pushed off the wall and walked into the kitchen. The laundry was in a little hallway between it and the garage. “Nothing. I just assumed that’s why you couldn’t sleep. You’re putting in a lot of hours.”

“You said I could stay here as long as I had a job.” This was a reminder of her tough love approach when I returned from Boston in the winter.

She sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did,” I countered.

“No,” she countered quickly, us falling into our usual pattern of her being disappointed in me and me defending myself. “You dropped out of school. Walked away from a full ride to MIT six months before graduation. It’s school or real life and you made your choice.”

Ouch. Again. I hadn’t told her about what happened.

About my professor. I told Mallory, but I knew she’d keep my secret.

When I left Boston, my plan was to leave the anger, the heartache, all of it behind.

It hadn’t worked as I hoped, but I was getting better.

Knowing I wasn’t getting credit for all that work would piss me off forever.

That a man was not only being lauded for it but gotten one over on me.

The fucker.

So, no. I hadn’t told Lindy. Pseudo-mom.

She was a perfectionist. Always striving.

Always pushing. A control freak. Everything had to be just so, including me.

Except I’d never be just as she wanted, no matter what I did.

Whether I was a kid she was raising or a grownup, it didn’t matter, so me leaving MIT only made me look like the wayward dropout that I officially was.

“Gotcha,” I said, swallowing my pride. “I’ll find an apartment soon.”

She came over and hugged me. “That’s not what I mean. God, I need more coffee. This is your house, too.”

It was the house our parents bought when they got married. When they died, it went to Lindy. And since I’d been ten when the accident happened, I went to her, too.

“As for why I couldn’t sleep, I was out with Mallory,” I said, diverting her away from our usual argument of my off-track life. I grabbed the basket and set it on the kitchen table. “Ladies’ night, remember?”

Lindy had been invited, like usual, but never joined us, telling me she felt too old to go out with my friends.

She was thirteen years older and more mother than sister to me, so she had a point.

It was probably weird for her to drink with me and Mallory since she had been the one who took us to ski lessons and bra shopping.

Now, I was thrilled that she hadn’t joined us the night before. I didn’t want to know her answers to the sex quiz, and I definitely didn’t want her to know what happened with mine.

She returned to her coffee, grabbing milk from the fridge to top it off. She liked her coffee pale.

“Right.” She took a sip, closed her eyes and sighed. “Maybe I should have gone with you. The guy last night was a disaster.”

“That bad?” I asked, remembering she had a first date.

“His picture was from at least five years ago,” she grumbled. “I don’t care if a guy’s losing his hair as long as he embraces it. Shave it all off. It’s hot.”

“No embracing?” I asked, trying to imagine this guy she’d swiped right on in a dating app.

“Comb over. Or more like Homer Simpson’s three strands of hair. There was no embracing. Of me either.”

I crossed the kitchen, set my hand on her forearm. She smelled like Lily of the Valley, her favorite scent. “Sorry. There’s a guy out there for you.”

“I’m thirty-five and I know every guy in Hunter Valley. They’re either too old, too young or too wrong.”

She was right. Pickings were slim around here, not that I was picking.

“Or I’ve done their taxes and know their bottom line. You’d be surprised who shouldn’t be driving around in an expensive SUV.”

For college, I’d had a full ride scholarship. Everything was fully paid. I never liked living in the dorms, but I didn’t turn down free housing in Boston. I worked as a math tutor to pay for food and incidentals. While I’d returned home broke, I didn’t owe student loans either.

I got the job with James Corp and the inn project two weeks after I returned because I was qualified, and the position was hiring immediately.

I’d been socking away the paychecks ever since.

I wanted to move out as I was sure Lindy wanted her little sister out of the house after having it to herself for three years.

Looking back, I was sure she hadn’t found a guy because of me. She’d been twenty-three when she became the mother to a ten-year-old. What guy that age wanted a tween to raise?

For now, and until we wanted to strangle each other–or she found a guy she wanted to bring home–I’d stay in my old bedroom.

“That’s a good thing then,” I told her, trying to give her dating challenges a positive spin. “You can screen out the over spenders before the first date.”

“Hello!”

We turned toward the front door when Mallory called out. She came into the kitchen carrying a box of donuts from Deerdorfs, the local shop that was ah-mazing.

“I brought your favorites,” she said, lifting the lid and grabbing her own favorite, a cruller with strawberry glaze. She gave my sister a once over, then said, “Cute nightie, Lind.”

“Thanks. I’m up three pounds. No way am I eating a Boston cream,” Lindy said, crossing her arms over her chest as if to keep her hands away from grabbing one.

I had no such issues with weight or self-control. Besides, I ran this morning and could definitely use some sugar. I grabbed the one with the rainbow sprinkles Mal had gotten for me and took a big bite. The donut dissolved on my tongue. Heaven.

“Did you figure out how to solve the problem from last night?” she asked me, arching a brow.

“What, a math problem?” I wondered, chewing the sugary confection.

“Right. Math problem.”

Oh. Oh. She was talking about Maverick.

“Still working on it,” I said, wanting to end the conversation.

Until I had clear answers, and knew for a fact my job wasn’t over, I wasn’t sharing any of it with Lindy.

The last thing I wanted to do after what we’d just talked about was to be fired for inappropriate behavior.

After dropping out of college, then that, Lindy would lose her shit.

I did get a side eye from her though. She might not be as crazy good at math as I was, she was an accountant and knew how to use a calculator. She also knew we were up to something, because knowing Mallory, we usually were.

“Go get ready,” Mallory prompted, licking glaze off her lip. “The parade starts in thirty minutes.”

“You’re going to the parade?” Lindy asked, surprised.

I hadn’t been in a couple years because I’d been in Boston and hadn’t considered going this morning. I was now.

“You should come with us,” Mal offered.

Lindy shook her head. “Work. Tax extensions. IRS letters.”

While Lindy worked for a company in town as their in-house accountant, she also took on side clients. She worked all the time and carried her laptop around with her as if it were an extension of her body.

“We’re going because Bridge is thinking about adopting a dog,” Mallory commented, grabbing a napkin from the holder in the center of the kitchen table.

I coughed because I sucked a sprinkle into the back of my throat.

She’d practically grown up here, just as I’d spent tons of time at her parents’ house and made herself at home.

And made ridiculous comments like that one. A dog?

“What?” Lindy screeched, holding up her hands. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The shedding alone will–”

Lindy liked dogs, but other people’s. She’d raised me, so she’d done her time and had no interest in taking care of anything else. Although she did want kids. That she birthed herself, not stuck with when she was twenty-three… a year older than me now.

“I’m not getting a dog,” I said, loud enough so she knew I was serious. “Mallory’s being ridiculous.”

“Well, I for one, want to see those dogs walking in the parade.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

I’d gone two whole minutes without thinking about Maverick James and she’d ruined it. Now I thought of him in that tight t-shirt. And him pressing me into the wall. Overpowering me but making me feel good. His mouth on mine, the hard length of him as I rolled my–

“Since when do you like dogs?” Lindy asked Mallory. “I thought your family loved cats. Don’t your parents have two?”

Mallory nodded and took another bite of her donut. “Yes. Si and Am. Siamese cats like in Lady and the Tramp.”

We’d watched the Disney movie all those years ago and she’d begged her parents for the cats. Maybe that was where her overindulgent nature started. Maybe it was also where her obsession with things from movies began.

“I’ll take a quick shower,” I said, knowing I wasn’t getting out of the parade and I needed to escape the kitchen before Mallory blabbed. If I argued, she might have said something about Maverick being in the Parade of Pooches.

“I’ll have another donut while I’m waiting. Oh my God, this one is soooo good,” Mal said with a mouthful of gluten, carbs, and sugar. “Come on, Lind, you know you can’t resist.”

“Oh, all right,” was Lindy’s reply as I shut the bathroom door.