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“How long have you guys been in Everette?”
“About a year and a half now. I miss my friends back in Felt, but it’s only a two-hour drive when I want to visit. Plus, it was way easier to open my shop here than Felt, since Felt is right outside of the big ski resort in Jackson, Wyoming — so everything was more expensive than I could afford.”
I nod along and when Audra unlatches, I tuck my boob back away and move her to my shoulder, lightly rubbing and patting her back.
“Did you hear about your rental?” Jem asks.
I nod. “Yeah. They couldn’t reinstate my rental, and they rented it to someone else.”
“That sucks. What assholes.”
I wave away Jem’s ire. “It’s okay. Harlan offered for me to stay here until my rig is up and running again.”
Jem blinks at me. “He did?”
I nod. As much as I don’t want to stay, because there are already too many people here who know my name, I’m kinda stuck.
“Yeah. He did. Why does that surprise you?”
Jem shrugs. “He’s a pretty private guy. He bought his house all the way out here, because being the sheriff, someone is always looking at him, talking to him, bugging him. He doesn’t get a lot of free time when he’s in town. Mostly this apartment just gets used when one of his brothers stay the night.”
“How many brothers does he have?”
“Five. You’ll meet them all eventually if you stay, and don’t worry about keeping their names straight because they look pretty similar. Took me about a solid month before I stopped confusing them. Jedd and Rhett were the two in the hospital when you woke up the first time. You met Boone when we took you to the garage. Which leaves Duke and Finch. Are you gonna take Harlan up on his offer to stay?”
She slides the question in there with a slickness I can appreciate. But I don’t have an answer for her. As much as I don’t want to stay — that it’s not safe for me or Audra — I’m running out of options. With no rooms available at the resort and the local B&B, and the lack of transportation, I’m kinda stuck.
For the second time in two days, I wish that the deer had never run in front of me. Then I wouldn’t be in this situation, and I’d have the mirage of safety that I’ve built around myself.
The fabric of that mirage is fraying at the ends, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when it breaks apart completely.
Chapter 9
Harlan
“Fuck off, baby brother,” I snark at Boone, who’s busy raking in the pot of chips on Duke’s table. Rhett and Jedd are laughing quietly at how thoroughly Boone bluffed his way to winning that hand — and most of my chips.
“Not my fault you fell for it,” he says helpfully.
“Not my fault you’re a goddamn liar,” I grump at him.
I’ve been doing shitty all night. I nearly begged off in favor of a cold beer in front of my TV and an early bedtime. But begging off from hanging out with my brothers makes me feel old and like shit, so I came over anyway.
Yeah. A cold beer and the TV is why you almost begged off. The stunning brunette living above your garage had nothing to do with the thought.
Finch, our appointed dealer — because he’s the only one out of us that still doesn’t understand the rules of poker — tosses out cards. We all throw in our starting bet and wait for him to flip a card.
A pair of kings. Feeling smug at the luck, I school my face into blankness. A trick I learned on the job.
I can already tell that Duke’s got shit. His poker face is terrible. Rhett tries to play like it’s his job, barely picking his cards up and giving all of us a deadpan stare.
But what these assholes forget is that I’m the oldest. I know all of their tells. I grew up teaching them how to lie through their teeth to avoid trouble, and how to get away with damn near anything. Boone got lucky the last round, and the fact that he spent more time away from home than here recently gives him a slight edge.
Finch flips the king of hearts and two fours, and I damn near whoop. Full house. This shit is in the bag. Not wanting to give away my good hand, I only raise the pot by two chips.
We don’t play for money in the traditional sense. Everyone tosses a fifty into the group pot when we get here, and we are all given the same amount of chips. Whoever cleans house tonight goes home with the pot. If any of us run out of chips, we can buy back in for another fifty, though we rarely do.
I smother the urge to yawn, my early morning catching up with me.
