Page 81 of Van Cort

WEST

“Everett?”

I look sideways at her as we cross the lawn back to the house, getting damn tired of that name in her mouth. “Yes?”

She holds up the small nugget. “This is gold, isn’t it?”

I nod. “It’s everywhere here if you know where to look.”

“Wow. You’re literally living on a gold mine.” Yeah. Not much else to say about that. It’s nothing new to me. She’s right. There’s enough under this house to fund a small country. It’s why it was built here.

Looking up at it, I keep walking with her beside me. Something’s happening to me. All that on the island – the talking, the staring at her, the listening to her soft words about caring, even taking her there in the first place – they’re all changing my intentions here. Add that into the fact that my cunt brother is letting me back in, relatively happily, and I’m unsure what I should be feeling anymore.

She wasn’t supposed to do this to me. I wasn’t supposed to yearn and be desperate for time with her. I was supposed to hate and amuse myself, nothing else. I was supposed to destroy.

“Thank you. For sharing. Every minute you gave me makes me see you differently. I’m starting to understand now.” She is? Good for her, because I haven’t got a goddamn clue what the hell is going on in my own head. Or his.

We reach the deck, and she stretches up on her tiptoes, kissing me briefly with the gentlest of touches. “You’re becoming quite lovely.”

“I am?”

She drops back down and starts walking into the house. “You are. Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone know.”

“Andie?” I call. She looks back at me from the doorway, a quizzical look on her face. “I wasn’t lovely before?”

“No. You were handsome before, and intriguing, and engaging. And a lot of an ass, to be honest.” She starts walking back to me. “But since you’ve been here, you seem happier and sadder and more whole because of that. You’re not just a crisp business suit now. You’re more. And I like that it’s emotional and complicated, because it means there’s a depth and a reason. It helps me understand, and I like that. I like you.” I doubt she would if she knew there were two of us.

She smiles as she reaches me. “And that thing you said yesterday in town? I was surprised, and I didn’t handle it very well. Don’t think I didn’t like the thought. I kinda did. Or might.It caught me off-guard.” I’m trying to look like I know what the hell she’s talking about. I don’t. I wasn’t in town with her.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She smiles and takes a breath, as if that was weighing on her. “I’ll go for that run then.”

I put my hands in my pockets and lean back on the deck rail. “Okay.” Maybe she’ll get eaten by a bear. That would hurt him. Might hurt me now, too. “Andie?” She looks back again. “Stay on the tracks.”

“Two Andie’s? We back to that now, are we?” She laughs. “Okay.”

And then she’s gone, perfect ass going with her.Well Fuck.

I could be screwed.

And what the fuck was she talking about her name for?

Some time standing here watching the water ripple out over the lake and thinking about me – us – being lovely, and eventually brother dearest comes out onto the deck with me.

“What did you say to her in town?” I ask before he reaches me.

“I inferred marriage. Too soon, apparently.” He leans his forearms on the deck rail next to me to stare in the same direction. It takes me right back to a time when I kissed a girl first and he didn’t like it. If I had a bottle of soda, I’d pass it to him. Or hit him with it.

We’re silent, both just gazing at the island in the distance.

“She thinks we’re lovely. And she likes the thought of that conversation because you’re more than a business suit here, better. Happier, sadder, and more whole because of that.”

He looks sideways at me. “She does?”

“Kinda. Needs more work.”

Chuckling sounds from him as he looks back out to the island again. “That’ll depend on you, I suppose.”