Page 1 of The One Who Got Away (Murdock Brothers #4)

Gus

Then again, after living in Costa Rica this was a piece of cake.

The humidity could sit on you like a thirty-pound wet blanket followed directly by a rainstorm that made the air thick enough to chew.

Add in mosquitos that were literally trying to kill you and this little slice of home was better than paradise.

I pushed my hair back. It had gotten long since...well, before.

Since paradise had turned into more of a nightmare. Getting the call from my brother, Sully to come home had nearly ended up with me in an urn. Not that I would let my family know any of that.

“Hey, Gus!”

I turned, pushing my past back where it belonged. “Yeah?”

Cam, my brother, had one of his carpenter pencils behind his ear and a beat-up Blue Jay’s ball cap on his head. “We’re all going in on an order to Bite Me, you want in?”

“Yeah. I’ll go and get the order, just get it together.”

“You’re the best.”

I shoved the cooler deeper into the flatbed of the truck. “You just don’t want to catch the bill.”

Cam grinned. “I’ve got a ten spot.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just text me the details. I’ll pick it up on the way back from the warehouse. I gotta pick up the lumber for the Jennings property.”

“Freaking finally.”

Cam was our master carpenter. I’d been bouncing around between the active jobs on the Murdock Brothers slate since I’d come home. I’d seen the worried faces on my brothers faces, and I’d been dodging my mother’s questions by staying out of the house as much as possible.

Luckily, there was no end to work in our family business. Ever since my brother Sully had gone viral on social media he’d been inundated with jobs. To keep the streak alive Cam started filming his carpentry reveals and we’d onboarded higher ticket jobs.

Which was where I came in.

While Cam might be the genius when it came to design, I was the workhorse.

At least I had been until the night on the beach.

And now I was working my ass off to get back to that guy. Maybe even a better one. Costa Rica taught me about endurance and building homes in wild, off path places. I’d hauled lumber and stone up steep paths to the most amazing views for the rich and powerful in that country.

I loved creating something beautiful that suited wild spaces.

And now, I would use all the things I learned to create homes where I grew up. I glanced around Hope Street, the main street in our little town. It was the hub of shops and eateries that made up the heart of Indigo Valley.

I waved to my brother and a few new guys on tap for the Jennings property.

The clients were empty nesters and requested a gut job on two kids’ rooms to take back their house.

Cam would be taking on mom, Millie’s, reading and craft room and I was in charge of Bradley’s man cave that had once been a basement bedroom.

It was a big project and we were in the demolition phase which was honestly kicking my ass.

I was about to get in my truck when I noticed a sign: The Hope Street Gym.

The place seemed open and well outfitted with a mix of machines and weights.

Following instinct, I slipped inside and checked out the new member sign-up.

Ten minutes later I had a membership card in my wallet and an appointment with a trainer for strength training.

Three weeks in the damn hospital had done way more damage than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t wanted to scare my family, so I sucked it up and dealt with everything alone. There was nothing I could do now but move forward. And if I wanted to keep up with my brothers, I needed to get my strength back.

I was about to leave when I noticed a redhead in my peripheral view. No, it couldn’t be.

Idiot, there’s more than one redhead in this town. I couldn’t see her face, but the long tail of straight red hair couldn’t be Eloise. Her hair was a riot of sun-shot curls.

My stomach clenched.

The last I’d heard she was in Chicago working for a big gaming company.

And my bestie from high school certainly hadn’t had an ass like that. No, Eloise had been a slight little thing. I’d forever wanted to tuck her into my pocket and hold her close.

Not that I’d had the guts to do so.

Eloise Cross had been on a fast track out of this town and I was just the guy who could sling a hammer and keep pace with her on World of Warcraft back in the day.

I pushed out the door and hopped into my truck. The trip to the warehouse was a quick one. We had so many jobs on the go that we needed a spot to house materials and the overflow from things we didn’t use on a jobsite. Waste not want not had been drilled into us from an early age.

My dad had started the legacy of Murdock builders and handiwork.

I’d had no choice but to get swept into doing jobs after school or on the weekends.

The summers had been long, sweaty mornings and our dad cut us loose to have fun in the afternoons.

Having six sons meant there was no shortage of hands to help out, or mouths to feed.

I backed into the loading dock at the rear of the warehouse.

Lexi Howard—soon to be Murdock—was talking to Sully on the platform.

She was our operations manager and kept all the jobs straight.

She was also engaged to my younger brother, Kai.

My older brother, Sully, was technically the head of the family since my eldest brother, Ripley, had abdicated running the Murdock Brothers to start his own autobody shop.

Rip jumped in to help when needed, but had his hands full with his own business.

Sully had been born for it anyway. He’d also given me the space to escape Indigo Valley without any guilt. I’d needed to get away from the memories of this damn town when I graduated. And now I was back.

I rolled my shoulders before I hopped out of my truck and ran up the steps.

“There he is.” Sully grinned at me. “Here for the Jennings lumber?”

I nodded. “Cam and the guys went ahead. I was volunteered to be the pack mule and lunch delivery boy.”

Sully snickered. “What you get for being gone so long.” He slapped my arm. “We’re glad to have you back.” His eyebrows knit as he squeezed my shoulder.

I sidestepped him. “Do I need two trips or one?”

“I’ll follow you over with a load.”

“You don’t need to do that.” I knew Sully had a surplus of jobs on deck.

“Saves time. Where are you picking up lunch?”

“Bite Me.”

“I’ll take a What The Actual Cluck with extra sauce.”

I nodded and pulled out my phone adding him to the list. “Got it.” I glanced at Lexi. “Want me to swing back with one for you too?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I’m bringing Kai some lunch at his Clifton Park job. He needs a little help.” Her cheeks pinked up.

“I just bet.”

She shrugged and gave me a wicked smile. “I approve of an hour lunch when it’s this hot.” She hugged her ever present clip board against her chest. “I’ll go write up an invoice.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Sully folded his arms over his chest. “Everything going okay, Gus?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You haven’t been around much since you’ve been back.” When I opened my mouth to deny it, he held a hand up. “You’ve been working plenty hard, but you have been scarce for the family stuff.”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’ve just been catching up with friends.”

Lies.

I’d been driving around at night, camping out at the nearby Saratoga Lake for some quiet. I didn’t realize coming back here would be so overwhelming. After living in Costa Rica for months, then the accident, the noise of the house seemed so damn loud.

My parents meant well, but living home again felt a little too much like getting catapulted back in time. My old bedroom was still the same for God’s sake. My mother had taken over Rip’s bedroom years ago and made it into her craft room, but left the rest of the bedrooms as a time capsule.

The Murdock boys came and went from the big farmhouse. Cam, Kai, and I had been bitten by wanderlust while the rest of my brothers had stayed.

I followed Sully inside and we both took a rolling cart to fill up with the ash wood for the built in bookcases Cam was designing. I pulled down MDF boards and wall brackets for the electronics for my job.

My arms were burning from pulling down all the materials.

When the fuck would I get my strength back?

Frustration rode me as I hauled two full carts of shit to my truck. I swear, the shocks on my truck were going to need to be checked. Sully’s Silverado took the brunt of the load. He waved as he took off to the suburbs.

I jumped in my cab and checked my phone, wincing at the order. I hoped Jessie over at Bite Me didn’t hate me too much. I found a spot close to the sandwich shop.

I hopped out and slipped through the fire engine red door.

The punk lettering on the window made me grin.

Jessie Wilson had taken over the faltering sandwich shop ten years ago when the previous owners wanted to retire.

It had gone from simple no nonsense subs to punny, sarcasm charged sandwich names with an emphasis on taste.

A large chalkboard with the names of the specials hung above the counter.

A drawing of a cell phone invited people to download the new app for faster ordering.

The shop was empty of customers with Avril Lavigne jamming through the speakers.

Jessie’s love of nineties and the early aughts added to the ambiance.

While I waited, I lifted my phone to use the QR code to snag the app.

“Sorry! I didn’t hear the bell.”

“No problem,” I said not looking up as I typed my info in. “The app looks pretty cool.”

“Thanks, I designed it.”

My stomach jittered as my gaze lifted. The familiar tail of red hair from the gym earlier today swished over the woman’s shoulder. But the rest of the image didn’t compute.

The explosion of freckles that I knew so well were a little lighter now, dusted with some sort of female make up trickery, but those huge honey gold eyes were the same.

Still tilted up at the corners ever so slightly.

Her nose was small and had the cutest little slope at the tip. But damn that mouth always killed me.

The bow of her upper lip a little sharp and fuller than the lower lip. No amount of lip gloss could hide the fact that her freckles bled into her lips. Even the deep red that accentuated them couldn’t mask the constellation of three freckles that I never could quite ignore.

“Eloise?”