Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Brooks

"How are you, sweetie? You look tired."

I smiled down at my grandmother, ensconced in a recliner in the community rec room at the Silver Cove Assisted Living Center with a knitted throw blanket over her lap. A sturdy walker waited beside her. She'd needed it since falling and breaking her hip a year ago.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" I teased.

"Heck no. What do I have to be tired about? All I do is sit on my big ol' butt."

I took a seat on the loveseat across from her. My weight sank deep enough I could feel a spring jabbing my right ass cheek.

"Need me to bust you out of here?"

She gave a cackling laugh. "As if you have time for that."

I shrugged. "I'd make time."

Her expression softened. "I bet you would. You're too good to me, Brooks."

"Impossible."

My grandmother was the most important person in my life. When I was fourteen, my mom brought me to Swallow Cove to visit for the summer. My father had died the winter before, a drug overdose, and Mom had been diving deeper into alcohol and pills too, using her grief as an excuse.

Or maybe it wasn't an excuse. She'd loved Dad in her own dysfunctional way.

She'd left me here to pull herself together. Only, it never happened. She hadn't come back. At least, not to take me home. Every few years she swept into town looking for a handout, put on a show about how much she missed me, then took off again.

Grandma raised me, became the stability I'd never had. I stayed with her, helped pay the bills and maintain her little cottage, until she'd fallen one too many times.

When they'd treated her broken hip, they'd discovered she had pneumonia too. She wasn't stable enough to go home, and the doctors had warned me that her chance of falling again was high, and if she did, she might not recover.

We'd sold the house and moved Grandma into assisted living, but I still felt guilty. If I'd been home more often, maybe I could have prevented those earlier falls. Maybe she wouldn't need a walker to get around. Maybe she wouldn't feel trapped in this home, where people waited to die.

This home that continued to cost a lot of money. Her house proceeds had covered her medical bills and her first six months here, but only the fact I set aside almost every penny I made would help extend her stay. This was a nice private place where she got the attention she needed. If we couldn't pay, she'd be transferred to a state nursing home, and I refused to let that happen.

"I wish you didn't have to work so hard," she said, her mind on a similar wavelength. But that wasn't surprising for us.

"Eh, I'm young. I'll rest when we're both dead." I winked playfully, even though the thought of losing Grandma made my heart ache.

She laughed. "Speak for yourself. I'm going to live forever."

"I hope you do."

"I have to live long enough to see my favorite grandson fall in love, at least. You need a family, Brooks."

I leaned forward to pat her knee. "I've still got you, and I've got the Riggins."

She nodded. "You see them often?"

"Fisher is at the pub almost every night now that he's twenty-one. I can't get rid of him."

She smiled, eyes brightening. "Oh, that's nice. You should tell him hello for me."

"I will. I have dinner with him and Uncle Boone sometimes. They still invite me to holidays."

I wanted to spend my holidays with Grandma, so I only ever stopped by their place for a brief time. But I knew they would welcome seeing me more than they did.

It just felt weird, trying to be close to them. I worried I was a charity project, the poor kid abandoned by his mother. An obligation and duty.

With Grandma, it was different. We'd been close even before Mom had ditched me there. If raising me was a burden, she'd never shown it.

Grandma loved me with her whole heart.

"Kittie, have you seen Evelyn?" A white-haired woman in bright crimson lipstick and a robe covered in unicorns interrupted our chat. She braced a hand on the love seat and leaned in to whisper loudly enough for the whole room to hear—at least those with their hearing aids turned up. "I swear that floozie is sneaking around with John behind my back!"

My grandmother snorted. "You're paranoid, Minnie. He loves you."

Minnie scoffed. "He's a player, that one." She giggled as she looked at me. "I always had a weak spot for the bad boys."

"Oh, get out of here with that talk," Grandma scolded. "My Brooks is a good boy."

I smirked, unsure if that label really applied to me. I didn't set out to be a heartbreaker, but my life didn't leave space for relationships. I hooked up with pretty tourists and met my needs, and I was pretty sure half of them got off on the fantasy that I was a bad boy, not a good one.

Minnie ambled off to harass someone else over Evelyn and John's whereabouts.

"Are all the women here so catty?" I asked Grandma, amused.

"You never know how long the men around here will last," Grandma said with a gleeful gallows humor. "Those old coots drop like flies. We gotta pounce while we can."

"You going to get yourself a boyfriend?" I teased, some of my guilt easing its grip.

Grandma had friends here. She was more social than she'd been in her house, unable to drive on her own and too frail to get out and see other people. Unlike Minnie, who was a larger woman, Grandma was thin and petite, and though she'd smack me upside the head if she heard me say it, fragile.

"Bah. I'm done with men," she said. "Your grandfather was more than enough for a lifetime."

She said it like he was a hassle, but there was a gleam to her eyes I recognized. She'd lost him shortly before I was dumped into her lap. Maybe that's why we'd both held on so tight. We'd both needed someone to fill a void.

I checked the clock and grimaced. "I have to get back and open up the pub."

She tsked. "See? Work, work, work. I hate that you have to live there too. We should have kept the house."

"You know you couldn't stay there safely," I said gently. "And we couldn't have gotten you into this place without selling it."

Grandma hadn't taken the news she had to give up her independence easily. It was one of the only times I remembered her being truly angry with me. Eventually, she forgave me. I wasn't sure she ever really agreed with my choice, though.

"It's not about me," she said. "You need a home, too. And a pub isn't a home."

"The previous owners put in nice living quarters in the back. It's great housing, Grandma. Don't worry about me."

"Oh, you know I will."

"Well, right back at ya."

I kissed her cheek and tried not to think about how papery thin her skin was under my lips. Grandma was in good health. She needed the walker and a little extra assistance, but there was no reason she wouldn't live for many more years.

Which meant I had to get my ass back to the pub to continue paying the bills.

I left Silver Cove, making sure to thank the nurse's aide on my way out. It wasn't a great-paying job, but Shellie did it with a smile on her face and I'd never once seen anything to cause me concern when I visited.

I started walking toward the lake. It would take me a good fifteen minutes to get to the dockside pub on foot, but I couldn't afford a car, and the assisted living center was too far inland to reach by boat. Not that I had one of those either, but I could borrow one from a friend.

Come to that, I could borrow Fisher's car, but the walk would let me clear my head before shrugging on my social bartender persona.

Of course, that was the moment Skylar Addison popped into my mind.

The way he'd left the day before unsettled me. I'd made him nervous, I could tell. As if he thought I might hit him for stepping out of line.

I shouldn't have lost my cool, but I'd never lay a hand on someone. I was a big guy, and I was aware of just how intimidating I could be when I got pissed. I tried to keep my temper in check. I didn't want to be that guy who loomed and bullied his way into what he wanted.

I'd just been caught off-guard when Skylar showed up—and afraid he'd see the truth that I hid from even Grandma. Afraid that if he did, he might report it to his father.

I arrived at the pub and let myself in. This time, there was no sign of any uninvited guests. I opened the stockroom door, rounded the boxes, and crossed over to the twin mattress on the floor.

I sank down onto it, plugged in my phone to charge, and tugged my shirt over my head to exchange it for one with The Rusty Hook pub logo.

There were no living quarters in the pub. Just an unfinished bathroom that some previous owner had installed and a concrete room where I could sleep rent-free.

But I wasn't supposed to be.

Grandma didn't know the truth. My friends, either. They all thought the pub had suitable living quarters tucked away in the back. But worst of all, the Addisons didn't know.

And if I didn't want to be thrown out onto the street, I needed to keep it that way. Which meant keeping Skylar far away from my makeshift bedroom.

I just hoped I hadn't let my fears infect him. I had a feeling that guy had more than his share already. There was a vulnerability to him that stayed with me, that nagged at the back of my mind and made me want to help him.

But hell, I couldn't even help myself.