4. CHAPTER FOUR

After Jagger left, Brooke found the tension in Clint's home between him and Bennett to be a welcomed distraction from her own tumultuous present.

The brothers murmured among themselves as they made quick work of the breakfast dishes.

Brooke offered to help, but they told her it wasn't necessary, so before she even had a chance to say that she didn't want to be a freeloader, a comb and a brush were shoved into her hands and three little girls lined up to get their hair braided.

"I like Dutch braids more than French braids," Talia said, sitting up taller on her knees and pushing her shoulders back while Brooke twisted her hair into two elaborate braids.

"I agree," Brooke said, smiling.

She'd already finished Emerson's hair, and the little girl couldn't keep her hands off the braids. She kept running her fingers over the back of her head, then she'd giggle.

"So, like, what are you going to do?" Talia asked.

"You mean about the world thinking I'm dead?" Brooke asked, reaching forward for one of the small hair elastics Talia had in her hand.

"Yeah."

Brooke heaved a sigh. "I have no idea. I can't hide forever. But for the moment, it's the safest thing to do."

"I'm glad you washed up on our beach and my dad found you."

Brooke smiled. "Yeah, me, too."

"My dad's the brewmaster down at the brewery. He's the one who comes up with all the different beer flavors and stuff. He says it's a science but also a skill."

"I'm sure it is."

"I don't really like the taste of beer."

"Probably a good thing, considering you're only ... eight?"

Talia craned her head around, a big grin on her face. She'd lost a couple of teeth recently as the new ones were still stubby and not as long as the rest. "Yeah. Yesterday was my birthday."

Brooke gently guided Talia's head back around so she could work on the second braid. "Well, happy belated birthday."

Clint came into the living room from the kitchen. "We're going to head down to the pub." His gaze settled on Brooke, the blue of his irises practically glowing from the morning sun filtering in through the high south-facing windows. "Will you be okay here?"

"We'll keep her company, Dad," Talia said.

"See. I've got babysitters and everything." Brooke flashed Clint a cheeky smile that made his nostrils flare and the sparkle in his eyes intensified. Her belly grew warm. So did her cheeks.

They held each other's gaze for a long moment. A longer moment than was appropriate for two people who were pretty much strangers.

Bennett clearing his throat and approaching, pulled Clint and Brooke's gazes away simultaneously.

Clint focused on Talia. "It's hard to explain, but I need you girls to keep Brooke's ..."

"Aliveness?" Talia offered.

He snorted. "Yes. I need you to keep Brooke's aliveness a secret for now. Not even your friends at school can know. Or when you come down to the brewery, you can't even mention Brooke to the staff. I need to be able to trust you with this. Got it?"

Talia nodded. "Got it. And we only have like a week left of school anyway, so ..." She lifted a shoulder.

Aya and Emerson nodded as well. "Got it, Uncle Clint," they both said.

"Be good," Bennett said, focusing his words on his daughters. "I'm taking a walkie talkie if you need anything." He unclipped said walkie talkie from his back pocket, then pointed to another one identical to it on the kitchen counter. "Channel seven."

"We know, Dad," Emerson said impatiently. "We've been doing this for years."

Bennett gave her a hard look for half a second, but the little girl didn't recoil at all. She held his gaze. After only three heartbeats, Bennett's expression softened, and he smiled. "I know you have. I trust you."

Clint glanced once more at Brooke. "You can use the walkie talkie, too, if you need anything. And there is a landline phone, too."

"Thanks." She smiled and nodded. His smile grew, and that's when she noticed the single dimple on the right side of his full lips. It was hidden beneath the scruff, but since this was a pretty big smile compared to the others she'd seen from him, now that dimple was out in full force.

And it was deadly.

Her belly fluttered, and a silly giggle bubbled in her throat.

Bennett and Clint's eyes went wide.

Brooke's cheeks got even hotter, and she averted her gaze quickly and shook her head. "We should be fine. Lots of hair to braid and apparently, we're going to do mani-pedis next."

"That's right," Aya chimed in.

She caught a glimpse of Clint's nod out of the corner of her eye, but since she was actively avoiding looking at him now, she had to assume the nod was intended for her.

Then he and Bennett left and as soon as that door clicked shut, she exhaled in relief.

"Are you married?" Emerson asked. "Is your husband going to be worried about you? Does he think you're dead, too?"

Brooke closed her eyes for half a second to let the heat leave her cheeks. She shook her head, blinked open her eyes and faced Emerson. "No, I'm not married."

"Boyfriend?" Aya asked.

"No."

"Dog?" Talia asked with what seemed like desperation. "Goldfish?"

Brooke forced out a chuckle to keep herself from crying . "No. No dog. No goldfish. I've always wanted a dog, though. I did have a boyfriend, but he was allergic to dogs. But we broke up, so I planned to get a dog as soon as I finished up the tour for my latest movie premier."

"Why'd you break up?" Aya asked.

Oh, little girls were so curious. Full of questions and with big wide doll eyes, rosy cheeks and a charm about them that pulled Brooke in like a butterfly to a honeysuckle.

"We just weren't right for each other," she replied, sticking to the truth, but not supplying the facts. "We wanted different things."

Like, he wanted to sleep with other people and ruin his image, while I DIDN'T.

"Like you wanted a dog, and he didn't?" Talia asked.

"Like that, yeah." Brooke reached around Talia's head and grabbed the second hair elastic from her hand, then secured it around the tail of the braid. She flipped the braid over Talia's shoulder. "All done. Aya, you're up."

Talia and Aya switched places, but then Talia got up from her spot on the floor and sat next to Brooke, leaning her head against Brooke's shoulder. It was weird that this little girl was so affectionate with someone she'd just met, but also wonderful at the same time.

Brooke loved kids. She'd always wanted a big family and had envisioned herself just like this on more than one occasion. With a daughter, braiding her hair and talking about boys and life and everything in between.

The kids were fairly candid about what tragically happened to their mothers.

She knew life wasn't fair. But sometimes it just plain sucked.

"Well, I'm glad you don't have a husband or boyfriend missing you," Talia said, snuggling in closer. "Or a dog missing you. That would be sad. But I hope you get your dog when you tell the world you're alive again."

Brooke glanced down at the little girl, who now had her head against Brooke's arm and her hand on Brooke's thigh. "Me, too, Talia. Me, too."

Clint and Bennett made their way down the hill to the brewery.

"Others are already there," Bennett said.

Clint nodded, but glanced back at his house, which was the last in the row of almost identical houses on the ridge. "You think they'll be okay?"

"Who? The kids or Brooke?"

"Both."

Bennett snorted. "You and I have the easiest children of the bunch. They'll be fine. And Brooke is a grown woman. Wyatt can't leave Griffin and Jake alone, and Dom can't leave Silas. Not unless they're with their girl cousins who somehow keep them in check and from breaking bones and putting holes in walls."

"They're also younger," Clint pointed out, the gravel crunching under his Blundstone boots as they crossed the parking lot. Bennett heaved on the handle of the big wooden door.

"Yeah, but they're also boys. And you remember what we were like as kids. Mom took forever to leave us alone. I think you were like fourteen before she finally trusted the five of us to stay alone and that was for about an hour, so she could get her hair done."

Making a noise of agreement in his throat, Clint nodded and headed toward the back of the brewpub, past the bar and tables, through the kitchen and into his "office," which was where the magic happened. Where the beer was made.

Silas and Griffin who were both six, sat on the couch in the far corner of the brewery, each of them with a Nintendo Switch in their hands, while Jake, eight, and on the shier and quieter side—but could still get up to mischief—was on the floor reading a book, his back against the couch.

Dominic, Wyatt and Jagger sat on bar stools, each of them with a Yeti stainless steel to-go coffee cup in their hands and tired eyes.

"Heard you rescued a mermaid," Dom said, taking a sip from his mug. "Does she still have legs, or did her fins grow back?"

Wyatt and Jagger chortled.

Clint rolled his eyes and grabbed another stool and one for Bennett. They both sat down. "She still has her legs." And what nice legs they were.

"So ... what is the plan with Brooke?" Wyatt postured. "I'm assuming she's going to tell the world she isn't dead and head back to the Golden State and resume her role as Hollywood's sweetheart."

"She thinks someone pushed her and is trying to kill her, so she's going to lie low for a bit until we can come up with a plan."

Wyatt and Dom's mouths dropped open.

"Seriously?" Dom asked. "'Cause the news is saying she jumped. That she took the breakup with that Flynn guy really hard."

"Well, considering that she's in my living room braiding my daughter's hair right now, and can verify that she in fact, didn't jump and try to kill herself, I'm going to believe Brooke over the news," Clint clapped back. "She also says that she dumped Flynn. But because she's not there to defend herself the—"

"Ex can change the narrative to make himself look good," Wyatt interjected.

Clint nodded. "Exactly."

"Was the ex on the yacht?" Wyatt asked.

"No. But his side-piece was."

"Fuck," Dom murmured, shaking his head and taking another sip from his mug. "It was probably her, then."

"Brooke doesn't think so. I'm just going to let her chill for a few days to come up with a plan. She can hide out in the house. Nobody needs to know she's alive. Then when she has a plan, we can call her assistant, or manager or whatever and go from there. Besides, Talia likes having her around."

A few bushy brows rose after he said that last bit.

"Just Talia?" Jagger asked, a smirk tugging at his lips beneath his thick beard.

"It's been all of twelve hours since I brought the hypothermic woman up from the beach, drop your eyebrows and lose that look on your face that you're all giving me. I'm helping someone who needs help. That's the end of it."

"A lot of protesting going on, if that's the end of it," Dom murmured, watching Clint intensely over the rim of his mug.

Clint cleared his throat. "Let's discuss why we're really having this meeting, hmm? Bonn Remmen's land. We want it."

"We sure fucking do," Dom agreed. "That is primo real estate, and it's a stone's throw from here. It'd be easy to expand. Add more cabins, put in a beautiful pavilion and lodge so we could host weddings and other special events and shit. This place is just too small for what we want to do."

"And it has space where we can start growing our own hops," Wyatt added. "We need that land."

Everyone turned to Bennett. He was the one in charge of the money when it came to their business. Clint ran the brewery, Jagger did all their PR, social media, events and anything that involved smiling while secretly gritting your teeth. Dom was in charge of the bar and front of house while Wyatt handled the kitchen. Bennett and Jagger also handled the cabins and guests.

"Do we have the money for a down payment?" Clint asked, directing his question to Bennett. But they were all wondering the same thing. Just because they wanted the land—nay, needed the land—didn't mean they could afford it. Real estate had skyrocketed in the Pacific Northwest in the last ten years, and they'd spent every penny they had to buy the land they were on now. They were still paying steep mortgage payments every month, too.

The business was doing well. Their beer was available in restaurants, pubs and liquor stores all up and down the west coast, and they were moving east. Several places in Colorado carried San Camanez beer now, and by the end of the year, three restaurants and seven liquor stores in Montana would, too.

Bennett's expression remained unreadable—which wasn't anything new.

Wyatt grumbled with impatience. "He likes to keep us in suspense."

Bennett shot Wyatt a salty glare. "I'm just doing some quick number crunching in my head." He lobbed a sigh. "We do have the cash. But just like last time when we bought this place, it'll scrape the bottom of the barrel. We took a hit with COVID and not getting any reservations for the cabins or any patrons in the bar. We're still recovering from that. Beer sales in liquor stores kept us afloat, but since we decided to still pay staff, but not ourselves, things got tight. They're still tight. Very tight."

Yeah, that had been a collective agreement. They loved their staff and did not want to lose them. So even though they couldn't afford to pay them their regular wage, or tips, they came up with an amount that worked for everyone. The kitchen staff, brewery staff and front of house staff still got paychecks all through the pandemic. That way, they could continue to buy food and pay rent.

"I'll have to do some real number crunching when I get to the office," Bennett continued. "But I think we could swing it. We'd just have to put a pin on actually doing anything with the land for a few years, though. Because we won't have the money to build on it. We could plant hops and that's about it."

"Then we do that," Wyatt said. "But we need that land."

They all nodded.

Everyone on the island knew that Bonn Remmen wasn't doing too well. He'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a little over a year ago. But he still showed up to every farmer's market, every island event, and was a staple on the council of elders. So even though his passing still came as a shock—because a lot of people thought Bonn would live forever—it wasn't that surprising.

"Should I book a meeting with the elders for this week?" Dom asked.

Jagger gave him an incredulous look. "The man just died, dude. You think the elders will favor us if the first thing we do is book a meeting with them to see who gets to buy Bonn's land?" He shook his head. "First thing we need to do is properly pay our respects, find out when the celebration of life is, attend, and feel out the rest of the islanders for competing interests. Then we book a meeting."

Clint, Wyatt, and Bennett nodded.

"That's exactly what we're going to do," Clint said.

"And if there is more interest and they can come up with more money?" Wyatt asked with deep concern in his blue-hazel eyes.

Bennett grimaced, then exhaled woefully. "Which will most likely be what happens."

Clint growled. He wanted that land. They all did, and they needed to do everything they could to make sure they got it and nobody else moved in next door. He liked not having any neighbors besides his brothers, and he was prepared to go to war to keep it that way.