The stranger had my father’s face but someone else’s eyes. Looking at him next to my brothers, anyone would have thought he was a fourth Bodine boy.

“Jonah Bodine?” I repeated, peering over Devlin’s shoulder on my tip toes.

He nodded and held up a hand to block the beam of Cassidy’s flashlight. “You mind?” he asked.

I wedged my way between my brother and Devlin. “I’m Scarlett,” I said, walking down the dock to meet him. The bodyguard crew moved as one behind me, crowding in against my back. “You have my father’s name… and face.”

“Guess that makes him our father,” Jonah said with a shrug.

There was a lot that went unsaid in that simple statement. The rounding of his shoulders against what sure sounded like the truth. His lined brow, the narrowing of his eyes, the bitterness behind his words.

“Look, I don’t know who you are, man,” Gibson began.

“He’s our brother, jackwagon,” I said, whirling around to glare at him. I always was the one to recover fastest from a sucker punch. “Dang it! Another fucking brother.” I was pretty tired of being the only girl in the cock-blocking, judgmental, overprotective family.

“Bullshit,” Gibson argued.

“Christ. Look at him. Take one good look at him and tell me he’s not Bodine blood,” I snapped.

“Y’all got some ID?” Cassidy asked.

If Jonah thought it was weird to hand his driver’s license over to a girl in cutoffs and a Madonna tank top, he didn’t say so.

“Be right back,” Cassidy announced, heading toward her car. “No one kill anyone while I’m gone.”

Jameson stared at Jonah. “How old are you?” he asked finally.

“Thirty.”

Bowie flinched next to me. He was thirty, and I imagined there’d be some kind of feelings there. “Hang on, Cass,” he called and jogged after her.

“What are you doing here?” Gibson demanded. There wasn’t anything friendly in his tone.

“Saw the obituary. Saw I had siblings,” Jonah said simply. “Your dad and my mom. She was a waitress in a diner.” He added the last defiantly as if he was daring us to say anything against his mama.

“Did you know? I mean, did you know our dad?” I asked.

“Met him once when I was a kid and once when I was nineteen in the summer.”

I did the math.

“Fuck,” I breathed. Jonah Bodine Sr. had gone looking for his other son—or his son’s mother—right around the time my own mother died.

“This is ridiculous,” Gibson began.

“What do you want?” Jameson asked shortly.

Jonah shrugged again.

“Dad had nothing,” Gibson spat out. “So, if you think you’re gettin’ rich off of some drunk’s estate, think again.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” Jonah said.

I stepped between them just in case Gibson decided to take a swing. Devlin moved with me.

“Well, I’m Scarlett,” I said, holding out my hand. “And I bet you have a lot of questions.”

Jonah looked at my hand for a minute before shaking it. “Hi, Scarlett,” he said softly, his voice so like my father’s made it feel like I was having a conversation with a ghost.

“Devlin,” Dev said, introducing himself. “I’m staying next door,” he said.

Jonah nodded. “I’m Jonah.”

“This is bullshit,” Gibson muttered.

“Then why don’t you walk away like you always do? Go mope in your fortress of solitude,” I snapped.

“We don’t know anything about this guy, and you want to be his friend?”

“Just ‘cause you don’t like what he has to say doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it,” I retorted.

“He checks out,” Cassidy called from my driveway. She ambled back down with Bowie at her side and handed Jonah his driver’s license back. “Jonah Bodine, thirty, currently of Jetty Beach, Washington State. Few speeding tickets. No real bumps with the law.”

Bowie offered his hand. “Not sure what the etiquette is here. But I’m Bowie. I guess I’m your half-brother.”

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Gibson railed.

“Go home, Gibs,” I told him.

He ran a hand over his beard, and I saw anger in his ice blue eyes.

“Go on home until you can act like a human being,” I ordered.

“Where are you staying?” Gibson asked Jonah. It didn’t sound remotely friendly.

“Don’t tell him,” I ordered Jonah.

“Scarlett,” Jameson said quietly, laying his hand on my shoulder.

“We’re not goin’ brother against brother tonight,” I said stubbornly.

Gibson stormed off, and a moment later, we heard his muscle car rev up. He peeled out of my driveway sending gravel flying.

“If I have to arrest a Bodine tonight, I’m gonna be pissed,” Cassidy sighed.

“Where are you staying?” I asked Jonah.

“Don’t have a place yet,” he said. “I wanted to see how the introductions went to see if I’d be sticking around.”

I grinned. “I think they went all right, don’t you?”

Devlin snorted next to me.

“Shut up, Dev. Nobody got decked.”

“Why don’t you stay with me, Jonah? I got a couch and a lot of whiskey.”

“No!” The chorus was loud and insistent. Jameson, Bowie, and Devlin were glaring at me and shaking their heads.

“What?”

“You can stay with me,” Devlin insisted. “I’ve got guest rooms. We can borrow the whiskey.”

“Fine. Whatever,” I muttered. “I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow, Jonah. We’ll talk. Bowie, why don’t you see June and Cass home? And Jame, do you mind checking in on Gibson on your way?” Gibson was an asshole, but he was my asshole.

“So, their father had an affair and impregnated someone else?” June asked Cassidy on their way to the driveway.

“Looks that way,” Cassidy said, throwing a look over her shoulder. Bowie followed them a pace or two behind.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jameson said, pointing a callused finger in my face.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t let Gibson goad you into a fight,” I replied.

With a wary look back at us, Jameson crossed the yard to my driveway.

“Well, that was fun,” I said. “You don’t by chance have any sisters do you, Jonah? I’m gettin’ sick of the never-ending geyser of testosterone around here.”

He shook his head. “Only child.”

“‘Til now,” I reminded him. I couldn’t quite tell in the dark, but I thought his face softened at my words. Whether Jonah realized it or not, he was one of us now.

I was suddenly exhausted. It settled on my shoulders like an unshakeable weight. “Do y’all need anything for the night?” I asked.

Devlin rested his hand on my shoulder. “Go to bed, Scarlett. We’ll see you in the morning.” I wasn’t sure what about his touch undid me, but I was one second away from blubbering all over him.

I reached up and gave his hand a squeeze and nodded at Jonah. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow.” With that, I left them in the dark and headed into my house. I didn’t bother with the lights. I wanted the darkness. Wanted it to wrap me up and make me stop feeling things. I missed my dad. But was I really missing him or the man he should have been? The one we’d see glimpses of over the years. The two-steppin’, bacon-frying, handyman who always had time for a conversation. Where had that man gone?

He’d disappeared into a bottle and never came out.

I looked at the shelf in my kitchen that held my booze collection. But nothing called to me. Nothing promised me happiness or numbness. Is that what he’d found in the bottom of that bottle, I wondered.

I thought about Gibson, his reaction to Jonah. My big brother had borne the brunt of my parents’ unhappy marriage. And I had no idea what the existence of another Jonah Bodine would make him feel.

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I wanted to wallow in my own feelings of misery, not worry about my brother’s.

I dug my phone out of my bag.

He made me wait almost a full five minutes before responding.

And just like that all was right between us. Bodines didn’t break promises, and we definitely didn’t apologize. Well, Bowie did. And he was damn good at it. But me? The words always got stuck in my throat and came out in a jumble of excuses and finger pointing.

I stripped out of my wet clothes and pulled on a tank top and shorts. I got myself a glass of water and then sat down on the swing on my porch. The symphony of crickets was deafening on the cool night air.

Usually I thought about all the things I had to be grateful for. But tonight, I let myself stew in all the things I wished were different. And maybe I thought once or twice about that kiss.