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Chapter 1
Jamison
I roll my neck as I pull onto the drive, spotting the cabin. It’s not a bad place to take a little vacation. Working vacation that is.
Not that I necessarily consider what I do work all the time. Not when it’s something I want to do or create.
Yeah, sometimes when we’re doing custom builds for clients of my family’s construction company, it feels exactly like work. Especially with some of the clients that come to us for their large, fully custom-built homes. They want to use the places to one-up their friends or co-workers, and those people, are the ones I try to avoid as much as possible.
Just because my family has money, doesn’t mean I enjoy rubbing shoulders with the richie-rich types. I’d much rather spend my time with people like Nick, whose cabin I’m staying in for the next week or so, while I put together some new cabinetry for his kitchen.
He’s slowly been remodeling this place, mostly by himself, refusing to accept any help from me or any of the company’s crews that he can’t pay for. I get it. That he doesn’t want to be beholden to anyone, so I’m happy to accept the use of the cabin in return for doing the work.
Nick bought all the wood and supplies I’ll need, so it’s just my labor to cover. Since I don’t need the cash, I told hm to just let me stay while doing the work and we’ll call it good. He argued that it wasn’t a fair trade, but I reminded him that it was an hour and a half drive both ways, which would be three hours less of work I could get done each day having to come and go.
There’d also be three hours’ worth of gas to cover each day, so it was either, stay in the cabin, or find a hotel nearby. Considering the cabin is in the middle of nowhere in effort to get away, the closest hotel is at least an hour away still.
I have plenty of easy to make food with me, some goodies from Mom and Jackie that I can simply toss in the microwave or oven. Nick assured me they both worked, as did the sink and fridge even though he’s already demoed most of the kitchen area himself to prep for the new cabinets.
I figured as long as there was running water, a stove, and a fridge, I’d be good for the week. And that was before Jackie stopped by with the goodies for me, while Mom went over to drop off some meals for Jasmine.
Little Faye is two month’s old now, Jasmine and Adam’s second little girl. Well, third counting Cleo who is now thirteen. She might not be blood, but she’s definitely Jasmine’s and has been since they met three years ago.
Knowing my twin sister is safe with Adam makes it easier to get out of town for a week or two as well. Adam’s as obsessed with her as my older brothers are with their wives.
I honestly don’t know which of them is worst.
Jesse’s always been intense, but add in Maddie and their kids, and it’s taken on a whole new level. Their youngest is one, another little boy making that three boys, and just one little girl. Which I think will be a good thing because he’s going to be the papa bear of all papa bears. Particularly with little Tessa since she is a total people person. Not to mention looks just like Maddie.
They’re not close to closing in on Jude or Eden, with their six babies. Their oldest four aren’t Cartwrights, are Eden’s half-siblings, but just like Cleo, they’re entirely part of our family.
My older brother fell instantly for Eden. So much so that he forgot to get Eden’s name, and she disappeared before he could reassure her what happened between them wasn’t a one-time thing. Jude’s tune changed instantly about not wanting kids, not wanting to get married, when he found Eden back. Hell, it’d changed before that even since he already had a ring for her while he didn’t even know where she was.
Now, they have the six kids, and god forbid people say anything nasty about having so many little ones under five. Especially since the quadruplets’ mom died due to a car accident before she could even meet the babies.
Johnnie’s no better. Not considering he and Carly have been together almost eight years and they’ll soon have six kids as well. Carly’s pregnant for the fifth time—their first were twins, identical boys that get into everything. Add in the danger Carly was under when they first met, and he’s all about making sure they’re safe.
They get it from our dad for sure. He’s been the same for all of us kids growing up, as well as Mom. Heck, he’s still that way if someone tries to get out of line, even if he did just turn eighty-one, while our youngest sister just turned twenty-one.
He’s nineteen years older than Mom is, so she was only forty when Jillian was born. Something that raised a lot of brows when people first saw them together. Most of them claimed that Mom was a gold-digger, but the only thing Mom really wanted was a family—a real one, not one like she had growing up, with just her, her mother that brought home man after man, and a brother that barely acknowledged her.
True, he was sixteen when she was born, but he wanted away from their mother almost as much as mom did. So he wasn’t around after he turned eighteen and graduated.
She and Uncle Aaron aren’t like that now. He’s a true brother to both Mom and Dad. Especially since he’s the reason Mom met Dad and Julie—our oldest sister who is forty-three.
Mom and Dad’s story is a bit like Jasmine and Adam’s. Mom fell for Dad when she met him, along with baby Julie who was just one at the time. Was jealous that she finally met a man she could see herself with, only to think there was someone special in his life, a mother to his child.
Julie’s bio-mom wasn’t anywhere near her and Dad’s life though. She was in a mental institution after trying to smother Julie while in the hospital, so Dad had full custody of her, and was trying to do it all by himself. He took one look at Mom and wanted her, was jealous thinking she was out with Uncle Aaron who worked for him, and when it was all cleared up, he wasted no time claiming her as his, or getting her pregnant with our second oldest sister Jennie.
Three years ago, Adam took Cleo to Jasmine’s shop, to have her plan Cleo’s tenth birthday party. Similar to Mom, Jasmine felt she’d finally met a man she could love, want to have a family with, which would include Cleo, but she thought he already was married.
Thankfully, he wasn’t. Wasn’t actually Cleo’s father, although he was doing his best to be her dad. Cleo’s mom died two years prior, leaving her with her Uncle Adam, who took her to Jasmine’s shop that day. Within weeks, they were engaged, married two months later, and had baby Daisy a year, plus a week and a half, after they first met.
I was a bit reluctant to like him at first, thinking he was trying to play Jasmine to get a manufacturing contract with us, but it turned out it really was a coincidence that his company was bidding out the new production line, at the same time he met Jasmine. He’d simply been trying to do something nice for his niece who’d been through a lot in the last few years.
Now, I think maybe it was a bit of fate’s way of putting him into our world to find Jasmine, but they found each other first. Knowing he’s there for her, lets me relax while I’m at my house far better than when she was still at Mom and Dad’s.
They wouldn’t let anything physically hurt her, but guys could still hurt her emotionally. So while I might have been a few miles away, I was always prepared to rush back to the house for her if needed.
