Avery
The office smells like freshly cut grass and fertilizer mixed with a cucumber-melon scented candle. It’s a unique stink and it burns my eyes. Stacks of papers are strewn everywhere from the desk to the four-drawer filing cabinet where two of the drawers are open with more papers sticking out of them.
I shake my head and sigh. My brother should’ve fired Lori a long time ago and hired someone who is more organized. Surely this isn’t good for business. The office is a disaster, and I’m beginning to understand why Ryan asked me to fill in for Lori while she’s out due to complications with her pregnancy. He needs my organizational skills.
I’m not OCD, but I’m not this. This teeters on messy and batshit lazy.
“You good?” Ryan asks, joining me at the threshold of the sloppy office.
“I’m scared to go any farther. There might be a family of rattlesnakes or panthers hiding in there.”
He chuckles as his shoulder falls to the door frame and he crosses his arms. “As bad as it looks, Lori knew where everything was.”
“And you?” I challenge.
He tightens his lips and gives his head a slight shake. “Not a chance.”
“Seeing as you’re the owner and boss, you should at least know where to start.”
Ryan’s dark brown eyes smile at me. “I do know where to start. Right here with you. I know you’ll take care of this.”
“This is…” I trail off, looking back into the office. Disgusting doesn’t even seem to fit. “This looks really unprofessional.”
He ponders for a moment. “I tell you what. I’ll make you a promise. I know you’re already plotting a mass overhaul in that brilliant mind of yours. If you do, I’ll make sure Lori sticks to it when she comes back.”
I loll my head from shoulder to shoulder. “That makes organizing the catastrophe easier. I’ve got what? Three-four months?”
His butt chin dips as he nods. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He’s proud of his butt chin even though for years I’ve been trying to convince him to grow some hair to cover up the deep cleft. He won’t budge off his smooth face, saying his wife, Miranda, thinks it’s sexy. She tells him it’s such a strong trait for a man. No. Having a square and powerful jaw is a strong trait. Not an ass sitting under his bottom lip.
I reach up and poke his chin with my finger. “I have to get to work, butt-face, and this is distracting me.”
He laughs. “One day you’re going to grow a mole on the tip of your nose.”
I purse my lips, giving him the best annoyed little sister glare. “You still wouldn’t pick on me.”
“So you think,” he mutters, shoving off the door frame and kissing the side of my cheek. “Call me if you have any questions. If I don’t answer, I’ll call you back when I can.”
Taylor’s Landscaping. At the ripe ol’ age of twenty-two, my brother started this company with the financial kick start from Dad. It started off as a one-man show, but Ryan’s grown it to twenty employees and services some of the most high-end properties in and around Denver. He’s prosperous thanks to his hard work and ethics.
After several moments of silently berating myself for not running back out the door after seeing this mess, I take a deep breath and start in. As I pull out the desk chair, I’m greeted with another stack of papers, and I place them on the far corner of the desk. I’ve got to figure out what’s what and what in the hell was Lori’s rhyme to no reason. Starting with the stack closest to me, I scan the papers.
Ryan pokes his head back in, his eyes boring me with apologies and hope. “You up for some hard labor?”
I rest back into the squeaky chair. “You’re saying all this is a piece of cake?” I raise my hand to the room.
“Marco called in. He’s apparently dying of the stomach flu. I need a hand.”
I smirk. “And miss all the fun I’m having here?”
He tilts his head.
I sigh. “I have to be back in time to get Maddi from school.”
Maddi is Ryan’s heart, outside of his wife. He absolutely adores his niece and has since the day she was born. Squishy faced, unable to talk and not even an hour old, she suckered Ryan in and hasn’t loosened her hold. He spoils her rotten and is the only male role model she has.
Aaron. Maddi’s dead beat, conniving piece of shit, good for nothing father left when I told him I was pregnant. You’d think I would’ve been devastated. You’d think I wandered lost and broken. I wasn’t. I didn’t. I was relieved.
Being ten years my elder, he knew all the right things to say to a naïve and splintered sixteen-year-old girl. He made me feel important when I felt crushed. He showed me he cared and adored me right up until he got me where he wanted. Slowly and very strangely, I found myself trapped and stuck being beaten half to death. It started with verbal abuse and quickly turned physical. It was a vicious cycle. I could feel the tension, then came the words, next came the hand. After he’d finish and I would cry on the floor, he’d calm me down and then nurture me. I believed him—yes, like an idiot—when he’d apologize, somehow making it my fault.
But I thought I loved him. I thought I could change him. I thought my love would somehow make him want to be a better person. Boy was I wrong.
I always lied to Ryan and told him how wonderful Aaron was. Ryan never caught on. How could he? He lived hours away. He never saw the bruises. The marks. The fear. Aaron had me. I was young and alone in a different town without a soul around to help and too damn ashamed to call anyone.
The day I found out I was pregnant was the most terrifying day. Instead of feeling excited about those pink lines, they struck terror. I knew Aaron didn’t want children. I also knew the power of his temper.
I remember visibly shaking when I walked into the living room where Aaron was on the couch playing on his phone. The rage in his eyes when I muttered the two words erupted into cold dread to lace my spine even from across the room. He raised to his six-foot height and stalked to me. I braced for it.
“I knew you were whoring around on me. Do you even know whose it is?” he spat with so much vile I wanted to puke.
“It’s yours. I haven’t slept w—”
The sting of his hand hurt, and in that moment, I realized I had more than just myself to save. I did what I thought would help—I dropped to my knees and tucked my head.
It didn’t work. He grabbed my hair, lifted my head, and hit me in the face so hard, everything turned white.
“Fucking whore.” His grit was nefarious.
He stormed out of the house, slamming the door so hard, things on the wall fell. I didn’t want to wait around for his aftermath. Gathering my strength, I picked myself off the floor, raced around to get all my necessities I could in a trash bag before tiptoeing out of the house and into my Honda. As I drove away, the panic set in, petrified he was following me. I was sobbing, scared out of my wits, but I didn’t stop until I had made it to Ryan’s—my safe place.
It was late when I knocked on the door and when Ryan saw me… My brother held me as I cried. He held me even though he was enraged. I stayed with him for a few months—long enough for us to buy the house beside him for me.
But Aaron’s evil didn’t stop the night I left.
Three months later, he called and told me if I didn’t abort the baby he’d kill me. He said he wasn’t going to pay for someone else’s mistake. I believed him. But I wasn’t going to have an abortion.
I had an upcoming snowboarding competition that my doctor insisted I not participate in. It was the highest payout I’d ever had within my reach and with a baby on the way, I needed that money. My doctor explained all the risks but stated that a lot of women keep living their life the way they did before they became pregnant until the second trimester, with the exception of becoming healthier in general to keep the baby healthy.
I needed the money for my baby and I was a professional, so I decided to compete. I resolved to stay away from the halfpipe since that’s where I experienced the worst of my falls and only ran the freestyle. Regardless of my decision, I still played it as safely as I could praying that even though my trick difficulties were low, the variety would pay off. If I could just come in the top five, I’d be okay.
Keeping it careful, I didn’t go full power and kept my height lower than normal. I had just landed a rail slide, transitioned, and hit the quarter wall when a photographer took my board out with his tripod, deliberately taking my legs with it too. I fell hard on my side and ended up with a compound fracture in my left arm that required multiple surgeries to fix. I lost all the money I was hoping for, but thankfully, I didn’t lose my baby.
The photographer, well he wasn’t one. He was a hitman hired by Aaron. The authorities managed to nab him before he left the mountain and the asshole sang like a canary. Not long after that, they arrested and charged Aaron too. Right after the sentencing, Aaron’s lawyer presented mine with papers. He signed his rights over, continuing to deny the baby was his. I gladly accepted it. He might have lost his freedom, but I gained mine. I haven’t spoken to him since. It was liberating.
“You’ll be back in time. I have one job to focus on today. It’s a trial run and I need to put my best forward, which is why I had Marco and Abe joining me today. I want this job. But fair warning, the guy sounds persnickety.”
Surprised by the word, I raise both brows. “That’s high-class talk there, big brother. Be careful. Don’t overwork your brain.”
He barks a laugh. “Maddi said it the other day and it kind of stuck. I like how it sounds. Rolls off the tongue.” He lifts a shoulder.
I drop my face into my hands and cackle. “Of course my child said it.”
“Grab a t-shirt out of the cabinet and come on. Since you’re skilled on the mower, that’s where you’ll be. Abe and I will handle the rest.” He starts to retreat but stops and leans back in. “Grab earbuds if you want. It’s pretty big, so you’ll probably be mowing the entire time.”
After changing, I vouched for the back seat of Ryan’s Ford as we headed off to the job. As I ride, I scroll through my social media, checking notifications and seeing everyone’s life at my fingertips. The truck turns and begins to creep slowly, pulling my attention from the phone and out the window.
My heart stops. This is just my damn luck.
I’m staring at Lauder Winery where I pulled a duck and run. Not that it was fully intentional. Miranda, my ride, was ready to go and I couldn’t find Max to let him know. Yeah, I didn’t try too hard. Sure, I could’ve waited on him, but I didn’t want the awkward departure of explaining why I wouldn’t give him my number because I could care less to date.
As Ryan drives around the U-shaped driveway and turns into a maintenance drive leading toward the back of the building, my heart is causing all sorts of racket.
We park and Ryan twists, looking between Abe and me. “This job is really important. If he likes our work, it’ll come with a year-round contract. Do your best while being your best.”
While Abe pulls the mower off the trailer, I pull my hair into a ponytail, grab a company hat from under the seat, dust it off, and pull it low over my eyes. Hopefully, I won’t come face to face with Max and have to explain my disappearance. My daughter is none of his business and I’d like to keep her that way…even though I’m certain the mere mentioning of having a daughter will have him running the opposite direction. Just like the rest of them.
Dad always took pride in his yard. He loved manicured greenery, edged out, landscaping immaculate with beautiful grass. He spent a lot of hours outside perfecting his yard. When I was younger, he taught me the basics on our less than an acre of land. At first, I’d sit on Dad’s lap as he showed me what to do and how to do it. He’d explain how to cut in designs and stripes with a patient smile. He loved it just as much as I enjoyed spending my time with him.
As I grew up, Ryan taught me the more in-depth stuff, things like hardscaping and showing me the eye for design. But when he tried explaining irrigation, I drew a line. I was entirely lost and couldn’t catch on. That was definitely not my cup of tea.
But I enjoyed learning, mainly because of the proud smile Dad would give me even when I was screwing up. Once I tried a diamond pattern in Dad’s back yard. Ryan was pulling his hair out. Dad was cringing. It turned out a royal mess.
I’ve been mowing Lauder’s grass for an hour when something catches my attention on the balcony. I could recognize him anywhere—taller than six feet with broad shoulders, large arms, and a generous chest. Although his body was concealed underneath his suit at the Second Wings event, I copped inconspicuous feels while he wrecked me with the most striking chocolate brown eyes. He set my body on fire rubbing his dick against my stomach. I was ruined. So much so, that after I put Maddi to bed and curled up under my own sheets, I had a date with my vibrator and Max was my star. He was good. Oh, so damn good.
Max leans his palms on the railing and looks out at his yard, watching my brother and Abe before turning toward me. Quickly, I duck, pretending to adjust my hat before turning around for the next stripe. My heart is beating frantically behind my ribcage, pounding so hard I can feel it in my toes.
Getting to the end of the long pass and turning back around feels like a slow death in eternity. And waiting to top the small hill that’s blocking the view is another torturous act of hell. I’m anxious and excited rolled into one braided panic. I want to see him, to feel that pull he has on my body.
But when I finally set my eyes on him again, my heart falls. She’s got light brown hair, the long strands stirring as the breeze catches them. She hooks her arm around his and rests her head on his bicep. He kisses the top of her head and smiles down as he talks.
Of course, he’s taken. Why wouldn’t he be? As good looking as he is, I’m sure he’s got women anytime he needs them.
I shake my head, laughing at myself. The level of jealousy in my bones is absurd. He’s not mine, but my body feels betrayed. Hurt that I’ll never get to experience that with him. Or maybe the deception I feel is for her? Does she know his dick gets hard for other women? Maybe she accepts it only because of who he is and she fiends for the lifestyle? I’ve seen firsthand how women can be cunning and jump from one rich man to another because they’re too much of a gold-digger to work hard for their own shiny things. Easy lay. Easy money.
Men can be the same way. I’ve experienced that directly. Been latched on to and fooled into thinking I was loved. I was misled and then left broken hearted all because of my profession.
Assholes.
I’ve been fighting not to look back at him, not to crumble my own heart, but I just can’t help it any longer. I give in and sneak a peek. A man steps out into the sunlight carrying a child, and the woman wrapped around Max releases him and stretches to the other man’s cheek, giving him a kiss. Max scoops the kid up and buries his head into his neck.
Okay. Either they’re into some kinky swinging stuff or I’ve overreacted…