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37. Mattias

Connor was... well hell, Connor was always hot, but CEO Connor? The Connor that had run an international corporation for most of his adult life, and when the worst had happened, decided to start a whole new organization because he realized people in his situation couldn't get the help they needed?

That Connor was making me want to jump on him, right that minute.

Not just because he was offering me the answer to all my problems, though clearly that didn't hurt anything, but also, just... the way he drew himself up to his full height. The predatory glint in his eye. The look that had told my mother's co-conspirator that he had absolutely no chance of getting what he wanted.

All of it combined was seriously making me think about jumping on his dick right that minute.

Except, you know, Everett was right there. And Jessie was in the kitchen with Peter.

Something in my brain came screeching to a halt at that. Connor had willingly left Jessie in the kitchen with Peter... for my sake. Not that I thought for a moment that Peter wasn't trustworthy, but after what Connor had been through in the last few years, I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd never left Jessie alone again in their whole damn life.

So I slid my hand into his, and motioned toward the kitchen. "Let's get back to the cookies before Jessie and Peter polish them all off, yeah? I mean, not that I don't trust Peter, but?—"

"Oh you absolutely should not trust Peter with cookies," Everett answered immediately. "Or really, any food. Pizza. Cookies. Ice Cream. Anything."

A voice came drifting down the hall from the foyer, shrill and angry. My mother, still. "—made the wrong choice if that's what you raised him to act like. He was incredibly rude. What are you going to do when all this falls apart, Mother?"

Fuck. She was harassing Grandma. I shot away from the others, running for the foyer. For what? I wasn't entirely sure. It wasn't like I could stop her from talking to Grandma at all, forever. And I certainly couldn't change her horrible opinions or worse intentions.

"Then I'll do what I did when I realized we'd failed in raising you, Leah. I'll stand up, dust myself off, and start again. That's how life works. Sometimes things go right. Sometimes things go wrong. The important thing isn't whether you win every time, whether you get it all right, but whether you keep getting up and moving forward when it knocks you down."

I froze in place right when I hit the doorway. Why had I thought Grandma couldn't handle herself? Just because she was getting more physically fragile didn't mean she was getting more emotionally fragile.

Like she'd read my mind, she turned toward me, sighing. "It's like she thinks I've gone soft in the head, I swear. Like I'll suddenly give her the inn to sell for one of her schemes instead of leaving it to you, which is what she damned well knows has been the plan all along."

"Maybe she thinks you broke your skull instead of your hip," I offered, ridiculous, since I'd been underestimating her in practically the same way.

She snorted and waved a dismissive hand, then paused, holding out her arm for me to take, helping her along to the hall and toward the kitchen. "Well, she can go think that wherever it is she's living these days, because she's not invited to stay at the inn. We're full up. The whole family is here, now that Jessie's joined us."

We came around the corner in time to see Connor's reaction to that last, the way his eyes were glassy and his hand flew to his mouth.

She smiled at him. "Connor dear, you look like you've seen a ghost. Don't tell me the air conditioning working has finally given you one shock too many." She leaned into me, looking up. "That was a nice end to my nap, the room filling with cool air. How much did that set us back?"

Everett shook his head, looking between the lot of us. "I kind of want to offer you the check back again, but I have the feeling everything is going to be okay here after all."

And what could I say to that? Yeah, Connor had told my mother he was investing in the inn. But I couldn't actually ask him to put money into the black hole that was the Cider Inn, could I?

Except, the inn was my life.

I'd never claim that a building was on the same level as a person, but in some ways, the inn was my Jessie. That white whale that had taken my leg, and that I couldn't just let go of.

Yeah, yeah, Jessie had never bitten anyone's leg off, and no one was going down with any ships, but still... um, something about obsessions.

Okay, maybe I had no idea where I'd been going with that comparison.

The point was that the inn was my life, in a way, and Connor knew it. And Connor didn't just accept it, he loved the inn too.

At worst, we could just live in it. He could invest money in the inn as a place to live, and we could just do that. Live there and be happy together and... fuck me, but that sounded impossible and lovely.

I could take up painting terrible bird pictures for fun, and... well, we could always open a restaurant on the first floor, like I'd talked to Connor about. It'd be small, but Cider Landing was small.

My life, the life I wanted, was small.

Things didn't always have to be enormous and grand and gilded in order to be perfect.

We all came into the kitchen together to find cookies still sitting on the cooling racks, looking like nothing was out of order. Peter and Jessie were standing there together, looking innocent and sweet in a way an adult like Peter shouldn't have been able to manage. There was only one problem: the smudge of melted chocolate on Jessie's cheek.

Connor burst into laughter, and the rest of the room followed suit, and it was absolutely perfect.

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