CHAPTER 1
“Are you looking at porn!?”
“What?!” KJ’s brow furrowed as his eyes remained glued to the device he was clutching in his hands. “No!”
The grunts and groans Allison Walsh had heard from the hall that had sent her to where no man dared to go—a teenage boy’s bedroom—were silenced now. Thanks to the homemade blackout curtains her nephew had put up a few months ago, the room was dark even though it was four in the afternoon. The only thing she could see through the small crack in the door was her nephew’s face illuminated by the screen of his iPad.
“Give it to me.” Ali did her best to sound authoritative as she shouldered the door pushing it open slowly. The task was made difficult due to an enormous pile of laundry halting its path. After putting her back into it, she managed to budge the blockade enough for her to finally squeeze inside.
The first thing to hit her was the overwhelming, pungent smell—a combination of dirty socks, rotten food, and the distinctive funk of teen-boy aroma—that was so thick she was choking on it. Lifting her hand to cover her mouth, she instantly regretted that she’d let the room checks slip over the last few months.
That’s not the only thing you’ve let slip, her inner—somewhat judgmental—voice chimed in.
She shook off that truth and forged ahead into the funk cloud, expertly navigating the minefield of dirty laundry, pizza boxes and general debris that covered his floor. When she reached the bed, she snatched her nephew’s iPad out of his hands.
“Hey! What are you doing!?” he shouted angrily.
Making sure you’re not watching porn. Her eyes quickly glanced at the screen and relief swept her when she saw there were no naked bodies. “You’ll get it back when your room is clean and the yard is mowed.”
Her nephew shot up to a seated position and extended his hand in an entitled belligerent manor. “You can’t take that, I need it for schoolwork.”
Shit. Ali’s mind raced as she searched her nephew’s light green irises for any hint of deception.
Was he lying?
Was he telling the truth?
She had no idea.
A year and a half in as his legal guardian, she’d yet to develop any kind of parental radar skills. Her bullshit meter was either broken or non-existent. She was officially in over her head and since he and his twin brother had only just entered the dreaded teen years, she was afraid the worst was yet to come.
Trying to get a clue as to whether KJ actually needed the device for scholastic reasons, she looked down again to see if she could figure out what he’d been watching. It didn’t take much detective work since the YouTube video was still playing. It was an MMA fight that she’d seen at least a dozen times, which for her was a dozen times too many.
“This is not schoolwork.”
“Yes, it is! It’s for my essay.”
“What essay?”
“The essay I have to write on who my hero is.”
No. Not that. Not him.
Of course she knew that her nephew looked up to the man that he was named after. Kade Jameson McKnight, the twins’ godfather, was an MMA fighter who got more press for his extra-curricular behavior than he did for his profession. He’d been the reigning Bad Boy of MMA for nearly ten years, which was not an easy title to gain much less hold. That line of work didn’t normally attract choir boys. To stand out as trouble in it was quite a feat.
She didn’t want to discourage KJ from doing the assignment, as getting him to do any homework at all was like pulling teeth, but she wanted to guide him in a different direction so she suggested, “Why don’t you write it on—”
“You can’t tell me who to do my project on. I already emailed Uncle Kade the questions!” His anger was palpable as he grabbed the iPad from her hand.
“He’s not your uncle.” She knew that she was being petty but it was better than what she’d wanted to say which was, He’s not your uncle, he’s an asshole who showed up at your dad’s funeral drunk with a stripper, got in a fight with the caterer, and then when he found out that he was as legally responsible for both of you as I was, disappeared, leaving me to raise you and your brother alone.”
Considering the alternative…petty wasn’t so bad.
Ali knew that she wouldn’t get anything accomplished by arguing with her nephew and if she didn’t start dinner now she wouldn’t have it done before he left for jiu-jitsu, so she decided a strategic retreat was the best move.
If there was one thing she’d learned over the past eighteen months, it was to pick her battles. As much as she wished her nephew being rude was one of the fights she could take on, it wasn’t. Vandalizing property, getting in fights in school, drinking, stealing—all of which he’d done—were much higher on her list of priorities than a bad attitude. At this point she just wanted to get him to eighteen alive and without a juvenile record, which the way he was going seemed almost impossible.
“Clean your room,” she instructed as she made her way back through the mess, even though she knew it was pointless.
Before she’d even made it out into the hall, he yelled, “Shut the door!”
She did.
And then she leaned back against it as tears formed in her eyes. She and KJ used to be so close. They’d had a secret handshake and shared inside jokes. She used to be the person he’d come to with any problems he had. Now, their relationship was combative and distant. She’d been told, by more than one person, kids take out their anger on the person they feel the safest with. If that was the case, KJ must feel really safe with her.
She sniffed as she took in a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. It was becoming glaringly obvious that she was doing a horrible job raising the twins and she was letting down her hero, her brother Patrick.
Growing up, neither of them knew who their father, or fathers, were. Their mother was an alcoholic who’d been in and out of jail for DUIs multiple times before she’d wrapped her car around a pole and died. Ali was twelve at the time and Patrick was eighteen. He’d petitioned the court and with the help of some influential members in the Whisper Lake community, he was able to gain custody of his sister. She’d only had to spend a year in foster care, but it had been a nightmare. She wasn’t sure she would’ve survived if she’d had to be there until she’d turned eighteen.
So, three years later when Patrick’s girlfriend took off and left him and their twins before their first birthday, Ali had been more than happy to step up and help take care of the boys. Patrick didn’t like to ask for help, but she pitched in any way she could.
She’d loved being an aunt. She was a kickass aunt. She could’ve won awards for her aunting.
When she turned eighteen and her brother had asked her to be the twin’s legal guardian if anything should happen to him she hadn’t hesitated, but she’d never thought she’d be called on to actually do it. When he’d told her that he would also be leaving her their grandfather’s house and business Whisper Lake Rentals, she’d said great, never in a million years thinking either would come to pass.
In her eyes, her brother was invincible. He was larger than life. He was her hero. But she found out that brain aneurisms didn’t care about any of that.
It had been eighteen months, three days, and seven hours since her brother’s tragic and sudden death. She missed him so much her body physically ached. Her grief often caused flu-like symptoms that seemed so real she’d been to see Dr. Williams on several occasions, only to be told that she needed rest, which she interpreted as him telling her, “It’s in your head.”
Ali felt so lost, so scared, and so alone without Patrick in this world.
She closed her eyes and tried to hear his voice, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t. For as long as she could remember, whenever she was scared or nervous, or overwhelmed, he’d look her straight in the eye and say, “You got this.” Whether it was being afraid to fall asleep because she was having nightmares, facing a bully at school, or even being taken away by a social worker after being told her mother was dead, all her brother had to do was lock eyes with her and say, “You got this” and she believed him.
Whenever Patrick said that phrase she was instantly infused with confidence. Whatever she was facing suddenly wasn’t as terrifying. For the first few months after his death, all she’d had to do was close her eyes and she could see and hear him saying those three magic words. Lately, though, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.
The dryer buzzed loudly downstairs and she pushed off the wall, wiped her tear-stained cheeks, and put one foot in front of the other, just like she’d been doing for the past year and a half.
As she started down the stairs, she saw her other nephew, Patrick Benjamin Walsh Jr. sitting at the kitchen table reading The Lord of the Rings.
When the twins were born, Patrick named his first born after himself and when KJ showed up ten minutes later he named him after his best friend Kade. The boys were called Ricky and KJ so as not to confuse them with Patrick and Kade version 1.0.
Ricky had always taken after Patrick and had grown to be the spitting image of him with his huge hazel eyes and light brown hair. Every day he looked more and more like his dad. Luckily, he had his dad’s temperament as well. He was calm, hardworking, always ready to help if anyone needed him, and a frequent flyer on the honor roll.
In a strange, and in her opinion cruel, twist of fate, KJ had taken after his namesake as well. From his dark hair and green eyes to his rebellious attitude; his affinity for all things sports-related and total lack of interest in school.
The two of them reminded Ali so much of her brother and Kade at their age. Tears started to threaten her eyes again, but she sniffed them back.
“Hey, Ricky!” she greeted him sounding as chipper and upbeat as she could.
“Hey,” he answered, his focus still on his book.
She grabbed a pair of KJ’s shoes that had been left in the middle of the kitchen floor. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d asked him to clean up after himself, especially his shoes since his size thirteens were a serious tripping hazard, but it was like talking to a brick wall. She set them in a cubby off of the mudroom and saw Ricky’s science project sitting on the folding card table.
“Wow, this looks great!” she exclaimed.
Ricky had been working so hard on his project for weeks. He’d hypothesized the best designs for skyscrapers, drawn up blueprints, and then built mini-models out of Legos.
“Thanks.”
His monotone response didn’t surprise her. He didn’t get happy…or upset about much of anything.
She ruffled his hair as she passed by him on her way to start dinner. “How does Hamburger Helper sound?”
“Fine,” his answer was flat and automatic.
She was pretty sure she could’ve asked how cauliflower and cabbage sounded and his answer would’ve been the same.
It might seem in a side-by-side comparison that Ricky sitting in the well-lit kitchen, reading a book and being polite was more well-adjusted than KJ holed up in a dark, dingy, room staring at a screen, and being disrespectful, but out of the two boys she wasn’t sure which one worried her most.
At least KJ expressed himself, even if it wasn’t in a healthy or productive way. Ricky held everything in. He was quiet, did his homework, helped her at the rental shop, and always did his chores without being asked.
For the first few months after Patrick died, she was so grief-stricken and Ricky’s easy demeanor was a blessing compared to his brother’s. She never had to worry about him getting in a fight, flunking a class, or being detained for destruction of property. But lately she’d grown more concerned. Both boys were in therapy, but she wasn’t sure it was helping. Or maybe she wasn’t doing enough. Maybe she was failing them both.
Her mind was consumed with doubt as she bent down and retrieved her six-quart pot and set it in the sink and turned on the water. As she watched the water rise an all too familiar guilt rose up like bile in her throat. What if everything she was doing was wrong?
That was the biggest difference between being and aunt and a parent. It wasn’t that her life no longer belonged to herself, or that she had to budget in a way she’d never dreamed of, or that there never seemed to be enough hours in the day. It was the constant second-guessing. The constant worry and anxiety. The constant doubt about whether or not the decisions she was making were the right ones. The constant fear that she was dropping the ball and doing irreparable damage.
No. No time for that. She blinked back tears as she pushed those thoughts from her mind and went into survival auto-pilot, a mode she’d lived in for the past year and a half.
She set the pot on the stove and turned the knob igniting the burner. Then she moved to the laundry room and pulled the clothes out of the dryer before replacing them with the wet clothes on deck in the washing machine. She carefully synchronized slamming the door and pressing the on button at the same time. It was the only way to start the damn thing. It had to be jarred at the exact same second that she pushed the button. She’d figured out the trick after the first time it hadn’t roared to life and out of sheer frustration she’d began kicking it and slamming her hand against the button. It had started running and since then it was the only way to get the thing to work.
Resting the basket of laundry now heaping with freshly laundered garments on her hip, she headed out of the room and caught her reflection in the mirror across the hall and stopped up short. She looked haggard.
Her long honey blonde hair was pulled up in a messy bun, emphasis on the messy, there were dark circles beneath her eyes and her cheeks were hollowed out. Her clothes were hanging on her frame that was fifteen pounds lighter than it had been before her brother passed. Between taking care of the boys and running Whisper Lake Rentals and trying to keep up with the cleaning and repairs on this nearly one-hundred-year-old house, she never had time to take care of herself.
She let out a harsh puff of breath and revoked her one-way pass to Pity Town. She didn’t have time to visit there. Tonight, when she lay her head on the pillow, that’s when she’d let herself go and hit up all her favorite places: The Why Me Store. This Can’t Be My Life Shop. Feeling Sorry For Yourself Boutique. She was a regular customer at all three emotional destinations. But she only visited after the boys were in bed. When her responsibilities were taken care of for the day.
With renewed determination to pull herself together, she hummed as she headed up the stairs to fold and disperse the clean clothes. Sometimes it fooled her mind into thinking she was happy. If she sang or if she hummed, her mood instantly lifted no matter how much her life was imploding around her.
She hadn’t made it to the third step or finished the chorus of Bruno Mars’ “Finesse” when she heard a loud knock at the door. The unexpected sound caused her to jump and the basket fell from her hands in a start and the freshly cleaned clothes scattered on the steps that hadn’t been vacuumed in…she didn’t remember how long.
Staring down at the T-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs she made an executive decision. The thought of doing another load of laundry today was just too much to bear. So, enacting the five-second rule she quickly scooped up the T-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs.
The open-up-it’s-the-police knock came again and she set the white plastic basket on the landing as she turned toward the front door. Her stomach churned in dread. The last three unexpected visitors had all come to tell her of some trouble KJ had been involved in.
“What now?” Her shoulders dropped as she walked to the door, feeling much like she was walking the plank.
Patrick still had some good friends in this town, namely Deputy Sheriff Ethan Steele, who tried his best to keep KJ out of serious trouble. But the boy was blowing through his Get Out of Jail Free cards, and she knew that it was just a matter of time before her nephew did something that even Ethan couldn’t help him out of.
Knowing that she couldn’t face the bearer of bad news with a defeated attitude, she closed her eyes and took a deep, fortifying breath as she turned the knob and opened the door. She was glad she had, because when she opened the door, all of the oxygen in her lungs was sucked out.
She blinked twice in shock, not believing what she was seeing. On her porch stood the only man—other than her brother—that she’d ever depended on. The only man she’d ever loved and the one and only man to ever break her heart. The man whose name she hadn’t even been able to utter for the past eighteen months. The man who shared legal custody of her nephews but had disappeared off the face of the earth and left her to pick up all the pieces. The man who also happened to be the sexiest, hottest, most infuriatingly charming man she’d ever known.
Kade Jameson McKnight.
The sun was backlighting him like some kind of angel except she knew different. If he had a halo, there were horns holding it up.
Her vision went as hazy as a bathroom mirror after a hot shower but the first thing that came into focus were two deep sea-green eyes staring at her beneath a bed of dark lashes that she knew kissed his cheek when his lids were closed. As the fog dissipated, she noticed that his thick, dark hair was a little longer and more unruly than he normally wore it. And there was a significant amount of stubble covering his square jaw giving him a bad boy edge, not that he needed any help in that category.
He wore a faded black cotton shirt that molded to his Adonis chest like he was shrink-wrapped in it. His jeans were faded and worn in all the right places. Black boots and a leather wristband that he’d worn since she’d given it to him at sixteen completed the holy-hotness package. Slung over his shoulder was a large gym bag, which she knew was his idea of luggage.
When the entire picture became clear her mind short-circuited. Her arms and legs began shaking like leaves. Her lungs were trying to take in oxygen but she felt like there was none to be had. And her mind was spinning like a top on an ice rink.
She didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or hug him. Or both.
In an effort to play it cool, she tried to sound detached and unimpressed at his arrival as she asked, “What are you doing here?”
Her question sparked a smile that spread on his handsome face and the sight caused her heart to leap in her chest as a wave of tingles spread through her from head to toe.
Ali didn’t understand how she could both love someone and hate them at the same time. But there was no doubt…she did.